Farming is undergoing a digital revolution. Our existing review of current Big Data applications in the agri-food sector has revealed several collection and analytics tools that may have implications for relationships of power between players in the food system. For example, Who retains ownership of the data generated by applications like Monsanto Corproation's Weed I.D. “app”? Are there privacy implications with the data gathered by John Deere's precision agricultural equipment? Systematically tracing the digital revolution in agriculture, and charting the affordances (...) as well as the limitations of Big Data applied to food and agriculture, should be a broad research goal for Big Data scholarship. Such a goal brings data scholarship into conversation with food studies and it allows for a focus on the material consequences of big data in society. (shrink)

An increasing body of evidence indicates that the response to genotoxic agents such as radiation or drugs is a group phenomenon, rather than the summed response of individual independent cells to injury. Thus, a complex contagion-like response may spread beyond the initial impact of an agent to enlarge its effect. This indirect effect, termed “Bystander Effect,” is multifaceted and may play a significant role in the therapy of tumors and in carcinogenesis. A better understanding of this phenomenon is needed in (...) order to modulate treatment protocols to therapeutic advantage and to provide more rational guidelines for the evaluation of environmental hazards. BioEssays 22:286–290, 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Rad ukazuje na kljucne momente razvoja teorije aktera-mreze kroz nekoliko najznacajnih dela Bruna Latura. Uocavaju se promene pocetne pozicije autora u odnosu na dela kasnijeg datuma nastanka. Teorija aktera-mreze je prikazana kroz niz?neuralgicnih? tacaka koje se u njoj mogu uociti. Na samom kraju rada su razmatrana resenja koje teorija aktera-mreze nudi za odredjeni broj fundamentalnih problema sociologije, koje je definisao Latur.

There is an emerging awareness of the possibility of conflicts of interest in the practice of medicine in Croatia. The paper examines areas within the medical profession where conflicts of interest can and have occurred, probably not only in Croatia. Particularly addressed are situations when a doctor may have dual obligations and how independent ethics committees can help in decreasing the influence of a conflict of interest. The paper also presents extracts from the Croatian Code of Ethics for the medical (...) profession that address problems of conflict of interest. (shrink)

The Helsinki Declaration is the ‘gold standard’ — a directive, not a law, on how to conduct controlled studies in humans in conformity with ethical principles. In spite of many discussions about their unsuitability some articles have remained unchanged in the most recent (sixth) revision of the Declaration. The demand to use “the best treatment” excludes use of placebo in the control group and presents an obstacle to the scientific evaluation of a number of drugs and treatments in general. The (...) use of placebo is justified whenever its use does not cause irreversible damage or considerable suffering to the well informed patient. It must be, is, and will be used in the controlled clinical trials of treatments of a great number of diseases especially those which have a tendency to spontaneous improvement, even healing, or have a pronounced psychological component. (shrink)

