In today’s global higher education environment, international students represent not only an important source of external income for universities: the degree of cross-border student mobility also reflects the internationalization of higher education sector. Universities have engaged in efforts to sell themselves to prospective students and promotional videos are among the most widely used marketing tools for this purpose. This study reports the results of a study analyzing the content of 140 higher education promotional videos from 14 countries available on YouTube. (...) The results reveal that while the pattern of use of YouTube for two-waycommunication with viewers, information contents and appeal messages among sampled universities is fairly homogenous, some marked differences emerge when cultural background and global position ranking of the university are taken into account. The implications of these findings are that, although, transnational higher education has been profoundly globalized, culture still plays a significant role in marketing practice for the recruitment of mobile students. In addition, different universities have various student-targeted segments. These findings provide the basis of a series of recommendations for universities looking to optimize their use of YouTube and promotional video design to market to international students. (shrink)

U.S. law imposes strict recording and reporting requirements on all entities that manufacture and distribute controlled substances. As a result, the prescription opioid crisis has unfolded in a data-saturated environment. This article asks why the systematic documentation of opioid transactions failed to prevent or mitigate the crisis. Drawing on a recently disclosed trove of 1.4 million internal records from Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, a leading manufacturer of prescription opioids, we highlight a phenomenon we propose to call data diversion, whereby data ostensibly generated (...) or collected for the purpose of regulating the distribution of controlled substances were repurposed by the industry for the opposite aim of increasing sales at all costs. Systematic data diversion, we argue, contributed substantially to the scale of drug diversion seen with opioids and should become a focus of policy intervention. (shrink)

The dominant, individualistic understanding of autonomy that features in clinical practice and research is underpinned by the idea that people are, in their ideal form, independent, self-interested and rational gain-maximising decision-makers. In recent decades, this paradigm has been challenged from various disciplinary and intellectual directions. Proponents of ‘relational autonomy’ in particular have argued that people’s identities, needs, interests – and indeed autonomy – are always also shaped by their relations to others. Yet, despite the pronounced and nuanced critique directed at (...) an individualistic understanding of autonomy, this critique has had very little effect on ethical and legal instruments in clinical practice and research so far. In this article, we use four case studies to explore to what extent, if at all, relational autonomy can provide solutions to ethical and practical problems in clinical practice and research. We conclude that certain forms of relational autonomy can have a tangibl... (shrink)

This paper evaluates and criticises the developmental systems conception of evolution and develops instead an extension of the gene's eye conception of evolution. We argue (i) Dawkin's attempt to segregate developmental and evolutionary issues about genes is unsatisfactory. On plausible views of development it is arbitrary to single out genes as the units of selection. (ii) The genotype does not carry information about the phenotype in any way that distinguishes the role of the genes in development from that other factors. (...) (iii) There is no simple and general causal criterion which distinguishes the role of genes in development and evolution. (iv) There is, however, an important sense in which genes but not every other developmental factor represent the phenotype. (v) The idea that genes represent features of the phenotype forces us to recognise that genes are not the only, or almost the only, replicators. Many mechanisms of replication are involved in both development and evolution. (vi) A conception of evolutionary history which recognises both genetic and non-genetic replicators, lineages of replicators and interactors has advantages over both the radical rejection of the replicator/interactor distinction and the conservative restriction of replication to genetic replication. (shrink)

