Peace education: Learning to hate war,love peace,and to do something about it

Peace education should not be only general knowledge but conclude with something the students can do — as when health education leads to hygienic practices. For this to happen, our peace concepts have to come closer to the level at which people live, the local level. It is argued that this points to transarmament rather than disarmament; to defence based on local conventional defence, paramilitary units and non-military defence, rather than (or in addition to) negotiations among governments. It is also pointed out that this would lead to the building of less vulnerable societies from the bottom up. Less vulnerable societies would have great capacity for survival even in times of crisis, including warfare in the country itself, being thereby less susceptible to blackmail. The key to national invulnerability is local-level invulnerability. And a society organised with less dependency on national and international centres will also be a society less dependent on offensive weapons, concentrating more on defensive modes of security. Present and dominant modes of defence not only try to combine a high level of vulnerability with offensive weapons, but also operate at a level so far away from the ordinary citizen that he/she feels there is little else to do than just to be informed and perhaps to have strong opinions.     

The Well-tempered Learner: Self-regulation,pedagogical models and teacher education policy

This article considers the curriculum reforms of outcomes-based education and the mechanism of a national qualifications framework in South Africa, also referring to New Zealand, in terms of the kind of learners they instantiate and therefore the kind of teachers needed for learners of that sort to be able to learn. Distinguishing between performance and competence models of pedagogy and analysing their implicit pedagogical logic, the article arrives at the conclusion that the curricular reforms initiated in South Africa embody incompatible logics, which can only lead to confusion. The article ends by reflecting on the ideal of the self-regulating learner pursued by much contemporary curriculum reform, concluding that there are distinct and different kinds of selfregulation fostered by different pedagogical models.     

Applying structural equation modeling in the context of the theory of reasoned action: Some problems and solutions

This study identifies and attempts to solve problems encountered in applications of structural equation modeling (SEM) to the theory of reasoned action. This theory is often used in social psychology and aims at explaining and predicting behavior. The few studies that test this theory with SEM have, in general, 2 methodological problems, which cast serious doubt on the validity of the conclusions. The first problem is that in most of the tests the data do not fit the model. The second problem is that part of the theory is formulated by multiplying 2 variables, which implies that the results are highly dependent on the arbitrarily chosen scale values. These problems are illustrated with a secondary analysis of survey data gathered by Burnkrant and Page (1988) and by new data presented in this study. In this article, an alternative model specification is proposed that strongly improves the fit of the data, but leaves intact the structural part of the model being tested. It is also advisable to omit 1 of the variables that forms part of the multiplicative composite.     

Specific remedy for specific problem: measuring service quality in South African higher education

This study commences a process of developing a scale for the measurement of service quality in higher education in South Africa and also examines the relationship between the measures of service quality on the one hand and some other related variables such as intention to leave the university, trust in management of the university and the overall satisfaction with the university. Using structured questionnaires, survey data was collected from students (n = 391) in two South African universities. Findings indicate that the 52-item measure of service quality in higher education is a multidimensional construct loading on 13 factors with a high reliability coefficient (0.93) and some construct validity. Significant relationships were also found between service quality in HE and other study variables—intention to leave university, trust in management of the university and overall satisfaction with the university. Some further research directions were suggested and policy implications of findings discussed.     

Investigating teachers' educational beliefs in Chinese primary schools: socioeconomic and geographical perspectives

This empirical study explores the nature of and profiles in primary teachers' educational beliefs in the Chinese educational settings. A survey of 820 primary school teachers was conducted using a questionnaire focusing on teachers' traditional and constructivist beliefs about teaching and learning. Analysis of variance and cluster analysis were applied. Results show that gender and subject domain affect traditional educational beliefs. Significant differences appear considering economic and geographical context variables. Cluster analysis helps to delineate four teacher belief profiles: a constructivist profile, a mixed constructivist/traditional profile, a traditional profile, and a mixed low constructivist/traditional profile. Inter-relation between teacher belief profiles and school categories are discussed.     

Long-run effects of public-private research joint ventures: The case of the Danish Innovation Consortia support scheme

Subsidized research joint ventures (RJVs) between public research institutions and industry have become increasingly popular in Europe and the US. We study the long-run effects of such a support scheme that has been maintained by the Danish government since 1995. To cope with identification problems we apply nearest neighbor matching and conditional difference-in-difference estimation methods. Our main findings are that (i) program participation effects are instant for annual patent applications and last for three years, (ii) employment effects materialize first after one year and (iii) there are no statistically significant effects on value added or labor productivity. We further show that these overall results are primarily driven by firms that were patent active prior to joining the RJV and that there are no statistically significant effects for large firms. The insignificant results we document for large firms coupled with the fact that these type of firms are over-represented in many support programs, including the one considered here, leads us to suggest a rethinking of support policies that often aim at large firms.     

The inadequacy of ADHD: a philosophical contribution

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a widely spread diagnosis. The dominant paradigm of ADHD is biomedical where ADHD is defined as a brain disorder. At the same time, the legitimacy of the diagnosis is being questioned since it is unclear whether or not ADHD can be deemed a medical disorder in itself. The aim of this article is to critically assess the merits of understanding the diagnosis of ADHD as a medical condition defined as a brain disorder. This is being done using the seventeenth century philosopher Benedict Spinoza’s (1632–1677) notions of adequate and inadequate knowledge and his counterintuitive theory of mental health. Doing so it becomes clear that ADHD, however adequate it may seem, is founded on inadequate knowledge and that the legitimacy of the individual diagnosis should therefore be questioned on the grounds that on a long term scale it is passivizing and stigmatizing rather that liberating.     

Deep transitions: Emergence,acceleration, stabilization and directionality

Industrial society has not only led to high levels of wealth and welfare in the Western world, but also to increasing global ecological degradation and social inequality. The socio-technical systems that underlay contemporary societies have substantially contributed to these outcomes. This paper proposes that these socio-technical systems are an expression of a limited number of meta-rules that, for the past 250 years, have driven innovation and hence system evolution in a particular direction, thereby constituting the First Deep Transition. Meeting the cumulative social and ecological consequences of the overall direction of the First Deep Transition would require a radical change, not only in socio-technical systems but also in the meta-rules driving their evolution – the Second Deep Transition. This paper develops a new theoretical framework that aims to explain the emergence, acceleration, stabilization and directionality of Deep Transitions. It does so through the synthesis of two literatures that have attempted to explain large-scale and long-term socio-technical change: the Multi-level Perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions, and Techno-economic Paradigm (TEP) framework.