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Schubert’s Piano Works for Four Hands. Performative and Pedagogical Insights into a Selection of Schubert’s Piano Duets
Get PDFFranz Schubert’s engagement with piano duets began at the age of thirteen and continued until his untimely death in 1828. He elevated the piano duet to a new degree of sophistication, composing extensively for the medium – 34 works. He was a pioneer in this genre and no composer has rivalled his legacy since then in terms of the quantity and quality of his piano duets. There was a point in time during which the popularity of the four-hand genre rivalled that of solo piano, though many of these works were transcriptions/arrangements. Schubert’s works though were almost exclusively original piano duets. His output consists of extremely diverse genres and forms including sonatas, polonaises, marches, dances, variations, fantasies, overtures, rondos, divertissements, and a fugue. Of all his opus numbers published during his lifetime, his piano duets were second only to his Lieder in number. His artful complexity in the genre paved the path for Schumann, Brahms, and later composers to explore this area, as Schubert attracted new attention to the genre as a serious artform.
However, despite Schubert’s efforts in transcending the boundaries of the piano duet, the significance of his piano duets remains largely unexplored or at least significantly unaddressed in scholarship. Why is this? This thesis will investigate contributing factors that until now, have not been given significant attention. Much of the scholarly efforts in the nineteenth and twentieth century on Schubert were centred around his Lieder – though I argue Schubert was of a pioneer in the genre of piano duets too. More recently, scholars have begun to re-examine Schubert’s solo piano works, especially his ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy and his late piano sonatas. I posit that Schubert’s cultivation of the piano duet genre was equally authentic as his solo works and ask, why have his piano duets not been held in such a high regard? A selection of Schubert’s overlooked piano works are provided as case studies, providing performative and pedagogical perspectives. This research penetrates uncharted territory, as scholarship on Schubert’s piano duets is minimal and a more comprehensive study is due. Consequently, this thesis will bridge gaps in the reassessment of Schubert’s piano works, and it will contribute to the creation of new perspectives in Schubertian scholarship
Relationality, recognition and reward at the margins: Teachers’ experiences of mature student access courses in Irish higher education
Get PDFThis is a study of higher education teachers’ experiences of teaching on mature student access courses (MSACs) in Irish higher education. This qualitative research is an exploratory case study and is based on semi-structured interviews carried out online with nine MSAC teachers in two higher education institutions in Ireland. MSACs are long-standing operational elements of Irish higher education equity of access strategy and teachers’ experiences of teaching on these courses has been largely absent from Irish research literature up to now. The aim of this study is to present these educators’ perspectives of their work in this contextualised teaching space and thus to offer insight into the personal and professional meaning and value of this teaching in higher education.
These teaching roles are analysed against a backdrop of neoliberal practices and dominant academic cultures in higher education and participants’ experiences are explored through the interconnecting conceptual lenses of relational pedagogy and recognition. The study is significant from the perspective that the MSACs are located on the periphery of higher education institutions’ organisational structures and academic cultures, yet these educators are responsible for supporting non-traditional students to prepare for and successfully progress to higher education under a national equity of access remit. This is a core higher education mission which is central to institutional strategy, as well as to evaluation of institutional and higher education system performance at national level.
My findings suggest that at the micro and meso levels MSAC teaching is highly rewarding, professionally developmental work for my participants when considered through a relational lens, however that my participants experience a lack of recognition of this work and of their own professional status as teachers in higher education at a more macro, institutional level. For some, this impacts on their self-esteem and on their capacity to commit on a long-term basis to critical equity of access work in higher education.