Kelly Besecke offers an examination of reflexive spirituality, a spirituality that draws equally on religions traditions and traditions of reason in the pursuit of transcendent meaning. People who practice reflexive spirituality prefer metaphor to literalism, spiritual experience to doctrinal belief, religious pluralism to religious exclusivism or inclusivism, and ongoing inquiry to ''final answers.'' Reflexive spirituality is aligned with liberal theologies in a variety of religious traditions and among the spiritual-but-not-religious. You Can't Put God in a Box draws on original (...) qualitative data to describe how people practiced reflexive spirituality in an urban United Methodist church, an interfaith adult education center, and a variety of secular settings. The theoretical argument focuses on two kinds of rationality that are both part of the Enlightenment legacy. Technological rationality focuses our attention on finding the most efficient means to a particular end. Reflexive spiritualists reject forms of religiosity and secularity that rely on the biases of technological rationality—they see these as just so many versions of ''fundamentalism'' that are standing in the way of compelling spiritual meaning. Intellectual rationality, on the other hand, offers tools for analysis, interpretation, and synthesis of religious ideas. Reflexive spiritualists embrace intellectual rationality as a way of making religious traditions more meaningful for modern ears. Besecke provides a window into the progressive theological thinking of educated spiritual seekers and religious liberals. Grounded in participant observation, her book uses concrete examples of reflexive spirituality in practice to speak to the classical sociological problem of modern meaninglessness. (shrink)

Etienne Balibar, one of the foremost living French philosophers, builds on his landmark work 'Spinoza and Politics' with this exploration of Spinoza's ontology. Balibar situates Spinoza in relation to the major figures of Marx and Freud as a precursor to the more recent French thinker Gilbert Simondon's concept of the transindividual. Presenting a crucial development in his thought, Balibar takes the concept of transindividuality beyond Spinoza to show it at work at both the individual and the collective level.

We offer an ethical assessment of the market for data used to generate what are sometimes called “consumer scores” (i.e., numerical expressions that are used to describe or predict people’s dispositions and behavior), and we argue that the assessment has ethical implications on how the market for consumer scoring data should be regulated. To conduct the assessment, we employ two heuristics for evaluating markets. One is the “harm” criterion, which relates to whether the market produces serious harms, either for participants (...) in the market, for third parties, or for society as a whole. The other is the “agency” criterion, which relates to whether participants understand the nature and significance of the exchanges they are making, if they can be guaranteed fair representation, or if there is differential need for the market’s good. We argue that consumer scoring data should be subject to the same sort of regulation as the older FICO credit scores. Although the movement in the 1990s that was aimed at regulating the FICO scores was not aimed at restraining a market per se, we argue that the reforms were underwritten by concerns about the same sorts of problems as those outlined by our heuristics. Therefore, consumer data should be subject to the same sort of regulation. (shrink)

Prior research suggests that most people perceive themselves to be more altruistic than the average population, an observation known as the better-than-average (BTA) effect. Understanding the BTA effect carries significant public health implications, as self-perceived altruism is closely related to altruistic behaviors, which plays a significant role in individual and societal well-being. However, little is known about whether subpopulations with specific sociodemographic profiles are more likely to hold BTA altruistic self-perceptions, making it difficult to design targeted programs based on multiple (...) sociodemographic characteristics to promote altruistic behaviors. This study addresses this gap by identifying the sociodemographic profiles of populations who are more likely to exhibit BTA effects on trait altruism. Data were derived from a representative sample of Hong Kong citizens (n= 1,185) in the 2017 Hong Kong Altruism Survey. A latent class analysis was performed using four domains of sociodemographic characteristics: sex, age, religion, and socioeconomic status. Multivariate multinomial logistic regressions were conducted to examine associations between class membership, BTA effect, and altruistic behaviors. The results yielded four classes of sociodemographic profiles. Middle-aged, Christian/Catholic, highly educated, and high-income individuals (Class 4, 17.8%) were most likely to exhibit BTA effects and behave altruistically; Class 3 (14.0%) were older, male, no/other religious belief, low education, and least likely to exhibit BTA effects and behave altruistically. Findings improve the understanding of the sociodemographic profiles of people showing BTA effects and facilitate targeted policy development to effectively promote altruism. (shrink)

After years of near total neglect, the problem of childhood obesity is now in the limelight. Terms like “epidemic,” “crisis,” and “emergency” are used frequently when describing the trend. Progress is defined with strong language and fueled by statistics such as the observation that this generation of children will be the first to live shorter lives than their parents. Multi-disciplinary journals such as the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics have dedicated symposiums to the issue, and conferences have been convened (...) not only by health professionals but by government agencies, the food industry, and even professionals who market to children. The seriousness of childhood obesity is no longer in doubt, and finally attention has turned to the more complex question – what must be done? (shrink)

