Navigating European education in times of crisis? An analysis of socio-technological architectures and user interfaces of online learning initiatives

This study casts light on two online learning initiatives funded by the European Commission, and queries their role as policy actors in the long-term project of a “borderless” European Education Area and/or in the remediation of the so-called “refugee crisis.” Particularly, the study aims to contribute to existing research on the policy enactment of European education spaces, while also addressing their implicated times. Social topology has guided a theoretical-conceptual focus on bordering practices, socio-technological architectures, and user interfaces, and their enactment of forms of Europe. This informed the methodology to center around active navigations on user interfaces of these online learning initiatives, based on the argument that these concretize bordering practices and forms of spaces-times. The findings, presented as re-constructions of the active navigations, stress multiple possibilities EC-funded online learning initiatives to evolve, including shifting responsibilities and differentiated learning trajectories. By highlighting these possibilities, the study aims to interpose the relatively short development of digitalization in (European) education, in which digital technologies have been positioned as “flexible” solutions in times of crisis. The study thereby stirs up discussions on how European online learning initiatives could integrate long-term visions with crisis remediations and, accordingly, could support continuously renewable educational spaces-times.

The social topology of science in national and transnational contexts: the case of social sciences

The article explores the possibilities of application P. Bourdieu’s social topology in the studying of inequality in science in national and transnational contexts. It is argued that in the conditions of globalising science, discussions about its egalitarianism, which began approximately in the middle of the last century, are moving beyond national borders. For the purposes of studying global inequality in science, scholars often apply the theoretical frameworks of world-systems analysis, neo-institutionalism, and the theory of global governance. However, these theories often lead to reductionism which ignores the symbolic dimension of scientific activity. The article suggests reassessing the heuristic potentiality of P. Bourdieu’s social topology, which mitigates the mentioned drawback of other theories. The article aims to demonstrate the relevance of this theoretical framework for the study of inequality in different scales of scientific activity due to the fact that the French sociologist focused mainly on national academic systems. The article defines the general provisions of P. Bourdieu’s topological concept of the field and the units of the social order of the scientific field. It also demonstrates the role of various forms of capital in determining the structure of social space. Based on the case of social sciences, the article explores the formation of scientific fields, their interaction with other fields, and their structure in different scales. The structure of the scientific field on the national scale can be defined as a dichotomy of dominant – dominated or centre – periphery. On the transnational scale, this dichotomy is also relevant but it is represented by national fields. Among them, the dominant position is occupied by the United States and Great Britain, which have the largest amount of symbolic power. The structure of the transnational scientific space, however, is more complex and includes overlapping fields of national, regional and more global dimensions. The article argued that applying the theoretical framework of the field to the study of the transnational scientific field will remain tied to the definition and explanation of the peculiarities and the interaction of national scientific fields as long as national states keep their institutional boundaries in scientific activity.

The flash of a van: A cartography of a mobile educational initiative in the Claymore district of Sydney

Modern cities produce areas of poverty, despite their overall wealth. These pockets of living can exacerbate societal problems, especially because the opposite end of the societal spectrum is often close by. This paper examines an educational initiative in one such district, called Claymore, in the suburbs of outer Sydney. The project deployed a mobile youth van equipped with high-tech educational hardware and software, and encouraged local youth to take advantage of the van, to further high-tech skills acquisition. This paper offers a Deleuze/Guattari (1988) cartographic approach to mapping the effects of the van extracted from their opus maxima, 1000 Plateaus. This approach is a mode of social topology that deepens the type of discourse analysis that one may take from Foucault and its uses in educational research (e.g., Ball, 2012). The social cartography that one might derive from Deleuze/Guattari involves producing a ‘plane of immanence’ and assemblages about the phenomena under scrutiny, in the case of this article, the mobile van initiative in Claymore. This does not mean that hierarchies are diminished, but that they are reset for the purposes of analysis, so that their complex relationships are realized and understood. This paper looks to describe and analyse what is immanent to the situation in Claymore, and what effects the mobile van might have given this state of affairs.

