Shifting Cultures (Asynchronous Session)
An Interdisciplinary Approach for the Educational and Social Success of Young Aboriginal People in Quebec
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nathalie Sasseville
The educational success of young people living in Aboriginal communities is a major challenge given the systemic and socio-economic barriers they are facing. The complexity of their situation requires the implementation of interdisciplinary actions integrating the knowledge of social sciences and of education into the Aboriginal culture. The purpose of this communication is to show how, based on an interdisciplinary support process, it is possible to support the educational and social success of young Aboriginal people by giving them equal opportunities to succeed, by encouraging the reinforcement of their personal and family potential and by focusing on their resilience. Modelled on the project Pathways to Education (PASS) of young Pekuakamiulnuatsh people of the Ilnu community of Mashteuiatsh (Quebec, Canada), the support mechanisms and their adaptation to the Ilnu cultural reality will be presented as well as the challenges encountered and their strategies to cope with them. The paper highlights how the approach surpassed disciplinary paradigms by "bringing them to share a common vision while maintaining the wealth and the strength of the perspective of their fields of knowledge." This project is a great example of social innovation as it is the only one to be part of the Quebec’s First Nations communities among the PASS projects funded by Pathways Canada.
Using Bourdieu’s Notion of Habitus as a Thinking Tool to Examine Narrative Techniques in Three Short Stories by Georgios Vizyenos View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Stavroula Sotiropoulou
This paper uses a sociological approach to consider three short stories written by Georgios Vizyenos in the end of the 19th century. Drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, this paper aims to explore how Vizyenos made use of elements of folklore in order that his autobiographic stories represent the social and cultural environment of the place he was born and raised: Vizye, a village near Constantinople in the late 19th century, inhabited mostly by Greek Orthodox people under the Ottoman Empire. Influenced by his studies in Psychology in Germany, Vizyenos attempted to make psychographs of himself, his family, and friends, converting their lived experiences into narrations, in which health, disease, and death are predominant features. Following the literature review, a thematic analysis of these three texts was conducted, focusing on these three special issues while specific thematic categories as religious practises, popular medicine, and superstitious beliefs were being traced. The conclusions refer to the way this cultural capital, linked to a specific habitus, affected the way of thinking and acting of the writer-narrator himself and his characters and to the formulation of his narrative techniques in a way that they would render this specific effect of the habitus.
The Interwar Restoration of Polish University Education : Fruit of Over 100 Years of Scientific and Educational Resilience View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Piotr Kądziela
The end of the Great War became an opportunity for the Polish nation to regain their own independent state after 123 years under foreign occupations. That time, the so-called partitions period when Poland had been torn between Prussia, Austria, and Russia, was particularly oppressive for Polish science and education. Polish language was officially forbidden at schools and universities, students were forced to study in occupant languages within three different educational systems of the three occupant states, and many Polish academics had to conduct their research in foreign centres such as Moscow or Berlin. But the Poles remained resilient. The purpose of the paper is to prove that over a century-long resilience of Polish scientists, professors, and teachers allowed for the creation of a unified and coherent system of national university education immediately after the end of the global crisis of the Great War. I discuss this process by a brief analysis of the situation of the five Polish state universities – Krakow, Warsaw, Poznan, Lviv, and Vilnius – with particular emphasis on the latter, the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius, whose case is the subject of my PhD thesis (currently in preparation). Also, I would like to mention the role the most eminent Polish researchers whose scientific results had a measurable impact on European and global science. The research is based on the analysis of state educational laws issued after the year 1918, selected primary sources, and scientific literature.
Featured Using Digital Ethnography Methods to Explore Hybrid Identities among Irish Immigrant Women in London View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aisling Keavey
This paper presents research on Irish diaspora identity focusing on the hybridity of identity among Irish diaspora women in England. This research takes phenomenological qualitative approaches to explore Irish women’s migration. Keri E Smith suggests reasons for the emergence of hybrid identity (Smith, 2008). A number of theorists deal with identity and diaspora, among them, Homi K Bhabha, who says that the colonial subject is located in a place of hybridity, its identity is formed in a space of iteration and translation by the coloniser, defining hybridity of identity as “a form of in-between space”. The practical element of this research centres around photographing Irish women who have emigrated to London. Through their portraits and interviews centred around the immigrant experience, this project hopes to use the sentimental object as a method of loci, to enhance memories of the homeland and the diasporic journey, and uses both digital and analogue ethnographic methodology, beginning with a historical review of representations of Irish people. The study participants were sourced online, using Irish studies forums and calling for participants on Twitter and Instagram. Fieldwork interview questions were concerned with Irish identity post-Brexit and also the notion of hybrid identities. The expected outcome is a body of moving image work, a photographic book of portraits and recorded interview texts. This research is new in terms of the focus on women and the impact of hybrid identities of the Irish diaspora.
