What are the main learning difficulties or advantages encountered by students with learning disabilities within e-environments? As a result of the Covid-19 emergency, e-learning is being increasingly used to support students’ learning processes. A number of countries closed their schools altogether, so face-to-face lessons were and have been replaced by distance lessons. A search of current literature via Scopus, Eric and Google Scholar electronic databases was conducted according to Prisma Guidelines. Other sources of literature were also considered, starting from the (...) references in the full text of the articles consulted. We used the following search keywords: “LDs” combined with the “AND/OR” Boolean operator and “e-learning platforms,” “well-being,” “psychological factors,” “emotional distress,” and “self-regulation.” One body of literature highlights the lack of inclusive accessibility standards and a lack of attention to specific tools for addressing LDs, which causes students to develop high levels of stress/anxiety and emotional distress, in addition to low levels of well-being, self-esteem and self-efficacy. Another area of literature looks at how students can develop high levels of self-regulation and emotional awareness, as well as high levels of inclusion. Results are discussed in terms of the promotion of e-learning that focuses on the psychological well-being of students and teachers use of technological tools. (shrink)

The present study aims to identify contextual and psychological factors of proneness to radicalization and violent extremism operationalized through the Militant Extremist Mindset scale consisting of three distinct aspects: Proviolence, Vile World beliefs, and trust in Divine Power. A community sample of 271 high school students from Belgrade and Sandžak regions in Serbia completed: a 24-item MEM scale; contextual measures including a 6-item scale of family dysfunction and a 4-item composite measure capturing exposure to a harsh school (...) environment and peer abuse ; psychological measures including the 9-item Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale, the 5-item Social Dominance Orientation scale, and the 20-item UCLA Loneliness scale. A path analysis was conducted with contextual factors on the first and psychological factors on the second level of the model predicting the three factors of MEM. LON was positively predicted by FDys and HSE, SDO by HSE only, while RWA was positively predicted by FDys only. Contextual and psychological factors accounted for 27% of the variance in PV, 15% of the variance in VW, and 31% of the variance in DP. Obtained findings reveal a complex interplay of contextual and psychological drivers in the prediction of different aspects of RVE and build upon existing knowledge on risk factors associated with RVE. (shrink)

School climate is a multidimensional construct of the quality of a student’s academic environment, often subsuming dimensions such as safety, instructional practices, social relationships, school facilities, and school connectedness. Positive school climate has beneficial effects on a wide range of adjustment variables in youth, including academic achievement, mental health, school attendance and graduation, and school-based behavior. Studies regarding school climate assessment have burgeoned in recent years but remain marked by limited sample sizes, (...) narrow developmental levels, restricted items, unclear psychometric strength across multiple demographic groups, and lack of integration with key student education contextual factors such as academic mindset and social emotional learning. The present study evaluated a comprehensive measure of aspects of school climate, academic mindset, and social emotional learning in a sample of 105,379 diverse students (Mage = 13.47 years; SD = 2.47). The 9-factor structure of the School Climate and Academic Mindset Inventory was supported via confirmatory factor analysis. A trimmed model displayed adequate goodness-of-fit for males and females, younger age groups, and European American, biracial/multiracial, Hispanic, Native American, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students. The trimmed model was slightly less strong for older age groups as well as for African American and Asian American students. The scale may be useful for assessing school climate interventions, longitudinal climate patterns, and school-based algorithms of future performance, though additional validation of the scale remains necessary. (shrink)

Whoosh, crunch, buzz, inhale, exhale... Listening for Learning: Performing a Pedagogy of Sound and Listening presents sound, listening, and pedagogical interactions as performances that create relationships, ways of being and knowing, and that provide an opportunity for transformations of existing and taken-for-granted practices in the classroom. By using performative listening and performative writing this book presents fragments of sound and listening as sites of learning and knowledge production. The written fragments throughout this book are offered as performances that listen for (...) and hear sound as a central feature to educational practices in terms of bodies, classrooms, and pedagogy. The goal in sharing this performance of listening is to create opportunities for recognition, to invite further listening in educational contexts, and to employ listening as an opportunity for transforming and re-imagining educational spaces and interactions. (shrink)

Instead of simply following the current neoliberal mantra of proclaiming economic growth as the single most important factor for maintaining well-being, Education and Schmid's Art of Living revisits the idea of an education focused on personal development and the well-being of human beings. Drawing on philosophical ideas concerning the good life and recent research in positive psychology, Teschers argues in favour of shifting the focus in education and schooling towards a beautiful life and an art of living for today's students. (...) Containing a thorough discussion of the ideas of contemporary German philosopher Wilhelm Schmid, this book considers the possible implications of developing a more humanistic and life-centred approach to educational policy, research and practice, showing that Schmid's concept of Lebenskunst provides a firm philosophical basis for this endeavour. Among others, this book draws on analytical and continental traditions to challenge current views and assumptions in regard to education and the role of schooling for contemporary societies. As a result, Teschers' work is sure to spark a debate about the direction of educational policy and practice in the 21st century. Education and Schmid's Art of Living is essential reading for academics and students with an interest in education. Given the importance of such topics as the relationship between education and society, teacher education and how best to structure schools and learning environments, Teschers' work will appeal to academics and students in a diverse range of fields, including education, philosophy, sociology and psychology. (shrink)

