With the increase in the costs of providing education and concerns about financial responsibility, heightened consideration of accountability and results, elevated awareness of the range of teacher skills and student learning styles and needs, more focus is being placed on the promises offered by online software and educational technology. One of the most heavily marketed, exciting and controversial applications of edtech involves the varied educational programs to which different students are exposed based on how big data applications have evaluated their (...) likely learning profiles. Characterized most often as ‘personalized learning,’ these programs raise a number of ethical concerns especially when used at the K-12 level. This paper analyzes the range of these ethical concerns arguing that characterizing them under the general rubric of ‘privacy’ oversimplifies the concerns and makes it too easy for advocates to dismiss or minimize them. Six distinct ethical concerns are identified: information privacy; anonymity; surveillance; autonomy; non-discrimination; and ownership of information. Particular attention is paid to whether personalized learning programs raise concerns similar to those raised about educational tracking in the 1950s. The paper closes with discussion of three themes that are important to consider in ethical and policy discussions. (shrink)

This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; and coordination of law-based public health actions; and information.This action agenda offers options for consideration by those responsible for (...) or interested in ensuring that public health professionals, their legal counsels, and relevant partners understand the legal framework in which they operate and are competent in applying legal authorities to public health emergency preparedness.Competencies are critical to an individual's ability to make effective legal response to all-hazards public emergencies. (shrink)

This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; and coordination of law-based public health actions; and information.This action agenda offers options for consideration by those responsible for (...) or interested in ensuring that public health professionals, their legal counsels, and relevant partners understand the legal framework in which they operate and are competent in applying legal authorities to public health emergency preparedness.Competencies are critical to an individual's ability to make effective legal response to all-hazards public emergencies. (shrink)

The new historical inscription from Epidaurus has provided us with a unique piece of documentary evidence on Greek federal constitutions. In this article I propose to study the principal points of constitutional interest contained in it. I have based my text on that of Professor Wilcken and M. Kougeas; and I follow Professor Wilcken and Mr. Tarn in identifying the new document with the constitution which Demetrius Poliorcetes imposed upon his pan-Hellenic League in 303–2 B.C.

The Corinthian Speech (Corinthiaca) in the corpus of Dio Chrysostom (Or. 31) is attributed to Favorinus (c.80–160) based on internal criteria of content and style. This article argues that a reference to an author of a Corinthian speech found in a collection of sayings in codex Vaticanus Graecus 1144 is a unique external reference to Favorinus as author of this speech.

That Hermias, the despot of Atarneus, was a barbarian as alleged by Theopompus, fr. 242, Oxf., Letter to Philip, in Didymus in Dem., col. 5, 24, has been denied by Jaeger, Aristoteles, p. 113 n., on the ground that in Aristotle's hymn and epigram he is put forward as a Hellene; cf. ibid., p. 119, on Callisthenes and Hermias. In confirmation may be added that, had he been a barbarian, he could hardly have induced the Eleans to declare the Olympic (...) truce to him as Theopompus says they did, Did. 5, 29. Demetrius the Magnesian, Diog. L. V. 3, said he was a Bithynian; and possibly Theopompus said the same in the defective passage in fr. 210, Did. 4, 69. He may have been in fact a Bithynian by place of birth, yet not by blood: at such Greeks the taunt ‘barbarian’ was readily cast; cf. Birds 1700 on Gorgias, and Aeschines on Demosthenes. But we may go much further in scepticism. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging interview Priscilla Alderson discusses how she came to research parental and childhood consent and became a sociologist and how, late in her career, she became convenor of the critical realism group started by Roy Bhaskar at the Institute for Education in London. She discusses aspects of her seminal research over the years on multiple subjects, such as the rights of children, and reflects on what critical realism has added to her social research.

In the past three decades a number of narrative self-concepts have appeared in the philosophical literature. A central question posed in recent literature concerns the embodiment of the narrative self. Though one of the best-known narrative self-concepts is a non-embodied one, namely Dennett’s self as ‘a center of narrative gravity’, others argue that the narrative self should include a role for embodiment. Several arguments have been made in support of the latter claim, but these can be summarized in two main (...) points. Firstly, a logical one: without taking the body into account Dennett’s theory becomes self-refuting. Secondly, a more practical/phenomenological point: a disembodied self-concept overlooks how personal the body is, and as such should be considered part of the self. In this paper I endorse these criticisms of non-embodied narrative self-concepts, but I argue that the relationship between the narrative self and the body is far from sufficiently fleshed out. I claim that the narrative self and the body are much more interwoven than the above criticisms suggest. What I aim to show in this paper is that the relationship between the body and the narrative self is interactive rather than unidirectional: not only does our body shape our narrative self, but our narrative self also shapes our body. The upshot of this is a better conception of the self is as a dynamic interaction between its various aspects. (shrink)

