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In 2022, there were 4.62 billion social media users worldwide. Social media generates a wealth of data which migration scholars have recently started to explore in pursuit of a variety of methodological and thematic research questions. Scholars use social media data to estimate migration stocks, forecast migration flows, or recruit migrants for targeted online surveys. Social media has also been used to understand how migrants get information about their planned journeys and destination countries, how they organize and mobilize online, how migration issues are politicized online, and how migrants integrate culturally into destination countries by sharing common interests. While social media data drives innovative research, it also poses severe challenges regarding data privacy, data protection, and methodological questions relating to external validity. In this chapter, I briefly introduce various strands of migration research using social media data and discuss the advantages, disadvantages, and opportunities.
This chapter covers the function of Testimonium to the 1951 Convention and Article XI of the 1967 Protocol. It looks into the relevance of the 1951 Convetion's testimonium. The testimonium primarily focuses on the Convetion's authentic languages, regulation of deposition, and certified true copies being delivered to all members of the UN and non-member States. On the other hand, Article XI contains the standard procedures for regulating the deposition of a copy of the 1967 Protocol in the Secretariat of the United Nations and foreseeing the transmission of certified copies thereof by the Secretary general. The chapter mentions how both elements are not commonly explicitly indicated in modern treaties.
This chapter focuses on Article 46 of the 1951 Convention and Article X of the 1967 Protocol. It explains the depository of a treaty playing an essential procedural role in ensuring the smooth operation of a multilateral treaty. Article 46 enumerates the Secretary-General's function as a depositary performed by the Treaty Section of the Office of Legal Affairs in the United Nations Secretariat. Similarly, Article X confirms and details the Secretary-General's designation and role as depositary of the 1967 Protocol. The chapter mentions that the enumeration of Article X's depositary notification is exemplary instead of conclusive. It examines the depositoary notifications of declarations, signatures, and researvations under Article 46 and Article X.
This chapter examines the extent of the 1951 Convention's Article 44 and the 1967 Protocol's Article IX. It starts with identifying the standard denunciation clause in Article 44 and Article IX. Multilateral treaties of unlimited duration allow States parties an unconditional right to withdraw. A denunciation releases the denouncing party from any obligation further to perform the treaty in relation to the other parties of the 1967 Protocol. The chapter clarifies that denunciation or withdrawal expresses the same legal concept since it is a procedure initiated unilaterally by a State that wants to terminate its legal engagements under a treaty.
This chapter tackles the analysis and function of Article 43 of the 1951 Convention and Article VIII of the 1967 Protocol. It explains that a multilateral treaty can be enforced when met with necessary conditions, such as the Article 24 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). The provision also regulates the 1951 Convention's entry into force of States' ratification or accession. The chapter notes that the 1967 Protocol entered into force after Sweden deposited its instrument of accession. It elaborates on the specific details needed for the ratification or accession prior to the entry into force.
This chapter looks into the 1951 Convention's Article 39 and the 1967 Protocol's Article V. In 2000, the Secretary-General identified the 1951 Convention as belonging to a core group of 25 multilateral treaties representative of the key objectives of the UN and the spirit of its Charter. Additionally, the rules found in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) apply to the 1951 Convention as a matter of customary international law. On the other hand, the 1967 Protocol does not amend the 1951 Convention but binds its parties to observe the substantive provisions. The chapter cites that the 1967 Protocol constitutes an independent and complete international instrument that is open not only to the States parties to the 1951 Convention.
Article 34 1951 Convention
(2024)
This chapter tackles the features and historical development of the 1951 Convention's Article 34. It explains the function of the provision, which primarily focuses on requesting Contracting States to facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees. Moreover, the provision forms the legal bases for local integration and naturalization as some of the traditional durable solutions to refugeehood. The soft obligation imposed by Article 34 primarily focuses on the long-term solution by naturalization. The chapter then elaborates on the balance between local integration, naturalization, and voluntary return after it was disrupted due to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989.
Article 22 1951 Convention
(2024)
This chapter covers the 1951 Convention's Article 22. It explains the provision's aim to grant refugees access to the contracting States' national educational systems. Moreover, Article 22 encompasses learning at all different levels of education in schools, universities, and other educational institutions. However, the provision does not address any issues related to the upbringing of children by their parents. The chapter mentions the relevancy of Article 22 when it comes to durable solutions for refugees in an effort to enable them to integrate into the host country's society. It also discusses the drafting history, declarations, and reservations of Article 22 and the instruments used prior to the 1951 Convention.
