Kristine Antoyan How to Increase Academic Integrity through Decreasing Cheating Behavior
Kristine Antoyan, PhD student at Yerevan State University and assistant professor at the Department of Economics at YSU, aims to assess to what extent the education system in Armenia contributes to academic integrity. She believes that cheating is one of the most significant weaknesses of the educational system today. In the context of widespread corruption in the univerisities, this research seeks to understand the real motives and ways of Armenian students cheating, as well as encourage the universities to update their statutes of «not-to-do» list for both students and faculty members. While identifying the existing perceptions about cheating and doing comparative analysis of different departments and universities’s understanding of cheating behaviour, the study will help the universities to rethink their anti-plagiarism policies.
Lilit Grigoryan, Mane Adamyan, and Arevik Ghalumyan Gender Analysis of Armenian TV and Magazine Advertisement
Lilit Grigoryan, a recent graduate of University of Souther California, and a group of graduate students from Yerevan State University, Center for European Studies, focus on a gender analysis of advertisement in Armenian broadcast and print media. Given the fact that the depiction of women in media is one of the most contentious issues in Armenia today, this research appears to be very timely and explicitly reflects the interwoven and explosive issues of today’s gender realities. The researchers believe that adversiment is a strong tool that affects people’s minds and perceptions. Their underlying assumption is that the messages and images constrcuted by ads are not gender sensitive and, as a result, it reinforces stereotypes about gender roles and deepens society’s embedded patriarchal values and interpretations of gender. Based on a comprehensive gender analysis of the prime-time advertisements broadcasted by four Armenian TV channels with highest viewer ranking and five monthly magazines with the highest selling and printing ranking, this group of researchers seeks to affect the way advertisements are made and the public discourse around it.
Anna Ohanjanyan New Media as a Tool for Strengthening the Civil Society in Armenia
Anna Ohanjanyan, Director of the Publishing Department of the Bible Society of Armenia and Contract Researcher of Mother See Holy Echmiadzin, raises a critical question in her study regarding the role of new media tools in the political processes today. Invoking the recent developments in the Middle East, the researcher effectively argues that social media is an influential tool for raising awareness about urgent cultural, social, environmental, educational and economic development issues and mobilizing the society to pressure the government to address those challenges. Anna Ohanjanyan strongly believes that there are a number of successful social movements in Armenia, however it is unclear how this movement building takes place and whether social media has any role to play here. The researcher seeks to evaluate what impact new media has on social activists and whether it facilitates activism by giving the change makers confidence and freedom. Fundamentally, Ms. Ohanjanyan intends to provide a comprehensive analysis of the role of social media in strengthening the civil society and supporting civic activism.
Alina Poghosyan Instigation of New Gender Discourses as a Mean for New Gender Policy
Alina Poghosyan, PhD student and junior researcher at the Department of Ethnography at the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, poses an urgent and critical question regarding the gender realities in Armenia. The researcher acknowledges the fact that gender isssues are either being continuously undermined or not prioritized both by the society and the government. Drawing on the existing statistical data on gender based violence in Armenia, Ms. Poghosyan correctly points out that despite the fact that patriarchal norms and values continue keeping women in subordinate position and women suffer disproportionately from violence in the private sphere, the government still does not recognize violence against women as a human rights violation involving state responsibility. According to the applicant, the issue remains unaddressed on a systemic level since there is no discourse surrounding it in the public policy community and, as a result, no comprehensive steps are being taken today to prevent violence or bring perpetrators to justice. Ms. Poghosyan aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the existing challenges for development of gender discourses on a policy making level and putting forward policy suggestions to the decision makers regarding gender mainstreaming.