In October 2019, the Belgian government announced the opening of an asylum center in a former retirement home, leading to civic and political protest that escalated into arson. We examine the construction of the events before, on, and after the arson by analyzing 135 articles from Flemish newspapers, the public broadcaster’s news website, and alternative media between October 25 and November 30, 2019 using qualitative content analysis. Our analysis emphasizes journalists’ role as gatekeepers, deciding which actors get access and legitimation (...) in media coverage. Focus is on the dynamic process of how events become discursively constructed through the interventions of journalists and their sources attempting to gain primary definer status. Our analysis confirms that institutional sources remain more likely to achieve primary definer status in legacy news media. Alternative media perform similar discursive interventions as legacy news media but utilize them to provide access and legitimacy to different actors and standpoints. In the first days of news coverage, in particular, the narratives developed in right-leaning alternative media seemed to spread in legacy news media. In the following days, governmental actors and experts, through their interventions in legacy news media, were able to steer the discourse in a different direction. (shrink)

Background:While there have been studies exploring moral habitability and its impact on the work environments of nurses in Western countries, little is known about the moral habitability of the work environments of nurses and midwives in resource-constrained settings.Research objective:The purpose of this research was to examine the moral habitability of the work environment of nurses and midwives in Ghana and its influence on their moral agency using the philosophical works of Margaret Urban Walker.Research design and participants:A critical moral ethnography was (...) conducted through the analysis of interviews with 30 nurses and midwives, along with observation, and documentary materials.Ethical considerations:After receiving ethics approval, signed informed consent was obtained from participants before data collection.Results:Five themes were identified: (1) holding onto the values, identities, and responsibilities of being a midwife/nurse; (2) scarcity of resources as limiting capacity to meet caring responsibilities; (3) gender and socio-economic inequities shaping the moral-social context of practice; (4) working with incoherent moral understandings and damaged identities in the context of inter- and intra-professional relationships; and (5) surviving through adversity with renewed commitment and courage.Discussion:The nurses and midwives were found to work in an environment that was morally uninhabitable and dominated by the scarcity of resources, overwhelming and incoherent moral responsibilities, oppressive conditions, and workplace violence. These situations constrained their moral agency and provoked suffering and distress. The nurses and midwives negotiated their practice and navigated through morally uninhabitable work environment by holding onto their moral values and commitments to childbearing women.Conclusion:Creating morally habitable workplaces through the provision of adequate resources and instituting interprofessional practice guidelines and workplace violence prevention policies may promote safe and ethical nursing and midwifery practice. (shrink)

Coming from a prosperous London Quaker family, the author Priscilla Wakefield wrote educational books for children, and one work for adults, Reflections on the Present Condition of the Female Sex, also reissued in this series. This 1796 book on botany, a science which 'contributes to health of body and cheerfulness of disposition' but is difficult to study because of its Latin nomenclature and the cost of textbooks, offers a simple introduction for children through the medium of letters between sisters, (...) as 'Felicia' shares with 'Constance' her growing understanding of plant science. Felicia's governess is a follower of Linnaeus, whose classificatory system is described as 'the one universally adopted', and by the twenty-eighth and final letter, Felicia is describing the class Cryptogamia. This illustrated account in simple language gives an insight into the level of education thought appropriate for young girls at the end of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

This study examined the relation between professional affiliation and the framing of expert congressional testimony about nicotine's addictiveness. Experts were chosen from three different types of sponsoring organizations: the tobacco industry, government, and independent research organizations, both pro- and anti-tobacco. The study sought to identify common technical biases and policy concerns that could define an overall “expert” attitude, as well as differences where the experts’ framing of nicotine addiction would reveal attempts to favor their own institutions. Semantic network analysis was (...) applied to each group's discourse, thereby clustering associated words that represented major themes in each type of expert group. Clusters revealed a common preoccupation with narrowly defined, lab-based evidence, but more locally, each group framed the issues to support its sponsor's strategy. (shrink)

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

Através da inquirição filosófica, objetiva-se estabelecer contornos nítidos entre definições precedentes ao Behaviorismo Radical, através de incursões conceituais nesse campo do saber. Evidenciam-se os pressupostos filosóficos que alicerçam o campo conceitual da filosofia da ciência do comportamento.

