scholarly journals Between Social and Semantic Networks: A Case Study on Classroom Complexity

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernani Rodrigues ◽  
Maurício Pietrocola
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Semantic Networks ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Social Representation Theory ◽  
High School Classroom ◽  
Interpersonal Ties ◽  
Interpersonal Domain

Classrooms are complex in their real sets. To understand such sets and their emergent patterns, network approach provides useful theoretical and methodological tools. In this work, we used network approach to explore two domains of complexity in a classroom: the interpersonal domain, via social networks; and the representational domain, through collective semantic networks. This work is grounded in both Social Network Analyses and Social Representation Theory for gathering information from interpersonal and representational domains. We investigated a physics high school classroom by proceeding sociometric tests and by using words freely evoked by students to explore relations between students’ dyad’s weights, in social networks, and emerging consensus in semantic networks. Our findings showed closer relations between social ties’ weight and consensus formed on intra-school representational objects, while consensus on extra-school representational objects is less dependent on the classroom interpersonal ties’ strength.

Social Capital as Network Capital: Looking at the Role of Social Networks among Not-For-Profits

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Prell
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
Building Trust ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Network Approach ◽  
Unique Context

Social capital's rise in popularity is a phenomenon many have noted (Kadushin, 2006; Warde and Tampubolon, 2002; Portes, 1998). Although the concept is a relatively old one, it is the works of Bourdieu (1986), Coleman (1988; 1990), and Putnam (1993, 2000) that often get credited for popularizing the concept. These three, while sharing a view that social networks are important for social groups and society, place differing levels of emphasis on the role of networks in building trust or the exchange of various types of resources. In this paper, I briefly revisit these three theorists, and the criticisms each have received, to provide background for discussing recent research on social capital from a social networks approach. The social network approach is then applied to my own case study looking at the relations among not-for-profits, and special attention is given to the unique context of not-for-profits, and how this context might elaborate or challenge current thoughts on social, aka ‘network’ capital. A final discussion is also given to some measurement problems with the network approach to social capital.

Understanding EFL Instructor Identity Changes During Online Teaching in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study in China

RELC Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003368822110666
Author(s):  
Kaihao Yuan ◽  
Shuwen Liu
Keyword(s):  
Identity Development ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Online Classes ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Social Representation Theory ◽  
Identity Changes ◽  
First Time

The outbreak of COVID-19 witnesses a sudden surge of fully online classes globally. Scholarly attention has promptly shifted to explore the personal experiences and perceived challenges of students and teachers. For English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors around the world, many are required to teach online for the first time, yet studies on their teacher identity development in online teaching contexts remain limited. To address this gap, the researchers conducted a case study of three EFL instructors in a Chinese university within an online semester to understand how their online teacher identities developed and shifted. The concepts of ‘imagined and practiced identity’ and social representation theory have been adopted as the conceptual framework. The findings revealed the trajectories of three online EFL instructors as their imagined identities evolved and renegotiated into their practiced ones based on individual and contextual factors. The findings reveal a lack of rule-based identities from the participants and highlight the need for pedagogical and psychological support for EFL teachers when they transition to an online context. Recommendations are made accordingly.

Materializing Power through Practice in the Late Postclassic Naco Valley, Northwestern Honduras

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 344-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward M. Schortman ◽  
Patricia A. Urban
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Dynamic Networks ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Late Postclassic ◽  
Nested Sets ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Interpersonal Ties

We contend that political structures emerge in the course of interpersonal dealings conducted by people organized within overlapping social networks. It is through these webs that resources needed to define and achieve goals and exert control over others are mobilized. Elites seeking to construct hierarchies and concentrate power must restructure the preexisting matrix of networks to redirect the flow of assets to their benefit. In doing so, they seek to create an affiliation that transcends loyalties to extant social groups while securing for themselves positions of preeminence within the overarching affiliation. Such social engineering involves manipulating the material symbols by which interpersonal ties are made tangible and imbued with emotional significance. The resulting political structures are less nested sets of stable territorial groups than dynamic networks of networks through which assets are deployed in the practices by which power is exercised. This perspective is used to describe Late Postclassic (A.D. 1300-1532) political processes in the Naco Valley, northwestern Honduras, calling attention to how power of various sorts took shape through complex relations among diverse people and varied things orchestrated within overlapping social networks. The implications of a network approach for studying political processes generally are also considered.

scholarly journals “We were at this crossroads”

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Clifford Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Representation Theory ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Faroe Islands ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
Alternative Representation ◽  
Social Representation Theory

People and societies are guided by what they imagine to lie beyond the present, by what can and should be the case in the future. Yet people do not always agree about the form, content or path to realisation of a given imagined future. As a result, conflicts can arise over something that does not exist yet. In this paper, I propose to integrate theories of social and alternative representations with a sociocultural psychological interpretation of imagination, in order to explore the addressivity of futures and to call for more studies that explicitly take into account the future’s role in the present. I draw on a dialogical case study that was carried out on the Faroe Islands, more precisely on the island of Suðuroy. Whereas the Faroe Islands are experiencing a rapid acceleration in growth, Suðuroy has failed to keep pace and has witnessed decades of emigration and a worsening of its population’s relative socio-economic situation. Islanders liken the current situation to standing at a crossroads, while being unable to agree on which path must be taken in order to reinvigorate a shrinking future. By analysing how one of the two major social representations constructs the other – its alternative representation – I suggest that the absence of transformative dialogue results from incompatible futures. Furthermore, in line with a sociocultural psychological perspective, I also attempt to move beyond the homogenising force inherent in social representation theory by introducing Ingolf and Karin, whose stories illustrate how social and alternative representations are not uniformly shared and enacted, but take different forms in light of unique life experiences.

