We are a social species. Most infants, and young children, spend the majority of their early waking lives in the company of others. But, for practical reasons, almost everything that we know about how the brain subserves early attention and learning comes from studies that examined brain function in one individual at a time. This means that we understand lots about how children attend and learn from information presented while they are alone, viewing a computer screen - but little about how attention is shared between people during social interaction. ONASCA will develop new techniques to look, for the first time, at how two brains dynamically interact with one another during early learning exchanges. The project will determine how children’s active, participatory bids during learning lead to reactive changes in both members of the dyad – and how these changes, in turn, influence both partners’ subsequent attention, and learning. It will also determine how, and why, some infants, and some parents, show greater sensitivity during social exchanges than others. And, using targeted interventions, it will investigate whether social sensitivity can be improved. The question of how two brains dynamically influence one another during learning exchanges has been described as the ‘dark matter’ of social neuroscience. Yet nobody has looked at these questions before from the perspective of early learning. Our results may help us to move beyond viewing children primarily as passive recipients of information during learning exchanges, to a perspective that better appreciates children’s role as active participants in learning. Our findings may also have practical implications for educationalists, and clinicians.

Infants spend most of their waking time interacting with their caregivers, and the mechanisms through which these dynamic social exchanges shape the development of sub-personal processes such as attention and learning remain mysterious. Most of our understanding of how the brain subserves early attention and learning has come from studies that viewed infants as relatively passive recipient of information, and studied individual brains in isolation. Correspondingly, we know very little about the neural substrates of how information is shared between caregivers and infants during learning interactions. The aim of this project is to shed unprecedented light on how dynamic social interactions affect attention and learning during infancy. I will build both on my own recent research, that has shown that internal metacognitive monitoring and epistemic requests from the infant shape social interactions and learning more than had previously been thought, and combine this approach - that views the infant as an active component of early social interactions - with innovative research by my supervisor that provides the possibility to record brain activity from infants and their caregivers simultaneously while they are interacting, and to analyze them with specific tools that allow a fine description of the dynamics of these interaction. Combining these two approaches will provide invaluable insight into the mechanisms involved during early learning in social contexts. Our findings will have substantial implications for theories of development, as well as diagnostic and educational practices. More specifically, increasing our understanding of the complex dynamics between infants and their social partners is essential for: i) enriching developmental theory; ii) developing new techniques to optimize learning and iii) understanding the mechanisms that give rise to developmental delays.

The need for a competent teaching force as a warrant for high quality education remains a central concern in many countries. Paradoxically, research focusing directly on the professional knowledge of teacher educators remains scarce. The implicit assumption is that a teacher educator simply teaches (his/her subject) in higher education and that teaching novice teachers does not require any additional preparation or expertise. As a result, a research-based understanding of teacher educators' professionalism is missing. This project addresses this knowledge gap and focuses on how teacher educators make sense of their work and enact their expertise. More specifically, we will study the content of teacher educators’ professionalism by looking at how it actually operates in practice. Drawing on positioning theory, we frame teacher education practices as discursive practices in which teacher educators position both themselves and their student teachers in particular ways. These positionings strongly impact student teachers' (possibilities for) learning. Data collection includes videotaping of teacher education practices, biographical interviews (with teacher educators), questionnaires (with student teachers), and document analysis. This project will result in a systematic conceptualization of teacher educators' professionalism which is new to the field and offers a strong basis for future research. Results will also have direct knowledge utilization purposes for teacher educators themselves by opening powerful perspectives for them to understand possible threats to the effectiveness of their practice and actively work towards its improvement.

The screenplays held in the Special Collections of the British Film Institute are an important and under-researched part of our cultural heritage. This is the only collection of British screenplays available to researchers on such a scale and they are a unique and valuable resource. Yet, there has been no detailed study of the screenplays held in the Special Collections. Several of the collections contain screenplays, screenplay drafts, correspondence and other related material which has received very little academic attention or analysis. Collections which directly relate to a director such as David Lean, or director/producer partnership such as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger have been explored, but not in relation to the screenplay as an object of study. Screenwriting has received very little academic scrutiny, because the focus of attention has been on the role of the director and producer in the film development process with the screenplay seen as a mere blueprint. Likewise, the film industry, which considered the writer as central to the process in the early 20th Century, shifted to the director being the creative force behind the film. Thus in contrast to the theatre and television industry, the film industry has tended to undervalue the contribution of the writer. The study of the screenplay is an emerging subject area within academia and there is an increasing interest in the screenplay as a form, separate from film, allowing the screenplay to become a textual object in the same way that prose or a stage play would be considered. Steven Maras refers to this as the 'object problem' (2009:9) and this re-evaluation underlines the value of the many unrealised screenplays held in the Special Collections; for instance the screenplay drafts of Nostradamus, written by Robert Bolt and part of an unrealised project set up by David Lean, are of considerable academic interest and will contribute to our understanding of the screenplay development process, the relationship between writer and director, and a greater understanding of Bolt's trajectory as a writer. The Special Collections not only allow for case studies of particular authors but also an assessment of writing partnerships and collaborations. I have chosen to study collections where different screenplay drafts are held from a range of films, and which include some related correspondence. These are; Jeffrey Dell, Muriel Box, T.E.B. Clarke, Emeric Pressburger, Janet Green, Mark Grantham, Peter Rogers and the Carry On Films, Robert Bolt from the David Lean Collection, the David Puttnam Collection, and finally, Paul Laverty, who has written nine screenplays for Ken Loach. I have considerable expertise in the study of screenplay development and analysis of the drafting and rewriting process. This is reflected in my own experience as a screenwriter and academic, Principal Editor of the Journal of Screenwriting and editor and contributor of Analysing the Screenplay. I have a contract with BFI/Palgrave for the proposed research to be published as a monograph in 2012/13. Finally, I hope this research will encourage interest in ensuring that screenplays are preserved as part of a national collection. Ian Macdonald underlines the need to safeguard future screenplay collections in his article 'Lost and Gone' (JOS 2.2) which describes the dearth of early British scenarios and screenplays, most of which have been destroyed.