The author?s approach is based on three premises: 1. that Gajo Petrovic?s Praxis was an outstanding phenomenon in Croatian, Yugoslav and European culture, a challenge of freedom in a repressive society; 2. that there has never been such a thing as "Praxis group", "philosophers of practice" or "Praxis philosophers" with a unified philosophical and socio-theoretical orientation; and 3. that political and ideological attacks on Praxis were part of the repressive system that targeted every instance of cultural and scientific dissent. The (...) political leadership of Tito?s regime, its ideological and propaganda apparatus systematically disseminated allegations, denunciations and accusations against Praxis and Gajo Petrovic. The same style has survived through radical historical changes from the appearance of Praxis until today. The attackers have often been the same persons, with the difference that in earlier times they denounced Praxis and Gajo Petrovic as enemies of "socialism" and the "socialist self-management system", and in the changed political fashion as "servants" of Tito?s authoritarian rule. The fate of Praxis in the former regime has been triumphantly interpreted as a "family quarrel". This paper attempts a sociological analysis of the political destiny of Praxis. The analysis is essentially determined not by old and new political and ideological questionings of Praxis, but by Gajo Petrovic?s fundamental belief that there is no freedom without the human or humanity without freedom.. Osnovu autorovog pristupa cine tri stava: 1. da je Praxis Gaje Petrovica bio izuzetna pojava u hrvatskoj, jugoslovenskoj i evropskoj kulturi, izazov slobode u drustvu represije; 2. da ne postoji tako nesto kao "praxis-grupa", "filozofi prakse" ili "praxis filozofi" koji bi imali jedinstvenu filozofsku ili drustveno-teorijsku orijentaciju; 3. da su politicka i ideoloska osporavanja Praxisa bila deo represivnog sistema kojem je bilo podvrgnuto svako neistomisljenistvo u kulturi i nauci. Politicki vrh Titovog rezima, njegov ideoloski i propagandni aparat sistematski su sirili insinuacije, denuncijacije i optuzbe o Praxisu i Gaji Petrovicu, da bi taj manir u bitno promenjenim istorijskim okolnostima, trajao od pojave Praxisa do danasnjeg dana. Cesto su i akteri napada bile iste osobe, samo sto su nekada osporavali Praxis i Gaju Petrovica kao neprijatelje "socijalizma" i "sistema socijalistickog samoupravljanja", a u promenjenoj politickoj modi kao "sluge" Titove autoritarne vladavine. Sudbinu Praxisa u prethodnom rezimu slavodobitno su tumacili kao "obracun u obitelji". Rad je pokusaj socioloske analize politicke sudbine Praxisa, koju ce bitno odrediti temeljno uverenje Gaje Petrovica da nema slobode bez coveka ni ljudskosti bez slobode, a ne stara i nova politicka i ideoloska osporavanja Praxisa.. (shrink)

En tant que communaut? ethnique et groupe social d?favoris?, les Roms se heurtent quotidiennement aux probl?mes relatifs r l?obtention de papiers d?identit? ou autres documents, difficult? qui les prive de leur?galit? devant l?ensemble des citoyens, et les rend m?me inexistants. L?objet de cet te recherche porte sur les d?marches et probl?mes rencontr?s par les demandeurs en vue d?obtenir les documents suivants: a) num?ro d?immatriculation; b) extrait d?acte de naissance, dedans, de mariage; c) certificat de nationalit?; d) d?claration de s?jour et (...) de lieu de r?sidence; e) carte d?identit? et carte de travail, alors que les groupes vis?s par la recherche sont: employ?s et responsables d?offices d??tat civil; demandeurs, interm?diaires avec autorisations, militants roms et leurs associations, commissaires pour les r?fugi?s et personnes d?plac?es, fonctionnaires de certaines communes et secr?taires des communes, repr?sentants de MUP. Nous avons analys? le travail et les difficult?s de travail de certains organismes, ainsi que les probl?mes rencontr?s par les demandeurs et les interm?diaires avec autorisations en vue de se voir d? livrer des documents personnels ou lors des proc?dures d?obtention de documents personnels. En dernier lieu, nos recommandations concernent l?organisation et la coordination des organismes d??tat civil, une meilleure information s?adressant aux demandeurs, et contiennent le concept d?une am?lioration syst?matique de cet?tat de choses visant r ce que les roms de viennent des citoyens?gaux.. Kao deprivirana etnicka zajednica i socijalna grupa Romi se suocavaju u svakodnevnom zivotu sa problemima pribavljanja osnovnih licnih dokumenata, bez kojih su ne samo neravnopravni, nego cesto i neegzistentni gradjani. Predmet istrazivanja su bili postupci i problemi u sticanju sledecih dokumenata: a) jedinstveni maticni broj gradjana; b) izvodi iz maticnih knjiga rodjenih, umrlih, vencanih; c) uverenja o drzavljanstvu; d) prijava boravka i prebivalista e) licne karte i rad ne knjizice, a osnovne ciljne grupe istrazivanja bili su: sluzbenici i rukovodioci izmestenih maticnih ureda; neposredni podnosioci zahteva za izdavanje dokumenata; posrednici sa ovlastenjima ; romski aktivisti i udruzenja, javni zastupnici, poverenici za izbegli ce i raseljena lica; nacelnici pojedinih opstinskih sluzbi i sekretari opstina, predstavnici MUP-a. Analiziran je rad i poteskoce u radu maticnih i drugih sluzbi, problemi neposrednih podnosilaca zahteva za izdavanje nekog od licnih dokumenata i, posrednici sa ovlascenjima. Na kraju je u preporukama o organizaciji i koordinaciji rada maticnih sluzbi, preporukama za bolje informisanje Roma, podnosilaca zahteva i preporukama u korist podnosilaca zahteva sadrzan koncept sistematskog poboljsanja stanja, cime bi se Romima omogucilo da budu istinski ravnopravni gradjani Srbije. (shrink)

