Prioritizing Rights in the Social Justice Curriculum

The biggest problem facing schools having social justice curricula, beyond implementation of a programme, I claim, is the problem of justification: what grounds what in social justice and how do we make this manifest to ourselves and to the curricula? If we cannot address this, then social justice curricula are doomed to begging the question. I claim that a ranking of human rights is not only necessary to adjudicate competing claims for social justice and at the same time, thwart interference with already agreed-upon human rights: it is necessary for any curriculum of social justice for schools. That is to say, curricular programs of social justice cannot justify social practices that interfere with human rights, nor can they teach otherwise than this. Due attention to the violation of human rights is necessary, I shall argue, and must be central in the discussion of education for social justice.     

The role of the auditory brainstem in processing linguistically-relevant pitch patterns

Historically, the brainstem has been neglected as a part of the brain involved in language processing. We review recent evidence of language-dependent effects in pitch processing based on comparisons of native vs. nonnative speakers of a tonal language from electrophysiological recordings in the auditory brainstem. We argue that there is enhancing of linguistically-relevant pitch dimensions or features well before the auditory signal reaches the cerebral cortex. We propose that long-term experience with a tone language sharpens the tuning characteristics of neurons along the pitch axis with enhanced sensitivity to linguistically-relevant, rapidly changing sections of pitch contours. Though not specific to a speech context, experience-dependent brainstem mechanisms for pitch representation are clearly sensitive to particular aspects of pitch contours that native speakers of a tone language have been exposed to. Such experience-dependent effects on lower-level sensory processing are compatible with more integrated, hierarchically organized pathways to language and the brain.     

Probabilistically Valid Inference of Covariation From a Single x,y Observation When Univariate Characteristics Are Known

Participants were asked to draw inferences about correlation from single x,y observations. In Experiment 1 statistically sophisticated participants were given the univariate characteristics of distributions of x and y and asked to infer whether a single x, y observation came from a correlated or an uncorrelated population. In Experiment 2, students with a variety of statistical backgrounds assigned posterior probabilities to five possible populations based on single x, y observations, again given knowledge of the univariate statistics. In Experiment 3, statistically naïve participants were given a problem analogous to that given in Experiment 1, framed verbally. Experiment 4 replicated Experiment 3 but added an "impossible to determine" response option. Models that rely on computing sample correlations make no predictions about these investigations. From a Bayesian perspective, participants' inferences in all four experiments tended to make probabilistically valid inferences as long as the single datum was directional. The results are discussed in light of the Brunswikian notion of vicarious functioning.     

HIV: How Science Shaped the Ethics

AIDS is a debilitating and fatal disease that was first identified as an infectious disease syndrome in the 1970s. The discovery of a nearly universally fatal infectious and rapidly spreading disease in the post–antibiotics era created apprehension in the medical community and alarm in the general population. Questions about how patients should be handled in medical and nonmedical settings resulted in the ostracizing of many AIDS patients and inappropriate patient management. Scientific investigation into modes of disease transmission and control helped to shape the management of AIDS patient care in such a way that ethical and protective practices could be developed. In this article I discuss some of the ethical questions that were addressed by appropriate scientific inquiry.     

Spatial reorientation in large and small enclosures: comparative and developmental perspectives

Several vertebrate species, including humans, following passive spatial disorientation appear to be able to reorient themselves by making use of the geometric shape of the environment (i.e., metric properties of surfaces and directional sense). In some circumstances, reliance on such purely geometric information can overcome the use of local featural cues (landmarks). The relative use of geometric and non-geometric information seems to depend upon, among other factors, the size of the experimental space. Evidence in non-human animals and in human infants for primacy in encoding either geometric or landmark information depending on the size of the environment is reviewed, together with possible theoretical accounts of this phenomenon.     

Enhancing Justice?

This article focuses on the follow question: Are human enhancement technologies likely to be justice impairing or justice promoting? We argue that human enhancement technologies may not be inherently just or unjust, but when situated within obtaining social contexts they are likely to exacerbate rather than alleviate social injustices.     