A key argument of this thesis is that engaging in relation-centred education is as important for teachers’ growth and development, and for their institutional sense of belonging, as it is for students, and that an access course is a key site within higher education that offers this kind of experience and opportunity. In these teaching contexts a pedagogy of relation is also a pedagogy of recognition and thus this thesis argues for the need to create and promote opportunities to prioritise relational teaching within the dominant teaching-research dualism of higher education and to explicitly recognise the value and place of relation-centred teaching spaces, practices and teachers
‘You no have to treat me with your hate’: The needs and experiences of female foreign national prisoners in an Irish prison
Get PDFFemale foreign national prisoners (FFNPs) are a distinct cohort of prisoners with specific experiences and characteristics. These women not only experience the gendered pains of imprisonment but also endure the additional challenges associated with being a foreign national prisoner. Yet although these women suffer multiple layers of disadvantage, little is known about the critical problems that define the daily lived experiences of FFNPs during their imprisonment. This article aims to open up these areas of inquiry in an Irish context and examine the needs and experiences of 13 FFNPs residing in the Dóchas Centre – Ireland's sole operational female-only prison at the time of this study. The article begins by grappling with the complexity of defining power, agency, adaptation and resistance in prison before outlining the methodology of the qualitative study. It then presents the key challenges encountered by this cohort of FFNPs in six parts: language challenges, information provision, religious practice and expression, family relationships, inmate–peer relationships and staff–prisoner relationships. Drawing on theories of power, agency, adaptation and resistance where appropriate, the paper explores the distinct ways in which the power of the institution is experienced by these FFNPs and negotiated with corresponding forms of adaptation and agency. The article also addresses the unresolved spectre of resistance and concludes that the Irish Prison Service need look no further than the Bangkok Rules in order to alleviate the ‘highly gendered’ pains of imprisonment for this cohort of ‘forgotten’ prisoners
A Capital Perspective on the Psychological Contracts of Career Novices. A qualitative process study exploring the capital accumulation and psychological contract evolution of undergraduate intern career novices
Get PDFPsychological contract (PC) theory has garnered significant attention proving crucial in understanding contemporary employment relationships. Defined as “an individual’s beliefs regarding the terms of conditions of a reciprocal exchange agreement” (Rousseau 1989:123), the PC is envisioned as an exchange schema that evolves over time. However, the study of PCs often lacks consideration of time and the impact of social context, despite calls to address these gaps. This PhD aims to investigate the construction and evolution of the PC, with a career novice sample, emphasising the influence of temporal dynamics and social context.
Utilising a qualitative individual-level process methodology, data were collected from 30 undergraduate interns over 12-15 months, using Bourdieu’s theory of practice (1977) as a complementary theoretical framework to the PC. Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, habitus, and field, provide a lens to examine the PC as a dynamic social exchange influenced by the broader social context. The study argues that Bourdieu’s theory can enhance understanding of the PC by highlighting the interplay between individual and social factors and their evolution.
Despite being theorised as dynamic, much PC research assumes a static view, neglecting temporal processes and social influences. This PhD addresses these gaps by exploring the construction and evolution of the PC within the context of undergraduate internships. The study's findings indicate that the accumulation and depletion of various forms of capital underpin the dynamic PC exchange, and that capitals operate in a mutually influencing and reinforcing manner. The study also captures interns’ perceptions of which organisational practices enhanced or hampered their accumulation of capitals.
In conclusion, this research contributes to PC theory by integrating Bourdieu’s sociological concepts, offering a nuanced understanding of the PC as a temporally and socially embedded construct. The findings provide valuable insights for researchers, practitioners, educators, and interns
The Directive on the European Disability Card and European Parking Card: Promoting Disability Rights and Making the EU “More than a Market”?
Get PDFThe recent adoption of the Directive on the European Disability Card and the European Parking Card has been heralded as a significant step forward in advancing the rights of persons with disabilities to move freely and enjoy a range of services across the European Union (EU) on an equal basis with others. Yet, this Directive only concerns disability benefits and special conditions in access to services outside the perimeter of social security and social assistance, which raises questions as to whether the envisaged cards truly address the main hurdles encountered by disabled persons in moving across the EU. This article, further having outlined the trajectory that led to the enactment of the Directive, critically discusses its key tenets, and interrogates its strengths and limits in advancing disability rights. On the basis of this analysis, but zooming out of the discrete disability perspective, this article concludes with some reflections on what this Directive tells us about the EU’s longstanding commitment, recently reiterated in the Letta Report, to be “much more than a market”
BioBeo
No full textThis song is part of the BioBeo Education Programme, designed to introduce primary school children to the concept of the circular bioeconomy in a fun and engaging way. It aligns perfectly with the AgroCycle Kids Education Programme, developed by Dr Máire Nic an Bhaird and Dr Laoise Ní Chléirigh at Maynooth University, which emphasises participatory, hands-on learning. The BioBeo song encourages children to explore ideas of sustainability and circularity. By incorporating this song into classroom activities, educators can foster creativity and critical thinking about environmental solutions. It’s an excellent resource for making bioeconomy concepts accessible and enjoyable for young learners
Climate change risks illustrated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “burning embers”
