With an ambition to strengthen the pivotal role of knowledge and science in society, Malmö University has set out to host a series of top quality seminars, start autumn 2017. The series Knowledge for Change will highlight topics related to societal challenges. We want to inspire cross-disciplinary discussions and cultivate relations and alliances both in and outside of academia – locally and globally.
Knowledge for Change #8
Leading healthy organizational interventions: The role of line managers in making interventions work
Professor Karina Nielsen, Institute of Work Psychology at the Sheffield University Management School.
Lecture
Title: Leading healthy organizational interventions: The role of line managers in making interventions work
August 25, 2022 at Malmö University.
Abstract
Organizational-level interventions, i.e. interventions that aim to change the way work is organised, designed and managed in order to improve employee psychological health and well-being are widely recommended (ETUC, 2004; EU-OSHA, 2010; ILO, 2001).
One key player in organizational interventions are line managers (Nielsen & Noblet, 2018). They are often the ones who are tasking with planning, implementing and supporting these interventions. In many intervention models and national approaches to organizational interventions, senior management support is often emphasized (Nielsen & Noblet, 2018), but the role of leaders at the first line level in the organisation has received less attention (Nielsen & Noblet, 2018; Nielsen, 2017). The lack of attention is in contrast to the attention that leaders at this level receive in the current debate and in state-of-the art research on organizational interventions (Nielsen, 2013, Nielsen 2017).
In my presentation, I will present state of the art of the role of line managers in organizational interventions. It has been argued that line managers can either make or break and intervention and they play and important role of leading the way. I will explore what the role of these leaders is and discuss why line managers at may “break~” and intervention rather than “making it”. I argue that there are important contextual factors that may lead to such behaviours and we need to understand how we can support line managers in making interventions work.
In my presentation 1) I review recent process evaluation studies that provide insights into how leaders may make or break an intervention, both in terms of how they may enforce change to ensure successful intervention implementation but also under which circumstances they are able to do so, 2) I argue there is a need to develop our theoretical understanding of how and why leaders can influence the change process; and finally, 3) I discuss how we may proactively integrate the existing knowledge about the role of line managers in future intervention designs.
Knowledge for Change #7
Translanguaging as pedagogy in and beyond the classroom. Inclusive teaching and learning?
Professor Angela Creese, University of Scotland, Stirling, UK
Lecture
Title: Translanguaging as pedagogy in and beyond the classroom. Inclusive teaching and learning?
October 21, 2019 at Malmö University.
Abstract
This presentation reports outcomes of a research project which investigates the implications of everyday communicative practice for pedagogy in higher education. The Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project, Translation and Translanguaging. Investigating Cultural and Linguistic Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities generates new knowledge about how people communicate in superdiverse cities. The research team conducted detailed linguistic ethnographic studies in sixteen public settings across four cities, and built up a comprehensive account of the means by which people make meaning in migration and post-migration contexts.
Research sites included a busy city market, cosmopolitan corner shops, public libraries, community centres, advice and advocacy offices, and sports clubs. Researchers wrote field notes, audio-recorded and video-recorded participants in interaction, took photographs, collected digital and online posts, conducted interviews, and made recordings in domestic and social settings. Analysis of data demonstrated that when people bring into interaction different biographies, histories, and trajectories, they often ‘translanguage’. That is, they deploy whatever resources are available to them in that time and space, making the most of their communicative repertoires.
Translanguaging as pedagogy has the potential to be transformative, removing the hierarchy of practice that deems some languages and varieties to be more valuable than others. A translanguaging pedagogy enables learning through the communicative practices with which students routinely succeed.
In this presentation examples of encounters between people in migration settings illustrate and exemplify translanguaging in practice. In these encounters people learn to live with difference and change, making social and linguistic diversity a resource for learning.
Knowledge for Change #6
Migration and Mobility: European Dilemmas
Professor Rainer Bauböck, European University Institute in Florence.
Lecture
Title: Migration and Mobility: European Dilemmas.
November 21, 2018 at Malmö University.
Article
Professor Rainer Bauböck´s article is related to and with the same title as the keynote topic (preamble):
Human beings are migratory animals, just like many other species. Unlike with some birds, however, their migration patterns are not primarily seasonal – over the long course of early human history, they have mostly migrated in order to populate new habitats. The agrarian revolution of the Neolithic age transformed nomadic migration patterns of hunters and gatherers within a habitat into sedentary economies and lifestyles. More or less simultaneously the first cities were created as centres of power from where larger political territories could be ruled. The triple inventions of agriculture, of the city and of political territory with more or less fixed borders changed not only the patterns of geographical movements, but also the way these movements
were perceived. Henceforth, it became possible to distinguish migrants who cross a political border from natives who have either a stable residence inside the territory or whose movement is confined within it.
Read Rainer Bauböck´s article
Rainer Bauböck´s article (Print version)
Knowledge for Change #5
Liberal Democracy and its Racial Others: The West in the Age of Trumpism
Professor Ananya Roy , University of California, Los Angeles.