Propensity for social surfing among the Russian youth: Regional specificity

Introduction. The phenomenon of social surfing, as a specific mobility strategy, largely determines the life of Y and Z generations, and creates an ambiguous context in terms of threats and opportunities for the formation of life trajectories of Russian youth. This actualised the search for theoretical and methodological foundations of understanding and practical tools for assessing the state of this problem, which, in turn, made it possible to scale this phenomenon in the context of the modern youth environment in Russia.The aim of the present research was to identify the degree of loyalty and potential tendency to use the “social surfing” strategy by the representatives of young people in Russian regions, taking into account the assessment of the approval of gender models of this behaviour strategy.Research methodology, methods and techniques. The methodological framework for describing the phenomenon of social surfing is based on the social topology of M. Castells, the het-erological concept of the rhizome by J. Deleuze and F. Guattari, the philosophy of mobility by J. Urry, Z. Bauman, U. Beck, the theory of transitivity (E. M. Dubovskaya, T. D. Martsinkovskaya, E. A. Kiselev), the studies of the specifics of youth identity and self-realisation in social space (M. C. Schippers, N. Ziegler, M. Loreto Martmez, P. Cumsille, A. K. Vikulov, T. V. Plotnikova and others) and the modern concepts of happiness (M. Argyll, D. A. Leontiev, A. L. Zhuravlev and others) The study was conducted in different regions of Russia (Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Ulyanovsk, Glazov) using psychodiagnostic methodology “Propensity to social surfing of young people” developed by the authors. The study involved young people (N = 510 people aged 18-27 years old, among them female - 68 %, male - 32 %).Results and scientific novelty. It was found that 11.2 % of young men and women approve of social surfing, evaluate its behavioural model as positive and allow similar options for choosing their own life trajectory. Comparative analysis revealed significant differences in loyalty to the social surfing strategy among young people living in different regions of the Russian Federation: the greatest loyalty was manifested by the young residents of Ekaterinburg, Glazov, and Kazan, while the residents of Chelyabinsk predominantly demonstrated a negative attitude to this strategy. The respondents showed an unequal attitude towards male and female social surfing models: with a relatively condescending attitude towards the male model, social surfing of women is frowned upon and is associated with weakness and statement. Meanwhile, the approval of the male model of social surfing creates certain risks of marginalisation and value-semantic anomie among young people.The practical significance of the conducted research is due to the potential possibilities of using the data obtained for choosing approaches to work with young people in the conditions of their high mobility, as well as for creating educational and professional trajectories.

Lecture capture, social topology, and the spatial and temporal arrangements of UK universities

This article considers how technologies actively shape the topologies of UK higher education. Using the example of lecture capture systems, we examine the relationship between learning technologies and formations of space and time. Combining theories of sociomateriality and social topology, and concepts of assemblage and relationality, we expose the entanglement of interests that influence university spaces and times. Across 3 months coinciding with the onset of COVID-19 we collected over 500 tweets that discussed lecture capture within UK higher education, leading towards 2 central arguments. First, the topology of the lecture is fluid, and, even while being radically technologised, re-spatialised and disrupted, it persists as a lecture and a central pedagogical feature of university life. Second, lecture capture is a rich site of ‘issuefication’, and viewing learning technologies as dynamic issues enables a better understanding of how their meaning, function and influence are contingent on shifting and relational assemblages of human and non-human interests. Lecture capture can be pedagogical, commercial and political, thereby resisting deterministic framings of the relationship between technologies and the temporal and spatial arrangements of higher education.

