Gender,science and modernity in seventeenth‐century England

The seventeenth century in England, bounded by the scientific stimulus of Francis Bacon at the beginning and Isaac Newton at the end, seemingly saw a huge leap from the Aristotelian dialectic of the past to a reconstruction of knowledge based on inductive methods, empirical investigation and cooperative research. In mid‐century, Puritan reformers inspired both by the scientific thinking of Bacon and by the educational reforms of Comenius, hoped that educational reform at both school and university level would follow political and religious changes. In 1661, after the restoration of the monarchy, the founding of the Royal Society suggested that acceptance of experimental and practical science at the highest level had been achieved and that this would impinge on education. None of these assumptions can be accepted at face value. Indeed, the whole intellectual and educational history of the seventeenth century is far more complex than often portrayed. Various scientific and philosophical world‐views and different methods of scientific investigation jostled for supremacy and major leaps forward in scientific knowledge were often a combination of some of these. The physical sciences still came under the umbrella of ‘natural philosophy’. Nevertheless, this period is seen as the beginnings of a scientific revolution that has profoundly affected, even generated the modern world. Generally such developments have been both hailed and derided as masculinist. Earlier historians usually neither saw nor looked for women's place in scientific development: more recently, feminist historians have both tried to correct the picture and sought to explain the exclusion of women from most of it. Some have seen Western science itself in this period constructing notions of masculinity and femininity that would prevent women participating in the scientific ventures which represent modernity. This article will investigate the position of women within the scientific and educational developments of seventeenth‐century England. The development of Baconian science and its effects on Puritan reformers, especially Samuel Hartlib, John Dury and other like‐minded scholars, will be examined. It will be shown that their ideals, like those of Jan Comenius whom they admired and worked with, had positive implications for female education. Although, however, some females were affected by the educational reforming impulses of the Hartlib circle, in the changeable political and intellectual world of seventeenth‐century England, very little lasting reform was achieved. Generally women were not well educated in this period. They were excluded from formal educational institutions such as the grammar school and the university although these were not necessarily where scientific and educational reform took place. The advent of printing in the sixteenth century and the growth of scientific lectures in the seventeenth enabled upper and some middle‐ranking women to take part in some of the intellectual ferment of the day and women naturally had a place in science through their culinary and medical roles. Contemporary research has uncovered some of the scientific work done by women and stimulated significant discussion on what can be counted as ‘science’. In England, female relatives of those who espoused scientific and educational reform were themselves involved in such initiatives. On the other hand, they were shut out from membership of the Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, established in 1662, or any other formal institution. Some women were affected by Cartesianism and other scientific theories including those on both natural magic and more occult philosophies. This was a century, however, when unorthodox thinking could meet with frightful consequences and eminent thinkers across the continent fell foul of religious and political authorities. The period was shamed by the highest number of witchcraft trials ever in Central and Western Europe, including England, chiefly against women, albeit mainly the old and the poor. In the second half of the century, longings for stability and peace were more likely to consolidate patriarchical and conservative mores than give way to radical social ideas. Nevertheless, as this study will show, a number of women, chiefly of aristocratic lineage or at least educated above the norm, were able even to publish their scientific ideas. Two of the women mentioned here did so through translation: Lucy Hutchinson, translating Lucretius, and Aphra Benn, translating Bernard le Bouvier de Fontenelle. Hutchinson particularly revealed her own thinking through the notes she added to her edition. Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, chose to pour out the scientific and philosophical ideas she gathered through reading and conversation, in a torrent of unedited publications. Anne, Viscountess Conway, in more measured tones and timing, drew from her private form of higher education to publish The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, which influenced leading philosophers of her day, including Liebniz. Both she and Margaret Cavendish were sufficiently confident to critique Descartes, although Anne Conway's thinking was based on a sounder education. Bathsua Makin was able from her own excellent education and her contacts with the Hartlib circle at home and Anna Maria van Schurmann and others abroad to promulgate an education for girls that would enable them to learn and use a range of sciences and mathematics in an extended female role. Even so, these women were a privileged few and promoted scientific and educational ideas from a vantage point of their own fortunate educational and/or social position. For none of them was this uncomplicated, while for other women, even ones within intellectual circles such as that of Mary Evelyn, their scientific impulses were restrained by gendered notions. Thus it is shown that in both the opportunities offered by new scientific and educational ideas and in their exclusion from the mainstream the position of women was in line with conflicting modern principles that underlay a contested terrain in science for the centuries to come. In addition, this brief exploration of these gendered contradictions of the scientific revolution in England shows the benefits of understanding the large areas of learning which are outside or juxtaposed to formal education, the networks that facilitate leaning and the contemporary context of gendered and scientific beliefs pervading different forms of knowledge.     

