Social representations of educability

In the framework of the theory of social representations, the study set out to examine how Finnish parents and teachers have received a major change in educational policy. Surveys on parents' and comprehensive school teachers' views of ongoing school reforms indicated that current educational discourse is structured by two different representations — a “selective” one and a “comprehensive” one-which contain two different notions of intelligence — “natural” and “sociorelativistic”. The subjects' sociai position (socioeducational status and expertise) in the educational hierarchy tended to organize their representations. The findings indicated that the different groups have different relationships to official educational policy and to the ethos of educability embodied by the school. University of Joensuu     

An empirical test of five prominent explanations for the black–white academic performance gap

The viability of five prominent explanations for the black–white performance gap (“academic engagement,” “cultural capital,” “social capital,” “school quality” and “biased treatment”) is examined using NELS data and a LISREL model that adjusts for clustering of students within schools. Empirical models have typically assessed these factors individually—a practice that probably fosters overestimation of their explanatory power. School quality and biased treatment emerge as the primary explanations for black–white high school test performance differentials. Access to better-quality schools and receipt of more stimulating interpersonal “signals” from gatekeepers ensue from racial (and socioeconomic) privilege. Enhanced test performance in turn ensues from these resources. In essence, the explanations for the racial gap that place more emphasis on what black and white students “bring to” high school (i.e., specific levels of engagement, cultural and social capital), seem less consequential to performance differentials than “what happens to” them when they get there (i.e., quality of education provided, and race-contingent treatment received).     

哲学的教化与教化的哲学——论儒学精神的根本特质

Edification 教化 is one of the central concepts of Confucianism. The metaphysical basis of the Confucian edification is the “philosophical theory” in the sense of rational humanism rather than the “religious doctrine” in the sense of pure faith. Confucianism did not create a system of ceremony and propriety owned by Confucians only. The system of ceremony and propriety on which Confucians depend to carry out their social edification is that of “rites and music,” the common life style of ancient China. After continual metaphysical explanation and elevation, the system of ceremony and propriety and that of rites and music have undergone a sort of ever-evolving historical fluctuation, and evinced a sort of openness and forgiveness comparable to that of any other religious form. Compared with typical religious practices, whose ceremonies and rituals that have their own special fixity and exclusivity, Confucian ceremonies and rituals are fundamentally different. The edification of Confucianism can be labeled as “edification in the sense of philosophy.” As a “philosophy”, Confucianism’s vision did not focus on cognition but on completion and realization. Translated by Lei Yongqiang from Tianjin Shehui Kexue 天津社会科学 (Tianjin Social Sciences), 2005, (6): 19–26     

Whither (European) evaluation methodology?

Quasi-experimental evaluation methods promised to provide a way of testing and improving solutions to social problems. These methods have been found wanting. Alternative approaches, including “pragmatic evaluation,” “naturalistic evaluation,” and “pluralist evaluation” are also shown to be unsatisfactory. The initial promise of the evaluation movement has been disappointed. Realistic evaluation is advocated as an alternative to existing forms of evaluation. It is rooted in some European traditions in epistemology, ontology, and social theory. It offers a framework within which rigorous outcome evaluations can be undertaken with results that can inform policy and practice. He is president of the Research Committee on Methodology of the International Sociological Association. He is seconded part-time to the Home Office Police Research Group as a research consultant. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the founding conference of the European Evaluation Society, The Hague, 1–2 December, 1994.     

The Public Policy Pedagogy of Corporate and Alternative News Media

This paper argues for seeing in-depth news coverage of political, social, and economic issues as “public policy pedagogy.” To develop my argument, I draw on Nancy Fraser’s democratic theory, which attends to social differences and does not assume that unity is a starting point or an end goal of public dialogue. Alongside the formation of “subaltern counterpublics” (Fraser), alternative media outlets sometimes develop. There, members of alternative publics debate their interests and strategize about how to be heard in wider, mass-mediated public arenas. I address the normative implications of this non-unitary, multiple-publics model for news journalism, analyzing how current conventions in mainstream news journalism (e.g., “balance” defined as “airing two extremes”) can restrict public debate and impoverish the public policy pedagogy on offer. I illustrate my arguments with a case study of media coverage of the creation and implementation of a social justice curriculum in British Columbia, Canada.     