Romi su veoma disperzirana etnicka zajednica. Od kako je nad Kosovom uspostavljen medjunarodni protektorat, Romi su najbrojnija nacionalna manjina u Jugoslaviji. Kada se govori o diskriminaciji i integraciji Roma, treba imati u vidu da su do sada najcesce bili izlozeni negativnim vidovima diskriminacije, a da je integracija cesto znacila fakticku asimilaciju. Kako postoji i pozitivna diskriminacija manjinskih grupa u drustvu, ocigledno je da u osnovni pristup 'romskom pitanju' podrazumeva strateski obrat ponasanja svih drzavnih institucija i drugih drustvenih cinilaca od negativne (...) ka pozitivnoj diskriminaciji i od asimilacije ka istinskoj integraciji Roma. Osnovni pristup za koji se autor zalaze je onaj koji omogucava Romima da budu nasi ravnopravni sugradjani. Krugovi bede u kojima se nalazi romsko stanovnistvo postaju sve dublji. Medjutim, carstvo bede se siri jugoslovenskim prostorom. Osiromasenje je opste. Devastacija uslova zivota za sve gradjane Jugoslavije, odnosno Srbije i Crne Gore, izuzev uskog kruga ratnih profitera i ljudi iz centara moci, traje vise od jedne decenije. Srednji slojevi su nestali sa drustvene scene, a mnoge porodice su dosle u subproletersku zonu siromastva. (shrink)

Autor analizira stavove intelektualaca s podrucja bivse Jugoslavije, okupljenih oko casopisa Praxis, prema nacionalizmu, kao i kritike koje su im upucivali nacionalisti, pre svega iz Hrvatske i Srbije. Analiza obuhvata period od pojave Praxisa do prve decenije dvadeset prvog veka.

On the basis of his own previous research the author examines views of Europe held by the Serbian political and cultural elite in the late 20th and early 21st century. Unable to meet the challenges of the historical moment, this elite has brought Serbia into open conflict with its closest neighbors and exposed its citizens to international sanctions. War-mongering propaganda of the major state-controlled media was developing feelings of xenophobia and frustration among citizens. The collusion between authoritarian government and war (...) profiteers was systematically destroying the lives of Serbian citizens, bringing them to the brink of material impoverishment and spiritual misery. The process of dissolution of the common Yugoslav state is coming to its end in the first decade of this century. Just as it lacked wisdom political will or strength to prevent armed conflicts and crimes, the Serbian elite today is unable to condemn war crimes, to face disastrous consequences of its own policies, and to help Serbian citizens find their way to prosperity. (shrink)

Conceptual production of the journal Vidici, particularly its thematic issue The Dictionary of Technology, represents the cultural content that preserves the sparkle in understanding the technological aspects of social and mental alienation and reification. Even today it has not lost its ideological and theoretical relevance. It allows more accurate interpretation and a better understanding of the ideological trends as well as political and cultural events at the University of Belgrade in the first years after the death of Josip Broz Tito. (...) Time period which is marked as an early post-Titoism has been explored poorly, and many interesting and significant events from the past were suppressed by the subsequent dramatic historical events. Special actuality of the Dictionary has been given by the harsh ideological criticism exposed in the form of the Analysis of the Dictionary of Technology that appeared as anonym material used by political forums and mainstream media to controvert and ban the Dictionary. While the authors of the Dictionary, based on metaphorical and allegorical insights, tried to get insight into the forthcoming crisis of the Yugoslav society, composers of Analysis wanted to defend blindly ideologically outlined stripe. (shrink)

