Philosophy of Education in Spain at the Threshold of the 21st Century – Origins,Political Contexts,and Prospects

This article analyzes the evolution of Philosophy of Educationin Spain and its situation at the dawn of the 21st century. Spain'speculiar socio-historical circumstances have largely conditioned thedirection this discipline has taken over the last several decades. So,although during a period there was some approximation towards themethods of analytic philosophy, Philosophy of Education has never fullyrelinquished its normative vocation. To do so would have meant spurningthe hopes and fears that had filled Spanish society by the mid 1970supon the reinstatement of civil liberties and democracy. Indeed,attention to the circumstances and that normative orientation have foundtheir best fit in a practical Aristotelian-based philosophy meant toendow Philosophy of Education with a normative character that do notshun the educator's need for reflection, practical decision-making, andresponsibility. Since the 1990s, new directions have been marked by thechallenge of postmodernism, inasmuch as it affects not only thetechnological positivist model but also the reflective educator's modelof a practical Philosophy of Education. The new directions spread out invarious ways, yet they all fall into a common denominator of narrativetrends. The problem posed by these new languages lies in the extent towhich they are consistent with pedagogic intent. In turn, the answerstake on different profiles depending on whether the stance leans moretowards the philosophical or the pedagogical point of view withinPhilosophy of Education. The complementary nature of both perspectivescharacterizes the current state of the field in Spain.     

Teaching Students to Recruit Positive Attention: A Review and Recommendations

Positive teacher attention and praise are powerful influences on student performance in the classroom. But the classroom is a very busy place, a place where important efforts by students can easily go unnoticed. In such instances, an existing and potentially effective natural contingency of reinforcement is asleep and needs to be woken up. Teaching students how to recruit positive teacher attention is one way to activate dormant contingencies of reinforcement and help students take a proactive role in their learning. This paper reviews the recruiting research to date, discusses implications for practitioners, proposes a recruitment training package including strategies for promoting generalization of recruiting skills, and offers recommendations for future research.     

TEACHING SOCIAL/VOCATIONAL SKILLS TO RETARDED ADULTS WITH A MODIFIED TABLE GAME: AN ANALYSIS OF GENERALIZATION

In this study, a social skills training program for institutionalized mildly or moderately retarded adults was extended to include skills relevant to vocational settings. Target behaviors involving a verbal action or reaction within six skill areas were taught using a commercially available board game, Sorry, and a specially designed card deck. The training program featured response specific feedback, self-monitoring, individualized reinforcers, and individualized performance criterion levels. Using a multiple baseline across two groups (n = 3 per group), the game contingencies increased social/vocational skills in all targeted areas. Generalization was assessed in two settings: a simulated workshop in which pre and post measures were taken and in the institutional workshop where the residents worked. The posttraining simulated workshop results revealed that the residents' newly learned skills had generalized. However, repeated generalization measures of the residents' social interactions in the institutional workshop were equivocal as were measures of their productivity.     

Medicine as a career: Choices and consequences

Medicine has traditionally been regarded as a rewarding career both financially and socially. How true, however, is that tradition in today's world of rising costs and decreasing revenues? The educational debt of the physician-in-training is steadily increasing, and currently does not affect specialty choice. As the cost of medical education continues to rise, the applicant pool begins to shrink, thereby possibly affecting the quality of future physicians. Once the physician has completed training however, the majority enjoy a positive return on investment. Their incomes generally fail to remain ahead of inflation, and therefore, have remained within a narrow band of $40,000 in 1970 dollars. Finally, the demand for physician services cannot be attributed solely to either the consumer (patient) or to the supplier (physician). Rather, the demand for medical services appears to be a unique combination of the two. In conclusion, medicine still is an attractive career path, but the choices and consequences are becoming much more demanding.     

