2020, VOL. 9, NO. 2

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Original Article
Measuring academic engagement among university students in Romania during COVID-19 pandemic

Delia Ștefenel & Iuliana Neagoș

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many aspects of personal and professional development, outlining different unprecedented behavioural changes among diverse age population, worldwide. In the context of the lockdown restrictions, the aim of the present study was to explore the extent to which emergency states and higher institutions closure affected academic engagement among studying youth. In this direction, data were collected from 227 undergraduate students (N=227) enrolled in different fields of study in public universities in Romania. The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students (UWES-9S) (Schaufeli et al., 2006) was used to assess Romanian students’ academic involvement in the particular context of remote learning imposed by coronavirus outbreak. An additional open question was introduced in the present study, to analyse personal experiences and activities undertaken by students during the stay-at-home period. The main findings of our research were discussed in relation with students’ average degree of academic engagement, the psychometric properties assessment, the resilience stories and its effects on students’ mental health and academic involvement. Emphasis was given to a deeper understanding of students’ responsiveness and proactiveness concerning behavioural, cognitive, and emotional engagement in their remote academic learning and non
academic life.

Keywords: academic engagement, UWES, students, Romania.

Review Article
The Concept of Necropolitics during the Pandemic of Covid-19 in Brazil

Rodrigo Tonel

Abstract

The present article aims to reflect the access to health in Brazil, especially in the current context of the Covid-19 pandemic, establishing theoretical and conceptual paradigms between the fields of biopolitics and necropolitics. In this context, this study analyses the political discourses during the pandemic of Covid
19 in Brazil. The methodology comes from a bibliographic review, based on the hypothetical-deductive method, mostly based on the concept of necropolitics. Finally, it has been observed that even more dangerous than the virus itself is the necropolitical perspective that dictates who lives and who dies – in this case, who breathes and who suffocates – the nation’s economy over human lives. It’s also been verified that the admission of certain health protocols, under the bioethical perspective, portray the death policy that dictates who lives and who dies in a State completely ineffective in its political, social and even economic dimensions.

Keywords: Bioethics; Biopolitics; Right to Health; Human rights; Necropolitics.

Original Article
School-family cooperation through different forms of communication in schools during the Covid-19 pandemic

Violeta Buza & Mirlinda Hysa

Abstract

Creating and developing a partnership between schools and families is a topic of many discussions among the scholars in the field of education, so the partnership with the parents is necessary to raise the quality in education because the family plays an important role in the process of learning and children’s development. The partnership seems to be more necessary at the time when distance learning occurred lately which was imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to pay attention to the forms of communication that are applied by school directors and teachers in relation to the parents, as well as to understand the planning and the realization of the partnership for the meetings and the reasons of organizing those discussions between teachers and parents during a school year in both junior and senior high schools. Through the data analysis it has been understood that application of the suitable forms of communication has a positive impact in school-family partnership and school-family partnership is more satisfying in junior high schools than in senior high schools. It is concluded that direct forms of partnership must be planned and applied in both junior and senior high schools considering that they induce positive results in problem solving and decision making together with the parents. Also, there must be strategies to increase school-family partnership especially in the senior high school education in order to make parents and teachers aware of the importance of the partnership in special situations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: partnership, school, family, forms of communication, COVID-19.

Review Article
The ‘new’ invisible Landscapes of Covid-19

Andrea Oldani

Abstract

The landscape is the result of the relationship between the perception of a subject and an object. Such phenomena, in times of Covid-19, assume a new ‘invisible’ form, where the microscopic dimension re-orients our way of using the space, influencing a consolidated idea of the landscape. Everywhere, at the first alarm, some form of self-protection will be triggered, making the ‘ordinary’ landscapes uncomfortable and potentially dangerous. However, there is also something positive in this unforeseen critical period. It is the emergence of territories able to play an antagonistic role in the spread of coronavirus. Spaces that were more marginalized territorial forms can now assume a unique, central role. The residual and enclosed space of large metropolitan areas appears as the centre of a new landscape design hypothesis, where new grounds impose themselves as antagonists to the dynamics that represent the crisis of our territories.

