LIVABILITY DIMENSIONS AND SENSE OF COMMUNITY IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY

The sense of community can be understood as a sense of belonging to a collectivity, making citizens develop trust and awareness for collective action projects. This study aims to identify the livability dimensions and their relationship with the sense of community. The survey method was applied, and a sample of 392 residents of a Brazilian region was interviewed. The results show that three dimensions – (i) trust and safety; (ii) work and bridging relations; and (iii) housing and city performance - explain livability. Among these dimensions, Trust and Safety, and Housing and city performance have a significant relation to the sense of community, explaining 32.4% of the sense of community. These results point out elements for the elaboration of plans and public policies in the cities and as critical elements for future research.

Creating something out of nothing: Enacting critical civic engagement in urban classrooms

Critical civic engagement (CCE) is a pedagogical framework for civic education in urban settings. CCE as a pedagogical approach engages student lived experience, develops critical thinking, and facilitates informed civic action projects. In this phenomenological study of teachers in four urban high schools in a large urban school district, the author seeks to understand how teachers experience the enactment of CCE elements in schools with majority African American or Latinx student populations. The author argues that CCE practices can and should lead to the development of civic identity as a critical outcome for students in contrast to more formal measures of academic achievement. Civic identity is the foundation upon with engagement in public life is built. The study suggests that the enactment of CCE elements provides a powerful learning and identity formation experience for students and a pedagogical process that inspires teachers and their student-centered practices.

Forging connections, pursuing social justice: a tribute to Maarten Bavinck’s conceptual and institution-building contributions to maritime studies

This paper is written in recognition of the contributions that Maarten Bavinck has made to the field of maritime studies and for the inspiration that he has been for many. It is hard to separate Maarten’s academic and institution-building contributions from his personal qualities, particularly his interest in human relationships. Maarten’s aptitude for building bridges between people, ideas, and institutions has allowed him to connect people in larger knowledge generation and action projects and forge new conceptual bridges. In addition to reflecting shortly on Maarten's key role in establishing the Centre for Maritime Research (MARE) as a institutional anchor in maritime studies, this paper reviews on some of his important and original contributions to four academic domains: legal pluralism, interactive governance, the study of fisheries conflicts, and the environment-development interface. Common threads across these domains include his long-term commitment to meticulous fieldwork in South Asia that grounds his work so firmly, his focus on achieving a more socially just use of marine and coastal resources, and his pragmatic approach that has led to original connections across distinct conceptual and institutional fields.

Communities on a Threshold: Climate Action and Wellbeing Potentialities in Scotland

Community projects provide opportunities for their participants to collectively undertake climate action and simultaneously experience alternative concepts of wellbeing. However, we argue that community projects do so in ‘liminal’ ways—on the threshold of (unactualised) social change. We employed an ethnographic approach involving participant observation and qualitative interviews to investigate two community climate action projects in Scotland supported by the Climate Challenge Fund (CCF). We identify some of the outcomes and barriers of these projects in relation to promoting wellbeing through work, transport, participation and green spaces for food production, biodiversity and recreation. Projects’ achievements are contextualised in light of the urgent imperative to tackle climate change and against a background of social inequality. Liminal community projects are structurally constrained in their potential to create wider systemic changes. However, the projects’ potential to promote wellbeing among their participants can intersect with climate change mitigation when systemic and wide-ranging changes are adopted. These changes must involve a meaningful shift towards an economy that centres wellbeing, framed through principles of environmental justice and promoting social equity.

Cultural sustainability and community water management in coastal Ecuador: jagüeyes or albarradas and small dams or detention ponds

The objective of this article is to highlight the sustainability capacity of pre-Columbian water management systems called jagüeyes or albarradas (detention ponds) compared with modern technologies like dams which are used today in coastal Ecuador. These are compared using interdisciplinary field research, which included ethnographic fieldwork with an observation of participative action projects and a literature review. In the case of tapes (arroyo or small river dams made by farmers or farm owners), the lack of participation and inclusion of social actors and their cultural knowledge about nature is evident. This regional study underlines how the albarradas system achieves long-term sustainability because it is an appropriate technology for the local communal ecosystem with which it is associated. This experience opens up the opportunity to explore the difference between what is currently promoted as sustainability and an alternative form of sustainability which introduces the sociocultural strand in public actions on environmental intervention.

