Suchergebnisse

Inside the offices, paper-workers produce and combine documents. Their desks are covered with paper: with files, bundles and briefs. And the production goes on. Solicitors dictate notes, secretaries type letters, and the legal clerks compile sets of evidence. It is exactly through these paper-trails that things are set into motion for the day in court. The analysis of courses of mobilisation provides some potentials for a cross comparative perspective. Crucial here is the hypothesis generating inventiveness of the researcher. Beyond case-related story-telling, there is the need to create analytical devices that open up the micro-perspective. The data logs suggested above are just a starting point on the way to formalisation and generalisation. It remains the most challenging task to change from the single-case perspective to a cross-case or even cross-cultural perspective. Tracing mobilisation is by no means a new approach in social science or discourse analysis. Many of the ideas presented here stem from the empirical work done in interactionist ethnography, ethno methodology and Actor Network Theory. Here, I would like to finish with some observations on the significance of this research methodology for socio-legal studies. How can it profit from this perspective? The proposed research design, first of all, implies a critical reflection on socio-legal studies and its dominant research foci. How is it that either talk or text, either the drama in court or the rules of the books occupied sociolegal attention? Does one, in the text-book manner, need to declare the primacy of either oral or written language in legal discourse? The analysis of mobilisation allows one to transcend these debates. Despite the affinities with workplace studies, ethno methodology, and Actor Network Theory, the analysis of mobilisation is not identical to these fields of research. Tracing mobilisation does not directly aim to grasp the social organisation of the law firm, the solicitor's workplace, or the legal apparatus. It, moreover, focuses neither solely on local events, nor on the institutional talk. But what then does it offer? As I understand it, tracing mobilisation makes accessible representational projects in their socio-material course. The course includes various sites and layers of social praxis such as accumulative file-work, extended correspondence, or relatively self-driven events. This multi-sitedness directs the formation of legal discourse, and the involvement of subjects and objects. As a micro-sociologist, I was firstly interested in how court hearings are interactively accomplished. (text extract)

Der Beitrag liefert anhand der Innerstädtischen Raumbeobachtung des BBSR empirische Befunde für die inzwischen vielfach diskutierten Tendenzen einer Reurbanisierung. Vor allem anhand der kleinräumigen Statistiken auf Stadtteilebene kann nachgezeichnet werden, in welchen Städten eine Zuwanderung erfolgt und welche Stadtteile steigende Bevölkerungszahlen aufgrund von innerstädtischen Umzügen und die Stadtgrenzen überschreitenden Wanderungen aufweisen. Zu diskutieren bleibt, worin sich die neue Attraktivität der Großstädte begründet und welche Zuwanderergruppen maßgeblich für die mehrheitlich steigenden Bevölkerungszahlen deutscher Großstädte verantwortlich sind.

Ausgangsbasis des Beitrag ist, dass es innerhalb der Soziologie keine einheitliche Vorstellung gibt, was eine soziologische Erklärung ausmacht. Es kursieren zwar viele verschiedene Erklärungselemente, die je nach eigenem theoretischem Standpunkt mehr oder weniger als notwendig herausgestellt werden. Vor diesem Hintergrund versucht der Autor dennoch, ein eigenes soziologisches Erklärungsmodell zu entwickeln, das als "mechanistisch-soziologisches Erklärungsmodell" bezeichnet wird. Der Autor teilt zunächst die Ansicht, dass das letztendliche Ziel soziologischer Arbeit die Erklärung sozialer Aggregationen ist - das soziologische Explanandum liegt auf der "Makro-Ebene". Damit weist das Modell Gemeinsamkeiten mit Hartmut Essers allgemeinem Erklärungsansatz auf, dem sog. "Badewannen-Modell". Weiterhin schließt sich der Autor der Anschauung an, dass die Sozialwissenschaften versuchen sollten, ein eigenes Erklärungsmodell zu entwickeln, um der Tatsache der Handlungsfähigkeit der energetischen Träger des Sozialen - den handelnden Akteuren - Rechnung zu tragen. Das Modell basiert auf folgenden Leitfragen: Was sind die Bedingungen, die das Explanandum ermöglicht haben? Oder anders: Was liegt eigentlich vor? Erst dann fragt man: Wie ist das passiert? Und wenn es dann noch um soziale Aggregationen geht, so dass man davon ausgehen kann, dass handelnde Akteure den Mechanismus energetisch tragen, dann kann man noch drittens fragen: Warum haben die Akteure so gehandelt, wie sie es getan haben, und nicht anders? Insgesamt wird davon ausgegangen, dass eine soziologische Erklärung diese drei Fragen beantworten muss: Was? Wie? Warum? (ICA2)

In recent decades, a vast amount of literature has been published discussing the educational use of simulation games in higher education. Since their emergence in the 1960s, simulation games have had a substantial effect on the way we think about teaching and learning in higher education. One reason simulation games are regarded as superior to traditional teaching is that they encourage students to interact and collaborate. Simulation games can therefore be subsumed under Kolbs learning model of experiential learning referring to learning through experience. Experiential learning follows a recursive cycle of experiencing, reflecting, thinking and acting to increase students' learning motivation and learning success.