Keywords: Landscape; density; pollution; residual and enclosed open space; landscape design.

Original Article
Coronavirus–inspired Metaphors in Political Discourse

Silvana Neshkovska & Zorica Trajkova

Abstract

In the face of the great danger posed by the Covid-19 pandemic,
political leaders worldwide, speaking from a position of
authority, delivered carefully crafted televised speeches and
press conferences, intended to inform the public about the
pandemic, its implications and the preventive restrictions they
were imposing. The main objective of this paper is to investigate
how politicians used language, particularly metaphors, when
talking about and interpreting the newly created situation with
the Covid-19 pandemic. For the purposes of this study a corpus
was compiled of coronavirus-related speeches delivered by
several key world political figures – Boris Johnson, Donald
Trump, Angela Merkel, and Emanuel Macron. The speeches
were delivered on a timeline from March to May 2020, i.e. the
period that saw the inception, the peak and the gradual
withdrawal of the first ‘wave’ of the coronavirus in Europe and
the United States. A contrastive analysis of the speeches was
carried out in order to detect similarities and differences in the
use of metaphors on the part of the politicians, at the three
specific time points of the pandemic’s trajectory.

Keywords:Covid-19, politicians, speeches, metaphors, persuasive effect

Original Article
(De)legitimation of power of agency. A multimodal critical analysis of social practices during COVID-19 pandemic in Romania

Camelia Cmeciu

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a real challenge to national and international authorities, bringing social and ideological implications. The shift from urgency to action and an appropriate message tailoring are essential in such a sanitary crisis. This article presents a multimodal critical discourse analysis of the Facebook posts of the Romanian Ministry of Health and of the online users’ comments. The aim of the study is to examine how the Romanian authority and citizens use semiotic resources (multimodal texts) in order to give meaning and make meaning of the social practices related to the COVID 19 pandemic. The findings reveal that the Romanian authority mainly focused its messages on (de)legitimizing the actions of various abstract participants in an information campaign meant to counter fake news. The salience of behavioural processes-as instructions highlighted a reduced agency of the Ministry of Health and an increased agency for Romanian citizens. The online users employed polarization as a discursive strategy to legitimate the Romanian authority’s calls-to-action that challenge the conservative liberalism ideology of the government and to delegitimate the tardiness of these actions.

Keywords: multimodality, COVID-19, pandemic, Romania.

Original Article
Nurses Role in the Covid-19 Pandemic, Knowledge and Attitudes of Nursing Staff – Implications for the Future

Fatjona Kamberi & Enkeleda Sinaj

Abstract

Covid-19 created the biggest worldwide public health emergency. Nurses as the largest component of the health care workforce, play an important role both locally and globally in managing. The web-based survey lasted about two weeks between April-May 2020 assessed the nurses’ knowledge of and attitude towards Covid-19. Eighty-one nurses from Vlore, Albania, were study participants. Most were female and belonged to the age group 20-29 years, with less than 5 years of work experience. The majority of nurses reported having sufficient knowledge about Covid-19. The sources of information included television, social media, work institution, and the Ministry of Health. All nurses refer that Covid-19 is a viral infection, while 14% of them refer that there is a vaccine available. About 39% state that antibiotics are the first-line treatment. The results suggest appropriate information sources, participation in programs for the prevention and control of infections, and mental health support for nurses.

Keywords: multimodality, COVID-19, pandemic, Romania.

Review Article
Comparative Analysis of Contemplative Pedagogy and its Possible Applications within Current International Education

Jennifer Ngan Bacquet

Abstract

While the variation of pedagogies has evolved over time in public school settings, there has also been a significant growth of alternative pedagogies over the mainstream circuit (Bodinet, 2016). One of lesser known pedagogical approaches within those, Contemplative Pedagogy, as well as its applications, have been explored in mostly-independent schools. The question arises: would it gain acceptance in mainstream education? The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible applications of Contemplative Pedagogy in an evidence-based international context, through the analysis of various Mindfulness training techniques and exercises aimed at heightening student awareness and self-knowledge within their larger societal context, and to analyze the impact of this approach within mainstream learning environments.

