Author(s): Barnes, Cliona
University of Limerick
Title: Knackers, scobes, and pure posh lads: A critical reflection on discussing community, social class position and identity with two groups of young, white Irish men.

This paper engages critically with the theoretical concept of social class as a socially, culturally and structurally divisive force in contemporary Irish social life. In doing so it draws on a recently completed study (August 2010), funded by the Irish Social Sciences Platform, which investigated the role of class and community background in the construction of young masculinities across social class boundaries in Limerick City. This small-scale study engaged 20 young working-class and middle-class men, aged 15 and 16, in a photographic project and in a series of linked, semi-structured discussions. Both the photographic project and the discussion groups asked the young men to consider and to explore their own classed and gendered identities as well as their place within, and relationship to, their local communities.    
Research findings from the study document engrained local processes of reproduction and reinforcement of social class divisions between the two groups, both of whom strive to differentiate themselves and to separate themselves from the perceived, differently classed ‘other’ in a number of key ways.
Key issues raised in this paper centre on the awareness among participants of their own social class position, an awareness demonstrated through the verbal establishment of difference and the maintenance of clear boundaries between the defined ‘us’ and ‘them’. The larger impact of this division is evident in the hostility, fear and mistrust expressed by young men in relation to discussion of the other and in the lack of social interaction across what are deeply entrenched divides. The young men in this study profess disinterest in, and ignorance of, the neighbourhood, daily life, community, and culture of the ‘other’ in language that has serious implications for ongoing and future efforts to increase social cohesion across Limerick City.

 


Author(s): Batardière, Marie-Thérèse and Jeanneau, Catherine
University of Limerick
Title: “It taught me to be more independent”: the use of Information and Communication Technologies to promote learner autonomy.

COLLOQUIUM: New Literacies
(See also Le Baron-Earle, Florence; Murray, Liam and Mishan, Freda).

The potential afforded by Information and Communication Technologies has opened the teaching and learning environments to new digital spaces (Cummings et al, 2002). Web 2.0 tools allow learners to engage in the learning process while increasing the human and communicative aspect of their learning (Connell, 2006). Social writing platforms such as blogs, wikis, and discussion forums facilitate a more collaborative approach to writing on the web (Alexander, 2006). In the field of second language learning, this implies that learners are provided with new opportunities for interaction in foreign language environments (Sotillo, 2000). The use of these new technologies also requires new skills and strategies from learners and we cannot assume that these new literacy skills are acquired instinctively and that students are sufficiently autonomous to avail of these new opportunities on their own.
This paper reports on the results of several action research projects carried out at the University of Limerick in an effort to enhance students’ language learning experience by integrating aspects of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). After briefly describing these initiatives (e.g. learning context, learners’ profile, objectives, tools used…), findings will be presented and analysed. The conclusions from these analyses show that while the use of technology does not automatically lead to learner autonomy nor to the development of high order thinking skills, carefully planned tasks involving the use of CMC can foster deeper reflexive skills, increase effective coping strategies and promote new approaches to learning. In that way, CMC can greatly enhance learner autonomy.
Drawing from these conclusions, our paper will finally provide a set of recommendations and guidelines to allow teachers and researchers to successfully integrate new technologies to their teaching scenario in order to foster students’ autonomy.

References:
Alexander, B. (2006). 'Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning?' EDUCAUSE, 14.
Connell, S. (2006). 'Comparing blogs, wikis, and discussion boards as collaborative learning tools.' (retrieved August 2010 from http://soozzone.com/PDFs/Plan_ConnellED690.pdf).
Cummings, J. A., Bonk, C. J. & Jacobs, F. R. (2002). 'Twenty-first century college syllabi: Options for online communication and interactivity'. Internet and Higher Education, 5(1): 1-19.
Sotillo, S.M. (2000). 'Discourse functions and syntactic complexity in synchronous and asynchronous communication'. Language Learning and Technology, 4(1): 82-119.

 

 


Author(s): Baumgart, Joanna
University of Limerick
Title: Discourse of educational multiculturalism in Ireland. Where do teachers and educators meet?

Ethnic minorities have long been a part of cultural and linguistic landscape of Ireland, and with the mass scale immigration following the last enlargement of the EU the social mosaic was further diversified. Although inward migration may have levelled out due to recent economic trends, there are still many residents who speak English as an Additional Language. With approximately 16% of all pupils being described as EAL learners (Byrne et al 2009 XIV), it is the Irish education system that underwent the most radical transformation and is now a meeting ground for over 200 languages. The issue of adjusting the curriculum to better respond to the changed social dynamics has been documented in many publications (Banks 2001, 2004; Coelho 1998; Leung 2001, 2005), and although much literature exists on multiculturalism and the question of teaching EAL in Irish primary schools (Haran and Tormey 2002; INTO 2001), the evidence indicates a lack of research at secondary level. Taking into account current EAL provisions it has become obvious that the process of second language acquisition is largely taking place in the mainstream classroom (or outside the school) and it has become the teacher’s responsibility to adapt their language in order to enhance communication, support language learning of EAL pupils and maintain equilibrium.
Thus the main aims of this study are to analyse how the linguistic needs of the EAL learners are accommodated for in mainstream classrooms in Irish secondary schools and how educational multiculturalism is presented in the discourse of both teachers and teacher educators. Interviews conducted with teachers and teacher trainers were transcribed and corpus data was analysed accordingly. The results so far highlight a number of significant issues including training, teaching/learning materials and classroom practice.

References:
Banks, J. A. and Banks, C. A. M. eds. (2001). Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives 4th ed., Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Byrne, D., Darmody, M., McGinnity, F. and Smyth, E. (2008). The Integration of Newcomer Students in Primary and Second-Level Schools, Dublin: ECRI.
Coelho, E. (1998). Teaching and Learning in Multicultural Schools, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Haran, N. and Tormey, R. (2002). Celebrating Difference, Promoting Equality:
Towards a Framework for Intercultural Education in Irish Classrooms, Limerick: Centre for Educational Disadvantage Research and Curriculum Development Unit, Mary Immaculate College.
Leung, C. (2001). 'English as an additional language: distinct language focus or diffused curriculum concerns?' Language and Education 15(1), 33-55 (retrieved 29/09/08 from http://multilingual-matters.net/le/015/0033/le0150033.pdf).
Leung, C. (2005). 'English as an additional language policy: issues of inconclusive access and language learning in the mainstream'. Prospect, 20(1), 95-113.
INTO (2001). Intercultural guidelines for schools, available at: http://www.into.ie/ROI/Publications/INTOInterculturalGuidelines.pdf


Author(s): Boehm, Diana Nadine
Dublin City University
Title: Commercialisation of scientific knowledge in high performance research centres – A multiple stakeholder perspective.

As scientific knowledge is increasingly important for new business development and innovation, governments are requiring universities to take a more active role as performers in national and regional economic development (Mansfield and Lee 1996). Commercialisation is not only a matter of national concern but also a central issue for universities in Europe and around the globe.
This study is taking a novel interdisciplinary approach, in working on the application of both entrepreneurship and relationship marketing theory, to the commercialisation process in order to build theory. This paper reports preliminary findings from a cross country and inter-institutional study of knowledge transfer from university research centres.
Three comparisons will be central to the analysis:

(a)    High performance research centres as the unit of analysis is unique. The comparison with non-centre research will enable the analysis of performance differences.   
(b)    Most researchers focus on world-class universities (e.g. MIT) rather than medium-sized universities. Many universities do not have access to world-class research bases which provides the rational for the current study. A comparison of large and medium-sized universities is proposed.
(c)    Bavaria and Ireland have been chosen as both have similar backgrounds such as rural regions and deep-rooted conservative traditions. Both were economically backward, agrarian regions with high unemployment rates before morphing into economically best performing regions. Furthermore, Bavaria was chosen as research centres located there outperform their Irish counterparts. Comparative analysis will reveal root causes of the performance differential.

All stakeholder involved in the commercialisation process (e.g. Commercialisation Manager, Principal Investigator, Technology Transfer Manager, Government Agent, Industrial Partner) will be interviewed to identify how relationships influence commercial success and what differences exist between medium and large, and centre versus non-centre, research.  Consistent with the methodological approach the preliminary results are providing rich and interesting constructs including satisfaction, loyalty, retention, relationship management and entrepreneurial activity which relate to a multi-stakeholder perspective.

References:
Mansfield, E. and Lee, J. (1996). 'The modern university: contributor to industrial innovation and recipient of industrial R&D support'. Research Policy, 25(7): 1047-1058.


Author(s): Breen, Michael and Reynold, Caillin
Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick
Title: Secular society in the Land of Saints and Scholars: The pattern of religious change in Ireland.

The European Values Study is a pan-European project which utilises an omnibus survey focusing especially on values associated with work, religion, lifestyles and other issues. Its most recent data gathering exercise was in 2008, the fourth of its kind. This study focuses on changing religious values in Ireland over the span of the EVS (1981-2008) and examines the rise in secularism and the rapid decrease in church participation, which brings Ireland much close to European norms.
The data to hand suggest a variety of important social questions: If religious and social values and attitudes are changing, what are the implications for Irish society? Does the erosion of church practice mean the erosion of values or are we simply witnessing transference of allegiance from institutions to self? Some commentators have suggested that reduction of care and concern for others, a reduced sense of God, and a minimised approach to things religious, allied with a rise in liberalism, are not of themselves harbingers of prosperity and joy for society; the opposite they contend is true, and will result in decreased happiness and increased alienation.
While it is incontrovertible that Ireland will be different in the future, that the social map will have very different contours, especially in relation to institutional religion, the precise shape of those contours in the con text of shifting values is unclear. This paper sets out to examine such questions using the empirical data of the EVS and creates four indices from the data on the topics of liberalism, religiosity, faith and social care to indicate the direction and magnitude of social change.

 

 


Author(s): Brogan, John
Dublin City University
Title: The reformation of doctoral education.

This paper traces how the developmental aspects of the PhD that were espoused by key academics in 19th century Europe and America (Cowen 1997; Goodchild & Miller 1997; Park 2005)(Cowen 1997; Goodchild & Miller 1997; Park 2005) became less central following questions regarding the degree’s fitness of purpose (Taylor & Beasley 2005). Drawing from the identification of the dominant languages spoken in Irish education (Seery 2008), this paper considers the concept of hegemony and the balance of power among groups of stakeholders (Laclau & Mouffe 2001) involved in doctorate education in Ireland. Using the language of Laclau & Mouffe (2001), the “pure” universal of doctoral education is considered, and if this has been “contaminated” so as to provide a tainted praxis.
The duality of focus espoused by the first of the Salzburg Principles (EUA 2007) provides a contemporary lens through which to view the PhD as both a product and a process (Park 2005). This, in turn, is used to consider how the initial critique regarding the utilitarianism of the PhD focused on the teleological, and not autotelic, aspects of doctoral research. The concept of hegemony is used to understand how the dominant voices (Taylor & Beasley 2005) exert influence to present a contaminated universal, an issue that is being seemingly addressed in the rebalancing of policy (vis-à-vis Bologna Process) and the focus on the practical applications of structured PhD programmes.

References:
Cowen, R. (1997). Comparative perspectives on the British PhD. In Working for a Doctorate: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences.  New York: Routledge: 184 - 199.
EUA (2007). Doctoral programmes in Europe's universities: achievements and challenges, available at: http://www.eua.be/fileadmin/user_upload/files/Publications/Doctoral_Programmes_in_Europe_s_Universities.pdf.
Goodchild, L.F. & Miller, M.M. (1997). The American doctorate and dissertation: six developmental stages. New Directions for Higher Education, 25(3): 17 - 32.
Laclau, E. & Mouffe, C. (2001). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, Second ed., London: Verso.
Park, C. (2005). New variant PhD: the changing nature of the doctorate in the UK. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 27(2): 189 - 207.
Seery, A. (2008). Slavoj Zizek's dialectics of ideology and the discourses of Irish education. Irish Education Studies, 27(2): 133 - 146.
Taylor, S. & Beasley, N. (2005). A Handbook for Doctoral Supervisors, New York: Routledge.


Author(s): Brosnan, Liz
University of Limerick
Title: Rhetoric or praxis of user involvement: Challenges for mental health policy.

Recent Irish government policy promotes the idea of service user involvement (U.I.) in mental health services. Two key official documents, Vision for Change, (Department of Health and Children, 2006) and the National Strategy for Service User Involvement in the Irish Health Service 2008 -2013, (Health Service Executive, 2008) suggests this concept of involvement in Irish health services is an important objective of service development, particularly for mental health services.  
In the Critical Social Science (CSS) tradition of emancipatory and feminist research the model of ‘research as praxis’ seeks to provide a ‘catalytic’ explanation of the social order.  Within this tradition, academic discourse becomes more than a descriptive and explanatory exercise, but also a political and transformative endeavour that seeks to produce social change (Baker et al 2004).  The emergence internationally of survivor research epistemologies, (Sweeney et al 2009, Wallcraft et al 2009), which also have been influenced by this CSS lens, brings the perspective of mental health servicer users to the fore.
Research as praxis seeks to transform the uncritical adoption of the discourse of U.I., and examine the facilitators and barriers to meaningful involvement.  It seeks answers to questions such as, how do professionals and activists involved in user participation forums experience, and understand the dynamics and processes of involvement?  What factors make it a worthwhile and meaningful process for the people who participate?
Arnstein’s (1971) ladder of participation remains a useful tool for conceptualising different levels of engagement, but recent research exposes systemic failures, including obstacles to ‘equality of condition’ for those becoming active in UI forums.  There have been failures to recognise and meet the needs of service users, who are often co-opted into agendas not of their making, and therefore not necessarily concerned with their needs.  In additional, work exploring the politics of recognition in the UK demonstrates clear failures for people who become involved in such U.I. forums.  
This paper will outline what such issues might mean in the current environment in Irish mental health Services and for those active in seeking to develop forums for user involvement.   It will explore the challenges inherent in the policies of user involvement and what is required to move beyond the rhetoric to meaningful and engaged participation.

 

 


Author(s): Browne, Patricia
NUI Galway
Title: Health service delivery in hospitals: Researching implications of work-life balance practices for nurse employees.

