Affective digital presence: How to free online writing and drawing?

Online learning can be an alienating experience; students can feel their emotions are disregarded, marginalized or even viewed as hindrances as they try to motivate themselves to learn, staring at the dancing pixels of their illuminated screens. They feel at a remove from other students, trapped in other rooms, far away from them. The closeness of bodies in a shared physical space is raised as an absence. And yet, we contend in this article that connecting with affect in online learning spaces could build connectivity that counteracts the alienation of social distancing. Raw creative affective discourses can be challenging, and uncomfortable for others to take in but they are necessary online. We show that using non-digital practices such as drawing and writing freely, without inhibitions, can immeasurably enhance the online experience, giving a space for affect to be expressed in a safe but emancipatory learning architecture.

Impact of Human Rights Education at School, Community and Individual Levels - Case Study of Georgia Research Essay

Since its independence in 1991, the promotion of human rights has been a part of Georgia’s efforts towards the integration into Euro-Atlantic Institutions. However, difficulties in introducing the concept of individual, democratic and human rights are persistent in the teaching/learning process, as these concepts are still not organic and commonly understood in popular culture. Herewith, a growing level of political and societal polarisation between nationalistic and liberal forces impedes the process of effective promotion of universal human rights principles. The article analyzes the tensions between the core values of nationalism and liberal ideology in Georgia, as well as the supporting factors for the promotion of human rights education (HRE). It discusses the potential of HRE in mitigating the societal polarisation and reaching social cohesion around the basic civic values. A conclusion is made that, despite considerable progress achieved in promoting HRE in Georgia during the last decade, complexities remain related to the difficulty of introducing the concepts of individual, democratic and human rights in the teaching/learning process, as such concepts are still not organic and commonly understood in popular culture. Based on the best practices identified in various impact assessment studies on HRE worldwide, recommendations are offered for the schools to introduce transformative and emancipatory learning and make HRE effective through the application of the ‘wholeschool’ approach - an effective tool for bringing tangible changes to the school environment, as well as the impact on the household and community levels. Keywords: human rights education, social cohesion, Georgia, impact of education, wholeschool approach, social cohesion

Disrupting Dialogue? The Participatory Urban Governance of Far-Right Contestations in Cottbus

This article investigates how municipal governments negotiate far-right contestations through the format of citizens’ dialogues and contemplates to what extent they disrupt established assumptions about participatory urban governance. In doing so, I want to contribute to emerging scholarship on reactionary responses to migration-led societal transformations in cities via scrutinising their effects on institutional change in participatory practices. Building on participatory urban governance literature and studies on the far right in the social sciences, I argue that inviting far-right articulations into the democratic arena of participation serves to normalise authoritarian and racist positions, as the far right’s demand for more direct involvement of ‘the people’ is expressed in reactionary terms. I will show how this applies to two prominent notions of participation in the literature, namely, agonistic and communicative approaches. This argument is developed through an explorative case study of two neighbourhood-based citizens’ dialogues in Cottbus, East Germany, which the municipal government initiated in response to local far-right rallies. While a careful reading of these forums reveals productive potentials when the issue of international migration is untangled from context-specific, socio-spatial problems in the neighbourhoods, my analysis also shows how the municipality’s negotiation of far-right contestations within the citizens’ dialogues serves to legitimise far-right ideology. I find that to negotiate today’s societal polarisation, municipal authorities need to rethink local participatory institutions by disentangling these complex dynamics and reject far-right contestations, while designing dialogues for democratic and emancipatory learning.

THE IMPLICATION OF SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE CULTURE TO INTROVERTED STUDENTS OF BALI UNIVERSITIES ON THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS

This article is aimed at describing the implications of symbolic violence towards introvert students in English education departments of universities in Bali on the educational process. There were three universities to be decided as the setting of this research; (1) Mahasaraswati University Denpasar, (2) Ganesha University of Education Singaraja and (3) IKIP Saraswati Tabanan. The subject of this study was the introvert students and distinctive lecturers of those three English education departments. The result of this study reveals that the implication on process can be perceived through class’ behavioral management, classroom learning management and classroom physical space management. Those kinds of managements were applied reversely from the critical pedagogy and emancipatory learning idealism that leads to symbolic violence, especially to the introvert students. The application was not considering the personality uniqueness of introverted students and created a one-size-fits-all idealism by adopting extroverted idealism and force introverted students to fit in it. Key words: symbolic violence, introvert, English education, critical pedagogy