Keywords: Alternative pedagogies, contemplative pedagogy, mindfulness, international education, emotional learning.

Original Article
Museums of Scarcity and Art Deserts

Luis Javier Rodriguez Lopez

Abstract

We review the unwillingness of artistic institutions to engage
with their audiences as mirrored in their incapacity to develop
meaningful alternatives to art access during the time of the
COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. An analysis of the
pandemic offerings of some of the biggest museums in the world
will allow us to identify their perceived offerings and their
understanding of their function in society in contrast with their
own statements of purpose. As the cost of accessing any cultural
manifestation decreases, we turn from an economy of scarcity to
an economy of visual consumption where there is an abundance
of resources and attention is scarce. Art institutions and their
encircling dynamics of limitation become less interesting for the
public, and this results in the exclusion of art from the semantic
bubble of a great part of the population.

Keywords: Alternative pedagogies, contemplative pedagogy, mindfulness, international education, emotional learning.

Original Article
Integrating culture in ELT using an indigenous folktale, Poireiton Khunthok

Rosy Yumnam

Abstract

Language, literature and culture are interdependent and their contributions to the teaching and learning of a second language are immense. The study aims at examining the purviews of the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach to teach language skills and culture. As CLIL has a dual focused learning approach, it seeks to examine the various possibilities of using the folk narratives of Poireiton Khunthok as the main teaching material to integrate the teaching of English language skills and culture. Poireiton Khunthok is a folktale of Manipur, a state in India which describes the long journey of Poireiton’s migration and settlement from the netherworld Burmese side to Manipur. The study was conducted with the students of one of the schools of Manipur. The testing of the language skills was conducted with the student participants using the pre-test and post-test method. In the pre-test method, a conventional prose prescribed by the Board of Secondary Education Manipur was used. In the post-test method, the folk narrative of Poireiton Khunthok adopting the CLIL approach was used. The study indicated that the CLIL approach using the indigenous material assisted in developing the English language skills as well as understanding culture.

Keywords:Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Culture, English Language skills, Poireiton Khunthok, ELT

Original Article
The Macedonian Language in Regard to Covid-19

Violeta Janusheva

Abstract

The new disease that appears in December 2019 affects all spheres of people’s everyday living and functioning. Bearing in mind that language reflects social phenomena and that lexicon is the most flexible language segment, new words and phrases inevitably enter the lexicon on a daily basis. These novelties generate new problems not only in the lexicon but in other language segments as well. Thus, this paper addresses the new words which emerge from the disease presence as well as the problems caused by their occurrence and use, in regard to the Macedonian orthography, morphology, syntax and lexicology. This is a qualitative research that has a descriptive design, and the corpus consists of numerous articles issued in electronic newspapers. Analysis and synthesis are the methods used for processing the data and reaching conclusions. The research results indicate that the Macedonian language lexicon undoubtedly is enriched with new words. However, this extension in the lexicon has plenty of orthographic, morphological and syntactic implications related to the Macedonian language norm.

Keywords: COVID-19, Macedonian language, implications.

Original Article
Analyzing business environment- Power outages as an obstacle for firms

Pranvera Dalloshi, Shkumbin Misini, Arta Hoti

Abstract

An efficient firm infrastructure is considered as one of the key factors of the firm performance considering its impact on time and cost savings. The positive impact of the quality of infrastructure on firm performance is very cognitive, but the lack of adequate infrastructure remains an important obstacle especially on transition economies. Thus, primary objective of this paper is to provide information regarding the power outages as an obstacle to firm’s performance. This paper focuses on the cross-country comparison with the intention to show the progress done by governments in improving this obstacle to the private sector using survey data provided by World Bank in partnership with EBRD. This is the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) database which offers a wide range of topics of business environment. The results show that Kosovo leads regarding the average hours without electricity, number of power outages in a typical month and the percentage of sales loses due to electricity insufficiency. The panel data techniques, respectively the fixed effect model, show a negative and significant impact of the average number of power outages on the sales growth.