“Work-life balance (WLB) refers to a range of flexible working arrangements that go beyond employees’ statutory leave entitlements. WLB assists employees to combine employment with their family life, caring responsibilities and with personal life outside the workplace” (The National Framework Committee for Work-Life Balance Policies, 2010).  Work-family conflict has been shown to result in job dissatisfaction, depression, absenteeism and an overall loss of health and sense of well-being (Thomas & Ganster, 1995; Poelmans and Sahibzada, 2004, Lapierre & Allen, 2006, Beauregard & Lesley 2009).  Avgar et al. (2010) states that balancing work and family is considered important to employees in most work settings, but the healthcare arena is one in which the tensions between work and family are dramatic. The type of work involved in health service delivery is particularly unique to this sector due to its intensive human capital dependency, emotional labour and the 24/7 nature of the work. Avgar et al. (2010) argue that WLB practices enhance the ability of employees and their managers to provide high quality care to their patients. Through their examination of the effects of WLB practices their results indicate that greater use of WLB practices enhances outcomes for hospitals, their employees and patients. Specifically, WLB practices were shown to positively influence hospital financial performance, reduce employee turnover intentions, and decrease errors that could harm patients and staff.   
Avgar et al. (2010) further highlight that while many studies have looked at work-life balance issues for physicians, less attention has been given to WLB practices for other healthcare frontline staff. The Integrated Employee and Well-being strategy 2009-2014 signals the recognition that the well-being and welfare of employees is central to delivering quality health services (HSE: 2009). 35% of health employees are in the nursing category in Ireland (Department of Health and Children 2009). Little research, apart from a few studies has been carried out in relation to the experiences of nurses and their working environment in Ireland. Studies by McCarthy et al., 2006, Drennan et al. 2007, Curtis 2007 allude to the need for further research in this area.   
This paper will seek to give an overview of the literature on work-life balance and illustrate how future research applied to nursing in a hospital context will fill some of the current research gaps in this academic field.   

References:
Avgar, A., Givan, R. and Liu, M. (2010). ‘A Balancing Act: Work-Life-Balance and Multiple Stakeholder Outcomes in Hospitals’, 2010 Industry Studies Conference Chicago Illinois: 6th May 2010.   
Beauregard, T. & Lesley, H. (2009). ‘Making the link between work-life balance practices and organisational performance’.  Human Resource Management Review, 19: 9-22.
Curtis, E. (2007). ‘Job satisfaction: a survey of nurses in the Republic of Ireland’. International Council of Nurses Journal Compilation: 92-99.    
Drennan, J., Meehan, T., Kemple, M.,Johnson, M., Treacy, M. & Butler, M. (2007). ‘Nursing Research Priorities for Ireland’.  Journal of Nursing Scholarship, Fourth Quarter: 298-305.
Lapierre, L. & Allen, T. (2006), ‘Work-Supportive Family, Family-Supportive Supervision, Use of Organisational Benefits, and Problem- Focused Coping: Implications for Work-Family Conflict and Employee Well-being’. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 11(2): 169-181.   
McCarthy, G., Savage, E. and Lehane, E. (2006). ‘Research priorities for nursing and midwifery in Southern Ireland’.  International Nursing Review, International Council of Nurses 53: 123-128.  
Poelmans, S. & Sahibzada, K. (2004. ‘A multi-level model for studying the context and impact of work-family policies and culture in organisations’. Human Resource Management Review, 14: 409-431.
Thomas, L. & Ganster, D. (1995). ‘Impact of Family- Supportive Work Variables on Work-Family Conflict and Strain: A Control Perspective’. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80(1): 6-15.

 


Author(s): Cawley, Anthony
University of Limerick
Title: Sharing the pain or shouldering the burden? Media framing of the public sector and the private sector during the economic crisis, 2008-2010.

In July 2008 the Irish Government announced its first raft of spending cuts in response to the economic crisis. The cuts, some €400m, were reported in the media through a frame of strong public hostility, especially in how they affected education and health. Across the national budget in 2008, and the emergency and national budgets in 2009, the Government’s spending cuts deepened from hundreds of millions to billions of Euros. As the Government’s tax revenues withered and its borrowing needs grew, the media’s coverage of the economic crisis directed greater attention to funding of the public sector. Media reports tended to configure the public sector as being in an oppositional relationship to the private sector, with the public sector most commonly being associated with ‘cost’, ‘burden’ and ‘spending’, while the private sector frequently was associated with ‘wealth creation’ and ‘investment’.  
This paper discusses the emerging findings of research on media coverage of the public and private sectors during the economic crisis, 2008-2010. It draws on the concept of framing – as developed by Entman, D’Angelo, Kuypers, and Reese, among others – to examine how the media defined and presented the position of the public and private sectors within the economic crisis. It examines the underlying ‘framing contest’ among institutional sources (Government, opposition parties, trade unions, and employers’ representative groups) to win favourable coverage in the media for their sectional interests.
The research is based on a substantial sample of articles from the main Irish daily and Sunday newspapers: The Irish Times, Irish Independent, Irish Examiner, Evening Herald, The Sunday Independent, The Sunday Tribune, and The Sunday Business Post. The study highlights recurrent words that were used to encode meanings and preferred interpretations in media articles: e.g., bloated, privileged, pampered, cosseted and wasteful for the public service; vibrant, innovative and driven for the private sector. Framing analysis of the sample also suggests an ‘othering’ of the public sector from the “national interest” and “public interest” through the use of recurrent phases such as “holding ‘us’ to ransom” and failing to “share the pain” with a private sector that often was described as “taking the pain” and “shouldering the burden”.

 


Author(s): Carter-Thomas, Shirley* and Chambers, Angela**
*Institut Télécom (Evry, France) and CNRS Research Team LATTICE, ** University of Limerick
Title: From text to corpus: A contrastive analysis of economics article introductions in English and French.

COLLOQUIUM: Academic and Pedagogic Corpora
(See also Farr, Fiona and Riordan Elaine; McCarthy, Michael; and O’Riordan, Stéphanie).

Academic writing, particularly the research article, has been the subject of a considerable body of applied research aimed at underpinning the needs of non-native users of English wishing to study and publish in English (Swales 1990; Hyland 1998). Although this research has frequently been conducted from a contrastive viewpoint (comparing different genres or disciplines, or native and non-native speaker productions), the number of studies involving research on academic writing in languages other than English has been far more modest (Carter-Thomas 2007). We believe therefore that a contrastive analysis of articles in English and French in a particular area, in this case economics, can have applications for teachers of French academic writing outside French-speaking countries and for teachers of English academic writing in French-speaking countries. As economics is an important source of demand for translations, the applications are also relevant in translator education.
After explaining the research background in contrastive approaches to academic writing, the advantages and drawbacks of qualitative and quantitative approaches to the analysis of academic writing will be outlined. One article introduction corresponding as closely as possible to the prototypical Swalesian CARS model (1990) will be selected in each language. Through a study of the article introductions and concordance-based analysis, the role of the first person will be examined in relation to the “moves” which Swales has identified in article introductions. Our study is based on a corpus of 100 research articles, 50 in English and 50 in French, taken from the University of Bergen KIAP corpus (Fløttum et al. 2006).  

References:
Carter-Thomas, S. (2007). The ‘iffiness’ of medical research articles: A comparison of English if and French si. In K. Flottum (Ed.), Language and Discipline Perspectives on Academic Discourse (pp. 150–75). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press.
Fløttum, K., Dahl, T. & Kinn, T. eds. (2006). Academic Voices: Across Languages and Disciplines. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hyland, K. (1998). Hedging in Scientific Research Articles. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Swales, J. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Author(s): Chen, Zheng and Doyle, Eleanor
University College Cork
Title: Questioning the fabric of managerial thoughts woven by the mindset.

The observing of the roles of external inducements or obstacles to growth, such as factor markets, demand conditions, has resulted in these factors being discussed in neoclassical economics and strategy schools of thought. However, we argue that greater awareness that firm performance depends more on reasoning than observation, would have directed the principle efforts in related research more towards to the mental reasoning/theorizing of the firm and its external circumstances.
This paper explores the source of the firm behavior and how to achieve adaptive change in the changing economy. The central point, in light of Penrose’s growth theory (1995), is that we take the firm as an administrative organization and conceptualize it as a system of functions and concepts. Firm behavior is considered in terms of the minds of managers interacting in a ‘Managerial Mental Space’ (MMS) within the firm.  A ‘theory of the business’ (Drucker, 1994), defined as the knowledge/belief which is constructed in the MMS, largely governs the ways in which a firm creates its ‘environment’. The theorizing capability of this ‘space’ depends on how each mind abstracts from the complexities of the world and makes meaning of it (Kegan, 1994).
In changing economy, which is inherently a context of uncertainty for firms, minds of managers, like any minds, have an inertia to maintain the default pattern of a theory, i.e. the presuppositions which are inherited from past experience and poses the challenge of immunity to change (Kegan, 2009). Managers are not usually even aware of having these pre-suppositions unless they have undertaken a conscious effort at their exploration, i.e. at understanding the fundamental sources of human action in business. The evolutionary change of firm behavior is based on the testing and updating process to which the managers’ theory of the business is subjected.


Author(s): Chughtai, Aamir Ali and Buckely, Finian
Dublin City University
Title: Trust in top management, work engagement and organizational outcomes: A study of Irish research scientists.

The growing importance of knowledge in stimulating innovation and economic development has increased the importance of knowledge workers all over the globe. These workers are now considered a critical source of competitive advantage for many firms. Thus, enhancing the motivation and productivity of these workers can be crucial for accelerating the pace of economic development of the knowledge-based economies. The present study therefore, seeks to explore the effects of trust in top management on research scientists’ work engagement, learning motivation and innovativeness. Specifically, it is proposed that high levels of trust in top management will enhance scientists’ engagement with their work, which subsequently will have a positive influence on innovative work behaviour, knowledge creation and learning motivation. The data for this study were collected from 174 research scientists, drawn from six Irish science university research centres by using paper and pencil and web-based surveys. Structural equation modelling was used to test the research hypotheses. The results of this study showed that as hypothesised, trust in top management was positively and significantly related to work engagement, which in turn, was significantly associated with innovative work behaviour, knowledge creation and learning motivation. This paper provides ample evidence that building scientists’ trust in their management team can be critical for promoting the growth and efficiency of science research centres.

Author(s): Ciolfi, Luigina
University of Limerick
Title: Experiences of place in the ICT-mediated world.

COLLOQUIUM: Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy: Investigating Practice, Place, Gender and Technological Mediation
(See also Gray, Breda; Pinatti, Fabiano; and Wixted, Lisa).

This paper reflects on how ‘high-tech’ workers experience place, mobility and motility in the increasingly ICT-mediated world they live in, and on how place and movement become a dimension of the discourse on  ‘high-tech’ life and work from the point of view of location, social interactions, cultural references and personal work strategies. Drawing on the interaction design literature on technology and place making, the paper will extend the interaction design view from device-centred (i.e. concerned mainly with the technical capability of ICT platforms) to place-centred, whereby the lived environment underlying people’s activities (and therefore technology use) becomes the crucial factor in understanding the mediational role of technology. The paper will present a discussion of excerpts from interview data with 15 ‘high-tech’ workers in the Limerick area collected by Dr Anthony D’Andrea as part of the ISSP UL-based Nomadic Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy project, in order to highlight the connection between places, activities and technological resources.

 


Author(s): Conway, Paul
University College Cork
Title: The knowledge society and contemporary research and policy in teacher education.

The concept of the knowledge society and associated terms such as globalisation, innovation, creativity and key skills have become enourmously influential in educational policy globally. The knowledge society concept and associated terms have come to shape understandings of both teaching and teacher education in profound ways. This paper examines the influence of the knowledge society aspiration on contemporary policy and research in teaching and teacher education in particular. The paper is located within the literatures on  the learning sciences and policy sociology. Adopting a discourse analysis approach the paper focuses on how policy documents on teacher education in Ireland, and key documents from elsewhere, have appropriated key concepts associated with the idea of the knowledge society. It examines key concepts in terms of their understanding of learning, knowledge and the relationship between schools and society. The paper identifies tensions, dilemmas and contradictions central to how the knowledge society is represented in teaching and teacher education. The findings are discussed in terms of the dilemmatic and nature of education policy and decision making.


Author(s): Conway, Therese
NUI Galway
Title: The role of embeddedness and networks in rural tourism in fostering balanced rural development.

Increased attention is given to the sustainability of economic, sociocultural and environmental systems as means of promoting more balanced forms of rural development (Ilbery and Saxena 2009). Tourism and, in particular, ecotourism is often proposed as having an important role to play in these contexts (Cawley et al 2007; Ilbery and Saxena 2009). Research suggests that appropriate forms of embeddedness and disembeddedness and networking are influential in promoting sustainability in rural tourism. This paper presents the results of a literature review which investigated these concepts.
For Polanyi (1944), embeddedness was a measure of how enmeshed economies were in institutions either economic or non-economic. Consequently “embeddedness can be said to exist where tourism activities are a part of local social and recreational life; when products enhance and commodify the local landscape; and where attractions are based on the existing natural, built, historical and cultural heritage of a region” (Oliver and Jenkins 2006: 303). Embeddedness is vital to sustainable rural tourism. Unless rural tourism is enmeshed in the economic, social, cultural and environmental structures of the locality in which it occurs it will not thrive. Disembeddedness on the other-hand can be understood as how removed economies are from the surrounding institutions. Promotion and marketing through disembeddedness via extra local, vertical networks is essential for rural tourism.
Central to this paper is the concept of trust. “The literature on embeddedness stresses the central role of concrete personal relations and networks of relations to generate trust” (Hess 2004: 174). This can also be linked to the notion of knowledge transfer. Trust is important due to the fragmented nature of tourism. Ways of overcoming this fragmentation have long been sought (Bramwell and Lane 2003). This paper will illustrate that networks may provide a way of surmounting the fragmentation. A network can be defined as “originally a metaphor for the complex interactions between people in the community” (Scott et al. 2008: 2). Networks are important due to their ability to offset fragmentation associated with small businesses and also to coordinate programmes and policy. This paper will also illustrate the direct links between networks and embeddedness and disembeddedness by discussing horizontal (embedded) and vertical (disembedded) networks (Cawley et al 2007).


Author(s): Costelloe, Laura
University of Limerick
Title: CDA as an approach to understanding society: a discussion of related literature.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an approach to discourse analysis that proposes to analyse ‘opaque as well as transparent structural relations of dominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested in language’ (Wodak, 1995: 204). It encourages a view of language as a dominant tool to manipulate power and control, and as possessing the ability to reflect and reproduce ideologies in society. Particularly interested in the intersection of language and social structure, Critical Discourse Analytical methods offer the analyst strategies for uncovering the representation of power structures in texts. Understanding how relations of power, dominance, and discrimination are manifested and maintained by the use of language by powerful people is crucial in attempting to theorise modern society and the processes of change that are underway in today’s world.
This paper reviews the literature related to CDA, examining its evolution and placing it within a broader context of a critical view of language.  It discusses some of the underlying principles of CDA, including its view of the discursive nature of power relations and the ideological dimension to discourse. It considers some of the principal approaches to CDA, and suggests how it can be applied to texts to identify the presence and function of dominant discourses. Also, mindful of the limits of CDA as a research methodology, some its criticisms will be discussed and possibilities for addressing shortcomings considered. Finally, this paper will present the proposed research for which the review of related literature was undertaken, discussing the aims and research questions of the study to which it relates.