This chapter describes the development of a workshop series focused on helping students develop research lab ethics guidelines. The workshop was developed through a National Science Foundation-funded project that situates ethics education within the research environment. Students in four departments at a private research university were recruited to join a Student Ethics Committee that collaboratively developed context-specific codes-of-ethics-based guidelines for their departments. These bottom-up developed guidelines were revised in an iterative process, including feedback from faculty, other graduate students, and the (...) original Student Ethics Committee. The goal of the workshops was to promote the cultivation of an ethical culture in experimental laboratories by integrating research stakeholders in a bottom-up approach to developing context-specific guidelines and to identify factors that students consider relevant to the ethical conduct of research. After describing the workshop series, this chapter presents a qualitative content analysis of the guidelines. The guidelines developed by the Student Ethics Committees reflect the current culture of experimental labs in these departments and the ethical issues that students think are important. The content of these guidelines and the ethical issues the students focused on contrast in some key ways with what ethical issues faculty who head research groups saw as paramount. The chapter describes the first two iterations of the ethics education workshop module, a qualitative analysis of the first draft of these guidelines, and finally reflects on future work in this area of in situ ethics education. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the contemporary business ethics narrative by proposing an approach to corporate ethical decision making (EDM) which serves as an alternative to the imposition of codes and standards to address the ethical consequences of grand challenges, like COVID-19, which are impacting today’s society. Our alternative approach to EDM embraces the concept of reflexive thinking and ethical consciousness among the individual agents who collectively are the corporation and who make ethical decisions, often in isolation, removed from the collocated (...) corporate setting. We draw on the teachings of the Canadian philosopher and theologian, Fr. Bernard Lonergan, to conceptualize an approach to EDM which focuses on the ethics of the corporate agent by nurturing the universal and invariant structure that is operational in all human beings. Embracing Lonergan’s dynamic cognitive structure of human knowing, and the structure of the human good, we advance a paradigm of EDM in business which emboldens authentic ethical thought, decision making, and action commensurate with virtuous living and germane to human flourishing. Lonergan’s philosophy guides us away from the imposition of over-arching corporate codes of ethics and inspires us, as individual agents, to attend to the data of our own consciousness in our ethical decision making. Such cognitional endowment leads us out of the ethics of the ‘timeless present’ (Islam and Greenwood in Journal of Business Ethics 170: 1–4, 2021) towards ethical authenticity in business, leaving us better placed to reflect upon and address the ethical issues emanating from grand challenges like COVID-19. (shrink)

In “Pox Parties for Grannies?” Malm and Navin (2020) persuasively argue that it is unjust to permit, let alone promote, avoidable harm to children by knowingly and purposefully not vaccinating them...

The parents of Charlie Gard, who was born August 4, 2016, with an exceedingly rare and incurable disease called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, fought a prolonged and heated legal battle to allow him access to experimental treatment that they hoped would prolong his life and to prevent his doctors from withdrawing life-sustaining care. Charlie's clinicians at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London believed that the brain damage Charlie had suffered as a result of frequent epileptic seizures, along with many (...) other severe disabilities, would render any innovative therapy futile, and they disagreed with his parents’ wishes to use an experimental therapy. They felt it in Charlie's best interest that he be allowed to die. A battle ensued among Charlie's parents, his doctors, and a guardian who had been appointed to represent him that drew the attention of politicians and prominent persons from all over the world. The case was much in the news over the past year, but it has also been frequently misunderstood. (shrink)