清末中学博物教科书中进化论内容的演变及其社会影响

1898年《天演论》的出版在清末思想界"炸响惊雷",它对清末初创的中小学课程也有显著影响。1902年我国正式设立中学博物课,最初5年内出版的中学博物教科书中进化理论却几乎阙如,其原因可能与当时博物课程的宗旨、《天演论》作为政论传入有一定关系。1907年之后,尽管博物课程的宗旨依旧,有些中学博物教科书中却开始有独立章节介绍进化理论,这与当时的社会文化背景有关。进化论进入博物教科书的过程,是教科书的知识内容具有"比较价值"的体现;它的出现,是《天演论》的出版惊雷炸响后降落的春雨,对提高博物教科书的教育价值,培植国人的科学理性,促进进化观念乃至科学世界观的形成都产生了深远的影响。     

Faculty writing: Redirection and renewal

Faculty devote their lives to higher education because of an early commitment to intellectual pursuits. Often, their interests narrow over time, as a result of publishing pressure, which may result in faculty writing burnout. Few university programs support more senior faculty to continue their writing. These faculty should be encouraged to provide their informed perspective through the popular media of the cultural, political and scientific dilemmas facing the twenty-first century. Because of the dialogue, not only will faculty feel renewed, but energy will be provided for their other scholarly pursuits. Strategies for regeneration are easily incorporated into faculty development programs.     

The art of the organiser: Raphael Samuel and the origins of the History Workshop

The History Workshop movement took its stance on the democratisation of history making, becoming notorious for its exuberant gatherings and impassioned ‘histories from below’. At the centre of the early Workshop was the British historian Raphael Samuel, who has been described as the personification of its intellectual and ethical politics. This paper examines Samuel’s role in the Workshop arguing that his distinctive intellectual personality was critical in shaping its early form and ethos. Drawing on a biographical approach, it explores the development of this persona over the course of his formative years. It argues that Samuel’s life history provides an insight into the renewed appeal of libertarian ideas in post-war British radical political and educational thought and that as an individual he illuminates the application of these ideas to the social role of the historian-educator.     

大学通识教育的科学取向与人文取向——杜威与赫钦斯之争综论

杜威与赫钦斯关于大学通识教育之争始于二人有关通识教育理念问题的论争,在当时政治、经济、文化等因素的共同作用下演变为双方的持久论争。从1936年至1945年前后,这场论争经历了三个阶段,涉及通识教育目标、科学与职业教育范式和名著教育价值等重大问题。杜威等人批评赫钦斯迷信“永恒真理”和古典权威,轻视经验科学与社会需要,更有否定民主之嫌;赫钦斯等人则回应这是对其观点的误解,竭力阐明名著教育的理智价值、道德意义及其与民主的关联。论争双方都在一定程度上误解了对方的观点,他们的分歧主要在于通识教育的价值取向而非根本目的,其论争在很大程度上形塑了20世纪30年代以后美国大学通识教育的基本框架,并推动人文学科获得了与科学同等重要的地位。     

Assessment discourse and constructions of social reality in infant classrooms

The 1968 structural reform of the education system in Israel was part both of a global process of democratization of education launched after the Second World War and of a larger modernization project in which the social sciences played a crucial role. This dynamic was an expression of a conjunction of interests, in which political forces used research on educational matters in order to advance their socio‐political agendas, while researchers used the state's interest in their work and in the ‘social problems’ they elaborated in order to receive public funding and to obtain state recognition of their scientific contribution. This article traces the reformist discourse structuration—the process of institutionalization of the different social science discourses in state institutions, such as universities and national institutes—in order to disclose the social sciences/politics linkage in Israel. It also puts forward the argument that in order to understand discourse structuration at a national level, it is essential to consider an additional factor: global education networks. Global networks adopted a discourse inspired by the American school model that tended to be adopted by scholars in different countries. The article focuses on the processes in Israel whereby knowledge producers elaborated the ‘inequality of opportunity’ and ‘ethnic gap’ social problems, and proffered the 1968 structural reform as the solution.     

Why are there so few world-class universities in the Middle East and North Africa?

This article explains why there are so few world-class universities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region today. It first summarises the systemic exogenous economic, political and social problems facing all countries in the region, and the impact of these on the development of their higher education sectors in recent times. Then, with reference to the Times Higher Education and Webometrics rankings of the world’s leading universities, the article describes several endogenous explanations for the absence of world-class universities in the 19 countries of the MENA region. These include the lack of strategic investment in research and teaching in local universities; the absence of intellectual freedom and the constraints imposed on the free expression of ideas in all MENA universities; the failure of universities in the region to encourage, monitor and reward high-quality and high-impact research (and teaching) in the natural and social sciences, the humanities and the liberal arts; and the anti-scientific mind-sets of local ruling political elites, many Islamic theologians, and those who are responsible for the oversight and administration of universities in the region. The limitations of this exploratory study and suggestions for future research are then described. The article concludes by explaining why it is highly unlikely that the political and educational leadership of countries in the MENA region will initiate the institutional higher education reforms that would be required to build world-class research-teaching universities in the foreseeable future.     