School enterprise cooperation, as the basic school running form of applied undergraduate education, is an important way to cultivate applied talents. However, at present, the lack of motivation for enterprises to participate in school enterprise cooperation and the resulting problem of “school hot and enterprise cold” seriously limit the talent training quality in China’s application-oriented universities. There is an urgent need to explore the influencing factors and mechanisms of enterprises’ participation in school enterprise cooperation to (...) improve the training quality of applied talents. Taking Ajzen Theory of Planned Behavior as the theoretical framework, this study constructs the influencing factor model of enterprise participation in school enterprise cooperation from four aspects, namely, behavior attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavior control, and behavior intention. In this study, participants completed a questionnaire assessing their participation in school enterprise cooperation, which was analyzed by a structural equation model. The results show that the behavior attitude and perceived behavior control of enterprises have a significant positive impact on their intention to participate in school enterprise cooperation and then have a significant positive impact on the school enterprise cooperation behavior of enterprises. The behavior intention and perceived behavior control of enterprises have a significant positive impact on their participation in school enterprise cooperation. The policy environment has a significant regulatory effect on the relationship between the intention and behavior of enterprises’ participation in school enterprise cooperation. Therefore, from the perspective of enhancing the intention of enterprises to cooperate, colleges and universities should establish the awareness of win-win cooperation and meet the interest demands of enterprises in school enterprise cooperation in order to improve the behavior attitude and intention of enterprises. From the perspective of the formation conditions of school enterprise cooperation, with the help of industry associations, an information service platform for school enterprise cooperation should be built in order to eliminate the information islands between enterprises and universities. From the perspective of the needs of school enterprise cooperation environment, government departments should strengthen the policy support for school enterprise cooperation in order to eliminate the worries of enterprises’ participation in school enterprise cooperation. (shrink)

School environment refers to the set of relationships that occur among members of a school community that are determined by structural, personal, and functional factors of the educational institution, which provide distinctiveness to schools. The school environment is an important factor when evaluating student well-being. Previous findings have shown that variables such as physical, academic, and social dimensions influence school environments. This research seeks to explain the relationship between school environment and the (...) well-being of primary education students. To carry out this research, a total of 405 students from four public elementary schools in northwestern Mexico were selected to participate. The instrument used to measure the variables and the relationship of school environment and well-being is based on the three dimensions of school environment proposed by Kutsyuruba et al. (2015) : Physical, social, and academic. Statistical analyses were carried out to determine the reliability and validity of the measurement scales using SPSS V20 and EQS software. Confirmatory factor analysis models were tested to determine the construct validity of each scale; then, an analysis via structural equation modeling was made to form an explanatory model obtaining acceptable practical and statistical indicators. Among the relationships in this study, our research identified the variable of school environments as an outcome determined by physical, academic, and social factors. School environment and student well-being variables were also found to be correlated. (shrink)

“If, then, we are really to find out what is true and what is false, we must direct our attention to the role of any particular item in the whole of which it is a part.”—Wertheimer: On Truth.In these days of Gestalttheorie it seems not untimely to inquire whether psychology itself does not stand in need of being recognized as a configuration of complementary parts. The suggestion, it is true, tends at the first to be repudiated by the implacability of (...) the schools with their claims and counterclaims resounding on every side. On further analysis, however, such controversy seems to acquire the very different significance of having permitted certain partial aspects of the whole field to become well-articulated, even if in somewhat exaggerated form. In other words, if there is any underlying unity in psychology, then the very overstatements of the school zealots while unwittingly defeating their own purpose may have been doing the science a real service by throwing its basic pattern into bold relief. In broadest terms this seems to describe what has been happening in psychology in the recent past and to define the present stage of its development. (shrink)

Corporate Social Responsibility and environmental sustainability have become urgent concerns for contemporary businesses. This study focuses on the interplay between corporate social responsibility perceptions and pro-environmental behaviour in response to experts’ call for research on the micro-foundations of corporate social responsibility. In addition, it reveals the mechanism underpinning how perceived CSR shapes pro-environmental behaviour in an understudied developing context. Empirically, a qualitative multiple-case research design is utilised by selecting three business schools from Peshawar, Pakistan. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with (...) senior management and faculty to collect data. Besides primary data, a qualitative documentary review is used to enhance the research. Data analysis is done through the thematic network technique. Plantation, cleanliness, waste reduction, and energy conservation are the environmental aspects of CSR as regarded by employees. In addition, perceived CSR shapes pro-environmental behaviour via environmental knowledge and awareness, eco-civic sense, environmental values, personality traits, religious perspective, and perceived organisational support for the environment. This study provides original additions to the CSR literature by suggesting eco-civic sensibility and religious perspective as new CSR drivers for pro-environmental conduct. Incorporating stakeholder salience into the context of the present study also advances CSR research. The findings are also valuable for management to make the CSR agenda of business schools more strategic, comprehensive, and centred on the priorities of salient stakeholders. (shrink)

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between Italian teachers’ well-being, socio-demographic characteristics and professional background. Using data from the 2015 wave of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) we considered information collected by the questionnaire completed by a total of 6,491 teachers in the sampled schools. Moving from existing literature on teachers’ well-being, we investigate several aspects related to the teachers’ working environment, career motivation and investment, and job satisfaction. We assess the variability in the observed outcomes (...) attributable to school factors and heterogeneity between disciplines. Measurement models are combined in a multilevel setting in order to define teachers’ well-being on a broad perspective while accounting for the multiple sources of heterogeneity due to several factors (e.g., discipline, teacher professional background, and individual differences) occurring at different levels of the data structure. In general, results show that the teachers’ positive perception of the working environment in terms of availability of adequate human and physical resources, and professional development opportunities, provide a substantial state of well-being at work, and are related to teachers’ job satisfaction. Moreover, results highlight the key role of transformational leadership in defining a teacher’s well-being. Findings and implications are discussed. (shrink)

