Online Lightning Talks: Room 6
Understanding the Success of Gender and Development Programs: How Motivations and Resources Shape the Autonomy of Countrywomen in Chile
Virtual Lightning Talk Gloria Miryam Mora Guerrero, Juan Carlos Peña Axt, María Cecilia Fernández Darraz
Although the governments of third-world countries have promoted programs aimed at helping countrywomen to overcome their poverty and subordinate situation, there are no conclusive studies regarding the effects of these programs on the women’s lives. This research explores whether participants in these programs develop motivations and have access to resources that increase their chance of changing the unfair conditions which they face in their personal, family, and community lives. Based on constructive grounded theory, the study was performed with twenty-seven users of the Programa de Formación y Capacitación para Mujeres Campesinas (Education and Training Program for the Countrywomen) of southern Chile. The findings show a motivational development process that, while conditioned by available resources, guides women towards the search for personal, family, and social autonomy.
"Endurance Work": Embodiment and Endurance in the Physical Culture of High-altitude Mountaineering View Digital Media
Virtual Lightning Talk Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson, Lee Crust, Christian Swann
The 2015 Nepal earthquake and avalanche on Mount Everest generated one of the deadliest mountaineering disasters in modern times, bringing to media attention the physical-cultural world of high-altitude climbing. Contributing to the current sociological concern with embodiment, in this paper, we investigate the lived experience and social "production" of endurance in this sociologically interesting physical-cultural world. Via a phenomenological-sociological framework, we analyse endurance as cognitively, corporeally, and interactionally lived and communicated, in the form of "endurance work." Data emanate from in-depth interviews with nineteen high-altitude mountaineers, ten of whom experienced the 2015 avalanche. The paper responds to the call to address an important lacuna identified in sociological work: the need to investigate the embodied importance of cognition in the incorporation of culture. The concept of endurance work provides a powerful exemplar of this cognitive-corporeal nexus at work as a physical-culturally shaped, embodied practice and mode-of-thinking in the social world of high-altitude climbing.
Linking University Student and Professor Performance: Assessing Bilingual Implementation through Action Research
Virtual Lightning Talk Mary Griffith
This study deals with the professional development of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and the specific implications for professors at the university level. Some universities find themselves in what Donald Schön calls a “squeeze-play”: An educational institution in which educational policy plays a small role. There are some specific considerations related to professionals in higher education, their needs and their expectations. Without the practical element, professional development in education is detached from the setting and the real challenges professors face every day. We will focus the discussion on student performance to include interaction, final results, as well as student opinion. The initial purpose of the research project was professor assessment through student data. It is this student data that will be the focus of this paper and the three research questions are as follows: Will Spanish students interact in a CLIL class? How will CLIL student results compare with control group taught in first language? How do students rate themselves and their instructors after the CLIL experience? All of this data were used in an action research project whereby professors shared in the data analysis and found students’ response to their teaching enriching to their professional practice.
The Impact of Cross-cultural Differences on the Success of Women Entrepreneurs
Virtual Lightning Talk Mantha Mehallis
This study determines if national cultural differences in developed versus developing nations (using OECD's definition) impact women's entrepreneurship. The research question in this descriptive research study is: how do cultural differences impact the ability of women entrepreneurs to be successful in their own environments? Women entrepreneurs are defined as women who organize and operate a business and who assume its risks. Hofstede's five cultural dimensions are used to define the cultural differences among Latin Europe, Germanic Europe, Nordic Europe, the Middle East, and Anglo cultural leadership profiles. Entrepreneurial success will be defined by the World Bank's "Doing Business" methodology. The methodology includes sampling women from countries in these regions and having them respond to a questionnaire. The culturally-based samples will be analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Since this is a non-random sampling. Results will be used as the basis for developing a future inferential study whereby generalizations can be made at the conclusion.
Consumerism in Morocco and Tunisia: Legal Aspects
Virtual Lightning Talk Salma Ben Ayed Salma
Morocco and Tunisia changed from a traditional society to a modern consumerist one. The abundance of goods and the complexity of services are one of these economic changes. A new age of globalization began. The debate was largely analytical of a perfect situation without taking into account alternative solutions. But the adoption of a “modern economic law” was unsatisfactory to face crisis. Consumers in this part of the world are witnessing inevitable changes without being actors of their situation. It was obvious that globalization created a “modern social injustice.” The social aspects of a consumerist society were ignored by the Moroccan legislators before 2011 and the response of the Tunisian legislators since 1992 was evidently ineffective. It is of fundamental importance to present the effectiveness of the economic law with reference to consumerism in particular by using a comparative approach of developing economies after the access to a global market. This paper will discuss an ineffective legal order with reference to a social approach. The consumer law, in a healthy economy, tends to focus on social rights through a protective system which prevent abuses.
Creating a Culture of Assessment: Analyzing Opposition to Organizational Change in the Academy
Virtual Lightning Talk Michael Perini
This case study will analyze the challenges and complexities involved with the installation of a culture of assessment at a small, private not-for-profit university in the United States. Over the past few years, the university has been revamping both its educational and organizational assessment strategies, to mixed results. Offering theory-backed anecdotal evidence, along with data collected from quarterly and annual institution-wide assessment reports, the paper considers the difficulties that have hampered the progress during this time of transition. Based on the Bolman and Deal’s (2013) Reframing Organizations model, the discussion analyzes the elements of the organization’s culture. Though the university’s administration promotes the adoption of a systemic assessment approach, the culture implicitly or explicitly resists change. The study posits that several factors including managerial structure, turnover and position transfer among personnel, and faulty communication practices all inhibit progress. While the theoretical insights and resolutions discussed evaluate a specific university in the higher education field, the paper offers a constructive conversation appropriate for the analysis of organizations in other professional settings.
