Managing Uncertainty for Preventive Conservation

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how conservators engage with uncertainty when creating preventive conservation strategies. It argues that by recognising contexts in which uncertainty will be encountered conservators can develop effective management strategies. A typology of uncertainty explores a range of categories of uncertainty, their experience in preventive conservation and identifies distinct approaches to manage them. Managing uncertainty may include acts of defining its parameters, exposing and resolving through communication or protecting from with contingency. Whatever approach is adopted it must be accepted that uncertainty cannot be avoided. It is important therefore to aim to live well with uncertainty and the paper advocates for preventive conservation applications of strategies recommended in health care for patients with life-threatening illnesses. These strategies include working on things that can be controlled, goal setting, acceptance and factoring in emotions. The ability to identify contexts in which uncertainty is inbuilt should trigger those concerned with preventive conservation to activate strategies developed for managing and living well with uncertainty.     

Dialogue in conservation decision-making

An analysis of the impact of stakeholder consultation during the conservation decision-making processes is presented. Defining and finding opportunities for stakeholder communication within conservation work is an ethical necessity when working with cultural heritage, but the limits and practice of this necessity are less clear. Case studies are used to explore which aspects of the conservation process stakeholders are most likely to be consulted about, and reviews the impact of their views. It asks whether conservators have a preference in which decisions they are prepared to share with stakeholders across three aspects of conservation: the initial appraisal, treatment and the display or storage. Where consultation relates to treatment, conservators are more likely to fall back on their own technical authority except when those consulted are regarded as fellow professionals. Other categories of stakeholder such as artists, originating communities, and religious groups were found to be more constructively consulted on the understanding of the object and on care related to display and storage. Conservators should be offered more explicit guidance on the ethics of consultation, the aspects of consultation that they should engage with and on the ethical ways to deal with conflict arising from consultation.     

Effective preservation decision strategies

Decisions about preservation issues are made both deliberatively and unconsciously. Heuristics operate as intuitive processes which are rapid and can be reliable and effective. Deliberative decisions require time to complete and can be described by an analytic-deliberative model. The characteristics of these two processes and their relevance to preventive conservation decision-making are discussed. Each of these two processes has its strengths and weaknesses. People naturally make decisions and utilise a range of strategies without necessarily having insights into the process. This paper provides a frame to help examine, describe, and reflect upon our own and others’ decision-making in order to improve both processes and outcomes.     

Mathematical Modeling in the Primary School: Children's Construction of a Consumer Guide

This paper examines 6th grade children's local conceptual development and mathematization processes as they worked a comprehensive mathematical modeling problem (creating a consumer guide for deciding the best snack chip) over several class periods. The children and their teachers were participating in a 3-year longitudinal teaching experiment in which sequences of mathematical modeling problems were implemented from the 5th grade (10 years of age) though to the 7th grade. In contrast to traditional problem solving, mathematical modeling requires children to generate and develop their own mathematical ideas and processes, and to form systems of relationships that are generalizable and reusable. Reported here is a detailed analysis of the iterative cycles of development of one group of children as they worked the problem, followed by a summary of the mathematization processes displayed by all groups. Children's critical reflections on their models are also reported. The results show how children can independently develop constructs and processes through meaningful problem solving. Children's development included creating systems for operationally defining constructs; selecting, categorizing, and ranking factors; quantifying quantitative and qualitative data; and transforming quantities.     

“No,We Should Do It”: Youth Training Youth in Activist Research Methods

The Urban Review - This article explores a 9-month process of youth research capacity-building, beginning with the training of high school and college aged researchers in qualitative methodologies...     

Gender Equity and the Boys Debate: what sort of challenge is it?

Recently public and policy discussions about gender equity have become strongly concerned with boys. This article discusses some aspects of the form, the context and the implications of these developments in Australia (and notes some points of similarity and difference with developments in the UK). It focuses on three main areas: the ways examination and other ‘indicators’ have been used in public policy constructions of gender inequality; secondly, the issue of what types of reforms constitute gender equity as a project; and thirdly, the issue of research agendas and the entry of masculinity to gender research.