Get PDFThe completion of the Sixth Assessment Cycle of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a unique opportunity to understand where the world stands on climate-change-related risks to natural and human systems at the global level, as well as for specific regions and sectors. Since its Third Assessment Report (AR3), released 2 decades ago, the IPCC has developed a synthetic representation of how risks increase with global warming, with risk levels reflected by the colours used, including shades of yellow and red, which led to the nickname “burning embers”. While initially designed to illustrate five overarching Reasons for Concern, these diagrams have been progressively applied to risks in specific systems and regions over the last 10 years. However, the information gathered through expert elicitation and the resulting quantitative risk assessments have hitherto remained scattered within and across reports and specific data files. This paper overcomes this limitation by developing a database containing all embers from AR3 to AR6 and an associated online “Climate Risks Embers Explorer” (CREE) to facilitate the exploration of the assessed risks. The data are also available in an archive file in a widely accessible format (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12626976, Marbaix et al., 2024). Important aspects of data homogenization are discussed, and an approach to structuring information on assessed risk increases is presented. Potential uses of the data are explored through aggregated analyses of risks and adaptation benefits, which show that, excluding high-adaptation cases, half of the assessed risk levels increase from a moderate risk to a high risk between 1.5 and 2 to 2.3 °C of global warming, a result which is consistent with the separate assessment of the Reasons for Concern by the IPCC. The database lays the groundwork for future risk assessments and the development of burning embers by providing a standardized baseline of risk data. It also highlights important areas for improvement in the forthcoming Seventh Assessment Cycle of the IPCC, particularly towards the systematic, homogeneous, and structured collection of information on illustrated risk increases; comprehensive coverage of impacted regions; a systematic consideration of adaptation and/or vulnerability levels; and, possibly, the coverage of risks from response measures. In the context of an ever-growing body of literature and knowledge, the facility described herein has the potential to help in synthesizing and illustrating risks across scales and systems in a more consistent and comprehensive way
Hermeneutics. Understanding Educational Experience
Get PDFFar from something theoretical or abstract, the main concern of hermeneutics is to uncover what actually happens in human experience when understanding, in better or worse forms, occurs. Crucial insights are yielded for educators. Today, the heart of educational experience is routinely bypassed by preoccupations with measurable outcomes and rankings; preoccupations increasingly shared by policy-making in education and by educational research and evaluation. Hermeneutics provides imaginative and practical resources for remedying this loss: for revealing distortions and dogmas and for reclaiming the fullness of educational thought and action. The main ideas of hermeneutics are explored in the book and the more central concerns of educational practice are then reviewed in the light of these ideas
Fast optimal control performance evaluation for wave energy control co-design
Get PDFWith the application of energy-maximizing control for wave energy converters (WECs), the WEC design
problem becomes a control co-design problem. One of the fundamental requirements of co-design is to
evaluate the optimal control performance, i.e., average power generation. Previous control techniques include
model predictive control (MPC) and pseudo-spectral (PS) control, but both require iterative optimization,
with computational requirements the main limiting factor in co-design. In this study, a fast optimal control
performance evaluation method is proposed based on a ‘wave-by-wave’ (WbW) representation. The idea is
to split the wave excitation force (WEF) signals into individual waves, process them separately, and then
combine the results with the distribution of WEF amplitude and period, yielding a straightforward average
power calculation. The method is fully developed and studied, considering the cases of position-only, and
general, constraints, as well as different choices to obtain the WEF parameter distribution. It is shown that
the WbW method can achieve a very high control evaluation fidelity (within a 5% error) and give almost
the same co-design result as MPC and PS (implemented using WecOptTool), but with a significantly reduced
computation time (e.g., hundreds of times faster), therefore being a game changer for control co-design of
WECs
Is there a global-business-subculture effect on gender differences? A multisociety analysis of subordinate influence ethics behaviors
Get PDFWhile business studies on gender have increased, they continue to adopt traditional approaches with limited samples drawn from general populations (e.g., students and teachers). In contrast, we investigate gender differences with our focus solely on business professionals. Specifically, we study 40 societies using the four dimensions of subordinate influence ethics (SIE) behaviors: pro-organizational behaviors, image-management behaviors, self-serving behaviors, and maliciously intended behaviors. We employed crossvergence theory as our theoretical foundation, with its two competing forces, sociocultural (gender differences) and business-ideological (no gender differences), which translates to a global-business-subculture effect. We found no gender differences for three of the four SIE behaviors and minimal differences for the fourth for our sample of business professionals. Thus, our findings differ significantly from those of previous general-population samples. We also tested for societal-level moderating effects of collectivism and individualism using the business values dimensions (BVD) measure. Our individualism findings, the primary values dimension associated with business success, in conjunction with findings from other studies, support our nonsignificant SIE differences findings. In sum, the truly minimal gender differences that we found provide strong support for the perspective that there is a global-business-subculture effect. Our findings also suggest that ethical differences between genders are minimal across the global workforce. We discuss the implications for international business