Navé Wald

Student peer review: enhancing formative feedback with a rebuttal

Abstract This study examines the use of peer review in an undergraduate ecology programme, in which students write a research proposal as a grant application, prior to carrying out the research project. Using a theoretical feedback model, we compared teacher and student peer reviews in a double blind exercise, and show how students responded to feedback given by each group. In addition, students wrote a rebuttal for every feedback point before re-drafting and submission. Despite students claiming they could tell if the reviewer was a teacher or student, this was not always the case, and both student and teacher feedback was accepted on merit. Analysis of feedback types and rebuttal actions showed similar patterns between students and teachers. Where teachers differed slightly was in the use of questions and giving direction. Interviews with students showed the rebuttal was a novel experience, because it required a consideration of each comment and justification as to why it was accepted, partially accepted or rejected. Being a reviewer helped students to learn about their own work, and it changed the way they understood the scientific literature. In addition, some students transferred their new peer review skills to help others outside of the ecology programme.

Bridging identity divides in current rural social mobilisation

The shift from a corporatist citizenship regime to a neoliberal one has adversely affected Latin American rural communities and led to widespread social mobilisation and organisation in the countryside. The struggle of such marginalised communities has been often framed by stressing their indigenous collective identity over the previously prevalent class-based peasant identity. This article focuses on the role of identity and the negotiation of different identities in the struggle of two rural organisations in Northwest Argentina for securing land tenure and improving their standards of living. Argentinean society, in contrast to some other Latin American societies, is often imagined as ‘white,’ but in recent decades many peasant, or campesino, communities have rediscovered or reaffirmed their indigenous origin. This article therefore deconstructs rural collective identities in Argentina and analyses how class and ethnic identities are negotiated in struggles of grassroots social organisations in the countryside of this predominantly urban country.

In Search of Alternatives Peasant Initiatives for a Different Development in Northern Argentina

Social mobilization in Latin America today is often characterized by the adoption of discourses and praxes of radical democracy by social movements. Principles of wider participation in decision making are central to the collective communal economic ventures for capitalizing on peasant production of raw materials of the Movimiento Campesino de Santiago del Estero–Vía Campesina, a peasant organization that is fighting for secure land tenure and higher standards of living in one of Argentina’s least urbanized and poorest provinces. Although at present the economic impact of these activities is not particularly notable, their importance lies in their contribution to the development of economic, social, and political consciousness among the members of the organization. La movilización social en América Latina hoy en día se caracteriza frecuentemente por la adopción por parte de los movimientos sociales de los discursos y praxis asociados con la democracia radical. Principios de una mayor participación en la toma de decisiones son fundamentales para los colectivos comunales de empresas económicas para la capitalización de la producción campesina de las materias primas del Movimiento Campesino de Santiago del Estero–Via Campesina, una organización campesina que lucha por la tenencia segura de la tierra y mejores niveles de vida en una de las provincias menos urbanizadas y más pobres de la Argentina. Aunque en la actualidad el impacto económico de estas actividades no es particularmente notable, su importancia radica en su contribución al desarrollo de la conciencia económica, social y política entre los miembros de la organización.

Vanilla teaching as a rational choice: the impact of research and compliance on teacher development

ABSTRACT This paper examines the proposition that the quality of university teaching in the research-intensive university is affected by various compliance demands on academic work that are meant to either enhance or be complementary to teaching. These include holding academics to account for the quality of both research and teaching. Our research aims to contribute to evolving theories about the research-teaching nexus and the relationship between compliance and teaching quality. Twenty five in-depth interviews were undertaken with lecturers at a research-intensive university. It was found that research was valued more than teaching, and teaching quality only needed to be good enough to achieve career goals. Once a certain compliance level had been reached in teaching, lecturers could justify apportioning more time for research. We have described teaching in this context as ‘vanilla’ and argue that vanilla teaching is a rationale choice for university academics.

A framework for authenticity in designing a research-based curriculum

ABSTRACT This conceptual paper is concerned with the discursive and applied attributes of ‘authenticity’ in higher education, with a particular focus on teaching science through student research. Authenticity has been mentioned in passing, claimed or discussed by scholars in relation to different aspects of higher education, including teaching, learning, assessment and achievement. However, it is our position that in spite of the growing appeal of authenticity, the use of the term is often vague and uncritical. The notion of authenticity is complex, has a range of meanings and is sometimes contested. Therefore, we propose here a practice-oriented and theoretically-informed framework for what constitutes authenticity within the context of teaching through research. This framework brings together aspects of the ‘real world,’ existential self, and embedded meaning, and aligns them with different outcomes relating to knowledge and to students. Different models of teaching through research with conflicting claims to authenticity are used to illustrate the framework.

Hidden No More: Organised Campesinos in Northwest Argentina

The Argentinean peasantry has been severely ignored within the imagined rural geography of this country, and until relatively recent times publically invisible. This article addresses this historic injustice by focusing on this hidden social group on the margins of Argentinean society. The article examines the prevalent theoretical conceptualisation of the peasantry in Argentina and identifies this sector in census data, where it is assimilated into the small agriculture producers group. The marginalisation of this sector, however, is being contested by the mobilisation and organisations of peasant communities across the country. This article discusses the formation and consolidation of two campesino-indigenous organisations in Northwest Argentina: Movimiento Campesino de Santiago del Estero-Vía Campesina (MOCASE-VC) and Red Puna y Quebrada. The discourses and praxes of these movements reflect not only the reconfiguration of marginalised campesino communities, which are often of indigenous origin, as autonomous and active social subjects, but also provide valuable lessons for how a different form of horizontal organisation is being pursued from below.