Understanding the rise of e-participation in non-democracies: Domestic and international factors

While it has often been suggested that information and communication technologies (ICTs) provide an important means of increasing citizen participation (which is at the core of democratic government), few commentators have expected non-democracies to create online environments in which citizens can take an active part in political processes. In recent years, however, some non-democracies have begun to outperform countries with long-standing democratic traditions in terms of e-participation development. According to the 2010 United Nations (UN) e-government survey, Bahrain outranks France, Kazakhstan beats Sweden and Malaysia ranks higher than Germany. This article sets out to understand the recent rise of e-participation initiatives in non-democracies. Drawing on comparative longitudinal data from the UN e-government surveys, we tested the assertion that international drivers of change are competing with the dominant focus on domestic factors, especially in the non-democratic world, and are influencing the patterns of reform. The empirical analysis demonstrated important differences between the drivers of change in democratic and non-democratic countries and found economic globalization to be the strongest predictor of e-participation initiatives in non-democratic countries. In conclusion, we argue that economic globalization alters the context of e-participation and necessitates a re-examination of many of its premises and tenets.     

Gutter Talk: Co-Constructing Narratives Using Comics in the Classroom

This article combines theory on comics, narrative, and discursive psychology and analyses how the gutter is co-constructed for storytelling in classroom interaction. Closure of the gutter has previously been treated as a cognitive aspect. Here, interactional video data are analysed, with participants organizing ten separate comic panels. The analysis focuses on participants’ talk about the gutter, and how this constructs social actions. The results show how participants co-construct the gutter as meaningful space, hereby organizing time, actions, and events in narratives. The paper evinces that gutters are co-constructed as too narrow or too broad, relating chronologically and logically to surrounding panels. This contributes to sociocultural perspectives on literacy and use of comics for engaging with narratives in classroom practice.     

Reading Skill and the Processing of Text Structure

Backman, J., Lundberg, I., Nilsson, L.‐G. & Ohlsson, K. 1984. Reading Skill and the Processing of Text Structure. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 29, 113‐128. Oral reading speed, free recall and summarization of narrative stories presented on videotex were studied as a function of reading skill, text structure and physical factors such as paragraphing and color cueing of clauses on various levels of importance. A total of 144 subjects (13‐14 years old) participated in the experiment, half of them being rated as poor readers and half as good readers. Good readers outperformed poor readers on all dependent variables. Important propositions were better recalled and were more often included in summaries than less important parts of the texts, especially if they were signalled by a different color. However, the impact of graphical cueing depended on reading skill, text type and task. The interactions were discussed in terms of differences in processing strategies and prior knowledge.     

In the maw of the Ouroboros: an analysis of scientific literacy and democracy

This paper explores the concept of scientific literacy through its relation to democracy and citizenship. Scientific literacy has received international attention in the twenty-first century as demonstrated by the Programme for International Student Assessment survey of 2006. It is no longer just a concept but has become a stated and testable outcome in the science education research community. This paper problematizes the ‘marriage’ between scientific literacy and democracy, particularly the idea that scientific literacy is a presupposed necessity to proper citizenship and awareness of the role of science in modern society. A perusal of the science education literature can provide a history of scientific literacy, as it exists as a research category. Through Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the Dogmatic Image of Thought and its relation to a Spinozist understanding of individuation/Becoming, it is argued that scientific literacy is not a recent invention and is problematic in its relation to democracy. This article is thus intended to act more as vehicle to move, stimulate and dramatize thought and potentially reconceptualise scientific literacy, than a comprehensive historical analysis. The concept of scientific literacy has undergone specific transformations in the last two centuries and has been enacted in different manifestations throughout modernity. Here the analysis draws upon Deleuze’s reading of Michel Foucault and the notion of the Diagram related to Foucault’s oeuvre, and is specifically using Foucault’s notion of rationalities as actualized threads or clusters of discourse. The obvious link between science and democracy is an effect of specific rationalities within the epistemological field of science, rather than intrinsic, essential characteristics of science or scientific literacy. There is nothing intrinsic in its function for democracy. Through a case study of the work of Charles W. Eliot and Herbert Spencer and the modern enactment of scientific literacy in contemporary science education, this paper shows the cultural and historical contingencies on which the relation between scientific literacy and democracy has been constructed through a rationality this article calls the Man of Science. The mythical Ouroboros will be used as a Fresh Image of Thought to explore the movements and folds within the discursive formation of Scientific Literacy, the rationality of the Man of Science, and their relation to democracy.     

