The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms,Second Edition,Revised and Expanded

A collection of books, ephemera, and correspondence belonging to Lawrence Kaye Hyde located in the San Diego State University Library provides an intriguing glimpse into 19th- and 20th-century Western Esotericism. Hyde belonged to numerous metaphysical organizations and maintained a wide-ranging correspondence with religious thinkers around the world. By considering Hyde's unique esoteric library against the backdrop of current scholarship in Western Esoteric Studies, this article examines key concepts in the field (such as gnosis, concordance, and the cultic milieu) and assesses the collection's potential for supporting research in this emerging discipline.     

Boys’ and girls’ involvement in science learning and their self‐efficacy in Taiwan

This cross‐sectional study investigated the significant differences in students’ self‐efficacy and their involvement in learning science. Nine hundred and twenty‐two elementary school fifth graders, 499 junior high school eighth graders, and 1455 senior or vocational high school eleventh graders completed the students’ questionnaire. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) and independent t‐tests compared the significant similarities and differences across school levels and genders. The initial findings were as follows: A sharp decline in boys’ and girls’ self‐efficacy scores from elementary to secondary school levels; boys have significantly higher self‐efficacy scores than girls at vocational and senior high school levels; students with more involvement in science learning presented significantly higher self‐efficacy scores than those with less involvement. The significant discrepancies in terms of gender and age in students’ self‐efficacy and involvement in learning science need to be addressed. Implications and limitations are provided.     

Acceptance of Evolution and Support for Teaching Creationism in Public Schools: The Conditional Impact of Educational Attainment

Public acceptance of evolution remains low in the United States relative to other Western countries. Although advocates for the scientific community often highlight the need for improved education to change public opinion, analyses of data from a national sample of American adults indicate that the effects of educational attainment on attitudes toward evolution and creationism are uneven and contingent upon religious identity. Consequently, higher education will only shift public attitudes toward evolution and away from support for teaching creationism in public schools for those who take non‐“literalist” interpretive stances on the Bible, or to the extent that it leads to fewer people with literalist religious identities.     

Convergent Evidence for Basic Motivational Dimensions

Subjects (N = 217) rated the attractiveness of 56 general goals and then completed 3 theory-based tests of personality or motivation. Two goal factors—labeled Social-Economic Status and Competitive Achievement—seemed to reflect two broad domains of status-seeking motivation, and two other factors—labeled Growth Orientation and Interpersonal Security—pointed to separate domains of cooperative motivation. Thus, there was confirmation for the widespread assumption of two primary types of interpersonal motivation (solidarity and status) in our culture but also for important distinctions within each type. Canonical and direct correlations with the theoretically-grounded measures strongly supported that interpretation of the factors. Meaningful relationships between factors obtained from the questionnaire and the more rationally-based test scores indicated convergence in mappings of motivational space.     

Examining classroom influences on student perceptions of school climate: The role of classroom management and exclusionary discipline strategies

There is growing emphasis on the use of positive behavior supports rather than exclusionary discipline strategies to promote a positive classroom environment. Yet, there has been limited research examining the association between these two different approaches to classroom management and students' perceptions of school climate. Data from 1902 students within 93 classrooms that were nested within 37 elementary schools were examined using multilevel structural equation modeling procedures to investigate the association between two different classroom management strategies (i.e., exclusionary discipline strategies and the use of positive behavior supports) and student ratings of school climate (i.e., fairness, order and discipline, student–teacher relationship, and academic motivation). The analyses indicated that greater use of exclusionary discipline strategies was associated with lower order and discipline scores, whereas greater use of classroom-based positive behavior supports was associated with higher scores on order and discipline, fairness, and student–teacher relationship. These findings suggest that pre-service training and professional development activities should promote teachers' use of positive behavior support strategies and encourage reduced reliance on exclusionary discipline strategies in order to enhance the school climate and conditions for learning.     

In Defense of a Broad Conception of Experimental Philosophy

Experimental philosophy is often presented as a new movement that avoids many of the difficulties that face traditional philosophy. This article distinguishes two views of experimental philosophy: a narrow view in which philosophers conduct empirical investigations of intuitions, and a broad view which says that experimental philosophy is just the colocation in the same body of (i) philosophical naturalism and (ii) the actual practice of cognitive science. These two positions are rarely clearly distinguished in the literature about experimental philosophy, both pro and con. The article argues, first, that the broader view is the only plausible one; discussions of experimental philosophy should recognize that the narrow view is a caricature of experimental philosophy as it is currently done. It then shows both how objections to experimental philosophy are transformed and how positive recommendations can be provided by adopting a broad conception of experimental philosophy.     

Evaluating OVal-9, An Instrument for Detecting Experiences of Value in Daily Occupations

The drastic increase of psychosocial ill health may point to the fact that current lifestyles produce longer lives, but with increased chronic disorders rather than greater health. Focus on current lifestyles, that is, on peoples' daily environments, are thereby warranted to develop models and methods for tracing health promoting factors inherent in people's daily participation and experiences. This study tests the content validity of OVal-9, an instrument based on the new concept; Occupational Value, among a sample of experts, students and clients. The result shows a good ability to assess the value that people experience in their daily occupations. We are convinced that measuring Occupational Value might be of importance in developing future strategies for intervention and prevention needed for the increasing incidence of mental ill-health.     

The natural history of information processors

By spanning the traditional scientific theories in the search for an epistemological home for information it is found that Physics (together with some inputs from Automata Theory) provides the criteria to identify the universals that characterize information processors. It is well known, however, that Physics and Mathematics alone are insufficient to answer some fundamental questions that arise in further speculations on the subject of information. It seems that Biology, in the realm of Evolution Theory and in terms of Natural Selection, is at present the only place able to offer the objective context required to properly characterize information as an object of scientific inquiry.

In this communication we intend to show, by establishing a working equivalence between the epistemological questions that should characterize a theory of information and those questions that characterize the science of Biology, how a science of information can be more objectively characterized. It is only by referring to selective pressures that we can solve the otherwise unanswerable philosophical question of whether it is possible to know if two players of a game are, in fact, playing the same game (the semantic question). It is also shown that it is possible, by using conventional criteria, to establish a phylogenesis of information processors from where we conclude that every information processor now existing in the universe (even computers and robots) has an ancestor that has once been a living being.

It is here suggested, however, that Biology is only a provisory epistemological ground for laying the foundations of an information science. A more inclusive theory should be founded on a generalization of the Theory of Evolution where mutation and natural selection should be described, not in terms of the characteristic media and mechanisms of biological systems, but of the identified universals of information processors.     

REFLECTIONS: EDUCATION AND OUR SHARED FUTURE

Based on a comparative study, this paper highlights and analyses commonalities and differences between an Oriental systems approach, WSR, and two Western counterparts, TOP and MMD. It is suggested that cultural differences among systems approaches might probably have been overshadowed by both commonalities between Western and Eastern traditions and differences within the same cultural tradition. It will be further proposed that by being more consciously open to and learning from each other, systems approaches in the East and the West may have more to offer for dealing with the complexity which confronts humankind.     

Science and its applications: INSERM reflections

The history of science must be introduced onto the curriculum, scientific culture must be developed if the young are to receive a global, healthy understanding of science and technology.

The experiment pioneered by INSERM clubs is, from this point of view, exemplary.