Researching Terrorism and Political Violence

Professor Louise Richardson is a political scientist focusing on terrorism and political violence. She became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford in January 2016, having previously served at the Universities of St. Andrews and Harvard. She has written widely on international terrorism, British foreign and defence policy, security, and international relations. Professor Richardson holds a BA in History from Trinity College Dublin, an MA in Political Science from UCLA as well as an MA and PhD in Government from Harvard University. She visited the University of Warwick in November 2017 to deliver a talk on her career and being a female leader, as part of the University’s ‘Inspiring Women’ series. In this interview, she speaks about research on terrorism and political violence; how approaches to terrorism studies differ between the US and Europe; how the discipline has changed since the 1970s; the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of terrorism and political violence; whether terrorism studies are a distinct discipline; differences between terrorism and conflict studies; and what makes a good university teacher. Photograph credit: OUImages/John Cairns

Doctoral Supervision Practice: What’s the Problem and How Can We Help Academics?

Academics are feeling squeezed by increasing research supervision demands within tightening time constraints. In a changing higher education environment, demands on doctoral supervisors need to be better understood in order to provide them with the right support at supervision pressure points. As academic developers, our aim was to better understand supervision challenges across multiple disciplines. A two stage study firstly sought differences in research and supervision practice between faculties by means of an anonymised digital questionnaire [n226]. Twenty-two questions explored supervisors’ experiences of project management, communication and writing. Secondly, we interviewed 11 experienced supervisors from disciplines other than our own (education), focusing on supervision’s discipline-specific challenges and constraints. We expected to find discipline-differences between science and humanities. However, analysis showed that supervision challenges are the same across disciplines. We report on what these entail and argue that, as graduate numbers rise in an internationalised academy, supervision support can and should be developed centrally in order to address the growing pressures on faculty.

Investigating the ICT Use and Needs of ‘Digital Natives' In Learning English at a Taiwanese University

This article reports key findings of a study which investigated the use of technology by 569 ‘digital natives' students for English Language learning and recreational purposes. Their views on the applicability of technological tools such as facebook, blogging and skype for English Language teaching and learning were also investigated. The findings showed that although the students expressed positive views with regard to the use of technologies for language learning, they seemed to use less technological tools for academic learning than for recreational purposes. Discipline differences were not a determining factor. In addition, they appeared to use similar well-established technologies rather than new and emerging technologies for both learning and recreation. Finally, they also appeared satisfied with their English instructors' teaching approaches.

Análise comparativa das propostas cariocas e baiana para a regulamentação desportiva da capoeira (1968)

<p><strong><em>Background and aim</em></strong><strong>:</strong> Despite having been institutionalised in the Brazilian Confederation of Pugilism (1941) as a sport, at that time there were not any regulations for Capoeira competitions. Two symposia (1968 and 1969) were held in Rio de Janeiro (Guanabara) aiming to establish a set of regulations for the discipline and, as a consequence, to provide equal conditions for the competing athletes. In order to do so, representatives from Bahia and Rio de Janeiro were invited to discuss the matter. The present study analyses the first three proposals for the regulation of Capoeira, which came from the states of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro and were presented at the symposium held in 1968.</p><p><strong><em>Method:</em></strong> The ethnographic and historical methods were used along with content analysis, praxeological analysis and semi-structured interviews for the survey, processing and interpretation of data, and subsequent comparison of the proposals.</p><p><strong><em>Results:</em></strong> We observed that the proposal from Bahia was characterised by gymnastic, recreational and ritual elements, whereas those from Rio de Janeiro were characterised by the agonistic aspect of the discipline. Differences regarding personal and stylistic views and territorial interests proved to be a major hindrance and no regulations were established. Therefore, we conclude that the ideal conditions for the sporting regulation of Capoeira could not be met at that time.</p>