Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

‘The Production of Space’, in: Frans Jacobi, Imagine, Space Poetry, Copenhagen, 1996, unpaginated.

The Production of Space

Benedict Anderson’s deservedly famous thesis about the origins and nature
of modern nationalism turns around the central notion of an “imagined
community.” This category provides him with a matrix out of which one
can apprehend-theoretically and historically-the different variants of nationalist discourse formulated over the last two hundred years. We will refer,
in the brief comments that follow, to three basic dimensions structuring
the fabric of Anderson’s argument: 1) the presuppositions implicit in the
notion of an “imagined” community; 2) the kind of substitutability or solidarity which is required to be a member of such a community; 3) the kind
of relationship that is established between such a community-which is by
definition finite or limited-and its outside. Before that, however, let us
describe the main features of Anderson’s thesis.

On Imagined Communities

aimed to attract a more diverse audience of gamers and non-gamers – and to bring video games off the screen and into the living room. While not all games are well suited for multiplayer play – ‘It’s hard to avoid getting in each other’s way and impeding rather than advancing game progress’ (p. 133) – most games are intended to be played while in the room with other people. ‘The Wii is just the latest attempt by Nintendo to bring a version of this kind of social gaming into the living room, closer to arcade parties and karaoke than to, say, bouts of online multiplayer military simulations’ (p. 142). Jones and Thiruvathukal’s book is as much a user’s manual for the potential of the Nintendo Wii as it is an academic and technical deconstruction of the console as a computing platform. Their joint approach to considering the topic works well, but it isn’t until the very end of the book that Jones’ cultural contextual approach really shines. In the final six pages of the sixth chapter (pp. 143–148), the authors consider the paratext of the Wii, as well as the diegetic and nondiegetic elements of video games – and the various layers of the platform and the games, interactions and activities it supports. ‘This social layer of a video game platform is an essential part of what the system means, because it’s the environment in which the platform gets used’ (p. 148). Much of the existing literature on Nintendo – such as Osamu Inoue’s (2010) Nintendo Magic: Winning the Videogame Wars and Jeff Ryan’s (2011) Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America – concentrates on the company’s success as a business. The more technical literature to date focuses on the use of the Wii Balance Board, another controller for the platform, in healthcare and therapeutic settings. This text sits comfortably in the middle, Wiimote and Nunchuk controllers in hand, making a valuable contribution to the study of the Nintendo Wii and how technology and culture work together.

It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology

The aim of this article is to further the understanding of how content is learned in classrooms, using conversation analysis (CA) and variation theory for the analysis. Classroom video materials from two mathematics classrooms in Sweden and the USA are analysed. A result of the study is the empirical explication of the tension between the need for teacher content control and the simultaneous contradictory need for student participation in educational interaction. The article also develops variation theory toward a more sensitive understanding of the sequential implications of interaction and suggests CA can benefit from more systematic understandings of content orientation in interaction. In doing so, the presumed gulf between acquisitionist and participation understandings of learning is challenged.

The Price of Participation: Teacher control versus student participation in classroom interaction

In tow of the blue whale. : Learning as interactional changes in topical orientation

I den har artikeln diskuteras de mojligheter och begransningar som videoinspelningar under faltarbete innebar for analyser av barns vardag ur barns perspektiv. Hur paverkar olika anvandande av bild och ljudinspelningar av barns interaktion analytiska mojligheter och begransningar? Anvandningen av video som en teknik i faltarbete har blivit en valetablerad form for att arbeta.

Om användning av videoinspelning i fältarbete

The aim of this article is to argue learning as interaction, and how processes of learning a content as constituted in interaction can be approached analytically and theoretically. Within aviation, ...

Learning to Fly: The Progressive Development of Situation Awareness

Dynamics in Education Politics: Understanding and Explaining the Finnish Case introduces a new theoretical framework characterised as Comparative Analytics of Dynamics in Education Politics (CADEP). Albeit the topicality of comparative research is obvious in the current era of global large-scale assessment, with its concomitant media visibility and political effects, comparative education is still suffering from certain methodological deficits and is in need of robust theorisation. Focusing on relational dynamics between policy threads, actors and institutions in education politics CADEP seriously considers the phenomena of complexity, contingency and trans-nationality in late-modern societies. 

In this book CADEP is applied and validated in analysing the "Finnish Educational Miracle" that has been attracting attention in the educational world ever since they rocketed to fame following the PISA studies during the 2000s. This book will open up opportunities for mutual understanding and learning rather than just celebrating the exceptional circumstances or sustainable leadership.

Areas covered include:


The analytics of dynamics in education politics


The dynamics of policy making and governance 


The dynamics of educational family strategies


The dynamics of classroom culture 


It is vital for humankind to be able to learn from each other’s successes and failures, and this applies in education, too. This book is thus a valuable read for anyone interested in the education system and wanting to shape the learning environment.

Fritjof Sahlström

Papers

The Price of Participation: Teacher control versus student participation in classroom interaction

In tow of the blue whale. : Learning as interactional changes in topical orientation

Om användning av videoinspelning i fältarbete

Learning to Fly: The Progressive Development of Situation Awareness

Dynamics in Education Politics: Understanding and explaining the Finnish case