Anatomical societies find new ways to come together in a post-Covid world

The world has been turned upside down by a global health emergency caused by the Covid-19. Given the high contagiousness of the virus and the need to contain its spread, social distancing rules, self-isolation policies, and geographical lockdowns have been enforced globally. Over the pandemic emergency the majority of the planned in-person meetings and congresses of national and international anatomical societies have been postponed or canceled. It is unclear what the future holds, but times of crisis often present possibilities for re-thinking old ways to achieve a more critical approach. It has become increasingly clear that traditional in-person congress formats of scientific societies need to be reevaluated. Over the past year and a half, two types of congressional modalities have been trialed to address the challenge of the pandemic as far as scientific meetings are concerned: the fully virtual congress, in which case the conference program is live streamed to all of the attendees, and the hybrid congress, in which case some of the attendees physically participate at the congress's venue while others interact via a virtual platform. The current study set out to investigate the technical difficulties, social challenges, costs and sustainability, logistics and management issues linked to holding various types of congresses in the post-Covid world. Anatomical societies throughout the world are actively striving to reshape their response to the current global emergency and to uncover new types of conference modalities in the effort to keep scientific exchange alive and flourishing in the post-Covid era.     

The uses and abuses of boredom in the classroom

Although the educational and psychological hazards of boredom are well documented, an increasing number of researchers have argued that boredom may be a helpful, rather than harmful, emotion for the growing individual. In this paper, we engage with this re-conception of boredom and explore its implications for contemporary education: Can boredom enhance student learning, or support certain forms of it? Can it be put to use in the classroom? What are the risks involved? In addressing these questions, we show that boredom can fulfil several important psychological functions under certain special conditions. At the same time, we argue that careful attention to the moral psychology of boredom reveals that it has significant disadvantages for helping students to develop a meaningful and fulfilling relationship to subject matter in the classroom. Against the backdrop of this analysis, we discuss the concept and experience of aspiration as a potential way of tempering and eventually obviating the psychological pitfalls of boredom. In the final section, we draw out several principles of an aspirational approach to grappling with boredom in education.     

Learning about literacy: Children’s versions of the Literacy Hour

This article reports on an enquiry into the responses of a class of Year 1 children, aged 5‐6 years, to the first eight months of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS). Children were given incomplete drawings to represent the four parts of the Literacy Hour. In completing the drawings the children made their own interpretations of the Literacy Hour. They could choose to write thought or speech bubbles, draw faces and expressions, make written or dictated comments about the teacher and the children portrayed. The methodology enabled these young children to articulate detailed responses to their experience of a particular style of teaching. Each child documented a range of attitudes to and feelings about whole class teaching, group work and the plenary session. These insights, which were often challenging, put the emotional dimension of learning at the centre of their experiences of the NLS.     

Economics of cultural tourism: issues and perspectives

The special issue aims at exploring, with an economic perspective, the interconnections between cultural participation, in all its expressions, and tourism organization and patterns with the purpose of understanding economic effects, emerging trends and policy implications. The expanding notion of the cultural consumption of tourists makes the definition of cultural tourism increasingly elusive. Empirical investigations of the relationships between cultural participation and cultural heritage and tourism offer interesting hints in many directions. This introduction briefly overviews the premise of this special issue, the literature and the several perspectives taken by the included articles. Aside from their cultural topics—general, intangible or temporary—these essays all tackle some important economic dimensions of tourism. We encourage cultural economists to invest more in these fascinating areas as more than just intellectual tourists.     

The influence of academic culture on quality management system ISO 9001 maintenance within Malaysian universities

This study investigates the influence of the elements of academic culture on quality management system ISO 9001 maintenance within Malaysian universities. There is a dearth of empirical studies on maintaining ISO 9001, particularly in the higher education context. From the literature review, academic culture was classified according to four elements – academic freedom, individualism, professionalism and collegiality. Two case studies were conducted within Malaysian universities that had been ISO 9001-certified for 5 years. At the time of this research, these two were the only universities that had certification for their entire organisation. (Most organisations gain certification for specific departments). The findings showed that academic freedom, individualism and collegiality had worked against ISO 9001 maintenance, while professionalism had influenced ISO 9001 maintenance both positively and negatively. The opposites of individualism (teamwork) and collegiality (managerialism) had supported ISO 9001 maintenance in one of the cases.     

Bourdieu’s habitus and field: implications on the practice and theory of critical action learning

This paper considers the logic of practice of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in relation to critical action learning: in particular habitus which is co-created with field and the interplay amongst the two in the form of misrecognition and risk. We draw on interviews with participants who have experienced action learning as part of an NHS leadership programme. We argue that Bourdieu provides helpful ways of understanding and explaining the complex processes of social interactions which are centre stage in action learning – especially the ‘social friction’ through which action learners gain new insights and new prompts to action in their workplace from learning set members. These insights can support action learning practitioners keen to explore their own practice.     

Technological agglomeration and the emergence of clusters and networks in nanotechnology

Research and development at the nanoscale requires a large degree of integration, from convergence of research disciplines in new fields of enquiry to new linkages between start-ups, regional actors and research facilities. Based on the analysis of two clusters in nanotechnologies (MESA+ (Twente) and other centres in The Netherlands and Minatec in Grenoble in France), the paper discusses the phenomenon of technological agglomeration: co-located scientific and technological fields associated to coordinated technology platforms to some extent actively shaped by institutional entrepreneurs. Such co-location and coordination are probably a pre-requisite for the emergence of strong nanoclusters.