7^th International Summer School on Social Representations and Communication

"Communication: Languages, Representations, Interactions"

Rome, Italy
3^th-10^th June 2001

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• Date and Location
• Organiser
• Aims
• Topic and structure within a long term planning framework
• Teaching staff
• Level
• Target participants
• Number of participants
• Selection of applicants
• Conditions for Application
• Financial support
• Fees
• Method of payment

 

Date and Location

The 7^th International Summer School on "Social Representations and Communication" will be held in Rome, Italy between 3 and 10 June 2001.

After the Jubilee Year, major rebuilding work in the city has restored many historic buildings and created new artistic areas for cultural events. The climate is mild and sunny, the average summer temperature being 25-28°C.

The location of the 7^th International Summer School on "Social Representations and Communication" is the University of Rome "La Sapienza", the largest University in Europe, and one of the oldest, being born in 1303. Participants will be welcomed at the Faculty of Psychology.

The residential venue for participants is the Hotel Nord (from the well known high standard Bettoja Hotels chain) and is located in the centre of Rome. It faces the New Roman Archaeological Museum and is across the square from the Museum of the Baths of Diocletian and the Opera House, and is within walking distance from the Railroad Station. The hotel is not far from the University and very well connected to the Fiumicino airport. An important advantage of this accommodation is to have young researchers and the teaching staff all under the same roof. Details of accommodation and of how to get to the venue will be sent with the letter of acceptance.

 

Organiser

Like the previous scientific events, the 7^th International Summer School on "Social Representations and Communication" is organised by prof. Annamaria Silvana de Rosa, scientific co-ordinator of the European PhD on Social Representations and Communication.

Since 2000 the European PhD on S.R. & C. has been nominated a Marie Curie Training Site by DGXXII, co-ordinated by Prof. de Rosa and involving 8 partners of the Euro PhD network.

As a centre of excellence, the Euro PhD on S.R. & C. is recognised to deliver European doctoral training and to assign a substantial financial support for the stage abroad not only to the participants admitted in the Euro PhD programme, but also to a selected number of other young researchers enrolled in their own national doctoral programme outside the network.

 

Aims

The annual International Summer School on "Social Representations and Communication" is the most intensive didactic stage for participants in the European PhD on Social Representations and Communication. Its new advanced curriculum has been approved by DGXXII SOCRATES and formally recognised by the University of Rome "La Sapienza", Helsinki University and I.S.C.T.E. in Lisbon. It is supported by Erasmus-Socrates, the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris and the EuroPACE network, which deals with telematic applications for open distance learning.

In accordance with the main purposes of the C.D.A.D. SOCRATES programmes co-ordinated by the University of Rome "La Sapienza" - approved by DGXXII - the 7^th International Summer School aims to promote the European dimension of higher education by offering academic research training in an international setting and to diffuse this unique didactic formula. It is characterised by intensive formal and informal exchanges between teachers from different European scientific laboratories and a small number of Ph.D students and young researchers from different countries, some from outside Europe. From this year on, as a Marie Curie Training Site, participation in the International Summer Schools - as part of the training for the Euro PhD on S.R. & C. – are also offered to Marie Curie Fellows.

The general aims of the International Summer Schools on "Social Representations and Communication", which take place over a period of several years, are as follows:

1. to give participants the chance to deepen their knowledge of the theory, methodology and application of the Social Representations paradigm, working with people from other universities in a multinational setting and availing themselves of the experiences of an international team of experts in their particular field of study
2. to involve participants in different learning sessions so that they are not merely "onlookers" but drawn in to the learning method, sharing what they have learned from training in their country of origin
3. to monitor the advanced training of the EU PhD students - principally by training through research and trans-national mobility and co-operation - and develop joint criteria of evaluation which can gradually set "European standards" for and beyond research
4. to take advantage of the meeting of invited experts to enrich teaching methods in the international arena; as teachers of a sort of "extended European Faculty" the teaching team will be encouraged to meet for a "joint didactic exchange" with a new generation of researchers from different nations

 

Topic and structure within a long term planning framework

The 7^th International Summer School on "Social Representations and Communication" will develop the successful intensive programmes of the 1995 summer school on “Everyday thinking, Social Representations and Communication” held in Finland (Lahti), the 1996 summer school on "Multiple strategies in the investigation of Social Representations" held in France (Aix-en-Provence), the 1997 summer school on "Social Representation Theory: historical roots, articulation and development" held in Portugal (Lisbon), the 1998 summer school on "The theory towards applications" held in the Spain-Basque country (San Sebastian), the 1999 summer school "Developing European Doctoral Training".(Rome) and the last summer school in 2000 on “Social Representations Theory around the world” (Rome).

