Ethicists have long observed that unethical communication may result from texts that contain no overt falsehoods but are nevertheless misleading. Less clear, however, has been the way that context and text work together to create misleading communication. Concepts from linguistics can be used to explain implicature and indirect speech acts, two patterns which, though in themselves not unethical, may allow misinterpretations and, therefore, create potentially unethical communication. Additionally, sociolinguistic theory provides insights into why writers in business and other professions are (...) prone to use these patterns. An analysis of five cases shows that implicature and indirectness are sometimes used intentionally to deceive readers. However, their use may also reflect other motives such as the desire to mitigate negative information or to show deference to an unfamiliar or powerful reader. Although implicature and indirectness are not intended to deceive in these cases, they can lead to a loss of clarity and to subsequent ethical problems when readers misinterpret texts. (shrink)

A construction is found in American Sign Language that we call a Question–Answer Clause. It is made of two parts: the first part looks like an interrogative clause conveying a question, while the second part resembles a declarative clause answering that question. The very same signer has to sign both, the entire construction is interpreted as truth-conditionally equivalent to a declarative sentence, and it can be uttered only under certain discourse conditions. These and other properties of Question–Answer Clauses are discussed, (...) and a detailed syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic account is provided. Question–Answer Clauses are argued to be copular clauses consisting of a silent copula of identity connecting an interrogative clause in the precopular position with a declarative clause in the postcopular position. Pragmatically, they instantiate a topic/comment structure, with the first part expressing a sub-question under discussion and the second part expressing the answer to that sub-question. Broader implications of the analysis are discussed for the Question Under Discussion theory of discourse structuring, for the analysis of pseudoclefts in spoken languages, and for recent proposals about the need for answerhood operators and exhaustivity operators in the grammar and the consequences for the syntax/semantics/pragmatics interface. (shrink)

In the process of conversion, one of the greatest challenges faced by Arab Muslims who choose to follow a Christian faith is determining how to relate to their birth communities, especially their immediate families. They continue to identify with their family and desire to function within its communal system and expectations, but also desire to be true to their new faith. For most converts in the Middle East, ceasing to adhere to the Islamic creed per se is not an act (...) of apostasy, but declaring that one has left Islam and chosen another faith is, and is seen as an act of rebellion by the community. The process of self-disclosure, or ‘coming out’, is complex, and many converts consider their decision about how to do this to be very important. There are various approaches converts may take, and various ways their families may respond, but one implicitly shared understanding between many converts and their families may be labelled ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, whereby converts speak openly about their changed beliefs without explicitly declaring they have converted, and their families respond in kind, deliberately not asking if they have converted, in order to maintain a strong relationship with their loved ones. (shrink)

Once upon a time, an ugly duckling became famous in the history of European fairy tales. It was said of him that "… the poor duckling, who had come last out of his eggshell, and was so ugly, was bitten, pecked, and teased by both ducks and hens.… The poor thing scarcely knew what to do; he was quite distressed because he was so ugly."Today, in America—the mecca of MakeOver culture—that ugly duckling would know exactly what to do: tell his (...) pitiful tale and be accepted for an "Extreme Makeover" that would be televised around the world. This paper uses Foucault's rich and complex notion of an Apparatus to examine how weight-loss surgery is migrating into the repertoire of "normalized procedures" listed under .. (shrink)

Since Austin’s introduction of the locutionary-illocutionary-perlocutionary distinction, it has been a matter of debate within speech act theory whether illocutionary acts like promising, warning, refusing and telling require audience ‘uptake’ in order to be performed. Philosophers on different sides of this debate have tried to support their positions by appealing to hypothetical scenarios, designed to elicit intuitive judgements about the role of uptake. However, philosophers’ intuitions appeared to remain deadlocked, while laypeople’s intuitions have not yet been probed. To begin (...) rectifying that, we ran two experiments probing lay intuitions about the implications of uptake failure. Overall, we found that participants’ responses were skewed towards agreement that speech acts were performed, despite the lack of uptake. There were, however, significant differences across the four different speech act types we investigated (with the highest levels of agreement found for refusing, followed by warning, then telling, and finally promising). We also obtained evidence of complex effects relating to the (high or low) stakes involved in the scenarios. While this study only represents an initial exploration of intuitions about uptake, our results form a basis for further research into their nature and significance, across a range of speech acts, scenarios, and experimental designs. (shrink)