Digital technology in its various forms is a significant component of our working environment and lifestyles. However, there is a broad difference between using digital technologies in everyday life and employing them in formal education. Digital technologies have largely untapped potential for improving education and fostering students’ well-being and inclusion at school. To bring this to fruition, systemic and coordinated actions involving the whole school community are called for. To help schools exploit the full range of opportunities (...) digital technologies offer for learning, the European Commission has designed and implemented a self-reflection tool called SELFIE (Self-reflection on Effective Learning by Fostering Innovation through Educational Technology). Based on the DigCompOrg conceptual framework, SELFIE encompasses key aspects for effectively integrating digital technologies in school policies and practices. The present study investigates how SELFIE can also support the school community to self-reflect about students’ well-being and inclusion. In Italy, the SELFIE online questionnaire has been completed by 24,715 students, 5,690 teachers and 1,507 school leaders, for a total of 31,912 users from 201 schools (at primary, lower secondary and upper secondary levels) located in ten different regions. The complementary data we have collected regarding student well-being and inclusion highlight significant differences in the perceptions on this issue reported by students, teachers and school leaders. These findings have important implications for facilitating successful practices within the whole school community in order to promote students’ well-being and inclusion using educational technologies, as well as for planning future actions following a systemic approach. (shrink)

BackgroundSchool violence and bullying are prevalent problems that affect health in general, especially through the development of emotional and behavioral problems, and can result in the deterioration of the academic performance of the student victim. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence rates of aggressive behaviors according to types of school violence and bullying, sociodemographic characteristics, and variation by department, region, and time in the period between 2014 and 2018 in Peru.MethodsThe design was observational and cross-sectional (...) based on data from the Specialized System for Reporting Cases of School Violence (Sistema Especializado en Reporte de Casos sobre Violencia Escolar—SíseVe) in Peru, which covers a population of 23,641 students at the initial, primary, and secondary levels of Basic Regular Education [Educación Básica Regular (EBR)], for the 2014–2018 period. The prevalence rates of the different types of school violence and bullying, the sociodemographic characteristics, and the variation by department, region, and time in the period between 2014 and 2018 were estimated.ResultsPsychological violence/bullying occurred at higher prevalence rates (185.8 and 62.6 per 100,000 residents). Women from public institutions reported greater sexual violence, mostly by teachers (67.8%) than by other students (32.2%). The Selva region had the highest prevalence rate of sexual violence (10.1 per 100,000 residents). The departments of Tacna and Piura had the highest and lowest rates of psychological/verbal violence and bullying in 2018 (95.79 and 25.31 per 100,000 residents).ConclusionPsychological/verbal violence and bullying is highly prevalent among students; women report being victims of sexual violence by administrative personnel of public institutions. The Selva region had the highest rate of sexual violence, and Piura and Tacna had the highest and lowest rates of violence and psychological/verbal bullying. Based on these results, it is suggested to conduct evidence-based prevention programs in Peruvian schools to reduce these social problems. (shrink)

Restoration involves individuals’ physical, psychological and social resources, diminished by meeting demands of everyday life. Psychological restoration can be provided by specific environments, in particular by natural environments. Research reports a restorative effect of nature on human beings, specifically in terms of the psychological recovery from attention fatigue and restored mental resources previously spent in activities that require attention. Two field studies in two Italian primary schools tested the hypothesized positive effect of recess-time spent in a natural (...) (vs. built) environment on pupils’ cognitive performance and their perceived restorativeness, using standardized tests. In Study 1, children’s psychological restoration was assessed measuring sustained and selective attention, working memory, and impulse’ control, before and after morning recess-time. Team standardized play-time was conducted in a natural (vs. built) environment, measuring perceived restorativeness after each recess-time. Results showed a greater increase in sustained and selective attention, concentration, and perceived restorativeness from pre-test to post-test after the Natural Environment condition. In Study 2 the positive effect of free-play recess-time in a natural (vs. built) environment was assessed during the afternoon school-time on sustained and selective attention and perceived restorativeness. Results showed an increase of sustained and selective attention after the Natural Environment condition (vs. Built) and a decrease after the built environment break. Higher scores in perceived restorativeness were registered after the Natural (vs. Built) Environment condition. Team standardized and individual free-play recess in a natural environment (vs. built) support pupils’ attention restoration during both morning and afternoon school-time, as well as their perceived restorativeness of recess environment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in terms of nature’s role both for school ground design or re-design, and for school’s activities organization. (shrink)

Learning burnout is an important indicator that reflects an individual’s learning state. Understanding the influencing factors and mechanism of learning burnout of medical students has practical significance for improving their mental health. This study aimed to explore the mediating roles of school identity and collective self-esteem between school psychological environment and learning burnout in medical students. A total of 2,031 medical students were surveyed using the School Psychological Environment Questionnaire, School Identity Questionnaire, (...) Collective Self-esteem Scale, and Learning Burnout Scale. The results showed the following: school psychological environment had a negative effect on learning burnout among medical students, and school identity and collective self-esteem played significant mediating roles between school psychological environment and learning burnout [95% CI = ]. Specifically, there were three paths that school psychological environment and learning burnout: first, through the independent mediating role of school identity; second, through the independent mediating role of collective self-esteem; and third, through the chain mediating roles of school identity and collective self-esteem. The findings reveal that school psychological environment not only directly influences the learning burnout of medical students but also indirectly influences it through school identity and collective self-esteem. Thus, this study has some important implications for prevention and intervention of learning burnout among medical students. (shrink)