Radical behaviorism: A productive and needed philosophy for education

Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of the science of behavior originating in the work of B. F. Skinner and elaborated over the years by a community of researchers, scholars, and practitioners. Radical behaviorism is a complete, or thoroughgoing behaviorism in that all human behavior, public and private, is explained in terms of its functional relations with environmental events. Radical behaviorism is often misrepresented in the literatures of education and psychology. Two fundamental misconceptions of radical behaviorism are that its followers (1) are logical positivists who require that a phenomenon be observed by two or more people before it qualifies for scientific analysis, and (2) either will not or cannot incorporate private events (e.g., thoughts, feelings) into their analyses of human behavior. This paper offers an advocacy perspective on contemporary radical behaviorism. In particular, we define radical behaviorism and briefly outline the history of the term's use in psychological literature, discuss the scientific practice of behavior analysts, explain the intolerance exhibited by radical behaviorists, and comment on the use of popularity as a criterion for good science. The paper concludes with a discussion of the recent shift in educational research and practice from empiricism and outcome-oriented intervention toward a holistic/constructivist philosophy described by its advocates as incompatible with behaviorally-based instruction.     

Outcomes of children with emotional disturbance in residential treatment for educational purposes

A study was conducted of the outcomes of all children and adolescents (N=114) with serious emotional disturbance who had been placed by school districts in residential treatment facilities for educational purposes over a three-year period. Both cost and outcome analyses were conducted. Cost analyses indicated a total annual expenditure in excess of $5 million, or $80,000 per youth per length of stay. Outcome analyses, consisting of ratings of outcomes and outcome interviews with special education directors, revealed that 63% of the youth had either made no or minimal progress, had been discharged with a negative outcome, or had run away. Positive outcomes were achieved in only 25% of the cases, measured by the students' return to school or placement into a vocational training program. Another 11% of the youth were making substantial progress. Analyses of the relationships between outcomes and cost revealed no relationship. However, positive outcomes were associated with shorter lengths of stay. Further, students in the positive outcome categories had more severe functioning deficits at intake than students in the negative outcome categories. The availability of community-based services for the student and family was the single most likely reason reported by special education directors for positive discharge status.     

The importance of human needs during peacetime, retrospective peacetime, and the Persian Gulf War

Study 1 investigated the importance of human needs during peacetime in 1993 using a sample of 137 full-time workers in several industries in the United States. Study 2 examined the importance of needs in 1990 (retrospective peacetime) and in 1991 (during the Persian Gulf War)(both measured during the war) using a sample of 564 college students in the United States. In both studies, two levels of needs (higher-order and lower-order needs) were identified during peacetime. Study 2 revealed that during the war, all needs were rated as more important and only one factor was identified. During peacetime, the safety of one’s own life was significantly more important than the safety of the country which was rated as the least important need. During the war, the safety of the country was as important as the safety of one’s own life. Students who had spouse, family members, and friends in the Middle East during Desert Storm differed significantly from those who did not in war-related stress and the importance of several needs.     

Functional reading for students with developmental disabilities who are linguistically diverse

Students with moderate and severe disabilities often have language deficits that make the acquisition of reading challenging. Sight word instruction of daily living skills is one method of intervention that benefits students with severe disabilities who have not achieved literacy. When students with developmental disabilities are also linguistically diverse, acquisition of reading skills becomes more complex. Sight words must be chosen that are relevant to the students own community. A critical decision in planning sight word instruction is whether to provide instruction in the student's primary language or in English. These issues are discussed and an illustration is given of the heterogeneity among students with developmental disabilities who are linguistically diverse.     

Influence and development: Two basic paradigms of education

The article discusses two basic paradigms of western educational theory, namely the concept of influence and the concept of development. Two historical contextes are analyzed, John Locke's theory of human learning and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theory of natural development. Both theories are rejected in favour of a position beyond influence and development. This position of a theory of education (Erziehung) is marked with the term moral communication.An earlier and slightly different version of this article was presented to the International Symposion The Crisis of Schools (Corsendonck/Belgium, March 1992). It was translated from the german original by Annette Roeder. The final draft is my own.     

TEACHING MEMORIZED SPELLING WITH A MICROCOMPUTER: TIME DELAY AND COMPUTER-ASSISTED INSTRUCTION

A computer-assisted instruction program was evaluated that used a constant time-delay procedure to teach 5 students 18 spelling words. In addition to delivering the instructional procedure, the program managed the presentation of training content based on individual student responding and collected instructional data on individual student performance. The procedure was effective at teaching 4 of the 5 students the words, and generalization occurred from the computer-delivered keyboard response format to a teacher-delivered hand-written response format. Maintenance data varied among the students. The study demonstrated the feasibility of using microcomputers to deliver time-delay instruction in special education classrooms and suggested several research questions related to specific features of microcomputer-delivered time-delay instruction.