Figuring the Transition from Circular Economy to Circular Society in Australia

The combined pressure of economic, environmental, and social crises, including bushfires, waste management, and COVID created conditions for a turn to the circular economy in Australia. In addition to a dominant circular discourse of ecological modernization in state and federal policy and business and public consultations, other more socially inclusive and ecologically sensitive discourses are circulating. The two main competing discourses are a techcentric circular economy and a reformist circular society, the latter reflected in ‘growth agnostic’ doughnut economics. In the context of unambitious federal and state policies, the circular transition is being supported by a range of intermediary organizations whose key representatives envision or ‘figure’ the sustainability transition in hybrid discursive combinations. Few studies of the circular economy transition in Australia exist and none focus on competing discourses and intermediation for sustainability transition. Since intermediary organizations both discursively reflect and lead the circular change, fuller understanding of how circularity is interpreted or ‘figured’ by key actors is crucial. This study identifies how twenty representatives from intermediating organizations actively ‘figure’ the process of the circular transition for Australia, including while managing the tension between personal positions and organizational missions. Employing the concept of figured worlds this qualitative thematic discourse interview study analyses how, drawing on available circular discourses, key actors and their organisations actively ‘figure’ the present and future circular transition. The study contributes to debates on circular discourses, nature, and the limitations of the circular economy in Australia, the relational space of intermediation, and the nature of MLP transitions for a sustainable circular transition economy in Australia.

Transfer Student Experiences and Identity Navigation in STEM: Overlapping Figured Worlds of Success

Successful transitions from community colleges to the university setting are essential for increasing the number of transfer students who complete science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree programs. In this study, Holland’s framework of figured worlds was used to examine how transfer students pursuing STEM negotiated their identities in their transition to the university.

Fast Professors, Research Funding, and the Figured Worlds of Mid-Career Ontario Academics

Heightened pressures to publish prolifically and secure external funding stand in stark contrast with the slow scholarship movement. This article explores ways in which research funding expectations permeate the “figured worlds” of 16 mid-career academics in education, social work, sociology, and geography in 7 universities in Ontario, Canada. Participants demonstrated a steady record of research accomplishment and a commitment to social justice in their work. The analysis identified four themes related to the competing pressures these academics described in their day-to-day lives: getting funded; life gets in the way; work gets in the way; and being a fast professor. Participants spoke about their research funding achievements and struggles. In some cases, they explained how their positioning, including gender and race, might have affected their research production, compared to colleagues positioned differently. Their social justice research is funded, but some suspect at a lower level than colleagues studying conventional topics. In aiming for the impossible standards of a continuously successful research record, these individuals worked “all the time.” Advocates claim that slow scholarship is not really about going slower, but about maintaining quality and caring in one’s work, yet participants’ accounts suggest they have few options other than to perform as “fast professors.” At mid-career, they question whether and how they can keep up this pace for 20 or more years.

College-Bound Figured Worlds: Case Studies of Three Urban High Schools

This qualitative case study explored the unique ways recent college graduates serving as full-time, near-peer mentors supported students along the path to college in three different urban public high schools. By applying the theory of figured worlds to school spaces and practices, this study sought to both define the physical and figurative ways mentors helped students envision and enact college-bound identities and compare and contrast the differences in these spaces across schools. Data and thematic analysis indicate that promoting the development and enactment of college-bound identities requires intentionality about how school culture, people, and policies enable real and figurative spaces for college-bound exploration and support.

REPRESENTATIONS OF REFUGEES AND LOCAL PEOPLE IN GREEK POETRY DURING THE EUROPEAN MIGRANT CRISIS

This paper looks into Greek poetry written, in its bulk, during the years of the European migrant crisis (2014-2018) for ways in which refugees and locals are presented. The poems are analyzed in the framework of critical discourse analysis (CDA) in terms of the social language, situated meanings, intertextuality, figured worlds and discourses they contain (Gee, 2011). Greek poets see in refugees a heroic part of humanity and a manifestation of the human struggle and will to live; thus, they are sanctifying them, presenting them as martyrs. Moreover, Greek poets see locals and Westerners as insensitive villains who are after their eradication. This is obviously a distorted and hyperbolic point of view, which however may hide true aspects of reality in its exaggeration. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0790/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Representations of Inclusion: How Pre-service Teachers Understand and Apply Inclusion Across Situations

As education marches toward inclusive practices, it is clear not everyone perceives inclusion in the same ways. This article unpacks pre-service teachers’ perspectives toward inclusion. Using a design-based approach, enrolled in a Canadian bachelor of education program created drawings about inclusion. Through the lens of figured worlds and visual analysis, these drawings were compared to pre-service teachers’ other course work and practicum placements to better understand their perspectives on inclusion in different contexts. The findings show differences between the ideals pre-service teachers conveyed through drawings and their approaches to pragmatic tasks, such as creating an individualized education or inclusive lesson plan. Furthermore, there was a considerable range of sophistication in pre-service teachers’ ideas of inclusion, with some pre-service teachers focusing on accessible materials while other pre-service teachers addressed more holistic notions of inclusive environments and systems. Making connections between pre-service teachers’ perspectives and their teacher training is critical for pre-service teachers to develop robust understandings of inclusion and a greater awareness of how their perspectives shape teaching practices.

Athlete as Agitator, Assaulter, and Armor

An increasing number of young adult literature features male athletes sexually assaulting female classmates. These books can be generative spaces for examining relationships between athletic identities and sexual violence. This manuscript provides an analysis of six YAL novels addressing sexual assault: Moxie (Mathieu, 2017), The Nowhere Girls (Reed, 2017), The Way I Used to Be (Smith, 2017), Some Boys (Blount, 2014), Asking For It (O’Neill, 2016), All the Rage (Summers, 2015). The authors examine athlete identities and figured worlds in the six titles and then present teaching suggestions to investigate in English classrooms athlete identities and sexual assault.