Dyslexics in time machines and alternate realities: thought experiments on the existence of dyslexics, ‘dyslexia’ and ‘Lexism’

This article explores the possibility that ‘dyslexics’ can be thought of as being ‘othered’ and defined by the social norms and educational practices surrounding literacy; which can be termed ‘Lexism’. As such the author, Craig Collinson, a postgraduate academic support officer at Edge Hill University, presents ‘Lexism’ as a new concept that allows us to reconsider how dyslexics can be said to exist. In a persuasive and original article, Craig argues that dyslexics can be defined by the existence of Lexism rather than the more problematic concept of ‘dyslexia’. He seeks to achieve these ends through a series of thought experiments which suggest a different way of looking at what defines someone as dyslexic in order to suggest that when we talk of the inclusion or exclusion of dyslexic pupils we should be aware of the influence Lexism may have upon us.     

Exploring Mathematical Definition Construction Processes

The definition of ‘definition’ cannot be taken for granted. The problem has been treated from various angles in different journals. Among other questions raised on the subject we find: the notions of concept definition and concept image, conceptions of mathematical definitions, redefinitions, and from a more axiomatic point of view, how to construct definitions. This paper will deal with ‘definition construction processes’ and aims more specifically at proposing a new approach to the study of the formation of mathematical concepts. I shall demonstrate that the study of the defining and concept formation processes demands the setting up of a general theoretical framework. I shall propose such a tool characterizing classical points of view of mathematical definitions as well as analyzing the dialectic involving definition construction and concept formation. In that perspective, a didactical exemplification will also be presented.     

Understanding the sciences: a quasi-Wittgensteinian note on NOS

Aragón, Acevedo-Díaz and García-Carmona study prospective biology teachers’ understanding of the Nature of Science (NOS). In my comment, I would first like to step back and ask what it is to understand something, i.e. the sciences. I will turn to a quasi-Wittgensteinian epistemological tradition and suggest that, contrary to our habit to associate meaning with definitions, to understand something is, in fact, to engage in the normative practices around it. To understand the sciences then, we don’t need some definition; we need to engage in their practices. I will then turn to NOS research and suggest that NOS terminology, as well as certain NOS teaching practices, often fail to address two seemingly opposite mentalities, both of which prohibit understanding the sciences: scientism, i.e. the implication that there is in fact a definition of science; and relativism, i.e. the implication that, lacking a definition, science is a meaningless term. Both these mentalities could be challenged if NOS incorporated a quasi-Wittgensteinian account of what it is to understand something. In the last part of the paper, I will highlight some promising aspects of NOS research. To be specific, Aragón, Acevedo-Díaz and García-Carmona use the historical case of Semmelweis and childbed fever as a trigger to highlight certain elements of NOS and then facilitate reflective dialogue. Indeed, reflection over particular cases seems to be a promising way to understand the sciences; as a quasi-Wittgensteinian approach would suggest, it allows people to engage in the normative practices of scientific research. In the end, NOS researchers could benefit from such an epistemological account of understanding: avoid misconceptions such as scientism and relativism, as well as provide a strong theoretical background for their recommendations.

     

从语言定义的演变看我国对语言本质认识的深化

语言定义往往能反映定义者对语言本质的认识,因此,通过分析语言定义,我们可以了解定义者的语言观,而且,分析一定时期内语言定义的演变过程,可以使我们看清语言学界对语言本质认识的深化过程。本文撷取了自上世纪初至本世纪初我国有代表性、有影响的一些语言定义,试图通过对这些重要的语言定义的分析和梳理,勾画出我国语言学界对语言本质认识的不断深化过程。     

A Typology of Undergraduate Textbook Definitions of ‘Heat’ across Science Disciplines

