Students’ civic engagement in Ukraine and Canada: a comparative analysis

<p>In this article, the authors have carried out a comparative analysis of students’ civic engagement in Ukraine and Canada. They have surveyed the students at Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University and compared the findings with the results of a study done by the Canadian researcher Catherine Broom at British Columbia University. Based on the research findings, the authors have identified Ukrainian students’ personal political and civic experience levels and compared them with the Canadian results. The study reveals Ukrainian students’ attitudes towards political and civic participation, democracy, the government in general and in comparison with Canadian data. The research results have identified the following key factors that influence Ukrainian students’ civic activity: students’ free time activities their attitudes and beliefs. According to the survey, gender, religious involvement, personality type, and family’s political involvement do not directly influence the students’ civic engagement. The survey has not reported any influence of school social study courses on civic engagement, stressing the importance of real-life experiences that result in attitudes and intrinsic motivation. The authors have also revealed examples of motivations and barriers for youth civic involvement.</p>

Review of the book Los sentidos del cuerpo: Un giro sensorial en la investigación social y los estudios de género. Center for Gender Research and Studies, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City, 2019

This collective endeavour is a recent contribution that, according to the foreword writer and international figure of renown in sensory sociology David Howes, makes a remarkable contribution to the matureness of the sensory turn in social sciences. For Howes this is a book that expresses solidly the consolidation of a stance regarding what he considers an appropriate study of the body, emotions and senses; i.e. understanding them as constructions and configurations produced by a constant interrelation between people and the material and social world surrounding them. Howes takes up on the review of work lines that he considers fundamental for the maturation of the sensory turn as axes that in one way or another are present in the different contributions to the book. The Canadian researcher highlights the adequate handling of the methodological strategies and the high grade of theoretical sophistication in each chapter.

« On vit dans une utopie ; ce n’est juste pas la nôtre. » De More à Miéville : activisme, spatialité et métamorphose du registre utopique

Since the 1960s, it is more common to encounter criticism rather than praise for utopian ideas. In 1964, while moderating a debate between Ernst Bloch et Theodor Adorno, Horst Krüger stated that « [today] the word ‘utopia’ does not have a good sound to it ». Twenty years later, art historian Robert Hughes goes even further by saying that the xxth century was full of utopian propositions: « drawn, designed, sometimes even built, and in the process it was shown that ideal cities don’t work […]. It seems that like plants we do need the shit of others for nutriments ». However, after decades of rejection, in the work of some writers like China Miéville this mode is being reborn, albeit in a modified form often called « radical fantasy ». Considered by some as the direct descendant of utopia, it similarly puts front and center the figure of the activist searching for progressive social justice and economic equality, but treats the future as an indeterminate and unpredictable topic. This article takes advantage of this apparent resurrection and interest, in order to attempt to decipher our seemingly secular obsession for this shape-shifting genre. Our investigation will briefly summon Michael Gazzaniga’s research in neurobiology, followed by the works of Francesca Polletta in the sociology of social movements field, in order to draw a direct relationship between the act of storytelling and the birth and rise of new collective actors. The critical theory of science-fiction, formulated by the croato-canadian researcher Darko Suvin will allow us to dig deeper into the inner mechanisms of utopia, and to show how this rhetoric device sometimes manages to persuade its audience that its dream-like imagery either is or it should be real. This theoretical framework will be accompanied by two case studies, two utopian examples dating to the beginning of the XXth century: on one hand we will delve into the belligerent manifest of futurist architecture — born in 1914 from F. T. Marinetti’s words and Antonio Sant’Elia’s lines — and on the other, into the vulnerable and pacifist glass worlds imagined by the expressionist writer Paul Scheerbart and architect Bruno Taut. By putting these historic works in parallel with Miéville’s contemporary novel The City & The City (2009) — a reference point in radical fantasy — we aim to unveil the continuities and discontinuities between our historic understanding of the utopian mode and this new contemporary form.

