Child‐Rearing Practices and Expert Identities: A tale of two interventions

Paul Smeyers’ keynote address to the PESA 2007 Conference, ‘The Entrepreneurial Self and Informal Education: On government intervention and the discourse of experts’ provides a timely call for questioning the governing of the family. This paper draws upon Smeyers’ key concerns to explore both historical and contemporary trends in clustering government agencies, under the guidance of child development experts. The guidance of two expert groups is problematised, with particular attention to an absence of commitment to Māori perspectives of education and child‐rearing. Such an absence reflects, in New Zealand, a dangerous undermining of the historic treaty between the British and Māori. The paper then challenges, with brief reference to Jacques Derrida's discussions on autobiography and Freud's Legacy, the identity of expert groups advocating early intervention in the lives of families measured as a burden on economic and social progress. The paper posits that perhaps it is the developmental expert that requires some form of early intervention.     

Emptiness and the Education of the Emotions

This article argues that Buddhist philosophy offers a plausible theory of the education of the emotions. Emotions are analyzed as cognitive feeling events in which the subject is passive. The education of the emotions is possible if and only if it is possible to evaluate one’s emotional life (the normative condition) and it is possible to satisfy the normative condition through learning (the pedagogical condition). Drawing on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, as well as the concepts of conditioned arising, emptiness and anattā, the article presents a view of the education of the emotions that rejects craving for permanence.     

论因明的知识谱系

如果把因明仅仅定义为关于三支论式及其规则之学,重读古典,走进文本,则可以从文本里衍生出因明的知识谱系：从因明的发展演进来看,实现了印度因明到中国化因明的转换;从因明理论来看,三支论式是五支论式的完善,有与亚里士多德三段论不同的概念群;从研究范围来看,涵摄因明理论与应用。因明知识谱系的分析表明,与有效性推理不同,因明有着自己的一套概念体系和应用范围。从产生之初,逻辑就是思想的论证工具。研究逻辑史、写作逻辑史理应从思想论证视角进入,从逻辑理论与应用两个方面发现并总结不同逻辑的各自特征,这是文明互鉴的基础。

     

Using a realist research methodology in policy analysis

The article describes the usefulness of a realist methodology in linking sociological theory to empirically obtained data through the development of a methodological device. Three layers of analysis were integrated: 1. the findings from a case study about Māori language education in New Zealand; 2. the identification and analysis of contradictions and vagueness in language education policy; and, 3. the explanation of these contradictions in terms deeper ideological forces underpinning bicultural politics in New Zealand. The paper makes two contributions to the literature. It demonstrates how a realist methodology can link theory and data, specifically in the discussion of the methodological device. It also generalises the findings in terms of how ideologies of ‘culture’ (i.e ‘culturalism’) inform the inclusion of culture in education in New Zealand and internationally.     

Transformative praxis in teacher practice: one tauira finds her place in education

This paper reports on an initial teacher education programme that has been designed to facilitate and support Māori student teachers in New Zealand. This paper highlights the ambiguity in New Zealand on the theoretical foundation of initial teacher education. Therefore a background on transformative praxis and how it has impacted on the education system of New Zealand is first presented. Then the tauira’s (student teacher’s) narrative is presented which has been informed by two years of a Te Ao Māori (Māori worldview) programme. The programme was built upon critical theory to facilitate transformative praxis in student teachers. Specifically, this narrative was a vehicle for how her own past in mainstream education and the programme has impacted upon how she sees teaching and being the teacher. The paper highlights the positive impact a culturally responsive programme can have on the self‐efficacy of marginalised members of society.     

