scholarly journals Cultural Cooperation Activities between Italian and Chinese Universities: A Case Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Sha Ha

Italy, a country with a great cultural tradition and a founding member of the European Union (EU), since 2004 very actively contributes to the cultural cooperation activities of EU with non European countries. This paper is a detailed review of the status of those activities, which can be subdivided into joint ‘Master Mundus’ Actions and bilateral teaching and research cooperation agreements established between Italian and Chinese higher education institutions. The University of Padova (UP) has been adopted as a relevant a case study, with teaching and research cooperations spanning from the S&T to Medicine, Law and Humanities. The results obtained so far are promising. 

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 340-348
Author(s):  
Fatma ZAGHAR ◽  
El-Alia Wafaâ ZAGHAR

In this increasingly interconnected epoch, the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) along with culture that is considered as a fifth skill has become inevitable. Therefore, EFL teachers are impelled to introduce cultural instruction in their classes. They are then advised to combine the teaching of language skills with the foreign culture because it prepares their learners to behave successfully in intercultural encounters, gain solid cultural knowledge, overcome cultural obstacles, and promote their cultural awareness. The main questions addressed in this research focus on the inclusion of the cultural component in language subjects’ syllabuses, and the type of teaching strategies that can ameliorate the status of cultural instruction. This study points out the key importance of implementing intercultural information in EFL contexts founded on a case study undertaken at the University of Oran 2 in Algeria. This paper targeted a group of Master II students by using an array of data collection means including a questionnaire given to the learners, an interview done with the teachers, and classroom observation sessions carried out by the researchers. The major aims of this work were to verify the learners’ perceptions of cultural learning, and outfit students with core foundations of culture. The results demonstrated that the incorporated teaching techniques have enriched the students’ cultural understanding and intensified their linguistic adeptnesses. It is suggested that these teaching initiatives can aid learners be compassionate, understandable, and tolerant human beings.


Author(s):  
Robyn Longhurst ◽  
Alister Jones

In 2014, the University of Waikato launched the Curriculum Enhancement Programme (CEP). As the leaders of this programme we have used auto-ethnography to reflect critically on our experience. Throughout the course of the CEP some things have gone well; others, in hindsight, have not gone so well and in retrospect we would have done them differently. This includes using more channels of communication, more frequently, especially with staff; getting all of Waikato's faculties to pull together more effectively as one institution; and working harder to increase students' opportunities for interdisciplinarity in teaching and research. These lessons, we hope, will be helpful for others also embarking on wide-scale curriculum change.


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.


Author(s):  
Crystal Sissons

Abstract Can a woman engineer by a feminist? This article argues in the affirmative using a case study of Elsie Gregory MacGill. Elsie Gregory MacGill was Canada's first woman electrical engineer, graduating in 1927 from The University of Toronto. She then became the first woman to earn a degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1929. While establishing herself in a predominantly masculine profession, MacGill, also a third generation feminist, actively worked for women's equal rights and opportunities in Canadian society. A case study of her role in the Royal Commission of the Status of Women (RCSW), 1967-1970, is used to illustrate that not only can a woman engineering be a feminist, but more importantly that her dual background allowed her to effectively bridge the worlds of the engineering and feminism in engineering the RCSW.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Kalinowska ◽  
Anna Batorczak

AbstractThe documents adopted by the international community during the UN Conference on the Environment and Development convened in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 make clear the leading role institutions in higher education are to play in transforming contemporary civilisation in the direction of sustainable development. It is beyond dispute that higher education has a critical role to play in developing tomorrow’s decision makers, professionals and citizens. Universities can help with the accomplishment of sustainable development goals if they transform education in this direction, extend their support to interdisciplinary scientific research and ensure the appropriate evolution of the means by which they themselves are managed. However, ensuring that a higher education establishment heads in the direction of sustainability in all academic areas of activity is a difficult process requiring much effort. The article thus presents current international initiatives of the UN in this regard, as well as Higher Education initiatives, alliances and treaties in support of the process, and the objectives and activities of the network of cooperative links between universities that is now taking shape. Also the status of education for sustainable development (ESD) in higher education and existing ESD professional development opportunities for university educators is discussed. In this context, examples of good practice characterising the activity of the University Centre for Environmental Studies and Sustainable Development will serve as a case study.