Article 1 E 1951 Convention
(2024)
This chapter elaborates on the function of Article 1 E of the 1951 Convention, which was originally aimed at German refugees. It refers to a special group of people who qualify for refugee status but enjoy the rights of national citizens despite their lack of formal citizenship. The article's object and purpose revolve around excluding persons from refugee protection who do not need any international protection since they have the status of national citizens. Additionally, access to refugee status is excluded ipso facto because the individual may resort to effective protection similar to that of citizenship upon being admitted to the country of sojourn. The chapter explains how Article 1 E is an integral part of the balanced system of international refugee protection prescribed by the Convention.
This chapter focuses on the features of Article 1's paragraph 1 of the 1951 Convention. The article primarily determines the scope of application of the Convention's ratione personae while outlining the basis of the protection of refugees. Additionally, Article 1 addresses the concerns surrounding the inclusion, cessation, and exclusion of refugees. The chapter then tackles the historical development of the article by considering the instruments used prior to the 1951 Convention. It also cites that the Constitution of the International Refugee Organization appears to contain an ambiguity as to how the refugee notion was perceived, so refugees only became the IRO Constitution's concern when they have valid objections to returning to their home country.
In the context of the “postcatastrophic” culture after the Shoah, the question of the ethics of seeing has developed its own specificity and incisiveness, one that resulted from the complex distribution of the visibility and invisibility of the criminal acts themselves.
On the one hand, the perpetrators’ efforts to conceal their crimes and erase their tracks stood in opposition to the desire of the same to meticulously document their crimes. On the other hand, local communities became direct eyewitnesses to the persecution and killing of Jews—in mass shootings as well as in the extermination camps, which were frequently set up close to populated areas.
It is precisely these two aspects—the photographic archives of the perpetrators as well as the bystanders’ eyewitnessing—around which heated debates unfold.
They are also of primary interest to postmemorial art, which grapples with the legacy of this visuality and visibility of the Shoah.
This chapter discusses the possibility of a critical analysis of the images from contaminated photographic material in the Nazi archives in postmemorial art and film as well as artistic projects focussing on the problem of visibility and seeing that deal with the question of the possibility of the witnessing of bystanders and of future generations who are faced with the legacy of the bystander experience.
These projects were developed during the time of intense examination—and not only artistic—of the role of direct eyewitnesses to the Shoah, examinations that were characteristic for the public discourse in Poland after the year 2000.
Protecting the vulnerable
(2021)
Contemporary pressures of climate change and migration are abetting the spread of (re)emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), including HIV, Ebola and tuberculosis (TB). While the fact remains that any person can become infected, those most affected are vulnerable populations. In Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) these include marginalized groups such as people who sell sex, LGBTI and MSM, but more widely also adolescents. Adolescents and young adults represent a particularly vulnerable group, caught as they are on the cusp between child protections and adult citizenship claims, including to health and educational provisions and protections. Without, or with incomplete claims, members of marginalized and vulnerable communities are excluded from access to provisions and protections of health as part of human security, whether out of apathy, fear or jurisdiction or through (deliberate) neglect.
The chapter proceeds through the framework of human security, which puts the security of individuals at the centre of its analysis. This stands in contrast to the 1990s securitization argument which framed HIV as a threat to state security. This chapter analyzes unique challenges of vulnerable adolescent populations as these relate to HIV prevention and treatment access. In doing so, it pays special heed to the “double vulnerability” of non-citizenship and compromised citizenship among this cohort. By invoking the human security paradigm, this chapter explores HIV interventions as they pertain to and aim to protect vulnerable populations beyond borders.
Workplace friendships
(2023)
Workplace friendships, i.e., when work colleagues are also friends, are a widespread phenomenon in organizations which has attracted increasing research interest in recent decades. Numerous studies have investigated consequences of workplace friendships and found positive outcomes, such as increased employee job satisfaction or organizational performance, as well as negative outcomes, such as decreased knowledge-sharing between different friendship cliques. Other studies have examined what shapes workplace friendships, focusing on determinants such as personality or the spatial composition of organizations. Finally, an increasing number of studies focus on multiplex workplace friendships, where employees who are friends are also linked by a specific work-focused relationship. In this chapter, we first take stock of the literature on workplace friendships by providing an overview of their antecedents and consequences at the individual, the group, and the organizational level, and review the smaller body of research on multiplex workplace friendships. Second, we critically discuss practical implications of workplace friendships, focusing on their relevance to three current challenges for employees and organizations: the increase in virtual work, social inequalities in organizations, and the increased overlap of professional and private life. Finally, we provide recommendations for organizations on how to address these challenges and effectively manage workplace friendships.
