Archives mensuelles : juin 2024

Convention Theory as a New Analytical Framework for Geographical Phenomena

Philippe Vidal (2024)

In Rainer Diaz-Bone & Guillemette de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions. Cham: Springer, Online first

Abstract. This chapter demonstrates the effectiveness of the theoretical apparatus of the economics and sociology of conventions (EC/CS) in the analysis of territorial phenomena. The chapter has a double purpose. First, it is addressed to geographers and spatial planners. The aim is to show that the convention approach allows them to better understand the dynamics of territorial actors. Reading territorial problems through the prism of convention theory makes it possible to analyze potential blockages and reveal frameworks of agreement. These frameworks may be the result of rather unstable compromises when several convention-based regimes coexist in the same territory, and it is therefore of utmost interest to study them in order to shed light on the interplay of actors at work. Looking at the dynamics of conventions helps to identify, in a given socio-spatial context, which conventions are losing ground and which are gaining ground. This dynamic reading of situations, once transferred to practitioners, can illuminate their choices in terms of strategic options for territorial development. The second plea is for EC/CS scholars to consider space in a more comprehensive and reflexive way. The contribution of geography is obviously territorial. Geography can make it possible to territorialize conventions, that is, to anchor them in a context that goes far beyond a simplistic vision of space. It’s about working with space, not just looking at it from its geographical boundaries. In this way, a stronger integration of geographic and urban planning thinking into the research programs of the EC/CS will be promoted.

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Conceptual Mapping of Controversies

Claude Draude, Dominik Dürrschnabel, Johannes Hirth, Viktoria Horn, Jonathan Kropf, Jörn Lamla, Gerd Stumme & Markus Uhlmann (2024)

Arxiv.org

Abstract. With our work, we contribute towards a qualitative analysis of the discourse on controversies in online news media. For this, we employ Formal Concept Analysis and the economics of conventions to derive conceptual controversy maps. In our experiments, we analyze two maps from different news journals with methods from ordinal data science. We show how these methods can be used to assess the diversity, complexity and potential bias of controversies. In addition to that, we discuss how the diagrams of concept lattices can be used to navigate between news articles.

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Why do students resist assessment by group-work? Hearing critique in the complaint

Kathryn Telling (2024)

European Educational Research Journal, Online first, open access

Abstract. The cry that today’s higher education students are particularly individualist is a commonly-heard one. In England, the considerable personal cost of tuition is often blamed for creating a series of negative student traits, including consumerism (an idea that one has bought the right to a degree) and individualism (a sense of the individual as the beneficiary of the bought product, as against any sense of collectivism, or education as public good). This paper explores one element of students’ purported individualism: their resistance to group-work as an aspect of assessment. Presenting interview data with university students in England, it argues that such student disquiet does not stem from a resistance to collectivism in general. Using pragmatic sociology, the paper considers students’ often gentle and humorous comments about group-work as critique, not complaint. Rather than understanding students’ resistance to group-work as individualist grievance about doing something they would simply rather not do, this way of conceptualising their comments understands students as making critical points about what should be assessed for at university. It argues that this way of thinking about resistance to group-work leads us to take that resistance seriously, and in turn to take students seriously as interlocuters on educational matters.

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