Background: Job satisfaction is largely associated with organizational aspects, including improved working environments, worker’s well-being and more effective performance. There are many definitions regarding job satisfaction in the existing scholarly literature: it can be expressed as a positive emotional state, a positive impact of job-related experiences on individuals, and employees’ perceptions regarding their jobs. Aims: No reliable scales in Arabic language to assess job satisfaction in the sports and physical education field exist.This study aimed to trans-culturally adapt and validate the (...) Pepe’s “Teacher Job Satisfaction Scale” 9 items (TJSS-9), creating the “Teacher of Physical Education Job Satisfaction Inventory” (TPEJSI) in Arabic language. This scale was administered to a Tunisian population of sports and physical education teachers and analyzed according to the Pepe’s theoretical model.. More in detail, this investigation systematically tested its factor structure, in terms of internal consistency/reliability, predictive validity, sensitivity and convergent validity. Methods: A total of 417 Tunisian teachers of sports and physical education participated voluntarily in this study. The sample comprised of 258 males and of 159 females. More in detail, 189 were teachers teaching in primary schools of physical education, 105 teaching in secondary schools, and 123 were university teachers. Both exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analyses were performed on random-split halves of the sample. Results: The three-dimensional alpha coefficients of the TPEJSI were all greater than 0.80: for satisfaction with colleagues, alpha was 0.865; for satisfaction with parents, alpha was 0.856 and for satisfaction with students alpha was 0.860. The CFA fit indices were satisfactory. Conclusions: Given the good EFA factor loadings, the CFA fit indices, the correlation matrix, the sensitivity analysis, the convergent validity and the excellent internal consistency, it can be concluded that the TPEJSI is a good psychometric tool that can be used to quantitatively assess the job satisfaction level among teachers of sports and physical education in the Arabic-speaking world. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present study results concerning the structure of teacher Machiavellianism. Machiavellianism was researched extensively throughout the last 40 years as a personality feature comprising traits related to leadership manipulation tactics. Psychology describes Machiavellianism as a part of the universal model called “the dark triad of personality” alongside with subclinical narcissism, subclinical psychopathy and low empathy. The teacher Machiavellianism model presented in this article, as opposed to the universal models, strongly accentuates the context-specific variables related (...) to the organization of life in a school, alongside with personality variables. To achieve a new insight into the mechanism of how teacher Machiavellianism is generated, structural equation modeling was used, which incorporates personality variables such as: self-effi cacy, disposition for gratitude, values, one’s personal resources, professional burnout, alongside context-specific variables like: organizational culture, work attitude, tenure and specialization in the tasks performed. Results of two studies are shown, discussing the empirical structure of teacher Machiavellianism components in relation to the initial theoretical model. (shrink)

Even in psychological literature, which describes many determining variables related to the school domain, few studies have investigated the universal mechanism underlying parent–child relations, which is a prototype matrix for future student–teacher relations. The role of the imprinted schema of children’s obligations toward parents seems to be crucial for school functioning in classroom society. The Dual Filial Piety Model is comprised of two higher-order factors that correspond to the two focal filial piety attributes: reciprocal and authoritarian, which (...) have been shown to have distinct implications on social adaptation and individuals’ psychological functioning. In this study, we investigate the relationship between filial piety and student attitudes in a more individualistic and egalitarian culture and in a more collectivistic and hierarchical society. The measurement invariances of three scales, i.e., the Vietnamese adaptation of DFP Scale, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, and the Study Satisfaction Scale, were improved in the MLM analyses. Our results show that in more individualistic cultures, the RFP is a stronger predictor of study engagement and study satisfaction; however, the AFP is a better factor to predict study engagement in more collectivistic cultures. What is more, only RFP positively correlates with study satisfaction in individualistic culture. Our findings revealed that in different cultures, different aspects of filial piety should be emphasized by parents in the context of the future academic achievements of their children. The conclusion is that the prevention and intervention strategies or techniques intended for children with school problems should be culturally appropriate and addressed to the parents of kindergarten and later to very early-stage education teachers. The results of studies based on the DFPM may stimulate practical applications and policy development within the domain of success and failure in the academic environment. (shrink)