Rankings have grown in importance in the last decades. This is particularly evident in, but not limited to, academia. In this paper, we propose a power analytical take on academic rankings as a transnational(izing) phenomenon. In doing so, we make two contributions. First, we develop a conceptual definition of rankings as consecratory institutions. After providing an overview of the most prominent types of rankings in the academic field and discussing the different forms they can take, we suggest that rankings operate through subjectivation, zero-sum comparisons, quantification, publication and generating a doxical belief. Second, we propose that rankings fulfil a strategic double function. As a particularly momentous consecratory institution, rankings propel power shifts in the academic field and beyond by preferring (and being pushed by) specific academic milieus, types of agents, paradigms, and strategies. As a dispositif, rankings operate at the intersection of different fields, open academic fields up for a lay audience and advance processes of transnationalization by facilitating new modes of governance for hubs of state institutions, private corporations, media corporations, and data providers. Concluding, we argue that the consecration and dispositif functions rely on some basic principles of the practical functioning of rankings.
In the following pages I discuss how,and to what extent, the eminent Zionist thinker Max Nordau, himself of Sephardic ancestry, viewed the history of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula in the context of his general critique of assimilation not only in regard to Jews,but in a more comprehensive understanding as well. My focus here is on the significance of assimilation in the history of the Jews on the Iberian Peninsula as reflected in Nordau’s writings, with an additional emphasis on his two visits to Spain, thefirst in 1875 and again between 1914 and 1920. In so doing, I attempt to integrate Ashkenazic and Sephardic history into one field of Jewish Studies. The relationship between the two has not yet been researched comprehensively, particularly in the context of the historical study of Zionism.
Carvajal and the Franciscans
(2022)
Luis de Carvajal the Younger (1567–1596) is without doubt one of the most famous victims of the Mexican Inquisition. In 1595, Luis and his family were found guilty of “Judaizing” and sentenced to death. Due to his autobiography and letters which survived in the dossiers of his trials, scholars have been able to trace important aspects of Carvajal’s life, his religious thought, and his self-fashioning as a Jewish martyr. However, one question that has not yet been entirely discussed is Carvajal’s messianism in the context of New World geographies and influences.
This chapter uses Carvajal’s autobiography, his letters, and his declarations during the trials to analyze the meaning of “the Americas” in Carvajal’s eschatological thought and to reflect upon possible influences from Mexican Franciscans and Christian millenarians with whom Carvajal was in contact between 1590 and 1595. It places Carvajal’s case in the broader context of recent studies of “converso messianism” and Jewish-Christian interactions in early modern eschatological and millenarian settings. It thus contributes to the exploration of entanglements between Jewish and Christian eschatological expectations in the early modern Atlantic World.
"Writing with my professors”
(2023)
Kollaboratives Forschen quer zu hegemonialen Wissensordnungen gilt als wichtiger Baustein dekolonialer Wissenspraxis. Gemeinsame Schreibprozesse von Wissenschaftler*innen und ihren nicht-wissenschaftlichen Forschungspartner*innen sind allerdings selten und eine methodologische und forschungspraktische Reflexion fehlt. Die Beiträger*innen widmen sich diesen Lücken, indem sie erfolgreiche, aber auch gescheiterte Projekte kollaborativer Textproduktion zwischen Universität und Feld vorstellen und auf ihr Potenzial als transformative und dekoloniale Wissenspraxis befragen. So entsteht eine praktische Orientierungshilfe, die gleichzeitig die interdisziplinäre Diskussion anregt.
Over the last few decades, a network of misogynist blogs, websites, wikis, and forums has developed, where users share their bigoted, sexist, and toxic views of society in general and masculinity and femininity in particular. This chapter outlines conceptual framework of hegemonic and hybrid masculinity. It provides a brief overview of the historical development of the manosphere and its various configurations and present our analysis of the masculinities performed by the five groups of the manosphere. The concept of hegemonic masculinity was articulated by Connell and colleagues in the 1980s as “the pattern of practice that allowed men’s dominance over women to continue.” Prior to the advent of the manosphere, an online iteration of male supremacist mobilizations, both Men’s Rights Activists and Pick-up artists developed as offline movements in the 1970s. MRAs perceive their respective societies as inherently stacked against men. This chapter analyses the masculinities of the manosphere and how they “repudiat[e] and reif[y]” hegemonic masculinity and male supremacism.
