Upgem midterm seminar Helsinki July 2007 ‘Research activity’ presentation by Cristina Belardi and Giulia Calafiore

UPGEM midterm seminar Helsinki July 2007

• ‘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.

• (Ib. p. 33, It tr.p. 46)