: When we look at the research done on the history of education, it is possible to come across different ideas about personality-education relation, approaches and theories. Human feelings, thoughts, behaviours, material structure and personality characteristics that are evolving making it necessary to handle him in multi-dimensions. As a result of this situation both in Islamic geography and in the West, many thinkers elaborate the affecting factors on personality development and education, they evaluate the physcial environment and the conditions (...) that change depending on it as an active element influencing personality education. In this our study, we try to put out the ideas that point to the place of physcial environment in personality education of Muhammad Iqbal who has a distinct place in the tradition of Islamic thought with unique ideas about man. In this context, the starting points of our research will be determination the conceptual framework of the personality word and to recognize the physcial environment that Iqbal brings to the agenda in personality education and pointing to the move of the school and the teacher in the personality education process instead of Ikbal's views in connection with the physical environment and to determine the role give place by Iqbal in the physcial environment in terms of its impact on the development of human personality will be the starting points of our research. Summary: The education aims to develop the human being as a whole by the mental characteristics, emotions, personality and spiritual structure. Man is in a network of dialectical relationships with an environment that surrounds him from physical, social and cultural aspects constantly. Personality forms the center of human structure. Therefore throughout history, the way of thinkers, writers, systems and theorists who have developed ideas about education has intersected the concept of personality at some point in the efforts to understand people. The word "personality", which is a infinitive derived from the root of "şhs" which means "ascending, seeing, growing, growing" in Arabic, comes to mean "individuality". The concept of personality, "the structure of a person's whole attributes, attitudes, abilities, appearance and appearance of adaptation to the environment"; "Consistent patterns of behaviors stemming from the individual and intrapersonal processes", "a person's view of other people and their behavior as a whole" etc. differently defined. According to this, it’s possible to say that there is no common definition of the concept of personality, which is the subject of modern psychology and pedagogy. What is the element that has the primary influence in shaping and training the personality is discussed; in this sense, various factors such as "environment, inheritance and cultural values" are emphasized. The history of research on personality education in the West does not go very far. Whereas in the Islamic thought tradition, the examination of laws related to personality is much older and rooted than in the West, and the starting point of these examinations is accepted as the beginning of the analysis of the nafs. Eventually, the reality is that it is a being that can transform the material periphery of a person be accepted. Muhammad Iqbal, a Pakistani thinker, is one of the Islamic thinkers who stand out with their own ideas about personality development and education. Iqbal prefers "human" in education and deals with all these determinative elements in human education because human beings do not live in a space and in general have the characteristics of the material circumstance, culture, understanding and system in which the personality is developed and shaped. To make the people conscious, to prepare actions, to make them equipped; to make arrangements for its change, development and transformation is the common point of education philosophies and understandings in general terms. Accordingly, thinkers have historically dealt with humanity in their approach to education throughout history and moved from its reality. Muhammad Iqbal's view of humanity and imagination is nourished from this point. While putting forth his ideas about humanity, Iqbal has put concepts such as "personality, individuality, self, what is human being ie matter-spirit relation, person-society relation" and his understanding of education has built on this basis. According to Iqbal, education should give individual personality and should show ways of using mind and constructing personality. Iqbal sees personality as the center of the organization of human life and sees the most important goal of education as developing personality. Although individual basis takes, education should not isolate it from the concrete environment. Iqbal strongly opposes the educational attitude which removes the person from the concrete environment. Because human personality has a tendency to invade and dominate the environment. According to Iqbal, this direction must be used in person's personal education. "Concrete environmental knowledge" for personality development is an undeniable reality. The only way to obtain the knowledge of the concrete environment is through the struggle from confrontation to confront with his powers freely. According to İqbal, the most important thing that is indispensable for human beings is to be able to communicate with the concrete environment freely in this process. However, this freedom is not limitless freedom but also includes a certain discipline. It is a concrete environmental relationship that can pass on these principles for human should be seen as an area of activity that allows for a series of observations and experiments in order to build personality According to İqbal, the main thing for the human being is not to adapt to the environment but to dominate it. The constant change in the material world forces the person to rebuild and renew his personality continuously. The most important task to be undertaken human to research material world because nature is created in accordance with human nature. The mind, the senses, the imagination, the desires, the aesthetic values are the most important motivation sources of man in observing and realizing the material world. By observing nature, human beings embrace both the reality of their personality and the divine qualities of its founding elements. In addition, the mental and aesthetic values to be achieved through the discovery of the material circle should be seen as very valuable and important for personality education. The concrete environment, which renews itself again and again with each creation, inspires man to constantly renew himself and to have an active, dynamic personality. Discussing the effects of the school on the personality education perspective, Iqbal takes a stand against an independent, individualized school building. The most important characteristic of Iqbal's dream school is that it can be trained in material and spiritual education. Iqbal recommends implementation in schoools methods such as "project method, learning method by doing, active method" and liken the teacher a skillful gardener who raises children delicately as a delicate flower. According to him, the teacher is a soul architecture that guiding students, removing obstacles in front of their personality development, and not locking their freedoms. Through such teachers, dynamic individuals and perfect people who will discover the secrets of nature, obtain personality integrity and create a new world will surely exist at all times. (shrink)

School Psychology Ethics in the Workplace introduces a pragmatic and user-friendly model that helps readers become proficient ethical decision-makers using the 2020 NASP ethical code and to critically engage the ethical standards and work through ethical dilemmas that often occur in school and clinical settings. This book provides an overview of the National Association of School Psychologists' (NASP) latest Principles for Professional Ethics. It introduces readers to various ethical codes related to psychology, the importance of having ethical (...) codes, the limitations of ethical codes, and an ethical decision-making model that accounts for multicultural and social justice issues. Over 100 ethical case studies are presented in the text that specifically relate to NASP's Principles for Professional Ethics. Readers are provided step-by-step directions on how to use the ethical decision-making model when problem solving each case scenario. School psychology graduate students and their instructors will find this guide invaluable for learning NASP's new ethical code and for being prepared for situations school psychologists are likely to experience in practice. (shrink)

The present work aims at developing a scale for the assessment of a construct that we called “physical–digital integration”, which refers to the tendency of some individuals not to perceive a clear differentiation between feelings and perceptions that pertain to the physical or digital environment. The construct is articulated in four facets: identity, social relationships, time–space perception, and sensory perception. Data from a sample of 369 participants were collected to evaluate factor structure (unidimensional model, bifactor model, correlated four-factor model), (...) internal consistency (Cronbach’s _α_, McDonald’s _ω_), and correlations of the physical–digital integration scale with other measures. Results showed that the scale is valid and internally consistent, and that both the total score and the scores at its four subscales are worthy of consideration. The physical–digital integration scores were found to be differently associated with digital and non-digital behaviors, individuals’ ability to read emotions in the facial expressions of others, and indicators of psychosocial functioning (anxiety, depression, and satisfaction with social relationships). The paper proposes a new measure whose scores are associated with several variables that may have relevant consequences at both individual and social levels. (shrink)

This qualitative study used a deep ecology lens and the New Environmental Paradigm to investigate anthropocentrism and ecocentrism in 30 secondary school environment club students from three schools in Victoria, Australia. The work repositions the deep ecology philosophy as a posthumanist/relational ideology, providing novel perspectives based on kinship with the earth. Open-ended interviews assessed the alignment of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors along a Deep Ecology Spectrum. Key aspects of deep ecology were confirmed through the study findings including biospherical (...) egalitarianism, limits to growth, wildlife preservation, anti-consumerism, environmental activism, and ecological identity. (shrink)