This study explores the pivotal role of the body for political recognition and rights claims in child welfare “moral” interventions. I examine how the bodily figures in child welfare assessments, linking these manifestations to the concept of the moral economy of care. A sample of assessment reports from a Swedish municipality, all addressing violations of children’s bodies or integrity, are used as empirical material. I show how the psychosomatically suffering child is being best “heard” as vulnerable. I also argue that (...) such a moral economy of care silences children’s accounts of gendered and racial injustices. Furthermore, racialized moral divides are indicated when assessments of different child bodies are considered. A concluding remark points to a need for a child welfare moral economy of social justice that responds to structural intersecting injustices in childhoods, including to those of a racialized child welfare and its individualized and symptom-oriented services. (shrink)

This article is a discursive examination of children’s status as knowledgeable moral agents within the Swedish child welfare system and in the widely used assessment framework BBIC. Departing from Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice, three discursive positions of children’s moral status are identified: amoral, im/moral and dis/loyal. The findings show the undoubtedly moral child as largely missing and children’s agency as diminished, deviant or rendered ambiguous. Epistemic injustice applies particularly to disadvantaged children with difficult experiences who run the risk of (...) being othered, or positioned as reproducing or accommodating to the very same social problems they may be victimised by. (shrink)

This article is a critical interrogation of how gender and power figure in Swedish child welfare policy and the discourses on violence in intimate relationships vis-à-vis children exposed to violence. Drawing on feminist violence research, critical childhood studies, and intersectional perspectives, we identify a differentiation with racialised undertones in the understanding of violence as a social problem when related to children’s exposure. While predominately gender-neutral discourses of social heredity and epidemiology run through the material for the seemingly ‘universal’ child, forms (...) of violence ascribed to the presumed cultural Others link to gender, structural power and sexuality. The article concludes that gendered articulations of violence are restricted yet pivotal if children’s exposure is to be linked to issues of inequality and power. However, when gendering interlinks with racialisation, problematic differentiations of violence, childhoods and children are produced. (shrink)

Pregledujem sedanje slepe ulice zahodne filozofije in predlagam nov začetek. V sedanjem trenutku prevladujejo tri najmočnejše pojmovne opcije; skepticizem, kognitivni privilegij in historicizem. Prvi je škandal, drugega zavračajo vse strani, tretji pa je trenutno dokaj zanemarjen. Historicizem ali zgodovinskost - pojem, daje mišljenje notranje historizirano, da je mišljenje zgodovina - je edini velik nov prispevek moderne filozofije k glavnim pojmovnim virom zahodne tradicije. Sodobna filozofija, posebno angloameriška analitična filozofija, je v bistvu nadaljevanje filozofije 17. stoletja in predkantovske filozofije 18. stoletja, (...) ki ju begajo »nepomembnosti« 19. stoletja; kontinentalna filozofija, v glavnem francoska in nemška, pa se je zdaj pripravljena prilagoditi ahistoricizmu analitične filozofije. Predlagam ponovno odkritje historicizma in prepoznam številne različne strategije, ki dajejo prednost taki politiki, za katero napovedujem, da bo še enkrat prišla na vrsto v naslednjem stoletju. Še posebej skrbno raziskujem vidike prve filozofije, zaprtih sistemov, rešitev problemov reference in predikacije, odnos med naravo in kulturo, odnos med realizmom in idealizmom in naravo ter funkcijo osebe ali sebstva. Ugotavljam, da se sodobna filozofija mora spoprijeti s prispevki Kantovega konstruktivizma in Heglove simbioze in iti preko obeh. Med dokazovanjem orišem splošno krivuljo zahodne filozofije vse do današnjih časov. (shrink)

