THE CONFESSING ANIMAL IN FOUCAULT AND WITTGENSTEIN

In The History of Sexuality, Foucault maintains that “Western man has become a confessing animal” (1990, 59), thus implying that “man” was not always such a creature. On a related point, Wittgenstein suggests that “man is a ceremonial animal” (1996, 67); here the suggestion is that human beings are, by their very nature, ritualistically inclined. In this paper I examine this crucial difference in emphasis, first by reconstructing Foucault's “genealogy” of confession, and subsequently by exploring relevant facets of Wittgenstein's later thinking. While there are significant correlations between Foucault and Wittgenstein, an important disparity emerges in relation to the question of the “natural.” By critically analyzing this, I show how Wittgenstein's minimal naturalism provides an important corrective to Foucault's more extravagant claims. By implication, we see why any radical relativist, historicist, and/or constructivist position becomes untenable on Wittgensteinian grounds, even though Wittgenstein himself is often read as promoting such views.     

Legal responsibilities for educational psychologists

This paper considers the legal responsibilities of educational psychologists which fall mainly in relation to pupils with special educational needs. The first section introduces the work of educational psychologists, with some discussion of the professional and ethical difficulties posed by many aspects of their practice. An outline of the legal framework for their work in the England and Wales is provided, as an example of the application of those professional and ethical issues in practice, followed by and outline of potential areas of legal challenge and their implications. Reference is finally made to problems being experienced in policy, principle and practice arising from the tensions and dilemmas inherent in the legislation.     

Facial attractiveness and personal-social development

The relationship between physical attractiveness and personal-social development was examined. The entire third, fourth, and fifth grade school population (N=440) was administered a self-concept and peer acceptance measure. School pictures of these children were then rated into attractive and unattractive groups (N = 84). Three separate three-factor (sex X attractiveness X grade) analyses of variance indicated attractive children were more socially accepted than their unattractive peers and had higher self-concepts.     

Perceptions of a University Environment by Social-Political Action Leaders

Leaders of campus social-political action groups were compared with the leaders of four other categories of student leaders on the basis of perceptions of the prevailing campus environmental press as measured by the College and University Environment Scales. Significant differences among the five categories of group leaders were observed on four scales of the inventory. Three of the scales, Community, Awareness, and Scholarship, appeared to differentiate social-political activists from leaders of other types of campus groups. Significant differences between liberal and conservative leaders of social-political action groups were also observed on three scales of the CUES and between male and female leaders across all group categories on four scales.     

Adorno: Cultural Education and Resistance

In recent years, culture has become significantly politicized, or conspicuously de-politicized, in different parts of the UK, making its appearance in education policy of pivotal interest and ripe for critical attention. From the vantage point of Theodor Adorno’s work on the culture industry and his writings on the work of the teacher, I argue that cultural education is a site where something crucial and distinctive takes place. Within the Enlightenment tradition, critical self-reflection and resistance to heteronymous ways of thinking are core aims of education. Adorno’s contribution to an understanding of these aims leads us to consider the importance of ‘live contact with the warmth of things’ as essential to ethical and intellectual life. The kindly tolerance of the pluralist ideal is now being teased and goaded by acts of terror and widespread concern about personal and social security. At such an unstable juncture, an understanding of cultural education as an experience of ‘incorrigible plurality’ enriches and informs the beleaguered ideal of pluralism and points a way forward in troubled times.