While I deeply appreciate the painstaking and often generous remarks in R.N. Berki’s review of my book Hegel’s Retreat From Eleusis, [OWL, September 1978], I should like to correct two of his misapprehensions. First, the point is not that I try to “steer a middle course between ‘antiquaries’ who relegate Hegel to history books and ‘renovators’ who believe that Hegel is directly relevant,” but between the former and those who warp Hegel out of context in support of their preferred vision (...) of social and political action and/or explanation. Second, I do not conclude negatively about “the contemporary value of Hegel’s doctrine of the state;” If I had, the book would scarcely have been worth writing. It is simply that, in line with the first point, I counsel caution and salutary “archaeological” reflection. Current reality is messy: Hegel guides us and teaches us, but he furnishes no coup de foudre for solving our institutional problems. If this is irresolute, so be it. Does Mr. Berki propose bringing back monarchy, estates, and early 19th century municipal life? My own position is stated on pp. 109, 142–144, 183, 222–223. Although this may be, in Hayden White’s language, a Rankean trope, my option is surely not for “the historical dustbin.”. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a growth of single-issue campaigns in western democracies and a proliferation of groups attempting to exert political influence and achieve social change. In this context, it is important to consider why individuals do or don't get involved in collective action, for example in the trade union movement and the women's movement. Social psychologists have an important contribution to make in addressing this question. The social psychological approach directly concerns the relationship between the individual and (...) society and a number of theories have been developed in the field, particularly by contemporary European researchers. Yet, surprisingly, there has never been, until now, a concerted attempt to bring these various strands of research together in a coherent, detailed presentation of the social psychological approach to collective action. The authors of _The Social Psychology of Collective Action _review and integrate a number of theories developed in this field as well as presenting their own original research and data. The research discussed in the book ranges over a number of different contexts, with a particular focus on women's groups organizing around issues of gender. Questions addressed include: why do women get involved in women's groups? What part is played by experiences of discrimination in the family and in the workplace? What are the benefits of group involvement? How are feminist activists perceived by others who choose not to get involved? Findings from questionnaires and interviews are integrated with contemporary social psychological theory, especially social identity theory. (shrink)

AimTo investigate the associations between Grit, connectedness, and parental involvement in Thai adolescents. Grit, perseverance, and passion for long-term goals are predictors of academic success and health. There is a small but developing knowledge of the predictors of Grit in Asia, especially Thailand. This paper investigates the proposition that connectedness and parental involvement are positively associated with Grit.MethodA total of 2,839 lower secondary, higher secondary, and vocational students from 21 schools in Chiang Mai, Thailand participated in a survey that measured (...) Grit using the Short Grit Scale. Bivariate analysis was conducted using the t-test, ANOVA, or Kruskal–Wallis H test as appropriate. Multiple ordinary least squares linear regression analysis was performed to determine factors associated with Grit.ResultsSatisfactory relationships with teachers, parental support, interest in school, having been asked by parents to do homework, and having been told by parents that they had done something bad associated with Grit. These findings can aid in design of tailored interventions to improve Grit in Thai adolescents. (shrink)

Identifying corporate governance mechanisms to improve firm performance has been at the forefront of policy discussion and research in recent years. Existing research in this area focuses on large-capitalisation firms, and has not provided much insight on smaller firms. This paper tests for the optimality of deployment of governance mechanisms for Canadian small-cap firms by estimating a simultaneous equation system that links four control mechanisms to firm performance, using recent data. The results confirm simultaneity between several governance mechanisms and Canadian (...) small-cap firm performance. CEO ownership and shareholder rights are shown to determine board independence. CEO ownership in turn is shown to depend on the extent of shareholder rights and whether the CEO is also Chairperson of the board. Canadian small-cap firms appear to overutilise debt as a control mechanism. There is somewhat weaker evidence that board independence and CEO ownership are beyond the optimum. The latter, given the relatively high degree of CEO ownership in Canadian small-cap firms, is consistent with management entrenchment. We also do not find any significant discount to performance for Quebec-based firms, or for firms with dual or multiple voting class shares structures. (shrink)

