scholarly journals Towards Designing an Intercultural Curriculum: A Case Study from the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Daniel

One of the challenges still to be met in the 21st century is that of genuinely embracing diversity. How can education help to overcome the barriers that continue to exist between people on the basis of language, culture and gender? This case study takes the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua as an example of a multilingual/multiethnic region and examines how the community university URACCAN is contributing to the development of interculturality. It describes participatory research that was carried out with university staff and students with the intention of defining an intercultural curriculum and appropriate strategies for delivering such. One model used as a basis for discussions was the Model for Community Understanding from the Wales Curriculum Council, which emphasises the belonging of the individual to different communities or cultures at the same time. Factors supporting the development of an intercultural curriculum include the university’s close involvement with the ethnic communities it serves. However, ethno-linguistic power relations within the region and the country as a whole, still militate against egalitarianism within the university. The research highlights the importance of participatory pedagogy as the basis for promoting interculturality and achieving lasting social transformation.

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.


Author(s):  
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall ◽  
Kathryn Nasstrom

A case study of the southern oral history program is the essence of this chapter. From its start in 1973 until 1999, the Southern Oral History Program (SOHP) was housed by the history department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), rather than in the library or archives, where so many other oral history programs emerged. The SOHP is now part of UNC's Center for the Study of the American South, but it continues to play an integral role in the department of history. Concentrating on U.S. southern racial, labor, and gender issues, the program offers oral history courses and uses interviews to produce works of scholarship, such as the prize-winning book Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. The folks at the Institute for Southern Studies tried to combine activism with analysis, trying to figure out how to take the spirit of the movement into a new era.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
FE MONIQUE MUSNI TAGAYTAY

The phenomenon of globalization has never been felt before than it is today.The prime mover of this phenomenon is the Internet, and it is not an exaggerationto state that this form of media has revolutionized the access to information. Thisstudy examined the practices of selected college students who reflect an overlappingof public and private spheres in their use of Facebook. Through this study, theneed to look into the way privacy is viewed is addressed. This case study analyzedthe experiences of the selected student-informants from the University of theImmaculate Conception (UIC) and reported their detailed views. This is doneto get a holistic picture of the blurring of social and private spheres broughtabout by increased user self-disclosure. The study reveals that the informants stillfind privacy important but seem to take a background with their perception ofabsolute freedom when using social media, which seems to be the point where the blurring of private and public spheres occurs. The results of the study also show that the role of the individual as gatekeeper and filter of information is central tothe content of social media, placing a high premium on media literacy of socialmedia users.Keywords: Communication, social media, Facebook, privacy, descriptive-qualitative design, Philippines, Asia


Author(s):  
Aasma Yousaf ◽  
Rukhsana Kausar ◽  
Iram Fatima

Abstract The current case study used cognitive behaviour treatment (CBT) for the management of a 35-year-old, married man who presented with complaint of compulsive hoarding. The complaint of compulsive hoarding (excessive acquisition, difficulty in discarding saved material and cluttering) was accompanied by feeling of anger, sad mood, low confidence, decreased sleep and appetite, poor problem solving ability, indecisiveness and interpersonal conflicts. The study was approved by the institutional research committee (Departmental Doctoral Programme Committee) and followed by the university research committee (Advance Studies and Review Board) as academic requirement for the duration of 2013-2020. Written consent was also taken from the individual to publish the results of the case. Twenty-eight CBT sessions of one-hour duration were conducted, over a period of six months. Continuous...  


F1000Research ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan L. Vanderford ◽  
Elizabeth Marcinkowski

The commercialization of university-based research occurs to varying degrees between academic institutions. Previous studies have found that multiple barriers can impede the effectiveness and efficiency by which academic research is commercialized. This case study was designed to analyze the status of the commercialization activity at the University of Kentucky via a survey and interview with a successful academic entrepreneur in order to determine the impediments the individual perceived during the commercialization process. The study also garnered insight from the individual as to how the commercialization process could be improved. Issues with infrastructure were highlighted as the most significant barrier faced by the individual. The research subject also suggested that commercialization activity may generally increase if a number of factors were mitigated. Such insight can be communicated to the administrative leadership of the commercialization process at the University of Kentucky. Long term, improving university-based research commercialization will allow academic researchers to be more active and successful entrepreneurs such that intellectual property will progress more freely to the marketplace for the benefit of inventors, universities, and society.