The current study examined youths’ and their parents’ perceptions concerning participation in an investigation of spontaneous and induced pain during recovery from laparoscopic appendectomy. Youth and their parents independently completed surveys about their study participation. On a scale from 0 to 10, both parents and youth rated their experience as positive. Among youth, experience ratings did not differ by pain severity and survey responses did not differ by age. Most youth reported that they would tell another youth to participate. Ethical (...) issues regarding instigation of pain in youth for research purposes are examined. (shrink)

The article challenges conventional assumptions regarding the question of incest survival within contemporary discourses. A textual analysis of Kathryn Harrison's autobiographical novel tracing her consensual sexual relationship with her father is used to address the issue of failed or unresolved mourning as a prototypically ‘modern’ cultural phenomenon. Psychoanalytically informed feminist literary criticism is used to explore the parallels between the cultural construction of femininity and failed or postponed mourning in western historical and philosophical traditions. Following the work of Juliana (...) Schiesari and Kathleen Woodward, the article contends that melancholia is a gendered discourse that has historically privileged male theorists and film-makers, such as Barthes and Fassbinder. The article suggests that contemporary women writers, such as Harrison, are engaged in a revisionary approach to the construction of loss within their writing. By situating themselves at the heart of the contemporary family narrative, instead of the ‘melancholic’ margins, they are able to produce a counter-discourse that dispels the conventional dynamics of the traditional family romance. By using the ‘writing cure’ to overcome ideological loss, the desiring daughter is able to challenge misogynist constructions of femininity within contemporary literature. (shrink)

I was optimistic of a new beginning in an open society when I came to America in 1999. Since then, I have indeed benefited from many aspects of American life. I have learned a lot – especially through my experience with small farms and farmers. But now, it's time to move on. And it was reading Debt and Dispossession, a book about American agriculture and human values, that crystallized in me why I wanted to leave. By telling the story (...) of the 1980s farm crisis through the words of the residents of a Minnesota town, the book prizes open many of the contradictions of American society. The 1970s were boom times for mid-western farms; farmers took advantage of “easy” farm credit to finance expansion. By the 1980s, the boom burst and slump loomed. Lenders wanted their money back and thousands of farmers were dispossessed. Debt and Dispossession probes beneath the surface of a community apparently united in protest against the dispossessions. Underneath, it finds a tangled picture of a society at war with itself, pitting farmer against farmer in a fratricidal struggle. The book let me glimpse the paradox of American individualism, all-American contradictions centering on government and consumerism, frugality and morality. Just like my experience of American agriculture and farmers as a whole, Debt and Dispossession helped me see the best side of America, but also revealed the fragility of life in a one-on-one society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Fantasy: How It Works by Brian AtteberyAna Tejero-MarínBrian Attebery. Fantasy: How It Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. 208 pp., hardcover, $29.99. ISBN 9780192856234.Fantasy is a literary genre often associated with the unreal. As it deals with imaginary worlds or magical feats, its tools and strategies for making meaning differ from those of realist literature. In the past, this has sometimes led to misunderstandings about the merits of (...) fantasy and to its dismissal as escapist literature. Fantasy has also been seen as the reactionary reverse of science fiction, as a genre that looks into a mythical past with reverence and longing and that perpetuates unjust systems of oppression. [End Page 260]Brian Attebery sets out to respond to these old conceptions of fantasy in Fantasy: How It Works. As a scholar who has devoted most of his long career to advocate for the value of fantasy literature, most notably in his 1992 study Strategies of Fantasy, Attebery has witnessed the transformation of the genre from an academic outcast into a subject that is considered worthy of systematic research. He further acknowledges that the current vitality of the conversations concerning fantasy literature cannot be solely attributed to academia but also derives from the pervasiveness of fantasy in contemporary culture, which extends the discourse from "classrooms to coffee shops to basements where a lively game of Dungeons and Dragons has been going on for years" (7). Fantasy is a genre that attracts devoted fans and practitioners, and their passion is the driving force behind Attebery's work: "When I write about fantasy, I know I am making claims about something people care about and something about which my listeners might have exhaustive knowledge. If those people matter, then fantasy matters" (7).Contrary to earlier theorists in the field, like Tzvetan Todorov, Kathryn Hume or Rosemary Jackson, Attebery does not intend to provide a definition or a classification of fantasy, since genres are mutable and constantly evolving, he asserts. His main objective is to explore two questions instead: "how does fantasy mean?" and "what does fantasy do?" (1). Each chapter engages with these questions by examining a distinct facet of fantastic storytelling or worldbuilding. According to Attebery, storytelling and worldbuilding cannot be separated when it comes to fantasy, for "fantasy creates story-worlds: narrated spaces in which causality and character and consequence are inextricably entwined" (1). The introduction then explains the method that Attebery follows in the subsequent chapters: "I'll notice a loose thread in the fabric of literature, start tugging at it, see where the seams come apart, and ask what that tells us about the original garment. If I'm lucky, some sort of thesis emerges along the way" (4–5). As he himself admits, this method implies that many thoughts arise and circulate in each of the chapters and, usually, no central thesis follows, which "doesn't make it easy to extract the core ideas for application elsewhere" (5). However, he believes that this process of uncovering latent meanings of fantasy, instead of arriving at a solid conclusion, is the most interesting part of his work. The analyses of contemporary fantasy novels complement the ideas that he brings forward, and in many cases they become the backbone that sustains his theses.Chapter 1, "How Fantasy Means: The Shape of Truth," delineates the development of the first half of the book. Attebery asserts that "fantasy is the lie that speaks truth" (9), and it does so in three different ways: mythically, metaphorically, [End Page 261] and structurally. Although the chapter mainly focuses on this last dimension, all three of them are connected. Attebery claims that, structurally, fantasy "represents the shape of the world" (12); fantasy can reflect the underlying structures of society because it is able to ignore mimesis. Fantasy worlds can be read as models of how the world functions, filtered and reorganized through the fantastical. To be sure, the spaces that realist literature presents are also constructed, ordering the world in ways that render the story legible to its readers; the difference lies in how the two genres are conceived and understood. This relationship between fantasy and realism is further... (shrink)

