Science motivational beliefs are crucial for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) performance and persistence, but these beliefs typically decline during high school. We expanded the literature on adolescents’ science motivational beliefs by examining: 1) changes in motivational beliefs in three specific science subjects, 2) how gender, immigrant generation status, and perceived support from key social agents predicted differences in adolescents’ science motivational beliefs, and 3) these processes among Latino/as in the United States, whose underrepresentation in STEM is understudied. We (...) used hierarchical linear modeling to estimate the changes in 104 (40% female) Latino/a high school students’ physics, chemistry, and biology motivational beliefs from 9th to 11th grade. Subject-specific ability self-concept, interest, and utility were regressed on gender, immigrant generation status, and perceived science support while controlling for family income, parent education, and adolescents’ school. Adolescents’ utility declined from 9th to 11th grade whereas their interest remained stable for all three science subjects. Adolescents’ ability self-concept increased for biology, decreased for physics, but remained stable for chemistry. Gender differences in adolescents’ motivational beliefs at 9th grade only emerged for physics utility as well as physics and chemistry interest; yet, there were no gender differences in how adolescents’ science motivational beliefs changed over time. Contrary to expectations, immigrant generation status was not significantly associated with adolescents’ science motivational beliefs at 9th grade or in terms of how they changed over time. Adolescents who perceived higher science support generally had higher motivational beliefs in 9th grade, but did not differ on their rate of change. Our findings highlight the need to examine specific science subjects, and that typical gender differences in adolescents’ motivational beliefs discussed in the literature may not generalize to all racial and ethnic groups. (shrink)

The surface grammar of reports such as ‘I have a pain in my leg’ suggests that pains are objects which are spatially located in parts of the body. We show that the parallel construction is not available in Mandarin. Further, four philosophically important grammatical features of such reports cannot be reproduced. This suggests that arguments and puzzles surrounding such reports may be tracking artefacts of English, rather than philosophically significant features of the world.

This chapter contains sections titled: Why Asset Ownership? The Content of Work: Meaningful Work The Governance of Work: Protection against Arbitrary Interference The Status of Work: Workers as Property Owners Conclusion References.

Philosophers disagree about what the folk concept of pain is. This paper criticises existing theories of the folk concept of pain, i.e. the mental view, the bodily view, and the recently proposed polyeidic view. It puts forward an alternative proposal – the polysemy view – according to which pain terms like “sore,” “ache” and “hurt” are polysemous, where one sense refers to a mental state and another a bodily state, and the type of polysemy at issue reflects two distinct but (...) related concepts of pain. Implications with respect to issues in philosophy of pain are also drawn. (shrink)

In The Specter of Materialism Petrus Liu examines what "materialism" means for progressive queer theory and Marxist approaches to China's postsocialist economy. Liu recasts the history of queer theory in light of the Beijing Consensus, arguing that North American queer theory's inability to sustain a materialist analysis is the result of its positioning of the United States, rather than China, as the focal point of contemporary global capitalism. Analyzing relations of gender and sexuality that have been reconfigured by China's global (...) capitalist accumulation-such as dagongmei (female migrant laborers in China's export-oriented sunbelt) and money boys (rural-to-urban sex workers)-Liu argues for a materialist queer theory that positions China at the center. (shrink)

Against a backcloth of philosophical debates on science and technology, and in particular the viewpoints of Karl Marx, this three-volume set proposes to reconsider science and technology and explores how the philosophy of science and technology responds to scientific and technological evolutions and an ever-changing world. The first volume analyses Marx's reconsideration of science and technology in five parts: its positioning, its historical practice, alienation of science and technology, and its relationship with productivity and human liberty. In the second volume, (...) viewpoints and problems of scientism and anti-scientism are discussed, covering topics such as instrumental reason, scientific optimism and pessimism, irrationalism and the deconstruction of scientism. The final volume discusses complementary value choices, the loss and awakening of scientific culture and reveals a vison for a liberal and open world of science and technology. The volumes will appeal to scholars and students interested in Marxist philosophy, the philosophy of science and technology and topics related to scientific culture. (shrink)

Using the symbiotic sustainability model as a framework, this research investigates how many and with which businesses top nonprofit organizations report partnerships. We examined the websites of the 122 largest, most recognizable U.S. nonprofits. These websites included information about 2,418 business–nonprofit partnerships with 1,707 unique businesses. The results suggest key differences with previous research on how U.S. Fortune 500 companies report B2N partnerships. Leading nonprofits report more B2N partnerships than U.S. Fortune 500 companies do. Furthermore, nonprofits do not maintain industry (...) exclusivity in reporting B2N partnerships, like their business counterparts do. Finally, social issue industries do not exert the same isomorphic pressures on B2N partnerships that economic industries do. New propositions that extend the symbiotic sustainability model are presented to account for nonprofits’ unique goals for capital accumulation in B2N partnering and the industry characteristics. (shrink)

The problem of consciousness has been an issue in philosophy of mind for decades, and in recent years panpsychism and panprotopsychism have gained attention among philosophers who are still dedicated to finding a complete explanation of consciousness. In this dissertation, I criticize panpsychism and panprotopsychism by examining their metaphysical plausibility and their epistemic prospects. Concerning the metaphysical plausibility of panpsychism and panprotopsychism, I explain the “combination problem” of panpsychism and criticize several major accounts of panpsychism and panprotopsychism that aim at (...) solving this problem, including Seager’s panpsychist infusionism, Goff’s phenomenal bonding proposal, and Coleman’s panqualityism. I also examine the proposal of motivating panpsychism and panprotopsychism by drawing support from the integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness. I argue that this proposal to merge panpsychism or panprotopsychism with IIT does not work. Concerning the epistemic prospect of panpsychism and panprotopsychism, I raise concerns about whether panpsychism and panprotopsychism can guide a fruitful research program about the nature of consciousness. First, I argue that a theory based on Russellian Monism would not have a promising epistemic prospect. I compare Russellian Monism to Thomistic Hylomorphism and argue that Russellian Monism faces similar epistemic challenges that plagued Thomistic Hylomorphism. Since most theories of contemporary panpsychism and panprotopsychism rely on the metaphysical framework of Russellian Monism, the challenges to Russellian Monism also undermine the epistemic prospects of panpsychism and panprotopsychism. Second, I challenge the epistemic prospects of panpsychism and panprotopsychism by examining if there can be a viable method to study the consciousness of micro-level entities. After revisiting the reasoning process that guided the study of atoms, I argue that studying micro-level facts requires “analogies” that compare micro-level facts with macro-level models. Then I argue that an analogy that fits the need of panpsychism or panprotopsychism is hard to achieve, because we have no macro-level models to be compared to the hypothesized systems of micro-level consciousness. (shrink)