The physics and chemistry education literature has grappled with an appropriate definition for the concept of heat for the past four decades. Most of the literature promotes the view that heat is ‘energy in transit’ or ‘involves the transfer of energy’ between the system and surroundings because of a difference in temperature. Given that many undergraduate students are not learning the concept of heat in physics and chemistry alone, the goal of this investigation is to explore the conceptions of heat as presented in textbooks from across the science disciplines. An analysis of the definitions of heat from physics, chemistry, the biological sciences and the earth sciences showed a significant variation in the definitions within a discipline and between the disciplines. Specifically, the physics and chemistry textbooks used ‘energy in transit’ or ‘transfer of energy’ definitions (Class I), whereas textbooks from other disciplines typically used definitions which relate heat to ‘molecular kinetic energy’ (Class II) or they used a hybrid of Class I and II definitions. Although a universal definition of heat across disciplines may not be possible (or even desirable), we suggest that discrepancies in definitions be acknowledged and clearly communicated to students.     

The Subject of Post-structuralism: A reply to Alison Jones

ABSTRACT Alison Jones finds in the writing of her students who take up post-structuralism, a confused humanism, an illegitimate appearance of a prediscursive self. She attributes this to some aspects of my writing and to the students' failure to understand the structuralist base of post-structuralism. Jones argues that I and her students are guilty of humanism when we use active verbs such as 'positioning' or 'forced choice', or when we try to imagine what agency might be in a post-structuralist framework. In this reply I produce a detailed reading of Jones'. In doing so, I attempt to find how she produced her reading of my writing, and at the same time to extend my understanding of what the 'post-structuralist subject' might be. I attend to this in the dual sense of human beings as subjects, and the subject of post-structuralism as we teach it to our students.     

How should "unresponsiveness" to secondary intervention be operationalized? It is all about the nudge

In the fourth session of the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities Responsiveness-to-Intervention Symposium in 2003, Good, Vellutino, and Torgesen presented papers that addressed the question, "How should unresponsiveness to secondary intervention be operationalized in an RTI approach to LD identification?" In this commentary, I highlight important areas in which ideas converge across the three presentations. I argue that it will be important, as the field begins to grapple with a definition of "unresponsiveness" to secondary intervention, that we also specify who should get the intervention, what the intervention should consist of, when the intervention should occur, how long the intervention should last, and by whom the intervention should be applied. Only then can we accurately assess the merits of competing definitions of unresponsiveness.     

The Notion of Creativity in Art and the Influence of Cultural Exposure

This study investigates how art teachers judge the creativity of student art work. Both conceptual and operational definitions given by teachers were studied. Furthermore, cultural exposure as measured by a teacher's exposure to non-Asian cultures, was studied to see how it might influence art teachers' judgements. Two instruments were developed for the purpose of this study. One instrument was a questionnaire designed to collect qualitative data from the respondents. The second instrument was used to measure art teachers' ratings of creativity. The data revealed that the conceptual definitions given by art teachers varied considerably. However, when asked to rate subjectively the creativity of art products, moderate agreement was reached among art teachers. Exposure to non-Asian cultures did not seem to have an effect on an art teachers' operational definition of creativity. Results of the study imply that the usefulness of the term creativity needs to be reviewed in general usage and in documents such as curricula. It would seem that there is not a clear notion among art teachers as to what constitutes creativity and a creative product.     

Teaching and tolerance: aversive and divisive pedagogical encounters

This paper takes as its subject the circulation of tolerance discourse within two pedagogical encounters in two Australian educational settings, and draws from the work of Wendy Brown on tolerance as a regulatory force. Brown argues that discourses of tolerance are produced within historical and cultural milieu that enable tolerance and aversion to exist simultaneously. This has significant implications for how we might come to understand the project of working towards a socially just educational system and the various struggles encountered within pedagogical sites. I also examine the pedagogical affects that are produced within different educational moments as we work to teach in or around difference and when we embody the Other in the classroom. I engage with how these experiences speak to the way in which tolerance as national ideal acts to both alleviate and circulate discourses of inequality such as sexism and homophobia.     

