Examine the first-year student experience as so rarely seen from the community college perspective and increase the odds of the new-to-college students’ success. For three decades, U.S. higher education has paid increasing attention to the beginning college experience—to ensure that entering students make a successful transition to college. Yet, much of the extant research and practice literature focuses on the experience of first-year students entering four-year colleges and universities. Fulfilling the Promise of the Community College is an insightful publication that (...) provides a thought-provoking, idea-inspiring look at the unique characteristics of the community college and its students. In addition, it explores the barriers to success these students face as well as strategies for ensuring that their higher education goals can be achieved. Authors describe successful adaptations of faculty development initiatives, first-year seminars, common reading programs, academic and career advising, learning communities, and STEM initiatives in the community college setting. (shrink)

This paper presents the work of philosopher Susanne Langer and argues that her conceptualization of the human mind can provide psychoanalysts with a unique framework with which to theoretically combine interpretive and biological approaches to their work. Langer’s earlier work in the philosophy of symbols directs her investigation into the biological sciences along the lines of sentience and imagination, which in turn become the cornerstones of her theory of mind. Langer’s understanding of the continuing transformation of affect into language is (...) a decisive contribution yet to be built upon by others. (shrink)

We hypothesize that black women experience accelerated biological aging in response to repeated or prolonged adaptation to subjective and objective stressors. Drawing on stress physiology and ethnographic, social science, and public health literature, we lay out the rationale for this hypothesis. We also perform a first population-based test of its plausibility, focusing on telomere length, a biomeasure of aging that may be shortened by stressors. Analyzing data from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), we estimate that at (...) ages 49–55, black women are 7.5 years biologically “older” than white women. Indicators of perceived stress and poverty account for 27% of this difference. Data limitations preclude assessing objective stressors and also result in imprecise estimates, limiting our ability to draw firm inferences. Further investigation of black-white differences in telomere length using large-population-based samples of broad age range and with detailed measures of environmental stressors is merited. (shrink)

2021 marks Dylan's 80th birthday and his 60th year in the music world. It invites us to look back on his career and the multitudes that it contains. Is he a song and dance man? A political hero? A protest singer? A self-portrait artist who has yet to paint his masterpiece? Is he Shakespeare in the alley? The greatest living exponent of American music? An ironsmith? Internet radio DJ? Poet (who knows it)? Is he a spiritual and religious parking meter? (...) Judas? The voice of a generation or a false prophet, jokerman, and thief? Dylan is all these and none. The essays in this book explore the Nobel laureate’s masks, collectively reflecting upon their meaning through time, change, movement, and age. They are written by wonderful and diverse set of contributors, all here for his 80th birthday bash: celebrated Dylanologists like Michael Gray and Laura Tenschert; recording artists such as Robyn Hitchcock, Barb Jungr, Amy Rigby, and Emma Swift; and 'the professors’ who all like his looks: David Boucher, Anne Margaret Daniel, Ray Monk, Galen Strawson, and more. Read it on your toaster! (shrink)

The central problem of social theory is 'structure and agency'. How do the objective features of society influence human agents? Determinism is not the answer, nor is conditioning as currently conceptualised. It accentuates the way structure and culture shape the social context in which individuals operate, but it neglects our personal capacity to define what we care about most and to establish a modus vivendi expressive of our concerns. Through inner dialogue, 'the internal conversation', individuals reflect upon their social situation (...) in the light of current concerns and projects. On the basis of a series of unique, in-depth interviews, Archer identifies three distinctive forms of internal conversation. These govern agents' responses to social conditioning, their individual patterns of social mobility and whether or not they contribute to social stability or change. Thus the internal conversation is seen as being the missing link between society and the individual, structure and agency. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging interview Professor Margaret Archer discusses a variety of aspects of her work, academic career and influences, beginning with the role the study of education systems played in...

Many scholars continue to accord routine action a central role in social theory and defend the continuing relevance of Bourdieu's habitus. Simultaneously, most recognize the importance of reflexivity. In this article, I consider three versions of the effort to render these concepts compatible, which I term "empirical combination," "hybridization," and "ontological and theoretical reconciliation." None of the efforts is ultimately successful in analytical terms. Moreover, I argue on empirical grounds that the relevance of habitus began to decrease toward the end (...) of the 20th century, given major changes in the structures of the advanced capitalist democracies. In these circumstances, habitual forms prove incapable of providing guidelines for people's lives and, thus, make reflexivity imperative. I conclude by arguing that even the reproduction of natal background is a reflexive activity today and that the mode most favorable to producing it—what I call "communicative reflexivity"—is becoming harder to sustain. (shrink)