The Output Hypothesis and its influence in the second language learning/teaching: An interview with Merrill Swain

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an interview with Merrill Swain, a Canadian researcher who proposed the Output Hypothesis, a way to understand the relevance of producing (by speaking/writing) the foreign language during its learning. According to Output Hypothesis, the learner may notice gaps while, test cognitive hypothesis and think in a metalinguistic way while producing the foreign language. This hypothesis influenced plenty of research in the second language learning/teaching field around the world, considering Brazil as well.

Отечественные музеи в условиях интерактивности: современные тенденции развития музейной образовательной среды

В статье рассмотрены основные тенденции развития современной отечественной образовательной среды музея, ориентированной на переход к коммуникативной модели взаимодействия с аудиторией (описанной канадским ученым Д. Ф. Камероном), при которой посетитель является активным познающим субъектом, вовлеченным в интерактивное пространство музея. Автор проанализировала культурно-образовательную деятельность наиболее посещаемых (по статистике Министерства культуры РФ) отечественных музеев и, опираясь на примеры из их практики, обозначила весомые изменения основных компонентов образовательной среды музея пространственно-предметного, социального, психодидактического, а также дала качественные характеристики современной молодежи как целевой аудитории музея.The widespread introduction of information technologies and the Internet, which developed in the post-industrial era, and changes in the centennials consciousness and thinking force museums as fundamental institutions of culture and education to significantly alter their functioning. The communicative model of the museum described by the Canadian researcher D.F. Cameron, in which a museum visitor is seen as an equal participant in the dialogue, came into domestic practice somewhat later than into the western one, and continues to this day. The author of the article analyses the development trends of the most visited domestic museums, according to the latest statistics of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation for 2018, in the context of considering educational environment as part of the cultural and educational space of the museum. According to V.A. Yasvin, educational environment includes three structural components: spaсe-and-object (architectural features of buildings, equipment, special attributes, etc.), social (special community form inherent in this type of culture), psychodidactic (the corresponding content of education, methods of action mastered by students, organisation of training). Among the most striking trends in the change in the space-and-object component of the educational environment of domestic museums, the author distinguishes, firstly, the emergence of virtual museums and, secondly, the ubiquity of interactive sites that allow to include the visitor in the development of the museum space. The second component, the social one, is enriched through the integrative processes of the museum with other institutions and communities, which include the tradition of interacting with universities, schools, kindergartens, as well as specific collaborations of museum academic communities and a wide audience regarding joint projects based on one topic. There is a need for museums to promote and position themselves as a brand in the market of cultural and educational services, which leads to the emergence of PR products and professional activities in social networks. The psychodidactic component of the educational environment of the modern museum is supplemented, firstly, with such an entertaining educational format as edutainment. Secondly, interactive technologies allow the museum visitor to independently choose the format and pace of the development of the museum space at the same time, guides and cultural figures, adapting to the needs of modern youth, work on the way of delivering specific museum information, making it more accessible. Thus, the museum as a developing cultural and educational system makes changes to the format of interaction with the audience, based on the integration of traditional and non-traditional representations of their values.

Social transformation of gender and sexuality as viewed by I.S. Kon

The article examines the influence of Igor Kon on many aspects of modern research in the field of gender and sexuality. The authors conclude that it was Igor Kon who identified several key trends describing the current state of gender order in sexuality, namely, individualization and pluralization of cultures and lifestyles. It seems that the better way to speak about sexuality is not to refer to single or “normative models” but about a set of sexualities. In the proposed work, the variety of combinations of different gender identities with a multitude of sexual preferences is shown on the example of the theory of sexual configurations proposed by Canadian researcher Sari van Anders. The article emphasizes that, as I. Kon warned, it is gender relations and sexuality that are currently at the center of the agenda, since many more serious social problems are extrapolated to them. Cultural and, in particular, gender diversity is perceived by many people as the threat of losing the most basic landmarks in an unpredictable and changeable world. The article provides examples of different types of public policy in relation to binary and non-binary gender categories in different countries of Europe, Asia and North America.