Punishment of offenders is one of the most universal features of human behavior. Across time and cultures it has been common for people to punish offenders, and one can easily find examples of punishment among ancient hunter-gatherers, in holy scriptures, in popular culture, and in contemporary courts of law. Punishment is not restricted to criminal offenders, but emerges within all spheres of our social life, including corporations, public institutions, traffic, sports matches, schools, parenting, and more. Punishment strongly influences what we (...) think, how we feel, and what we do. The Moral Punishment Instinct asserts that people possess a hard-wired tendency to aggress against those who violate the norms of their group. We have evolved this instinct because of its power to control behavior by curbing selfishness and free-riding, thereby providing incentives to stimulate the mutual cooperation that ancient hunter-gatherers needed in order to survive in challenging natural environments. In this book, Jan-Willem van Prooijen methodically describes how punishment originates from moral emotions, stimulates cooperation, and shapes the social life of human beings. Guided by a host of recognizable and relatable examples, this book illuminates how the moral punishment instinct manifests itself among a variety of modern human cultures, children, tribes of hunter-gatherers, and even non-human animals-all while accounting for the role of this instinct in religion, war, racial bias, restorative justice, gossip, torture, and radical terrorism. (shrink)

To be an effective teacher, a combination of specific professional skills and psychological attributes are required. With increasingly fluid employment conditions, particularly in the international context, recruiters and schools are under considerable pressure to quickly differentiate candidates and make successful placements, which involves more than just determining if a candidate holds an appropriate qualification. Therefore, the aim of this cross-sectional study was to measure theoretically and empirically valuable psychological attributes in an international sample of schoolteachers to determine the (...) most valuable correlates of satisfaction and position duration. An international sample (N= 335) of elementary, middle and high school teachers completed an online survey to capture their workplace satisfaction, position duration and measure 15 psychological attributes using validated instruments. Linear associations were estimated using hierarchical regression with this analysis complemented and compared with follow-up non-linear neural network models. Using regression, lower agreeableness (less people-oriented) emerged as the strongest correlate of longer position duration throughout the cohort. In elementary school teachers, lower impulsivity and higher organizational commitment emerged as the strongest correlates of longer position duration. In high school teachers, better stress tolerance and higher organizational commitment emerged as the strongest correlates of longer position duration. Using neural networks to suggest predictive models, low levels of neuroticism and impulsivity were the strongest predictors of longer position duration in elementary school teachers. High stress tolerance also predicted high work satisfaction in elementary teachers, whereas it was lower impulsivity that most strongly predicted higher work satisfaction in high school teachers. Innovation tendencies, perhaps surprisingly, appeared as a consistent predictor of lower levels of workplace satisfaction across teaching levels. Honesty-humility also emerged as a predictor of shorter position duration, particularly for primary/elementary teachers scoring above the mean. Taken together the results suggest an interesting balancing act that needs to be struck between hiring people-oriented and innovative teachers who may be more effective and adaptable but also at greater risk of changing position, possibly due to an increased interest and ability to transition into new social environments. (shrink)

Providing an inclusive and quality education for all contributes toward the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. High-quality learning environments based on what works in education benefit all students and can be particularly beneficial for children with disabilities. This article contributes to advance knowledge to enhance the quality of education of students with disabilities that are educated in special schools. This research analyses in which ways, if any, interactive learning environments can be developed in special schools and create better (...) learning opportunities for children with disabilities. A case study was conducted with students with disabilities (N = 36) and teaching staff in a special school, involving interviews and focus groups. We argue that rethinking the learning context by introducing instruction models based on interaction benefit children with disabilities and provide high-quality learning and safe and supportive relationships for these students, thereby promoting their educational and social inclusion. (shrink)

The study focuses on the emotional-motivational experiences of Bedouin-Arab beginning teachers during the induction period, from the perspective of Self-Determination Theory. A phenomenological study was employed. Seventy-four teachers participated, 62 of whom completed open questionnaires, while semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 other participants. The findings indicate that the beginning teachers reported experiences of coercion, exploitation, and gender-based discrimination. They also experienced a judgmental attitude, lack of assistance, and difficulties with students, and their sense of relatedness to the school (...) is impaired due to cultural factors. As a result, they expressed controlled motivation, a sense of burnout, stress, impaired well-being and disengagement in school. They also suppressed their students' autonomy. At the same time, the findings also show that when the teachers experience a sense of need satisfaction, they integrate well into the school. These findings indicate the necessity for establishing a need-supportive school environment for beginning teachers during their induction period. (shrink)

"Despite a dramatic rise in average income in the last 40 years, people are no happier. Since the millennium personal well-being has recently shot up the political and educational agendas, with schools in the UK even including "Personal Well-being" as a curriculum topic in its own right.This book takes teachers, student teachers and parents step by step through the many facets of well-being, pausing at each step to look at the educational implications for teachers and parents trying to make our (...) children's lives more meaningful. With his renowned talent for distilling the most complex of philosophical arguments into accessible laymen's terms, John White addresses the moral maze of well-being through three distinct parts:Part 1 describes the remarkable growth of interest in children's well-being in the UK since 2000, and suggests that a philosophical look at the concept of well-being is essential, so that teachers and parents can avoid confusion and misunderstanding.Part 2 takes the reader step by step through the intricacies of the concept in a deliberately accessible way with each chapter containing a substantial section showing how the new ideas just introduced can be taken up in education, especially in schools.Part 3 is about the future of education for well-being, pulling together, expanding on home as well as school, discussing the main aims and emphases of an education focussed on personal well-being. The author also looks at how school's traditional practices will have to change, given the new focus on well-beingAs well as looking at educational implications of all these questions step by step, the book concludes with an extensive practical guide for families and schools wanting to realise the new well-being agenda.This short, engaging book takes the reader with little or no background in philosophy into these issues. It is of special interest to teachers and parents, since they are now at the sharp end of the culture change we are now experiencing"-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

