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Vulnerability and Resilience in Course Adaptations for Online Modality: Anytime, Anywhere, Any Climate
Giancarlo De Agostini,
Xavier Arcentales,
Patricio González,
Marco Yamba,
Frank Viteri
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
1-9
Received:
10 May 2021
Accepted:
19 June 2021
Published:
15 January 2022
Abstract: It has been found that university professors in the global south, working in online courses, have a great “dilemma” to transfer and extrapolate the different curriculum, syllabus, teaching ideas, messages, cooperative activities and concepts from a face-to-face teaching-learning environment to an on line or virtual modality. The big problem is the lack of resilience of teachers to adapt the education of the past, to a future one, that is already present and needed, especially today with drastic climate changes and pandemic events. Thus, a critical and transcendental question to answer is how, in an online classroom, teachers are prepared to deal with vulnerable students, regardless of its ability or any environmental conditions, including climate management. This question refers to an equal treatment to all alumni, respecting their differences in cultural lives, social, economic and weather conditions, beliefs, and special capacities. Every student, regardless of its ability and geographical residence, should have equal opportunity to contribute with their ideas in an online or virtual class or event; this is a crucial question to be answered and treated for an online environment. Usually, university professors use a course management system for their classes as a repository (deposit) of documents and isolated activities, instead of a series of connected participatory activities, gradually developing from simple to more difficult tasks in order to really help learners with their academics under any type of conditions.
Abstract: It has been found that university professors in the global south, working in online courses, have a great “dilemma” to transfer and extrapolate the different curriculum, syllabus, teaching ideas, messages, cooperative activities and concepts from a face-to-face teaching-learning environment to an on line or virtual modality. The big problem is the ...
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Democracy Needs Justice, Not Fairness: The Constitutive Rules of Democratic form of Life as an Answer to the Anomie of Law
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
10-20
Received:
9 December 2021
Accepted:
30 December 2021
Published:
21 January 2022
Abstract: Context: The debate on the issue of Justice from the premise of the need for an impartial criteria. Objective: It is intended to demonstrate the social pathologies resulting from the understanding of law and justice as impartial validation criteria established prior to social events that they intend to regulate and legitimize. The article seeks, then, to establish an understanding of democracy as the effectuation of the constitutive rules of the multiple forms of life in a democracy. Method: The bibliographical research and argument confrontation method was used through the conditional inferential logic of the pragmatic theory of language. Relevance/Originality: The article demonstrates how it is possible to broaden the understanding of Law so that it becomes a source of social dynamism, producing justice by avoiding the anomie of understanding Law as a stabilizer of expectations in the dispute between conflicting wills. Results: The article demonstrates the feasibility of understanding Law as a set of constitutive rules of democracy. Such understanding proves to be effective as a theoretical response to the anomies faced by contemporary democracies. Theoretical/Methodological Contributions: The application of the concept of constitutive rules to Law and the use of Robert Brandom's inferential logic in the analysis of democratic issues are innovative elements present in the article. Contributions: The theoretical proposal demonstrates the importance of grounding the Law on the appropriation of legal rules made by the person living in a democracy, especially the person that is in an unfavorable social situation.
Abstract: Context: The debate on the issue of Justice from the premise of the need for an impartial criteria. Objective: It is intended to demonstrate the social pathologies resulting from the understanding of law and justice as impartial validation criteria established prior to social events that they intend to regulate and legitimize. The article seeks, th...
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An Empirical Study of the Relationship Between Online Comments and Users’ Purchasing Behavior in the Social E-commerce
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
21-30
Received:
29 December 2021
Accepted:
14 January 2022
Published:
21 January 2022
Abstract: Trusted social relationships can shorten users' thinking time when shopping, and social relationships and online comments play an important role in users' purchasing decisions. The mechanism of online comments effect on users' purchase behavior has been theoretically supported, but its mechanism of action in the context of social shopping still lacks empirical testing. Based on the social E-commerce environment, this paper focuses on the relationship between online comments and users' purchasing behavior, constructs a measurement model of the relationship between them, puts forward a research hypothesis, and comprehensively uses factor analysis, correlation and regression analysis methods to test the hypothesis. The empirical findings show that there is a significant relationship between online comments and users' purchasing behavior in the social e-commerce, and online comments mainly affect users' perceived value and trust through the quality of comments, quantity of comments and timeliness of comments. Based on the findings of the empirical study, this paper puts forward specific strategies for social E-commerce to improve online comments, including: paying more attention to the marketing value of online comments and capitalizing on them, paying close attention to the quality and timeliness of online comments and enhance the perceived value of online users, grooming a leader of online comments to increase online users’ trust. This study aims at providing decision-making references for social e-commerce merchants on how to effectively use online comments to increase consumers' purchasing behavior.