Analysis of the Construction of New Narratives and Characters in the Multicultural Context of Youtube
Virtual Lightning Talk Alberto Montero, Alberto Montero
Artistic representations involve innovative technology. The aim of this research is to understand how to make popular videos using new narratives and characters emphasizing multiculturalism and diverse gender, ethnic and social class experience. The approach involves gathering 180 videos in order to understand what kind of contents are the most popular on the platform Youtube. One analysis model has been developed using a quantitative and qualitative methodology to describe variables of the narrative elements such as space, time, actions and characters. This approach to theme is the result of a previous research in the field of art and technologies on audiovisual narratives and the search of multicultural identities through transmedia content. The purpose is understand the apparently arbitrary internal narratives of many videos of different themes on Youtube pointing out their differences to reveal their deep structures. In addition, this work identifies the preferences and the types of consumption of international and national users. The overall objective is to compile and analyze this data to expose new multicultural communicative possibilities and to be able to make new audiovisuals based on understanding acquired in becoming aware of creative acts across levels.
Setting the Scene: Participatory Arts for the Well-being of People with Dementia and their Carers
Virtual Lightning Talk Meghann Catherine Ward
Participatory arts activities are amongst the services being provided in both urban and rural community contexts for people living with dementia and their carers. There is much variability in the programmes and services offered nationwide and therefore a need to gain clearer understanding of the benefits, limitations, and general practicalities of the different individual participatory arts activities being provided. Underpinned by non-representational theory and therapeutic landscapes literature, this participatory action research project explores and evaluates the effectiveness of a unique participatory arts programme entitled ‘Setting the Scene’, which is currently being implemented at Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, England. The project involves adults with dementia, professional and family carers, and the main stakeholders or practitioners of dementia care in the local community. Using ethnographic methods and visual recordings, the project investigates how the activities used by Theatre by the Lake’s participatory arts programme can influence the health, well-being and quality of life of people living with dementia, in addition to their carers. The project also considers how best to sustain the engagement and participation of people with dementia in creative arts settings. The research team considers participants as co-researchers and uses their input to aid in the gradual development and refinement of the ‘Setting the Scene’ programme, working towards a transferable logic model intended to guide the implementation of the programme in external organisations.
Spanish Education TEFL Policies at Preschools : A Comparison of Monolingual and Bilingual Regions
Virtual Lightning Talk Beatriz Cortina-Pérez
Being plurilingual has become one of the major goals in today’s Europe, not only with the purpose of facilitating the entrance to and the mobility within the European labour market, but also to protect and promote linguistic diversity. Within these measures, the EU has promoted the early development of foreign languages. In Spain, being a diverse cultural and linguistic territory, education administration is overseen by regional governments; thus, this early introduction is viewed and managed differently depending on each region. This study reviews the degree of introduction of the foreign language in preschools (3-6 years old) into the educational system of monolingual (n=13) versus bilingual autonomous regions (n=6). To this end, a documentary analysis of a total of 89 official legislative texts and 19 web pages was conducted as well as nineteen semi-structured interviews with experts from different regions based on four variables: multilingual plans, time regulation, teacher training and requirements, and finally, methodological guidelines and specific resources.
Marketing for Social Wellbeing: A Study of Confucian Living Practices
Virtual Lightning Talk Long Yang, Mary FitzPatrick
This paper presents an interdisciplinary research project that explored the potential of Confucian living practices to address the negative consequences of consumerism. This global social phenomenon is based on the Western ideology of consumer culture that encourages people to expect quality of life from buying and consuming material possessions. However, in the field of psychology and sociology, increasing numbers of studies link consumerism to the alarming increases in alienation, conflict, and manipulation among individuals. Many marketing scholars and professionals also argue that a lifestyle based on material consumption decreases individual life satisfaction and collective social wellbeing because consumerist beliefs and values support individuals gratifying self at the expense of maintaining the critical relationships with families, friends, and communities that contribute to long-term health and happiness. Following a qualitative methodology, this research used the memory-work method to work with twenty-seven Chinese participants and collectively enable them to make sense of their daily social interactions. Data showed that Confucian traditions were significant in the participants’ pursuit of interpersonal harmony at familial and communal levels. Findings revealed that for these participants, a better quality of social life was experienced by reconciling interpersonal conflicts to establish mutually beneficial relationships and by accepting the moral responsibility to help each other in their everyday social practices. Thus, this research indicates that marketing scholars and professionals might address urgent social issues related to consumerism by a renewed focus in Western culture on building harmonious relationships for social wellbeing.
The Market Process Approach in Austrian Economics: A Methodological Appraisal
Virtual Lightning Talk Ionela Baltatescu
Market process approach also known as disequilibrium view of markets is associated with the writings of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek, Israel M. Kirzner, and other Austrian School economists. The objectives of this study are: (1) to explain the meaning of market process in Austrian economics; (2) to assess methodologically and epistemologically the market process approach of Austrian School economists; (3) to briefly pinpoint the main differences between equilibrium analysis and disequilibrium view of the markets.
The Model for Collaborative Evaluations as an Instrument for Assessing Continuums of Care and Homeless Programs
Virtual Lightning Talk Liliana Rodríguez-Campos, Chantae Still
Since the implementation of the 1987 Veto-Mckinny act, the United States has dedicated billions of dollars toward reducing chronic homelessness (Buckner, 2008). From program assessments to large scale evaluations of Continuums of Care collective efforts to efficiently provide services to homeless citizens, the U.S. government has demonstrated a desire to ensure that funding support is provided to organizations that can effectively work to strengthen American communities. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how the Model for Collaborative Evaluations (MCE) can be used as a tool for individuals using a collaborative approach to evaluate the community development projects that are advancing the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s mission of creating strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.