The Impossibility of Muslim Citizenship

In this article I ask a seemingly simple question—How can a Muslim be a liberal citizen? In order to explore this question I define who and what was indexed by the term “Muslim” at various points in United States history. I argue that the figure of the Muslim has existed as an existential other upon which otherness, violence, and suspicion was written. I ask how the historic construction of Muslim identities fuels contemporary surveillance programs predicated on an intrinsic fear of Muslim bodies. Drawing upon a decade of ethnographic research with Muslim communities across the United States, I examine Countering Violent Extremism programs. I argue that such policing function re-inscribe and normalize White supremacy and Muslim suspicion of, and within, Muslim communities. Finally, I examine the question of citizenship in neoliberal times and ask how we might understand citizenship rights, particularly for Muslim communities, in the contemporary United States.     

‘Do I have to spell it out?’ Dyslexia,Lexism, and an object of comparison

In this article I mount an attack on the problematic conceptions of literacy that lie behind the Standards and Testing Agency's 2015 Interim Teacher Assessment Frameworks at the End of Key Stage 2 and the Key Stage 2 English Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Tests. I employ an object of comparison (a philosophical method), for attitudes towards literacy and dyslexics. I challenge current conceptions of the Othering of, and discrimination against, dyslexics. I argue for the concept of ‘Lexism’ as an alternative explanatory account for the existence of dyslexics.     

Issues in the definition of child sexual abuse in prevalence research

Despite efforts to promote uniform criteria for defining child sexual abuse, there are still variations in the definitions adopted by individual researchers. This paper focuses on four representative studies, describes differences in the definitions used and examines how such differences may contribute to discrepancies in the estimated prevalence of abuse. Similarities and dissimilarities are identified in several areas: the upper age limit for child sexual abuse, the criteria used to define a given sexual experience as abusive, the inclusion or exclusion of experiences involving age peers, and the use of different criteria for incidents occurring during adolescence. Prevalence rates from one study, which used a slightly less restrictive definition of abuse, were recalculated based on the definitions of other researchers. This resulted in a 14% decrease in the number of individuals identified as abused. While this is a substantial change, it accounts for only a portion of the discrepancy in prevalence rates, suggesting that other factors, such as methodological differences, need to be examined with regard to their impact on prevalence rates. Historical and legal issues pertaining to the definition of child sexual abuse are also discussed.     

Why study? How reasons for learning influence strategy selection

Learners' use of strategies cannot be understood without understanding the nature of their motivation for learning. Using an intentional framework which emphasizes learners' purposes, research in the last 10 years has found that different goals, or different definitions of success and failure, have distinct implications for strategy selection and use. In this review, I describe what we have learned to date about these relationships and suggest how approaches to research on goals and strategies might be broadened.     

What is Art in Education? New Narratives of Learning

In this paper I address some questions pertinent to the development of school art education. I begin by considering how we relate to art and how we might understand the notion of this relation in terms of human subjectivity and the art object. To do this I describe particular art practices that have broadened social conceptions of art, which in turn, become part of art itself and shape performances of understanding, learning and practice. Implicit to this discussion is a change in how artists, art practice and engagement with art are conceived. I then consider some art events in school art education and analyse how human subjects, art practices and objects are understood in this context. This leads to further remarks about how learners and practice in school art education might be discerned in the light of the preceding discussion.     

知识与价值:对德性认识论的初步回答

对知识性质的追问导致了当代认识论中对知识定义的争论。争论的焦点在于如何理解知识与价值的关系问题。德性认识论对这个问题给出了一种解决方案,试图用道德的规范性说明知识的规范性,甚至试图用认识的客观性说明道德的客观性。然而,这种方案的主要困难在于没有看到知识作为一种规范性概念如何与人类的价值发生联系。中国传统哲学中的认识论可以为我们理解这个问题提供启发。"德性所知"、"格物致知"的认识论模式是从德性出发讨论认识问题。只有当我们把知识理解为由德性和心性所生发出来的对特殊事物的理解,我们才能理解知识所包含的真实内涵。只有在对人类灵魂的普遍理解中,我们才能真正把握知识的内在价值。如果必须放弃把知识理解为得到证明的真信念这个定义,我们更需要论证知识定义中除了得到证明和真理之外还应当包含的更多的内容。我们首先需要考虑的是价值问题在知识构成中的作用,其次还要考虑认识活动中的价值客观性问题。我们不再否定知识构成中的主观因素的影响,而是更多地关注这些主观因素在多少程度上会最终进入客观的领域。只有从这个角度出发,我们才能真正理解知识与价值之间的互动关系。     

