Critical Consciousness and the Christian Conscience: Making the Necessary Connections Between Faith-Based Learning and Critical Pedagogy

Critical pedagogy is a by product of postmodernism, which argues that reality is always subjective, and truth is identified through each person's experiences and environment. Can critical pedagogy be applied to faith-based education? The authors claim that it can. First, the theories and practices of critical pedagogy have strengthened faith-based education by emphasizing self-directed students, the teacher as facilitator, and well-organized learning experiences. In fact, Jesus knew that learning required an active knowledge-creating process through one's full participation in the class. He always encouraged his disciples to transcend superficial understanding. Jesus knew that learning was not simply memorizing facts or reciting the Law of Moses. His beliefs challenged the passive learning paradigm of memorizing content established by the Jewish leaders. This article concludes that both critical pedagogists and Christian teachers would endorse problem-posing methods to encourage full engagement and effective teachers' dispositions in the classroom.     

WANG YANG-MING, MENCIUS, AND DMTERNALISM

Professor David Nivison's presidential address, "Two Roots Or One?", delivered before the Fifty-fourth Annual Pacific Meeting of the American Philosophical Association is a very penetrating paper on Mencius' moral philosophy. He has also made some very interesting contrasts between Mencius' view and those of Wang Yang-ming and Tai Chen. What I would like to point out here is that Wang's position is much more similar to Mencius' than Nivison thought. In sum, I would like to point out that, contrary to what Nivison seems to suggest, Wang is not a strict internalist. A strict internalist is one who maintains that the recognition of obligation is motivation enough to act accordingly.     

Enriching the Inoculation Construct The Role of Critical Components in the Process of Resistance

This investigation tested the effectiveness of inoculation treatments on 790 participants. The study probed the relationship between threat and involvement, their role in inoculation, and the nature of cognitive processes triggered via inoculation. The pattern of results suggests that inoculation elicits threat, threat contributes to resistance, and resistance is most pronounced for more involved receivers and on behalf of more involving topics. Finally, the results shed additional light on the process of inoculation but revealed a process considerably more intricate than was initially predicted. Structural equation analyses indicated that inoculation and involvement exert parallel, but independent, effects throughout the process of resistance. Both contributed directly to resistance, and both indirectly furthered resistance, but along unique paths. Whereas inoculation elicited receiver threat, which indirectly enhanced resistance through its sizable and immediate impact on Phase 2 attitudes, involvement contributed to the process of counterarguing and, thus, exerted a delayed indirect impact on Phase 3 attitudes.     

Should I Brag? Nature and Impact of Positive and Boastful Disclosures for Women and Men

What is the nature of a “positive” disclosure versus a “boastful” one? How are those who use these different types of disclosures differentially construed? A set of three studies was designed to investigate three general issues. Study 1 asked respondents to rate characters who disclosed in a boastful, positive, or negative fashion. Boasters and positive disclosers were viewed as more competent than negative disclosers, negative and positive disclosers were viewed as more socially sensitive than boasters, and positive disclosers were best liked. In Study 2, the gender of the target disclosing positively or boastfully was manipulated. Compared to the boaster, the positive discloser was rated as more socially involved and feminine (less masculine) but less competent. Polarized judgments were made by both genders. Study 3 had individuals generate “boasts” and “positive statements.” The few gender differences that emerged suggest that although females’ bragging strategies may be less extreme or extensive, it is only when gender information is known that the brags of men and women are differentially construed. The present work suggests that men and women, as perceivers, may differentially activate cognitive structures (involving social involvement and femininity, on one hand, and competence and masculinity, on the other) when evaluating men versus women. The nature of the communication itself (boasts being perceived as more masculine and positive disclosures as more feminine) may exacerbate such differential activation in the construction of “mental models” of another's communication.     

香港中医执业资格考试之现况与改革建议

目前国家把中医药传承发展需要的中医临床合格人才作为中医执业资格考试的目的。通过香港、内地（大陆）与台湾三地执业资格考试现况的比较,从中医发展现况、国家中医人才需求及本地中医业界意见等入手探讨香港的中医执业资格考试制度。结论是因目前所需的中医人才在中医思维、经典与临床实践能力都有较高的要求,故执业资格考试亟需在目的、内容、方式、参加资格与课程要求等方面做相应改革,并结合有系统的中医人才培训计划及资历架构以提升中医专业素质,另建议设立“香港中医专业学院”以进行执业资格考试的相关改革事宜。