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL TOPOLOGY OF THE CRAFT

In the so-called historical periods of artisanal and industrial development, craft, social, and cultural practices have gained a new position in history and thus in the modern scale of values, their own time and place in the new framework of the «green economy». The formal contradiction between crafts and modernization can be removed if we consider the historical experience of crafts. With their genetic link to trade masters and their workshops, small- and medium-sized enterprises can be drivers of innovation through conservational, ecological, and socially neutral productive processes. The article attempts to outline the theoretical and methodological basis of a social topology of crafts as a new sphere in the philosophy of history and trades. Drawing on ancient, western European and Russian philosophy, the authors show that the social topology of trades can be seen as an alternative theoretical and methodological basis when researching the history of crafts, the development of their form and their deployment in space and time. The timeliness and relevance of this theoretical discussion is defined by the need to answer the conceptual challenges of the space-time of post-industrial development, to open a new historical retrospective on crafts and to realize the current and future sustainable development of trades. A topological research agenda, where the historical personality is seen as a socio-bodily being with a place in the space-time it itself produces, is founded on the key concepts of corporeality and location and interconnectedness within the socio-ontological context. In the framework of social phenomenology and ontology, the schema of flexible networks of small manufacturers takes the following form: «trade fraternities — workshops — practices — the self-organization and self-administration of fraternities». The craft topologeme suggests cooperation within the framework of a global trade fraternity of ecological manufacturing networks.

Management of unexplained: poly-consultation and hyperfrequency on Primary Health Chilean Attention. A qualitative and exploratory study.

Background: In Europe, Latin-America, and Asia, poly-consultation has become a complex problem for the management of different healthcare systems. However, in the current literature, little attention has been paid to exploring perspectives of territorial and critical analysis to manage unexplained symptoms.The purpose of this study is to analyze the socio-structural elements that underlie the users’ phenomenon of poly-consultation or hyperfrequency in the Chilean primary healthcare system (PHCS). Methods: This paper represents qualitative data collected as part of an exploratory study that used mixed methods across three metropolitan areas of Santiago, Valparaíso, and Concepción, Chile. The study involved a sample of 24 subjects from administrative and management positions in PHC who were recruited from Family Health Care Centers, considering urban municipalities from the low, medium, and high stratum.The study collected data using one set of semi-standardized interviews during a year. Data analysis used an qualitative content analysis. Results: This article shows that poly-consultant patients provide a critical clinic category to management and mental health model (foreshadowing a social topology base that promotes a determinate unspecific and diffuse experience on users) that cannot be cover by current biomedical models. Data showed the strain of a somatoform clinic category, especially in the clinic and epistemological exercise, and, also, the relevance of particularities of Chile, a country with a mixed health system characteristics and their effects: the naturalization of collective problems managed as individual problems. Conclusions: Results from the study have the potential to inform healthcare professionals and managers of strategies for developing effective and territorially based. We conclude that hyperfrequency and poly-consultation in Chile reveal relevant stratification in the territory who has particularities than could be studied from a quantitative perspective.

Management of unexplained: poly-consultation and hyperfrequency on Primary Health Chilean Attention. A qualitative and exploratory study

Background: In Europe, Latin-America, and Asia, poly-consultation has become a complex problem for the management of different healthcare systems. However, in the current literature, little attention has been paid to exploring perspectives of territorial and critical analysis to manage unexplained symptoms.The purpose of this study is to analyze the socio-structural elements that underlie the users’ phenomenon of poly-consultation or hyperfrequency in the Chilean primary healthcare system (PHCS). Methods: This paper represents qualitative data collected as part of an exploratory study that used mixed methods across three metropolitan areas of Santiago, Valparaíso, and Concepción, Chile. The study involved a sample of 24 subjects from administrative and management positions in PHC who were recruited from Family Health Care Centers, considering urban municipalities from the low, medium, and high stratum.The study collected data using one set of semi-standardized interviews during a year. Data analysis used an qualitative content analysis.Results: This article shows that poly-consultant patients provide a critical clinic category to management and mental health model (foreshadowing a social topology base that promotes a determinate unspecific and diffuse experience on users) that cannot be cover by current biomedical models. Data showed the strain of a somatoform clinic category, especially in the clinic and epistemological exercise, and, also, the relevance of particularities of Chile, a country with a mixed health system characteristics and their effects: the naturalization of collective problems managed as individual problems. Conclusions: Results from the study have the potential to inform healthcare professionals and managers of strategies for developing effective and territorially based. We conclude that hyperfrequency and poly-consultation in Chile reveal relevant stratification in the territory who has particularities than could be studied from a quantitative perspective.