NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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Considering a participatory approach to social work – Service user research
No full textService-user involvement in social work research is much vaunted and considered desirable.
Yet, it is not common. This is despite the fact that research-funding bodies are
increasingly mandating inclusion of service users in the research process. It would seem
timely for the profession to look again at participatory research as an approach to
working collaboratively with service users in the co-production of research. This article
reviews the arguments for service-user collaboration in social work research; it considers
the evolution of service-user engagement and its current status in practice. Building on
the foundations of social work research methodologies, the article considers the practicalities
of participatory research and the potential barriers. The article draws on vignettes
of published participatory research to illustrate this type of research in social work
International Religious Organizations in a Colonial World: The Maha-Bodhi Society in Arakan
No full textShortly after Mme Blavatsky’s death in May 1891, a London correspondent for the New York Sun interviewed the Irishman Capt. Charles Pfoundes, who was running the first Buddhist mission in the west on behalf of the Jōdo Shinshū Kaigai Senkyō Kai (Buddhist Propagation Society). Pfoundes was a very public critic of the Theosophical Society (henceforth TS) and its claim to represent “esoteric Buddhism”, but Annie Besant’s transition from secularism to Theosophy posed severe, and ultimately successful, competition to Pfoundes’ missio
Open Access and the Struggle for Justice: The Maynooth University Ken Saro-Wiwa Collection
No full textThis book chapter explores how open access publishing can help promote justice and equality worldwide and particularly in the Global South
Covid-19 Practice in Primary Schools
No full textNotwithstanding the multitude of past school closures caused by catastrophic events, such as typhoons, tornados or contagions, very little is known about the actions taken by leaders during a school rapid response to those circumstances, which is what the current study addressed. Two weeks after the school closure caused by the spread of COVID-19, a total of 2, 808 primary school leaders in the Republic of Ireland were surveyed about actions they had taken to ensure the continuity of pupils’ learning. The research was commissioned by a stakeholder group including the Department of Education, IPPN, PDST, INTO and others. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected regarding schools' rapid response, which included 1. Leaders’ perspective of pupils’ and teachers’ attitudes towards COVID-19 school closures; 2. Distance learning school strategy, capacity, curriculum, platforms, and resources; 3. Social engagement post-closure between teachers and pupils, teachers and parents, teachers and teachers; 4. Wellbeing provision and impact on pupils, teachers and school leaders; 5. Minority groups including SEN and EAL pupils; 6. Additional support requested by leaders. Implications of the study are discussed, and recommendations made as to what contingency plans can be put in place to ensure continuity of learning during temporary school closure
The early Celtic epigraphic evidence and early literacy in Germanic languages
No full textThis paper outlines the individual histories of the attested ancient Celtic epigraphic traditions, Cisalpine Celtic, Celtiberian, Gaulish and Ogam-Irish. It discusses the types of literacy in each of them and presents them as examples of how and under which conditions literacy arose and grew, and finally disappeared, in non-classical languages of antiquity. Where possible, the Celtic languages are viewed against an early Germanic background, to highlight similarities and parallels between the two philological areas, but also to contrast the differences between them and to give an account of where and when opportunities of literate interaction may have arisen between the two groups. These zones of potential interaction, as well as uncommon shapes of letters in some Celtic writing systems, are of relevance for the concluding section where observations from a Celtologist’s point of view will be made that may have a bearing on the origins of Runic writing
Transitivity and Subject Position in Old Irish
No full textThis article is concerned with some fine-grained distinctions in the syntax of subjects in Old Irish. Old Irish (7th–9th century) is typically described as a VSO language, but there are a number of sentences in the corpus in which the subject is not immediately after the verb. In this paper two case studies are conducted the results of which show that (a) non-final late subjects are confined to non-transitive and ‘atypical transitive’ clauses having the general form VXSY, and (b) the position of final late subjects in the schema VXS# can understood in descriptive terms as ‘right-dislocated’ and motivated largely in information structure terms (i.e. Topic-Comment, Focus-Alternative), although a small residue of examples are similar to the VXSY-type of case in being 'atypical transitives'. The descriptive term ‘atypical transitive’ is introduced here to cover morphologicallytransitive clauses (with accusative marked direct objects nouns, or pronouns that can replace such nouns) that behave syntactically more like non-transitive clauses. There are four types: negative clauses with bare indefinite objects, clauses with object-oriented floating quantifiers, clauses in which a pronominal object serves to ‘detransitivize’ the verb, and clauses containing a verb of motion whose direct object is the goal of movement