References:
Wodak, R. (1995). 'Critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis'. In J. Verschueren, J. O. Őstman, and J. Blommaert, (eds), Handbook of Pragmatics, Amsterdam: Benjamins: 204-210.

Author(s): Cunningham, James*, O’Reilly, Paul**, O’Kane, Conor* and Maciocha, Agnes**
*NUI Galway, ** Dublin Institute of Technology
Title: Principal investigators of publicly funded research: Beyond administrative responsibilities.

The requirements for academic research and the management of academic research have undergone important changes since the beginning of the 1990s. These changed have seen publicly funded research increasingly organised as part of large projects and programmes with an increasingly diverse base of participants and funding structures.  Principal investigators of publicly funded researcher are key actors in leading and the management of research projects. In this context the principal investigator is the person charged with direct responsibility for completion of a funded project, directing the research and reporting directly to the funding agency. Definitions of the roles of principal investigators tend to be set by funding agencies and public research institutions and their focus is mainly on administrative responsibilities. Based on thirty in-depth interviews of publicly funded principal investigators in Ireland this paper examines their project formation, motivations, roles and challenges. The paper concludes with recommendations for principal investigators and policy makers and highlights the high levels of complexity that publicly funded principal investigators have to manage beyond administrative responsibilities.

Author(s): Devlin, Anne Marie
University College Cork
Title: Language learning and space – a study of the non-native speaker teacher of English.

Like it or not, the English language has become a global means of communication in many domains of life.  It is often the key to building a knowledge society as business; science and academia are generally conducted through this medium.  The holders of this very valuable key are, most frequently, teachers, 80% of whom are non-native speakers.  As holders of such a crucial element to societal and knowledge development, they provide a unique opportunity for study in the field of Second Language Acquisition as they occupy a fascinating position being both learners and providers of the language.  However, very little is known about them, especially regarding the interface between knowledge and space.  
The current paper sets out to fill that gap by presenting an in depth study of the knowledge provider (i.e. the teacher) and space (i.e. where learning takes place – the classroom or the target language country).  In order to fulfil this, it will explore in detail the relevance of learning space to 20 non-native speaker secondary school teachers from 14 different countries of the European Union.  The study will look at number, duration and purpose of visits to target language communities as well as accommodation and will consider these findings in light of the linguistic exchanges encountered - exchanges with native or non-native speakers, transactional or interactional language and the impact this has on ‘other’ contact with authentic language such as reading, listening and writing.  Furthermore, it will investigate the long-term effect of learning space on the dissemination of knowledge within the classroom, and, lastly, provide a much-needed spatial profile of a European secondary school teacher of English.


Author(s): Drury, Meghann
NUI Galway
Title: Decision processes and data presentation methods: A case study of how an agile software development team can best present data to make quality decisions.

Agile software development emphasises a simplified, iterative development process where the project manager’s role as a decision-maker is greatly reduced, and more akin to a facilitator and coordinator (Alleman 2002; Nerur, Mahapatra et al. 2005). The development team is empowered to make most decisions, creating a “pluralist decision making environment” where team members are not confined to specific roles, and typically self-organise, swap and blend roles (Nerur, Mahapatra et al. 2005). Members can be involved in decisions that may fall outside their traditional skill areas and are faced with decision tasks on a daily basis in a dynamic environment with rapidly changing requirements, expectations, and underlying data. Further, the customer plays a continuous and embedded role (Beck 2000), adding a transparency and in some cases complexity to decision-making. Agile activities are multifaceted, and the process of quality decision making includes aspects such as decision-maker behaviours, decision strategies, the inherent timeliness of decisions, and data-related aspects such as data representation. Therefore, this research describes the key decisions an agile team has to make and shares best practices for methods of data presentation to support high quality decision making in agile information system projects based on case study research with an Irish software development company in the global securities and investment services industry. We have developed a framework of decision strategies and best practices for data presentation in order to achieve high quality decisions. The obstacles that negatively impact decision making on agile teams will also be discussed.


Author(s): English, Claire
Dublin City University
Title: Connecting with public life in contemporary Ireland: Examining the potential of audience studies for the examination of the use of online social networking sites in practices of citizenship.

Audience studies provide a mode to examine the way in which different media are utilised by the public. As Bird posits, the aim of audience studies is to “shed light on how people interact with media to create meaning in their everyday lives” (2003, p: 8). Moving away from technologically deterministic analyses of technology’s transformative power in society, audience studies examine how technology is utilised in the everyday lives of people at ground level, how it is adopted, assimilated and given meaning.
Media are often viewed as the bridge which connects citizen and state. Innovations in digital media, particularly Web 2.0, have brought potential for the democratisation or ‘flattening out’ of hierarchical structures which have dominated state-citizen relationships. Digital media are often presented as spaces where the citizen can ‘talk back’ to those in power.
Participation in citizenship practices in relation to media use has traditionally centred on consumption of news and current affairs media. Active and valuable citizenship is often connected to the consumption of these genres. However, links between politics and entertainment media have also emerged within debates surrounding political engagement and participation arising within audience studies (Van Zoonen, 2003; Coleman, 2003).
In terms of investigation into the relationship between new media, citizenship and audiences, this paper will examine the extent to which audience research into ‘old’ media technology such as television can be drawn on. What insights into online citizenship activities can be drawn from models developed in empirical studies that focused on the relationship between audiences and older media formats? Is there a need to develop new theoretical paradigms to examine the audience in the digital age?


Author(s): Farr, Fiona and Riordan, Elaine
University of Limerick
Title: Exploring audio-visual corpora with English language learners: the Backbone Project.

COLLOQUIUM: Academic and Pedagogic Corpora
(See also Carter-Thomas, Shirley and Chambers, Angela; McCarthy Michael; and O’Riordan, Stéphanie).

Backbone is a two-year European project funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme (2008-2010). It has eight partners from seven European countries, and is in its second year running. The aim of Backbone is to develop web-based pedagogic corpora of video-recorded spoken interviews with native speakers of English, French, German, Polish, Spanish and Turkish as well as non-native speakers of English as a Lingua Franca. Such a resource therefore has a special focus on pedagogically neglected languages, including lesser taught languages, non-standard regional varieties as well as non-native speaker varieties. Materials developed from these pedagogic corpora can be used in a blended learning context to enhance language practice and interaction, while catering for the context of content and language integrated learning (CLIL). The project draws on a number of theoretical frameworks from fields related to autonomous learning, the use of authentic resources, and collaboration and interaction within an online environment.
This paper firstly provides a backdrop to the Backbone project, after which its methodology, design and pedagogic principles are briefly discussed, including corpus compilation, transcription, annotation and subsequent materials development. Finally, the spoken data from the Irish-English corpora are presented and used as the basis for the analysis of a number of lexical and grammatical features of Irish English as a representative lesser used variety. The potential of such an approach is discussed in terms of the rationale and benefits of using a corpus of this kind for learners and educators and a sample of pedagogic activities is demonstrated.

References:
Backbone Website:
http://www.es-courseportal.uni-tuebingen.de/backbone/moodle


Author(s): Fitzgerald, Ciara and Cunningham, James
NUI Galway
Title: University technology transfer in practice.

Strategy formulation is built upon sound data collection and informed strategy conversations around insightful questions. This process varies by context. The process of strategy implementation is characterised by resource commitments, appropriate structures, and people. Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) are uniquely placed within the context of a Higher Education Institute, fulfilling many roles and activities, yet little is understood about how they formulate and implement strategy. The central research focus of this paper is how do TTOs formulate and implement strategy. Based on an in-depth qualitative study of four Irish TTOs, the paper presents key findings on how technology transfer outcomes are shaped by TTO strategic plans, processes and context. Finally, the paper concludes by outlining other avenues of research to enable better understanding of strategy formulation and implementation processes within TTOs.


Author(s): Foley, Ronan
NUI Maynooth
Title: Affect, wellbeing and embodiment in the contemporary watering-place.

The relationships between place, well-being and affect are increasingly seen as core dimensions of health geographer’s research into therapeutic landscapes. Taking such a phenomenological position as a starting point, research on two examples of therapeutic landscapes in Ireland, the holy well and the contemporary spa, are critically examined to identify how such settings can be perceived as beneficial and affective sites of well-being. Drawing in particular from Conradson’s (2007) call for a more contested and experiential take on the assumed therapeutic benefits of place, the two settings are examined in relation to three specific themes; embodiment, practice and commodification.
While some historical contexts will be noted and the cultural importance of the traditional holy well and original spa towns introduced, the work will primarily focus on contemporary practices of health and wellbeing. Arguably both settings are informed by an understanding of health which is more CAM-based than biomedical. Yet both sites are also contested in their therapeutic value and seen as sites of either superstition and ignorance or pampering and luxury. In both cases there is a contestation of their inhabitations as curative places wherein the chronically ill or ‘worried well’ are challenged by biomedical understandings of health and ‘authentic’ curative practices. Yet in looking at both settings from the perspective of a mind-body-spirit health, it is possible to identify within them a set of embodied and affective practices which provide a range of individual and communal healing benefits. Drawing from a selection of wells which are still used as well as a range of destination and hotel spas, the experiential dimensions of perceived and experienced healing is documented at both types of therapeutic landscape. In doing so the arguments for a wider understanding of a range of affective and belief based practices will be critically examined while being cognizant of the contestations of both settings in relation to their commodification. In so doing, the often conflicting and contradictory meanings of health in place can provide important insights into an understanding of contemporary health behaviours.

Author(s): Galvin, Conor
University College Dublin
Title: The (Re)purposing of higher education in Ireland: Contestations in knowledge, ontology and agency.

The university in contemporary Ireland is an interesting if conflicted space. We are part in the past – institutional and intellectual histories & traditions continue to shape what we value and how we interact with society. We are part in the present – caught up in a seemingly endless caucus race of reform, reconstruction and shifting remit. But we are also (part)authors of our own futures in the decisions made about what truly matters in what we do, in what counts as new knowledge, and in how these relate to the public good. Academic globalization as well as localised political and economic agendas increasingly shape those decisions. And increasingly, the American vision of higher education looms large in the discourse surrounding them.  As do the ubiquitous ‘knowledge’ technologies of these times – also by-and-large American. Unsurprisingly, then, Ireland's universities are with increasing regularity placed at the heart of Ireland Inc as necessary engines of economic ideas, innovation and change-leadership.
Yet in ways the idea of the university has never been as fragile as it is today. Undoubtedly we need to keep up with a complex and rapidly changing world. But to do so (and to retain a capacity for true innovation) the university also needs to offer spaces for critical scholarship and creativity. The proposed paper considers ways in which Ireland’s universities may increasingly be seen to be failing in this and the forces that seek to move us away from such concerns: it looks at questions of leadership, agency and change. And sees an interesting duality in much that we need to decide about where we are going and why.
The intention underpinning the proposed paper is to contribute, in some small way, to discussion and debate on these issues and to suggest ways in which the university’s wider roles and responsibilities might, at the very least, be sustained through troubled times.


Author(s): Giblin, Majella
NUI Galway
Title: Local entrepreneurs in global clusters: The significance of spatial and relational propinquity in new firm formation.

This paper explores the significance of local proximity for new firm formation in particular industries. Within the literature, entrepreneurs are viewed as critical to industrial cluster formation and development in regions, while at the same time clusters are assumed to foster entrepreneurship by providing established linkages and access to knowledge flows. Entrepreneurship is therefore modelled as an inherently local process within industrial clusters. However, given that firms, particularly in high-tech sectors, are often ‘born-global’ the significance of local proximity both geographically and relationally is ambiguous. The research questions addressed by this research are; How ‘local’ are entrepreneurs operating in global clusters in terms of their skills development and the networks they create to establish their companies? How significant, if it all, is being located in a cluster for an entrepreneur when establishing a start-up firm in a high-tech industry?
To answer these questions, indigenous firms within the medical technology cluster in Galway were analysed. Data was gathered from fifteen interviews with entrepreneurs in the cluster. Preliminary analysis of this data shows that even though many of the firms are ‘born global’ as they establish international trading linkages from the outset, the entrepreneurs use the local cluster and local networks to facilitate them in accessing international networks. Locating in the cluster is found to be significant for the entrepreneurs in three main ways: access to a specialised labour pool, a quality of life factor that makes it easier to attract and retain labour and the international reputation of Galway as a medical device hub that facilitates entrepreneurs in establishing global networks. Moreover, local networks in the form of mentorship between serial and more inexperienced entrepreneurs were found to be particularly important for building the credibility of start-up firms and their international connections.


Author(s): Gray, Breda
University of Limerick
Title: Negotiating gender, work and life in the knowledge economy: Making up the rules.

COLLOQUIUM: Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy: Investigating Practice, Place, Gender and Technological Mediation
(See also Ciolfi, Luigina; Pinatti, Fabiano; and Wixted, Lisa).

This paper takes the EU and the Irish state’s policy on the knowledge or smart economy as its starting point and considers what are seen as the implications for new forms of work in the ‘high-tech’ sector, paying particular attention to how gender is mobilised. It summarises key findings in this literature focusing on what some see as a shift in the assumed boundaries between work and life as well as between what is considered masculine and feminine. The paper examines the intersections of gender as a naturalised axis of difference and gender as undone by the chronological intermingling and spatial overlapping of work and life in this sector. Drawing on interview data with 15 ‘high-tech’ workers in the Limerick area collected by Dr D’Andrea as part of the ISSP UL-based Nomadic Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy project, the paper addresses three interrelated themes: first, the extent to which work/life borderlines are dissolving or reinforced by the work and life practices of these workers; second, evidence in the data of chronological and spatial blurring and how this relates to the performance of gender and gender reflexivity; and finally, the play of passion and self discipline at the level of the individual worker, which seems to both reinforce gender as a naturalised axis of difference and in some contexts refigure gender boundaries.


Author(s): Hamel, Lauren M.
University of Limerick
Title: Predicting maternal encouragement of healthy eating in a
theory of planned behaviour framework.