Keywords: quality of infrastructure, power outages, capacity utilization, performance.

Review Article
Online learning challenges and opportunities in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries

William Butler, Arianit Maraj, Jusuf Qarkaxhija

Abstract

The rapid development of information technology has influenced the change of concepts of the learning environment. Today, educational institutions are increasingly focused on teaching through technology. Many universities around the world are practicing online learning thanks to the use of technology and broadband capacity that developed countries have implemented in their core and access infrastructures. Seeing the benefits of learning through technology, developing countries are also seriously considering using the benefits of technology for learning. However, there are some challenges that need to be overcome, especially in developing countries, such as poor network infrastructure, lack of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) knowledge, poor content development, and so on. This gap is seen not only between countries, but also within countries. In this paper, we will discuss the main challenges and opportunities that online learning brings in HEIs in developing countries, with emphasis in Kosovo.

Keywords: Online learning, technology, education, HEI, digital learning, Kosovo

Review Article
The discourse of motherhood and motherdaughter relationships in the novel Sula by Toni Morrison

Elena Kitanovska-Ristoska

Abstract

Being an ideology, institution and experience, motherhood is an object of study of many authors. Many feminists recognize the significance of mother-daughter relationships and consider it the most powerful influence a woman can get in her life. By looking back into the past of their mothers, some of the female authors try to identify themselves and “pave the way” for their own daughters. The main question that emerges in this research is concerned with the way women are shaped as mothers under the influence of the family and the society.
The aim of this paper is to present the discourse of motherhood and the mother-daughter relationships in the novel Sula by using the theories of discourse by Foucault, (1982) Bakhtin, (1981) Macdonell (1986), Lazar (2005), van Dijk (2008), the sociological theories of Chodorow (1978) and Donath (2015) and the feminist theories on motherhood as proposed by Ruddick (1989, 1986), Hays (1998), DiQuinzio, (1999) and Ross (2016) among others.

Keywords: motherhood, mother-daughter relationships, family, society

Review Article
Alternative Opportunities for Conducting Physical, Sports and Recreational Activities in the Conditions of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Fadil Rexhepi, Fatmir Pireva, Shemsedin Vehapi, Besim Gashi

Abstract

The situation created as a result of the Covid-19 Pandemic has paralyzed the normal life of human society almost all over the globe. In addition to disruption of health, education, economic systems, etc., this situation has seriously damaged physical sports and recreational activities. The necessity to keep fit makes athletes to constantly try and find ways to organize training, while minimizing the risk of infection. Some of these ways are: a) medical measures or continuous testing of athletes; b) ‘team quarantine’ for the longest period of time that minimizes contact with other additional people of the club members where he/she trains; c) maximum care for maintaining the minimum allowed distance and contact between athletes. Meanwhile, outdoor recreational activities can be more easily controlled. However, these ways are not sufficient, so the consequences will be irreparable for a long time.

Keywords: Covid-19 Pandemic, physical activity, sports, recreation.

Review
Book Review on Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Illustrated 200th Anniversary Edition

Naruhiko Mikado

Abstract

This short essay reviewed Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Illustrated 200th Anniversary Edition, which was just published in April of this year by SeaWolf Press. After clarifying the context in which it ought to be received and read, I explained that the new publication, containing a large number of exquisite illustrations drawn by Newell Convers Wyeth and Arthur Rackham, should be considered highly valuable in that it would help present-day people to read the two famous tales in the original by enabling them to vividly visualize a bygone world that has completely lost in material terms.

Keywords: American Literature, Washington Irving, The Sketch Book, “Rip Van Winkle”, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

Thesis is peer review journal published by AAB College

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