In the broader field of education, the added value of gaming in general is incrementally becoming more evident. A large number of articles from various fields have been published stating the benefits of simulation games in higher education. In spite of the success of gaming as a tool to foster learning, the way it affects learning success and learning motivation of students needs further clarification. In this paper, I want to contribute to the debate by critically examining whether, and if yes to what extent, the use of simulation games in higher education can lead to enhanced learning motivation and learning success. Based on the findings of existing literature, boosted students' interaction might be one key reason to explain the success of simulation games.

As a case study, I present empirical findings from the incorporation of a simulation game into a university course about climate change. The course is part of a Master program on interdisciplinary environmental science. The aim of the course is to teach students the basic knowledge about causes and effects of climate change with a special focus on the political understanding of the international negotiation process. The course is offered as a blended learning course combining a virtual collaboration phase with a three-day attendance seminar. For several years, this attendance seminar was comprised of students' presentations, scientific lectures and joint discussions. In 2015, we tested whether the use of a simulation game instead of classical teaching methods would affect the students' learning motivation and learning success. As our results indicate, the boosted student´s interaction increased through the use of the simulation games lead to an enhanced learning motivation and learning success.

As for the structure of the paper: In the first section, I discuss the potential benefits of simulation games for teaching in higher education. In the second section, I present how the simulation game was integrated and conducted during the course. In the third section, I present and critically examine the influence of the simulation game on the students' performance. To this end, I compare data from previous course evaluations with the recent course evaluation. To secure the reliability of the findings, an additional survey was conducted to gauge whether the simulation game was decisive for the variances in the regular evaluation. In the last section, I discuss the results in the wider context of simulation games in education.

"This presentation will analyze the future of post-Katrina New Orleans. It will discuss the pattern of impacts of the hurricane across neighborhoods and across racial and class categories, identifying 'whose New Orleans' is really at stake in the recovery. Early media reports about the wind damage and flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina focused especially on the people who had been unable to escape the city before it flooded. Images of poor and predominantly black people crowded into the Superdome and Convention Center supported the impression that Katrina had disproportionately affected poor, black neighborhoods. Analysis of FEMA storm damage data shows that this image is correct. Damaged areas had nearly twice the proportion of black residents as did undamaged areas. Closer inspection of neighborhoods within New Orleans shows that some affluent white neighborhoods were hard hit, while some poor minority neighborhoods were spared. Yet if the post-Katrina city were limited to the population previously living in areas that were undamaged by the storm - that is, if nobody were able to return to damaged neighborhoods - New Orleans is at risk of losing more than 80% of its black population. This means that policy choices affecting who can return, to which neighborhoods, and with what forms of public and private assistance, will greatly affect the future character of the city. Emphasis will be given to the role of local politics in creating the conditions for natural disaster, particularly in the urban development process that left black neighborhoods particularly exposed. He argues that decisions about the future are not technical questions about disaster prevention but political questions about whose interests will be protected. And the pattern of neighborhood mobilization in the first year after the hurricane and the diaspora from the city have greatly affected what voices are being heard in the political arena. New Orleans' first election after Hurricane Katrina was conducted under unusual conditions. A large share of the population remained displaced outside the city, and the majority of displaced persons were living outside the State of Louisiana. Those living away from home were disproportionately black residents and among blacks they were disproportionately low-income. Among displaced persons, blacks were considerably more likely than white to be living outside the metropolitan area and outside the state. Although Hurricane Katrina reshaped the political map of the city by suppressing the vote in the poorest and blackest neighborhoods, the dynamics of the mayoral campaign represent a more remarkable shift in the composition of support for the winning candidate, Mayor Ray Nagin. Having been elected in 2002 on the basis of his strong showing in white and more affluent neighborhoods, despite being black himself, the Mayor has been re-elected with his main edge among neighborhoods with predominantly black and low to middle income residents. A key question for the future is how development policy in his second term will respond to the needs of his new electoral constituency. At the moment it appears that city policy will instead follow the market, encouraging redevelopment in more affluent neighborhoods regardless of their vulnerability to flooding, actively reducing the supply of low-rent public housing, and using public funds to support homeowners rather than working class renters. In this case the 'natural disaster' of the hurricane will give way to an 'unnatural disaster' of public policy." (author's abstract)