Global health concerns are rapidly changing, and our world’s children are not being spared. Childhood overweight/obesity has reached epidemic levels all over the world. About 20% of children are either overweight or obese in the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the United Kingdom, a proportion that has more than doubled in 25 years (Dehghan, et al., 2005; Lissau, et al., 2004; Ogden, et al. 2006). Childhood overweight status is likely to carry into adulthood and bring detrimental health consequences (Guo, et al., 1994). Specifically, a strong tie between female childhood weight status and breast cancer occurrence has been established (Adair & Gordon-Larson, 2001; Brinton et al., 1988). Evidence indicates that diets of preadolescent girls are strongly influenced by their mothers in terms of modeling, conversation and regulation (Cutting et al, 2007; Hill et al., 1990). The factors that influence mothers to encourage a healthy diet for their preadolescent daughters were studied in an effort to reduce female child overweight, subsequent breast cancers, and to help sustain broader community health. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985; 1991), a two step study including focus groups (N = 4, groups) and a web survey (N = 104) with mothers with at least one preadolescent daughter was conducted.
Phase one qualitative data indicated mothers’ attitude toward encouraging a healthy diet was that encouragement is very important but it can be a tough and unpleasant process. Their mothers, mothers in law, pediatricians, and mothers of their daughters’ schoolmates, served as the most influential subjective norm because they were seen as experienced and trusted. The most common barriers were scheduling, cost, time, and daughters’ preferences.
Phase two regression analysis revealed that the overall model was significant F (4, 73) = 18.84, p< .001, adjusted R2 = .48. Mothers’ attitude (β = .51, p < .001), their most likely subjective norm (mother and close friends: β = .16, p < .05), and their perceived behavioral control (β = -.23, p < .05) all had influence on intention to encourage their daughters to eat healthily. Mothers’ positive attitude, certain normative influences, and barriers all hold promising practical implications for the current and future health for their daughters.

References:
Adair, L. S., & Gordon-Larsen, P. (2001). ‘Maturational timing and overweight
prevalence in U.S. adolescent girls’. American Journal of Public Health, 91: 642-644.
Ajzen, I. (1985). From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior. In J. Kuhl & J. Beckmann (Eds.), Action control: From cognition to behavior, (pp. 11-39). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Ajzen, I. (1991). ‘The theory of planned behavior’. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50: 179-211.
Brinton, L. A., Schairer, C., Hoover, R. N., & Fraumeni, J. F. Jr. (1988). ‚Menstrual
factors and risk of breast cancer’. Cancer Investigation, 6: 245-254.
Cutting, T. M., Fisher, Jo. O., Grimm-Thomas, K., & Birch, L. L. (2000). ‘Like mother like daughter: Familial patterns of overweight are mediated by mothers’ dietary disinhibition’. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 69: 539-549.
Dehghan, M., Akhtar-Danesh, N.,  & Merchant, A. T. (2005). ‘Childhood obesity, prevalence, and prevention’. Nutrition Journal, 4: 24-31.  
Guo, S., Chumlea, W. C., Roche, A. F., Gardner, J. D., & Siervogel, R. M. (1994). ‚The predictive value of childhood body mass index values for overweight at age 35’. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 59: 810-819.
Hill, A. J., Weaver, C., & Blundell, J. E. (1990). ‘Dieting concerns of 10 year-old girls and their mothers’. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 29: 346-348.
Lissau, I., Overpeck, M. D., Ruan, W. J., Due, P., Holstein, B. E., and Hediger, M. L., and the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Obesity Working Group (2004). ‘Body mass index and overweight in adolescents in 13 European countries, Israel, and the United States’. Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, 158: 27-33.
Ogden, C. L., Carroll, M. D., Curtin, L. R., McDowell, M. A., Tabak, C. J., & Flegal, K. M. (2006). ‘Prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States’, 1999-2004. Journal of the American Medical Association, 295: 1549-1555.


Author(s): Harney, Brian, Alexopoulos, Angelos, Monks, Kathy, Hogan, Teresa and Buckley, Finian
Dublin City University
Title: Complexities and tensions in collaborative activities: Emerging evidence from university research centres.

There is broad recognition that the academic enterprise is undergoing a transformation in the ways in which scientific knowledge is created, transferred and diffused to foster industrial innovation within an increasingly knowledge-based economy and society. In particular, universities have begun to play an enlarged role not only in the dissemination but also in the capitalisation of scientific knowledge by repositioning themselves in collaborative arrangements with industry partners (Etzkowitz et al., 2000). Yet, with few exceptions (e.g., Ambos et al., 2008; Sousa & Hendriks, 2008), previous research has fallen short in providing in-depth insights into the structural, organisational and management challenges and requirements for developing such a capacity. More specifically, there is little known about the underlying processes or micro-foundations driving collaborative innovation in a university setting (Markman et al., 2008).   Our aim in this paper is to examine the different perspectives on the innovation and collaboration process held by key stakeholders (i.e., principal investigators, researchers, research managers) within University Research Centres (URCs). URCs provide an ideal setting for investigating in more detail divergent views on research collaboration and commercialisation which have been identified, at a macro-level, in previous studies (Massa & Testa, 2008).
The research was conducted in four science engineering and technology URCs via forty semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with URCs’ directors, principal investigators, researchers and research managers. Where possible interview data was augmented by documentation. Emerging findings animate the potential dilemmas and tensions underpinning collaborative activities and the quest for the entrepreneurial university. One example concerns innovation. From a policy perspective a narrow and universalistic definition is put forward, while as one moves deeper into URCs and those that actually constitute the collaborative process the definition becomes much more nuanced and domain specific, stressing the merits of science and achievement rather than commercial applicability per se. In terms of roles and activities, and contra the rhetoric of mutuality and interdependence, there was evidence of an implicit hierarchy framing relations, recognition and opportunities for advancement. In exploring such issues the paper holds that adequate support and appropriate policy intervention will only come from an understanding of the details, sophistication and tension of actual practice (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Whittington, 2007).

References:
Ambos, T., Makela, K., Birkinshaw, J., & D'Este, P. (2008). ‘When does university research get commercialised? Creating ambidexterity in research institutions’. Journal of Management Studies, 45(8): 1424-1447.
Etzkowitz, H., Webster, A., Gebhardt, C., & Terra, B.R.C. (2000). ‚The future of the university and the university of the future: Evolution of ivory tower to entrepreneurial paradigm’. Research Policy, 29: 313-330.
Markman, G., Siegel, D., & Wright, M. (2008). 'Research and technology commercialisation’. Journal of Management Studies, 45(8): 1401-1423.
Massa, S., & Testa, S. 2008. Innovation and SMEs: ‘Misaligned perspectives and goals among entrepreneurs, academics, and policy makers’. Technovation, 28: 393-407.
Sousa, C. A. A., & Hendriks, P. H. J. (2008). ‘Connecting knowledge to management: The case of academic research’. Organization, 15(6): 811-830.

 


Author(s): Healy, Margaret
Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick
Title: Discourse in the hospitality training sector – the CLAS Corpus.

The CLAS Corpus (Cambridge Limerick and Shannon), currently under development, is a corpus of spoken discourse within the hospitality training sector recorded at Shannon College of Hotel Management in collaboration with Cambridge University Press and Mary Immaculate College. This specialised corpus charts the use of the English language used in training students to become future hotel managers.  Audio recordings of various speech events at Shannon College were collected over two academic semesters providing a balanced matrix of lectures, practical training, student presentations and language classes across the three academic years as students prepare for their BBS Degree in International Hotel Management.
Using Scott’s (1999) WordSmith Tools software, this research aims to identify the linguistic features specific to this professional and vocationally-oriented formation.  Furthermore, the data will be analysed synchronically and diachronically across the three academic years applying Wenger’s three-dimensional Community of Practice (1998) framework of joint enterprise, mutual engagement and shared repertoire to investigate how this hotel-specific discourse generates and consolidates the particular community of practice at Shannon College.
Shannon College provides a unique location for linguistic research with the student body comprising both native and non-native speakers of English.  The data will feed directly into the English Profile Project and will enhance the development of the Common European Framework of Reference level descriptors particularly at the B2-C2 levels.  The corpus, which will be error coded based on various first languages, will inform the development of future, specialised and higher proficiency level teaching materials and, in addition, will further enhance more tailored pedagogical practices in this sector.  Initial findings from the preliminary data illustrating some features of the hotel discourse will be presented.


Author(s): Hewson, Dominic
University of Limerick
Title: A stagnant system.  The possibilities for research instigated change in Ireland’s Direct Provision system.

Since April 2000 the Irish government has operated a system of Direct Provision and Dispersal in relation to applicants for asylum.  In the following decade the 62,629 individuals seeking refugee status in the Republic of Ireland have been subject to the systems’ rules and regulations.  Currently 6227 asylum seekers reside within a Direct Provision system that has been described by independent reports as “gravely detrimental to the human rights of a group of people lawfully present in the country” (FLAC) and “tantamount to an open prison” (NASC).  In the years following its official implementation, Ireland’s Direct Provision policy was the subject of a flurry of research, much of which concluded with recommendations for radical change.  However these voices, along with those trapped within the system, were ignored and the social spotlight slowly drifted to other areas of immigration policy and practice.  In May 2010 a Reception and Integration Agency report produced change in the Direct Provision System, but this ‘Value for Money Report’ resulted in reduced capacities and the forcible transference of asylum seekers in a consolidation of the system.
This paper seeks to investigate the opportunities that sociological research provides for positive change in an area that had remained stagnant for a decade.  It asks why early research in to the Direct Provision system failed to produce the change its findings demanded?  Following on from this, the paper considers the types of research methodology best suited to the promotion of change in this area. Furthermore, it examines the kinds of change that should be sought, and from where and in whose interests change should be pursued.  Ultimately the paper asks whether sociological research is capable of promoting change to Ireland’s Direct Provision system and if so, in what directions such research can effect change.

 


Author(s): Hobbs, Adrienne
NUI Maynooth
Title: The pilot study: Surely it deserves more than five words?

“After conducting a pilot study...”
Often these five words are the only mention a pilot study merits in an academic article.  However it is argued here that the pilot study itself warrants far more published attention.  Pilot studies are an underused and certainly under-reported aspect of qualitative research which Sampson (2004) cautions could promote the idea that they are only of use in “positivist methodological approaches”.  Conduct a simple keyword search and one immediately sees that ‘the pilot’ garners much attention in the medical community but far less attention in our social science world.  However surely qualitative social science research could only benefit from similar pre-testing?  This paper considers the pilot study itself and why it should be strongly considered before diving headlong into PhD fieldwork - reasons include but are not limited to: feasibility; sampling and development of research questions.  However academic literature should not be just about what was done and how it was done; it should also instruct, perhaps even caution if necessary.  Honest reportage of pilot details can assist in developing best practice, preventing the replication of errors of those who have gone before.  In an element of laying oneself on the line somewhat, this paper presents the ‘gory’ (sic) details of a pilot study (undertaken in 2009) to fellow ISSP members in a spirit of reciprocity and openness.  Research with children and young people brings the researcher into contact with adult gatekeepers and issues such as consent, informed consent and access to participants must be sensitively and tactfully negotiated.  Reflection on the pilot study carried out as part of this PhD research into youth participation identified shifts in understanding and “were the result of understanding that surfaced from engaging in practical activity” (Kezar, 2000:386) and ensured conceptual revisions were made to methodological choices.


Author(s): Kelly-Holmes, Helen* and Pietikäinen, Sari**
*University of Limerick, **University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Title: Tourism as a new space for sustaining language communities: the case of ‘language branding’.

COLLOQUIUM: Sustaining language communities in an age of uncertainty: new spaces
(See also Lenihan, Aoife; and Moriarty, Máiréad).
Language is both product and mode of production in the new globalised economy Heller (2005). This new economy, with its shift towards the production of services rather than goods in uniform or predictable ways across the world, necessitates and values communication perhaps more than previous economic eras, and language is one of the key ways in which the tourist product is produced as well as being part of that product. In tourism, part of this shift to and consolidation of the globalised new economy is that products have become branded. Locations, experiences etc. take on a meaning that can be easily understood and communicated globally, nationally, and locally, and become indexes of a range of associations that are accessible for the individual who has never visited the location. More than this, the tourist product, the brand, needs to be different to other local, national and international locations, and language is a key factor in both producing this brand, whilst at the same time being part of the brand, to paraphrase Heller.    
In this article, we look at the use of language for branding in two tourist sites which are also minority language communities. Specifically, we want to explore the linguistic choices made by tourism marketers from the available repertoire in branding a particular tourist product or site. This available repertoire can be defined in local and global terms. We want to gain an insight into what motivates these choices and to speculate about the implications – local and global - that these choices have for sustaining language communities, using the concepts of scales and reflexivity.

References:
Heller, M. (2005). ‘Language, skill and authenticity in the globalized new economy’, Noves SL. Revista de Sociolingüística, Winter 2005.

 


Author(s): Kuhling, Carmen
University of Limerick
Title: The new age movement and the quest for new certainties in the knowledge society: Towards a ‘Third Modernity’ paradigm.

Until recently, the ‘secularisation thesis’ was predominant in the social sciences, a thesis which held a linear conception of modern ‘progress’ and views modern institutions such as democracy, capitalism, science as accompanied by a series of mutually reinforcing social processes, such as secularisation, rationalisation and disenchantment. This assumption that religion would increasingly inhabit the private rather than the public world, and that capitalist modernity will progress through various stages of industrialisation, de-traditionalisation, and urbanisation is central not only to modernisation theory, but was also held by Marx, Durkheim and even Weber (Eisenstadt, 2002), and is deeply problematic from the point of view of the ‘multiple modernities’ or ‘alternative’ paths taken by non- Western and post-colonial societies.  The resurgence of religiosity and the increasing popularity of the New Age Movement call into question the idea that modernity contains a linear, progressive evolution towards disenchantment and secularisation.  This paper will examine the New Age movement within Beck’s ‘second modernity’ framework, wherein Beck argues that the disembedding forces of modernisation, individualisation and globalisation and the erosion of traditional categories of social identity result in a ‘sacralisation of the self’ (Heelas, 2007) and the ‘deification of lifestyle’ whereby we are each responsible for fashioning our own biographies, and ‘everyday life is being post-religiously “theologized”’ (Beck, 2002).  This paper will conclude that the New Age quest for wisdom rather than knowledge in contemporary society lends credence to Giessen’s claim that we are in the midst of a ‘third modernity’ characterised by the quest for new certainties, solidarities and ‘wisdoms’ (2009).  While aspects of the New Age Movement commodify and culturally appropriate various cultures deemed as ‘Others’ of modernity, the New Age desire for communitas and for a ‘cosmological canopy’ (Berger, 1969) is a response to the condition of ‘permanent liminality’ endemic to modernity.


Author(s): Kenny, Ailbhe
Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick
Title: ‘It just shows you like, cause we’re not arguing’: building a community of music practice through a university-school partnership.