《通志》“梵竺四曲”考略

郑樵《通志》所录梵竺四曲,《舍利弗》是中土善声沙门截取《妙法莲华经》中世尊所说的偈并裁减经中的一些情节而成的呗声,与西域所传梵剧《舍利弗传》并无关系;《法寿乐》是文惠太子为配合自编舞蹈《法乐梵舞》的演出而令王融创作的乐歌,非呗声或徒诗;《阿那》为蠕蠕国遗存的佛曲,此曲名非原曲名,后来的好事者用此曲填写新词歌蠕蠕主阿那的事迹,于是就用阿那的名字为曲名,取代了旧的曲名;《摩多楼子》则是从西域传入的佛曲,今传歌词肯定不是其原歌词,只是在它传入中土后,才有好事者沿用其名写了歌词,借以言＂征战行役之苦＂,并非是因梵剧《舍利弗传》中有征戍情节而拟述之。     

A Possible Connection between the Philosophy of the Castilian king Alfonso X and the Risālat ayy ibn Yaqān by Ibn ufayl

This article explores the textual connections between two narratives: Ibn ufayl's (581/1185–6) Risālat ayy ibn Yaqān and a brief history of religions present in two works – the General Estoria and the Stenario – produced in the Castilian court of king Alfonso X (1221–1284). Both literary narratives deal with the intersection of philosophy and metaphysics. First, Alfonso X's cultural renaissance is contextualized. Under Arabic influence, Alfonso's collaborators created a cultural synthesis that was denounced by his son Sancho in the 1290s. Second, we compare Ibn ufayl's and Alfonso X's narratives. Ibn ufayl's model was probably adapted to justify a cultural programme that blended Christianity and Pagan inheritance. Unfortunately, there is no physical evidence to prove that Alfonso's circle was familiar with Ibn ufayl's work. Nevertheless, the analysis of a common genre – following A.W. Hughes's theory – allows us to contend that Alfonso X reproduced this type of text within a Christian context.     

The Last and Most Developed Naṣrid Palace in the Alhambra: The Alijares and Its Country Estate (Fourteenth Century)

The country estate (al-munya, almunia in Spanish) of the Alijares occupied grounds near the Alhambra and the Generalife, although it was higher up. It was constructed at the peak of the Na?rid dynasty's splendour, during the last stage of the reign of Mu?ammad V (r.1354–1359 / 1362–1391), after he had finished the Palace of the Lions.

The Alijares formed the last link in the chain in the stylistic development of the palaces of al-Andalus. When its founder decided on the features of the Alijares, he was in search of something that was completely innovative, as he had already undertaken work in the medinas of Granada and in the Alhambra that turned out to be a transformation of the architectural forms so far developed.

Life in the palace and the al-munya was cut short by sizeable earthquake in 1431, which coincided with a hard Castilian military campaign against the Kingdom of Granada. The consequences of the allegiance formed after the Na?rid defeat hindered the reconstruction of the Alijares, and so the royal buildings above the Royal Water Channel (Acequia Real) of the Alhambra were abandoned. Although time has erased many of the traces of the palace and its al-munya, we have extensive knowledge of its main architectural features, thanks to an analysis of all the available sources.     

Sultan Barqūq and his Complaining Subjects in the Royal Stables

In 789/1387, Sultan al-?āhir Barqūq (r. 784–792/1382–89, 793–802/1390–99), the founder of the Circassian Mamluk State, moved the royal ma?ālim sessions for hearing petitions from Dār al-‘Adl, the time-honoured building at the centre of the Cairo Citadel, to the Royal Stables situated in the peripheral and lower enclosure of the Citadel. Thereafter, Barqūq utilised the stable area as a stronghold of his new paternalistic rule. This paper examines the background, political intention, and social meaning of this important change, with special attention to various actions of urban and rural Egyptian people during the two reigns of the sultan.     

The Origin of Language and its Link with Music according to the Theory of Jābir ibn [Hdot]ayyān

Jābir ibn [Hdot]ayyān took advantage of the vast translation enterprise of Greek scientific works into Arabic. He quotes from these sources, including several whose Greek originals are lost. His works can be likened to the encyclopedia of Ikhwān al-[Sdot]afā’, the most important transmission of Pythagorean tradition. In this Epistle on Music the Ikhwān followed Jābir's method, and perhaps were influenced by him, in analysing the relationship between language and music, together with the arithmetical speculations that were widely influential. In this article, I have attempted to collect Jābir's scattered ideas on the origin of language and music trying to assemble the major ones in a coherent exposition.