Agricultural production worldwide has been increasing in the last decades at a very fast pace and with it the waste generation. Livestock activities are one of the largest producers of residues in the agricultural sector and contribute greatly to climate change. The present chapter gives an introduction and an in-depth analysis of the waste management of livestock for the conversion in a circular agriculture and economy based on research and experience in the sector conducted in the last decades. The conversion of animal waste into energy generation is an opportunity for farmers to obtain additional economic benefits, while contributing to the environment by preventing the release of GHGs into the atmosphere. The use of animal waste for energy generation through anaerobic digestion is a progressive technique and is being widely accepted in Europe, where Germany is the leading country in the use of biogas plants for energy production among others in the European Union. Economically speaking, the livestock industry faces the challenge of converting its production into a clean and more profitable production. The goal of this chapter is to analyze the economic benefit as well as the environmental contribution and future challenges of the use of livestock waste in the biorefineries sector from different perspectives, based on an intensive literature review. This review is accompanied by a geospatial analysis component, mapping biogas reactor hotspots and clusters in Germany, by means of methods of spatial statistics as analysis methods as kernel density estimations (KDE) and K-means clustering, based on volunteer geographic data. The applied methods easily can be transferred to other regions and allow a quick macroscopic overview over existing biogas reactors; furthermore, an identification of cluster and hotspots with a high biogas potential, that in a subsequent step can be analyzed in depth in larger scales.
Gender at the crossroads
(2023)
Since the early 2000s, the United Nations (UN) global counterterrorism architecture has seen significant changes towards increased multilateralism, a focus on prevention, and inter-institutional coordination across the UN’s three pillars of work. Throughout this reform process, gender aspects have increasingly become presented as a “cross-cutting” theme. In this article, I investigate the role of gender in the UN’s counterterrorism reform process at the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, or “triple nexus”, from a feminist institutionalist perspective. I conduct a feminist discourse analysis of the counterterrorism discourses of three UN entities, which represent the different UN pillars of peace and security (DPO), development (UNDP), and humanitarianism and human rights (OHCHR). The article examines the role of gender in the inter-institutional reform process by focusing on the changes, overlaps and differences in the discursive production of gender in the entities’ counterterrorism agendas over time and in two recent UN counterterrorism conferences. I find that gendered dynamics of nested newness and institutional layering have played an essential role both as a justification for the involvement of individual entities in counterterrorism and as a vehicle for inter-institutional cooperation and struggle for discursive power.
From laggards to leaders
(2021)
The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change embraces the participation of non-state actors in a separate governance track – the ‘Non-state actor zone for global action’ (nazca) – that runs alongside the formal track of unfccc negotiations and the implementation of the Paris Agreement by State Parties through ‘nationally determined contributions’. unfccc Secretariat is entrusted with orchestrating non-state global and transnational initiatives, partnerships and networks. The involvement of non-state actors in the implementation of the Paris Agreement helps to address an action gap by countries that are unable or unwilling to implement ambitious ndcs.
However, the increased prominence of initiatives driven by non-state actors also increases their direct and indirect influence on processes and rules which raises a number of questions with regards to the legitimacy of action and the democratic deficit of the global climate regime. Balancing legitimacy with effectiveness requires non-state initiatives to ensure transparent and inclusive governance, and accountability towards progress against their goals and pledges.
Despite its encouragement towards private initiatives, the Paris Agreement creates surprisingly little regulatory space for non-state actors to gain hold. Neither are there measures that would link ndcs to nazca initiatives, nor are functional requirements such as transparency or reporting extended to non-state initiatives. While the Paris Agreement marks an important step towards harnessing private sector ability and ambition for climate action, more remains to be done to create a truly enabling framework for private action to strive and complement public efforts to address climate change.
The EU and its member countries have been laggards in using forest carbon to reduce EU emissions. The European Green Deal aims to change this. As part of its long-term emissions reductions, the EU aims to offset this by creating land-based carbon sinks, especially forest carbon sinks as well as carbon capture and storage. This chapter focuses on the role of forest carbon as part of the EU's climate policies towards achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It furthermore examines the European Commission's proposed forest strategy and its proposal for a revised LULUCF Regulation. The chapter shows that the logic of appropriateness dominates the European Commission's forest policies. Finally, the chapter makes policy recommendations on how the EU could credibly use long-term carbon sinks to achieve climate neutrality.