This paper examines a community of music practice which emerged within a case study music project in Limerick, Ireland. The instrumental case study was a music education partnership between Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick student teachers, primary school children in Moyross, and the Northside Learning Hub, a Limerick resource agency. Using a community of practice theoretical framework (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) to guide the study and in particular its analysis of findings, the research ‘unpacks’ the actual development of a  community of music practice, the complexities that surround issues such as membership and leadership,  the musical practices themselves as well as the policies and aims that guided the practices. In this manner, the inter-relatedness of musical and social interaction as well as favourable models or environments of meaningful musical and ‘community’ experience is highlighted.
The findings on shared leadership, problem solving, roles assumed, participation and enjoyment all help to characterise the process of building a community of music practice and how the community develops over time. The wider context of the project gaining support through government agencies (in this case, through two funded organisations) gives the project findings further meaning in relation to setting aims, policies and goals and allowing the ‘community’ flexibility to interpret their own agendas and practices as was evident in this study. In the spirit of socio-cultural viewpoints taken up in this study of ‘situated learning’, ‘shared learning’ and communities of practice, the study describes a means of studying the relationship between community, music and learning.

References:
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 


Author(s): Kenny, Michael
NUI Maynooth
Title: Watching the sun setting over the horizon: The challenge of re-engaging Aging Knowledge Workers (AKW).

Almost half (49%) of workers in the EU are knowledge workers. They contribute to the wealth of society by moving and/or creating knowledge. They are a section of society hat has grown exponentially since the demise of the industrial revolution in Europe. Many of these knowledge workers are also ‘baby boomers’ now entering into retirement. While they expected security in their aging years they find that they are now facing great uncertainty.
This paper draws on the research of an EU lifelong learning project to determine what are the characteristics of the knowledge worker that distinguishes them from other worker categories? The paper explores the challenging socio-economic sphere into which the aging knowledge worker is facing and, arising, seeks to determine how the aging knowledge worker can be actively retained or re-engaged to sustain their contribution to society.
The paper will suggest that the experience of aging knowledge workers can be a significant asset in societal stability and innovation in an age of uncertainty but that focused overtures will have to be designed to retain their engagement and contribution. The paper will report on initiatives that seek to retain their active participation in society and on the way the internet, the tool of the knowledge worker, can be a tool for their continuing education and training.


Author(s): Kenny, Michael*, O’Shaughnessey, Mary** and Boland, Seamus***
*NUI Maynooth, **University College Cork, *** Irish Rural link, Moate, Co Westmeath
Title: Rediscovering rural society: The case for prioritising social interventions to strengthen rural communities.

Forty percent (40%) of the Irish population live in rural areas yet social science is increasingly marginalizing the study of rural spaces to address the urgent challenges of urban society. The significant resource of rural Ireland is increasingly being assigned to countryside management, tourism and desolation. More and more rural communities are fracturing and loosing their heart in the midst of modernisation. The neo-liberal approach to providing public services only where viable is impoverishing rural communities.
Irish Rural Link is a membership-based organisation that advocates for rural policy at local, national and EU level. This paper is prepared by the CEO of Irish Rural Link (IRL) and by two academics (one on the board member of IRL and both active in rural education). This paper will draw on the deliberations of IRL and the experience of the four NUI constituent universities who provide level 7 (Diploma) and Level 8 (Degree) qualifications in rural development by distance learning into rural communities for over a decade.
This paper will propose a renewed social science knowledge and innovation focus on rural community to enhance the resilience of society in a time of uncertainty. From carbon sink to the stability of tradition, from the origin of skill to the retention of change knowledge, rural areas are ballast for a changing society. This paper will remind social science of the importance of rural community and will propose a model for rural community sustainability drawing on work completed across the 5 jurisdictions of Ireland and the UK through the Carnegie Trust UK.


Author(s): Kerr, Aphra* and Cawley, Anthony **
* NUI Maynooth, ** University of Limerick
Title: Mobile labour in the digital games industry in Ireland.

Contemporary social analysis of the knowledge economy points to the increasing informational element of goods and services, the mobilisation of intellectual knowledge in innovation and the increasing globalisation of production and consumption (Kerr and O’Riain, 2009). Within this some theorists have argued that mobile firms are increasingly disembedded from local structures in what David Harvey (1989) would call time space compression or Manuel Castells (1996) a ‘space of flows’. Others argue that while new technologies enable mobile work the local, in terms of institutions, policies, forms of knowledge and culture, still plays an important role (Saxenian, 1991, Preston and Kerr 2001,Cawley and Preston, 2004). When it comes to researching particular sectors in the knowledge economy, this paper argues that it is the interplay of the local and the global that one needs to capture.
Pratt et al. (2008:924) call for more empirical work and a ‘more spatially and socially sensitive account of the ‘information society’’ and in this spirit this paper explores the overall structure and demographics of the digital games industry in Ireland based on a survey of companies conducted in 2009 and face to face interviews conducted over a period of ten years. The paper reports that while there has been a significant growth in overall employment levels in the Irish games industry over the past decade, this growth has not been in the creation of new intellectual properties and innovations but rather has been created by multinational firms who have located downstream service elements of the production process in Ireland.  This paper explores how the local institutional context combines with the global political economy of the games industry and new technologies to shape Ireland’s games industry and discusses the implications of our findings for Ireland’s knowledge society more generally.

References:
Cawley, A. & Preston, P. (2004). ‘Understanding the knowledge economy in the early 21st century: lessons from innovation in the media sector’. Communications and Strategies.
Kerr, A. & O'Rian, S. (2009). ‘Knowledge Economy’. In R. Kitchin, & N. Thrift, (eds.) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Oxford, Elsevier.
Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of postmodernity: an enquiry into the origins of cultural change. London, Blackwell.
Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford, Blackwell.
Preston, P. & Kerr, A. (2001). ‘Digital Media, nation-states and local cultures: the case of multimedia 'content' production’. Media, Culture and Society, 23: 109-131.
Saxenian, A. (1991). ‘The origins and dynamics of production networks in Silicon Valley’. Research Policy, 20: 423-437.


Author(s): Kitchin, Rob, Gleeson, Justin and O'Callaghan, Cian
NUI Maynooth
Title: A new haunted landscape: Ghost estates in Ireland.

The Celtic Tiger period in Ireland, running from approximately 1993 to 2006, saw a dramatic transformation in Irish social and economic life, and a marked change in the Irish landscape due to a rapid expansion and diversification of the stock of housing (accompanied by a significant growth in house and land prices). Between Jan 1996 and Dec 2005 548,267 housing units were built (DEHLG 2009). Over approximately the same time period, April 1996 to April 2006, the number of households grew by 342,221, up from 1.127m to 1.469m (CSO 2006). Whilst there would have been some obsolescence during this period, perhaps unsurprisingly, the 2006 census housing vacancy rate, excluding holiday homes, was 12.24 percent, some 216,533 units. Even after the start of the present downturn, the housing boom continued for a while, so that between Jan 2006 and Dec 2009, 249,590 houses were built (DEHLG 2009). Needless to say, household growth did not match this demand during this period. The result is the present overhang in the Irish housing market and the phenomena of ghost estates. In this paper, we discuss the Irish housing market in general, and in particular the phenomena of ghost estates, their underlying geography, the processes that led to their creation and what might happen to them.

 


Author(s): Kitching, Niamh* and MacPhail, Ann**
* University of Limerick, ** Junior Golf Ireland
Title: Creatively exploring golf club culture.

This paper describes the use of creative representation of research data collected from a two-year ethnographic study of golf club culture in Ireland. Research on golf club practice and golf habitus evidences male privilege while the structural and institutional nature of the golf club constrains minority groups such as females and young participants (Haig-Muir 2004; Zevenbergen et al. 2003). A narrative approach is used to present data in order to communicate research findings with the wider community and to inform those in a position to affect change (Hopper et al. 2008; Sparkes 1995).
Data was collected from ten one day visits to private members’ golf clubs in Ireland. Field notes consisted of informal interviews with key gatekeepers in each club and observations of interactions and behaviours recorded following each visit. Reflexivity was central, where the researcher’s position, biases and relations in the field were acknowledged (MacPhail 2004; Sparkes 1992). The data were presented as autobiographical narratives through the author’s multiple voices of coach, player, administrator and researcher.
The field notes recorded were consistent with earlier findings on golf club culture, where gender and social class inequalities were legitimated. Evidence of gender privilege, selective membership criteria, and exclusionary practice were presented using several writing techniques, including multiple voice, dramatic control and textual identity (Sparkes 1995; Sparkes 2009). For example:

…Beyond the gates a winding uphill driveway is buttressed by pristinely cut grass, pruned shrubbery and encompassing foliage, all glistening in the sun. At the top of the hill stands a vast clubhouse, contemporary in build and appearance, not matching the club’s foundation year. I park my twelve-year-old car in the visitor’s area, far away from the grand selection in the members’ car park. Three mothers were also parked as visitors, unloading their teenage sons and their equipment…

Using literary techniques to analyse and present the data is considered by the authors the most effective approach to communicate the complexities of golf club culture. Representing qualitative data in this genre has implications for critical research, where narratives can advance the value of the research agenda and contribute to institutional or cultural change (Hopper et al. 2008).


References:
Haig-Muir, M. (2004). ‘Handicapped from birth? Why women golfers are traditionally a fairway behind’. Sports History Review, 35: 64-82.
Hopper, T., Madill, L., Bratseth, C., Cameron, K., Coble, J. & Nimmon, L. (2008). ‘Multiple voices in health, sport, recreation, and physical education research: revealing unfamiliar spaces in a polyvocal review of qualitative research genres’. Quest, 60: 214-235.
MacPhail, A. (2004). ‘Athlete and researcher: undertaking and pursuing an ethnography study in a sports club’. Qualitative Research, 4(2): 227-245.
Sparkes, A. (1992). ‘The paradigms debate: an extended review and a celebration of difference’. In A. Sparkes (Ed.), Research in physical education and sport (pp.9-60). London: The Falmer Press.
Sparkes, A (1995). ‘Writing people: reflections of the dual crises of representation and legitimation in qualitative inquiry’. Quest, 47: 158-195.
Sparkes, A. (2009). ‘Ethnography and the senses: challenges and possibilities’. Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise. 1(1): 21-35.
Zevenbergen, R., Edwards, A., & Skinner, J. (2002). ‘Junior golf club culture: a Bourdieuian analysis’. Sociology of Sport online, (retrieved 23 July 2009 from: http://physed.otago.ac.nz/sosol/v5i1/v5i1bordeau.html).


Author(s): Le Baron-Earle, Florence
University of Limerick
Title: Using wikis: Motivation and anxiety issues met by third-level students.

COLLOQUIUM: New Literacies
(See also Batardière, Marie-Thérèse and Jeanneau, Catherine; and Murray, Liam and Mishan, Freda).

In recent years, teachers have increasingly introduced ICT in their classrooms. Web 2.0 tools vary from Discussion Forums (Wickersham and Dooley, 2006), Wikis (Kessler and Bikowski, 2010), Blogs (Comas-Quinn et al, 2009) and social networking sites (Harrison and Thomas, 2009). These easily accessible tools have shown to improve the users’ learning experience (Garrison et al, 2000).
This paper investigates the introduction of blended learning in a university first-year French class in which students develop their knowledge of French culture. A student-centred pedagogy was implemented encouraging the 57 students to reflect on the texts on French culture which they were reading and to share their experiences and encounters with French culture through online and class discussions. In addition to their usual face-to-face class, the students were asked to work in eight small groups to define what French culture meant to them. This collaborative work was conducted via a Wiki tool provided by the University Virtual learning Environment. This paper presents the motivation and anxiety issues raised by the integration of the Wiki. In this context, the student and teacher roles are also examined. The aim is to identify what aspects of the integration of the Wiki were most successful, to discover how learners interact within and react to the collaborative tool.
Data were gathered via questionnaires, students’ reports, semi-directed interviews, and teacher observation. The introduction of the Wiki in the French classroom was positive in many ways. The teacher’s main aim of enhancing cultural competence was attained to some extent, learner attendance increased, and the participants encouraged and supported the future use of the Wiki. However, in order to improve the project, many challenges still need to be overcome regarding the students’ competence and the teacher’s expectations, particularly regarding technical challenges and the marking scheme.

References:
Comas-Quinna, A., Raquel Mardomingoa, R. and Valentinea, C. (2009). 'Mobile blogs in language learning: making the most of informal and situated learning opportunities', ReCALL, 21(1): 96-112.
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T. and Archer, W. (2000). 'Critical Inquiry in a text-based environment: computer conferencing in higher education', The internet and higher education, 2(2-3): 87-105.
Harrison, R. and Thomas, M. (2009). 'Identity in Online Communities: Social Networking Sites and Language Learning', International Journal of Emerging Technologies & Society, 7(2): 109-124.
Kessler, G. and Bikowski, D. (2010). 'Developing collaborative autonomous learning abilities in computer mediated language learning: attention to meaning among students in wiki space', Computer Assisted Language Learning, 23(1): 41-58.
Wickersham, L. E. and Dooley, K. E. (2006). 'A content analysis of critical thinking skills as an indicator of online discussion in virtual learning communities', Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 7(2): 185-193.

 

 

Author(s): Lenihan, Aoife
University of Limerick
Title: ‘Join our community of translators’ – Minority language communities & Facebook.

COLLOQUIUM: Sustaining language communities in an age of uncertainty: new spaces
(See also Kelly-Holmes, Helen and Pietikäinen, Sari; and Moriarty, Máiréad).

Facebook is a social networking site set up with the goal of giving ‘people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected’. However, it was only available in English until February 2008, when it announced the localisation of Facebook into the languages of its users. As of June 2010 it is available in seventy-five languages, with thirty-four others in progress, including minority languages such as Irish and Welsh. Facebook does not employ translators on its staff, rather developers who created the ‘Translations’ application, which enables Facebook users to translate the site themselves. This works through communities of users, ‘translators’, submitting translations which the wider language community then approves via a voting system.
This research is looking at both ‘top-down’ language policy and also the increasingly ‘bottom-up’ language practices and covert policies (Shohamy, 2006) in new media. It aspires to draw conclusions about how to situate and perhaps redefine both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ language policies and their roles in language policy and practice with regard to minority languages. Initially the ‘Translations’ application appears to be very ‘bottom-up’ in its nature, anyone can submit a translation, vote on translations submitted, post on the discussion board about the translations and the translations submitted are the translations used. However, on closer inspection it appears that Facebook is more involved in the ‘crowd sourced’ translation effort, intervening in a ‘top-down’ manner in the final translations produced. The case of Facebook would appear to challenge the dichotomy of ‘top-down’/‘bottom-up’ in language policy, with many levels of language policy both ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ involved. In this paper, I would like to explore the ‘hybrid’ model that is evolving on Facebook and discuss the implications of this ‘bottom-up’/‘top-down’ language policy in new media for minority language communities, its possibilities and consequences.


Author(s): McCarthy, Michael
University of Nottingham & University of Limerick
Title: Turn construction in spoken academic contexts.