IntroductionAllocation of research funds relies on peer review to support funding decisions, and these processes can be susceptible to biases and inefficiencies. The aim of this work was to determine which past interventions to peer review and decision-making have worked to improve research funding practices, how they worked, and for whom.MethodsRealist synthesis of peer-review publications and grey literature reporting interventions in peer review for research funding.ResultsWe analysed 96 publications and 36 website sources. Sixty publications enabled us to extract stakeholder-specific context-mechanism-outcomes (...) configurations for 50 interventions, which formed the basis of our synthesis. Shorter applications, reviewer and applicant training, virtual funding panels, enhanced decision models, institutional submission quotas, applicant training in peer review and grant-writing reduced interrater variability, increased relevance of funded research, reduced time taken to write and review applications, promoted increased investment into innovation, and lowered cost of panels.ConclusionsReports of 50 interventions in different areas of peer review provide useful guidance on ways of solving common issues with the peer review process. Evidence of the broader impact of these interventions on the research ecosystem is still needed, and future research should aim to identify processes that consistently work to improve peer review across funders and research contexts. (shrink)

The study examines the relationship between the strength of an organizationÕs ethical climate and ethical problems involving human resource management. Data were collected through a survey of 1078 human resource managers. The results indicate a statistically significant negative relationship between the strength of an organization'ss ethical climate and the seriousness of ethical violations and a statistically significant positive relationship between an organization'ss ethical climate and success in responding to ethical issues. Thus, interventions that strengthen an organization'ss ethical climate may help (...) manage ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)