Long-term environmental policy remains a vexing puzzle of environmental policy. Following its definition, the author reviews the methods suitable for the study of long-term environmental policy and develops a typology of policy instruments to cope with these challenges. The concluding section offers five central research challenges to advance the study of long-term environmental policy.
Effectiveness
(2021)
Challenges, triggers and initiators of climate policies and implications for policy formulation
(2020)
This paper starts from the premise that Western states are connected to some of the harms refugees suffer from. It specifically focuses on the harm of acts of misrecognition and its relation to epistemic injustice that refugees suffer from in refugee camps, in detention centers, and during their desperate attempts to find refuge. The paper discusses the relation between hermeneutical injustice and acts of misrecognition, showing that these two phenomena are interconnected and that acts of misrecognition are particularly damaging when (a) they stretch over different contexts, leaving us without or with very few safe spaces, and (b) they dislocate us, leaving us without a community to turn to. The paper then considers the ways in which refugees experience acts of misrecognition and suffer from hermeneutical injustice, using the case of unaccompanied children at the well-known and overcrowded camp Moria in Greece, the case of unsafe detention centers in Libya, and the case of the denial to assistance on the Mediterranean and the resulting pushbacks from international waters to Libya as well as the preventable drowning of refugees in the Mediterranean to illustrate the arguments. Finally, the paper argues for specific duties toward refugees that result from the prior arguments on misrecognition and hermeneutical injustice.
This study evaluates the challenges, institutional impacts and responses of German local authorities to the COVID-19 pandemic from a political science point of view. The main research question is how they have contributed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and to what extent the strengths and weaknesses of the German model of municipal autonomy have influenced their policy. It analyses the adaptation strategies of German local authorities and assesses the effectiveness of their actions up to now. Their implementation is then evaluated in five selected issues, e.g. adjustment organization and staff, challenges for local finances, local politics and citizen’s participation. This analysis is reflecting the scientific debate in Germany since the beginning of 2020, based on the available analyses of political science, law, economics, sociology and geography until end of March 2021.
After some seventy years of intensive debates, there is an increasingly strong consensus within the academic and practitioner communities that development is both an objective and a process towards improving the quality of people's lives in various societal dimensions – economic, social, environmental, cultural and political – and about how subjectively satisfied they are with it. Since 2015, the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN) reflect such consensus. The sections behind this argument are based on a review of (i) three key theoretical contributions to development and different phases of development thinking; (ii) global and regional governance arrangements and institutions for development cooperation; (iii) upcoming challenges to development policy and practice stemming from a series of new global challenges; and, (iv) development policy as a long and steady, increasingly global and participatory learning process.
While school supervision structures in the German Länder were extensively reformed during the last decades, systematic analyses of these reforms are missing. This chapter contributes to this research gap by providing an overview of the implemented reforms of school supervision structures in the German Länder. The effects of these reforms are analysed in order to answer the question of whether a convergence of school supervision systems is a result of these reforms. In a first step, a distinction is made to identify system-changing reforms. Although a decrease of the number or a concentration on one school supervision system is not a result of the analysis, it is argued that there is a convergence of school supervision structures, as a clear trend against school supervision systems with lower school supervisory boards can be observed.
The COVID-19 virus has hit Germany as unexpectedly as other European countries. For a few weeks, Germans thought that COVID-19 was an issue for Asian states and not for their country. Although Germany continues to be affected by the coronavirus, the situation is nowhere as dire as it was in Britain, Italy or Spain. The race to lift restrictions in Germany began in May, and by early June, the country may be back to normal. Germany, with its enormous financial resources and a well-equipped medical sector, appears to be better placed than other economies to weather the storm.
Germany as a leading power
(2020)
The contribution explores how an understanding of neoliberal subjectification in socio-economic education can serve to counteract the trend marketisation of democracy. Drawing on Foucault’s lectures on biopolitics and Brown’s current analysis of neoliberalism, it lays out a sociological explanation that treats the idea of homo economicus as a structuring element of our society and outlines the threat this poses to the liberal democratic order. The second part of the contribution outlines – through immanent critique – an ideology-critical analytical competence that uses key problems to illuminate socially critical perspectives on social reality. The objective is to challenge some of the foundations of social order (Salomon, D. Kritische politische Bildung. Ein Versuch. In B. Widmaier & Overwien, B. (Hrsg.), Was heißt heute kritische politische Bildung? (S. 232–239). Wochenschau, 2013) in pursuit of the ultimate objective of an educated and assertive citizenry.
