Learner agency in urban schools? A pragmatic transactional approach

Abstract

Enhancing learner agency in urban schools is seen as increasingly important in educational policy for narrowing existing attainment gaps. However, notions of learner agency are contested and require conceptual clarity. To help generate such clarity a conceptual synthesis of the field was undertaken that resulted in a mapping framework around three distinct and yet interrelated perspectives: (a) micro-individualistic self-authoring, (b) macro- and meso-level structural and cultural determination, and (c) macro-meso and micro level conflation and interconnection. Based on conceptual shortcomings in the field, we develop our own fourth approach that focuses on a relational, pragmatic transactional perspective. This suggests the young person as a separated learning agent is an incorrect unit of analysis to explain intent behind action. Instead we are argue for the holistic and integrated (Deweyan) notion of transaction that focuses on young people being subject and subjected to conditions as much as being subjects of their conditions.     

波斯纳的实用主义法学

波斯纳既是大法官,又是大法学家;既高产,又优产。波斯纳所信奉的实用主义法学并非主流,但波斯纳的学术地位堪称一流。张力与调和是波斯纳法学思想的主要特点,同时波斯纳又具有超强的修辞表述能力,这就使波斯纳的著作具有非凡的影响力。     

How Journalists “Realize” Facts

The degree to which journalists realize their most basic societal role and provide fact-based accounts has been a point of contestation between several camps. While adherents to the notion of the social construction of reality have infused scholarly discourse with far-reaching doubts about journalists' ability to report facts, emphasizing the arbitrariness of their practices, pragmatic theorists of knowledge and realists, a minority among journalism scholars, have distinguished between practices more and less conducive to the goal of truth. The current paper presents findings from an exploratory study conducted in Israel, in which news-gathering practices are directly observed at controversy-laden press conferences. This arena avails a thorough observation of journalist–source exchanges, without breaching the principle of source confidentiality. The practices observed are juxtaposed against the news products, alongside reporters' own comments on their work and reasoning. We suggest that a pragmatic conception of knowledge among journalists is compatible with observable practices such as reporters' questioning tactics and choices of interrogative emphases, more so than journalistic notions of realism and the social construction of reality.     

Charles Peirce’s Rhetoric and the Pedagogy of Active Learning

Abstract

Although John Dewey has had the most profound effect on education, less is known about the philosophy of education of the original founder of pragmatism, Charles Peirce Using Peirce’s theory of formal rhetoric, I try to show that Peirce’s philosophy of education, when fully understood, is aligned with Dewey’s pedagogy of experiential learning, and can provide a justification for the promotion of active learning in the classroom. Peirce’s rhetoric, as one part of his logical or semiotic theory, argues that reasoning alone is not sufficient to gain knowledge, but that it must be embedded within a community of inquiry, of a certain sort. Applying this to the classroom, I argue that we, as teachers, should endeavor to create the features of a proper community of inquiry in the classroom, one that emphasizes engagement of the students in doing research rather than passively receiving information about its results.     

国共内战时期英国对中共态度转变之原因

国共内战时期,英国对中共的态度大致经历着由反共走向“亲共”的转变历程。英国对中共态度的转变,从宏观上受到二战结束之初美苏冷战背景的影响,同时又受到内战局势以及中英关系中香港问题的影响。从根本上而言,内战时期英国对中共态度的转变,与此间英国对华政策基本保持一致．在这种表象性的态度转变背后,英国外交政策中国家利益至上的原则并没有根本的改变。     

文本实用主义的陷阱——分析马克思主义的文本分析法批判

分析马克思主义运用分析哲学的方法研究马克思主义的文本,力求叙述上的清晰、严谨和逻辑一致,以此重构马克思主义理论.但是,由于拒绝辩证法,分析马克思主义者只重分析,不重综合;教条主义、实用主义地看待马克思的思想;甚至忽略了文本中的修辞手法.这种非辩证的、非历史的文本解读方式,使其陷入了"文本实用主义"的陷阱之中,这是导致他们曲解马克思主义的根本原因,也是当前我们研究马克思主义文本时应当避免的.     

明清之际教育改革家颜元的教学思想述论

颜元是明清之际的思想家,实学教育的代表,他从唯物主义世界观出发,对封建传统教育进行了深刻的批判,崇尚培养实德实才之士的实学教学目标及课程内容,强调习行的教学方法,所有这些都是对宋元以来传统理学教育的改革,并对近代教育产生了深刻的影响。     

皮尔士与詹姆斯实用主义之比较

实用主义是遭受最多误解和责难的哲学术语之一。在中国,它已经完全成为一个贬义词。通过比较其创始人皮尔士和早期代表人物詹姆斯对实用主义的阐释,也许可以澄清实用主义的最初含义从而使这一哲学思想能够得到应有的正视和理解。     

法学研究中实用主义进路之提倡——理查德·A·波斯纳的理论及对中国的启示

结果导向主义的实用主义为我们观察法律和分析法律问题提供了一个全新的视角,也提供了一种更具解释力的研究路径。认识论意义上的实用主义和方法论意义上的实用主义,分别对应着学术批评和理论建构。对波斯纳的实用主义理论进行实用主义的借鉴,有助于提升我国学术批判意识、消解法学研究中的法条主义以及经验性地理解法官的行为和司法活动。我国的法学研究需要实用主义的指导。     

浅议颜元的书院教育改革

明清之际的启蒙教育家颜元,从经世致用的宗旨出发,推行具有实学特色的书院教育改革,尤其注重事物之学,提倡习行和主动,致力于实用人才的培养。全面革除了宋明书院教育的弊端,并对后世教育产生了深远的影响。