“学习型社会”界定的反思：基于信息空间理论的视角

关于学习型社会是什么的问题同如何理解学习型社会的问题纠缠在一起。通过梳理国内外有关学习型社会的不同界定,可以发现存在着解字式和溯源式两种理解方式。由于学习型社会概念同未来社会观念联系在一起,因此澄清学习型社会界定的线索存在于对未来社会观念的清晰把握上。博伊索特的信息空间理论为理解信息时代的知识社会提供了新的概念框架,从而为界定学习型社会概念提供了一种新视角。学习型社会的信息空间视角关注的是信息和知识的开放与自由流通,以及知识、学习、文化等的多样性。     

Investigating Teachers' Mathematics Teaching Understanding: A Case for Coordinating Perspectives

This paper provides a microanalysis of one Algebra I teacher's instruction to explore the advantages that are afforded us by coordinating two perspectives to document and account for the teacher's mathematical understandings. We use constructs associated with Stein, Grover and Henningsen's domain of mathematical didactics and Realistic Mathematics Education's instructional design theory to infer what the teacher might understand to effectively implement her instructional goals and, more importantly, support student learning. By coordinating these perspectives, we developed a working framework for analyzing the teacher's classroom practice retrospectively. For example, we illustrate how the mathematical possibilities related to one student's question might inform the teacher's decisions as she initiates shifts in students' self-generated models. Additionally, we illustrate how the teacher's decision to capitalize on particular students' models contributes in part to the kinds of mathematical ideas that can be explored and the connections students can make among those ideas. More generally, we explore the utility of coordinating these two perspectives to understand the landscape of ideas that teachers might traverse to align their practices with reform recommendations in the United States.     

Overlooking the descent: Operational definition,identification, and description of school decline

Educators, researchers, politicians, and the media have committed considerable time, attention, and effort to chronically low-performing schools. Although many have chided the schools for their unacceptable performance or designed strategies to improve them, few have sought to understand how these schools became chronically low-performing in the first place. Better knowledge of how schools decline into chronic low-performance will allow interested stakeholders to potentially prevent and turnaround chronically low-performing schools. However, before understanding the factors and processes associated with or contributing to school decline, researchers must first properly define and identify the process. This paper offers four operational definitions of school decline, applies those definitions to a population of schools, and evaluates the utility of each definition.     

Proposing an Operational Definition of Science Teacher Beliefs

Much research has shown that a science teacher’s beliefs are related to their teaching practice. This line of research has often defined “belief” epistemologically. That is, beliefs are often defined relative to other mental constructs, such as knowledge, dispositions, or attitudes. Left unspecified is the role beliefs play in cognition and how they come to influence science teachers’ classroom practice. As such, researchers and science teacher educators have relied on an (at times, implicit) assumption that there is a direct causal relationship between teachers’ beliefs and classroom practice. In this paper, we propose an operational, as opposed to epistemological, definition of belief. That is, we are explicit about the role a belief plays in science teachers’ cognition and how that leads to classroom practice. We define a belief as a mental representation that influences the practice of a teacher if and only if the belief is active in cognition. We then turn our attention to two limitations in the literature on that have arisen via previous definitions and assumptions regarding science teacher beliefs, showing how defining beliefs operationally helps think about these issues in new ways. The two limitations surround: (1) the difficulty in precisely delineating belief from knowledge; and (2) the interconnectedness of beliefs such that they draw meaning from one another. We then show how our definition of beliefs is congruent with other models of teacher cognition reported in the literature. Finally, we provide implications arising from this definition of belief for both science teacher educators and those who conduct research on the beliefs of both preservice and in-service science teachers.