COLLOQUIUM: Academic and Pedagogic Corpora
(See also Carter-Thomas, Shirley and Chambers, Angela; Farr, Fiona and Riordan, Elaine; and O’Riordan, Stéphanie).

The notion of how speakers construct their speaking turns has a long pedigree in linguistics and is most notably associated with the work of Sacks and his co-researchers, following on from which much work in the conversation analysis (CA) tradition has expanded and refined the original turn-taking model. Additionally, in recent years, corpus linguists have contributed to the understanding of turn construction by analysing large numbers of speaker turns in conversational corpora, thus adding robust quantitative evidence to the qualitative findings of CA.  An important paper by Tao (2003) revealed a degree of regularity in turn-opening items in a large spoken corpus that led him to propose that turn-openers should be a key element of a turn construction grammar. Building on this work, the present speaker will demonstrate, with examples from two spoken corpora, how both turn-opening and turn-closing items play a key role in the creation of coherence, as well as flow or ‘confluence’ between speakers’ turns. The presentation will focus on spoken academic contexts, since they offer key loci for understanding how knowledge is transmitted and how collaborative learning is fostered through confluent talk. Confluence as a notion offers an alternative to monologic conceptions of fluency and finds support in recent cognitive and sociolinguistic research. It also has implications for perceptions of linguistic competence both within academic contexts and in the broader social world.

References:
Tao, H. (2003). ‘Turn initiators in spoken English: A corpus-based approach to interaction and grammar’. In P. Leistyna & C. F. Meyer (eds.). Corpus Analysis: Language Structure and Language Use (pp.187-207). Amsterdam: Rodopi.


Author(s): McGuirk, Helen and Jordan, Declan
University College Cork (ISS21)
Title: Innovation and local labour market diversity: Evidence from Ireland.

This paper estimates the effect on business-level innovation of diversity within local labour markets. Using data from two waves of the Irish Innovation Panel and Irish Census of Population Sample of Anonymised Records, the paper explores whether levels and diversity of human capital at county-level in Ireland is associated with innovation output. Diversity in age, nationality, educational attainment and level of occupation is measured using a Blau Index, which has not been used in regional literature previously. There is a growing literature on the relative importance of regional diversity and specialisation for knowledge generation and sharing, leading to business innovation. Recently there have been attempts to synthesise these two effects. To date the emphasis in regional economic literature on the effect of diversity on innovation has focused on industrial structure and diversity in business sectors within a region. This paper considers diversity in local labour markets. While it has been suggested that diversity may increase knowledge generation, and in turn, innovation through the new combination of complementary knowledge, it may also be the case that diversity hinders the sharing of knowledge where this diversity fosters a lack of trust or communication barriers.


Author(s): McHugh, Patricia and Domegan, Christine
NUI Galway
Title: From authoritive to collaborative knowledge co-creation: Progressing from science and society to science in society.

Ireland’s historical approach to policy formulation has been indoctrinated by an authoritarian process of oversimplification. In particular, the co-ordination of science policy since the 1950s has revolved around a problem solving process of sustaining scientific literacy levels to meet the educational requirements of relocating multinationals. Indubitably, changes in the economic environment now precipitate a paradigm shift from the traditional system of authoritive governance to a new system of collaborative empowerment. Ireland needs to deepen and accelerate its creative capacity in order to formulate and shape pioneering policies which co-integrate the skill sets, ideas and intellectual capabilities of stakeholders at every level in a knowledge society.
The current interfaces between science ‘and’ society for polity embrace the classic rhetoric of a linear or vertical model of top-down didactic decision making processes, eradicating the compulsion for public participation. This traditional approach of mass communicating science ‘to’ the public needs to be replaced by a systemic, multi-directional and multi-dimensional model of integration, facilitating synergistic and collaborative engagement processes for science ‘in’ society.
This paper will illustrate, through an integrated social marketing perspective, how science policy co-ordination processes need to transcend the boundaries of an authoritarian top-down model to the implementation of a total market approach of inter-institutional and inter-system collaboration. The paper also delineates how science requires thinking and learning systems that grasp the bigger, socially-complex picture in identifying and managing interrelationships across the full range of independent and causal factors underlying its variety of stakeholders. This necessitates broader systems of active and empowered partnerships, alongside additional network formations at every level - from national to individual - for policy development and social change. Furthermore, an integrative approach manages the complexity of oversimplifying policy issues as it increases the public’s awareness of, support for, and engagement with science, thus, illustrating its appropriateness as the recommended way forward to ensure Ireland’s continued success in scientific research, development and policy formulation.


Author(s): McNamara, Niamh, Stevenson, Clifford and Muldoon, Orla
University of Limerick
Title: Developing social capital in Limerick Regeneration areas.

Being a member of different social groups, both within and outside one’s local community is a key aspect of the development of ‘social capital’: the network of alliances and relationships within a community.  Members of disadvantaged communities belong to fewer social groups and have a smaller range of opportunity to engage with and contribute to community life which only serves to perpetuate disadvantage.  This paper describes a study undertaken in Limerick Regeneration areas to investigate the barriers to social participation and service use experienced by residents.  The success of the regeneration process hinges on the extent to which it is informed by an appreciation of residents’ understandings of their local communities, their ability and willingness to access services, and also the perception of outsiders.
A series of focus groups were undertaken with residents to explore how to develop social capital within the regeneration areas.  Our explicit focus was on the perceptions of education, health and social services and the factors that facilitate and impede access to and utilization of these services. Respondents’ place within their community and their sense of entitlement to facilities was also discussed. A second series of focus groups was conducted with educationalists, social service providers, and health care workers which addressed the main challenges experienced in providing services and perceived differences in service use amongst affluent and less affluent areas.  In addition, each group was asked what they see as the causes of past problems and how they would redress the problems as perceived.  The results suggest that there is a need to foster a sense of local community, facilitate community engagement with services and supports, and integrate regeneration communities in order to increase the level of social capital in these areas.  

Author(s): McSherry, Eleanor
Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick
Title: The medical and social models of disability are ‘not fit for purpose’ in Ireland 2010.

One of the most contentious debates in contemporary Irish society, in two thousand and ten, is whether the definitions of concepts can be universalised and whether this causes marginalisation.  The meaning of term ‘disability’ is constantly changing, often depending on the context in which it is used and geographically where it is used. The World Health Organisation sorted the different definitions of disability and impairments into its International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, firstly in 1980 (World Health Organisation Webpage, 2008).  It now is in its tenth review.  This shows that the definition of ‘disability’ is in flux.  There are two different models dealing with the contemporary debate on the definition of intellectual disability, the medical and social models.  
The ‘medical model of disability’ is a sociological set of terms used to describe how disability has been traditionally viewed.  It claims that disability is seen as a medical problem that can only be treated by medical means.  To counter this view of disability sociologists proposed a social model of disability, which emerged from the ‘disability movement’ in the nineteen sixties and seventies, in the United States and Britain. In order to understand the differences between the two models I will outline them and their research and show that for Ireland in two thousand and ten, there is a need for a new approach to defining disability.  

Author(s): Morgan, Trish and Preston, Paschal
Dublin City University
Title: Producing culture, empowering citizenship: Interrogating the role of the artist-citizen as a catalyst for social change.

Being an artist in the 21st century is challenging. Artists encounter new technical and institutional opportunities for creative expression and practice in a ‘knowledge society’, while also encountering barriers such as the current economic crisis impacting on the cultural sector. In Ireland, the arts are being lauded as a ‘rescuer’ that can ‘rebrand’ Ireland during this current economic, social and cultural crisis. Yet the arts are also in the midst of massive funding cuts, with a report to the government suggesting the abolition of major arts institutions.
Frankfurt School theorists such as Benjamin and Adorno significantly contributed to our understanding of the relationship between artists as citizens and social agents. Benjamin, whilst encouraging artists to explore new technologies, advised against being overcome by the striking aesthetic effects of those tools, challenging the artist to employ them as socially aware and politically astute citizens (Benjamin, 1936).  Adorno critiqued the ‘culture industry’ for being profit-driven and non-innovative as it disseminated conformist ideologies, perpetuating an ‘affirmative culture’ (Adorno, 1991).
This paper suggests that Benjamin and Adorno’s approaches have continuing merits. The tensions highlighted by them are entirely pertinent to contemporary artistic production.  The insights afforded by those authors warrant fresh explorations due to the digital media tools being afforded to artists today, and the unfolding economic crisis in Ireland.
In this paper, we consider how this ‘moment’ of crisis is impacting on artistic production. The Frankfurt School engaged with questions of citizenship, cultural production, technology and culture industries at a historical ‘moment’ in social, economic and technological development not dissimilar to the current ‘moment’ of crisis. We suggest that a new look at this school yields insights into the potential for new media artists to provide a space for a discourse of citizenship, societal relationships and the role of culture.

Author(s): Moriarty, Máiréad
University of Limerick and University of Jyväskylä
Title: Minority language recovery via performative genres: The case of Irish-language stand-up comedy.

COLLOQUIUM: Sustaining language communities in an age of uncertainty: new spaces
(See also Kelly-Holmes, Helen and Pietikäinen, Sari; and Lenihan, Aoife).
The aim of the presentation is to consider minority language planning and policy in an increasingly globalised world. It will examine the potential for language change from the bottom up given the new domains in which minority languages are present in the global era. Drawing on theoretical notions of orders of indexicality (Blommaert, 2005) and sociolinguistic scales (Blommaert, 2007), this presentation aims to discuss how the position of the Irish language has been reconfigured.  As a consequence of this reconfiguration, new values and functions have been created, which in turn are significant to language planning and policy research. From this position, the presentation traces how the domain of the Irish language in contemporary Irish society has been reformed through increased presence of the language in performative genres such as comedy and rap music. The principle aim of this presentation is to examine the domain of Irish language comedy produced by the Irish-American comedian Des Bishop in his television series In the Name of the Fada and is his subsequent stand-up comedy shows Tongues and Unbearlable in terms of bottom-up language planning. The presentation will discuss what is seen under the gaze of the comic lens and highlights the achievements of such a scrutiny in terms of Irish language maintenance. By identifying Bishop as a bottom-up language planning actor this presentation will examine the potential ripple effects of such initiatives for top-down language planning agencies such as the educational domain, thereby pointing to the potential for increased minority language recovery when such languages achieve new values and functions through language mobility.


Author(s): Murray, Liam and Mishan, Freda
University of Limerick
Title: PBL, technology and teaching literature: fit for purpose and convergence?

COLLOQUIUM: New Literacies
(See also Batardière, Marie-Thérèse and Jeanneau, Catherine; and Le Baron-Earle, Florence).

Problem-based learning (PBL) can be said to embody our contemporary pedagogical ethos, i.e. the shift of focus in pedagogy from ‘teaching’ to ‘learning’, and to be eminently suitable for today’s autonomous, digitally native learners. The principles of PBL are rooted in early 20th century Constructivist philosophy, identified with the names of Dewey, Vygotsky and Piaget, which holds that learning is a social as well as an individual process: knowledge is actively constructed in the mind of the learner, influenced by their interactions with peers and with the environment. Perhaps the core principle of constructivism as far as PBL is concerned is that it is the ‘problematic’, i.e. cognitive conflict, that leads to learning (e.g. Dewey 1938) in the sense that learning takes place in that space where we are striving to accommodate new to prior experience. In PBL, cognitive conflict or ‘puzzlement’ (Savery and Duffy 2001) is concretised, in that a real problem is used to trigger the learning process. PBL originated in medical education in the 1970s (e.g. Barrows 1980) but has by now transcended disciplines to cover areas as disparate as (to give examples from UL alone) Civil Engineering, Business, Software development and literature (in the pilot presented here), and has over the last few years begun to be used in language learning (CEEBL, Manchester University) and language teaching (MA ELT, UL).
This presentation looks at a recent case study involving PBL-based techniques employed over a 12 –week period with final year undergraduate students of foreign language literature. It will aim to explore the effectiveness of introducing a PBL approach to teaching literature where there is an established technology-based pedagogy and critically assess the potential that PBL methodologies may contribute in such a convergence. The key question being investigated is to what extent can this approach be considered ‘fit for purpose’ (Chappelle, 2001)?


References:
Barrows, H. S., Tamblyn, R.M. (1980). Problem-Based Learning: An Approach to Medical Education. New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Chapelle, C. (2001). Computer Applications in Second Language Acquisition: Foundations for Teaching, Testing and Research. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan.
Savery, J. and Duffy T. M. (2001), ‘Problem Based Learning: An instructional model and its constructivist framework’, CRLT Technical Report No. 16-01, available at: http://crlt.indiana.edu/publications/journals/TR16-01.pdf.


Author(s): Murtagh, Luke*, Ryan, Anne**, Kenny, Michael** and Connolly, Brid**
*Tipperary North Vocational Education Committee, ** NUI Maynooth
Title: Giving recognition where due: The challenge of designing an appropriate teacher recognition methodology for further and continuing education teachers.

The 2001 Education Act requires the Teaching Council of Ireland accredit teachers in further education from 2013 onwards. The Teaching Council of Ireland has experience of providing accreditation to teachers in the formal education sector but undertaking recognition for teachers in the continuing and further education sector is a challenging prospect.
This paper is prepared by 3 people active in the adult and community education sector seeking to inform the discussion on an appropriate recognition model for teachers in continuing and further education. The paper will identify the principles of recognition applied for teachers at primary and secondary level and will transpose these onto the further education sector. The paper will argue for a process of recognition that meets the statutory responsibilities of the Teaching Council of Ireland but also ensures that the teachers recognised in further education have the qualities that enhance professionalism in that sector and that protects the learners.
This paper is opportune at this time of uncertainty, as further education teachers will have a disproportionate impact on knowledge, innovation, and society in this time of uncertainty. As people, increasingly socially and economically marginalized, return to education as the only sure investment (investment in themselves) the quality of the continuing and further education offered will impact on the resilience of our society. This paper contributes to the current debate from an applied perspective.


Author(s): Noone, Phil
University of Limerick
Title: Exploring the concept of place.

This paper marks an initial attempt to understand the complexity of place and its meaning for older men. The concept of place and place attachment is complex and multifaceted. Researchers from diverse backgrounds such as psychology, philosophy, geography, social ecology, anthropology and social science have utilised different frameworks for understanding the complexity of place. Gustafson (2001) utilises an integrated framework of self, others and environment for understanding the meanings of place. Rowles (1983, 1990, 1994) work on place attachment utilises the concept of "insideness" to explain three dimensions of place attachment that occurs in old age. Familiarity with the place or environment is described as "physical insideness". "Social insideness" occurs when people live in the same place for a long period of time and become part of the fabric of the local community. "Psychological or autobiographical insideness" relates to "a temporal depth of meaning". Agnew (1987:28) within social science proposes that place is conceptualised as locale:  the setting where social relations take place, location: describing the geographical location and sense of place: which includes the local "structure of feeling". Massey (1995) goes further than this and argues that concepts of places are too conservative and that they are often depicted as having single identities. Instead she argues that places are not isolated single units but that they are connected to the global world. From this perspective, place exists at a point of intersection that integrates the local and the global into a global sense of place. Neither are places static. Instead the process of place and place making are continually produced and reproduced in interaction with the changing environment and circumstances. Unravelling the complexity of place has important implications for understanding how older men make sense of the ageing experience.