How the Powerful Decide: Access to Research Participation by those at the Margins

How do those in power decide to include and exclude those at the margins from community life? We used simulated review of research vignettes to examine how researchers and members of Institutional Review Boards make decisions concerning the research participation of adults with and without intellectual disabilities. Results indicate that decision‐makers are influenced by the disability status of the sample, characteristics of the research in which they are engaged, and their attitudes toward the research participation of adults with intellectual disabilities as well as their own relationship to the research process. For example, decision‐makers may create situations that limit the self‐determination of adults with intellectual disabilities and adults without disabilities within the research context, particularly when the research poses some risk of harm to participants. Implications for theory, action and research are explored.     

Equality of Education and Citizenship: Challenges of European Integration

What kind of equality among Europeans does equal citizenship require, especially regarding education? In particular, is there good reason to insist of equality of education among Europeans—and if so, equality of what? To what extent should the same knowledge base and citizenship norms be taught across state borders and religious and other normative divides? At least three philosophical issues merit attention: (a) The requirements of multiple democratic citizenships beyond the nation state; (b) how to respect diversity while securing such equality and inculcating commitments to justice and norms of citizenship, and (c) The multiple reasons for equality of various kinds among political equals living in a Union as compared to a unitary state. The article responds on the basis of several arguments in favour of certain kinds of equality. All Union citizens must enjoy a high minimum level of education, and all pupils must be informed concerning the various ways of life prevalent in Europe. Furthermore, there must be standards for securing equality of opportunity across the EU, though it is difficult to measure under multiculturalism. Citizens must also be socialised to certain ‘citizenship norms’. This shared basis to be taught in schools should avoid contested religious or philosophical premises as far as possible. Yet the school system should socialise pupils to three commitments: to the just domestic and European institutions and hence the legislation they engender, to principles that justify these institutions; and to a political theory that grounds these principles in a conception of the proper role of individuals, of member states and of the Union. I also argue that equality of result is not a plausible normative requirement among Europeans, while equality of opportunity is. The paper concludes with some comments on the lessons to be drawn for ‘Global’ citizenship.     

Gender Differences in Children’s Hero Attributions: Personal Hero Choices and Evaluations of Typical Male and Female Heroes

The current study investigated gender differences in the personal hero choices, hero attributions, and characteristics attributed to “typical” male and female heroes of children living in the Midwestern United States (N = 103; mean age = 10 years). Questionnaires were completed in a school setting. The majority of girls chose heroes personally known to them; boys chose personal and public figures equally often. Most boys chose same gender heroes; girls’ nominations were mixed. Gender differences were also seen in the characteristics children attributed to their own heroes and in their conceptions of “typical” male and female heroes. Children rated same-gender “typical” heroes more positively on many attributes, except for stereotypically masculine characteristics. Gender socialization, stereotypes, and in-group favoritism were used to explain these findings. Portions of this project were presented at the 2003 Society for Research on Child Development Biennial Meeting. We wish to thank Anna V. Persson and Sara E. Goldstein for their assistance on the early development of this study. We also appreciate the children, teachers, guidance counselors and principals at Leipsic Local School and Pandora-Gilboa Elementary School for making this study possible. Inquiries about this study should be addressed to Shayla Holub, .     

Semiotic Hypercycles Driving the Evolution of Language

The evolution of human symbolic capacity must have been very rapid even in some intermediate stage (e.g. the proto-symbolic behavior of Homo erectus). Such a rapid process requires a runaway model. The type of very selective and hyperbolically growing self-organization called “hypercyle” by Eigen and Schuster could explain the rapidity and depth of the evolutionary process, whereas traditional runaway models of sexual selection seem to be rather implausible in the case of symbolic evolution. We assume two levels: at the first level the species is adapted to ecological demands and accumulates the effects of this process in the genome. At the second level a kind of social/cultural knowledge is accumulated via a set of symbolic forms, one of which is language. Bühler’s model of three basic functions of signs can also be elaborated so that its cyclic structure becomes apparent. We assume that the hypercyclic process of semiosis and functional differentiation was triggered in 2 my BP (with the Homo erectus) and got more and more speed with the species Homo sapiens and later. The consequences for the evolutionary stratification of human languages will be drawn in the last section of the paper. The basic aim of the paper is to provide a semiotic (and not just a linguistic) explanation of the origin of language which can be linked to relevant models in evolutionary biology and which exploits the possibilities contained in self-organizing systems.