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Proceedings of the 24th International Conference of Adults Learning Mathematics – A Research Forum (ALM).
In het TEPE-jaarboek Teacher Education Policy in Europe : a Voice of Higher Education Institutions , beschrijven Marco Snoek, Ursula Uzerli en Michael Schratz hoe op Europees niveau een proces van peer learning tussen lidstaten impulsen probeert te geven aan de nationale beleidsvorming rond lerarenkwaliteit en lerarenopleidingen. In hun artikel beschrijven ze het peer learning proces van het Cluster Teachers & Trainers van de Europese Commissie en reflecteren ze op uitkomsten en belemmeringen van dit peer learning proces dat deel uitmaakt van de Open Coördination Method die de Europese Commisie gebruikt om impulsen te geven op het terrein van onderwijsbeleid.
BACKGROUND: Consideration of older adults' quality of life (QoL) is becoming increasingly important in the evaluation, quality improvement and allocation of health and social care services. While numerous definitions and theories of QoL have been proposed, an overall synthesis of the perspective of older adults themselves is lacking.METHODS: Qualitative studies were identified in PubMed, Ebsco/Psycinfo and Ebsco/CINAHL, through a search on 28 November 2018. Articles needed to meet all of the following criteria: (i) focus on perceptions of QoL, (ii) older adults living at home as main participants, (iii) use of qualitative methodology, (iv) conducted in a Western country and (v) published in English (vi) not focused on specific patient groups. A thematic synthesis was conducted of the selected studies, using the complete 'findings/results' sections from the papers.RESULTS: We included 48 qualitative studies representing the views of more than 3,400 older adults living at home in 11 Western countries. The QoL aspects identified in the synthesis were categorized into nine QoL domains: autonomy, role and activity, health perception, relationships, attitude and adaptation, emotional comfort, spirituality, home and neighbourhood, and financial security. The results showed that although different domains can be distinguished, these are also strongly connected.CONCLUSION: QoL can be expressed in a number of domains and related subthemes that are important for older adults living at home. The findings further support that the concept of QoL should be seen as a dynamic web of intertwined domains.
Isabel Löfgren takes us to the Stockholm high-rise suburbs to show us how art projects and transnational media intermingle with the multicultural urban reality. In this book, she discusses the architecture of her project Satellitstaden, where her artistic interventions with the satellite dishes on façades highlight the voices of its inhabitants through participatory and co-generative artistic processes. In these peripheries, satellite subjects emerge, orbiting around multiple identifications, foregrounding the notion of spatial justice, the subaltern and the importance of grassroots movements.The book outlines a philosophy of hospitality in response to the turn in Europe against refugees, which Löfgren considers to be a crisis of hospitality, not a crisis of migration. Löfgren discusses the ethics that govern the relationship between guest and host, the self and Other. Who has the right to belong? On what terms? She argues for a hospitable turn in art, urban planning and media, in which guest-host relationships are performed, mediated and problematized.We urgently need to re-imagine the ethics of hospitality and habitability for the near future. The 2020 pandemic forces us to reassess our philosophy and practice of human contact, re-engineering how we relate to the Other, and what hospitality means in the face of a global halt.Isabel Löfgren is a Swedish-Brazilian artist, researcher and educator based in Stockholm and Rio de Janeiro. She is currently working at the Media and Communication Studies Department at Södertörn University in Sweden, next to her artistic practice. Her research interests include cultural politics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of diaspora in the fields of contemporary art, media philosophy, and media activism.
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The in-depth assessment of the situation of the European textile and clothing sector is composed by six independent reports with a close focus on key aspects useful to understand the dynamics and the development of the textile and clothing industry, drivers of change – most notably the impact of the financial crisis – and identification of policy responses and best practices. This has been done in six specific tasks leading to the six reports: Task 1 Survey on the situation of the EU textile and clothing sector Task 2 Report on research and development Task 3 Report on SME situation Task 4 Report on restructuring Task 5 Report on training and Education Task 6 Report on innovation practices This present report of task 5 provides an in-depth analysis of what has been done in terms of VET developments over the last decade in three key TC regions in Europe. It investigates industry ‘s attitudes and practices, education and training changes, and eventually tries to identify how mismatches between skills supply and demand have been addressed there and could possibly be addressed in the future in other regions of Europe.
