Ethnography,materiality, and the principle of symmetry: problematising anthropocentrism and interactionism in the ethnography of education

ABSTRACT

In this article we draw on actor-network theory (ANT) in order to challenge the methodological and empirical orthodoxies of anthropocentrism and interactionism that have long informed dominant discourses of ethnographic work. We use ANT to open new possibilities for understanding education as emergent in relational fields where non-human forces are as equally necessary as and possess an agency equivalent to, human forces: the principle of symmetry. We argue that this generates important conceptual as well as political possibilities in constituting different possible outcomes in the accomplishment of ethnographies of education. We draw attention to the problematic of the decentring of the human subject and the critical investigation of the interface between people and objects that frame this special issue, and also propose a methodological response framed by a commitment to empirical research through ethnography as well as a theoretical response framed by relational materialism, operationalised here through recourse to ANT.     

Overhearing Brief Negative Messages Has Lasting Effects on Children’s Attitudes Toward Novel Social Groups

Societies are rife with out-group discrimination and mistreatment. One way that children might acquire social biases that lead to such outcomes is by overhearing derogatory or disparaging comments about social groups. Children (n = 121) overheard a video call between a researcher and an adult or child caller who made negative claims (or no claims) about a novel social group. Immediately and following a 2-week delay, older children (7–9 years) who overheard the message demonstrated stronger negative attitudes toward the group than children who heard no message. Younger children’s (4- to 5-year-olds’) attitudes were generally unaffected by these claims. Thus, overhearing brief, indirect messages from children or adults had robust and lasting effects on the social biases of children 7 years and older.     

Parental preferences in the choice for a specialty school

Choosing a specialty school involves huge challenges for families. This research aims to understand the behavioral process that leads families to choose among various specialty school programs. Discrete choice models, based on revealed preferences data from middle school applications in a large school district in Florida, are estimated using both, the top and all-ranked alternatives. This study returns insights into geographic settings, theme specialties and socioeconomic characteristics of applicants, schools and their relationships. Distance from home, the school’s academic quality, the school’s theme specialty, and the high percentage of applicant’s own race are found to be the strongest factors related to the decision to apply.     

The Differential Effects of Direct Address on Parasocial Experience and Identification: Empirical Evidence for Conceptual Difference

Whereas parasocial experience is conceptualized as imagined interaction identification is defined as the merging of one’s identity with a character’s. Thus, having a character face the camera and directly address viewers should increase the sense of parasocial experience but not affect the intensity of identification. An experiment compared the levels of parasocial experience and identification among viewers of clips from the show House of Cards that included or omitted direct address tested this prediction. Results provide support for the previously theorized conceptualdistinction between parasocial experience and identification.     

Experience, experimentation, and the accumulation of knowledge: the evolution of R&D in the semiconductor industry

This paper examines the interaction and impact on performance of two organizational mechanisms supporting generation and retention of knowledge: experience accumulation and experimentation. It provides evidence that generation of knowledge through experimentation and retention of knowledge through experience were significantly correlated with performance, whereas other measures of R&D commitment and organization, including several suggested by prior studies, were not. It argues that experience and experimentation can function as at least partial substitutes for one another, possessing more of one, firms may need less of the other, and provides evidence that they were so in the semiconductor industry. The evolution of practice at one firm—Intel Corporation—is explored at greater length, providing a qualitative perspective on the process by which a shift towards greater experimentation occurred.     

Building new societies: Insights and predictions from the 5th Wiley Society Member Survey

The 5th Wiley Society Member Survey was conducted in May 2019. We received responses from 3,112 members who either consume, produce, utilize, or support scientific research, from more than 20 countries and across 40 disciplines. This year, we intentionally sought more responses from outside the USA and Western Europe than in the past, making the results more reflective of the diversity of the global research community. This made it clear that the research world is more disparate and, in some cases, such as in the Asia‐Pacific region, more contradictory than we have seen. Previously identified observations, such as an increase in respondents' simultaneous membership of multiple societies, have been consolidated, whereas others, such as the demand for support from societies for high standards of publishing ethics, are new to this survey. Central to the survey's findings is the continuing rise in researcher demand for open access and open research as tools for both consumption and production of research. Ultimately, by using these findings, this article suggests some strategies to enable societies to navigate their way through this new and constantly evolving world of academic research.     

Age Differences in Imagery Abilities

Age differences were examined in 4 aspects of visual mental imagery, namely, image generation, maintenance, scanning, and rotation. The results suggested that one or more distinct processes are used to carry out each aspect of imagery, and that this is true for 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 14-year-olds, and adults. There was no evidence that younger children have fewer processing components, which become differentiated into more specialized subsystems over age. In addition, the results suggested that younger children are relatively poor at scanning, rotating, and generating objects in images, but are relatively good at maintaining images.