Author(s): O’Dwyer, Maria
University of Limerick
Title: Retiring the ventriloquist dummy: Using children’s own narratives and embodied experience to inform a sociology of child health.

Contemporary ideas about health and illness are embedded in the development of the biomedical model and the emergence of the natural sciences (Hardy, 1999). As social scientific researchers, therefore, we work from the viewpoint that medical knowledge is in itself social and reflects the culture and politics of the time it inhabits. If such research is to include children, all definitions of their health and wellbeing need to be seen in their cultural and historical context, and as embodying particular social priorities.
A critical perspective views children’s health as embedded in institutional and social structures, shaped in complex ways by relationships of power and difference (Robb, 2007). Sociological discourse, therefore, opens important routes into thinking about children’s embodied experience and learning.
Mayall (1998: 276) applies Shilling’s theory of embodiment to childhood, concluding that ‘childhood provides a dramatic case for study of embodied experience, for children’s bodies are the critical site of their own experience and of adult interpretation and behaviour’.  This paper seeks to demonstrate that we can only effectively construct a sociology of child health when we apply these theories of embodiment to broader macro work (Alanen, 1998) and combine them with data from children’s own lived experiences. Presenting findings from a current study - the Sociology of Childhood Asthma - the paper demonstrates that children are both active learners and eager learners in terms of their own health and its management.
While the ‘knowledge society’ is abound with aetiological, quantitative accounts of childhood asthma, qualitative research that narrates children’s perceptions about their illness is notably limited – this paper seeks to begin bridging the gap between these two points by locating the child’s voice at the centre of sociological discourse on health and illness.


References:
Alanen, L. (1998). ‘Children and the Family Order.’ In I. Hutchby & J. Moran-Ellis (eds.), Children and Social Competence: Arenas of Action. London: Falmer.
Hardy, M. (1999). The Social Context of Health. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Mayall, B. (1998). Towards a Sociology of Child Health. Sociology of Health and Illness, 20(3): 269-288.
Robb, M. (2007). ‘Wellbeing’. In  M.J. Kehily (ed.), Understanding Youth: Perspectives, Identities and Practices. London: Sage.


Author(s): O’Keeffe, Anne* and Mark, Geraldine**
*Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, **Freelance Materials Writer
Title: Using a corpus to empirically profile the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) for English.

The Cambridge Learner Corpus (CLC) contains over 35 million words from Cambridge exam scripts from over 135,000 exam scripts, from 130 different first languages and 190 different countries. Over 21 million words of these data have been error-coded. This makes it a powerful resource not just for publishing but also for insights into learners' error and non-error grammatical patterns and lexis. As part of the English Profile project, the CLC is being used to explore the Reference Level Descriptions for the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) levels (A1, A2, B1, etc). In the context of examining grammar descriptors (i.e. the grammatical structures learners at a certain level can use), the paper will detail the task faced in this project whose aim is to profile what learners competencies are at each CEFR level. This task poses many challenges. For example, a structure may emerge at a certain level but it may only manifest in certain limited forms, some structures may be very prevalent but may be exam-driven, other structures may be low frequency (e.g. phrasal verbs) through avoidance strategies on the part of the learner. The project breaks new ground methodologically but it is not without its challenges and these will discussed in the paper, for instance, whether it is it too circular to just look at learner exam data alone in order to determine Reference Level Descriptors, whether data from native speaker corpora should also be taken into account. The paper will also illustrate some of the findings to date on some key grammatical competencies across different levels.


Author(s): Organ, Damien and Cunningham, James
NUI Galway
Title: Academic entrepreneurship: An institutional perspective.

Academic entrepreneurship is recognised as a critical component within wider macro level initiatives centred on the realisation of innovative excellence and both regional and national economic growth. Given the significance attached to the role of the academic entrepreneur as a driver of economic development then, it is somewhat surprising that there has been at best limited exploration of the manner in which institutional pressures impact upon perceptions of commercialisation activity amongst university faculty. If the desired organisational and economic outputs are to be achieved, the incorporation of these considerations into the development of appropriate organisational structures is critical. What shall be articulated in this paper then, is a theoretical position which establishes a research agenda for the exploration of the micro processes through which institutional pressures impact upon the behaviour of academics with respect to the perceived feasibility and appropriateness of commercialisation activity.


Author(s): O’Riordan, Stéphanie
University of Limerick
Title: Using a corpus of classroom discourse in a language teacher education programme: A resource at the interface of language and pedagogic studies.

COLLOQUIUM: Academic and Pedagogic Corpora
(See also Carter-Thomas, Shirley and Chambers, Angela; Farr, Fiona and Riordan, Elaine; and McCarthy, Michael).

In a move to bridge the gap between what is often perceived as a divide between university-based studies and on-the-job training, data taken directly from professional settings are increasingly used within professional education in a wide range of domains such as legal and business studies (Connor and Upton 2004) and language teacher education (LTE) (Amador Moreno, Chambers et al. 2006) for instance. Recent publications in the area of using corpora for pedagogic purposes highlight the need for corpus use to be made more relevant to language teachers who, as a profession, have yet to strongly adhere to the relevance of corpus-based linguistic study as a tried and tested approach to language teaching and learning (Römer 2009). Based on the premise that integrating corpus consultation in LTE can be stepping stone to popularising corpus linguistics amongst teachers, this paper reports on an empirical study carried out in the context of LTE and focuses on the study of reformulation and scaffolding in a specially created corpus of classroom discourse in French used with student teachers preparing to teach French in secondary level education in Ireland. Thus, after a brief description of the corpus building process, the paper presents the various types of reformulation and scaffolding techniques used in the corpus and discusses the way in which such data can be explored by student teachers to enhance their linguistic as well as their pedagogic knowledge. It then closes on recommendations to bring corpus researchers’ agenda closer to that of language students’ teachers.  

References:
Amador Moreno, C. P., A. Chambers, et al. (2006). 'Integrating a corpus of classroom discourse in language teacher education: The case of discourse markers'. ReCALL 18(1): 83-104.
Connor, U. and T. A. Upton, Eds. (2004). Discourse in the Professions. Perspectives from Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdan, John Benjamins.
Römer, U. (2009). 'Corpus research and practice: What help do teachers need and what can we offer?’ In K. Aijmer (ed.) Corpora and Language Teaching. Amsterdam, John Benjamins: 83-98.


Author(s): O’Sullivan, Carol and Devaney, Eva
Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick
Title: How a pilot project became embedded in a college community.

In Ireland, education has been perceived nationally as a potential key medium for the support and implementation of health-promotion policies and healthy public policy (Ryan et al., 2006), with the result that educational settings such as schools and colleges were seen as being key to the promotion of health. The settings approach to health promotion is underpinned by the understanding that health is determined by a number of interrelated factors: genetic factors, lifestyle, work, education, the environment and socio-economic status (Department of Health and Children, [DoHC], 2000).  The National Health Promotion Strategy (2000-2005) has identified colleges as key settings for Health Promotion (DoHC, 2000). Over a four-year period (1996-2000), Mary Immaculate College piloted a project aimed at improving the health of students and staff in the college setting.  This project was evaluated in 2000.  The pilot project led to the embedding of the Health Promoting College concept within the college community.  Almost a decade has elapsed since the original evaluation, and given the social, economic and cultural change experienced by Ireland in the interim, we considered it timely to conduct another evaluation to determine progress and to inform future initiatives.  
This paper presents the findings of the 2010 evaluation of the Health Promotion Service in Mary Immaculate College.


Author(s): Parker, Zi and Diggins, Yvonne
University of Limerick
Title: The Limerick printed Magazine of Magazines – a case study in digital archiving.

Currently, the original volumes of the Limerick printed Magazine of Magazines are stored in the British Library. By creating Reusable Learning Objects (ebooks), we are bringing the Magazine of Magazines online to lecturers, students & researchers, enabling them to research eighteenth century text and the national and international events of this time, the period, 1751-1769.
With the development of these ebooks, we aim to improve interpretation, translation and transcription, which will enrich the user’s experience and understanding of these publications. This project aims to make these historical magazines accessible to users with sight or hearing difficulties through voice/audio and visual highlighting.
The growth of digital archives has begun to change the way historians “do” history.  In the case of the Limerick printed Magazine of Magazines the presence of digital archives has made it possible to not only study the content of the Limerick magazine but also its sources in other European periodical literature.  
This paper aims to show the benefits and pitfalls of digital archiving and creating RLOs in the context of the Magazine of Magazines as well as the uses of such RLOs.

Author(s): Parker-Jenkins, Marie
University of Limerick
Title: Children's rights, school dress and the influence of Strasbourg.

"The right to education", and respect for parents' "religious and philosophical convictions" in schooling are legal principles enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights to which Ireland has been a party since 1953. Wearing the "hijab" or head covering by Muslim girls at school has been a controversial issue in Ireland, as well as in other European countries such as France, Holland, Turkey and the UK. More recently the desire to "manifest religious belief" in personal dress has extended to the wearing of the "veil" and the "burqa" or gown by students and teachers in educational institutions.  This paper reviews litigation taken to the European Court of Human Rights concerning school dress, and the significance of religious as well as ethnic pluralism within educational settings. Theoretical exploration of overlapping and at times conflicting arguments inherent in post-colonialism and feminist discourses are incorporated and discussion concludes with the implications raised for educators in responding to demands concerning school dress.


Author(s): Pinatti, Fabiano
University of Limerick
Title: Motivational issues surrounding technologically-mediated nomadic work practices in the knowledge economy.

COLLOQUIUM: Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy: Investigating Practice, Place, Gender and Technological Mediation
(See also Ciolfi, Luigina; Gray, Breda; and Wixted, Lisa).

This paper will discuss how computer technologies have been impacting on the mobility patterns of knowledge economy workers involved with nomadic work practices, i.e., workers who are constantly moving from place to place and developing their work activities across different sites. Such workers may move because their work activities demand them to do so or because of personal reasons or preferences. Nonetheless, the advent and the spread of computer technologies that may allow for work to be conducted anytime/anywhere raise questions about changes in the mobility patterns of those workers. Would mediated interactions and access to resources make people less mobile? Research on nomadicity in the knowledge economy usually suggests that face-to-face interactions are the main motivation for people to move. Researchers argue such interactions are to remain preferable over mediated interactions due to the social aspects. Furthermore, some authors suggest that technological limitations may hinder the necessary interactions for the development of collaborative work tasks. However, advances in the design and development of computer technologies, leading towards devices and applications capable of providing pleasant user experience as well as efficacy and efficiency in terms of use, and the spread of technologies that allow for more social and natural mediated interactions, raise questions whether this will remain the same. Moreover, there are also questions regarding work activities that are not based on human interactions and that are not bonded to specific sites. What would motivate people to mobilise and to develop those activities in a location rather than in another? This paper will bring on this discussion, reviewing relevant literature and drawing on data collected in field work performed by Dr Anthony D’Andrea as part of the ISSP UL-based Nomadic Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy project and a pilot study carried out by the paper’s author as part of his PhD research.


Author(s): Preston, Paschal (chair)*, Cawley, Anthony**, Collins, Patrick*** and Kerr, Aphra****
*Dublin City University, **University of Limerick, ***NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth    
Title: A ‘creative’ and ‘smart’ economy strategy? Locating the role of the cultural and media industries.

COLLOQUIUM: A ‘Creative’ and ‘Smart’ Economy Strategy? Locating the role of the cultural and media industries and the priorities for a new
innovation policy strategy in Ireland

Amidst the deepest economic crisis in the history of the state, current policy discourses in Ireland have positioned the creative, media and cultural sector as a key element in the government’s ‘smart economy’ strategy. In sum, the creative and cultural industries have been placed centre-stage in mainstream policy thinking and efforts to construct viable new sources of wealth and job creation, especially since the ‘diaspora’ conference at Farmleigh.
Yet, beneath the apparent novelty of this discursive shift in the Irish setting, there are some rather familiar resonances in this turn to culture amidst crisis. Indeed, the concept of ‘culture industry’- invented but not copyrighted by the Frankfurt School of critical theory – was first appropriated as a tool in ‘alternative’ industrial strategy planning in the London region in the early 1980s, the time of the first Thatcher Government in Britain. Subsequently, the trope was widely diffused and amplified, not least by various versions of post-Fordist literature and the so-called ‘cultural turn’ in social analysis. It was also embraced in neo-liberal policy strategies in many countries since the 1990s, often under the rubric of an information or knowledge society. More recently, a broadly similar theme has been popularised by Richard Florida whose Rise of the Creative Class ensured his rise to a prominent, globe-trotting management and policy consultant. Indeed, the idea of the potential rise and growth of the cultural and media industries now forms a standard part of the economic planning portfolio for urban, regional and national strategies in many settings. The multiple other contributors to this theme include several critical studies of the new/digital media production drawing attention to the ‘precarious’ labour process evident in certain sectors. They also include a group of writers drawing on the Italian autonomia school whose central concepts, now in a ‘post-workerist’ mode, include that of the rise of  ‘immaterial labor’.
In sum, we observe that contributors from many otherwise competing perspectives often converge when it comes to celebrating the growth potential of the media and cultural services sectors. For example, the perspectives advanced by Florida and the autonomia writers draw on very different theoretical and political starting points and multiple other differences. Yet, they also share some striking similarities. These include the assumption that these workers and sectors are expanding rapidly. They also assume that both creativity and capital are now merged or merging in some novel ways, suggesting that “the production of various kinds of symbolic content — information, entertainment, art — have ostensibly become economically dominant, and as artists’ vaunted resistance to routine work has been thus generalized throughout the workforce” (Brouillette, 2009: 146).
This panel session will interrogate the role and potential of the cultural and media industries in any viable ‘smart economy’ strategy in contemporary Ireland. The panel will locate and examine current Irish discourses and policy practices in light of national and international research. The contributors are members of the knowledge society pillar of the ISSP project.


Author(s): Raab, Roman and Gannon, Brenda
NUI Galway
Title: Time for reform? Contrasting social security design in Austria and Ireland.