Teachers facing school failure: the social valorization of effort in the school context

This paper describes two studies concerning teachers’ classroom interventions facing school failure. The role of two main variables is investigated: the lack of effort as a cause of failure students are held responsible for by teachers, and teacher’s social representations of intelligence. The first study (Study 1) explored the impact of “lack of effort” causal attribution for student’s failure on the intervention strategies adopted by 122 high school teachers. Study 2 analyzed the impact of social representations of intelligence, held by 202 high school teachers, on “lack of effort” causal inference and on behavioral interventions. Results highlight that teachers mostly choose more severe educational interventions with retributive purpose when failure is ascribable to an absence of effort expenditure by the student. Moreover, the findings support the role of teachers’ social representations of intelligence in failure explanations and in educational practices, showing that “lack of effort” attribution and practices with retributive purpose are predicted by the social representation of intelligence “as a gift”. Results are analyzed and discussed by considering the effort as a normative parameter of the school environment. This research was supported financially in part by MURST “University funds, 2004 (Ex 40%)”. Portions of these results were presented at the 8th International Conference on Social Representations, Rome.     

A Different Type of Individualism in Zhuangzi

Individualism is not only a Western tradition. In the Zhuangzi we can also identify some elements which may be appropriately attributed to “individualism.” However, due to its particular cultural and philosophical background, Zhuangzian individualism has unique characteristics, which distinguish it from the variety of other individualist thoughts that have emerged in the West. Zhuangzi has a dynamic and open view on individual “self,” considering individuals as changing and unique beings rather than fixed and interchangeable “atoms”; he sets the unlimited Dao as the ultimate source for individuals to conform to, thus releasing individual mind into a realm of infinite openness and freedom. The Zhuangzian individualism is “inward” rather than “outward,” concentrating on individual spirit rather than material interests and rights in social reality. The individualism in the Zhuangzi provides a spiritual space for the development of individuality in ancient China. It also provides an alternative understanding of individual as an existence.     

Transmuted Expertise: How Technical Non-Experts Can Assess Experts and Expertise

To become an expert in a technical domain means acquiring the tacit knowledge pertaining to the relevant domain of expertise, at least, according to the programme known as “Studies of Expertise and Experience” (SEE). We know only one way to acquire tacit knowledge and that is through some form of sustained social contact with the group that has it. Those who do not have such contact cannot acquire the expertise needed to make technical judgments. They can, however, use social expertise to judge between experts or expert claims. Where social expertise is used to make technical judgments we refer to it as “transmuted expertise”. The various kinds of transmuted expertise are described and analysed.     

Doing things with music

This paper is an exploration of how we do things with music—that is, the way that we use music as an “esthetic technology” to enact micro-practices of emotion regulation, communicative expression, identity construction, and interpersonal coordination that drive core aspects of our emotional and social existence. The main thesis is: from birth, music is directly perceived as an affordance-laden structure. Music, I argue, affords a sonic world, an exploratory space or “nested acoustic environment” that further affords possibilities for, among other things, (1) emotion regulation and (2) social coordination. When we do things with music, we are engaged in the work of creating and cultivating the self, as well as creating and cultivating a shared world that we inhabit with others. I develop this thesis by first introducing the notion of a “musical affordance”. Next, I look at how “emotional affordances” in music are exploited to construct and regulate emotions. I summon empirical research on neonate music therapy to argue that this is something we emerge from the womb knowing how to do. I then look at “social affordances” in music, arguing that joint attention to social affordances in music alters how music is both perceived and appropriated by joint attenders within social listening contexts. In support, I describe the experience of listening to and engaging with music in a live concert setting. Thinking of music as an affordance-laden structure thus reaffirms the crucial role that music plays in constructing and regulating emotional and social experiences in everyday life.     

Social science as dialogue: narcissism, individualist and collectivist values, and religious interest in iran and the united states

This investigation most importantly sought to illustrate the use of social science to promote cross-cultural dialogue. Fukuyama (1992) explained contemporary cultural trends in terms of a triumphant individualism that would overcome all other forms of social life, including what he described as the “fundamentalist resentment” of Iran. Lasch (1979) more pessimistically diagnosed Western social arrangements in terms of an emerging “culture of narcissism.” In this study, Iranian and American university students responded to measures of narcissism, individualist and collectivist values, religious interest, and psychological adjustment (identity, self-actualization, and self-consciousness). Variables related to a sense of community (collectivist values, religious interest, and identity) correlated negatively with narcissism in both societies, as did self-actualization. These data supported a moderate position between the polarized extremes of Fukuyama and Lasch and more importantly demonstrated how social scientific methods might be useful in creating a “space” for conducting a “dialogue between civilizations.”     

