The Meaning of the Web

Speculation about the meaning of the Net (the Internet and potentially associated networks) and its most rapidly developing dimension, the Web (the World Wide Web), are both symptoms and components of a broader reshaping of world politics, economy, and culture. These changes challenge many of the categories within which we have grown used to thinking about the shape and meaning of society and its future. For individuals and local communities, the promises, hopes, and fears associated with the growth of the Web have particular poignancy as they face the challenge of establishing and asserting their identity in a ever more complicated and interdependent world and, through that, finding a strategy for achieving the sort of future they would like to live. The Net and the Web are technologies that promise us access to the world, but they and their associated social and economic trends challenge many of the premises upon which our identity is forged. The Net facilitates the development of new forms of transnational community organization, opening up the promise of more effective ways of acting as citizens across the broader social terrains in which it must be expressed. This article reconsiders the traditional theoretical tools that we have available to understand these issues. It addresses some of the central difficulties and possibilities available to us in rethinking identity, exploring the new promising cultural potential of the Web and Net in a more integrated and simultaneously fragmenting world.     

Cultures of Experimental Practice – An Approach in a Museum

The aim of this paper is to describe the generation of as well as theexperiences made with an exhibition that was presented in spring 1998 in the Oldenburg Museumof Natural History and Pre-History. The thematic leitmotiv of thisexhibition was to present experiments from the history of physics as a cultural activity. In doing so, reconstructionsof historical experimental set-ups were not only shown but enabled the visitors to make their own experimentalexperiences with these apparatus.     

Lewis Carroll’s Obtuse Problem

Carroll’s apparently impeccable solution to one of his probability problems is shown to answer another problem that is based on reasonable assumptions. His original assumptions, however, are self contradictory, hence entailing paradoxical results.     

Free‐choice environmental learning: framing the discussion

Education is a lifelong endeavor; the public learns in many places and contexts, for a diversity of reasons, throughout their lives. During the past couple of decades, there has been a growing awareness that free‐choice learning experiences – learning experiences where the learner exercises a large degree of choice and control over the what, when and why of learning – play a major role in lifelong learning. Worldwide, most environmental learning is not acquired in school, but outside of school through free‐choice learning experiences. Included in this article are brief overviews of environmental learning, the nature of learning, the educational infrastructure, and free‐choice learning as a term. This article provides a framework for thinking about free‐choice environmental learning and sets the stage for thinking about the other articles in this special issue.     

Modeling Response Styles in Cross‐Country Self‐Reports: An Application of a Multilevel Multidimensional Nominal Response Model

We examined the feasibility and results of a multilevel multidimensional nominal response model (ML‐MNRM) for measuring both substantive constructs and extreme response style (ERS) across countries. The ML‐MNRM considers within‐country clustering while allowing overall item slopes to vary across items and examination of whether certain items were more prone to ERS. We applied this model to survey items from TALIS 2013. Results indicated that self‐efficacy items were more likely to trigger ERS compared to need for professional development, and the between‐country relationships among constructs can change due to ERS. Simulations assessed the estimation approach and found adequate recovery of model parameters and factor scores. We stress the importance of additional validity studies to improve the cross‐cultural comparability of substantive constructs.