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Ziauddin Sardar: the 'New Muslim Man' seeking his paradise*
Get PDFThe life and works of Ziauddin Sardar, rooted in his Pakistani and British upbringing, encompass a wide spectrum of subjects including autobiographical treatises along with searchlight on Orientalism, Post-Modernity, Muslim Diaspora, Future Studies, and the U.S. foreign policies. While traversing through his numerous writings, this article benefits from a first-hand interaction with the eminent British Muslim writer spanning three decades as it assesses his diverse interests and intellectual contributions. Zia’s writings, lectures, editorial work and organizational activities situate him in the vanguard of a new and dynamic Muslim scholarship that refuses to be objectified and advances the intellectual profile of several pertinent discourses impacting communities across the world
What role can professional learning frameworks play in developing teacher agency in subject leadership in primary science?
Get PDFFrameworks for professional learning offer models of progression that analyse and describe changes in learner behaviours and practices. This paper argues that frameworks for teacher professional learning offer theoretical models that can enhance teachers’ agency in their own development. Teachers’ use of two primary science frameworks are considered: the Trajectory of Professional Development (TOPD) for subject leadership, and the Teacher Assessment in Primary Science (TAPS) for assessment leadership. Analysis of teacher survey data on use of the frameworks identified teacher agency and the impact of shared professional language as key themes. The paper’s conclusions build on the work of Kennedy, in suggesting frameworks offer malleable tools for reflective dialogue between teachers. The authors discuss how the explicit identification of progression in behaviours and practices within the two frameworks supported teachers to develop a shared language and understanding of subject leadership, identifying next steps for their own professional learning. They make the case that the frameworks are not sufficient on their own, they can only offer non-situated explanations of development, and that for them to be of greatest benefit they need to stimulate professional dialogue and exemplification in relation to the learner’s own context
Developing the improvising teacher: implications for professionalism and the development of expertise
No full textThis chapter is grounded in the assumption that teaching is a fundamentally improvisatory practice, relational and dialogic in nature, and that an important and desirable aim for the professional development of teachers should be to encourage the ability to improvise. Improvisation is deemed to be a vital aspect of advanced professional practice and a mode of expertise. It outlines how a professional development programme designed to encourage teacher improvisation in higher education could be structured and offers a theoretical framework to promote expertise in teacher improvisation. The theory underpinning this framework is derived from the findings of an empirical research project, a comparative study of seven outstanding secondary school teachers. The chapter addresses three questions: Is ‘the improvising teacher’ a viable and desirable professional goal? How does improvisation inform the way we understand professionalism? How do we go about the professional development of ‘the improvising teacher’? The framework for professional development has two dimensions: attitudinal development (an improvisation mindset) and functional development (developing specific improvisational skills). The chapter concludes with a reminder of the need for professional development to be seen as a collective activity, taking place within a climate of collaboration and collegiality, based on flexibility, connection and conversation
Knowledge priorities on climate change and water in the Upper Indus Basin: a horizon scanning exercise to identify the top 100 research questions in social and natural sciences
Get PDFRiver systems originating from the Upper Indus Basin (UIB) are dominated by runoff from snow and glacier melt and summer monsoonal rainfall. These water resources are highly stressed as huge populations of people living in this region depend on them, including for agriculture, domestic use, and energy production. Projections suggest that the UIB region will be affected by considerable (yet poorly quantified) changes to the seasonality and composition of runoff in the future, which are likely to have considerable impacts on these supplies. Given how directly and indirectly communities and ecosystems are dependent on these resources and the growing pressure on them due to ever-increasing demands, the impacts of climate change pose considerable adaptation challenges. The strong linkages between hydroclimate, cryosphere, water resources, and human activities within the UIB suggest that a multi- and inter-disciplinary research approach integrating the social and natural/environmental sciences is critical for successful adaptation to ongoing and future hydrological and climate change. Here we use a horizon scanning technique to identify the Top 100 questions related to the most pressing knowledge gaps and research priorities in social and natural sciences on climate change and water in the UIB. These questions are on the margins of current thinking and investigation and are clustered into 14 themes, covering three overarching topics of ‘governance, policy, and sustainable solutions’, ‘socioeconomic processes and livelihoods’, and ‘integrated Earth System processes’. Raising awareness of these cutting-edge knowledge gaps and opportunities will hopefully encourage researchers, funding bodies, practitioners, and policy makers to address them
Techno-choreography and the embodiment of cultural objects
No full textThis practice-based research examines interactive and immersive technologies from the perspective of choreography. The specific choreographing of cultural objects, including chopsticks, gaoqiao, handkerchiefs, fans and red silks, contributes to the research on dance and technology as well as current debates on cultural transexperience. The hypotheses are cultural objects as instruments can affect the generation of movement sequences and virtual reality provides new possibilities for cultural objects in digital environments. The methodology of techno-choreography in this research draws on the theories of interactivity and immersion developed by Johannes Birringer, Steve Dixon, Scott deLahunta and David Rokeby. This methodology focuses on dancing bodies and objects as interfaces during the process of dance composition within computational system environments. In addition, I primarily use Emily Wilcox and Xu Rui’s studies on Chinese dance to support my arguments on Chineseness.
'Unexpected Bodies', the title of the third creation of this research, signals that the embodiments of dancing bodies under techno-choreography are not predictable. While they cannot be anticipated, the choreographic research promises a sensitivity of dancing bodies in unstable digital environments, so that unpredictable scenarios can yield unexpected gains. 'Unexpected Bodies' also entails further evolutions, marking the fact how my dancing body changed over the past three years of working on my research with new technologies and intercultural environments. I am slowly becoming other.
The outcome of the research is the generation of interactive performance frameworks which enable embodiments of cultural objects and dancing bodies in digital performance. This study not only contributes to aspects of choreography and dance research in the contemporary global and transcultural contexts in which I have worked, but also to cultural studies and computer science studies that engage body-worn technologies or develop human-computer interfaces
Choreography of defeat: the fall of the 1979 government
Get PDFThis article reassesses the attempt by the Labour government in 1979 to overcome challenges faced without an overall majority; the collapse of the Lib‐Lab Pact; internal party dissent; and referendum results on Scottish and Welsh devolution. The efforts to patch together a parliamentary majority with other parties’ MPs while allaying opponents of devolution within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) ultimately failed. Although the chronology of the defeat is well established and has formed the basis of many studies of British political history, less well understood is the choreography of defeat, the sequence of discussions and negotiations with smaller parties and internal debates within the government on how to respond to the results of the devolution referendums in Wales and Scotland held on 1 March 1979. Documents from the National Archives, Kew, including detailed accounts of the prime minister's conversations and discussions with cabinet colleagues and other party leaders, as well as an analysis of the decision‐making process inside 10 Downing Street highlight the limited choices available to the prime minister. It shows the difficulties the prime minister had in assessing the likely behaviour of MPs from the smaller parties as well as his own. James Callaghan rejected proposals from his deputy, Michael Foot, to avert defeat, preferring instead to avoid the possibility of dividing his party. This resulted in defeat in the no confidence vote that precipitated the general election that brought Margaret Thatcher to power