Lecture
Title: Liberal Democracy and its Racial Others: The West in the Age of Trumpism.
October 10, 2018 at Malmö University.
Article
Professor Ananya Roy´s article Liberal Democracy and Its Racial Others in the Age of Trumpism: Why Decolonizing the University Matters is related to the keynote topic (preamble):
The resurgence of right-wing nationalism is today a worldwide phenomenon. From the Hindutva of the Modi regime in India to the electoral success of far right political parties in various European countries, a new political moment of xenophobia and chauvinism is taking hold in many parts of the world. I characterize this historical conjuncture as the age of Trumpism not because the Trump administration is unique but rather because it is paradigmatic of such trends. On the one hand, I view Trumpism as a continuation of long-standing structures of racism, and in turn, I view these structures as integral to liberal democracy. On the other hand, I interpret Trumpism as a rupture with previous formations of state power. In particular, I am concerned with the institutionalization of white racial domination in statecraft. Following Paul Gilroy (2000: 139), I argue that such statecraft must be seen as fascist in its tendencies, practicing “raciology” and legitimating its militaristic and masculinist power through “a stimulating world of signs to which racial difference [is] absolutely fundamental.”
Read Ananya Roy´s article
Ananya Roy´s article (Print version)
Knowledge for Change #4
Reflections on Responsible Digital Societies
Professor José van Dijck, University of Utrecht.
Lecture
Title: Reflections on Responsible Digital Societies.
June 8, 2018 at Malmö University.
Article
Professor José van Dijck´s article Reflections on creating responsible digital societies in Europe is related to the keynote topic (preamble):
Online digital platforms have deeply penetrated every sector in society, disrupting markets, labor relations and institutions, while transforming social and civic practices; and as we have experienced over the past two years, online dynamics are affecting the very core of democratic processes. The evolving digitization of society involve intense struggles between competing ideological systems and contesting societal actors – market, government and civil society – raising an important question: Who is or should be responsible and accountable for anchoring public values in digitized and datafied societies? I will particularly focus on the European challenge to govern platform societies which are increasingly dependent on global commercial infrastructures—ecosystems that are privatized and whose mechanisms are hidden from public view.
Read José van Dijck´s article
José van Dijck´s article (Print version)
Knowledge for Change #3
Urban Imaginations and the social dynamics of the 21st century
Professor Göran Therborn, Professor Emeritus in Sociology at Cambridge University.
Lecture
Title: Urban Imaginations and the social dynamics of the 21st century
January 18, 2018 at Malmö University.
Article
Professor Göran Therborn´s article is related to and with the same title as the keynote topic (preamble):
Social knowledge differs from the knowledge which the modern hard sciences deal with and produce.
A major problem of social science, and of social cognition generally, including the one used by politicians and managers, is the abundance of social knowledge. Even if we, with quite a bit of nonchalance, neglect the knowledge of children under fifteen, there are about 5.5 billion human social knowers in today’s world. One reason why social scientists do not get a Nobel Prize is probably that we have too many competitors.
Read Göran Ternborn´s article
Göran Therborn´s article (Print version)
Knowledge for Change #2
The Promise of Empirical Evidence and Benchmarks: The Lorelei’s Whispers
Professor Thomas S. Popkewitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Guest professor at the Faculty of Education and Society, Malmö University.
Lecture
Title: The Promise of Empirical Evidence and Benchmarks: the Lorelei’s Whispers.
October 17, 2017 at Malmö University.
Article
Professor Thomas S. Popkewitz´ article is related to and with the same title as the keynote topic (preamble) :
There is a “commonsense” in the contemporary use of benchmarks and finding empirical evidence as a way of reasoning about change and quality. That common sense is that the correct mixture of research and policy will provide the pathways for effective change. This notion of change has produced prominent sets of connections between educational sectors, comparative research about the metrics of educational performance and policy in many countries, such as Sweden. The assessments are tied to a variety of models designed to change social welfare agencies, universities and national educational systems.
Read Thomas S. Popkowitz´ article
Thomas Popkewitz´ article (Print version)
Knowledge for Change #1
Seeking a Larger Purpose: Espousing a New Flagship Model
Professor John A. Douglass, University of California, Berkeley.
Lecture
Title: Seeking a Larger Purpose: Espousing a New Flagship Model.
September 14, 2017 at Malmö University.
Article
Professor John A. Douglass´ article A Vibrant Urban University with a Growing Global Presence – Thoughts on What Malmö University Could Be is related to the keynote topic (preamble):
It is a malady of the modern age for universities. The forces of globalization and a campaign by various international university ranking enterprises place too much emphasis on a narrow model of what the best universities should be. One result: the notion of a “World Class University” (WCU) and the focus on its close relative, global rankings of universities, dominates the higher education policymaking of ministries and major universities throughout the globe.
Read John A. Douglass´ article
John A. Douglass´ article (Print version)