A range of themes—race and gender, sexuality, otherness, sisterhood, and agency—run throughout this collection, and the chapters constitute a collective discourse at the intersection of Black feminist thought and continental philosophy, converging on a similar set of questions and concerns. These convergences are not random or forced, but are in many ways natural and necessary: the same issues of agency, identity, alienation, and power inevitably are addressed by both camps. Never before has a group of scholars worked together to examine (...) the resources these two traditions can offer one another. By bringing the relationship between these two critical fields of thought to the forefront, the book will encourage scholars to engage in new dialogues about how each can inform the other. If contemporary philosophy is troubled by the fact that it can be too limited, too closed, too white, too male, then this groundbreaking book confronts and challenges these problems. -/- Table of Contents -/- Foreword Beverly Guy-Sheftall Acknowledgments Introduction: Black Feminism and Continental Philosophy Maria del Guadalupe Davidson, Kathryn T. Gines, and Donna-Dale L. Marcano -/- 1. Black Feminism, Poststructuralism, and the Contested Character of Experience Diane Perpich -/- 2. Sartre, Beauvoir, and the Race/Gender Analogy: A Case for Black Feminist Philosophy Kathryn T. Gines -/- 3. The Difference That Difference Makes: Black Feminism and Philosophy Donna-Dale L. Marcano -/- 4. Antigone’s Other Legacy: Slavery and Colonialism in Tègònni: An African Antigone Tina Chanter -/- 5. L Is for . . . : Longing and Becoming in The L-Word’s Racialized Erotic Aimee Carrillo Rowe -/- 6. Race and Feminist Standpoint Theory Anika Maaza Mann -/- 7. Rethinking Black Feminist Subjectivity: Ann duCille and Gilles Deleuze Maria del Guadalupe Davidson -/- 8. From Receptivity to Transformation: On the Intersection of Race, Gender, and the Aesthetic in Contemporary Continental Philosophy Robin M. James -/- 9. Extending Black Feminist Sisterhood in the Face of Violence: Fanon, White Women, and Veiled Muslim Women Traci C. West -/- 10. Madness and Judiciousness: A Phenomenological Reading of a Black Woman’s Encounter with a Saleschild Emily S. Lee -/- 11. Black American Sexuality and the Repressive Hypothesis: Reading Patricia Hill Collins with Michel Foucault Camisha Russell -/- 12. Calling All Sisters: Continental Philosophy and Black Feminist Thinkers Kathy Glass -/- Afterword: Philosophy and the Other of the Second Sex George Yancy Contributor Notes Index. (shrink)

This paper describes a community event organized in response to the appropriation and overreliance on the psychiatric patient “personal story” within mental health organizations. The sharing of experiences through stories by individuals who self-identify as having “lived experience” has been central to the history of organizing for change in and outside of the psychiatric system. However, in the last decade, personal stories have increasingly been used by the psychiatric system to bolster research, education, and fundraising interests. We explore how personal (...) stories from consumer/survivors have been harnessed by mental health organizations to further their interests and in so doing have shifted these narrations from “agents of change” towards one of “disability tourism” or “patient porn.” We mark the ethical dilemmas of narrative cooptation and consumption, and query how stories of resistance can be reclaimed not as personal recovery narratives but rather as a tool for socio-political change. (shrink)

Despite recent advances in HIV prevention and treatment, high HIV incidence persists among people who inject drugs. Difficult legal and political environments and lack of services for PWID likely contribute to high HIV incidence. Some advocates question whether any HIV prevention research is ethically justified in settings where healthcare system fails to provide basic services to PWID and where implementation of research findings is fraught with political barriers. Ethical challenges in research with PWID include concern about whether research evidence will (...) be translated into practice; concerns that research might exacerbate background risks; and ethical challenges regarding the standard of HIV prevention in research. While these questions arise in other research settings, for research with PWID, these questions are especially controversial. This paper analyses four ethical questions in determining whether research could be ethically acceptable: Can researchers ensure that research does not add to the burden of social harms and poor health experienced by PWID? Should research be conducted in settings where it is uncertain whether research findings will be translated into practice? When best practices in prevention and care are not locally available, what standard of care and prevention is ethically appropriate? Does the conduct of research in settings with oppressive policies constitute complicity? We outline specific criteria to address these four ethical challenges. We also urge researchers to join the call to action for policy change to provide proven safe and effective HIV prevention and harm reduction interventions for PWID around the world. (shrink)

Despite recent advances in HIV prevention and treatment, high HIV incidence persists among people who inject drugs. Difficult legal and political environments and lack of services for PWID likely contribute to high HIV incidence. Some advocates question whether any HIV prevention research is ethically justified in settings where healthcare system fails to provide basic services to PWID and where implementation of research findings is fraught with political barriers. Ethical challenges in research with PWID include concern about whether research evidence will (...) be translated into practice; concerns that research might exacerbate background risks; and ethical challenges regarding the standard of HIV prevention in research. While these questions arise in other research settings, for research with PWID, these questions are especially controversial. This paper analyses four ethical questions in determining whether research could be ethically acceptable: Can researchers ensure that research does not add to the burden of social harms and poor health experienced by PWID? Should research be conducted in settings where it is uncertain whether research findings will be translated into practice? When best practices in prevention and care are not locally available, what standard of care and prevention is ethically appropriate? Does the conduct of research in settings with oppressive policies constitute complicity? We outline specific criteria to address these four ethical challenges. We also urge researchers to join the call to action for policy change to provide proven safe and effective HIV prevention and harm reduction interventions for PWID around the world. (shrink)