Transformative Social Learning for Agricultural Sustainability and Climate Change Adaptation in the Vietnam Mekong Delta

Climate change has seriously affected agriculture and many aspects of the life of local people in the Vietnam Mekong Delta (VMD). Learning to shift towards sustainable development to successfully adapt to climate change is essential. The VACB (V—garden/orchard; A—fishing farm; C—livestock farm; B—biogas) model is considered one of the best approaches and methods to adapt to climate change in the VMD. This paper aims to explore the transformative social learning and sustainable development associated with this model in terms of agricultural transformation for sustainability to climate change adaptation in the VMD. The mixed methods approach that guided the data collection included focus group discussions, in-depth interviews with key informants and household surveys. Our findings show that there are three learning processes associated with transformative social learning linked to the VACB model: instrumental, communicative and emancipatory learning. Farmers reported increased knowledge and improved relationships and efficiency when applying the VACB model using several learning channels, both formal and informal. Farmers highlighted six factors that influenced transformative social learning during the adoption and development of the VACB model and several barriers to implementing adaptation strategies to climate change in an attempt to upscale the VACB model.

Kiat-kiat Membangun Strategi Pembelajaran Emansipatoris pada Pendidikan Dasar Islam

This article discusses about emancipatory education, the main focus is the strategy of building emancipatory education. Education has a close relationship with social change, both in the form of dynamics of individual development and social processes on a broader scale. This study of emancipatory education is important, because in this globalization era Education is one of the decisive aspects, especially in opening the way to liberation from poverty, ignorance and adversity. Emancipatory meaning is human liberation from fetters in the context of Education, this emancipatory idea is expected to be able to give new colors and changes to the process and implementation of Education which has been regarded as giving less freedom. The liberation paradigm is the main basis of emancipatory education. This liberation makes an education play a role in freeing students from ignorance, retardation, obedience and immorality. There are several efforts that must be made in building an emancipatory learning strategy on Islamic Education. First, shifting the focus of attention from religion to religiosity. Second, enter plurality. Third, emphasizing the formation of attitudes. Then there are three keys in the emancipatory Education model, namely: humanization, critical and democratic awareness.

Agential Realism in a Community-Based Organization in Mexico: An Ethico-Onto-Epistemology of Emancipatory Learning

This article shares the findings of a qualitative study of a community-based organization in Mexico and the emancipatory pedagogy practiced there in a time characterized by a changing global economic order, conflict and war, corruption and geographic displacement. To make sense of the transnational philosophical fusion and the pedagogical practices in the organization, I draw on Karen Barad’s ideas to propose an ethico-onto-epistemology of emancipatory learning to uncover power in spaces of self/knowledge that are outside the binaries of critical-theoretical practice. It suggests an understanding of emancipatory learning that is relational, embodied, ethical, and emergent.

Student Run Biology Workshop: An Educational and Transformative Experience in Biosciences

Ιn this article we argue that integrating and self-directed knowledge across university learning can lead to critical reflections and potentially transformative learning, for both students and educators. Student Run Biology Workshop (SRBW) is an innovative, self-directed learning project, carried out by the students of the Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics, in the Democritus University of Thrace-Greece. Our aim was to find out whether this educational experience was a transformative experience, as well. Qualitative research method was used; data was collected in December 2017 at the end of three feedback discussions by personally-written opinion documents and proceeded through Content Analysis. Results showed that students’ participation and consequently their teamwork within the SRBW energized them to face assumptions, to engage in new concerns, to adopt alternative learning practices, to gain a critical and comprehensive understanding of Biosciences and their role within the field. The experience gained by the students has led them to a review of roles, to the building of a new perception of knowledge, to co-operation, to self-management of educational activities, and, eventually, to a more emancipatory learning. But what if this SRBW project is something much more? Which are the key dilemmas concerning this emancipatory learning strategy deriving from this experience for the participant students- future Bioscientists? Furthermore, what about the dilemmas that we, their professors, faced when we saw our students fly so high –without needing us? And, as Brookfield (1996) underlined, can we critically approach our assumptions and assertions without experiencing the consequences of our actions?