Newswise — The Second Congress of the International Society for Cultural and Activity Research (ISCAR) will take place at the University of California, San Diego, Sept. 8-13, 2008. Nearly 1,000 researchers from 40 countries will attend the conference with others participating from around the globe via state-of-the-art telecommunications.
The Society's members are researchers interested in the social, cultural and historical dimensions of human practices where the context, or environment, is seen as of paramount importance. The congress theme, "Ecologies of Diversities," refers to the variety of settings and, human experiences therein, upon which ISCAR members focus. More information is available at the Congress website (http://iscar2008.com/).
Congress President, Olga Vásquez, associate professor of communication at UC San Diego, provided a window into some of the conference sessions: "We will have more than 240 workshops and presentations on diverse topics such as the study of community mobilization approaches to HIV/AIDS in South Africa, cultural modeling in African American communities, and local power construction in a school for socially marginalized students in Mexican rural communities."
Presenters will offer perspectives from multiple academic fields in the social sciences, education, and humanities focusing on activities and cultural practices that support human learning and development in the home, classroom, work space, streets and in the virtual worlds of communication and information technologies. Among the disciplines represented are psychology, education, philosophy, history, sociology, linguistics, anthropology, work research, computer sciences, information systems, knowledge management, clinical neuropsychology and rehabilitation, occupational therapy, criminology, and social work.
State-of-the-art technology, provided by UC San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), will enable students and researchers from all over the world to view a live Internet video webcast of most keynote sessions. Several sessions will also take place using techniques of virtual reality—giving tech-savvy participants a unique perspective on the future role of technological resources in promoting and extending scientific ideas, research and collaboration.
ISCAR was founded in June 2002, merging two earlier organizations which had a similar focus on the role of culture in human development. The organization held its previous Congress in Seville, Spain in 2005.
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