Social science as dialogue: narcissism,individualist and collectivist values,and religious interest in iran and the united states

This investigation most importantly sought to illustrate the use of social science to promote cross-cultural dialogue. Fukuyama (1992) explained contemporary cultural trends in terms of a triumphant individualism that would overcome all other forms of social life, including what he described as the “fundamentalist resentment” of Iran. Lasch (1979) more pessimistically diagnosed Western social arrangements in terms of an emerging “culture of narcissism.” In this study, Iranian and American university students responded to measures of narcissism, individualist and collectivist values, religious interest, and psychological adjustment (identity, self-actualization, and self-consciousness). Variables related to a sense of community (collectivist values, religious interest, and identity) correlated negatively with narcissism in both societies, as did self-actualization. These data supported a moderate position between the polarized extremes of Fukuyama and Lasch and more importantly demonstrated how social scientific methods might be useful in creating a “space” for conducting a “dialogue between civilizations.”     

Understanding the Subjective Point of View: Methodological Implications of the Schutz-Parsons Debate

The bone of contention that divides Alfred Schutz and Talcott Parsons in their 1940–1941 debate is that Schutz acknowledges an ontological break between the commonsense and scientific worlds whereas Parsons only considers it “a matter of refinement.” Schutz’s ontological distancing that disconnects the “world of consociates” where social reality is directly experienced in face-to-face contacts, and the “world of contemporaries” where the Other is experienced in terms of “types” has been crucial to social scientists. Implicated in the break is that all intellectual attempts to understand experiences of Others must be based on the “models” constructed in the “world of contemporaries” (or “predecessors”); hence, epistemologically, to grasp the subjective point of view with a here-and-now understanding is an outright impossibility. Based on a Schutzian perspective, the author suggests that the sociologist must objectivize the Thou-orientations involved in his/her analysis in order that s/he can possibility grasp the subjective point of view in objective terms.

列维纳斯面对康德、黑格尔、海德格尔——当代哲学关于"存在论"的争论

Levinas subverts the traditional “ontology-epistemology,” and creates a “realm of difference,” the realm of “value,” “ethic,” and “religion,” maintaining that ethics is real metaphysics. According to him, it is not that “being” contains the “other” but the other way round. In this way, the issues of ethics are promoted greatly in the realm of philosophy. Nonetheless, he does not intend to deny “ontology” completely, but reversed the relationship between “ontology (theory of truth)” and “ethics (axiology),” placing the former under the “constraint” of the latter. Different from general empirical science, philosophy focuses more on issues irrelevant to ordinary empirical objects; it does have “objects,” though. More often than not, the issues of philosophy cannot be conceptualized into “propositions”; nevertheless, it absolutely has its “theme.” As a discipline, philosophy continuously takes “being” as its “theme” and “object” of thinking. The point is that this “being” should not be understood as an “object” completely. Rather, it is still a “theme-subject.” In addition to an “object,” “being” also manifests itself in an “attribute” and a kind of “meaning” as well. In a word, it is the temporal, historical, and free “being” rather than “various beings” that is the “theme-subject” of philosophy. Translated by Zhang Lin from Wen Shi Zhe 文史哲 (Journal of Literature, History and Philosophy), 2007, (1): 61–70     

Bearing the lightning of possible storms: Foucault’s experimental social criticism

This paper argues that Michel Foucault explicitly rejected the model of critique by which he is often understood—by both his defenders and detractors. Rather than justifying norms that could be said to represent “the people;” judging institutions, norms, and practices accordingly; and creating programs for others to enact, he theorized and practiced an experimental social criticism in which specific intellectuals help people work through “intolerable” situations by multiplying the ways they can think about and act upon them. As Foucault’s work with the prisons in France shows, one way intellectuals can be part of the experimental transformations social bodies carry out upon themselves is through genealogical work describing the ways problems have come to be identified—and can thus be transformed. This account of criticism undercuts the problem of justifying a standpoint of critique that has plagued philosophers and suggests a few concrete means of better aligning theory and practice.     

The Influence of Language Form and Conventional Wording on Judgments of Illness

Prior research indicates that category labels influence category judgments, but little is known regarding the effects for familiar categories with significant social consequences. The present studies address this issue by examining the effect of linguistic form on judgments of illnesses. Both mental and physical illnesses were presented in each of three linguistic forms: noun, adjective, and possessive phrase. In Study 1, participants were asked to judge the permanence of a set of novel illnesses that differed in wording (e.g., “He is a baxtermic”; “He is baxtermic”; “He has baxtermia”). In Studies 2 and 3, participants were asked to judge which forms of wording were most familiar for actual mental illnesses (e.g., schizophrenia) and physical illnesses (e.g., diabetes). In Study 4, participants were asked to judge the permanence of a set of familiar illnesses that differed in wording. The results indicated that for novel illnesses, nouns (“is a”) imply greatest permanence and possessive nouns (“has”) imply least permanence. However, for familiar illnesses, permanence judgments are also influenced by how frequently each form appears in ordinary language use. Mental illnesses are more often expressed with relatively permanent forms (“is” and “is a”) , whereas physical illnesses are more often expressed with relatively transient forms (“has”). The results demonstrate the importance of both linguistic form and conventional wording patterns on how categories are interpreted.     