Te Kaharoa ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Ka'ai

This article employs a case-study approach to examine the crucial roles played by Māori Studies Departments in Universities throughout Aotearoa/New Zealand. Comparisons are drawn with similar centres of learning, teaching, and research in among other indigenous groups, and the article reveals the crucial role these departments play.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatma ZAGHAR ◽  
El-Alia Wafaâ ZAGHAR

In this increasingly interconnected epoch, the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) along with culture that is considered as a fifth skill has become inevitable. Therefore, EFL teachers are impelled to introduce cultural instruction in their classes. They are then advised to combine the teaching of language skills with the foreign culture because it prepares their learners to behave successfully in intercultural encounters, gain solid cultural knowledge, overcome cultural obstacles, and promote their cultural awareness. The main questions addressed in this research focus on the inclusion of the cultural component in language subjects’ syllabuses, and the type of teaching strategies that can ameliorate the status of cultural instruction. This study points out the key importance of implementing intercultural information in EFL contexts founded on a case study undertaken at the University of Oran 2 in Algeria. This paper targeted a group of Master II students by using an array of data collection means including a questionnaire given to the learners, an interview done with the teachers, and classroom observation sessions carried out by the researchers. The major aims of this work were to verify the learners’ perceptions of cultural learning, and outfit students with core foundations of culture. The results demonstrated that the incorporated teaching techniques have enriched the students’ cultural understanding and intensified their linguistic adeptnesses. It is suggested that these teaching initiatives can aid learners be compassionate, understandable, and tolerant human beings.


1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Strydom ◽  
R. Erwee

To establish the perception of employees regarding diversity management at South Africa's largest residential university, the questionnaires of Gardenswartz & Rowe (1993) was adapted and a case study approach with a sample of 25 employees was used. The diversity audit measured the sample's perceptions on symptoms of diversity related problems; openness to change of the university; the status quo regarding diversity management; organisational barriers to diversity; the valuing of diversity; and the management of diversity by managers or supervisors. It was found that a high number of symptoms of diversity-related problems are perceived and that respondents believed that the university is relatively unresponsive to the need to change. The university was believed to be in a mono cultural stage of development and barriers to developing into a multicultural organisation were identified. Respondents did report a very positive attitude towards diversity but perceived that certain procedures are not supportive.<p> Opsomming <br>Die vraelyste van Gardenswartz en Rowe (1993) en 'n gevalstudiebenadering is benut om die persepsies van 'n steekproef van 25 personeellede aangaande die bestuur van diversiteit in 'n Suid Afrikaanse universiteit te ondersoek. Die diversiteitsaudit meet die steekproef se waameming van simptome van diversiteitsverwante probleme, die bereidwilligheid van die universiteit om te verander, die huidige stand van diversiteitsbestuur, organisatoriese hindemisse, die waarde wat aan diversiteitsbestuur geheg word, en die bestuur van diversiteit deur bestuurders en toesighouers. Die resultate toon dat 'n beduidende aantal simptome van diversiteitsverwante probleme gei'dentinseer word en dat die respondente meen dat die universiteit relatief min bewustheid vir die nodigheid van verandering toon. Respondente meen dat die universiteit in 'n monokulturele fase van onfrwikkeling is en hindemisse in die ontplooїng na 'n multikulturele organisasie is bespeur. Respondente toon aan dat positiewe houdings ten opsigte van diversiteit voorkom maar dat bestaande prosedures hierdie houdings nie ondersteun nie.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 181-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucie Félicité Temgoua ◽  
Marie Caroline Momo Solefack ◽  
Vianny Nguimdo Voufo ◽  
Chrétien Tagne Belibi ◽  
Armand Tanougong

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alena Pfoser

This article is part of the special section titled Recursive Easts, Shifting Peripheries, guest edited by Pamela Ballinger. The break-up of the Cold War order, the eastwards expansion of the European Union into former socialist countries and the more recent economic and humanitarian crises have led to the emergence of new symbolic borders and the reconfiguration of spatial hierarchies within Europe. The article shows how metageographical categories of “Europe,” “East,” and “West” and underlying classificatory logics are not only circulated in geopolitical discourses but can be appropriated by ordinary citizens in their everyday life. Using the Russian–Estonian border as a case study, the article examines the recursive negotiations of Europe’s East–West border by people living in the borderland as a response to the geopolitical changes. It highlights three border narratives: the narrative of becoming peripheral/Eastern, the narrative of becoming European, and a narrative contesting the East–West hierarchy by associating the East and one’s own identity with positive things. On both sides of the border, the status as a new periphery does not create unity across the border but rather results in multiple and competing border narratives, in which “Europe” functions as an unstable referent in relation to which one’s position is marked out. This “nested peripheralisation” at Europe’s new margins reflects power relations and uneven local experiences of transformation.


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