Using Activity Theory to Assess the Effectiveness of an Online Learning Community

2011 ◽  
pp. 629-646
Author(s):  
Theodor G. Wyeld ◽  
Ekaterina Prasolova-Forland
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Activity Theory ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Scripts ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
Triangular Relationship

Remote, collaborative work practices are increasingly common in a globalised society. Simulating these environments in a pedagogical setting allows students to engage in cross-cultural exchanges encountered in the profession. However, identifying the pedagogical benefits of students collaborating remotely on a single project presents numerous challenges. Activity Theory (AT) provides a means for monitoring and making sense of their activities as individuals and as a collective. AT assists in researching the personal and social construction of students’ intersubjective cognitive representations of their own learning activities. Moreover, AT makes the socially constructed cultural scripts captured in their cross-cultural exchanges analysable. Students’ reflection on these scripts and their roles in them helps them better understand the heterogeneity of the cultures encountered. In this chapter Engestrom’s (1999) simple AT triangular relationship of activity, action and operation is used to analyze and provide insights into how students cooperate with each other across different cultures in a 3D collaborative virtual environment.

Using Activity Theory to Assess the Effectiveness of an Online Learning Community

2010 ◽  
pp. 249-268
Author(s):  
Theodor G. Wyeld ◽  
Ekaterina Prasolova-Forland
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Activity Theory ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Scripts ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
Triangular Relationship

Remote, collaborative work practices are increasingly common in a globalised society. Simulating these environments in a pedagogical setting allows students to engage in cross-cultural exchanges encountered in the profession. However, identifying the pedagogical benefits of students collaborating remotely on a single project presents numerous challenges. Activity Theory (AT) provides a means for monitoring and making sense of their activities as individuals and as a collective. AT assists in researching the personal and social construction of students’ intersubjective cognitive representations of their own learning activities. Moreover, AT makes the socially constructed cultural scripts captured in their cross-cultural exchanges analysable. Students’ reflection on these scripts and their roles in them helps them better understand the heterogeneity of the cultures encountered. In this chapter Engestrom’s (1999) simple AT triangular relationship of activity, action and operation is used to analyze and provide insights into how students cooperate with each other across different cultures in a 3D collaborative virtual environment.

Social Response to Age-Gap Sex Involving Minors

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-125
Author(s):  
Bruce Rind
Keyword(s):  
Moral Panic ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Social Response ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Age Gap ◽  
The Us ◽  
Trauma Response

Social response to age‐gap sex involving minors has become increasingly severe. In the US, non‐coercive acts that might have been punished with probation 30 years ago often lead to decades in prison today. Punishment also increasingly includes civil commitment up to life, as well as scarlet‐letter‐like public registries and onerous residence restrictions for released offenders. Advocates and the general public approve, believing that age‐gap sex with minors is uniquely injurious, pathological, and criminal. Critics argue that public opinion and policy have been shaped by moral panic, consisting of unfounded assumptions and invalid science being uncritically promoted by ideology, media sensationalism, and political pandering. This talk critically examines the basic assumptions and does so using a multi‐perspective approach (empirical, historical, cross‐cultural, cross‐species) to overcome the biases inherent in traditional clinical‐forensic reports. Non‐clinical empirical reviews of age‐gap sex involving minors show claims of intense, pervasive injuriousness to be highly exaggerated. Historical and cross‐cultural reviews show that adult‐adolescent sexual relations have been common and frequently socially integrated in other times and places, indicating that present‐day Western conceptualizations are socially constructed to reflect current social and economic arrangements rather than expressions of a priori truths. Analogous relations in primates are commonplace, non‐pathological, and not infrequently functional, contradicting implicit assumptions of a biologically‐based “trauma response” in humans. It is concluded that, though age‐gap sex involving minors is a significant mismatch for contemporary culture—and this talk therefore does not endorse it—attitudes and social policy concerning it have been driven by an upward‐spiraling moral panic, which itself is immoral in its excessive adverse consequences for individuals and society.

scholarly journals Women and Orientalism: 19th century Representations of the Harem by European female travellers and Ottoman women

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Thisaranie Herath
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
Private Spaces ◽  
The Way

The inaccessibility of the Ottoman harems to European males helped perpetuate the image of the harem as purely sexual in nature and contributed to imperialistic discourse that positioned the East as inferior to the West. It was only with the emergence of female travellers and artists that Europe was afforded a brief glimpse into the source of their fantasies; however, whether these accounts catered to or challenged the normative imperialist discourse of the day remains controversial. Emerging scholarship also highlights the way in which harem women themselves were able to control the depiction of their private spaces to suit their own needs, serving to highlight how nineteenth century depictions of the harem were a series of cross-cultural exchanges and negotiations between male Orientalists, female European travellers, and shrewd Ottoman women. 

scholarly journals Mothering Practices in Cambodia

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-60
Author(s):  
Tale Steen-Johnsen ◽  
Nicole Dulieu ◽  
Ann Christin Eklund Nilsen
Keyword(s):  
Physical Discipline ◽  
Cultural Scripts ◽  
Small Children ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Group Interviews

The physical disciplining of children is widespread globally. To work towards ending physical disciplining, we need to understand this practice’s local and contextual justifications. In this article, we explore Cambodian mothers’ rationale for the physical disciplining of their children, as we seek to address two questions: 1) How do Cambodian mothers perceive physical discipline?, and 2) How do they negotiate and justify physical disciplining practices? Based on 10 group interviews with mothers of small children, and in different communities in Cambodia, we found that the physical disciplining is a common practice used to correct behaviours considered unhelpful, impolite or disrespectful. However, there are ambivalent attitudes toward this. This suggests that physical discipline is not a static practice, but rather one that is constantly negotiated. We argue that Barbara Rogoff’s concept of cultural scripts for parenting is well suited for making sense of how physical discipline is justified among Cambodian mothers.

scholarly journals Using cultural historical activity theory to examine how teachers seek and share knowledge in a peer-to-peer professional development network

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torrey Trust
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Activity Theory ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Cultural Historical Activity Theory ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Historical Activity ◽  
Cultural Historical Activity ◽  
Development Network ◽  
Knowledge Seeking

<p>Many researchers have found that the main reason teachers participate in peer-to-peer professional development networks (PDNs) is to seek and share professional knowledge. Yet, the majority of studies about PDNs focus on how and why teachers participate in these virtual spaces rather than how teachers find and distribute knowledge. Each PDN has its own unique rules, tools, community members, and culture that shape how knowledge is created, organised, curated, and shared. Without understanding the factors that shape how and why knowledge is shared in a PDN, teachers may not be able to access the knowledge they need to grow their practice. This study was designed to examine teachers’ knowledge seeking and sharing actions in the Edmodo Math Subject Community, a popular PDN. Cultural historical activity theory was used as a framework for examining the socially constructed actions of seeking and sharing knowledge in a PDN. The findings suggest that seeking and sharing knowledge is a complex, dynamically evolving process that is shaped by the technical (e.g., tools) and social (e.g., community members, rules, roles) aspects of the PDN. Implications and ideas for further research are discussed.</p>

scholarly journals Making sense of (exceptional) causal relations. A cross-cultural and cross-linguistic study

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Le Guen ◽  
Jana Samland ◽  
Thomas Friedrich ◽  
Daniel Hanus ◽  
Penelope Brown
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Linguistic Study ◽  
Making Sense
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