Centuries of Voices Denied: Classical Music as a Forum for Social Justice View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rose Grace, Terrance Lane
The core issues in the fight for social justice addressing religion, gender, ethnicity, race, and political regimes are as old as humankind. Exploring the experiences of marginalized composers throughout the ages, offers a way to contextualize social injustices still plaguing today’s modern societies. From its inception, music, as a multidisciplinary field, has served as a form of expression and communication, preserving a cultural record keeping of societal structure and function. The study addresses social activism by exploring important, published literary and musical works through textual and compositional analysis. Furthermore, the discussion draws attention to an important concept of inter-sectionalism, which is essential to both social justice discipline and musical process. The literary writings by such individuals as James Baldwin, W.E.B. DuBois, Elie Wiesel, Isabel Wilkerson and others, are used as the foundation to introduce musical works, whose diverse compositional techniques aim to use classical music as a universal call to action. The paper demonstrates how societies viewed these marginalized individuals, and in turn, how the composers responded through their musical voice. The social injustices experienced in societies, past and present, represented through musical arts, may elicit social conscience among the modern world to build more inclusive and equitable societies.
Youth High Unemployment/Unemployability in South Africa: Graduates’ Perspectives of Hopelessness View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Zethembe Mseleku
South Africa is one of the countries with high level of unemployment in the world. Unsurprisingly, graduate unemployment grows alongside the overall unemployment rate in South Africa. Poverty and inequality are other development issues characterising South African struggling economy. Youth are the main victims of unemployment and other social ills in the country. Clearly, the massification of education in South Africa has not provided a drastic solution to unemployment. Grounded in the classical and Keynesian theory of unemployment, this paper examine youth unemployment as a development problem in South Africa. It explores youth graduates’ concerns for employment prospects. This was a qualitative study, and 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted with unemployed graduates from five South African universities. The results indicate that, as graduate unemployment continues to increase in South Africa, graduates are becoming hopeless on their abilities to secure employment. They attribute unemployment to multidimensional factors including limited labour market demand, skills mismatch, and lack of work experience. This research has implications for higher education, government, and labour market. The growing graduate unemployment questions the value of higher education. As evidenced in this paper, there is a gap between higher education institutions and labour market, which leads to skills mismatch induced unemployment. Therefore, this paper concludes that government can play a role in bridging the gap between higher education and industry in order to address youth graduate unemployment. A more cooperative effort from these three key stakeholders is required to create job opportunities for graduates in South Africa.
Globalized and Culturally Homogenized?: How Generation Z in Poland Spends Their Free Time View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Leszek S. Dąbrowski, Stefania Sroda Murawska
Globalization and cultural homogenization are vital processes that drive the unification of leisure behavior around the world, especially among the youngest generation, Generation Z. This is particularly important for post-socialist countries like Poland because until 1989, there was no access to Western ways of spending free time. Polish Generation Z is the first generation born and raised entirely in a free country. Therefore, the question arises whether the 30 years that have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall have been sufficient to unify generation Z’s leisure time behavior under globalization’s influence. This study seeks to determine the leisure behavior of Generation Z in Poland in the context of cultural homogenization. The analysis includes 1153 surveys with representatives of Generation Z from Polish cities. The study shows that Polish Generation Z is firmly attached to technology and the Internet; the structure of their leisure activities is dominated by multimedia entertainment: using the Internet, listening to music, watching YouTube or VOD platforms. Globalization processes leading to progressive cultural homogenization contribute to the spread of similar forms of spending free time originating in the so-called Western culture, which is also visible in Poland after 30 years of political transformation.
Between Political Realism and Political Romanticism - PiS in Power in Poland 2015-2019 View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Piotr Kimla, Anna Citkowska Kimla
The paper shows in what way the policy of the ruling party "Prawo i Sprawiedliwość" ("Law and Justice") in Poland is a conglomerate of political realism and political romanticism. Kaczynski's utterances and actions taken during the first term are examined by means of the models of political realism and political romanticism created by the authors in their previous works (both authors are leading specialist in political realism and romanticism in Poland). We are in the process of veryfying our hypothesis that romantic slogans, for instance, about christianity, Polish historical mission, justice, social solidarity are a camouflage and a tool that serve a strictly realistic goal: staying in power. Therefore political romanticism seems to be treated entirely instrumentally.
Children in Conflict and Resilience: An Analysis through the Capabilities Approach View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Moksha Singh
Research suggests that children and young people affected by armed conflict in the developing world are rehabilitated mainly through institutional arrangements. This paper further investigates the possible attention that the agency of those affected receives, at any given point of the process. The study applies the capabilities approach as the theoretical model. It goes with the understanding that when capabilities and choices are embodied by a child or the young, it results in rehabilitative mechanisms that are more resilient and constructive. The empirical knowledge is established through interviews with children who have been affected by the ongoing conflict in Chhattisgarh in India and are put in various institutions as part of the rehabilitation process. The findings suggest that the rehabilitative measures adopted by the State are implemented in a uniform manner across various categories of children and the young. Combined with this, the agency of those institutionalized is neglected resulting in a contradictions between the ‘functionings’ (e.g. doing decision making) and their ‘capabilities’ (e.g. being conscious of the situation), resulting in arrangements that are bound to fall short. Based on this analysis, the drawbacks of the rehabilitation process in the state are discussed. The suggestions made in the paper shall aid in future policy initiatives and for the holistic resilience of those affected.
