Mali

In 2012, Mali began a long slide into insecurity and political instability. This chapter reviews the historical roots of that crisis, beginning in the waning days of French colonialism and continuing through periods of socialist nationalism, military rule, and liberal democracy. Mali’s postcolonial state has faced numerous internal and external threats. Some stemmed from hierarchical structures within the country’s heterogeneous population and the conflicts these structures engendered. Others emanated from heavy-handed government attempts to impose order and national identity on this population. Some were posed by other states in the Sahel and beyond. Still others came in the form of non-state actors exploiting state weakness to advance their own political and social agendas. Critically examining the competing narratives about Mali’s ongoing crisis, which focus on neocolonialism, geopolitics, and political institutions, this chapter demonstrates that the origins of the crisis are neither simple nor monocausal.

Rethinking Polanyi’s Fictitious Commodities Based on the Brazilian Nuclear Segment

The purpose of this paper is to show evidence of the undetermined expansion of Polanyi’s fictitious commodities within the Brazilian nuclear context. The issue of the marketification of social agendas has drawn a lot of attention to the data, collected through in-depth interviews. The analytical process was guided by the decolonial theory approach and by critical discourse analysis. Among the analysis’ main findings, it is possible to point out the elaboration of a framework which reveals the mechanisms employed by the Brazilian nuclear segment as a way of exercising parallel power and silencing social agendas. The main contributions are the temporal and geopolitical updating of Polanyi’s thesis; and the definition of the mechanisms used by the company Eletronuclear and by institutions as a way of co-optation, naturalisation and marketification of social and political agendas.

University students' voices on sexual and gender diversity, their relationship with coeducation and pedagogical innovation: a comparative study at the University of Madeira (Portugal) and the Federal University of Sergipe (Brasil)

The concepts of gender and sex have been considered in recent literature as elements of power, under the circumstance of contemporary floating constructions. In the field of Education, a “deconstructed”, non-normative look is needed as a political act on issues of sexual diversity and gender. The curriculum as a culture can and must take a Queer view at school. In this research we intend to make a comparative study on sexual and gender diversity in the academic environment, listening to the voices of students from the University of Madeira and the Federal University of Sergipe. In this way, we emphasize coeducation in the construction of inclusive environments and their contribution in the field of pedagogical innovation. The discussion of these themes in the academy is fundamental for the conceptual renewal and the organizational contexts of the practice of pedagogy. It also contributes to important changes in social agendas.

A Concrete Approach: Recontextualizing Brutalism Through Threshold Design

The overcrowding, pollution and sprawl of the modern city outgrows and distorts its original framework. The building, land, and street relationship becomes a focal point in designing for the human scale. The existing urban fabric shifts along with society. Built many years ago, the buildings lack evident design strategies that successfully integrate the surrounding context with its architecture. By redefining threshold as a three-dimensional human experience rather than a point, line, or moment in space, the threshold and surrounding framework becomes significant in adapting the building to meet contemporary social agendas. There becomes a necessity to blur the boundaries between its architecture and environment integrating both the interior and exterior to appropriate the human scale. The ability to preserve these decaying forms through the means of threshold design will effectively contribute to Toronto’s Identity as a whole and successfully play a more significant role in an ever-changing modern city

A Concrete Approach: Recontextualizing Brutalism Through Threshold Design

The overcrowding, pollution and sprawl of the modern city outgrows and distorts its original framework. The building, land, and street relationship becomes a focal point in designing for the human scale. The existing urban fabric shifts along with society. Built many years ago, the buildings lack evident design strategies that successfully integrate the surrounding context with its architecture. By redefining threshold as a three-dimensional human experience rather than a point, line, or moment in space, the threshold and surrounding framework becomes significant in adapting the building to meet contemporary social agendas. There becomes a necessity to blur the boundaries between its architecture and environment integrating both the interior and exterior to appropriate the human scale. The ability to preserve these decaying forms through the means of threshold design will effectively contribute to Toronto’s Identity as a whole and successfully play a more significant role in an ever-changing modern city

Inclusive schools: Are teachers adequately prepared for inclusion?

This article will discuss one of the main topics on the educational and social agendas in Israel. Integrating children and adults with special needs into schools and the community is a worldwide issue. Many researchers have tried to find and evaluate the most effective integration methods, to assist people with special needs and enable them high quality of life and equality. In this article, we will look at the process of integrating students with special needs and the transition that took place during the last few decades regarding the idea of “inclusion”, which is now a top priority for the Ministry of Education’s directors. Based on recent studies, we will examine whether school teaching staff and student teachers are ready to implement inclusive programs in schools as required. We will then propose ways to optimize the training of the educational staff, towards the implementation of the inclusive programs.

Expenditure on sports and leisure by the Government of the State of Piauí

The present study aimed to analyze the participation of the government of Piauí in the bottom-up funding of sport and leisure public policies from 2013 to 2017, embracing four aspects: (1) comparison of expenditure with tax revenue; (2) comparison of expenditure with other social agendas, notably Social Assistance and Culture; (3) identifying the spending behavior regarding subfunctions; (4) analyzing the efficiency in resource liquidation comparatively. Quantitative data were collected from the National Treasure website and submitted to descriptive statistics. In a conclusive manner, the study indicated that: (a) state government expenditure with the SLF is far shorter than the estimated by the II National Sport Conference; (b) expenditure has not followed the positive revenue variation during the period; (c) when compared to Social Assistance and Culture, Sport and Leisure has been the less considered area on the government’s agenda; (d) there has been an abrupt chance in the government’s agenda towards performance sport; (e) the government acts in an efficient way regarding the liquidation of planned resources.

“An Active, Productive Life”: Narratives of, and Through, Participation in Public and Patient Involvement in Health Research

Public and patient involvement (PPI)—engaging the public in designing and delivering research—is increasingly expected in health research, reflecting recognition of the value of “lay” knowledge of illness and/or caring for informing research. Despite increased understanding of PPI experiences within the research process, little attention has been paid to the meaning of PPI in other areas of contributors’ lives, and its value as a broader social practice. We conducted repeated narrative interviews with five experienced PPI contributors from the United Kingdom to explore how meaning is constructed through narratives of PPI in relation to their broader “life-worlds.” Narratives were extremely varied, constructing identities and meanings around PPI in relation to family and social life, career and employment, financial status, and wider social agendas, as well as health. This emphasizes the importance of recognizing PPI as a social practice with diverse meaning and value beyond health research.