The Archaeology of Cyprus: From Earliest Prehistory through the Bronze Age. By A. Bernard Knapp. Cambridge World Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xx + 640. $38.99.

The views of parents and staff about physical and symbolic space and its effects on ethical clinical practice are reported. Researchers observed four neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in southern England, and interviewed 40 senior staff and the parents of 80 babies. The adults' concerns include: how space affects the sharing of information and responsibility for the babies; respect and welcoming policies; access, freedom of movement and accessibility of staff; family friendly space and privacy; aesthetic values; and 'baby-led' space. The (...) paper concludes that abstract principles of respect for autonomy and attitudes towards the baby's biological and personal space take on practical embodied meanings in clinical spaces and practices. NICU design and aesthetics convey powerful ethical messages of welcome or exclusion that endorse or undermine partnerships between staff and parents. Helping premature and impaired babies to reach their space at the centre of their family involves sensitive management. (shrink)

This article explores the relations between autobiography, fiction and history in the recent texts of Hélène Cixous. It examines the uses and limits of a range of generic categorizations in accounting for these relations. We suggest that most categorizations tend to rely on an underlying oppositionary and exclusive dynamic between autobiography and fiction in which one or the other may be privileged. Our contention is that Cixous's work should rather be understood within an inclusive dynamic in which all three elements, (...) the fictional, autobiographical and the historical coexist in a complex relation which cannot be disentangled. This inclusive dynamic, we suggest, is not only central to an understanding of the texts’ generic dimensions, but also to the specifics of the pact which Cixous establishes with her readers, as well as to the ethical thinking which underlies her oeuvre. (shrink)

Recent studies of semantic memory have investigated two theories of optimal search adopted from the animal foraging literature: Lévy flights and marginal value theorem. Each theory makes different simplifying assumptions and addresses different findings in search behaviors. In this study, an experiment is conducted to test whether clustering in semantic memory may play a role in evidence for both theories. Labeled magnets and a whiteboard were used to elicit spatial representations of semantic knowledge about animals. Category recall sequences from a (...) separate experiment were used to trace search paths over the spatial representations of animal knowledge. Results showed that spatial distances between animal names arranged on the whiteboard were correlated with inter-response intervals during category recall, and distributions of both dependent measures approximated inverse power laws associated with Lévy flights. In addition, IRIs were relatively shorter when paths first entered animal clusters, and longer when they exited clusters, which is consistent with marginal value theorem. In conclusion, area-restricted searches over clustered semantic spaces may account for two different patterns of results interpreted as supporting two different theories of optimal memory foraging. (shrink)

Pregnancy and childbirth have become a dangerous journey for Black women as harrowing stories of death and near‐death experiences resonate within Black communities. While the causes of pregnancy‐related morbidity and mortality are well documented, little is known about how Black Canadian women feel protected from undesirable maternal health outcomes when accessing and receiving pregnancy and intrapartum care. This critical qualitative inquiry sheds light on Black women's perceived sense of safety in accessing pregnancy and intrapartum care. Twenty‐four in‐depth interviews were conducted (...) with Black women who were pregnant or had given birth. Five interconnected themes were generated through thematic analysis: (1) There is a lot of prejudice towards us, (2) We are treated as sick bodies, (3) There is a lot of stereotypes towards us, (4) Our care is lacking in quality, and (5) We feel unsafe in the healthcare system. These themes highlight the perils faced by Black women accessing pregnancy and intrapartum care. The right to safe motherhood and equitable care for Black women should be a national priority in Canada to avert a looming crisis. (shrink)

