Schooling Bodies Through Physical Education: Insights from Social Epistemology and Curriculum History

Using mainly historical material fromAustralia, the paper seeks to understand earlyforms of school physical training, sport andmedical inspection as specialised means ofschooling bodies. The study adopts a socialepistemological perspective in seeking tounderstand the meaning-in-use of notions suchas physical training. It explores the socialconsequences of the practices carried out inthe name of physical training, particularly inrelation to shifts in the social regulation ofbodies over time from a mass, externalised, andcentralised form to a relatively moreindividualised, internalised and diffuse form.This focus on the body is of key importance fora social epistemological study of physicaleducation because it forces us to look closelyat the practices constituting physicaleducation.     

Evaluation apprehension,hypothesis awareness,and the weapons effect

The present study was designed to extend Turner and Simons' (1974) investigation of possible experimental artifacts in aggression research. Employing a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design, 60 male subjects were given either a low or high evaluation apprehension treatment, and then were either exposed or not exposed to weapons in an otherwise close replication of the seven shock-unassociated weapons condition of Berkowitz and LePage (1967). Based on an objectively worded postexperimental questionnaire, subjects were classified as being aware or not aware that the procedures were designed to make them give more shock to their partners. The findings, which were consistent with the analysis of Berkowitz (1974) and Turner and Simons (1974), indicated that the weapons-no weapons comparison was significant only for non-apprehensive, nonaware subjects. The results were interpreted as suggesting that evaluation apprehension, hypothesis awareness, and sophistication in aggression experiments may produce inhibitions which can modify the effects of experimental manipulations.     

The long-term outcome of a personal network-oriented HIV prevention intervention for injection drug users: The SAFE study

Social influence processes have been found to affect numerous drug and health-related behaviors. We postulated that by using a network-oriented intervention it may be possible to capitalize on social influence processes to reduce human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) risk behaviors. The present study used an experimental study design for delivering a psychoeducational acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) preventive intervention to injection drug sharing networks. Participants were recruited from the ALIVE study, an epidemiological study in Baltimore. In the present paper we examine the self-reported behavioral outcomes of 117 injection drug users 18 months after the baseline interview. HIV seronegative experimental participants reported significantly less frequent needle sharing and less injecting of heroin and cocaine than controls. In multiple logistic regression models of HIV seronegative participants, there was a significant negative association between assignment to the experimental group and the HIV-related behaviors of needle sharing and sharing of cookers in the prior 6 months; controls were 2.8 times more likely than experimentals to report needle sharing and were 2.7 times more likely to report sharing cookers. The results of this 18-month follow-up suggest that among injection drug users network-oriented interventions may be a promising approach to HIV prevention.     

THE CHANGING CRITERION DESIGN

This article describes and illustrates with two case studies a relatively novel form of the multiple-baseline design called the changing criterion design. It also presents the design's formal requirements, and suggests target behaviors and circumstances for which the design might be useful.     

Intervention effects and relative variation as dimensions in experts' use of visual inference

Recent research indicates that when analyzing graphically presented single-subject data, subjects trained in visual inference appear to attend to large changes between phases regardless of relative variation and do not differentiate among common intervention effect patterns. In this follow-up study, experts in applied behavior analysis completed a free-sort task designed to assess the effects of these dimensions on their use of visual inference. The results indicate that they tended to differentiate among common intervention effect patterns but did not attend to relative variation in the data.     

Acting on one's attitudes: Procedures for linking attitude and behavior

Two investigations examined the determinants of correspondence between attitudes and behaviors. The first investigation examined the relationship between previously measured attitudes toward affirmative action and subsequent behavioral verdicts in a sex discrimination court case. In this basic situation, correspondence between measured attitudes and judicial decision-making behavior was minimal, for both low-self-monitoring individuals and high-self-monitoring individuals. Increasing the availability of attitudes generated substantial correspondence between attitudes and behavior for low-self-monitoring individuals, but not for high-self-monitoring individuals. Increasing the relevance of attitudes generated substantial correspondence between attitudes and behavior for both low-self-monitoring individuals and high-self-monitoring individuals. The second investigation examined the decisions of individuals with favorable attitudes toward psychological research to volunteer to participate in extra sessions of a psychology experiment. Once again, increasing the relevance of attitudes was an effective procedure for inducing individuals to translate existing attitudes into corresponding behaviors. These empirical outcomes are interpreted within a theoretical framework that specifies the interactive contributions of availability, relevance, and self-monitoring to the creation of “action structures” that link attitudes and behavior. Practical implications of this viewpoint are discussed.     

A BRIEF EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS FOR IDENTIFYING INSTRUCTIONAL COMPONENTS NEEDED TO IMPROVE ORAL READING FLUENCY

Brief experimental analyses of oral reading fluency were conducted with 4 participants who had been referred by teachers and parents for reading problems. The procedures involved the sequential application of reading interventions to improve students' oral reading fluency. Following a baseline condition, instructional treatments were combined with prior conditions until there was improvement in oral reading fluency in the instructional passages and passages with high content overlap. Differentiated response patterns, assessed via a multielement design, were obtained for all participants. Results are discussed in terms of the potential benefits and limitations of conducting brief experimental analyses for selecting reading interventions.     

Book reviews

Zinkin, Hindle, Gordon, Rosemary & Haynes, Jane (eds.). Dialogue in the Analytic Setting: Selected Papers of Louis Zinkin on Jungian and Group Analysis
Lyard, Denyse. Les Analyses d'Enfants: Une Clinique Jungienne.
Bion, W. R. Taming Wild Thoughts.
Eigen, Michael. The Psychoanalytic Mystic.
Langs, Robert. Death Anxiety and Clinical Practice.
Etkind, Alexander. The Eros of the Impossible: The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia.     

Goldman and the foundations of social epistemology

This essay argues that Alvin I. Goldman's truth-linked theory of group knowledge (veritism) omits individual components of social cognition, that all group based theories of knowledge lead to scepticism, and that if any sense is to be made of social knowledge, it must be done on individualist lines. I argue that Goldman's veritism can be reconstructed by adopting a reliabilist theory,social reliabilism. And I argue that Goldman's objections to a particular sort of consensualism are not telling. So there are now two plausible and competing theories of social knowledge-social reliabilism and consensualism.I am grateful to Keith Lehrer and Alvin Goldman for their criticisms of previous drafts of this paper.