Role of the Undergraduate Student Research Assistant in the New Millennium

In this study, we analyze the contribution of the undergraduate student who participates in the process of generating scientific data and developing a research project using Brazilian research as an example. Historically, undergraduate students have performed the critical role of research assistants in developing countries. This aspect has been underappreciated as a means of generating scientific data in Brazilian research facilities. Brazilian educational institutions are facing major age-related generational changes among the science faculty within the next 5–10 yr. A lack of adequate support for graduate students leads to a concern that undergraduates will not be interested in choosing research assistant programs and, subsequently, academic research careers. To remedy this situation it is important to focus on ways to encourage new research careers and enhance university–industry collaborations.     

The Tacit-explicit Dimension of the Learning of Mathematics: An Investigation Report**

This paper reports on study that investigated the tacit-explicit dimension of the learning of mathematics. The study was carried out in a secondary school and consisted of an episode analysis related to a class discussion about the difference between plane figures and spatial figures. The data analysis was based on integration between some aspects of Polanyi’s theory on tacit knowledge and Ernest’s model of mathematical knowledge, with reference to its mainly explicit and mainly tacit components. This integration has involved not only the types of knowledge – mainly explicit or mainly tacit – the students used in a psychological way to perform a mathematical task involving conversation, but also and particularly how much the projection of those types of knowledge on the task were manifest tacitly or formalized by the students. Among the results of the research, a strong finding was that the lack of correspondence between the students’ utterances and their original understandings is directly related to the manner in which the tacit co-operates with the explicit in the process of articulation.This paper is a development of three short papers presented at ICME-10, Copenhagen, Denmark, 4–11 July 2004, and PME-28, Bergen, Norway, 14–18 July 2004.     

Reconsidering the technologies of intellectual inquiry in curriculum design

This paper reports on the design and delivery of classroom pedagogies and students’ engagement with it in two different UK universities. Under the banner of curriculum design and Bourdieu's curriculum principles, the study set out to create modules that provided students with an interdisciplinary perspective on how the web is changing the way citizens live, interact and learn. Focusing on the idea that the web is becoming a tool of intellectual inquiry and an instrument of reproduction of knowledge inequality, the goal of this research was to transform knowledge practices by encouraging a learning habitus that relies on knowing how to learn rather than becoming ‘knowledgeable.’

The paper concludes that the Bourdieuian perspective on curriculum design still holds currency in the digital age, given that it shares an epistemology of practice similar to that advocated by a digital participatory culture. We also offer a critique to our approach, using Bourdieu's logic of practice to examine how education as a field displays (hidden) rules that students embody as their learning habitus. As students’ learning practices become doxified through their educational trajectories, learners find it difficult to engage with a curriculum that aims to diversify pedagogical structures and reflect a changing society.     

Student estrangement in higher education: identity formation and the struggle against stigma

Abstract

While investigation on family estrangement is growing within academic circles, research regarding the interconnection between experiences of estrangement and higher education (HE) is still limited. Sociological understandings of these issues are even scarcer, with policy interventions and practical guidance forming early interventions in HE. Set within the context of Scotland, this paper explores the experiences of HE students who are estranged from their family, and interrogates the ways students develop a sense of identity in the context of their academic lives. The paper applies Goffman’s work on stigma and identity management in relation to Bourdieu’s concept of capitals to cast a critical eye on the identity formation of estranged students. In doing so, we challenge normative assumptions of what it means to be a university student in contemporary society and urge institutions and policy makers to rethink the complexity of students’ academic lives in more inclusive ways.     

Lexical-semantic reading in a shallow orthography: evidence from a girl with Williams Syndrome

The reading skills of a girl with Williams Syndrome are assessed by a timed word-naming task. To test the efficiency of lexical and nonlexical reading, we considered four marker effects: Lexicality (better reading of words than nonwords), frequency (better reading of high than low frequency words), length (better reading of short than long words), and contextuality (better reading of words with one-to-one grapheme-to-phoneme mapping than words with context-sensitive graphemes). Results suggested that this girl has failed to develop efficient orthography-to-phonology mappings and is dependent upon a lexical-semantic reading procedure in which a word’s pronunciation is activated after its meaning is obtained.     

Innovative competence, exploration and exploitation: The influence of technological diversification

This paper investigates how technological diversification influences the rate and specific types of innovative competence. We test a set of hypotheses in a longitudinal study of a sample of biotechnology firms. Our findings provide strong support for the premise that a diversified technology base positively affects innovative competence. Furthermore, technological diversification is found to have a stronger effect on exploratory than on exploitative innovative capability. This empirical evidence suggests that technological diversity may mitigate core rigidities and path dependencies by enhancing novel solutions that accelerate the rate of invention, especially that which departs from a firm's past activities.     

Globalisation of knowledge production and regional innovation policy: Supporting specialized hubs in the Bangalore software industry

This paper is concerned with the changing role of regional innovation systems and regional policies in supporting the transition of indigenous firms in developing countries from competing on low costs towards becoming knowledge providers in global value chains. Special attention is paid to policies supporting the emergence and development of the regional innovation system in this transition process. Regional innovation systems in developing countries have very recently started to be conceptualised as specialized hubs in global innovation and production networks (Asheim, B., Coenen, L., Vang-Lauridsen, J., 2007. Face-to-face, buzz and knowledge bases: socio-spatial implications for learning, innovation and innovation policy. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 25 (5), 655-670; Chaminade, C., Vang, J., 2006a. Innovation policy for small and medium size SMEs in Asia: an innovation systems perspective. In: Yeung, H. (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Asian Business. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham; Maggi, C., 2007. The salmon farming and processing cluster in Southern Chile. In: Pietrobello, C., Rabellotti, R. (Eds.), Upgrading and Governance in Clusters and Value Chains in Latin America. Harvard University Press). A specialized hub refers to a node in a global value chain that mainly undertakes one or a few of the activities required for the production and development of a given good or service or serves a particular segment of the global market. In global value chains, firms in developing countries have traditionally been responsible for the lowest added-value activities. However, a few emerging regional innovation systems in developing countries are beginning to challenge this scenario by rapidly upgrading in the value chain. There is, however, still only a poorly developed understanding of how the system of innovation emerges and evolves to support this transition process and what the role of regional innovation policy is in building the regional conditions that support indigenous small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in this transition process. This paper aims at reducing this omission by analyzing the co-evolution of the strategies of indigenous SMEs and the regional innovation system of Bangalore (India).