Gymnastics,Hygiene and Eugenics in Brazil at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

The aim of this study was to describe the influence of medical knowledge on the organisation of school gymnastics in Brazil, in the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century. For this purpose, the following sources were used: PhD theses approved by the Faculties of Medicine in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia state, and documents from the Academia Nacional de Medicina and the Escola Normal de São Paulo. It was concluded that the hygienist mentality was fundamental for the diffusion of gymnastics in the Brazilian context.     

环境与优生

文章主要分析了环境因素,如化学、物理、生物、行为和营养等因素对优生的影响。提出改善优生环境的措施及设想,以此消除危害优生的各种环境因素,预防和减少出生缺陷儿的出生,达到优生目的,提高人口素质。     

Educators confront the ‘science’ of racism, 1898–1925

The literature depicting educators’ role in scientific racism and eugenics during the early 20th century has tended to approach the topic in dichotomous terms, as an ideology that one was either for or against. In this historical study, the author adds some nuance to this literature by tracing leading educators’ inconsistent and evolving thoughts on eugenics and the ‘science’ of race. By approaching the educational discourse on race as thinking rather than thought, the author explores how scholars such as G. Stanley Hall, John Dewey, Franz Boas, William Bagley, David Snedden, Edward Thorndike and Charles Ellwood struggled to make sense of a rapidly changing ideological landscape, but nevertheless supported the ideology of white supremacy.     

The Concept of Intelligence in Psychology as a Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness

During the 20th century, mainstream psychologists exhibited a dogmatic belief in the reality of the abstraction of human intelligence as a cluster of functional behaviours. In confusing this abstraction for the concrete totality of the human intellectual experience, psychologists have committed what Alfred North Whitehead calls a "fallacy of misplaced concreteness" (1925/1967, p. 58). That is, they have mistaken a narrowly abstract conception of intelligence for concrete reality. This mistake has contributed to a dogmatic and naive ignorance of other possible explanations for intelligent human experience. If psychology truly desires to be a legitimate science in endeavouring to understand human intelligence, it must take into account concrete aesthetic experiences that are fundamental to the growth of creative consciousness and human knowledge.     

试论元极学的优生观

人本性、未性并存,要实现优生,据人天整体观,务必顺应自然以生发本性,在日常生活中注重天时、地利、人和。     

Awareness of Societal Issues Among High School Biology Teachers Teaching Genetics

The purpose of this study was to investigate how aware high school biology teachers are of societal issues (values, moral, ethic, and legal issues) while teaching genetics, genetics engineering, molecular genetics, human heredity, and evolution. The study includes a short historical review of World War II atrocities during the Holocaust when scientists from all the above-mentioned disciplines had been involved in trying to support and develop the eugenics theories. It investigates pre- and postwar theories of the eugenics movement in the United States which were implemented successfully in Germany and a literature survey of the studies of societal issues related to these subjects. The sample consisted of 30 male and female biology teachers. Enclosed are teachers' answers in favor or against including debates about societal issues in their classrooms while teaching the disciplines mentioned above. Teachers' answers were analyzed in relation to three variables: years of teaching experience, gender, and religion faith. Data were collected from questionnaires and personal interviews and analyzed according to qualitative and quantitative methods. The results show that amongst the teachers there is a medium to low level of awareness of societal issues, while mainly emphasizing scientific subjects in preparation of matriculation examinations. The majority of the teachers do not include societal issues in their teaching, but if students raise these issues, teachers claimed to address them. No differences in teachers' opinions to societal issues were found in relation to gender or religious faith. Teachers with more years of teaching experience tend to teach with a more Science, Technology, and Society (STS) approach than novice teachers. The results are discussed in relation to teachers' professional development and teaching strategies are suggested to be used in their classrooms based on a STS approach, which includes the societal issues as a main goal.     

The errors of redemptive sociology or giving up on hope and despair

Abstract

This paper considers the sociology of education (SOE) as a modern human science. It suggests that the SOE is mired in a set of unreflexive, redemptive, Enlightment rationalities, and explores the messy relationships of the sociology with education that result from this. It is argues that the sociology of education has consistently failed to distance itself from the metaphysics, optimism and oppressions of modern schooling. That it has failed to call into question either the basic building blocks of schooling, or what we call education – pedagogy, curriculum and assessment – or the buildings themselves, the spaces of education. The paper concludes by asserting to need for critique rather than simply criticism as a starting point for thinking education differently.     

Sport,Science, and the Social Question in Early Twentieth-Century Argentina: An Analysis of Parliamentary Discussions, 1907–1924

This research reveals an unexplored aspect of Argentina’s sport policy-making process during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Contrary to the common assumption that little attention was paid to sport by early twentieth-century politicians, several bills proposing institutional support for the promotion and organization of national sport were presented in the Argentinean legislature. In order to support these proposals, many legislators resorted to medical and physiological discourse as the most important legitimizing force. Poverty, poor hygiene, and epidemic diseases, generated by rapid modernization and urbanization, urged some turn-of-the-century Argentine political elites to attempt a degree of social intervention within the general framework of the liberal-conservative order, as a way to counteract these evils and further advance the national progress enjoyed since the nineteenth century. In this context, sport was ardently advocated by some politicians as a means to raise scientifically the physical and moral constitution of the ‘Argentinean race’.     

论张竞生的生育思想

张竞生是“中国计划生育第一人”,出于本人的经历和当时中国的特殊国情,张竞生在20世纪20年代就提出了优生节育的主张,并从各个方面论述了节育优生的理论,这些理论对传统生育观念具有颠覆意义,对中国生育观的近代化,妇女解放和优生善种也都产生了重要的影响。