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This paper explores the intersection of Human-Comput- er Integration (HInt) and Critical Disability Studies (CDS) to explore how a posthumanistic epistemology in design can produce knowledge and know-how for the application do- mains of Health and Well-being. To use disability as a catalyst for innovation, a rethinking in the philosophy of sciences is necessary to establish knowledge production that emerges from new fluid politics that operate in ‘composition’ instead of ‘organization’. By placing an emphasis on nomadic practic- es that move beyond fixed borders, the encounters between Disability Studies or Human-Computer Integration can pro- duce situated, embodied and contingent design knowledge that study deviant and complex embodiment, and the kinds of alterations of human characteristics and abilities through technology. The first section of this paper explores the re- thinking in the philosophy of sciences. The second section ar- gues for a posthumanistic epistemology in design, which can be seen as the perfect way to produce situated, embodied and contingent design knowledge on the intersection of HInt and CDS. The final section of this paper highlights the poten- tial for the disciplines of Somatechnics and Soma Design to engage in each other’s body of knowledge to produce trans- formative knowledge through a shared focus on deviant em- bodiment and disability. The takeaway message of this paper is that the intersection of HInt and CDS potentially leads to new – otherwise overlooked - insights on the human-technol- ogy relationship, and therefore can take part in the historical strive for man-machine symbiosis. The posthumanist episte- mology allows for alternative ways of thinking that move be- yond the current Humanist perspective, and builds on a plu- ral, relational and expansive foundation for the development of design practices that catalyze innovation in the application domains of Health and Well-being.
The focus of the thesis is an exploration into students’ vocational knowledge in the context of Dutch vocational education and training (VET). The reason students’ vocational knowledge requires exploration is because there is no consensus among scholars in the field of VET about how to theorise the nature of students’ vocational knowledge; most (not all) scholars rely on dichotomous conceptualisations, such as theory versus practice, general versus specific or explicit versus implicit. However, such commonly used dichotomies are not very helpful to understand the complex nature of vocational knowledge. Vocational knowledge is more than putting bits of theoretical and practical knowledge together, it is characterised by sometimes-intimate relationships between knowledge and actions. As a result of the above-mentioned gap in the VET literature, there is little empirical research on how VET students develop vocational knowledge and the extent to which this is occupation-specific knowledge. To understand students’ vocational knowledge, four different aims are formulated and carried out in four studies. The aim of the first study is to identify powerful vocational learning environments to enable the selection of a case that represents high quality vocational learning and teaching. With an eye on analysing students’ vocational knowledge, the second study aims to conceptualise the nature of vocational knowledge that avoids dichotomies. Therefore, two conceptual frameworks are integrated; the idea of contextualising is introduced which is based on cultural-historical theory to highlight the crucial role activity plays in knowledge development and to understand the relationships between the mind (i.e., what people think (and feel)), and action (i.e., what people do). Secondly, the theory is supplemented with ideas from inferentialism, a philosophical semantic theory of meaning to provide a useful way to focus on students’ processes of knowing and to reveal students’ vocational knowledge in terms of ongoing reasoning processes. The third study uses the conceptualisation of vocational knowledge to explore how students develop vocational knowledge in occupational practice, and to illustrate the process of contextualising. The forth study aims to describe what characterises students’ vocational knowledge using an analytic framework that distinguishes between occupation-specific knowledge components and qualities. This thesis contributes to research scholarship in the field of VET and an understanding of students’ vocational knowledge in practice. The theoretical framework of contextualising supplemented with inferentialism provides an alternative way to focus on students’ processes of knowing and helps to reveal students’ vocational knowledge in terms of reasoning processes. The empirical explorations and illustrations of students’ vocational knowledge contribute to the scholarly literature and practice on understanding the nature of vocational knowledge, how students develop vocational knowledge and what characterises their vocational knowledge. The intention to introduce the idea of contextualising is not about reinventing the wheel but rather an attempt to understand how it turns and how it functions. The intention of this thesis is to encourage dialogue and move the debate about the nature of vocational knowledge further, and hence, to provide some “food for thought”.
Educational policies in the Netherlands reveal that the current mainstream participatory approach to citizenship education jeopardises students’ autonomy. Especially in Dutch post-secondary vocational education, citizenship education has been shown to be mainly aimed at socialization: initiating students into tradition, internalising rules, societal norms and values. This article reports on the findings of a research project, which is grounded in the assumption that integrating Bildung, citizenship education and critical thinking is a promising way to grapple with the perceived overemphasis on socialization strategies. We justify the interrelationship of critical thinking, Bildung, citizenship education, and professional training from two perspectives – historical and contemporary. It is only by combining these concepts, we contend, that educational professionals can create teaching materials more geared to developing autonomy, and prepare students in vocational training to navigate the political and societal dilemma’s on the work floor. Furthermore, we also clarify our perspective by offering three educational principles, used in our project to guide the design of teaching materials, that form a context for integrating citizenship, critical thinking, and Bildung in vocational education. A practical illustration is subsequently discussed.