Extreme-right terrorism is a threat that is often underestimated by the public at large. As this paper argues, this is partly due to a concept of terrorism utilized by policymakers, intelligence agents, and police investigators that is based on experience of international terrorism perpetrated by leftists or jihadists as opposed to domestic extreme-right violence. This was one reason why investigators failed to identify the crimes committed by the National Socialist Underground (NSU) in Germany (2000–2011) as extreme-right terrorism, for example. While scholarly debate focused on the Red Army Faction and Al Qaeda, terrorist tendencies among those perpetrating racist and extreme-right violence tended to be disregarded. Influential researchers in the field of “extremism” denied that terrorist acts were committed by right-wingers. By mapping the specifics regarding the strategic use of violence, target selection, addressing of different audiences etc., this paper proposes a more accurate definition of extreme-right terrorism. In comparing it to other forms of terrorism, extreme-right terrorism is distinguished by its specific framework of ideologies and practices, with the underlying idea of an essential inequality that is compensated for through the affirmation of violence. It can be differentiated from other forms of extreme-right violence based on its use of strategic, premeditated and planned attacks against targets of a symbolic nature.
The conception of property at the basis of Hegel’s conception of abstract right seems committed to a problematic form of “possessive individualism.” It seems to conceive of right as the expression of human mastery over nature and as based upon an irreducible opposition of person and nature, rightful will, and rightless thing. However, this chapter argues that Hegel starts with a form of possessive individualism only to show that it undermines itself. This is evident in the way Hegel unfolds the nature of property as it applies to external things as well as in the way he explains our self-ownership of our own bodies and lives. Hegel develops the idea of property to a point where it reaches a critical limit and encounters the “true right” that life possesses against the “formal” and “abstract right” of property. Ultimately, Hegel’s account suggests that nature should precisely not be treated as a rightless object at our arbitrary disposal but acknowledged as the inorganic body of right.
In his 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx famously claims that the human being is or has a ‘Gattungswesen.’ This is often understood to mean that the human being is a ‘species-being’ and is determined by a given ‘species-essence.’ In this chapter, I argue that this reading is mistaken. What Marx calls Gattungswesen is precisely not a ‘species-being,’ but a being that, in a very specific sense, transcends the limits of its own given species. This different understanding of the genus- character of the human being opens up a new perspective on the naturalism of the early Marx. He is not informed by a problematic speciesist and essentialist naturalism, as is often assumed, but by a different form of naturalism which I propose to call ‘dialectical naturalism.’ The chapter starts (I) by developing Hegel’s account of genus which provides us with a useful background for (II) understanding Marx’s original notion of a genus-being and its practical, social, developmental character. In the last section, I show that (III) the actualization of our genus-being thus depends on the production of a specific type of ‘second nature’ that is at the heart of Marx’s dialectical naturalism.
Invention
(2023)
This entry addresses invention from five different perspectives: (i) definition of the term, (ii) mechanisms underlying invention processes, (iii) (pre-)history of human inventions, (iv) intellectual property protection vs open innovation, and (v) case studies of great inventors. Regarding the definition, an invention is the outcome of a creative process taking place within a technological milieu, which is recognized as successful in terms of its effectiveness as an original technology. In the process of invention, a technological possibility becomes realized. Inventions are distinct from either discovery or innovation. In human creative processes, seven mechanisms of invention can be observed, yielding characteristic outcomes: (1) basic inventions, (2) invention branches, (3) invention combinations, (4) invention toolkits, (5) invention exaptations, (6) invention values, and (7) game-changing inventions. The development of humanity has been strongly shaped by inventions ever since early stone tools and the conception of agriculture. An “explosion of creativity” has been associated with Homo sapiens, and inventions in all fields of human endeavor have followed suit, engendering an exponential growth of cumulative culture. This culture development emerges essentially through a reuse of previous inventions, their revision, amendment and rededication. In sociocultural terms, humans have increasingly regulated processes of invention and invention-reuse through concepts such as intellectual property, patents, open innovation and licensing methods. Finally, three case studies of great inventors are considered: Edison, Marconi, and Montessori, next to a discussion of human invention processes as collaborative endeavors.
