A Bourdieusian approach to academic reading: reflections on a South African teaching experience

As in many other parts of the world, ‘academic literacy’ has emerged as both a concern and a contested concept in South African universities. In this article we focus specifically on academic reading, which we argue is a relatively underemphasized aspect of academic literacy. This article is the product of reflections on academic reading during and subsequent to the development and presentation of a postgraduate module presented at Stellenbosch University. It briefly explores the literature on academic literacy; develops the Bourdieusian perspective on academic reading that we used to develop the module; and concludes with a discussion of the module. Our intention was to make ‘reading as social practice’ more visible to students. Bourdieu's concepts of ‘competence’, ‘habitus’ and ‘field’ set the scene for a discussion of the role of reading in different disciples and more generally within the social sciences and humanities.     

Social Learning among Organic Farmers and the Application of the Communities of Practice Framework

ABSTRACT

The paper examines social learning processes among organic farmers and explores the application of the Community of Practice (CoP) model in this context. The analysis employed utilises an approach based on the CoP model, and considers how, or whether, this approach may be useful to understand social learning among farmers. The CoP model is applied to case studies of social learning fora among organic farmers. The case studies are compiled from in-depth semi-structured interviews and participant observation with farmers and other actors, and the data are analysed with reference to three dimensions of the CoP model, namely mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoires. Farmers associate and engage in social learning more readily with peers determined by similar attitudes to farm business, farming styles and understanding of what organic agriculture entails. Such associations support the hypothesis that CoPs are self-organising structures that generate their knowledge in sympathy with community definition and identity. A CoP framework applied within relatively unstructured and dispersed communities, such as described in this paper, emphasises the fluid nature of CoPs, and their essentially self-organising nature. Extension approaches may be facilitated by regarding farmers as de-facto members of CoPs and by understanding how CoPs may form and develop. The CoP model is applied as a heuristic to examine social learning processes in organic farming.     

Lernkultur: überlegungen zu einer kulturwissenschaftlichen Grundlegung qualitativer Unterrichtsforschung

Zusammenfassung In der Kritik an der schulp?dagogischen Rezeption des Kulturbegriffs, insbesondere an der normativ aufgeladenen Konzeption einer „neuen Lernkultur“, wird in diesem Aufsatz an einem sozialwissenschaftlichen, im engeren Sinne „praxistheoretischen“ Verst?ndnis von Kultur Anschluss genommen. Lernkultur konstituiert sich in p?dagogischen Praktiken, in regelgeleiteten, typisierten und routinisierten, k?rperlich aufgeführten und Interaktionen einschlie?enden Bearbeitungen verschiedener (p?dagogischer) Differenzen, etwa der zwischen der sozialen Ordnung eines p?dagogischen Angebotes und anderen Ordnungen, zwischen Vermittlung und Aneignung und der zwischen schulisch relevantem und anderem Wissen. Diesem Verst?ndnis von Lernkultur entspricht methodologisch die Entscheidung für eine in besonderer Weise vorgehende, videobasierte Erforschung p?dagogischer Praktiken. Das w?re als Konstituierung einer „empirischen Didaktik“ zu verstehen.      

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CONTENT OF MEDICAL PRACTICE IN THE UNITED STATES: PROFILES OF PHYSICIANS IN FIVE SPECIALITIES

The University of Southern California has conducted a series of 24 surveys of the professional activities of physicians and surgeons in the United States. The surveys encompass more than 10,000 respondents representing 65.8% of all practising physicians in the United States and its territories. Using a specially‐developed “log‐diary” recording instrument, these physicians reported data on the care they provided during hundreds of thousands of encounters with their patients. This article provides an exposition of the study's unique methodology, presents illustratative data for 5 of the 24 specialities surveyed (cardiology, family practice, general internal medicine, orthopaedic surgery and psychiatry), and discusses the study's relevance and implications for medical education.