DET ALTERNATIVE SORØMØDE 2009

Det er mig en glæde at kunne præsentere årets program for DET ALTERNATIVE SORØMØDE 2009, som finder sted den 22.-23. august på Askov Højskole (se www.omdas.dk).

Konferencen har forskellige parter med tilknytning til folkeskolen som målgruppe: lærere, seminarielærere og lærerstuderende, lærerforeningsrepræsentanter, forskere, opinionsdannere og skolepolitikere.

Arrangementet afholdes af Huset LM i samarbejde med SOPHIA - tænketank for pædagogik og dannelse.

Venlig hilsen
Erik Schmidt, Konferenceleder/lærer og Præsidiet for Det Alternative Sorømøde:
Jens Raahauge, skoleinspektør og fmd. for Dansklærerforeningen
Chr. Sloth Christensen, skoledirektør
Holger Henriksen, cand. pæd. pæd.
Margrethe Vestager, MF og tidl. uv.minister
Per Kjeldsen, skolepsykolog og chefkonsulent

Interacting Fields - an NBA seminar

Niels Bohr Archive History of Science Seminar
Thursday 18 June 2009, 14.15 Aud. M, Niels Bohr Institute Blegdamsvej 17, Copenhagen

Christian Joas
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

Interacting Fields –

Quantum Field Theory and the Conceptual Borderlands 

between Solid-State and Particle Physics

One half of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Yoichiro Nambu for his 1960 discovery of the role of spontaneous symmetry breaking in elementary-particle physics. This insight was facilitated considerably by Nambu's prior work in solid-state theory – particularly on the BCS (Bardeen, Cooper, Schrieffer) theory of superconductivity – where similar concepts had been introduced in the late 1950s. By transferring concepts from theories of the solid state to theories of elementary particles, Nambu succeeded in providing an ingenious point of view that would prove fruitful for many years thereafter and still today permeates all theories involving the Standard Model.
Solid-state physics and elementary-particle physics are usually viewed as being largely disconnected fields of research which share little more than their conceptual basis – quantum mechanics. In my talk, I will show that, to the contrary, the history of both fields is intertwined to a large extent. In the mid-to-late 1950s, key notions (quasiparticles, collective excitations)
and methods (diagramatic perturbation theory, renormalization) of modern condensed-matter theory emerged from the transfer of quantum field theoretical methods, which had their origins in particle physics, to the nascent field of solid-state physics.
I will trace the formulation and transformation of these concepts within the context of solids, and their far-reaching heuristic and ontological consequences for the field which today is arguably the largest subdiscipline of physics. In the early 1960s, novel concepts from the quantum field theory of solids – which had flourished quite independently for several years – were able to cross-fertilize back into the field of particle physics. Even today, interactions between condensed-matter and particle physics are not uncommon, especially at the frontier of research. I will study the dynamics of these interactions and examine the topology of the conceptual borderlands between both fields of research.

Ethnographies of Educational Work and Reform

EPOKE: Education, Policy and Organisation in the Knowledge Economy

EPOKE's site

EPOKE Seminar:

Ethnographies of
Educational Work and Reform
Thursday 18 June, Room D219, DPU, Kbh.

Open discussion of work in progress by three guest researchers

10.00-11.15 ‘From teacher to bureaucrat: Passionate people and dead bodies, an ethnographic study of bureaucrats at work in an Australian state education bureaucracy’
Sarah Robinson, PhD student, University of Western Australia

11.30-12.45 ‘Universities, temporalities and the Research Practices of Sociologists’
Nicola Spurling, PhD student, University of Lancaster, UK

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.15-15.30 ‘The Class Character of Higher Education Reform’
Elizabeth Rata, Associate Professor, University of Auckland, New Zealand

18.00: Dinner at Restaurant Riz Raz, Kompagnistræde 20, Kbh. K
OPEN TO ALL - Buffet DKK 89,-; to book a place contact
hmiah [at] dpu.dk - Deadline Wednesday 17 June noon

Abstracts
Sarah Robinson’s paper is based on a 10-month ethnographic study of the working lives of bureaucrats in an Australian state Department of Education. Through ethnography, she brings the actors onto centre stage to speak for themselves. They appear as passionate and committed people, who struggle to find a balance between the structural constraints of the bureaucratic world and their own beliefs, values and ethics. sarah [at] sarahrobinson.dk

Nicola Spurling asks: What does the everyday research practice of sociologists entail and how is it enabled and constrained by government policies and universities? Drawing on empirical research, this paper explores the intersections and interactions of policy, universities and the careers and everyday work of some UK sociologists. The paper discusses insights offered by conceptualising sociologists’ research practices from several different socio-temporal and institutional standpoints. n.spurling [at] lancaster.ac.uk

Elizabeth Rata’s new study examines how the reform of the governance and management of knowledge creation and distribution in New Zealand, England and Italy is deeply implicated in restructuring the new middle class. e.rata [at] auckland.ac.nz

Public Seminar - All Welcome

The Danish School of Education
Tuborgvej 164, 2400 Copenhagen NV