The 7^th International Summer School is opening a second cycle (2001-2004) focusing on the themes and the main theoretical paradigm addressed in the first cycle (social representation research areas and theory) by concentrating on the area of communication and by widening the theoretical perspective towards multidisciplinary approaches. Communication is not an original field of study nor it is a new one. However, it is certainly a complex, multidisciplinary area and the way in which it is approached can be highly innovatory. Indeed advances in scientific knowledge can be achieved as much by the originality of methods of study as they can by the quality of the information itself.

The scientific aim of the International Summer Schools is to offer advanced training to young researchers in the social sciences through critical analysis and discussion of the relations between communication, the media, interaction, languages and social representations in face to face, mediated and virtual social contexts.

In line with the long term planning for the summer schools, the 7th International Summer School, entitled “Communication: Languages, Representations, Interaction” will also be dedicated to the presentation of research reports by EU PhD students enrolled in the European doctoral programme on Social Representations and Communication, by the Marie Curie Fellows and a limited number of other selected researchers.

The content of the workshops may be adjusted depending on the current research interests that the participants may propose for in addition to those that will be made by the Euro PhD students.

The scientific structure of the 7^th International Summer School is expected to be as follows:

Two Lectures in plenary session will be given each day by leading international experts from the teaching staff of the European PhD on S .R. & C., invited for the occasion. Lectures will be focus on crucial theoretical and methodological issues related to the development of research on Communication, Langage, Social Representations and Interaction. They will be closely linked to the fields addressed in the workshops and round tables held during the following sessions.

Parallel Small Groups Seminars Presentations and discussion of current research projects by the European PhD students, Marie Curie Fellows and other young researchers The young researchers are expected –at the conditions their research report will be examined and accepted in advance- to prepare their reports in English (in short article or brief research report format ready for submission to an international journal) to be sent to tutors before the summer school. As well as the young researchers enrolled in the PhD programme, a limited number of participants may present their current research projects during the workshops.

Advanced Methodological Seminar with emphasis both on practical data-collection techniques of special interest in the field of communication studies and on critical methodological issues of more general interest, in the light of a multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological approach.

Training session to develop «meta-theoretical analysis of the whole scientific corpus on S.R and Communication». This is a grid-based corpus available on the Euro PhD website designed for cooperative distance learning. The analysis is currently being carried out by transnational and multilingual teams of young researchers as part of their European doctoral training.

«Forum discussion» to be activated on the on the website by network researchers, teaching staff, invited experts and editors of the main international journals. The starting question for this forum is “The critical role of the social subjects in the impact with the media in the informational society?” Other questions relating more specifically to the Communication and Social Representations paradigm and its relation to other theories and disciplines will also be addressed.

There will be dedicated meetings between Euro PhD young researchers and their national and foreign tutors and the representative members of the European PhD Executive Committee; including the programme director and co-ordinator, aimed at defining their E.C.T.S. profiles. Meetings regarding the Socrates CDAD programme are forseen.

There will be informal meetings between participants and teaching staff providing an opportunity for individual tutoring for Euro Ph.D., Marie Curie fellows and young researchers and mutual knowledge-sharing.

 

Teaching staff

The teaching staff includes teachers from Universities and research centres spread over 6 European countries (Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, UK) and outside Europe (Canada). They are all known experts in the area and will include the founder of the theory of Social Representations, Serge Moscovici.

The invited teachers from partner universities are listed below:

Finland	K. Helkama University of Helsinki
France	S. Moscovici E.H.E.S.S., Paris
	M.L. Rouquette Université Paris VIII, Paris
Italy	A.S. de Rosa and .G.Losito University ‘La Sapienza’, Rome
Portugal	J. Jesuino I.S.C.T.E., Lisbon
U.K.	G. Duveen University of Cambridge

The following academics from outside the Euro PhD network have also been invited:

France	D. Dayan Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
Canada	B. Schiele UQAM, Montreal
U.K.	I. Markova University of Sterling, Sterling
Hungary	J. Lazlo Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest

* in the final programme, the list of lecturers may change slightly but this will not affect the scientific and thematic articulation of the programme

 

Level

The level of the International Summer School will be "specialised" rather than "basic". Contents will not deal with elements already noted in theory, but will give greater emphasis to meta-theoretical, methodological and applied aspects necessary for the formation of the "how" and "why" of the research.