Crop genetic resources constitute a ‘new’ global commons, characterized by multiple layers of activities of farmers, genebanks, public and private research and development organizations, and regulatory agencies operating from local to global levels. This paper presents sui generis biocultural community protocols that were developed by four communities in Benin and Madagascar to improve their ability to contribute to, and benefit from, the crop commons. The communities were motivated in part by the fact that their national governments’ had recently ratified the (...) Plant Treaty and the Nagoya Protocol, which make commitments to promoting the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities and farmers, without being prescriptive as to how Contracting Parties should implement those commitments. The communities identified the protocols as useful means to advance their interests and/or rights under both the Plant Treaty and the Nagoya Protocol to be recognized as managers of local socio-ecological systems, to access genetic resources from outside the communities, and to control others’ access to resources managed by the community. (shrink)

This paper addresses the potentially interactive effects of descriptive and injunctive norm perceptions on an unethical workplace behavior: counterproductive work behavior perpetration. We draw on the Focus Theory of Normative Conduct and its conceptual distinction between norm types to refine research on this topic. We also test a person-by-environment interaction to determine whether the interactive effects of these norms for CWB are enhanced among employees reporting a stronger need to belong to social groups. In two studies, predictors were assessed in (...) an initial survey and the dependent variable was assessed weeks later. Individuals employed across a range of industries served as participants. In Study 1, descriptive and injunctive norm perceptions of CWB interacted to predict CWB perpetration. This finding was replicated in Study 2. Additionally, Study 2 demonstrated that the interaction between the two norm types was especially strong among individuals high in NTB. Results suggest that to decrease CWB perpetration, organizations may profitably leverage the persuasive effects of “social norms marketing” to alter employee perceptions of the typicality and level of approval for CWBs. This is the first study to demonstrate that both descriptive and injunctive norm perceptions predict CWB perpetration. The demonstrated three-way interaction between the two norm types and NTB advances existing theory regarding the cognitive and motivational mechanisms underlying normative social influence. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Millum and Bromwich provide a thorough and thoughtful analysis of what is required for sufficient informed consent, offering distinct conceptualizations of the ethical requirements of disclo...

It is a cliché of self-help advice that there are no problems, only opportunities. The rationale and actions of the BSHS in creating its Global Digital History of Science Festival may be a rare genuine confirmation of this mantra. The global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 meant that the society's usual annual conference – like everyone else's – had to be cancelled. Once the society decided to go digital, we had a hundred days to organize and deliver our first online festival. (...) In the hope that this will help, inspire and warn colleagues around the world who are also trying to move online, we here detail the considerations, conversations and thinking behind the organizing team's decisions. (shrink)

If stem cell-based therapies are developed, we will likely confront a difficult problem of justice: for biological reasons alone, the new therapies might benefit only a limited range of patients. In fact, they might benefit primarily white Americans, thereby exacerbating long-standing differences in health and health care.

While positive information in the context of clinical care can lead to placebo effects, negatively framed information can have negative or nocebo effects. Extant literature documents how doctor–patient encounters are fertile ground for suboptimal interactions leading to negative experiences for ethnoracial minority patients. In their _JME_ paper, Blease presents a critical perspective on the potential for patients’ access to their doctors’ clinical notes, ‘open notes’, to engender nocebo effects. 1 In this commentary, we affirm the central claim that nocebo effects (...) could emerge ‘via negative wording or framing of health information expressed by clinicians in documentation’. The advent of electronic health records (EHR) allowed patients the unprecedented opportunity to access personal clinical documentation, giving them a window into decision making around their health. This shift is undoubtedly complex, and thus warrants a more fulsome rendering of the unique challenges faced by ethnoracial minority patients. Herein, we highlight three... (shrink)

Several recent systematic and targeted reviews have highlighted limitations in our understanding of talent in sport. However, a comprehensive profile of where the scientific research has focused would help identify gaps in current knowledge. Our goal in this scoping review was to better understand what others have done in the field of research, to summarize the constituent areas of research in a meaningful way, to help identify gaps in the research, and to encourage future research to address these gaps. Peer-reviewed (...) articles written in English that met several inclusion criteria were analyzed. A total of 1,899 articles were identified, and the descriptive findings revealed a relatively narrow focus of research on talent in sport. Specifically, the majority of examined articles focused on males only, the sport of soccer, perceptual cognitive variables, developing athletes, adult samples, and cross-sectional designs. For better or worse, the concept of talent remains a central element of how coaches, practitioners, and scientists think about athlete development. Findings from this scoping review highlight the continued need to explore issues related to talent identification, selection, and development in more diverse samples and contexts. There is also a clear necessity to focus on under-researched areas using alternative methodologies. (shrink)

