This article, based in social anthropology, discusses challenges of ethnic identity construction among children and youth of immigrant origin in Norway, particularly those of mixed race. Compared to the United States, Norway has a short history of people of color immigrating. Since the Second World War, Norwegian official policy has underlined that “we are all equal” and “have the same worth,” regardless of gender, sexuality, and skin color. A color-blind ideology has been an ideal. Today, second- and third-generation immigrants speak Norwegian fluently and have good jobs in the public eye, including in radio and TV, and thus are often publicly exposed, but are still classified as “foreigners” because of their appearance. The article shows that the cultural schema/model of Norwegian identity includes white skin color only, which children of mixed race may experience as particularly challenging. They have one foot in White identity and the other in a colored one, and they may feel “White” on the inside but be labeled as “foreigner” (“Black”) by others. The article asks how children and young people of mixed-race origins experience ethnic identity construction in light of the categories “Norwegian” and “foreigner” and how this is to be understood. The overall conclusion is that mixed-race children and youth may experience being “stuck in their skin” more strongly than those with two parents of immigrant origin, because they also identify with the parent of White ethnic Norwegian identity. The article also concludes that Norway, as an “underdeveloped” country regarding racial reflexivity, needs more research on how White privilege results in “making up people” through racial hierarchical categories, understood as resistance strategies to White majority power and color-blind ideology.

Task partitioning allows for coordination of behavior in animal societies, potentially enhancing task efficiency. Many task allocation studies focus on social insects with discrete morphological worker subcastes, such as those possessing major and minor workers with strongly differentiated body plans. Much less is known about task partitioning among size-variable workers lacking discrete morphological subcastes, like in Formica ants. Through a large-scale mark-recapture study and a controlled laboratory experiment, we investigated how worker size affects task fidelity and proficiency across Formica species with differing degrees of body size variation. Additionally, we carried out genomic analyses to identify any genetic underpinnings of size-based task partitioning in these species. In species with high levels of worker size variation, a worker’s body size is strongly correlated with the tasks it performs. Specifically, large workers specialize in nest building or protein foraging, while small workers specialize in honeydew collection. This size-task correlation is weaker, but still present, in species with less size variation among workers. Interestingly, our laboratory experiments suggest that, in Formica species with substantial intracolony size variation, large workers outperform small workers at both nest building and sugar-water collection. It is unclear whether small workers’ relatively poor performance at a task they typically perform in nature is due to limitations of our experimental design, or if small workers make other important contributions to colony efficiency. Genomic analyses reveal that both worker size and task may be under genetic control, although this is variable across species. The two phenotypes are not always genetically linked, although they appear to share some genetic associations in the most size-variable species analyzed. Combined, these studies suggest that Formica ants utilize a size-based task partitioning strategy, but the reliance on, benefits of, and genetic underpinnings of this strategy vary considerably across species. We expect social insects with varying degrees of morphological task specialization to differ in ontogeny, evolutionary history, and behavioral flexibility. Additional comparative studies will help us understand the potential costs and benefits of alternative strategies.

The idea of ma (間) is an ancient Japanese concept concerning space and time. Ma means“interval” or “gap” in Japanese, but it is a beautiful and philosophically nuanced word, which carries the implication of movements within silence or “empty” spaces. The concept has served as an essential element in people’s daily life in Japan, in traditional arts, such as brush paintings, ikebana (flower arrangement), and music for hundreds of years, and is often considered to be an original concept, unique to Japanese culture. Because of this perceived uniqueness, ma has, especially in the last few decades, been discussed and treated with a slight hint of a nationalistic mindset. However, I will argue that although the formalization of these ideas as “ma” is uniquely Japanese, the phenomenon described is more globalized. As a Japanese pianist who engages with Western classical and experimental music, I have witnessed ma-like elements in musical pieces from different geographic locations and time periods. My artistic interest has, thus, centered around finding ma-like structures in music from outside of Japan’s sphere of influence, with the goal of demonstrating that the concept of “charged stillness” is quite widespread. With this idea in mind, I recorded a piano solo album that includes pieces by Chinese American composer Lei Liang, 18th-century Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, Swiss composer Katharina Rosenberger, and 20th-century Greek avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis, as well as Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. These works are very different from each other, but I believe that they all embody ma-like ideas in their own ways. As a performer, one can then apply this ancient idea to the performance of a wide variety of musical situations to enrich their performance experiences.

This essay investigates the use of Italian dialects in two novels written by contemporary Italophone writers, Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous and I sessanta nomi dell'amore written by Tahar Lamri, both published in 2006. These two texts can be positioned, in the first place, within the ongoing cultural debate on old and new multiculturalisms in today's Italy.  Secondly, they are clearly influenced by the discussion on the renewed questione della lingua, so central in the history of (dis)united Italy.

The essay seeks to illustrate the different approaches to the use of dialects adopted by these Algerian-born writers and the outcomes achieved.  The main focus here is to establish the extent to which literary, cultural and political potential of dialectal use is unlocked in order to challenge the dominant, canonical culture.

The essay will also highlight the different ways in which the two authors attempt to question the ideas of Italianness and monolithic national culture in the context of rapidly changing cultural dynamics of contemporary Italy.

American education, as an institution, has undergone over 50 years of educational reform efforts at the national, state and local level yet as a nation trails behind other comparable countries (U.S. Department of Education, NCES 2015). One latest reform effort, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Initiative, is state-driven and led in part by the National Governors Association. The education change effort meets the Obama Administration’s challenge to promote innovation, reform and excellence in America’s Public Schools (White House, November 04, 2009) and is generally supported by legislators, school boards, administrators, teachers, parents and businesses. Literature (e.g., organizational & leadership theory, teacher retention, psychology, etc.) has revealed that a multi-level, multi-faceted individualized approach with consistent stakeholder support at all bureaucratic and consumer levels results in effective implementation (e.g., high levels of change efficacy and change commitment inter and intra agency).

One current strategy utilized and promoted as best practice to support this goal is the use of Professional Learning Communities, a small group structure that focuses on student achievement via teacher collaboration, often referred to loosely as teacher teaming, grade level groups and/or varying curriculum-focused committees.

This case study of two districts explored the following three questions: 1. How does small group work support large-scale innovation (reform policy) implementation (in public schools)? 2. How does actual practices vary from what previous research suggests? 3. What do local public school administrators, staff, and faculty identify as issues facilitating and non-facilitating for the use of small groups in public schools?

The methods utilized included a series of semi-structured interviews with the Supervising CCSS Implementation Manager, the Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum at District A, and the collection and review of related artifacts, including the comprehensive implementation plan and anecdotes about implementation at the district level and across school sites. Alternatively, a comprehensive online teacher survey was employed, adapted from research on the use of small groups, best practices for professional learning communities and organizational readiness for change literature (Hackman 1983, Wenger et al. 2002, DeFour 2004, Wells & Feun 2009, Weiner 2009, etc.) for District B. This survey was followed by semi-structured interviews with four faculty members, a Teacher on Special Assignment and two site Principals.

Both qualitative and quantitative analysis revealed the contextual complexities of organizational readiness for change (e.g. vertical: bureaucratic administrative hierarchy and horizontally: across school sites and classrooms; inter and intra agency), the influence of teacher quality and retention, and the implications of utilizing a variety of small group structures as work teams, a means for professional development, and a problem solving cadre all under the loose definition of a Professional Learning Community strategy