 

Target participants

Like the previous, the 7^th International Summer School on Social Representations and Communication will target the following participants:

European PhD students

• Students enrolled in the European PhD programme since 1996-97
• Students selected for 2001-2002 on condition that they are enrolled for the 2001-2002 academic year (see conditions for application to the European PhD on the appropriate sheet). Once enrolled, European PhD students will be allowed to take part in the International Summer School free of charge.

Marie Curie Fellows

• the Marie Curie Fellows selected this year are expected to participate to the International Summer School as part of their doctoral training.

Postgraduates

• Postgraduates, preferably enrolled in national PhD courses or at least involved in team research programmes, will be selected to attend the International Summer School as long as they have been introduced by one of the universities of the Socrates-Erasmus network (IC 29415-IC-1-99-IT-ERASMUS-1).
• Postgraduates from a University not in the network, even from outside Europe, subject to availability of places.

Previous participants

• The International Summer School will be open to participants of previous summer schools selected from the new list of applicants.

 

Number of participants

Maximum 40.

 

Selection of applicants

Selection of applicants – both for the Euro PhD and the 7^th International Summer School - will be carried out by the Euro PhD Executive Committee, comprising the Programme Director, the Co-ordinator and the two representatives from the University of Helsinki and the I.S.C.T.E., who, besides the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, have recognised the EU PhD on S.R. & C.

 

Conditions for Application

The entrance requirements for admission to the European doctoral programme, entrance procedures and application form (to be sent both by Internet and by fax in one signed copy) are available on Internet at the address:

http://www.europhd.psi.uniroma1.it/admission/forms.htm

Applicants for the 7^th International Summer School are requested to send an application both by Internet and by fax in one signed copy using the enclosed form or printing an empty form available on the web-site.

The application form should be returned to the following Internet address:

http://www.europhd.psi.uniroma1.it/ss7/forms.htm

and by fax in one signed copy by 15^th April 2001 to:

prof. Annamaria Silvana de Rosa
Facoltà di Psicologia - Università degli studi di Roma 'La Sapienza'
via dei Marsi, 78 - 00185 Roma ITALIA
fax: +39 - 06 - 4991.7652;
E-mail: annamaria.derosa@uniroma1.it

 

Financial support

Expenses are available on the following terms, according to the different sources of funds and their criteria of eligibility:

EU DG XXII: SOCRATES assigned to the co-ordinating University and co-funded by the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’:

• item expenses of general interest: selection and co-ordinating meeting, didactic materials, technical equipment and development of the website and videoconferences, administrative costs (personnel labour costs and overheads), publicity of the event, venue hire, external services (digital video-recording, simultaneous translation, etc.;
• Accommodation costs for the invited experts not belonging to the Euro PhD network.

EU DG XXII: SOCRATES (Erasmus TS, Teaching Staff mobility) assigned to the partner Universities of the European PhD on S.R. & C. :

• Euro PhD teaching staff travel and accommodation,

T.M.R. funds are NOT available this year, neither Socrates-IP funds.

Marie Curie Training Site (HPMT-CT-2000-00152) by DGXXII, co-ordinated by Prof. de Rosa
(The Contribution for research and management of the Marie Curie Fellow covers the costs of participation at conferences or other scientific events)

• Fee for the International Summer School of the Marie Curie Fellows

 

Fees

This year’s fees (including conference participation, accommodation -including breakfast & lunch-, didactic material and social events)

• NO FEES for students regularly enrolled in the Euro PhD on S.R. & C.
• 700 EURO for applicants introduced by the partner universities of the European PhD on S.R. & C. Socrates-Erasmus network, UNICA-network (http://www.ulb.ac.be/unica/), EuroPACE 2000 network (http://www.europace.be/) and for previous participants.
• 750 EURO for other participants.
• The fee of Marie Curie Fellows will be directly charged on the funds of the Marie Curie Training Site by the co-ordinator.

 

Method of payment

Details about the method of payment and deadline for the registration will be sent with the letter of acceptance. No participants will be admitted without proper registration.