The fate of the forgotten: Chamberlain’s work reconsidered

This article discusses the early psychological traditions developed at Clark University under the guidance of G. Stanley Hall. Anthropology and cultural psychology are both rooted in the notion that humans are social beings. That idea constituted a brief moment of theoretical unity between psychology and anthropology in the study of human language in its psychological functions. In that context, the work of Alexander Chamberlain is explored as a major contribution. Chamberlain—if viewed in the jargon of our contemporary social scientists—was deeply “interdisciplinary” in his work. Despite the positive meaning of the term “interdisciplinary” in contemporary discourse about the social sciences, the realities of social organization of any science entail separation rather than integration. Chamberlain’s work took place in parallel in anthropology and in developmental psychology under the interdisciplinary emphasis of “child study” as set up by G. Stanley Hall. Hall made child study the distinctive feature of the “Clark tradition” of psychology. Chamberlain’s work constituted both the beginning and the end of the (miniscule) “Clark tradition” in anthropology.     

Accuracy of recall among “eyewitnesses” to a simulated robbery: Intrapersonal and stimulus determinants

This study is a laboratory analogue investigation of variables that impinge upon the recall of detail about a simulated act of armed robbery among “eyewitnesses.” Specifically, this study sought to determine (1) whether recall of detail by Ss who watch the videotape of a simulated “armed robbery” taken by surveillance camera in a “convenience” store varies according to (a) the dress and appearance of the presumed “robber,” (b) the gender of the victim of the “robbery,” and/or (c) the gender of the “eyewitness”; and (2) whether such recall varies according to S’s inventoried psychological “needs.” Ss viewed the videotape of the simulated robbery under one of four conditions representing variations in the dress and appearance (“status”) of the alleged offender and the gender of the alleged victim; completed the Personality Adjective Inventory; and responded to a questionnaire concerning details of the alleged offense. Results indicate that the single statistically significant source of variance in accuracy of recall of detail is the experimentally manipulated “status” of the perpetrator; gender of victim and of subject contribute significantly neither in isolation nor in interaction. Inventoried psychological needs for “autonomy” and “change” are significantly but negatively and weakly correlated with accuracy among women Ss, while “change” alone is so correlated among men Ss. Findings are interpreted in accordance with theory and research in experimental social psychology and psychological criminology bearing upon person perception and role expectancy in relation to behavioral stereotypes. This study was supported in part through the Henry Rutgers Scholars Program at Rutgers College of Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey. The authors express their gratitude to Charles Rouse, Steven Gaynor, April Hayes, Erica Gross, Shawn Kimble, Elizabeth Chen, and Stephanie Bonn; Officer Leroy Washington, Rutgers University Police; and most particularly to Dipak Munsaf, proprietor of Krauszer's Food Store in the sixth ward of the city of New Brunswick.     

Persons,animals, and identity

The paper is concerned with how neo-Lockean accounts of personal identity should respond to the challenge of animalist accounts. Neo-Lockean accounts that hold that persons can change bodies via brain transplants or cerebrum transplants are committed to the prima facie counterintuitive denial that a person is an (biologically individuated) animal. This counterintuitiveness can be defused by holding that a person is biological animal (on neo-Lockean views) if the “is” is the “is” of constitution rather than the “is” of identity, and that a person is identical with an animal in a sense of “animal” different from that which requires the persistence conditions of animals to be biological. Another challenge is the “too many minds problem”: if persons and their coincident biological animals share the same physical properties, and mental properties supervene on physical properties, the biological animal will share the mental properties of the person, and so should itself be a person. The response to this invokes a distinction between “thin” properties, which are shared by coincident entities, and “thick” properties which are not so shared. Mental properties, and their physical realizers, are thick, not thin, so are not properties persons share with their bodies or biological animals. The paper rebuts the objection that neo-Lockean accounts cannot explain how persons can have physical properties. To meet a further problem it is argued that the biological properties of persons and those of biological animals are different because of differences in their causal profiles.