This book, the last volume in the Social Morphogenesis series, examines whether or not a Morphogenic society can foster new modes of human relations that could exercise a form of 'relational steering', protecting and promoting a nuanced version of the good life for all. It analyses the way in which the intensification of morphogenesis and the diminishing of morphostasis impact upon human flourishing. The book links intensified morphogenesis to promoting human flourishing based on the assumption that new opportunities open up (...) novel experiences, skills, and modes of communication that appeal to talents previously lacking any outlet or recognition. It proposes that equality of opportunity would increase as ascribed characteristics diminished in importance, and it could be maintained as the notion of achievement continued to diversify. Digitalization has opened the cultural 'archive' for more to explore and, as it expands exponentially, so do new complementary compatibilities whose development foster yet further opportunities. If more people can do more of what they do best, these represent stepping stones towards the 'good life' for more of them. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe role of Concrete Utopias in the works of Roy Bhaskar are contrasted with the ‘Real Utopias’ of Erik Olin Wright. Critical Realism treats them as ‘possibilities’ that are real because re...

In Culture and Agency, I distinguished between the ‘Cultural System', namely all items logged into the universal cultural archive, and ‘Socio-Cultural' interaction, na...

David Lockwood's distinction between System Integration and Social Integration is brought together with the Morphogenetic Approach to account for the current societal fragmentation experience...

Volume 18, Issue 5, October 2019, Page 535-544.

Current theories of knowledge, art, and power are locked into sterile debates around the question of representation. This book examines the limits of antirepresentationalism in these fields and argues that the anarchist tradition can point the way beyond our contemporary crisis of representation. The author rereads the theory and practical experiences of anarchism from the nineteenth century to the present, proposing a radical revision of received notions of the subject - from the equation of anarchy with literary decadence to the (...) interpretation of anarchism as yet another discourse founded on a notion of the human essence. What emerges, instead, is a complex portrait of anarchism as a body of thought that provides the framework for a kind of critical realism, with implications for fields ranging from aesthetics to economics, from philosophy to politics. Jesse Cohn teaches English at Purdue University North Central. (shrink)

Recent studies in music education have investigated the ways in which different groups construe music and music education, and the ways in which these constructions are culturally bound. A Cultural Psychology of Music Education explores the ways in which the discipline of cultural psychology can contribute to our understanding of how music learning and development occurs in a range of cultural settings, and the subsequent implications of such understanding for the theory and practice of music education. The book opens with (...) an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of a cultural psychology of music education. Ten eminent music education scholars and researchers provide chapters that illustrate the application of this approach to key issues in music education; its theory and practice. These chapters provide opportunities to look more deeply into the practices of music education in order to understand the role culture plays in shaping children's musical learning and thinking, the learning and teaching of music teachers, the formal and informal institutions and structures within and through which learning and teaching occur, and, the intersection of these processes and structures in the development of musical thought and practice. As the first major publication to explore a cultural psychology of music education, this volume signals new directions for the study of music educational theory and practice, and the continuing transformation of the discipline. It draws together a number of music education researchers working within a cultural psychology framework establishing a basic reference in this developing field. A fascinating subject, this volume will be of interest to music educators, students and researchers of music education, and music psychologists. (shrink)

Morrison and Morgan argue for a view of models as 'mediating instruments' whose role in scientific theorising goes beyond applying theory. Models are partially independent of both theories and the world. This autonomy allows for a unified account of their role as instruments that allow for exploration of both theories and the world.

We agree with Grossmann that fear often builds cooperative relationships. Yet he neglects much extant literature. Prior researchers have discussed how fear (and other emotions) build cooperative relationships, have questioned whether fear per se evolved to serve this purpose, and have emphasized that human cooperation takes many forms. Grossmann's theory would benefit from a wider consideration of this work.

Tomasello argues in the target article that a sense of moral obligation emerges from the creation of a collaborative “we” motivating us to fulfill our cooperative duties. We suggest that “we” takes many forms, entailing different obligations, depending on the type of the relationship in question. We sketch a framework of such types, functions, and obligations to guide future research in our commentary.

In the outpatient ultrasound suite of a major urban medical center, the mood is somber. A young woman lies tense and anxious. Pregnant for the first time, she has experienced early first-trimester bleeding. The radiologist relates the ultrasound findings: there has been a small hemorrhage, but there is a six-week-size fetus with normal cardiac activity. Translation: the baby is alive! The woman quietly sobs, happy but apprehensive.Across the drive, in the main hospital building, a young boy lies unresponsively comatose in (...) the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. He was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. He is relying on a ventilator to breath, but his cardiovascular system is supporting itself. After a series... (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 3, June 2020, Page 217-221.