Abstract: Trusted social relationships can shorten users' thinking time when shopping, and social relationships and online comments play an important role in users' purchasing decisions. The mechanism of online comments effect on users' purchase behavior has been theoretically supported, but its mechanism of action in the context of social shopping still lac...
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Factoring Agwu Among Other (G)gods in Isidore Diala’s Inauguration of the Igbo Muse within African Literature
Uchenna David Uwakwe,
Benedict Nkemdirim Igbokwe
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
31-37
Received:
4 June 2021
Accepted:
30 June 2021
Published:
28 January 2022
Abstract: The Inaugural lecture series at the Imo State University Owerri-Nigeria took a different turn in its 23rd version when Isidore Okeawolam Diala probed into a certain measure of the Igbo (meta) physical reality as it occurs in contemporary African Literature. With the title: ‘Dionysos, Christ, Agwu and the African Writer, Diala seemed more inclined to justifying the outcome of the writer’s acquaintance with the Igbo thoughts on Agwu, the god of creativity. Quite unfortunately, Agwu has never been known to have such positive view as to attract adherents. Therefore, Diala’s presentation, which associates the god with creativity brings a unique perspective to Agwu even among Christian adherents who associate its wors*hip or patronage with paganism. While it should have seemed that the title of this inaugural lecture would dissuade the audience, the personality of the presenter as a practicing Catholic had rather generated an exciting kind of inquisitiveness. This paper examines how Diala inaugurated and deified Agwu within the African literary world, drawing also a measurable symbolism with the messianic placement of Jesus Christ. It is also noteworthy that Diala draws the classical estimation of Dionysos in Greek religion in certifying how the religiosity of Agwu obtains such significance as have given impetus to the works by African writers.
Abstract: The Inaugural lecture series at the Imo State University Owerri-Nigeria took a different turn in its 23rd version when Isidore Okeawolam Diala probed into a certain measure of the Igbo (meta) physical reality as it occurs in contemporary African Literature. With the title: ‘Dionysos, Christ, Agwu and the African Writer, Diala seemed more inclined t...
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The Biopolitical Turn, Marxism and the Radicalization of Social Theory
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
38-47
Received:
31 October 2021
Accepted:
23 November 2021
Published:
19 February 2022
Abstract: In recent years, the concept of biopolitics has gained remarkable acceptance in the social sciences and humanities. The study of biopolitics has been developed in a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, economics, aesthetics, law, history, and biomedicine, which gives biopolitics a broad interdisciplinary orientation. It has resulted in a general biopolitical turn in the social sciences and humanities. It becomes an urgent and necessary task that how to identify this turn. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to grasp the basic threads, the main methods, the essential contents and the political effects of the biopolitics turn. It is worth noting that only by placing the biopolitics in the context of social-critical theory can we truly gain insight into its inner meaning. In this regard, it must be dissected in terms of Marxist methodology in order to grasp its connotation and political position, rather than accepting the premise of the biopolitics without exception. It argues that the biopolitical turn has reversed the path of traditional political research, defined a new type of political horizon, and put the conditions of measuring knowledge into the study of political context and even the whole humanities and social sciences. The conclusions are as follows: first, the radical social theory based on the “biopolitical turn” provides a new possibility for political imagination of the left. Its pan-politicized preference, however, challenges the theoretical commitments put forward by the left and their abilities to deliver. Second, in this movement, the Marxist critique of capitalism becomes an intrinsic motivation for biopolitical theory, while at the same time Marxism becomes a tradition that is constantly attempted to be transcended and replaced in the new conditions of the times. Third, in the competition for the right to interpret Marx, and in the competition between biopolitical theories, biopolitics increasingly exhausts its most central critical power against capitalism in a theoretical boom, and eventually dwindles into a resource that specific disciplines compete to appropriate.
Abstract: In recent years, the concept of biopolitics has gained remarkable acceptance in the social sciences and humanities. The study of biopolitics has been developed in a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, economics, aesthetics, law, history, and biomedicine, which gives biopolitics a broad interdisciplinary orientation. It has resulted in ...
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