More Than Two Decades of Research on Selective Traditions in Environmental and Sustainability Education—Seven Functions of the Concept

This study investigates functions of the concept of selective traditions by means of a qualitative systematic review synthesis of earlier research. The study is based on a review method for integrating qualitative studies and looks for “themes” in or across them. In this case, it is about how the identified publications (twenty-four in total) use the concept of selective traditions. All but two studies stem from the Swedish context. The selective traditions relate to teachers’ approaches to the content, methods and purposes of environmental and sustainability education (ESE). Teachers mainly work within one specific selective tradition. Seven different functions were found in the publications of which five are claimed to be valuable for the development of ESE teaching, while the other two functions are useful in monitoring changes and development in ESE teaching. The results are discussed in terms of the consequences for research, practice and teacher education aiming at offering suggestions on how to develop future (transformative) ESE teaching.

Från implicit till explicit – didaktiska modeller som verktyg för att utmana selektiva traditioner rörande undersökande arbete

This study aims to illustrate how didactic models in science education can help in-service teachers to challenge selective traditions in a constructive way. The study was based on a teacher professional development program on inquiry-based science teaching in lower secondary school. Three didactic models were used in both lectures and group reflections to initiate reflections on different ways of interpreting the aims and content associated with inquiry-based science teaching and the consequences of these interpretations. Data was collected from a group of four teachers and consists of written documentation, recordings of group reflections and a group interview. The study shows that the three didactic models helped to make different ideas and underlying assumptions visible and that the teachers could reflect on their meaning and interpretations in a constructive way. Subsequently, the teachers could explicitly separate different ways to interpret the ideas associated with inquiry-based science teacher and make more conscious didactic choices as a result. The study shows that it can be fruitful to provide teachers with reflection tools in the form of didactic models to avoid that ideas introduced in continuing education are selectively adapted to current teaching without critical reflection.

Democracy and curriculum—the task still before us

This article explores how John Dewey’s concept of democracy can contribute to our understanding of what is required from education amid growing nationalism and populism, even in what are usually perceived as established democracies. The purpose of the study is to explore how standards-based curricula for citizenship education can be problematised in relation to the broad concept of democracy. The meaning of citizenship education in curricula is examined through two cases from western countries (Sweden and the USA) with standards-based curricula. These social studies curricula deal with democracy as something ‘to teach about’, rather than focusing on helping students learn to understand and recreate democracy for their own generation. However, the concept of democracy, as a moral and ethical ideal, becomes difficult to express in a curriculum logic of standards and knowledge outcomes emphasising measurability. Now, when democracy is challenged, also seems to be the right time to confront the logic of a standards-based curriculum and the selective traditions of subjects within the social studies, as well as to ask the questions ‘why?’ and ‘what for?’ in relation to basic social values and students’ competences.

Género e inmigración en la Pampa Gringa argentina

Traditions as configurative forces both select and discriminate reference parameters. As so does it happen inside a given culture, where they pre-configure a present time that allows for the recovery and re-signification of meanings and operating practices. The migration process in Argentina has been treated and studied from the ‘porteña’ metropolis stance, subsuming thus a variety and plurality of manifestations and traits yet visible in the amplified territory of Argentina into a uniform whole. A case in point is what happened in the Pampa Gringa. A similar situation is found when we attempt to analyse from a gender angle women writers who, from their immigrant-being or immigrant descendent identity, try to combine and antagonise the selective traditions from this experiences and tensions; or in settings where characters still enrolled in masculine words are revisited and surprise out of the actuality of their proposal. Hence, this paper propose carrying out a succinct analysis of the above-mentioned selective operations and tries to expose as of the fictional and critical some examples to argue said forgot facts.

Inclusive Technologies, Selective Traditions: A Socio-material Case Study of Crowdfunded Book Publishing

The number and scale of crowdfunding platforms has increased dramatically in recent years, arguably more so than any other open phenomenon. This increase has allowed several crowdfunding websites to capture significant public attention, e.g. Kickstarter, Indiegogo. Yet, the growth of these specialist websites is only one aspect of the increasing popularity of crowdfunding technologies. Another, less-commonly discussed development is the propagation and integration of crowdfunding technologies into novel hybrid or proprietary production contexts, such as t-shirts (e.g. Threadless) or video games (e.g. Star Citizen). Such integrations are to be expected as crowdfunding technologies grow and evolve. However, they also present new challenges for managers and system designers, as the manner in which different features of crowdfunding technologies are enacted becomes decreasingly predictable the more their application domains diverge. This study performs a socio-material case study of Unbound, an innovative book publisher based in the UK. Unbound uses crowdfunding technologies to help authors raise the funding necessary to publish their books. However, once this funding has been reached, Unbound assumes more typical publisher responsibilities, such as editing, printing, binding, shipping, and promoting these books. Findings from Unbound identify four categories of socio-material practices in this hybrid model, each of which contains multiple sub-practices enacting different material features. This includes practices for fundraising, practices for maintaining traditional publishing standards, practices for creative contribution by backers, and practices for motivations. Further, tensions are observed for each of these categories of practices, due to the conflicting demands for inclusivity and selectivity associated with crowdfunding and publishing, respectively.

Conclusion

This book has investigated how Filipino American culture and U.S. Puerto Rican culture across various genres critique narratives of U.S. exceptionalism that justify U.S. colonial projects. It has shown that hegemonic narratives of U.S. multiculturalism, U.S. exceptionalism, and the good immigrant all function to define and discipline Filipino Americans and U.S. Puerto Ricans. It has described these Filipino American and U.S. Puerto Rican cultural productions as all selective traditions that have been carefully deployed to affirm hegemonic U.S. narratives that imagine the end of empire as the reproduction of U.S. liberal, democratic, and capitalist values around the world. It has argued that Filipino American and U.S. Puerto Rican cultural critiques such as novels, documentary films, and performance poetry challenge the eventual outcomes of benevolent assimilation, thus questioning the initial sincerity of the promises of U.S. imperialism as exceptional. They imagine a different end to empire, an end that entails the empowerment of those who have been exploited by imperialism and subsequently by globalization.