梁廷枏研究梳拢

梁廷枏是清代广东的著名学者,治学涉猎戏曲、史学、政治等诸多领域.他长期从事岭南地区的学堂教育工作,曾参与粤海关的修志工作和广州的反英斗争.他较早接触西方文化,研究国际形势,是近代中国“开眼看世界“的先进知识分子,但儒家本位思想和阶级时代局限阻碍了他对西方学习的深入.     

大学生思想政治教育中优秀传统文化的缺失及应用

高校大学生是现代化建设的后备军,专业知识的培养和思想政治教育工作必须要同时进行,只有这样才能培养出符合当今社会需要的德、智、体、美全面发展的合格人才。中国优秀传统文化在大学生思想政治教育工作中的应用更是不可缺少的一环,从中国传统文化的角度探讨对大学生的思想政治教育,目的是研究大学生思想政治教育工作的新思路、新方法,从而为社会培养出合格的人才。     

全球化和市场化背景下的比较教育学者:我们是谁?我们的立场何在?

葛兰西认为:“传统的知识分子”是指那些错误地把自己看作脱离政治、经济或历史背景的知识分子;“有机的知识分子”是指从属于某个社会阶层,并与阶层之间的知识斗争相连的知识分子。福柯认为:“左派的知识分子”是工人阶级的有机组成部分,但倾向于寻求某些普适性的真理;“专业/专门的知识分子”具有可能产生广泛影响的专门知识,有被各种团体利用的危险。在西方比较教育学领域,很多比较教育学者很自然地都把自己看作专家。在福柯的概念中,即他/她们认为自己是“专门的知识分子”。除此之外,很多学者还表现出了保护学科疆域的期望。在全球化的背景下,对于比较教育学者来说,专门知识分子的提法依然是合适的,但同时也是具有危险性的。在全球化和研究全球化的过程中,专门知识分子需要对专业领域有深入的研究,比较教育学者可以成为来自本土社会群体的专门知识分子。     

试论与知识经济相适应的教育创新

随着新科技革命和知识经济的迅速崛起，教育与知识经济相适应成为时代的必然要求；教育创新包括教育观念，教育思想，教育目标，教育体制，教育内容，教育方法，教育评价和教师队伍等多方面的创新，教育创新不是一种独立的创新类型，它与社会环境有很大关系，应该建立一个有利于教育创新的社会环境。     

Age and scientific productivity. Differences between fields of learning

This article analyzes the relationship between age and scientific productivity at Norwegian universities. Cross-sectional data indicate that publishing activity reaches a peak in the 45–49 year old age group and declines by 30 per cent among researchers over 60 years old. Large differences exist, however, between fields of learning. In the social sciences productivity remains more or less at the same level in all age groups. In the humanities publishing activity declines in the 55–59 year old age group, but it reaches a new peak in the group 60 years old and over. Productivity declines in the medical sciences among faculty members who are older than 55, while in the natural sciences, productivity continually decreases with increasing age.This article suggests that the differences between the various fields of learning arise from corresponding differences in the development of scientific disciplines. In fields where the production of new knowledge is fast and where new scientific methods and equipment are continuously introduced, researchers may have problems coping and thus become obsolescent. In fields where knowledge production occurs at a slower pace, e.g. the social sciences and the humanities, faculty may be productive throughout their careers. This explanation gains further support when looking at various natural and medical science disciplines. Older faculty members in physics are less productive than older researchers in mathematics, and older scientists in biomedicine are less productive than their colleagues of the same age in social medicine.     

Science Education and the Emergence of the Specialized Scientist in Nineteenth Century Greece

In this paper, I describe the strong and reciprocal relations between the emergence of the specialized expert in the natural sciences and the establishment of science education, in early Modern Greece. Accordingly, I show how science and public education interacted within the Greek state from its inception in the early 1830, to the first decade of the twentieth century, when the University of Athens established an autonomous Mathematics and Physics School. Several factors are taken into account, such as the negotiations of Western educational theories and practices within a local context, the discourses of the science savants of the University of Athens, the role of the influential Greek pedagogues of the era, the state as an agent which imposed restrictions or facilitated certain developments and finally the intellectual and cultural aspirations of the nation itself. Science education is shown to be of fundamental importance for Greek scientists. The inclusion of science within the school system preceded and promoted the appearance of a scientific community and the institution of science courses was instrumental for the emergence of the first trained Greek scientists. Thus, the conventional narrative that would have science appearing in the classrooms as an aftermath of the emergence of a scientific community is problematized.     