This paper investigates policies of two very different social security systems in Austria and Ireland. How do these different systems perform in terms of income adequacy, labour supply incentives for older workers, and actuarial fairness? We find that there are significant behavioural differences of older workers in income versus non-income tested social security systems. Flat-rate systems like the Irish do not perform very well in terms of income adequacy and actuarial fairness. Austria, which has an income tested system, encourages early retirement and there are multiple early retirement channels. A part time work scheme tries, without great success, to compensate these shortcomings embedded in the social security system. Social security systems must be carefully adapted to the needs of a particular economy. Even though issues are often common to many countries, a policy has different effects across countries. There is no “optimal” design of social security.


Author(s): Rogers, Jim
Dublin City University
Title: IPRs and innovation in the digital music economy.

Digital innovations are widely perceived as having severely disrupted the roles and interests of established music industry actors over the past decade, producing a ‘new music order’. Primarily, digitised ‘intangible’ music holds the potential for loss of ‘scarcity’, while the internet carries the threat of a loss of control over the channels of music distribution. This paper shows how the relationship between intellectual property rights and innovation is most clearly illustrated by the strategies adopted by major music industry actors in responding to the challenges associated with digitalisation. This paper contends that the music industry has indeed undergone significant change during the past decade, and that these changes primarily stem from the diffusion of internet technologies and other digital applications that have evolved to produce both threats and opportunities, particularly with regard to the record industry sub-sector of the broader music industries. However, the evidence collected by the author in a recent study posits that a series of ‘matching’ innovations have occurred (especially in the organisational and policy spheres) that ultimately shape the outcome of such technological developments. These matching innovations effectively represent a re-organisation and reconfiguration of the broader music industry based on strategies designed to ‘manage’ the outcome of technological innovations or negate their potentially harmful effects on the established industry’s core centres of power. This paper shows how the music industry is re-ordering its key sub-sectors into a more ‘integrated’ model whereby established music companies are repositioning themselves to more effectively exploit their ownership of music copyrights – the life-blood of the music industry – from a growing range of sources. A key example forwarded by the paper focuses on how the ‘integration’ of the live music industry into this new model has, through the application of digital and mobile technologies, evolved significant new facets to the music recording and music publishing industries. Furthermore, within this new industry structure, the recording artist has been re-conceptualised as an ‘all-encompassing’ music ‘brand’. Beyond copyright, this development illustrates the increasing significance of trademark ownership to the major industry actors. As such, music is moving from the category of copyright industry to the broader classification of intellectual property industry.


Author(s): Sivagnanam, Ishwari
NUI Maynooth
Title: Estimating the prevalence of early onset type 2 diabetes and healthcare provision needs at the small area level in the Republic of Ireland.

Diabetes is a chronic condition which if poorly controlled can lead to complications including blindness and gangrene and increased risk for other chronic diseases notably cardiovascular disease and kidney disease. In Ireland prevalence forecasts predict an increase of 64% over a 15 year period from 2005 to 2020.The annual expenditure on diabetes care approximates to €600 million. Now, hence the projected burden of care on the Irish health care system and the loss in quality of life among the Irish population needs no further emphasis.
Obesity is one of the major risk factors for diabetes. Due to an increase in childhood obesity there is therefore going to be an increase in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes among children and young adults. This increase will place an additional burden on the health care system alongside economic consequences as parents/ carers accompany sufferers to medical appointments. There is no detailed geographical forecasting of the healthcare resources which will be needed to meet this increased demand. Indeed, evidence suggests current distribution of services is inadequate. My research aims to provide an evidence base for more equitable service provision. The geographic distribution of this forecasted increase in prevalence will help policy makers plan for the excess burden of care and target those population groups with the highest risk for the condition for prevention and intervention programs.


Author(s): Stilz, Melanie
Dublin City University
Title: Introducing information technologies in Afghan higher education -Actors, goals and reactions.

Concepts like “the Information Age” or “the Knowledge Society” are far from unknown in a country like Afghanistan that is often characterised as “failed state”; on the contrary, one observes that, amongst certain groups, the notion of “leapfrogging” industrializa­tion is deemed possible even for a poor country like Afghanistan, especially in light of neighbouring India’s apparent success story in the global IT services industry. Indeed, one can observe a distinct awareness that the Internet and other new communication technologies offer many potential new opportunities especially amongst young educated Afghans. Not surprisingly perhaps, (especially for those familiar with Everett Rogers work), it is precisely them, those “early adopters”1 who cooperate closely with develop­ment organizations in ICT projects in Afghanistan’s higher education sector. They also play a major role in the “innovation decision process” 2 by offering technical support and computer training to their fellow students as well as university lecturers and other staff members. However, decisions on ICT projects are in most cases negotiated beforehand among rep­resentatives of Afghan institutions of higher education, donor agencies and international organisations. The aforementioned young computer literate Afghans are generally only involved into the implementation process, once the design and planning process is al­ready settled. The differing experiences with, and expectations of new communication technology among the young Afghans, the international actors and the local older gen­eration civil servants also reflect their differing ideas of an “Afghan Knowledge Society” and Afghanistan’s role and prospects in a “Global Information Age“. This paper examines where and how these varying concepts cause conflicts and how these conflicts might be avoided by greater awareness of the local and international contexts of new ICT applications and adoption processes. The approach and analysis is framed around prominent models in the communication and development field.

References:
1Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (The Free Press, 1995), p.22. 2Idem, p.28.


Author(s): Swift, Catherine
Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick
Title: Viking genetics in 21st C Ireland.

Research into the human genome as well as ongoing developments in the study of DNA, both animal and human, in recent years, have transformed the study of historical migration and the study of ethnicity. Where nineteenth-century anthropologists studied the shape of heads and the colouring of eyes and hair, modern-day researchers investigate the enamel of ancient teeth and throat swaps from contemporary volunteers. The conclusions are often published in media-friendly formats such as television documentaries or popular non-fiction books such as Brian Sykes, The Blood of the Isles and they frequently feed into strong notions of cultural identity.
One of the issues which arises from these studies is that they are predominantly carried out by geneticists with little or no training in the historical time-frame of the population they are studying. The anomalous situation therefore arises that the scientific evidence is often being used to interrogate older historical models of change with little or no consideration of current thinking.  A more important issue is the historical reality that study of past population movements led in the early twentieth century to concepts of racial purity. In order to identify “Vikings” in the modern population, one needs to be able to identify the contrasting “Irish”. This is a complex issue  – where on the island would one expect to find a pool of  “Irish” genes uncontaminated by “British” genes and on what criteria would you chose them as representative of the early medieval population? This paper explores some of the problems encountered by an international research network, Genes of the Gallgoidel, established with IRCHSS and AHRC funding in 2008 to explore these issues.  

Author(s): Szymczak, Rita
University of Limerick
Title: The slippery slope of sidelining foreign languages? Student and teacher experiences of German language teaching at Irish HEIs.

In a time during which language skills are essential to career flexibility and employability (European Commission, 1995), the Republic of Ireland has not fully addressed the European “mother tongue plus two foreign languages” target, although at primary- and post-primary education level in particular some progress has been made (e.g. the 2001 “Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative” and the “Post-Primary Language Initiative” launched in 2005).
One of the main contributing factors behind this disadvantageous situation is a lack of emphasis on language skills in the Irish education system exacerbated by a persisting vacuum of explicit national foreign language policy. With the only two compulsory languages at school level being English and Gaeilge, “only 8 percent of Irish secondary school students learn two or more foreign languages compared with the European average of 60 percent” (Irish Times, 2010).  According to a 2006 Eurobarometer survey (European Commission, 2006: 9-10), 66% of Irish adults are unable to hold a conversation in a foreign language due to a lack of enforcement of target language teaching at secondary schools and at higher education level, where “[l]anguage degrees […] are being taught ever more through the medium of English, thereby not contributing to high levels of proficiency of graduates in the foreign language” (DES & EC report, 2008: 19).
This paper aims to explore some of the factors behind the languages gap in the ROI in more detail and will present some preliminary research and prepilot study findings of student and teacher experiences with English-medium - and target language teaching of German at a number of Irish higher education institutions.

References:
Anderson, J. (2000). ‘Which language? - An embarrassment of choice’. In K. Field, (ed.), Issues in modern foreign languages teaching (pp.171-189). London and New York: Routledge Falmer.  
Coleman, J.A. (2009). ‘Why the British do not learn languages; myths and motivations in the UK’. Language Learning Journal 37(1): 11-127.
Department of Science and Education Ireland (2008). Language Education Policy Profile Ireland - Country Report. Strasbourg: Language Policy Division.
European Commission (2003). Promoting Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity: An Action Plan 2004 - 2006.
European Commission (2006). Europeans and their Languages - Special Eurobarometer 243, 2006. Brussels: European Commission.
European Commission (1995). Teaching and Learning - Towards the Learning Society (EU White Paper on Education and Training), 1995, Brussels: (COM (95) 590 - 1995).
Faller, G. (2010). 'Language gap is latest threat to jobs', The Irish Times (retrieved 03 August 2010 from: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2010/0420/1224268692039.html).
Levine, G. S. (2003). ‘Student and instructor beliefs and attitudes about target language use, first language use, and anxiety: report of a questionnaire study’. The Modern Language Journal, 87: 343-364.
Little, D. (2006). Languages in the Post-Primary Curriculum: Time for a New Approach? (retrieved 03 December 2009 from: http://english.slss.ie/languages.html).  Macaro, E. (2000). ‘Issues in target language teaching’. In K. Field, (ed.) Issues in modern foreign languages teaching (pp. 171-189). London and New York: Routledge Falmer.

 


Author(s): Ungar, Nora
Trinity College Dublin
Title: Exploring deaf community values.

This paper will outline how qualitative research methods, theories on small group cultures and historical research work within the domain of Social and Cultural Anthropology can be applied to understand the changing cultural values of the Irish Deaf community.
The Irish Deaf community constitutes Deaf individuals who use Irish Sign Language (ISL) as a primary mode of communication, associate with Deaf culture and the principles of the community. The community provides common ground, equal treatment and positive identity for Deaf people who, otherwise in their daily lives, have to overcome a set of common barriers to communication in their interactions with “hearing society”.
Deaf culture is based on ISL and the shared knowledge of the community. Socialisation of members and the transmission of culture traditionally necessitated personal encounters through multigenerational social activities. These activities predominantly took place in the Deaf clubs.
In the past few decades, Irish society has undergone general structural changes which have also impacted on the Deaf community. The increase in mainstream education, the shifts in social attitudes and the fast-paced development of information and communication technology have combined to generate a decrease in the attendance at Deaf clubs. This potentially endangers the existence of the community and is a significant challenge for the maintenance of Deaf culture.
The paper discusses how data collected with anthropological methods can be analysed to assess individual and group values. The proposed methods are symbolic analysis of community practices with cultural indicators and hermeneutic analysis of organisational and personal communications. The paper also defines the interpretative role of the researcher.
The exploration of contemporary Deaf experiences, identity construction, community relations and values may help to understand how Deaf people see the transformation of their community. This understanding can offer a starting point for (Deaf) activists to plan maintenance and regeneration strategies.

 


Author(s): Walsh, Cormac
NUI Maynooth
Title: Processes of institutional change in strategic spatial planning: Theoretical reflections and insights from practice.

Strategic spatial planning may be characterised as a state-led interventionist activity that seeks to pursue particular objectives for society through a focus on the specific qualities of individualities and social relations across space. Institutional theories may usefully be applied to the analysis of processes of spatial strategy-making and the understanding of shifts in spatial planning practice within specific formal and informal governance contexts. In particular this paper argues that a sociological institutionalist approach can provide insights into processes of change in strategic spatial planning where dynamics of ‘path-dependence’ are countered by ‘path-shaping’ dynamics. The theoretical reflections presented in this paper are grounded through an empirical study of the emergence of strategic approaches to spatial planning at the city-regional scale in the Greater Dublin Area.  It is argued that a shift towards strategic spatial planning must be interpreted as a political process, involving a shift in governance cultures. This perspective explicitly challenges dominant instrumental perspectives where strategic spatial planning is viewed as the addition of new elements to the ‘toolkit’ of practising planners.   


Author(s): Walsh, Cormac and O’Callaghan, Cian
NUI Maynooth
Title: ESPON: European Observation Network for Territorial Development and Cohesion: Recent activities and forthcoming opportunities for researchers in Ireland.

ESPON, the European Observation Network for Territorial Development and Cohesion is a large-scale European research programme providing information on spatial development trends, challenges and opportunities in Europe. The programme has an explicit emphasis on supporting policy development and aims to facilitate a shift towards evidence-informed policy-making at a range of governance levels from the local scale to the European Union. Recent projects have focused on a diverse range of thematic areas including demography, urban-regional dynamics, rural development and climate change. As the Contact Point for ESPON in Ireland, NIRSA is responsible for promoting engagement with ESPON results among academic researchers and practitioners at local, regional and national levels. This presentation will provide a brief introduction to the ESPON programme, focussing on projects with a specific relevance to Ireland and outlining opportunities for researchers to become involved in future ESPON projects. For further information please visit http://www.espon.eu/.

 


Author(s): Wixted, Lisa
University of Limerick
Title: Doing and undoing gender in portfolio work.

COLLOQUIUM: Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy: Investigating Practice, Place, Gender and Technological Mediation
(See also Ciolfi, Luigina; Gray, Breda; and Pinatti, Fabiano).

This paper will discuss ‘portfolio work’; a form of independent, project-based, flexible, skilled labour which is regarded to be on the rise in the ‘knowledge economy’. Specifically, it will question the implications of portfolio work practices for gender. Gender, in this paper, is understood as a social structure, a collection of social norms and a (fluid) aspect of our subjectivity which may be accepted, challenged or negotiated in a multitude of ways. Despite the inclusion of many women in the paid workforce today, the boundary between work and life is still powerfully gendered; a gendered division of labour stipulates different roles/behaviours for men and women in line with the cultural assumptions of man as primary breadwinner and woman as primary caregiver. Portfolio work is believed to put pressure on the ‘work/life boundary’ as it transgresses the temporal, spatial (and contractual) norms as set out in ‘typical’ industrial work.
In portfolio work, this paper suggests, boundaries of work and life time are permeable and each flows into the other, perhaps leaving a space for reflexivity regarding how gender might be performed. This paper, then, will investigate the ways in which transformations or transgressions of gender may follow from ‘new’ work practices, i.e., how gender may be both done and undone in the context of atypical work. First, I will review the academic literature on portfolio work in order to explore how gender functions within this discourse. Second, I will present preliminary findings from a qualitative study to take place with portfolio workers in the Limerick region. This research will explore how gender is embedded in and performed through their everyday practices through an analysis of data sources, including in-depth interviews, participant observation and online representations. Therefore, this research will emphasise the performative aspect of gender, as mediated through the body, verbal discourse and the internet.