Creating a ‘world class’ programme: reciprocity and constraint in networked global collaboration

The article reflects on the construction of a common Master’s programme across four universities located on four continents, in order to explore the role of networks in international educational collaboration. The study draws on the documented processes of the principal members of the programme team. It is presented as a case study of the development of the programme that uses ideas drawn from actor‐network theory to draw attention to the conjunction of human and non‐human actors that shaped the resulting web‐based courses. Constraints arising from major institutional and systemic obstacles were addressed through the effects of the actor‐network. The reciprocity of action and de‐centring of individual activity made possible through the collaboration enabled the human actors to sustain a level of innovation within their own institutions that would not have been possible through them acting alone.     

National Devolution in Swedish Higher Education -- A Quest for New Local Leadership. The Case of Leadership Development at Göteborg University

In 1993 a new national form for governance was introduced in Swedish higher education. The new regime, best described in terms of deregulation and decentralisation, among other things, required a new individually based leadership at universities.The paper describes the development of one particular 10-day interfaculty leadership training course for heads of departments, directors of study and other local managers, its content and methods and some implications for strategic management in higher education institutions.Four such implications are covered: constructing a new social identity as leaders, getting leadership acceptance in an individualistic academic-freedom culture, training academic leaders in accordance with professional values, and dealing with accountability in a collegial decision-making environment.     

Beginning student teachers’ teacher identities based on their practical theories

In this article, we investigate first-year student teachers’ teacher identities through their practical theories and ask what these practical theories reveal about their emerging teacher identities? This study approaches teacher identity from a dialogical viewpoint where identity is constructed through various positions. The empirical part of this study analysed the practical theories of 71 first-year student teachers in order to determine what kinds of positions are involved in their teacher identity at the beginning of their teacher education and what positions are emphasised. The results showed that when student teachers begin their teacher education, the majority of positions concern didactical issues, that is, how to promote pupils’ studying and learning processes. In addition, student teachers’ teacher identities as teachers strongly emphasise the moral nature of teaching. Contextual issues about school and society and matters related to content, such as the curriculum, had little representation in first-year student teacher identities. On the basis of the results, the role of teacher education is considered in the process of promoting development of student teachers’ teacher identity during their studies.     

A winding road – professional trajectories from higher education to working life: a case study of political science and psychology graduates

This qualitative and longitudinal study focuses on graduate employment and the development of graduate employment paths. The aim of this article is to explore the present professional trajectory from higher education to working life, with particular reference to graduates from two different study programmes at Linköping University in Sweden: Political Science and Psychology. More specifically, the article focuses on how graduates construe their professional trajectories in terms of their envisaged future work as senior students, and later as novice and early-career professionals with 18 and 34 months of work life experience. The results indicate that graduates’ professional identities and vision of their future work change over time. The set of categories, depicting the graduates’ vision and experiences of their professional trajectories, do not seem to follow a specific temporal and logical progression in their career. Rather, they appear in different order and at different points in time after graduation. The results, instead, endorse the discourse of lifelong learning and the need for flexibility and employability on the labour market.     

The Social Pathologies of Self-Realization: A diagnosis of the consequences of the shift in individualization

The aim of this article is to inquire into today's social pathologies, i.e. the negative consequences of the developmental processes of society. In a dialogue with Axel Honneth, the article asserts that a shift has occurred in individualization, a shift that implies a fundamental change in social pathologies: Social pathologies no longer derive from social barriers inhibiting self-realization but from self-realization itself. As a consequence, philosophy of education, rather than sociology, appears to be the relevant field of study. The article develops a social-analytical perspective on 'sickness in self-Bildung', which is conceived as a 'refusal to transcend oneself into sociality', and offers interpretations of present pathologies such as depression, anorexia, populist freedom of speech, and demonic rage.