Spirituality, morality, and criticism in education: a response to Kevin Gary

In this short essay I respond to Kevin Gary’s generous review of my book Reclaiming Goodness by considering his two main concerns, that I tend to conflate spirituality and morality and that I am not sufficiently sensitive to tensions between spirituality and critical thinking. I respond by noting that Gary has not taken adequate account of the distinction between deontological morality and aretaic ethics in the first instance and between the Aristotelian notions of Sophia and Phronesis, or pure reason and practical wisdom, in the second.Hanan A. Alexander chairs the Department of Education at the University of Haifa and is a research fellow of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.     

The Trinity, Election and God's Ontological Freedom: A Response to Kevin W. Hector

Abstract:  A recent article by Kevin Hector considered the disagreement between Bruce McCormack and me over the relationship between the doctrines of election and the Trinity raising a number of crucial issues such as the proper relation of the immanent and economic Trinity, the nature of God's freedom and the identity of the logos asarkos . In this article I explore how and why Barth's dialectical understanding of the triune God's freedom from and for creatures disallowed equating God's ontological freedom with election in the manner suggested by McCormack and Hector, because that would reduce God's omnipotence to his omnicausality, the immanent to the economic Trinity.     

Take a Job,Any Job: Exploring the Importance of Matched Interests to Career Paths and Work Satisfaction

Employment counselors often face the conundrum of whether to advise people to take a job or to hold out for something that better matches their interests. This study investigated whether matched interests in an initial job predicted the subsequent career journey of 336 sales engineers and whether this made a difference to longer term work satisfaction and tenure. Results showed that although the first job significantly influenced people's future career journey, personality and job characteristics were likely to be more influential than matched interests in predicting work satisfaction. Thus, people may be better off taking well‐designed jobs than holding out for matched interests.     

Gender Differences in Anticipated Salary: Role of Salary Estimates for Others,Job Characteristics,Career Paths,and Job Inputs

The purpose of this research was to compare pay expectations of women and men. Participants were 371 college students (261 women, 110 men; 94% White) from a variety of majors. Most students at this university are middle class. Consistent with prior research, women estimated significantly lower salaries at career entry and peak and rated family considerations and pleasant working conditions as significantly more important than did men. Men and women differed on salary estimates for others, influence of salary on decision to enter a field, time off for childrearing, career certainty, and weekly work hours. Controlling for average salaries in the listed job, job characteristic importance, career path, and job input differences eliminated the gender differences at entry and reduced the difference at peak.