Mobility and Immobility in a Transnational Context: Changing Views of Migration among the Kazakh Diaspora in Mongolia

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Werner ◽  
Holly R. Barcus
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Kazakh Population ◽  
Methodological Approaches

Inquiry into the causes and outcomes of transnational migration spans numerous disciplines, scales and methodological approaches.  Fewer studies focus on immobility.  Utilizing the Kazakh population of Mongolia as a case study, this paper considers how non-migrants view the economic and cultural costs of migrating.  We posit that three factors, including local place attachments specific to Mongolia, access to information about life in Kazakhstan and the importance of maintaining social networks in Mongolia, contribute substantially to their decision to not migrate. Our findings suggest that the decision to not migrate can be very strategic for non-migrants in highly transnational contexts.  

Serge Moscovici's "Réflexions sur la popularité des conspiracy mentalities"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Klein
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The People ◽  
Social Representation Theory ◽  
The Masses

This is a pdf of the original typed manuscript of a lecture made in 2006. An annotated English translation will be published by the International Review of Social Psychology. I this text, Moscovici seeks to update his earlier work on the “conspiracy mentality” (1987) by considering the relationships between social representations and conspiracy mentality. Innovation in this field, Moscovici argues, will require a much thorough description and understanding of what conspiracy theories are, what rhetoric they use and what functions they fulfill. Specifically, Moscovici considers conspiracies as a form of counterfactual history implying a more desirable world (in which the conspiracy did not take place) and suggests that social representation theory should tackle this phenomenon. He explicitly links conspiracy theories to works of fiction and suggests that common principles might explain their popularity. Historically, he argues, conspiracism was born twice: First, in the middle ages, when their primary function was to exclude and destroy what was considered as heresy; and second, after the French revolution, to delegitimize the Enlightenment, which was attributed to a small coterie of reactionaries rather than to the will of the people. Moscovici then considers four aspects (“thematas”) of conspiracy mentality: 1/ the prohibition of knowledge; 2/ the duality between the majority (the masses, prohibited to know) and “enlightened” minorities; 3/ the search for a common origin, a “ur phenomenon” that connects historical events and provides a continuity to History (he notes that such a tendency is also present in social psychological theorizing); and 4/ the valorization of tradition as a bulwark against modernity. Some of Moscovici’s insights in this talk have since been borne out by contemporary research on the psychology of conspiracy theories, but many others still remain fascinating potential avenues for future research.

Applications of random graphs

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.C.C. Coolen ◽  
A. Annibale ◽  
E.S. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Random Graphs ◽  
Interaction Network ◽  
Power Grids ◽  
Protein Protein Interaction ◽  
Topological Features ◽  
First Case ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Protein Protein Interaction Network

This chapter reviews graph generation techniques in the context of applications. The first case study is power grids, where proposed strategies to prevent blackouts have been tested on tailored random graphs. The second case study is in social networks. Applications of random graphs to social networks are extremely wide ranging – the particular aspect looked at here is modelling the spread of disease on a social network – and how a particular construction based on projecting from a bipartite graph successfully captures some of the clustering observed in real social networks. The third case study is on null models of food webs, discussing the specific constraints relevant to this application, and the topological features which may contribute to the stability of an ecosystem. The final case study is taken from molecular biology, discussing the importance of unbiased graph sampling when considering if motifs are over-represented in a protein–protein interaction network.

MapTap and Cornelia Slow Digital Art History and Formal Art Historical Social Network Research

2016 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koenraad Brosens ◽  
Klara Alen ◽  
Astrid Slegten ◽  
Fred Truyen
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Data Model ◽  
Art History ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
Unique Data ◽  
Network Research ◽  
Custom Made

Abstract The essay introduces MapTap, a research project that zooms in on the ever-changing social networks underpinning Flemish tapestry (1620 – 1720). MapTap develops the young and still slightly amorphous field of Formal Art Historical Social Network Research (FAHSNR) and is fueled by Cornelia, a custom-made database. Cornelia’s unique data model allows researchers to organize attribution and relational data from a wide array of sources in such a way that the complex multiplex and multimode networks emerging from the data can be transformed into partial unimode networks that enable proper FAHSNR. A case study revealing the key roles played by women in the tapestry landscape shows how this kind of slow digital art history can further our understanding of early modern creative communities and industries.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document