The Helsinki Declaration is the ‘gold standard’ — a directive, not a law, on how to conduct controlled studies in humans in conformity with ethical principles. In spite of many discussions about their unsuitability some articles have remained unchanged in the most recent (sixth) revision of the Declaration. The demand to use “the best treatment” excludes use of placebo in the control group and presents an obstacle to the scientific evaluation of a number of drugs and treatments in general. The (...) use of placebo is justified whenever its use does not cause irreversible damage or considerable suffering to the well informed patient. It must be, is, and will be used in the controlled clinical trials of treatments of a great number of diseases especially those which have a tendency to spontaneous improvement, even healing, or have a pronounced psychological component. (shrink)

We present the basic concepts of space and time, the Galilean and pseudo-Euclidean geometry. We use an elementary geometric framework of affine spaces and groups of affine transformations to illustrate the natural relationship between classical mechanics and theory of relativity, which is quite often hidden, despite its fundamental importance. We have emphasized a passage from the group of Galilean motions to the group of Poincaré transformations of a plane. In particular, a 1-parametric family of natural deformations of the Poincaré group (...) is described. We also visualized the underlying groups of Galilean, Euclidean, and pseudo-Euclidean rotations within the special linear group. (shrink)

Horgan believes that the truth of the statement “Beethoven’s fifth symphony has four movements” does not require that there be some “dedicated object” answering to the term “Beethoven’s fifth simphony”. To the contrary, the relevant language/world correspondence relation is less direct than this. Especially appropriate is the behavior by Beethoven that we would call “composing his fifth symphony”. Our objections go along two directions: (1) is the process ontology (a) really a right kind of ontology for artworks (symphonies, novels) and, (...) (b) more important, is this kind of ontology compatible with Parmenidian approach to ontology? The answer to (a) is negative. With reference to point (1b) we might say that Parmenides was a typical staunch advocate of substance metaphysics rather than process metaphysics. Traditionally, substances are individuated by their properties, namely, there are assumed two sorts of properties: primary and secondary. Primary properties describe the substance as it is in and by itself; secondary properties underlie the impact of substances upon others and the responses they elicit from them. (2) The claim that it is most unlikely to suppose that we can have some kind of cognitive contact “with an entity which has no spatio-temporal location and does not causally interact with anything” does not hold. We underpin the claim that there is some cognitive access to entity such as Beethoven’s fifth symphony with Bender’s theory of realization relation between musical work and performance. (shrink)

There is widespread view among numerous aestheticians that aesthetic and value properties are response-dependent. According to some philosophers the dependence has a rich and multilayered structure: value qualities (e.g. beauty) depend on our response to aesthetic properties (e.g. harmonious), which in turn depend on our response to a pattern of primary and secondary qualities (shapes and colors). Secondary qualities are themselves response-dependent. The basic dependence relation is thus iterated. The resulting structure is one of iterated response-dependence. The integral part of (...) such a position is a relational view, best captured by the response-dispositional analysis: My states of being appeared to magnificently in front of a painting manifests the disposition of painting to induce such experience in the normal viewer.There are two main objections against the dispositional analysis: (1) argument from circularity and (2) argument from introducing two kinds of quality, one categorical, for experiential states, and one dispositional for objects. In this paper we will suggest the arguments against second objection. (shrink)

The paper deals with the topic of empty terms as considered in chapter six of Devitt’s book Designation. Devitt’s proposal is that a statement about fiction is (usually) implicitly preceded by a fiction operator roughly paraphrasable by “it is pretended that” or “in fiction”. The causal chain that forms the network for a fictitious name are not d(esignational)-chains, for they are not grounded in an object. Nevertheless, although the fictitious name does not designate, we could say that it stands in (...) some other referential relationship to the world: it ‘F(ictionally)-designates’. It seem that we could then state truth conditions of a F-sentence using F-designation: the F-operator direct us to look not for the designatum of name but for its F-designatum. The name (for example, “Napoleon” in War and Peace), though nonempty, is just like a fictitious name. In proposing that nonempty names in fiction refer to real items, I argue against the view that “Napoleon” in the War and Peace designates the famous general, Napoleon, and F-designates parts of War and Peace. The referent of F-designation is Napoleon, famous general, too. At the end of the paper I claim that Devitt, if he wants to remain a modal fictionalist, has to renounce the view of one-world metaphysics. (shrink)