Una investigación sobre las tutorías compartidas

RESUMEN Esta investigación tiene por objetivo analizar, desde una perspectiva etnográfica, un caso paradigmático de “escuela orientadora” que sitúa la Acción Tutorial como pilar sobre el que apuntalar diferentes acciones y propuestas educativas a partir de un proyecto de Tutorías Compartidas. En este trabajo de investigación examinamos algunas claves que permiten tender puentes entre la definición canónica de Acción Tutorial y el proyecto educativo de esta escuela. Las técnicas de producción de información han sido: observación participante, grupos de discusión con docentes (tutores, orientadora y equipo directivo) y con alumnado de Educación Primaria (desde 1º a 6º), entrevistas semi-estructuradas con tutores y análisis documental (PEC, PAT y PIIE). A partir de un análisis de contenido tratamos de dar vida a los presupuestos que la literatura ha confirmado como irrenunciables: institucionalizar oportunidades de convivencia internivelares y con la comunidad; trabajar consistentemente las dimensiones personales, educativas, profesionales y socio-cívicas; crear tiempos y espacios destinados al intercambio reflexivo entre profesionales educativos. Concluimos confirmando que la interseccionalidad de las acciones analizadas permite abordar sistemáticamente las dimensiones que vertebran los proyectos de Acción Tutorial.ABSTRACT This research aims to analyze, from an ethnographic perspective, a paradigmatic case of a “counselling school” that places Tutorial Action as a pillar on which different educational actions and proposals are based. In this research we examine some keys that allow us to build bridges between the canonical definition of Tutorial Action and the educational project of this school. The techniques of information production were: participant observation, focus groups with teachers (tutors, counsellor and management team), and primary school students (from 1st to 6th grade), semi-structured interviews and document analysis. From a content analysis we try to give life to budgets that literature has confirmed as indispensable: institutionalize opportunities for internivelar coexistence and with the community; consistently work on personal, educational, professional and socio-civic dimensions; create times and spaces for reflective exchange between professionals. We conclude by confirming that the intersectionality of the actions analyzed allows us to work consistently on the dimensions that structure the Tutorial Action projects.

Chapter 10: Teaching to Empower: Social Justice Action Projects as Imperatives for Educational Justice

Background/Context Teaching to empower requires a critical focus on the unique challenges and opportunities of teaching in socially unjust educational environments. Effective teaching happens in an environment that engages students and teachers in critical investigation of content, knowledge, and activities. Critical learning environments simultaneously nurture the development of multiple perspectives and challenge the status quo. Establishing a critical learning environment is imperative in an educational system that is plagued with academic and social injustices. Therefore, teaching to empower necessitates that teachers, with the help of students, dismantle injustices through culturally responsive teaching, the development of agency and activism, the growth of multiple perspectives, and the capacity to challenge the status quo. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of this chapter, a conceptual paper, is to lay the foundation for a framework of social justice action projects, which we differentiate from social action projects on the basis that social justice action projects are enveloped in critical race theory. Three educator vignettes are shared to illustrate how this framework functions in practice. We provide an example of a classroom teacher, a teacher educator, and a research perspective. Research Design This chapter, a conceptual paper, examines four components that we believe are essential for transforming social action projects into social justice action projects. Through personal narratives, we illuminate the challenges and successes of social justice action projects as they relate to learning, students, educators, and the community. Four of the authors, who are also researchers and educators, share autoethnographic experiences of their participation in social justice action projects in education. Data Collection and Analysis This chapter is a conceptual paper that seeks to illustrate the conceptual framework presented in the introduction of the chapter with three practical examples told from the point of view of the author teachers. Findings/Results When critical race theory acts as a framework for social action projects, these become social justice action projects, which, when properly applied, avoid many of the pitfalls that are common when social action projects do not serve the priorities of their community partners. For students, critical race-based pedagogies can serve to develop critical consciousness. Meanwhile, critical methods provide means by which students and community partners develop agency and activism. Conclusions/Recommendations Teaching through social justice action projects engages both students and teachers in critical dialogues that support empowered, action-oriented learning. While many effective teaching methods and strategies exist, the use of social justice action projects provides knowledge production, dialogue, and thinking beyond the whitewashed curriculum to create a world in which students, teachers, and community partners are empowered to make positive differences.

Using Activism to Cultivate Social and Emotional Learning in the English Language Arts Classroom

English teachers' use of reading and writing instruction in a social justice-focused curriculum can include social action projects that encourage students to get involved in activism and also promotes social and emotional learning. This chapter outlines the research behind and steps towards using reading and writing in ways that encourage students to get involved in activism. The assignments and lessons suggested also include social and emotional learning competencies. Two specific texts are used to provide readers with concrete examples of implementing the ideas presented in classrooms.

MASTERS OF THE SPOKEN WORD OF RUSSIA’S UGRIC- SAMOYEDIC PEOPLES: ETHNIC PROJECTS, TRADITIONALISM, REGIONAL CONTEXT

The article systematically defines and analyzes the project initiatives by the masters of the spoken word among three generations of the Mansi, Nents, and Khanty peoples. The first generation includes those born in the 1910s (Ivan Istomin — Nenets; Anna Konkova — Mansi; Taisiya Chuchelina — Khanty), the second one — those born in the 1930s (Yuvan Shestalov and Andrey Tarkhanov — Mansi; Leonid Laptsuy — Nenets; Mariya Vagatova and Roman Rugin — Khanty), and the third one — those born at the turn of the 1940s–1950s (Anna Nerkagi and Yuriy Vella — Nenets; Yeremey Aypin — Khanty). The authors of the article describe motivational environment for the creative endeavor of the spiritual leaders of indigenous minorities within the historical and cultural dynamics of the region they are biographically related to. In addition, the semiotic foundations of syncretism and traditionalism of the ethnosubjects’ fiction are presented in all the diversity of their written and action projects. This article indicates the transformation in the identities of the masters of the spoken word during the country’s transition from the Soviet to the post-Soviet experience, as well as difficulties and nature of their presence in writers’ associations among Russian authors. Along the historical axis, one can see growing creative endeavor, initiative, and national identity of the representatives of the indigenous minorities of the northern regions. The authors of the article consider Ugric-Samoyedic writers’ experience within the framework of contemporary understanding of historical poetics of Russian philology.