Extending an information processing model of language intensity effects

The information processing model of persuasion was used as the basis for a mathematical model of language intensity effects. The model proposes that attitude change is a product of message discrepancy, source evaluation, and message strength. The results show strong support for the model. The salient source evaluation dimension was perceived trustworthiness. Language intensity enhanced attitude change directly, by acting as a multiplier of message strength, and indirectly, by increasing message discrepancy. These effects held for female as well as male sources. Path analysis indicated the presence of source evaluation heuristics. Intensity enhanced source ratings through a positively linked causal chain from intensity to dynamism to expertise to trustworthiness. Intensity also had negative effects on post‐message expertise and trustworthiness unmediated by dynamism.     

The Literate “Illiterates” of the Northern Cape Province of South Africa—an Empirical Account

This paper discusses the concept “literacy” from an African perspective, with particular reference to the Xhosa culture. The community of Nonzwakazi Township of De Aar in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa is taken as a case study. Thc conventional Western definitions of literacy are debated within the African constructs. Three themes are explored in the paper, namely: (i) The impact of past Apartheid laws on literacy levels in the area, with special reference to the Bantu Education Act of 1953, (ii) The definition of the concept of African traditional literacy, compared to the Western definitions and (iii) An inter-disciplinary definition of literacy using Strauss' 15 Aspects of Life as a guideline.     

Physiological characteristics of successful mountain bikers and professional road cyclists

The aims of this study were to compare the physiological and anthropometric characteristics of successful mountain bikers and professional road cyclists and to re-examine the power-to-weight characteristics of internationally competitive mountain bikers. Internationally competitive cyclists (seven mountain bikers and seven road cyclists) completed the following tests: anthropometric measurements, an incremental cycle ergometer test and a 30 min laboratory time-trial. The mountain bikers were lighter (65.3 - 6.5 vs 74.7 - 3.8 kg, P = 0.01; mean - s ) and leaner than the road cyclists (sum of seven skinfolds: 33.9 - 5.7 vs 44.5 - 10.8 mm, P = 0.04). The mountain bikers produced higher power outputs relative to body mass at maximal exercise (6.3 - 0.5 vs 5.8 - 0.3 W·kg -1 , P = 0.03), at the lactate threshold (5.2 - 0.6 vs 4.7 - 0.3 W·kg -1 , P = 0.048) and during the 30 min time-trial (5.5 - 0.5 vs 4.9 - 0.3 W·kg -1 , P = 0.02). Similarly, peak oxygen uptake relative to body mass was higher in the mountain bikers (78.3 - 4.4 vs 73.0 - 3.4 ml·kg -1 ·min -1 , P = 0.03). The results indicate that high power-to-weight characteristics are important for success in mountain biking. The mountain bikers possessed similar anthropometric and physiological characteristics to previously studied road cycling uphill specialists.     

Deliberative policy analysis: adult literacy assessment and the politics of change

The field of adult literacy in England has a long history, but has particularly developed during the last three decades. Along with the rest of post‐school education and training, it has been substantially reshaped by national policy initiatives since the 1970s. During this period it has struggled to assert itself as a legitimate area of policy and practice through changing political, economic and cultural times. This article draws upon a research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) that tracked the development of adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL from the 1970s to 2000 using life history interviews and documentary policy analysis to compare policy, practitioner and learner perspectives. The article discusses the key influences that have shaped this new field. It describes the deliberative policy analysis framework used to analyse the data and to identify tensions and gaps that have existed between practice, policy and research. It illustrates the analysis by applying it to one key thematic area that emerged from the study, that of assessment.     

Patents: a neglected source in the history of education

Education is a technology, a production system whose elements comprise material, linguistic and conceptual inventions. This multi‐dimensional sense of educational technology is useful whenever attempts are made to understand educational practice. To this end, my paper examines a small corner of the historical or technological record, ‘patents of invention’, a set of sources that has seldom, if ever, been used in English‐language histories of education. To evaluate this source, my attention focuses on the ‘abridgements’, published between 1855 and 1930, where patent applications were grouped according to their use (e.g. as ‘furniture’ or ‘stationery’); and the diversity of these records will be illustrated by reference to an invention – the school desk – that was prominent over the same period.     

At the Interface: The Loaded Rhetorical Gestures of Nuclear Legitimacy and Illegitimacy

This essay examines an important icon of American nuclear modernity, the operator at the interface control panel, to show how the logic of nuclear legitimation in the Cold War has perdured into the contemporary world, and that nuclear terrorists and bomb-wielding “rogue states” can function as inventions that rationalize America's claim to nuclear hegemony. Through a critical account of the “competent” gestures of the state-sanctioned nuclear operator at the interface, and the “incompetent” gestures of the state-repudiated nuclear terrorist, we argue that that the rationalization of nuclear weapons, in a psychoanalytic sense, has depended on rationalization in the Weberian sense.