More and more studies and research have found a positive relationship between the participation of young people in altruistic activities and helping others, but it is interesting to discover a relationship of that personal and vocational satisfaction in the preparation and training in a profession as important to society as teaching. For students who begin university studies related to teaching, their psychological well-being and motivation towards this activity are very relevant aspects to consider. The access to and attainment of (...) a University Degree with a great vocational character, such as that of Pre-School Teacher or Primary Education Teacher, can benefit the students who will be in charge. These future educational professionals will have adequate motivation and maintain a psychological well-being that, in short, will favour their personal balance and will impact their future students. This research aims to analyse the degree of psychological well-being and its relationship with the motivation towards starting the teaching career. A sample of 233 students and students aged between 17 or 19 years of age who are beginning university studies at the School of Education of Ciudad Real was selected. All participants are enrolled in the first year of the Degree in Pre-school and Primary Education. The relationship between the psychological well-being of the students and their motivation towards attaining a professional teaching career was analysed. Other variables such as age or sex were also taken into account. A quantitative study was carried out and the Ryff Psychological Welfare Scale and the Intrinsic Motivation Questionnaire (IMI) were used. Once the results were analysed, it was observed that there is a positive correlation between the perception of psychological well-being that the participants have and their motivation towards the beginning of university studies, whose professional focus is mainly direct teaching with the students of the early stages of Pre-school and Primary Education. There are also some significant differences, considering the age and sex of the participants. The vocational character of university preparation for the teaching profession may determine that students who begin their Degree studies have an important motivation towards the performance of their professional future. (shrink)

This paper explores high school students' and teachers' preferences towards constructivist Internet‐based learning environments. The study proposes a framework, including two dimensions and five aspects, to illustrate the features of the Internet‐based learning environments. Based upon this framework, the Constructivist Internet‐based learning environment survey improvement was developed, which includes the scales of ease of use, multiple sources, student negotiation, reflective thinking, critical judgement and epistemological awareness. Questionnaire responses gathered from 630 high school students in Taiwan suggested that (...) the CILESI showed adequate reliability in assessing students' preferences. Male students placed more emphasis on the student negotiation, critical judgement and epistemological awareness enhanced by the Internet‐based learning environments than female students did. In addition, the teachers of the sampled students were also surveyed by CILESI. The teachers tended to express stronger preferences on the ease of use of the Internet‐based learning environments than did their students. However, students, when compared with their teachers, seemed to express more preferences towards the features of student negotiation, reflective thinking, critical judgement and epistemological awareness of Internet‐based learning environments. (shrink)

From a psychological standpoint, communicating a severe diagnosis entails more than just naming a disease, it is a complex process with a number of stages: finding out what the patient already knows about the illness (some of which might be wrong, and thus psychologically detrimental), informing the patient while answering any questions (about the illness itself, the treatment, prognosis, recovery period, etc.) and last but not least, providing a minimum of psychological support depending on the patient’s reaction. Romanian (...) law regarding doctor-patient relationship and communication is modeled on the Anglo-Saxon model centered on patient autonomy and direct communication with the latter if the patient desires to know the truth about his condition. If this is not the case, the patient can name a proxy for doctor-patient communication. There are three legal documents that clarify these aspects: Law of Patient Rights, Medical Association’s Ethics Code and the Health Reform Law. The first two are conflicting on several aspects that we will discuss in this paper. The few studies on doctor-patient communication published in Romania reveal that there is no unitary methodology in this field. The doctors attest that often times the patient’s family, when faced with severe illness turn to the traditional model of communication, i.e. they desire to know the severe diagnosis first and pressure the physician to hide the truth form the patient, contrary to the letter of the law. The aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of communicating severe diagnosis in nowadays Romania in a very complex context: 1. The model of doctor-patient relationship and communication has changed after communist era (from paternalistic to partenerial); 2. Conflicting and missing issues in laws; 3. Laws based on patient’s autonomy principle in a traditional society based on another model of taking care (the patient is part of a family nucleus and the family wants to interfere into the medical communication process). Communication has only recently entered the curriculum of some medical schools in Romania. The doctors questioned as part of a study reveal that they‘ve learned to communicate a severe diagnosis by trial and error. This being said we recommend the inception of practical doctor-patient communication courses that could lead to improving doctor-patient relationships, communication of the diagnosis being their foundations. (shrink)

