Inclusion

Summary

In a growing number of schools in the United States, it now is possible to walk into elementary, middle, and secondary classrooms and observe students who could be identified as having moderate and severe cognitive, physical, and emotional disabilities successfully receiving their education together with similar-aged classmates who have no identified special education needs (Falvey, 1995; Lipsky & Gartner, 1997; Schrag, 1998; Villa & Thousand, 1995). This practice of welcoming, valuing, and supporting the diverse learning needs of all students in shared general education environments is referred to as inclusive education, inclusive schooling, or inclusion. This article examines inclusive education along a number of dimensions. First, the evolution of the inclusion moment is briefly examined. After the construct of “severe disability” is considered in the context of inclusive education, various rationale for inclusion are examined along with outcome data, legislation, and legal and U.S. Department of Education decisions which forward inclusive policy. Next, eight factors most frequently associated with successful inclusive education are described and discussed. In describing the factors, examples are provided of specific assessment, planning, and communication processes that support the inclusion of students with intensive cognitive, physical, and emotional disabilities. The article ends with a discussion of the implications of inclusive education for a 21st Century democracy.     

Similarity chains in the transformational paradigm

Rips’ (1989) results with the transformational paradigm have often been cited as supporting accounts of categorisation not based on similarity, such as involving necessary or sufficient features (or a belief in such features), which guarantee a categorisation outcome once their presence has been established. We discuss a similarity account of the transformational paradigm based on similarity chains, which predicts that when the transformation is more gradual the identity of the transformed object is less likely to change. Conversely, we suggest that an essentialist approach to categorisation predicts that essences are more likely to change in gradual transformations, across generations, as is the case with evolutionary change of species. In two experiments we examined the scope of the similarity versus the essentialist account in the transformational paradigm. With space aliens, the similarity account was superior to the essentialist one, but the converse was true with earth creatures. We suggest that an essentialist mode of categorisation is more likely than a similarity one for stimuli that are in better correspondence with our naïve understanding of the world.     

Executive Heads and the Role of Intergovernmental Organizations: Expansionist Leadership in the United Nations and the European Union

Despite considerable advances in methods to examine leaders' personal characteristics using at–a–distance assessment, few studies have applied such techniques outside of the national level. This study reveals that such approaches can provide analytical leverage for examining executive heads of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). The personal characteristics of six United Nations Secretaries–General and four European Union Commission Presidents were measured via content analysis of their responses to questions. Separately, their behavior in office was measured via historical accounts and analyses. In general, executive heads with higher expansionist leadership style scores displayed a greater willingness to try to enhance the status of their organizations.     

Integrating personality and career adaptability into vocational interest space

The relations between interests, personality and career adaptability were explored in two separate studies. In the first study, the RIASEC measure Occupational Preference Scale was applied along with personality inventories HEXACO-PI-(R)-100 and IPIP-50 on a sample of 602 university students and young adults. In the second study, PGI-Short, HEXACO-60 and Career Adapt-Abilities Scale were applied on a sample of 981 high-school graduates. Results from both studies were discussed together, and general conclusions about overlapping of interests, personality and career adaptability domains were drawn on the basis of correlational analyses and property vector fitting. Both studies have shown weak to moderate relations between interests and personality. In the HEXACO framework, it was found that Openness to Experience was positively related to creative interests, Emotionality was positively related to social interests and negatively related to technical interests, Extraversion was positively related to social and managing interests, and Honesty–Humility was negatively related to interests for business and finance. In the Big Five framework, Agreeableness was related to Social and Artistic interests, and Intellect to Artistic interests. The HEXACO personality domains showed predictive advantage for explaining interests in comparison to Big Five dimensions. The relation between career adaptability and interests was weak, and almost negligible when personality was included in hierarchical regression analysis. Career adaptability was weakly related to highly prestigious interests. Adaptability facets Concern, Control and Confidence were oriented toward data pole of interest space. The general factor of interests was weakly correlated with Openness Extraversion, Career Adaptability, and adaptability facets Confidence and Curiosity. Observed findings are as expected and in line with previous research.     

Country roads,take me home… to my friends: How intelligence,population density,and friendship affect modern happiness

We propose the savanna theory of happiness, which suggests that it is not only the current consequences of a given situation but also its ancestral consequences that affect individuals’ life satisfaction and explains why such influences of ancestral consequences might interact with intelligence. We choose two varied factors that characterize basic differences between ancestral and modern life – population density and frequency of socialization with friends – as empirical test cases. As predicted by the theory, population density is negatively, and frequency of socialization with friends is positively, associated with life satisfaction. More importantly, the main associations of life satisfaction with population density and socialization with friends significantly interact with intelligence, and, in the latter case, the main association is reversed among the extremely intelligent. More intelligent individuals experience lower life satisfaction with more frequent socialization with friends. This study highlights the utility of incorporating evolutionary perspectives in the study of subjective well‐being.     

A computational analysis of general intelligence tests for evaluating cognitive development

The progression in several cognitive tests for the same subjects at different ages provides valuable information about their cognitive development. One question that has caught recent interest is whether the same approach can be used to assess the cognitive development of artificial systems. In particular, can we assess whether the ‘fluid’ or ‘crystallised’ intelligence of an artificial cognitive system is changing during its cognitive development as a result of acquiring more concepts? In this paper, we address several IQ tests problems (odd-one-out problems, Raven’s Progressive Matrices and Thurstone’s letter series) with a general learning system that is not particularly designed on purpose to solve intelligence tests. The goal is to better understand the role of the basic cognitive operational constructs (such as identity, difference, order, counting, logic, etc.) that are needed to solve these intelligence test problems and serve as a proof-of-concept for evaluation in other developmental problems. From here, we gain some insights into the characteristics and usefulness of these tests and how careful we need to be when applying human test problems to assess the abilities and cognitive development of robots and other artificial cognitive systems.     

留守儿童生活压力与孤独感、幸福感的关系:心理资本的中介与调节作用

采用问卷法对971名农村儿童进行入户调查,以考察生活压力与留守/非留守儿童孤独感、幸福感的关系以及心理资本在此关系中的作用。结果显示:与非留守儿童相比,留守儿童的生活压力与孤独感较高,心理资本与幸福感较低;生活压力对留守/非留守儿童的孤独感有正向预测性、幸福感有负向预测性,心理资本对此起部分中介作用,且在两群体中的中介过程一致;心理资本仅能有效缓冲生活压力对留守儿童孤独感、幸福感的不利影响。     

Global Justice for Humans or for all Living beings and what Difference it Makes

I begin with an account of what is deserved in human ethics, an ethics that assumes without argument that only humans, or rational agents, count morally. I then take up the question of whether nonhuman living beings are also deserving and answer it in the affirmative. Having established that all individual living beings, as well as ecosystems, are deserving, I go on to establish what it is that they deserve and then compare the requirements of global justice when only humans are taken into account with the requirements of global justice when all living beings are taken into account.     

《史记》对汉初人口状况的记载分析

《史记·高祖功臣侯者年表》序中的“汉兴……户口可得而数者十二三”这句话,是关于汉初人口状况的最早记载。对这句话的不同理解,影响到人们对汉初人口数量及其他相关历史问题的看法。学界对于这句话有着多种理解。本文认为司马迁此语,应当仅是针对汉初朝廷直接控制区内的户口而言,当时占去最富庶的东、南半壁江山的诸侯王国,是被排除在外的。