The Virtue Approach to Moral Education: Some Conceptual Clarifications

There is a lot of talking and writing on virtues and education nowadays. In spite of this, a clear and convincing account of the defining characteristics of the virtue approach to moral education is still lacking. This paper suggests and discusses three different definitions of such an approach. With reference to each definition it is examined whether the virtue approach can be distinguished from other main perspectives on moral education, in particular from the so-called cognitive-developmental approach (including the just community approach). It is argued that only the definition that refers to an ethics of virtue will have the required differentiating capacity. Consequently, only on the basis of this definition can the virtue approach be regarded as a qualitatively new development in research on moral education.     

>UNIVERSITIES,COLLEGES AND OTHERS: DIVERSITY OF STRUCTURES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION ‐ REPORT ON THE MULTILATERAL WORKSHOP

This report discusses the Workshop as a whole and reflects upon the points raised in the papers presented and the resulting discussions. First, the reasons for establishing non‐university higher education are presented and discussed, and then types of diversification, particularly vertical diversification, are examined. The most important questions raised, however, are those of how diversification is to be established and by what mechanisms it is to be controlled. The conclusions are mixed but stress that diversification should be undertaken very carefully and very democratically, care being taken both to recognize the value of the university tradition which has been evolving for centuries to avoid threats to flexibility and international recognition and mobility.     

Training and testing physical capacities for elite soccer players

Elite soccer players spend a substantial amount of time trying to improve physical capacities, including aerobic endurance and strength and the strength derivatives of speed and power. The average oxygen uptake for international soccer teams ranges from 55 to 68 ml.kg-1.min-1 and the half-squat maximal strength from 120 to 180 kg. These values are similar to those found in other team sports. Recently, it has been shown that the heart's stroke volume is the element in the oxygen chain that mainly limits aerobic endurance for athletes. These findings have given rise to more intensive training interventions to secure high stroke volumes, which, in turn, have proved positive in changing both maximal oxygen consumption and soccer performance in terms of distance covered, contacts with the ball and number of sprints in a game. The training employed has consisted of 4x4-min "intervals" running uphill at 90-95% of maximal heart rate interspersed with 3 min jogging at 70% of maximal heart rate to facilitate removal of lactate. Research has revealed that a soccer-specific training routine with the ball might be as effective as plain running. Strength training to produce neural adaptations has been effective in changing not only strength in terms of "one-repetition maximum", but also sprinting velocity and jumping height, in elite soccer players without any change in body mass. The same training has also improved running economy and thus aerobic endurance performance. The training regimen used for a European Champions League team was 4x4 repetitions of half-squats with the emphasis on maximal mobilization of force in the concentric action.     

Interaction between the teacher and the congenitally deafblind child

Empirical data on the development of interaction, communication, and language in deafblind children is very rare. To fill this gap, a case study was conducted in which the interaction between a teacher and a deafblind boy age 3 years 4 months was analyzed. Sequential analysis of their interaction confirmed some general clinical impressions about interaction with deafblind children, and provided the basis for suggestions on how the interaction pattern might be changed.     

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences electronic health record and medical informatics training for undergraduate health professionals

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is planning interprofessional training in electronic health records (EHRs) and medical informatics. Training will be integrated throughout the curricula and will include seminars on broad concepts supplemented with online modules, didactic lectures, and hands-on experiences. Training will prepare future health professionals to use EHRs, evidence-based medicine, medical decision support, and point-of-care tools to reduce errors, improve standards of care, address Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requirements and accreditation standards, and promote appropriate documentation to enable data retrieval for clinical research. UAMS will ensure that graduates are ready for the rapidly evolving practice environment created by the HITECH Act.     

Rivals for the crown: Reply to Opthof and Leydesdorff

We reply to the criticism of Opthof and Leydesdorff on the way in which our institute applies journal and field normalizations to citation counts. We point out why we believe most of the criticism is unjustified, but we also indicate where we think Opthof and Leydesdorff raise a valid point.     

Reading the Local and Global: Teaching Literature in Secondary Schools in Australia

Recently Australia has witnessed a revival of concern about the place of Australian literature within the school curriculum. This has occurred within a policy environment where there is increasing emphasis on Australia’s place in a world economy, and on the need to encourage young people to think of themselves in a global context. These dimensions are reflected in the recently published Australian Curriculum: English, which requires students to read texts of ‘enduring artistic and cultural value’ that are drawn from ‘world and Australian literature’. No indication, however, is given as to how the reading and literary interpretation that students do might meaningfully be framed by such categories. This essay asks: what saliences do the categories of the ‘local’, the ‘national’ and the ‘global’ have when young people engage with literary texts? How does this impact on teachers’ and students’ interpretative approaches to literature? What place does a ‘literary’ education, whether conceived in ‘local’, ‘national’ or ‘global’ terms, have in the twenty-first century?     

Reconceptualising the curriculum: from commodification to transformation

This article inveighs against the prevalent commodified discourse in Higher Education especially as it impacts on curriculum planning, quality assurance and learner typologies. It expresses a concern that educational research, in offering models drawn, but now divorced from, practice, may contribute to this negative impact. As an example, a polarised model distinguishing features of ‘traditional’ from ‘emerging’ curricula is criticised as contributing to this commodification; as diminishing the status of university teachers, as offering an instrument to reductive quality assurance systems and as militating against the disciplines operating as communities of practice. In contradistinction to this dichotomizing model, but extrapolating from the same article, a ‘both/and’ model outlining elements of process- and discipline community-based ‘transformational curricula’ is offered. It is perhaps impossible to write about the evils of externalised models and reductively abstract discourse without contribut ing to that very effect. The article therefore ends with two voices which are not those of educational researchers.