现实社会主义的产生及其内在矛盾分析

从现实社会主义的产生来看,它是嫁接在封建社会基础上的"野蛮的资本主义"的产物,是东方国家在其传统文明的背景下应对西方文明挑战的产物.现实社会主义的发展与教条主义和封建主义的矛盾,是现实社会主义自产生之日起就潜存的两大内在矛盾.正是这两大矛盾主导和决定了现实社会主义的演进方向和发展前途.     

A rejoinder to Sarangapani and Winch

A statistical relationship between student affect and student achievement is routinely observed—students who like a particular subject also tend to do well in that subject. Theory suggests that the underlying causality is a mutual influence relationship in which affect influences, and is influenced by, achievement. Published analyses, however, usually assume a unidirectional influence—affect influences achievement. To the extent that the latter assumption is an over‐simplification, as theory suggests it is, then current understandings of the importance of affect for achievement are probably in error to some degree. The analyses reported here take a position consistent with theory to model the underlying causality of the relationship between affect and achievement as bidirectional. To this end, the present analyses formulate a non‐recursive structural equation model which specifies affect and achievement as influences on each other. This model is estimated separately for each of 23 nations, 19 of which are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). All 23 nations participated in the OECD‐sponsored Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a programme whose focus is national achievement levels in populations of 15‐year‐olds. The results of these analyses lend support to the proposition that affect and performance exist in a mutual influence relationship, though the nature of this relationship varies between countries.     

Catholic Schools in Scotland: A rejoinder to Conroy

In a recent article in this journal James Conroy presents a spirited defence of the state funding of Catholic schools in Scotland. In so doing he repeatedly but mistakenly presents me as someone who has called for the ending of such funding. He also imputes to all opponents of Catholic schools a basic hostility to Catholicism. In this response, I clarify my position, question the accuracy of Conroy's account of Scottish responses to Catholic schools, identify a crucial difference between sociology and public polemic and then consider the propriety of the state funding of faith schools.     

Feedback functions for reinforcement: A paradigmatic experiment

A reinforcement schedule states a rule for obtaining reinforcement as a function of behavior actually emitted and perhaps as a function of additional variables. These functions are here called “feedback functions.” Behavior actually emitted is, in turn, a function of obtained reinforcement. This reciprocal interdependency was quantified for an experiment in which pigeons chose among either three or two alternatives. Shifting from three to two alternatives, and vice versa, produced changes in the distribution of responding which were approximately accounted for by equations that combined the feedback functions with the matching law for reinforced responding. These equations predicted, among other things, a violation of the constant-ratio rule of formal choice theory and an absence of simultaneous contrast effects between response alternatives reinforced on variable-interval schedules. Both predictions were approximately confirmed.     

Education for autonomy: a rejoinder to Aviram and Assor

Aviram and Assor try two strategies for rebutting my recent critique of autonomy as an educational aim. First, they argue that my objection to dispositional autonomy fails. Second, they identify and defend a technical sense of autonomy quite different from any that I consider. I show here that there are serious problems with both lines of argument.     

Assessment myths and current fads: A rejoinder to a position paper on nonbiased assessment

The Region 9 Task Group position paper on unbiased assessment of culturally different children provided the impetus for describing a number of fallacies pertaining to psychological tests and the assessment procedure for educational purposes. Among the fallacies identified were that child advocacy necessitates the renunciation of standardized assessments, that diagnoses are either harmful to children or useless, that the use of norms in testing is detrimental to a child's well-being, that standardized tests are devoid of value since they fail to help teachers formulate appropriate teaching methodologies, and that the multidsciplinary assessment approach is necessarily the most efficacious. Although it has become highly fashionable to mount sweeping criticisms of standardized tests, a responsible position requires a more careful analysis of the assumptions underlying the use and misuse of these instruments.     

The Song of the Earth: A pragmatic rejoinder

In The Song of the Earth, Jonathan Bate promotes ‘ecopoesis’, contrasting it with ‘ecopolitical’ poetry (and by implication, other forms of writing and expression). Like others recently, including Simon James and Michael Bonnett, he appropriates the notion of ‘dwelling’ from Heidegger to add force to this distinction. Bate's argument is effectively that we have more chance of protecting the environment if we engage in ecopoetic activity, involving a sense of immediate response to nature, than if we do not. This has obvious educational implications. If Bate, James and Bonnett are correct, then the educational pursuit of (eco)poetic sensibility will, of itself, contribute to education for a sustainable future by grounding human experience in nature; if their assertions are insupportable, and (eco)poetic sensibility does not afford privileged access to a state of nature, then the assumption cannot be made that the development of such sensibility will contribute to education for sustainability. I shall critique Bate's argument from a pragmatic perspective.