Children's Social Reasoning in Context: Reply to Gabennesch

Children's social reasoning is multifaceted. Moral judgments of justice, welfare, and rights are an important aspect of domains of social reasoning that are not merely the arbitrary and relative products of social formations. In defining all social formations as conventions that are either reified or accurately perceived as arbitrary and relative human inventions, Gabennesch relegates the moral concepts of many philosophers, moral leaders, and laypersons to ethnocentrism and reification. In the process, he fails to distinguish between metaethics relating to the source of knowledge and the form of knowledge. He also fails to account for distinctions between conventionality and moral concepts that do not constitute realism or reification. His review of the evidence of moral realism in children is selective in that isolated findings are taken out of the context of a particular study and of the entire body of evidence. Moreover, he has incorrectly interpreted many of the findings he cites in support of childhood realism. We present a summary of 48 studies demonstrating that children distinguish morality and convention. Gabennesch's perceptual metaphors hinge on an exaggerated role for conventionality in social formations at the expense of other complex social phenomena.     

So young and already victims of stereotype threat: Socio-economic status and performance of 6 to 9 years old children on Raven’s progressive matrices

The aim of this study was to verify whether children from low socio-economic status (SES) are victims of stereotype threat. Children in first grade (6 to 7 years old) and third grade (8 to 9 years old) performed Raven’s progressive matrices, an intellectual ability test commonly used by psychologists. The test was presented either with the (evaluative) instructions recommended by Raven et al. (1998) or with non evaluative instructions. Children’s SES and beliefs concerning differences of abilities at school as a function of SES were also assessed. The results indicated that, as early as first grade, participants believed that children from high SES are better at school than children from low SES. Furthermore, low SES participants’ performance on the Raven’s matrices was lower in the evaluative condition than in the non evaluative condition. The experimental instructions did not affect high SES participants’ performance. The discussion explores implications of these results in the use of standardized tests to assess the intellectual abilities of low SES children.     

Characterization of 17th Century Mughal tile glazes from Shahdara Complex,Lahore-Pakistan

The glazed tile decorative art was one of the widely used ornamental techniques for the monumental buildings during the Mughal period, in Pakistan. Coloured tile samples from Jahangir tomb were analyzed to know the glaze composition and to identify the colouring phases used at that time. The study was performed using light microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive X-ray analyzer (SEM-EDS), Raman spectroscopy (RS) and electron microprobe analysis (EMPA). These complementary analytical techniques allowed characterizing the samples as alkali glazes made from plant ashes. The results indicated the use of lead-tin yellow type II for yellow glazes, cobalt and copper for blue glazes, mixtures of yellow and blue glazes for the green glazes, manganese for purple glazes, and a transparent glaze layer for white glazes.     

The regulation of release parameters in underarm precision throwing

The aim of this study was to determine if adults spontaneously exploit the laws of physics to achieve better accuracy when throwing at various distances. Eight adults performed 25 underarm throws at five horizontal circular targets located 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 m away with a constant 5% relative accuracy requirement. Angle and speed of the ball at release were found to increase with throwing distance, while the coordinates of the release point did not change significantly. These results support the idea that people minimize the variability in impact distance by adapting both the angle and the speed at ball release following a mechanical optimum predicted by the laws of physics. Moreover, variability in distance was found to be less than expected because of independent variations in the angle and speed at ball release. Hence, the control of precision throwing seems to imply compensatory variability, as frequently reported in the control of skilled actions.     

Fabricating and prefabricating language: troubling trends in libraries

Librarians are succumbing to the influence of the easy-to-adopt, prefab, impersonal, ugly, and often impenetrable jargon borrowed from business and computer technology. Thus, they are in danger of beginning to think of libraries as businesses that provide primarily electronic information and facts rather than materials to support humanistic knowledge and insight.