The sociology of literature, in the first of many paradoxes, elicits negations before assertions. It is not an established field or academic discipline. The concept as such lacks both intellectual and institutional clarity. Yet none of these limitations affects the vitality and rigor of the larger enterprise. We use the sociology of literature here to refer to the cluster of intellectual ventures that originate in one overriding conviction: the conviction that literature and society necessarily explain each other. Scholars and critics (...) of all kinds congregate under this outsize umbrella only to differ greatly in their sense of what they do and what sociology of literature does. They subscribe to a wide range of theories and methods. Many would not accept the sociology of literature as an appropriate label for their own work; other would refuse it to their colleagues. Nevertheless, every advocate agrees that a sociological practice is essential to literature. For the sociology of literature does not constitute just one more approach to literature. Because it insists upon a sociology of literary knowledge and literary practice within the study of literature, the sociology of literature raises questions basic to all intellectual inquiry.The sociology of literature begins in diversity. The way that is combines the ancient traditions of art with the modern practices of social science makes the very term something of an oxymoron. There is not one sociology of literature, there are many sociological practices of literature, each of which operates within a particular intellectual tradition and specific institutional context. These practices cross basic divisions within the contemporary intellectual field, especially within the university. Inherently interdisciplinary, the sociology of literature is subject to constant reformulation as scholars re-evaluate their disciplines. In consequence, disciplinary boundaries seem less rigid, less logical, and, hence, less authoritative than ever before. Even so—and this is another paradox of the sociology of literature—any sociological conception of literature is best situated in terms of an original discipline and its institutional setting. However frequently individual scholars cross over disciplinary lines, the fundamental divisions retain their force. Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson is professor of French at the University of Illinois at Chicago; she is author of Literary France: The Making of a Culture. Philippe Desan, whose Naissance de la method: Machiavelle, la Ramée, Bodin, Montaigne, Descartes was published in 1987, is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago. Wendy Griswold, associate professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, recently published Renaissance Revivals: City Comedy and Revenge Tragedy in the London Theatre, 1576-1980. (shrink)

Midwives and nurses play a critical role in safeguarding the lives of women in resource-constrained African countries. Working within the context of scarce resources may undermine their moral agency and hinder their ability to care. The purpose of this paper is to understand the influence of resource scarcity on midwifery and nursing care and practice. A critical ethnography was conducted in the obstetric department of three tertiary-level facilities in Ghana. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 30 midwives and nurses and (...) semistructured interviews, field notes and documentary materials were used to generate in-depth understanding. Ethical approval was granted from Canada and Ghana and written, and ongoing informed consent was obtained from the participants. Five conceptual themes depicting the impact of scarce resources on midwifery and nursing care were discovered: compromised care, constrained care, dehumanized care, missed care and disengaged care. Improving the maternal health of women and averting avoidable maternal morbidity and mortality require governments and institutions to invest in health infrastructure that will support the delivery of ethical and safe midwifery care for women in their most vulnerable period. (shrink)

The primary focus of this article is a reading of Venus Hottentot 2000, a performance-text that reperforms the hyperbolization of Black female sexuality. In using the corporeality of the Black body as a strategic site of postcolonial resignification, this performance is moreover an interrogation of the colonial gaze that has fetishized the Black body. In foregrounding Venus Hottentot 2000 as a point of departure for exploration, the article proceeds by delving broadly into the representational history of the ‘Hottentot’ female. Furthermore, (...) to facilitate an understanding of the constitutive power of the colonial gaze and the possibilities of subverting and displacing that gaze from that of a postcolonial diasporic aesthetic practice, the article frames the postcolonial feminist reading of Venus Hottentot 2000 via an investigation of the processes by which the ‘Hottentot’ female has been festishized and scopically objectified within colonial discourse - processes whereby the ‘Hottentot’ female became a signifier of Black female sexuality. The article concludes by reading this performance as an example of a postcolonial ‘cultural war of positioning’, which offers moreover a contemporary rescripting of Black subjectivity. (shrink)

In _Encounters with Melanie Klein: Selected Papers of Elizabeth Spillius_ the author argues that her two professions, anthropology and psychoanalysis, have much in common, and explains how her background in anthropology led her on to a profound involvement in psychoanalysis and her establishment as a leading figure amongst Kleinian analysts. Spillius describes what she regards as the important features of Kleinian thought and discusses the research she has carried out in Melanie Klein's unpublished archive, including Klein's views on projective identification. (...) Spillius's own clinical ideas make up the last part of the book with papers on envy, phantasy, technique, the negative therapeutic reaction and otherness. Her writing has a clarity which is very particular to her; she conveys complicated ideas in a most straightforward manner, well illustrated with pertinent clinical material. This book represents fifty years of the developing thought and scholarship of a talented and dedicated psychoanalyst. (shrink)