THE HUMANITIES AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN TRANSITION

The humanities and the social sciences particularly suffered under communism because of the susceptibility of their disciplines to political and ideological manipulation. Nevertheless, in some of them the intellectual climate was more liberal in the Academy than in the universities. With transition, a much reduced research staff has adopted new approaches to research and to the definition of areas of research, one of which is a reevaluation of the recent history of the Czech Republic. A major task of the humanities and the social sciences is permanent reflection on the human condition.     

狄尔泰的精神科学思想对人文社会科学教育价值的启示

狄尔泰作为欧洲大陆现象学运动的开创者之一,促使哲学重新关注人的精神,他试图建立以心理学和人类学为根基,以其他人文社会科学为枝干的综合的、有层次的精神科学体系。他的精神科学思想促使哲学家重新评估人文社会科学的价值,从精神科学的角度看,由于人文社会科学有着和自然科学完全不同的研究对象、研究方法和研究目的等;所以人文科学教育就有其独特价值,这些学科的所有教育活动都应是促使人了解社会和历史整体,是一种不同于感觉的体验活动,是通过培育人的主体性获得自由的活动。     

Student politics in the third world

Student political activism remains a key issue in the Third World despite its decline in the industrialized nations. Students continue to be active in politics and frequently have an impact on societal events. The historical development of student politics and student involvement in independence struggles, the role of students as incipient elites, and the fragility of the political structures of many Third World nations all contribute to the efficacy of student politics. Universities, as key intellectual institutions in their societies, also play an important role in Third World societies. Students, especially those in the social sciences, are fairly easy to mobilize and they often have a basic interest in political and social issues. It is argued that student movements emerge from their social and political environment and it is not surprising that activism continues as a powerful force in the Third World.     

Exploring the Socio‐Politics of the Greek Debt Crisis in a Primary Art Classroom: A Political Cartooning Project

This article reports on an event‐driven case study which took the form of a curriculum intervention in order to examine how a class of fifth‐graders understood, interpreted and commented visually on the Greek debt crisis. Considering art education as a safe place where students can critically investigate through relevant visual culture genres socio‐political issues that affect their own lives, the author developed and implemented a political cartooning project. The students were engaged in making political cartoons about the Greek debt crisis and interrelated socio‐political issues and events. A finding of the study was that the students located, identified and labelled the multiple facets of the Greek crisis in a way that was meaningful to them. They employed visual and/or linguistic metaphors as a humorous mechanism to create meaning and emphasised the enormous strains placed on Greek society. The article concludes that the inclusion of the Greek debt crisis in the art curriculum served as a tool for social awareness for the students and connected schooling with society.     

On rhizomes,lines of flight,mangles, and other assemblages

This article describes the discourses working‐class students at a university in Britain have about learning. The discourses include ideas about who is a good student, education as an investment, and marking. Students incorporate, in part, both neo‐liberal and neo‐conservative economic and political views into their perceptions of who should succeed or fail in higher education, but these notions sit contradictorily alongside their more social democratic principles of social justice.     

The Future of Graduate Education in the Sociocultural Foundations: History

Numerous and much needed scientific and scholarly improvements have occurred in physical education since the 1960s. The increased specialization, while absolutely necessary for advancing knowledge, has at times been accompanied by the attitude that only certain subdisciplinary areas are important. In general, history and social science areas have been neglected within departments of physical education. Many leading historians have looked to other social sciences, and occasionally to the biological sciences, for insights into the past; an increasing number have written on topics that fall within sport and even within physical education history. The tendency to assign history classes in departments of physical education to faculty who are not themselves productive researchers is criticized. Because so few departments of physical education offer graduate research degrees in history, this subdisciplinary area is in jeopardy. An inadequate understanding of the intellectual origins of professional physical education may also contribute to what seems to be an inability to resolve the specialization/fragmentation issue.     

The Pendulum as Presented in School Science Textbooks of Greece and Cyprus

When we refer to scientific knowledge, we, implicitly or explicitly, refer to its three components, namely its conceptual framework, its methodological principles and its cultural aspects. The pendulum is a topic of science teaching and learning where all three of these aspects can be examined with the aim of gaining a holistic appreciation of the transformation of a natural phenomenon into a phenomenon of the physical sciences and how this can then be recontextualized into a topic of school science learning. The main objective of this study is to examine whether this richness of the pendulum as a topic of teaching is revealed in the school science textbooks in Greece and Cyprus, for both primary and secondary education. We will use an analytical mapping instrument in order to determine, whether the pendulum is introduced at some grade level and, if so, in what context. We will then use an interpretive instrument, which relies on taxonomy of science curricula into traditional, innovative and constructivist programs, in order to attach meaning to the analysis. Finally, we will formulate a series of proposals in relation to the educational value of the simple pendulum at the Greek and Cypriot gymnasium level.