This article introduces a process-oriented approach for improving present moment conceptualization in psychotherapy that is in alignment with neuroscience: the Temporospatial movements of mind model. We elaborate on seven temporal movements that describe the moment-to-moment morphogenesis of emotional feelings and thoughts from inception to maturity. Temporal refers to the passage of time through which feelings and thoughts develop, and electromagnetic activity, that among other responsibilities, bind information across time. Spatial dynamics extend from an undifferentiated to three dimensional experiences of emotional (...) and cognitive processes. Neurophysiologically, spatial refers to structures within the brain and their varying interactions with one another. This article culminates in the development of an atheoretical temporospatial grid that may help clinicians conceptualize where patients are in their cognitive and emotional development to further guide technique. (shrink)

In crafting our paper on addressing the ethical challenges in HIV prevention research with people who inject drugs,1 we had hoped to stimulate further discussion and deliberation about the topic. We are pleased that three commentaries on our paper have begun this process.2 3 4 The commentaries rightly bring up important issues relating to community engagement and problems in translating research into practice in the fraught environments in which PWID face multiple risks. These risks include acquisition of HIV as well (...) as criminalisation, stigma and lack of access to needed healthcare, prevention and social services. We take this opportunity to respond to the excellent points raised by the commentators. All of the commentaries support our emphasis on robust community engagement with PWID and other stakeholders in designing and conducting HIV prevention research, but urge us to go farther. Wolfe highlights the difficulty of even engaging with community members in oppressive settings, where authorities severely restrict civil liberties of PWID so that even discussing issues related to drug use and enforcement may place individuals at risk. To overcome such limitations, he appropriately suggests interviewing confidentially those who have previously been detained in closed settings as part of the community engagement process. Similarly, Wolfe observes that critical issues can be overlooked with a narrow focus on study procedures if contextual factors before, during or after a study are ignored. For example, he cites the risk of overdose for study participants who have been abstinent during a study and subsequently resume injecting when the study concludes. These kinds of risks may not be obvious …. (shrink)

The paper reports a study that investigated the relationship between students? self-predicted and actual General Certificate of Secondary Education results in order to establish the extent of over- and under-prediction and whether this varies by subject and across genders and socio-economic groupings. It also considered the relationship between actual and predicted attainment and attitudes towards going to university. The sample consisted of 109 young people in two schools being followed up from an earlier study. Just over 50% of predictions were (...) accurate and students were much more likely to over-predict than to under-predict. Most errors of prediction were only one grade out and may reflect examination unreliability as well as student misperceptions. Girls were slightly less likely than boys to over-predict but there were no differences associated with social background. Higher levels of attainment, both actual and predicted, were strongly associated with positive attitudes to university. Differences between predictions and results are likely to reflect examination errors as well as pupil errors. There is no evidence that students from more advantaged social backgrounds over-estimate themselves compared with other students, although boys over-estimate themselves compared with girls. (shrink)

The paper reports a study of children's attitudes to school based on a questionnaire survey of 845 pupils in their first year of secondary school in England, together with interviews with a sample of the children. A clearly structured set of attitudes emerged from a factor analysis which showed a distinction between instrumental and affective aspects of attitudes but also dimensions within these, including a sense of teacher commitment and school as a difficult environment. Virtually all children had a strong (...) sense of the importance of doing well at school. However, a substantial minority were not sure that they would stay on after 16. There were few differences between boys and girls or between children from different socio-economic backgrounds but children planning to leave at 16 enjoyed school less and were less sure that it had anything to offer them. There was an almost universal commitment to the value of education but, for a minority, an ambivalence about the experience and relevance of schooling for them. (shrink)

We discuss our concerns associated with three assumptions upon which the model of Levelt, Roelofs & Meyer is based: assumed generalisability of decontextualised experimental programs, assumed highly modular architecture of the language production systems, and assumed symbolic computations within the language production system. We suggest that these assumptions are problematic and require further justification.