It’s personal
(2021)
The new technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) are disrupting traditional models of work and learning. While the impact of digitalization on education was already a point of serious deliberation, the COVID-19 pandemic has expedited ongoing transitions. With 90% of the world’s student population having been impacted by national lockdowns—online learning has gone from being a luxury to a necessity, in a context where around 3.6 billion people are offline. As the impacts of the 4IR unfold alongside the current crisis, it is not enough for future policy pathways to prioritize educational attainment in the traditional sense; it is essential to reimagine education itself as well as its delivery entirely. Future policy narratives will need to evaluate the very process of learning and identify the ways in which technology can help reduce existing disparities and enhance digital access, literacy and fluency in a scalable manner. In this context, this chapter analyses the status quo of online learning in India and Germany. Drawing on the experiences of these two economies with distinct trajectories of digitalization, the chapter explores how new technologies intersect with traditional education and local sociocultural conditions. Further, the limitations and opportunities presented by dominant ed-tech models is critically analyzed against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Although the literature on the determinants of training has considered individual and firm-related characteristics, it has generally neglected regional factors. This is surprising, given the fact that labour markets differ by regions. Regional factors are often ignored because (both in Germany and abroad) many data sets covering training information do not include detailed geographical identifiers that would allow a merging of information on the regional level. The regional identifiers of the National Educational Panel Study (Starting Cohort 6) offer opportunities to advance research on several regional factors. This article summarizes the results from two studies that exploit these unique opportunities to investigate the relationship between training participation and (a) the local level of firm competition for workers within specific sectors of the economy and (b) the regional supply of training measured as the number of firms offering courses or seminars for potential training participants.
New technological applications such as Augmented Reality or Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) lead to alternative ways of learning. In order to be able to use this to its potential, the promotion of digital competencies “Digital Competence is the set of knowledge, skills, attitudes, abilities, strategies, and awareness that are required when using ICT and digital media to perform tasks; solve problems; communicate; manage information; collaborate; create and share content; and build knowledge effectively, efficiently, appropriately, critically, creatively, autonomously, flexibly, ethically, reflectively for work, le sure, participation, learning, and socialising.” (Ferrari, 2012). and a corresponding amount of practical "learning-by-doing" effects is required (cf. Ecker/Campbell 2019, p. 154). For this purpose, spaces and framework conditions must be created for application-based learning, which is also increasingly required by the employment market. In this context, we take a closer look at a new emerging subculture in university infrastructure called Maker Movement (MM). Our research work aims at investigating the pedagogical potential of particularly university-integrated makerspaces (MS) to enhance experiential learning with digital tools. To decode the innovative potential, we collected qualitative data from nine in-depth, semi-structured interviews with lab managers and researchers at European MS in six different countries.
I need to move it, move It!
(2024)
Purpose
Student interest and learning success is an important component of teaching learning research. However, while the impact of emotions and psychological needs on students' achievements has been a focus of research, the impact of their physiological needs has been under studied. In this explorative study, I examine what impact the physiological and psychological needs of student teachers have on their feelings, motivation, and interest in different learning settings.
Approach
The research method used was the daily reconstruction method and included the Felix-App, a new digital research and feedback tool that allows the measurement of feelings, needs, motivation, and interest in real time.
Findings
The results suggest the importance of physiological needs for perceived emotions, motivation, and interest in the learning subject. The psychological needs, on the other hand, are of less importance.
Originality
The Felix-App is an innovative tool to learn more about learners' emotions and needs in real learning settings. The importance of physiological needs has been known since Maslow, but should be considered much more in the context of teaching and learning research in the future. There is a need for further research on the importance of physical aspects in learning.
Although mothers and fathers in almost all rich democracies are entitled to some form of paid parenting leave, fathers in particular do not take all the leave available to them. As employers play an important role in the implementation of parenting leave policies, this chapter investigates which workplace characteristics influence mothers' and fathers' uptake of their statutory leave entitlements. In Part 1, we estimate the size of the gap between statutory leave entitlement and leave uptake across genders and countries by combining data from the OECD and the European Labor Force Survey. In Parts 2 and 3, we review the literature on structural, cultural, and normative explanations for the gap in parenting leave uptake. We conclude the chapter with suggestions for further research, including the need for reliable data on the size of the implementation gap and research on non-European countries.