‘Research activity’ presentation by Cristina Belardi and Giulia Calafiore
(February-June 2007)
Research unit: University La Sapienza – Rome – Department of Development and Socialization Processes
Research unit coordinator: prof. A.M Ajello
An outline of the presentation
General state of the art
General information about informants
Research questions & Our theoretical framework
Some interesting data
General state of the art
50 interviews transcribed and translated: 22 stayers, 18 leavers
6 more interviews with leavers collected –to be transcribed
Coding interviews through the software ATLAS-ti for the Cultural Catalougue + coding and analysing interviews for the National Report
Writing fact boxes about several issues (e.g. contracts, maternity leave, educational systems) to analyse interviews
General information about stayers
22 stayers (M:male, F: female):
Full prof: 3M, 6F
Associated prof: 2M, 4F
Researchers –full term contracts: 1M,5F
Fixed term contracts: 3 M, 5F
PhD students: 2M, 1 F
General information about leavers
24 leavers:
10 changed their job: 7 M, 3 F
6 more interviews with leavers who quit accademia, we are still transcribing them.
8 do research in France: 4 M, 4 F
Reasons for leaving
All-absorbing job (no other priorities)
Stressful and competitive job
No fundings and no posts
Lack of guarantees
Low salaries
Leavers’ new jobs
7 M:
1 -teacher
1 -technician at INFN (national research institute)
1 -association for disseminating science in schools
4 -private companies
3 F:
1 -teacher
2 -private companies
The question we (whole upgem group) aim at ‘answering’ through our research.
The question we (whole upgem group) aim at ‘answering’ through our research.
Leaving academia is a complex ‘phenomenon’, we could deal with it taking into consideration several factors: a multi-level approach.
Our theoretical framework
Cultural psychology: Cole, Bruner, Mantovani.
Gender: Crawford and Chaffin, Ortner
Cultural psychology, Cole 1998
The larger setting in which activities occur plays a crucial role in shaping the structure of the activities, individual’s goals and the constraints on achiving those goals. It is important to include the institutional context of activity in a cultural-historical analysis of culture in mind.
When we reach this level of analysis we arrive at the borders of what is ordinarily counted as psychology (interdisciplinary methods and research groups).
Cole 1998, P. 340-341
A cultural psychology, almost by definition, will not be preoccupied with ‘behaviour’ but with ‘action’, its intentionally based counterpart,
A cultural psychology, almost by definition, will not be preoccupied with ‘behaviour’ but with ‘action’, its intentionally based counterpart,
and more specifically, with situated action – action situated in a cultural setting, and in the mutually interacting intentional states of the participants (which is the outcome of interactions among people each of them has his/her intentional states).
Acts of meanings, 1992:20, It. tra. 2003:34
… to understand man you must understand how his experiences and his acts are shaped by his intentional states (..)
… to understand man you must understand how his experiences and his acts are shaped by his intentional states (..)
the form of these intentional states is realized only through participation of the symbolic systems of the culture.
Indeed, the very shape of our lives-the rough and perpetually changing draft of our autobiography that we carry in our minds-is understandable to ourselves and to others only by virtue of those cultural systems of interpretation (…).
It is culture (..) that gives meaning to action by situating its underlying intentional states in an interpretative system.
It is culture (..) that gives meaning to action by situating its underlying intentional states in an interpretative system.
It does this by imposing the patterns inherent in the culture’s symbolic systems-its language and discourse modes, the forms of logical and narrative explication, and the patterns of mutually dependent communal life.