This paper analyses the development of the specialism of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer care via a Foucauldian lens to consider how knowledge and awareness have grown since questions were first raised about unmet needs of AYAs with cancer. The AYA specialism has gathered momentum over the last 30 years in the United Kingdom (UK) and is fast gathering pace internationally. Fundamental to this process has been the combined contribution from nursing and other health professionals, researchers, policy‐makers and philanthropists. (...) From an initial process of problematisation, through a gradual growth in empirical knowledge and resultant shifts in health policy, a new nexus of expertise has emerged that enabled AYA cancer care to become recognised as distinct from either child or adult oncology. Different stakeholders contributed to the discourses that have underpinned this development—a process likely to continue as it expands further. This paper draws on examples from the growth of the AYA specialism, the emergence of new professional roles and a growth in research. It illustrates how the coalescing of multiple perspectives allowed new discourses and, ultimately, new practices to be established that now have global impact. (shrink)

Poor ability to regulate one's own food intake based on hunger cues may encourage children to eat beyond satiety, leading to increased risk of diet-related diseases. Self-regulation has multiple forms, yet no one has directly measured the degree to which different domains of self-regulation predict overeating in young children. The present study investigated how three domains of self-regulation (i.e., appetitive self-regulation, inhibitory control, and attentional control) predicted eating in the absence of hunger (EAH) in a community sample of 47 preschool-aged (...) children (Mage = 4.93, SD = 0.86). Appetitive self-regulation, as measured using a delay of gratification task, was significantly and negatively associated with EAH 1 year later (p< 0.5). Measures of inhibitory and attentional control did not significantly predict EAH. These results suggest that food-related self-regulation may be a better predictor of overeating behaviors than general measures of self-regulation. (shrink)

The paper seeks to identify how teacher expertise is implicitly and explicitly conceptualised in current English education policy in respect of the professional development of teachers. We focus specifically on conceptualisations of expertise in the Early Career Framework (ECF), both in terms of the policy documentation produced by the Department for Education and in terms of a selection of publicly available materials produced by the lead providers of the ECF. We aim to locate these conceptualisations in terms of broader sociological (...) and philosophical debates about the nature of expertise and its relationship to professional work, in addition to recent research on the policy context of teacher education and professional development in England. Our analysis reveals the inappropriacy of ‘expert systems’ approaches to expertise in educational contexts, the underlying assumptions embedded in policy in terms of what constitutes high-quality teaching practice and the insufficiency of relying on an appointed advisory group and organisations preferred by government for identifying and iterating criteria for expertise. (shrink)

Informa que a competência em informação são habilidades que o sujeito exerce para o uso, a busca e a avaliação da informação. Discute sobre a competência em informação, no campo das relações raciais, das (os) estudantes da Faculdade de Informação e Comunicação na Universidade Federal de Goiás, a fim de colaborar com a agenda antirracista. Realiza pesquisa básica, exploratória e bibliográfica, com abordagem qualitativa. Utiliza como instrumento de coleta de dados questionário, aplicado via Google Forms. Aponta que as (os) discentes (...) necessitam de uma formação mais pontual que possibilite uma discussão sobre a situação da população negra brasileira e o entendimento sobre as relações raciais no Brasil. Conclui que a competência em informação é importante para a (o) futura (o) profissional da informação e comunicação no debate das relações raciais para a promoção da igualdade racial, buscando orientar a sociedade para a igualdade racial. (shrink)

Intended for high school and college students studying ancient Greece and Rome as part of a larger world history curriculum, this book's coverage of key wars and battles; important leaders, armies, organizations, and weapons; and other aspects of conflict will enable readers to better understand the complex role warfare played in ancient Western civilization.

The Correctional Service of Canada is currently re-instituting animal-based agribusiness programs in two federal penitentiaries. To situate the contemporary function of such programs, I provide a historical overview of prison agriculture in relation to Canadian nation-making. I argue that penitentiary farms have functioned as a means of prison expansion and settler territorialisation. While support for agricultural programming is rooted in its perceived facilitation of rehabilitation and vocational training, I show that these justifications are untenable. Rather the prison farm ought to (...) be viewed as an institution made possible by and that reproduces, settler colonial power relations to animals, labour, and territory. Prison agribusiness is then an expression of colonial, agricultural, and carceral powers. (shrink)