This discussion paper considers how seldom recognised theories influence clinical ethics committees. A companion paper examined four major theories in social science: positivism, interpretivism, critical theory and functionalism, which can encourage legalistic ethics theories or practical living bioethics, which aims for theory–practice congruence. This paper develops the legalistic or living bioethics themes by relating the four theories to clinical ethics committee members’ reported aims and practices and approaches towards efficiency, power, intimidation, justice, equality and children’s interests and rights. Different approaches (...) to framing ethical questions are also considered. Being aware of the four theories’ influence can help when seeking to understand and possibly change clinical ethics committee routines. The paper is not a research report but is informed by a recent study in two London paediatric cardiac units. Forty-five practitioners and related experts were interviewed, including eight members of ethics committees, about the work of informing, preparing and supporting families during the extended process of consent to children’s elective heart surgery. The mosaic of multidisciplinary teamwork is reported in a series of papers about each profession, including this one on bioethics and law and clinical ethics committees’ influence on clinical practice. The qualitative social research was funded by the British Heart Foundation, in order that more may be known about the perioperative views and needs of all concerned. Questions included how disputes can be avoided, how high ethical standards and respectful cooperation between staff and families can be encouraged, and how minors’ consent or refusal may be respected, with the support of clinical ethics committees. (shrink)

El artículo analiza el desarrollo de la interseccionalidad como concepto presente en el proceso de juzgar con perspectiva de género, en particular, su impacto en la jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (Corte IDH). La metodología utilizada es cualitativa, principalmente, revisión de sentencias de la Corte IDH. De las 13 sentencias seleccionadas en el período 2015-2022 se concluye que la Corte IDH ha incorporado progresivamente la perspectiva interseccional y la ha usada como categoría analítica para estudiar, entender y (...) hacer frente a las discriminaciones que constituyen una forma agravada de discriminación y barreras de acceso a la justicia. (shrink)

This review begins with a detailed focus on the Turnaway Study, which addresses associations among early abortion, later abortion, and denied abortion relative to various outcomes including mental health indicators. The Turnaway Study was comprised of 516 women; however, an exact percentage of the population is not discernable due to missing information. Extrapolating from what is known reveals a likely low of 0.32% to a maximum of 3.18% of participants sampled from the available the pool. Motivation for conducting the Turnaway (...) Study, methodological deficiencies (sampling issues and others), and bias are specifically addressed. Despite serious departures from accepted scientific practices, journals in psychology and medicine have published dozens of articles generated from the study’s data. The high volume of one-sided publications has stifled dialogue on potential adverse psychological consequences of this common procedure. Following a critical analysis of the Turnaway Study, an overview of the strongest studies on abortion and mental health is offered. This comprehensive literature comprised of numerous large-scale studies from across the globe has been largely overlooked by scientists and the public, while the Turnaway Study dominates the media, information provided to women, and legal challenges involving abortion restrictions. In the final section of this article, literature reviews by professional organizations are considered, demonstrating that the biased science characterizing the Turnaway Study is aligned with a pervasive and systemic phenomenon wherein deriving reliable and valid results via careful attention to methodology and scrutiny by the scientific community have been supplanted by politics. (shrink)

La dialectique entre art et engagement interroge la possibilité et les moyens d’esthétisation des sujets politiques et sociaux. En Allemagne, un genre artistique explore particulièrement cette problématique : le théâtre documentaire dont les formes contemporaines montrent la nette évolution des médias de masse et de leur rôle dans notre société. Cette approche documentaire soulève plusieurs questionnements quant à la véracité des faits et théories exposés, aux limites floues entre fiction et réalité, mais aussi quant à la pseudo-objectivité des propos diffusés. (...) Par ailleurs, l’intrication de l’emploi esthétique de médias divers et d’une volonté de popularisation de discours politiques rapproche de facto l’art documentaire d’un art de la propagande non-officielle et interroge sur les motivations des dramaturges impliqués, entre détournement distancié et manipulation du public. Les expressions contemporaines héritées du théâtre documentaire se retrouvent dans des cadres dépassant la scène, prenant plutôt la forme de « projets » multi-supports et plurimédiaux présentés par des collectifs artistiques tels Zentrum für politische Schönheit (Centre pour la beauté politique) ou The International Institute for Political Murder de Milo Rau. Ceux-ci interrogent les utilisations contemporaines des médias dans une société du spectacle poussée à l’extrême et jouent du concept de fake news pour continuer d’interpeller leur public sur des problématiques politiques et citoyennes dans un contexte d’une nouvelle remontée des fascismes. Dans ce contexte, jusqu’où peut mener une telle spectacularisation du politique? (shrink)