While temporality has been addressed in the context of child welfare, the temporal dimensions of differentiation and othering remain unacknowledged. This article draws on material from a Swedish child welfare agency and is theoretically inspired by postcolonial and queer theories and critical childhood studies. It is based on an analytical juxtaposition of care order applications recommending immediate child welfare interventions versus interventions that are recommended after long ongoing assessments. Such recommendations are addressed as unequal in terms of timing. The article (...) discusses temporal themes related to permanency versus temporary, which guide assessments of changeability. I show how immediate interventions respond to chronicity—the temporality of incurability, permanency, and underdevelopment. However, social problems in long ongoing assessments are assessed as permanent only after long ongoing observations or passage of time. The article discusses how ideas about change reproduce wider societal and intersecting inequalities. This becomes visible when considering time as allocated to parents and their potential to bring about change. I argue that even though permanency differs from chronicity, it still limits a discussion about change as societal, and the detection of problems remains within a developmentalist and neoliberal framework. In the concluding remarks, I offer an alternative reading of allocated time that can maneuver developmentalist logics, while balancing responsibilisation between the individual and the society. (shrink)

Using the metaphors body and voice and drawing on critical contributions on biopolitics, this article interrogates children’s participation rights in a knowledge culture of ‘evidencing’. With child welfare and protection practice as an empirical example, I analyse written assessment reports from a Swedish child welfare agency, all exemplifying how social workers evidence needs for protection and reasons for removing children from the home. I discuss how ‘evidencing’ equals a knowledge culture of seeing-believing and predicting-believing and the search for visibly damaged (...) bodies and underdeveloped minds. I furthermore problematise how such conceptualisation of evidencing foregrounds children’s ‘speaking’ bodies while silencing their voices. By showing these manifestations of evidencing, this critical contribution discusses some wider epistemic concerns for fields influenced by the knowledge cultures of ‘the evidence-based’. (shrink)

The Child as the Other : Some Epistemological Considerations.

George Marcus’s methodology for multi-sited ethnography is widely discussed and applied in anthropology and the strategy of ‘following the conflict’ has been a fruitful approach to studying controversies and conflicts. Drawing on my shifting methodology in the initial stages of a digital ethnography project on vaccination-related online community forums, I explore ‘the war’ on vaccines using a broadened strategy that includes following agreements and silences within the controversy. By examining the debate in conjunction with medical anthropology research, I discuss how (...) both vaccine-cautious and vaccine-confident forum members challenge conventional debate divisions, such as scientific–unscientific, evidential–anecdotal and genetic–environmental, while still adhering to medico-scientific discourses as zones of agreement. Whereas an agreement-oriented methodology contributes to research on liminal zones and reconfigured forms of bio-citizenship and literacy, the strategy of ‘following silences’ highlights the limits to liminality in a debate underpinned by adultism that silences the views of young people. (shrink)