1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Leora C. Swartzman ◽  
Clive Seligman ◽  
Wlliam J. McClelland

To assess sex discrimination in university salary allocation accurately, one must determine whether gender explains the salary difference in and of itself, or exerts its influence through other variables, such as rank and departmental affiliation, that themselves affect salary and may correlate with gender. Using members of the Faculty of Social Science (N = 133) of a large Canadian university as a case sample, we assessed gender discrimination in promotion and gender differences in departmental affiliation as related to salary before including these two variables in statistical analyses predicting salary. No evidence was found for discrimination in promotion and women were not morie under-represented in the higher-salaried departments. Several regression models recommended in the literature for assessing gender discrimination in salaries were conducted and yielded convergent findings : male and female faculty similar on salary-relevant variables were equivalently paid. While these results should be reassuring, they would not go very far toward resolving salary discrimination disputes in the university studied or in most other academic institutions. The difficulties of applying the results of statistical analyses within a politically-charged arena are discussed.


Author(s):  
Mark Chiang

As migrants who were drawn to North America to serve as cheap labor, questions of money, economy, and class have been central to Asian American experiences from the mid-19th century, and Marx’s critique of capitalism has circulated almost as long among Asian Americans and anticolonial, nationalist movements in Asia. However, the long history in the communist movement of the subordination of racial and gender inequality to a narrowly defined class struggle alienated many in US racialized communities. Subsequent interventions in Marxist theory leading to non-economically determinist accounts of social transformation have resulted in a post-Marxist Asian American literary and cultural studies. This is a theory, though, that is largely devoid of specifically economic inquiry, and this has led to the marginalization of questions of class, labor, and whiteness that might complicate questions about resistance to domination and capitalist hegemony. These elisions are only exacerbated in the turn to global and transnational frames of analysis, since the complexities of local racial dynamics are often lost in more abstract narratives and conceptual paradigms. The history of Japanese internment provides a case study that exemplifies some of the difficulties of evaluating the multiple forces motivating racial discrimination.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Paoloni ◽  
Francesca Maria Cesaroni ◽  
Paola Demartini

PurposeThe importance of relational capital for the university has grown enormously in recent years. In fact, relational capital allows universities to promote and emphasize the effectiveness of the third mission. The purpose of this paper is to propose a case study involving an Italian university that recently set up a new research observatory, and, thanks to its success, succeeded in enhancing its relational capital.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopted an action research approach to analyze the case study. Consistently, the authors followed the analysis, diagnosis, and intervention phases. First, the authors focused on the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the process through which the university created relational capital, and finally, the authors proposed solutions to improve the process.FindingsThis case study shows that the creation of relation capital for the host university was the result of a process of transfer and transformation of the individual relationships of the observatory’s promoters.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to filling a significant gap in the literature on relational capital and universities and provides useful insights into how these organizations can encourage its creation. It also allows scholars, managers, and politicians involved in higher education to gain a greater understanding of this relevant topic.


2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Taylor

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe how an e‐books project was set up at the University of Worcester Information and Learning Services with the aim of improving user access to the range of textbook materials available.Design/methodology/approachDetails of the background and circumstances of the University and the effect of these on the process undertaken by the e‐books project group are described. The selection of an e‐books provider, MyiLibrary, and subsequent ordering, cataloguing and promotion activities are outlined.FindingsThis paper outlines the importance of tailoring the approach to e‐books acquisition to the individual institution. It is found that authentication is a major issue and that for e‐books packages to be successful, technical problems need to be kept to a minimum.Practical implicationsExamples to assist others in setting up e‐books provision are given. Technical difficulties and the range of titles available are both impediments to providing a full e‐books service.Originality/valueE‐books appear to provide greater access and flexibility to library users. Information and Learning Services fully intends to extend the range of e‐books available to students. This paper looks at the practicalities of setting up and expanding such a service.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Taylor ◽  
Damian De Luca

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to look at the experiences of university academic staff setting up a small computer games studio to provide work placement opportunities for undergraduate students and the supporting role of industry. Design/methodology/approach – The case study uses sense making to explore the boundaries between “simulated” and “real” work in an educational setting. Findings – For students and teachers to work together in a commercial setting, relationships have to be reconstructed. Teaching focusses on developing the individual and personal attainment, the work environment prioritises the team so that organisational and business needs are met. Differences in culture and working practices between industry and academia and the organisational constraints of a university, present challenges for academic staff engaged in enterprise. Research limitations/implications – The authors recognise the limitations of a single institution case study and intend further investigation into factors around employability, enterprise education and the availability of work experience for students studying in the creative technologies including experiences in other institutions. Practical implications – Practical experience and business knowledge gained through the studio development process by the student and staff, has informed the curriculum through the introduction of team-working modules. The studio provides a unique interface between the university and games industry partners. Originality/value – The study shows the value of a university-based games studio in providing work experience for students and enhancing employability and provides insights into university/industry partnering.


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