Investigation of scientific creativity levels of elementary school students who enrolled in a STEM program
No full textThis studyaimsto evaluate the scientific creativity levels of second, third and fourth grade students whoenrolledina STEM course for an entireacademic year.The sample consisted of 85 elementary school students in two private schools in Antalya, Turkey. "Scientific Creativity Test" and "Student Demographic Questionnaire" were the instruments used in the study. Findings revealed that the scientific creativity level of the students showed a statistically significant difference with respect to their grade level. No significant differences were observed based for other variables (gender, number of siblings, parental occupation, favorite subject, the most successful subject, future occupation). In this paper, selected student responses will be presented together with a comparison of the existing curricula and the implemented STEM curriculum as well as a discussion of the findings. The study has indicated that the implemented STEM programpositively affectedscientific creativity of the students
Public Space during Covid-19
No full textWhen the public square is closed, all that remains is the tower and its shadow. As anthropologists of space and security, we watched as COVID‐19 emptied our streets. The shadow fell on distant friends, then on close family; we also used the chilling language of ‘common sense’ to instruct others in these exceptional times. There is a lot wrong in wishing for a return to normality if ‘normal’ is oppression, but anger at injustice does not excuse intellectual paralysis. We must be on guard now, alert to the dangers posed by security
QUBIC: The Q and U bolometric interferometer for cosmology
No full textThe Q & U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology, QUBIC, is an innovative
experiment designed to measure the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background and
in particular the signature left therein by the inflationary expansion of the Universe. The
expected signal is extremely faint, thus extreme sensitivity and systematic control are necessary in order to attempt this measurement. QUBIC addresses these requirements using an
innovative approach combining the sensitivity of Transition Edge Sensor cryogenic bolometers, with the deep control of systematics characteristic of interferometers. This makes
QUBIC unique with respect to others classical imagers experiments devoted to the CMB
polarization. In this contribution we report a description of the QUBIC instrument including
recent achievements and the demonstration of the bolometric interferometry performed in
lab. QUBIC will be deployed at the observation site in Alto Chorrillos, in Argentina at the
end of 2019
A 2,000‑year Bayesian NAO reconstruction from the Iberian Peninsula
No full textThe North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is the major atmospheric mode that controls winter European
climate variability because its strength and phase determine regional temperature, precipitation
and storm tracks. The NAO spatial structure and associated climatic impacts over Europe are not
stationary making it crucial to understanding its past evolution in order to improve the predictability
of future scenarios. In this regard, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of studies
aimed at reconstructing past NAO variability, but the information related to decadal-scale NAO
evolution beyond the last millennium is scarce and inconclusive. We present a new 2,000-year multi-annual, proxy-based reconstruction of local NAO impact, with associated uncertainties, obtained
by a Bayesian approach. This new local NAO reconstruction is obtained from a mountain lacustrine
sedimentary archive of the Iberian Peninsula. This geographical area is not included in previous NAO
reconstructions despite being a widely used region for instrumental-based NAO measurements. We
assess the main external forcings (i.e., volcanic eruptions and solar activity) on NAO variability which,
on a decadal scale, show that a low number of sunspots correlate to low NAO values. By comparison
with other previously published NAO reconstructions in our analyses we can test the stationarity
of the solar influence on the NAO signal across a latitudinal gradient based on the position of the
employed archives for each NAO reconstruction. Inconclusive results on the volcanic forcing on NAO
variability over decadal time-scales indicates the need for further studies. Moreover, we highlight the
potential role of other North Atlantic modes of variability (i.e., East Atlantic pattern) on the non-stationary behaviour of the NAO throughout the Common Era, likely via solar forcing