Search results for "Constructionism"

Boys’ construction of fatherhood when their fathers are absent

2015

In this article, we address the question of how boys whose fathers are absent construct an image of fatherhood. Drawing on the stories told by three boys whose fathers are absent, we explore how the boys, in the relation with their mothers, siblings and others, construct and negotiate an image of fatherhood, including how they envisage themselves to be as fathers in the future. The data material consists of life-mode interviews with the boys and their mothers. Theoretically, we are inspired by social constructionism and cultural psychology. We find that the boys aspire to become fathers who engage in close and mutual relations within the family, who are emotionally and practically available…

Forms of Animality: The Dog

2018

Animals are not the object of zoosemiotics as discussed here, neither is their language nor any other system of signs that affects them directly as living creatures that communicate, but the forms of animality, forms through which the concept of animal itself is socially constructed and transformed over time. Now, if there is one place in which such forms are plain to see, it is in those areas that focus on their nutrition. Looking at feeding animals as a semiotic activity, this paper wants to focus on what I call a nutritional pact, an implicit agreement that binds humans and animals, and that is being continuously negotiated by cultures. A relationship that advertising deeply contributes …

Documenting Napping: The Agentic Force of Documents and Human Action

2015

The article examines the question of the agentic force of documents in institutional practices and proposes a conceptual model of the agentic relation between documentation and human actors. For this aim, it presents an empirical case study of Finnish early childhood education and care. The study deals with individual education plans (IEPs), which are an example of child documentation that aims at an individualised and participatory pedagogy. The analytical focus is on a single topic of an IEP, the child’s afternoon naps, and how these are negotiated in the three-party encounter between a parent, a practitioner and the IEP document. The theoretical framework draws on the theories of documen…

Voices in discourses: Dialogism, Critical Discourse Analysis and ethnic identity

2006

In this article we attempt to combine the Bakhtinian, dialogical philosophy of language and critical discourse analysis (CDA) with our analysis of ethnic identity. The data we discuss are an interview with a Sami journalist who works in the Sami media. We analyse the interview from the points of view of dialogism and CDA to illustrate how identity must be understood as something which is both individual and social in nature.  We reject the earlier essentialist interpretations of identity which see it as purely individual and psychological in nature. At the same time, we argue that those views of identity that see it as exclusively socially constructed can be misleading as well. We aim to il…

Quines normes? Una aproximació al debat sobre el concepte de malaltia mental

2019

Which norms? An approach to the debate on the concept of mental illness Resum: En aquest article realitzem una aproximacio al debat sobre el concepte de malaltia mental, des dels anys cinquanta fins al present, incorporant-hi elements de la filosofia i sociologia de la medicina, i atenent a les seues dimensions organica, subjectiva i social. Perfilem i avaluem les postures naturalistes i normativistes que han conformat el debat sobre la malaltia mental: des de l’antipsiquiatria a la psiquiatria critica, passant per un naturalisme i construccionisme social forts. Paraules clau: malaltia mental, naturalisme, construccionisme, antipsiquiatria, psiquiatria critica. Abstract: In this paper we ap…

“How Real People Really Need Mathematics in the Real World”—Authenticity in Mathematics Education

2018

This paper discusses authenticity from the perspective of mathematics education. Often, school mathematics offers students inauthentic word problems, which don’t show the authentic usefulness of mathematics in real life. In some tasks, authentic aspects are combined with inauthentic ones (e.g., an authentic context, but the question is artificial and different from what people within that context would ask). Several studies show that students are more motivated by authentic questions than by authentic contexts. Embedding these findings, I discuss issues associated with defining authenticity in education. A first issue is that philosophers use the term to characterize a person’s existential …

Contemporary hermeneutics and the role of the self in translation

2009

La investigación hermenéutica, impulsada por Schleiermacher a principios del siglo XIX, parece haber conducido, en los últimos años del siglo XX, a una concepción más amplia y profunda del papel del traductor. La confluencia de diversas fuerzas y corrientes científicas y filosóficas y su consiguiente refuerzo mutuo han dado lugar a la aparición de un conjunto de teorías que se ocupan de las inquietudes del traductor en torno a la subjetividad de la traducción. Este conjunto de teorías recoge influencias tanto de las principales escuelas de pensamiento, tales como los estudios hermenéuticos de Heidegger y Gadamer, la deconstrucción de Derrida, las aventuras de Wittgenstein con los juegos de …

Constructing blind identity : a case study of how blind identity is constructed in a television interview between a blind interviewee and a sighted i…

1999

Folk theories of algorithmic operations during Internet use: A mixed methods study

2021

We used the folk theory perspective to investigate Internet users’ understanding of algorithms during their Internet use. Empirically, we conducted a mixed-method study. First, we carried out semi-...

Towards a Variety of Meanings - Multiple Representations of Reputation in the Small Business Context

2010

This paper examines the discursively constructed meanings for reputation in the small business context – an area of reputation research that has so far attracted little attention. We argue that viewing reputation as a social construction makes it possible to uncover and understand the variety of meanings attached to the concept in small businesses. On the basis of 25 thematic interviews with owner-managers we (re)constructed four meanings for reputation: reputation as an economic resource, as social recognition, as a restrictive control mechanism and as a risk for personal status. We also investigate the variety of discursive events in which these meanings are created. The study further emp…