Coordinating quality practices in Direct Trade coffee

Over the past few decades, many food niches have emerged with a specific focus on quality. In specialty coffee, micro roasters have brought about Direct Trade coffee as a way of organising an alternative around new tastes and qualities through ongoing and ‘direct’ relations to farmers and cooperatives. But Direct Trade also involves exporters. We ask, how do exporters and roasters work together in these new coffee relations, and what do they work on? We observe and participate in a situation where Colombian coffee exporters visit Danish roasters. They tour the roasting facilities and taste a number of coffees. Often, the term power is used to analyse such value chain interactions, but we argue that the term coordination better opens up these interactions for exploration and analysis. What emerges is a coordination of quality. Through touring and tasting, issues emerge and differences are laid out. We learn that quality is a continuous achievement. There is friction between the ways in which the roasters and exporters do quality, but these are not done away with through power. They are made known and discussable through the work of coordination. The activity of tasting quality is a coordination device that allows for bringing out differences in how quality is done in practice. Coffee, in this event, is not a fixed object, but shifts as issues of quality are brought up in tasting. This suggests a decentering of the object on the issue of quality.     

Educational counseling of workers in Czechoslovakia

Conclusion Theoretical work regarding counseling in the enterprise sphere (in contrast to the school sphere) is currently sporadic and still quite specialized.In cooperation with the European Centre for Leisure and Education, Prague     

Dewey's Participatory Educational Democracy

In this essay, Emil Višňovský and Štefan Zolcer outline John Dewey's contribution to democratic theory as presented in his 1916 classic Democracy and Education. The authors begin with a review of the general context of Dewey's conception of democracy, and then focus on particular democratic ideas and concepts as presented in Democracy and Education. This analysis emphasizes not so much the technical elaboration of these ideas and concepts as their philosophical framework and the meanings of democracy for education and education for democracy elaborated by Dewey. Apart from other aspects of Deweyan educational democracy, Višňovský and Zolcer focus on participation as one of its key characteristics, ultimately claiming that the notion of educational democracy Dewey developed in this work is participatory.     

Surface changes upon high-frequency plasma treatment of heritage photographs

Recent research, concerning the application of high-frequency cold plasma in restoration and preservation of the cultural heritage, has included the objects derived from organic materials, which are highly sensitive to microclimate factors. Historical photographs made on paper base and covered with various emulsions belong to this category of heritage objects, and make the purpose of the present study. Plasma treatment was used to enhance the aesthetic aspect of the photographs by a cleaning treatment involving either physical and/or chemical etching, which did not cause major physicochemical changes on the plasma-treated surface. The photographs before and after plasma treatments were analysed by optical and atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, colour, gloss and contact angle measurements.     

Documenting Genocide: The “Record of Confession,Guilty Plea,Repentance and Apology” in Rwanda's Gacaca Trials

In Rwanda, apologies for crimes committed during the 1994 genocide were documented on the “Record of Confession, Guilty Plea, Repentance and Apology.” Unfortunately, a gap exists in our understanding of that document. This paper addresses that gap via a cultural approach to technical communication research that examines what was recorded, why, and how it shaped the public record. The paper concludes with suggested areas in which technical communication scholars can provide additional insight on apologies for wrongdoing.     

The political socialization of children and the structure of the elementary school

Based on Dreeben's (1968) work, this paper suggests some of the mechanisms by which the social structure of the school influences the political socialization of children. The structural characteristics considered are the age-cohort classroom and the pupil-teacher authority relationship. These characteristics are hypothesized to lead to several social-psychological consequences, including the development of a generalized other of peers, a sense of personal efficacy, the perception of non-family authority figures as benevolent, and the expectation that these authorities will behave universalistically. These consequences are then linked to political orientations toward the political community, regime, and authorities.

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Résumé Cet article, basé sur le travail de Dreeben (1968), suggère quelques moyens par lesquels la structure sociale de l'école influe sur la socialization politique des enfants. Les caractéristiques structurales desquelles on traite sont la classe déterminée par l'âge des enfants et la relation d'autorité entre l'élève et l'enseignant. En considérant ces caractéristiques, on émet des hypothèses qui ont plusieurs conséquences psychologiques et sociales, y inclus le développement d'un autre généralisé des pairs, un sens de l'efficacité personnelle, la perception des personnages d'autorité hors de la famille comme bénévolents, et l'expectative que ces autorités se comporteront universellement. Ensuite on montre les liens entre ces conséquences et les orientations politiques vers la communauté, le régime, et les autorités politiques.

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Cornell University

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An extended and revised version of a paper originally presented at a meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, February 1968.