The current thesis discusses how tools for analysing power are developed predominately for adults, and thus remain underdeveloped in terms of understanding injustices related to age, ethnicity/race and gender in childhoods. The overall aim of this dissertation is to inscribe a discourse of intersecting social injustices as relevant for childhoods and child welfare, and by interlinking postcolonial, feminist, and critical childhood studies. The dissertation is set empirically within the policy and practice of Swedish child welfare, here exemplified by the assessment (...) framework Barns Behov i Centrum. It aims to explore how Swedish child welfare, as a field of knowledge, modes of knowing and knowing subjects, constitutes an arena for claims and responses to intersecting social justice issues. The material consists of BBIC primers and selected samples from, a total of 283 case reports from a Swedish social service agency. The case reports address assessments of children. This dissertation is based on four qualitative studies using discourse analysis, as well as analysis inspired by thematic and case-study methodology. Two studies focus on child welfare discourses in BBIC documents involving social problems and violence, and two studies are based on child welfare case reports. Studies I­­-II address child welfare policy and practice by analysing the conditions required for children to participate, in terms of children’s moral status and in terms of status of ‘evidencing’ needs for protection. Studies III­­-IV explore this further from the perspective of intersecting and embodied social injustices in childhoods. Together, the studies interconnect child welfare as a field of knowledge, modes of knowing and knowers with child welfare as a moral arena for claims to rights, recognition, and social justice. The synthesised findings point to child biowelfare, in which justice discourses are largely absent. Biowelfare is informed by a mode of knowing and ‘evidencing’ risks to children’s health and development, which are confined to scientific predicting-believing, seeing-believing by professionals and a moral economy of care, all of which constrain the idea that injustices are structural and intersecting. Biowelfare primarily responds to children as ‘speaking’ biological bodies, rather than as voices of justice. In this sense, injustices of an epistemological nature are interconnected with social injustices. When issues of justice are mobilised in case reports and policy, they come across as rather ‘unjust’, primarily confined to the sphere of the family home of racialised children and not connected to ‘general’ children. In addition to intersections of age, ethnicity/race and gender, class and health are fundamental to recognition and protection in biowelfare. Finally, the dissertation indicates the need for a moral economy which responds to intersecting social injustices such as racial, gender-based and ageist violence in childhoods, and violations of children’s bodily integrity. (shrink)

The concept of a comprehensive language curriculum provides an important basis for the development of student's plurilingual competence. It ensures the inclusion of all students' language skills in language education, the creation of cross-linguistic connections, and the development of language awareness and awareness of language learning. Factors that influence the implementation of this concept at the school level are, amongst others: school leadership, collaboration among school staff, appropriate teaching methods, and beliefs and attitudes of all members of the school as (...) an educational community. To determine possibilities for the implementation of comprehensive language curricula in Croatian primary schools, qualitative methods were used to investigate beliefs of language teachers, professional associates, and school principals about the development of students' plurilingual competence, as well as language teachers' teaching practice and the ways plurilingual education is supported at school level. Data analysis shows that the participants mostly have monolingual beliefs when it comes to the development of students' plurilingual competence. Also, although most teachers state that they make comparisons between languages in their teaching, a systematic cross-linguistic comparison and cooperation in the planning and implementation of language education are almost completely absent. (shrink)

There are two reasons why Christian theology introduces the concept of the absolute nothing into its doctrine of creation. Firstly, unlike platonic non-being, the absolute nihil is not eternally co-existent with God and it does not limit His creative freedom. We notice that God’s freedom is identified with the freedom to create. Platonic non-being represented a necessity. To create, therefore, means to be able to overcome every form of necessity. The concept of the absolute nothing, therefore, needs to provide an (...) ontological ground for the creation of the absolute novum. Sergius Bulgakov and Nikolai Berdyaev, the authors I am quoting in this essay, agree that the apology of the world is inconceivable on the level of monistic ontology, for which substance or ousia is the main category. They are aware that simultaneous communion and otherness between God and the world is imaginable only on the level of the person or hypostasis. Christian theology introduces absolute nothing to secure God’s creative freedom. God is free if He can overcome givenness and create a newness in being. But Bulgakov stresses that to “create out of nothing” means that God creates out of Himself. God can create only what is already given in Him. Berdyaev’s God does not create out of Himself but out of uncreated freedom. Berdyaev explicitly confirms uncreatedness of freedom by stressing that this freedom is outside of God. This is why God can break through the givenness of the world and create an absolute newness. (shrink)

The Nova Scotia Participatory Food Costing Project uses participatory action research to collect data on the cost and affordability of food and involves those who are directly affected by food insecurity. More than a decade of this work has also yielded qualitative evaluation data that illustrates the project participants' experience with the project and with food security more generally. The data are characterized by ample evidence of participants' perceived powerlessness related to government and social structures. At the same time, that (...) data indicate that playing a role in participatory processes seems to have served as an empowering experience for the participants. We highlight some of the findings here and situate them within critical literature on citizens' discourse. (shrink)