Open Spaces For Interactions And Learning Diversities

"While changes related to cultural diversity are visible and at work in social, cultural and political contexts, cultural diversity as such is being ignored or rejected across many countries. It is the denial or hidden nature of diversity in educational settings and learning processes, reflected in the marginalisation of this topic, that this book wants to address. The book chapters are blind peer reviewed and draw from a variety of learning settings across the world. They are intended to open up spaces to talk, promote and struggle for the relevance of addressing learning diversities. This includes current and new directions for theoretical and methodological discussions. They concern spaces of interaction and diversity research across single and multiple moments, different contexts and various time scales. They also explore the diversity of theories used to address these issues and how we theorize the relationship between centres and margins in understanding the idea of opening spaces for dialogue."

The book chapters are blind peer reviewed and draw from a variety of learning settings across the world. They are intended to open up spaces to talk, promote and struggle for the relevance of addressing learning diversities. This includes current and new directions for theoretical and methodological discussions. They concern spaces of interaction and diversity research across single and multiple moments, different contexts and various time scales. They also explore the diversity of theories used to address these issues and how we theorize the relationship between centres and margins in understanding the idea of opening spaces for dialogue.

This open access handbook offers a one-stop-shop for both new and established researchers, educators, policy makers and administrators in the field of open, distance and digital education (ODDE) to gain a comprehensive overview of the history, theory and practice at all levels of ODDE, and at the same time stimulates in-depth discussions on various themes and issues of ODDE for today and future. Researchers, scholars and students in the field of ODDE can use this handbook as a major reference to conduct their own research and learning agendas. To cover the field comprehensively, the handbook is structured following the 3M framework developed by one of the chief editors Zawacki-Richter. The 3M framework categorizes the major research areas and issues in ODDE on three levels. Accordingly, the handbook is divided into six sections in total, two section at each of the three levels: 1) Macro Level – ODDE Systems and Theories, 2) Meso Level - Institutional Perspectives, Management and Organization, and 3) Micro Level – Learning and Teaching in ODDE. This is an open access book.

This book presents an interdisciplinary approach to the study of affectivity and human learning by bridging the gap between neuroscience, cultural and cognitive psychology. It brings together studies that go beyond the focus on cognitive-intellectual variables involved in learning processes and incorporate the study of the role played by affectivity and emotions in learning not only at educational settings but in all processes of transformation and human development, thus presenting affectivity as a catalyst and mediator of all daily learning processes. Chapters brought together in this contributed volume present both theoretical contributions and results of empirical research from different disciplines, such as neuroscience, cognitive psychology, cultural psychology, educational psychology, developmental psychology and philosophy, and are grouped into five thematic sections. The first part of the book brings together chapters discussing different aspects of the role played by affectivity in learning processes from the perspectives of cultural, educational and developmental psychology. The second part is dedicated to the role of affectivity for teachers during their training as educators and during their pedagogical practice in diverse contexts. The third part focuses on the relationship between affectivity and learning from a neuroscientific point of view. The fourth part discusses affectivity and learning in therapeutic and clinical contexts. Finally, the fifth part brings together chapters about affectivity and learning in everyday life. By bringing together this rich interdisciplinary collection of studies, Affectivity and Learning: Bridging the Gap Between Neurosciences, Cultural and Cognitive Psychology will be a valuable resource for researchers in the fields of psychology, neuroscience and education, as well as for educators and teachers interested in knowing more about the relationship between affectivity and human learning.

This book has a single motif and a dual purpose. Its motif is the portrayal of influential authors within an environmental framework and worldview. The design is presented in different ways in which environmental understandings might be understood. The purposes are to engender in the reader a broad knowledge of some of the ideas and problems inherent in a discussion of nature and the environment and to stimulate the reader to go further into the sources of their tradition and worldview in search of meaning and insights that are uniquely relevant to their philosophy.

This book brings together multiple theoretical perspectives and disciplinary approaches to study the acquisition and development of written language by children as well as the implications for teaching and learning of writing practices in a variety of languages and cultural contexts. Chapters in this contributed volume present both theoretical contributions and results of research carried out with students and teachers from 11 countries (Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, UK and USA) who speak seven different languages: Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French, Dutch and Hebrew. By bringing together research developed in diverse cultural contexts it enriches the debates in the interdisciplinary field of writing studies by analyzing a wide range of topics at the interface between research and educational implications for the teaching and learning of writing by children. The book consists of five parts, each one addressing a specific set of topics. Part I presents studies on topics related to written language representation systems (phonological and morphological awareness) and on the relationship between grammar and the quality of texts of different genres. Part II includes studies related to compositional processes of writing texts, and the factors involved in these processes. Part III focuses on the difficulties faced by students during the acquisition and development of writing. Part IV is dedicated to chapters that discuss and compare writing practices in different social environments. Finally, chapters in part V deal with teaching and learning of writing in the school setting. Development of Writing Skills in Children in Diverse Cultural Contexts: Contributions to Teaching and Learning will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of psychology, education and linguistics, as well as to other social scientists in the broader interdisciplinary field of writing studies.

Many contemporary commentators present a damning account of the current state of higher education, to the extent that our universities may be considered to be broken. This book offers an alternative perspective to the dominant neoliberal discourse and provides the conceptual tools to help construct a trajectory of repair for our universities. These ideas are presented within this book as five moves to transform our current pathological situation and develop towards a more healthy and sustainable ecological learning environment. In this book, Ian Kinchin draws upon a wide range of sources from the philosophy of education, biological and clinical sciences as well as educational research and academic development. This alternative ecology of ideas presents a challenge to university leaders and asks if we care enough about the future of our universities to encourage an evolution of practice that deals sustainably with the wicked problems our universities face in the coming century. It describes a move towards an ecological university. The book includes a foreword written by Martyn Kingsbury, Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship, Imperial College London, UK.

In contrast to other studies on identity, this book takes its point of departure in the complexities that characterize and shape both individuals and societies – past and present. Its chapters challenge demarcated fields of study and conceptions of identity as gender, identity as functional disability, identity as race, and identity as, or based upon language groupings. The contributions take a social practices perspective in their exploration of the performance, living and doing of identity positions across time and space. Many of the contributions take an intersectional stance and the majority report upon empirically driven studies that examine the ways in which micro-level analyses of naturally occurring human communication contribute to our understanding of identification processes. Specifically, they study the ways in which more recent dialogical and social theoretical-analytical frameworks allow for attending to the complexity and dynamics of identity processes; the ways in which institutional settings, media settings, community of practices and affinity spaces provide affordances and obstacles for different types of identity positions; and the ways in which shifts in identity positions can be traced across time and space.