Although the term psychotherapy evokes the idea of an incisive intervention, psychotherapy is fundamentally different from any procedure found in medicine or surgery aimed at curing a disrupted body. Psychotherapy does not aim to cure the body or even the brain; it aims to persuade a person in distress to think and behave differently. It is a method common in some form to all cultures. The late Jerome Frank, a psychiatrist and esteemed scientific investigator of psychotherapy, used the study of (...) therapies that succeeded and failed to define several characteristics common to all successful therapies (Frank and Frank 1991). In addition, he found that patients seek psychotherapy for reassurance, hope, and support .. (shrink)

The educational reform movement in social studies has focused on constructivist and inquiry-oriented approaches to the teaching of history. Since many social studies teacher education students have had little experience with such approaches in their own schooling, special attention needs to be given to these topics within teacher preparation programs if they are to be implemented in schools. One pathway for accomplishing this is through investigations of local history. This article presents an exploratory qualitative research study investigating pre-service teachers' understanding (...) of inquiry and the impact of a set of lessons in a methods class using local history in the service of inquiry-oriented learning. The results suggest that local history can be an effective tool for stimulating interest in and a deeper understanding of inquiry-oriented teaching. (shrink)

This study examines high school students’ responses to a public policy discussion on the topic of Internet privacy. Specifically, students discussed the question of whether search engines and social media sites should be permitted to monitor, track, and share users’ personal data or whether such practices violate personal privacy. We observed discussions of the topic in four high school classrooms in 2015–2016, prior to the presidential election in 2016. We first explain why the topic failed to work as a controversial (...) public issue with high schoolers. We then explain their responses to the issue. We found (1) students displayed a surprising trust in Facebook and Google; (2) students framed the issue of Internet Privacy as a conflict in values and a set of trade-offs; and (3) students tended to put more weight on personal responsibility than implications for democracy in their assessment of the (acknowledged) erosion of privacy as a result of social media and Internet search engines. We conclude with implications for social studies education and teacher education. (shrink)

A three‐tiered legal structure of the substances constitutive of human beings can accommodate property rights in new products created by the investment of labor in human tissue.

ABSTRACTClose relationship partners often respond to happiness expressed through smiles with capitalization, i.e. they join in attempting to up-regulate and prolong the individual’s positive emotion, and they often respond to crying with interpersonal down-regulation of negative emotions, attempting to dampen the negative emotions. We investigated how people responded when happiness was expressed through tears, an expression termed dimorphous. We hypothesised that the physical expression of crying would prompt interpersonal down-regulation of emotion when the onlooker perceived that the expresser was experiencing (...) negative or positive emotions. When participants were asked how they would behave when faced with smiles of joy, we expected capitalization responses, and when faced with tears of joy, we expected down-regulation responses. In six experimental studies using video and photographic stimuli, we found support for our hypotheses. Throughout our investigations we test and discuss boundaries of and poss... (shrink)

In recent years, we have seen a new concern with ethics training for research and development professionals. Although ethics training has become more common, the effectiveness of the training being provided is open to question. In the present effort, a new ethics training course was developed that stresses the importance of the strategies people apply to make sense of ethical problems. The effectiveness of this training was assessed in a sample of 59 doctoral students working in the biological and social (...) sciences using a pre–post design with follow-up and a series of ethical decision-making measures serving as the outcome variable. Results showed not only that this training led to sizable gains in ethical decision making but also that these gains were maintained over time. The implications of these findings for ethics training in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

These essays showcase the value of the narrative arts in investigating complex conflicts of value in moral and political life, and explore the philosophical problem of moral dilemmas as expressed in ancient drama, classic and contemporary ...

If humans are purely physical, and if it is the brain that does the work formerly assigned to the mind or soul, then how can it fail to be the case that all of our thoughts and actions are determined by the laws of neurobiology? If this is the case, then free will, moral responsibility, and, indeed, reason itself would appear to be in jeopardy. Murphy and Brown present an original defence of a non-reductive version of physicalism whereby humans (...) are the authors of their own thoughts and actions. (shrink)

During the coldest winter of my life, I breathe on my fingers to give them temporary relief from numbness. They come to life momentarily, and I lean down to puff on a cigarette again. The cold hurts my bones and has gotten inside of me in a way that I have never experienced before, even in my Midwestern childhood. I tilt my head back and blow the smoke out of an open window. There’s something thrilling about smoking indoors, and something (...) deeply uncomfortable that I don’t want to face about smoking inside of a hospital.I am standing in a hallway between wards of a Chinese hospital in the outskirts of Beijing. I’ve been here for weeks but have lost track of the days in a pleasantly disorienting way, almost like... (shrink)

Current general restrictions on performance-enhancing drugs pose a collective action problem that cannot be solved and bring a variety of adverse consequences for sport. General prohibitions of PEDs are grounded in claims that they violate the integrity of sport. But there are decisive arguments against integrity of sport-based prohibitions of PEDs for elite sport. We defend a harm prevention approach to PED prohibition as an alternative. This position cannot support a general ban on PEDs, since it provides no basis for (...) prohibiting non-harmful PED use. We argue that a harm prevention approach to restricting PEDs is ethically justified, has better prospects of compliance, is consistent with respecting the integrity of sport, and holds at least a modest prospect of resolving the collective action problem around PED restriction. (shrink)