Teachers’ attitudes towards students with high- and low-educated parents

Educational inequalities may be derived from differential teacher expectations toward students from different backgrounds. Such expectations may be associated with stereotypical beliefs and attitudes, which guide behavior and judgments. Although ample research is available concerning differential teacher attitudes based on student ethnicity, few studies have considered the effect of the educational level of the parents. The aim of the current study was to investigate teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward students with differentially educated parents. Implicit attitudes were measured using an implicit association task (IAT). The first name of the student was used as a proxy for the educational level of parents, whereby we created separate versions for boys and girls. Participants were randomly divided in two groups, whereby the first group completed the IAT-boys version and the other group the IAT-girls version. Explicit attitudes were measured using a questionnaire. Participants indicated positive implicit attitudes toward students with highly educated parents, independent of the gender of the student. Teachers did not express differential explicit beliefs regarding the learning and social behaviors of students based on the educational level of the parents, and their expectations concerning the motivation and ambitions or educational chances of these students were neutral. The dissociation between implicit and explicit attitudes may be an indication of the social sensitivity of the relationship between students’ social background and educational achievements and opportunities. Especially implicit attitudes may account for differences in teacher behaviors toward different groups of students and in turn their educational opportunities, and could therefore partly account for consistent findings of educational inequalities based on the social status of families.     

The Awful English Language

Abstract

The ever-increasing dominance of English within analytic philosophy is an aspect of linguistic globalisation. To assess it, I first address fundamental issues in the philosophy of language. Steering a middle course between linguistic universalism and linguistic relativism, I deny that some languages might be philosophically superior to others, notably by capturing the essential categories of reality. On this background I next consider both the pros and cons of the Anglicisation of (analytic) philosophy. I shall defend the value of English as a lingua franca, while denying both the feasibility and the desirability of English as the sole universal language of philosophy. Finally I turn to the linguistic inequality in contemporary analytic philosophy. While it does not per se amount to an injustice, there is a need to level the playing field. But the remedy does not lie in linguistic academic sectarianism. Instead, what might be called for are piecemeal measures to reduce explicit and implicit biases against analytic philosophers on the geographic fringes, biases that are only partly connected to the predominance of English.     

Effects of and attention to graphic warning labels on cigarette packages

Objective: The present study investigates the effects of graphic cigarette warnings compared to text-only cigarette warnings on smokers’ explicit (i.e. ratings of the packages, cognitions about smoking, perceived health risk, quit intentions) and implicit attitudes. In addition, participants’ visual attention towards the graphic warnings was recorded using eye-tracking methodology.Design and methods: Sixty-three smokers participated in the present study and either viewed graphic cigarette warnings with aversive and non-aversive images or text-only warnings. Data were analysed using analysis of variance and correlation analysis.Results: Especially, graphic cigarette warnings with aversive content drew attention and elicited high threat. However, whereas attention directed to the textual information of the graphic warnings predicted smokers’ risk perceptions, attention directed to the images of the graphic warnings did not. Moreover, smokers’ in the graphic warning condition reported more positive cognitions about smoking, thus revealing cognitive dissonance.Conclusion: Smokers employ defensive psychological mechanisms when confronted with threatening warnings. Although aversive images attract attention, they do not promote health knowledge. Implications for graphic health warnings and the importance of taking their content (i.e. aversive vs. non-aversive images) into account are discussed.     

The Euthanasia Debate in Germany - What's the Fuss?

ABSTRACT Both opponents and proponents of Singer's right to speak about euthanasia have concentrated on the tenability of his claims. They have ignored the question of what legitimate grounds there are for suppressing academic discussion, and have failed to take into account the discussion of freedom of speech in recent legal theory. To do this is the aim of my paper. Section I claims that Singer's position is immoral. Section 2 turns to the question of whether it is protected by freedom of speech, irrespective of its merits. I reject two lines of defence for Singer's opponents, that they had no opportunity to present their case, and the Kantian idea of the primacy of practical reason. Section 3 turns to a defence from legal theory. It argues that Singer's views do not pose the kind of threat to other legal and moral values which would license a suspension of his freedom of expression. I conclude that it is illegitimate to silence Singer, since he does not deny the right to live of his disabled opponents, but legitimate to protest against him, since he denies that some of their lives are worth living, in disregard of their own preferences.     

Beyond judgment bias: How students’ ethnicity and academic profile consistency influence teachers’ tracking judgments

Research on school tracking has provided evidence that students with immigrant backgrounds are overrepresented in the lower school tracks. As teachers are the main decision makers when it comes to tracking, we investigated whether teachers’ tracking judgments are biased by the immigrant backgrounds of the students and how teachers’ tracking judgments are affected by inconsistencies in students’ academic profiles. Drawing on dual process models of judgment formation, we conducted two experimental studies to investigate teachers’ judgments. The results of both studies showed less favorable teacher judgments of students with immigrant backgrounds than of students without immigrant backgrounds. Students with inconsistent academic profiles were also judged less favorably than students with consistent profiles. Think aloud data indicated careful processing of all information both for students with immigrant backgrounds and students with inconsistent profiles. Results are discussed with regard to their underlying mechanisms as well as with regard to their implications for teacher training.     

Truth in the Tractatus

My paper takes issue both with the standard view that the Tractatus contains a correspondence theory and with recent suggestions that it features a deflationary or semantic theory. Standard correspondence interpretations are mistaken, because they treat the isomorphism between a sentence and what it depicts as a sufficient condition of truth rather than of sense. The semantic/deflationary interpretation ignores passages that suggest some kind of correspondence theory. The official theory of truth in the Tractatus is an obtainment theory – a sentence is true iff the state of affairs it depicts obtains. This theory differs from deflationary theories in that it involves an ontology of states of affairs/facts; and it can be transformed into a type of correspondence theory: a sentence is true iff it corresponds to, i.e. depicts an obtaining state of affairs (fact). Admittedly, unlike correspondence theories as commonly portrayed, this account does not involve a genuinely truth-making relation. It features a relation of correspondence, yet it is that of depicting, between a meaningful sentence and its sense – a possible state of affairs. What makes for truth is not that relation, but the obtaining of the depicted state of affairs. This does not disqualify the Tractatus from holding a correspondence theory, however, since the correspondence theories of Moore and Russell are committed to a similar position. Alternatively, the obtainment theory can be seen as a synthesis of correspondence, semantic and deflationary approaches. It does justice to the idea that what is true depends solely on what is the case, and it combines a semantic explanation of the relation between a sentence and what it says with a deflationary account of the agreement between what the sentence says and what obtains or is the case if it is true