continent. 1.3 (2011): 208-212. … intervals of destructuring paradoxically carry the momentum for the ongoing process by which thought and perception are brought into relation toward transformative action. —Brian Massumi, Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation 1 Facing a blank canvas or blank page is a moment of pure potential, one that can be enervating or paralyzing. It causes a pause, a hesitation, in anticipation of the moment of inception—even of one that never comes. The implication is that the (...) blank is yours in that moment, and it calls on you to act on it, to think into it, to create on it. Each blank canvas gives you time, of an undefined length, to transform that canvas’ inherent potential into a work. This two-dimensional plane of potential can be projected into a space, which the body can then occupy. When you “destructure” a space in the same way, prepare it to be a blank, much as you build a canvas, you allow your entire body to enter the space of potential, and you rest in anticipation of work, like the hand poised above the page. Artists have found that the deliberate creation of that space of potential through sealing the space and painting it white, thereby erasing details and distractions, can be such a transformative experience as to help define their whole practice. The cessation of distraction, the absence of indicator that a “blanked” workspace provides allows for a new presence of mind, it gives them the room, literally, to move into their work, and from there to move their work into the world. The workspace for the artist, the studio, is often perceived as a lab-like condensation of the gallery or museum, the traditional and idealized white cube. Similarly, with the blank page, a concrete relation between space and time comes forward as the intentional simplification of the architecture changes behavior and perception within the space. The work of “blanking” the studio space is a meditative reduction, an erasure, and in a way, an attempt at drawing away from the world beyond the studio - the sealed space is meant to recede from reality, to become abstracted by its willed lack of details and distractions. Within that space the time for a new beginning is made more present, more attainable, and the focus it fosters becomes another tool to aid creation. At the formative moment of his artistic practice, Tom Friedman used the blank of his studio, saturated in white, sealed off from the world, to fight velocity. He describes how he projected his vision of the end goal, the museum - a place he believes to be defined by slow contemplation - onto his own studio experience. He then sat and reflected on common objects, one by one, framed by the blank box he had created. The domestic objects he brought into the space to study foreshadow his mature works, where often the quotidian object has a single additional element – his intense labor. Friedman makes discrete objects through absurdly intense and focused labor, epitomized, perhaps by his 1,000 hours of Staring , made from 1992-97: Tom Friedman. 1000 Hours of Staring (1992-1997) His labor, to use his own words, is his way to “bring all of who you are to the experience.” Friedman shares his labor, allows the slow, deliberate pace of his work born in the studio to penetrate the museum. Nothing seems effortless, or a gesture, the labor is apparent, displayed, and tangible. He gives us the labor, the personal investment in the physical that saved art for him, that divorced the work from the language he cites as a factor of alienation. When we see his work we do not see words, we see acts, we see objects. He has forced the studio as workspace into the exhibition space, as he stuffs hundreds of more hours of labor into his shows with each new piece, filling the space with material and labor, material and labor – his involvement, his investment, is his gift to us as the viewers, as he introduces the laborious and contemplative pace he feels belongs to the museum. He saves us also from the alienation of language, which first drove him into the sealed studio and away from the discourse of his school. He presents us with his real, the object which stands in stark contrast to the white slate of the studio, the sealed white box he started from, where his individual, self-contained objects begin and end, completed through the intensity of isolation, first of the individual artist, and then of the material he chooses to slowly, slowly, slowly work: Tom Friedman. Untitled (1992) In his in-depth analysis of galleries as a blank white cube, Brian O’Doherty emphasizes the religious connotations implied in the strict laws of the exhibition space and the valuation, aesthetics and elements of control he feels it imposes upon the work. Like Friedman, he recognizes the power of the restricted space – indicating the “perceptual fields of force” – that act on any object introduced into it. Going beyond Friedman’s assessment of the space as highly utilitarian for focusing his perception, O’Doherty emphasizes the rejection of the physical body of the artist or observer, saying that the cube allows for only observation - eyes and mind. He later parallels the picture frame as a psychological container for the artist with the room as the same for the observer. In both cases, this is an emphasis on the alienating nature of the relationship – just as the artist is kept out of the frame by the picture, in the gallery the art forces the body of the spectator out, calling for a self-referential purity. Patrick Ireland. White Cube (1998) O’Doherty makes a point of saying that the installation shot of the gallery without figures is “one of the icons of our visual culture.” In recent years, however, installation shots have begun to include figures, in some cases they are essential to understanding the scale and even the nature of the work, specifically with work that captures the experience of the space and the way that it varies from a white cube. The work of Olafur Eliasson is a case in point, as the Danish artist uses elements of scientific and natural phenomena to alter perception within the controlled gallery environment, tweaking and redirecting O’Doherty’s “perceptual fields of force” to make points about the act of seeing, or seeing yourself seeing, to quote the artist. This indicates a shift in the role of the artwork, not to exclude the body and stand discretely and self-sufficiently, but to include it, to manipulate it and to make the observer aware of the nature of that manipulation and the work’s ability to manipulate. Olafur Eliasson. 360º room for all colours (2002) So though in O’Doherty’s analysis, the intense blankness of the gallery pushed the observer out in favor of the artwork’s isolation, artists can replicate this inhumane sterility in their own workspace to focus their work on the influence of the gallery right from inception. This can be interpreted as an almost opposite understanding of the purpose of sealing and whitewashing the workspace as stated by Friedman. He sought a refuge from the critical language of the art school, and a space that, like the museum, gave him a protracted sense of time, and, he felt, welcomed him in, “to bring all of who you are,” as opposed to O’Doherty’s feeling that the museum was asking you, at least in body, to leave, and allow the work to take on its own life. Friedman does not seem to imply the tension with the cube and critical stance that O’Doherty prioritizes. Where Friedman finds a refuge, O’Doherty defines an opponent. In a third position, Robert Irwin describes his sealed studio space as “the world.” Though he made the same effort as Friedman to seal out all influences and distractions, he implies that he is in dialogue with the world through his own concentration and perception. This is reminiscent of the nature of the monad, as interpreted by Deleuze, a unity that envelops a multiplicity, a sealed container that contains the universe. He went through the same ritual described by Friedman, sealing up the space, painting it white, and then forcing himself to remain inside, staring at his own work, training his concentration relentlessly. But he found that the room became the distraction: …he became aware that a thin crack along the wall a few yards away from the canvas likewise exerted its presence; that when he plastered that crack over and repainted the wall, the canvas itself presented an entirely new aspect.2 The context was in a relentless dialogue with the work, and trying to neutralize that dialogue, to mute the conversation between space and object, became part of his ritual as he “fixed” his space each day in the hope of total concentration on the work. Ultimately, Irwin shaped the trajectory of his art by relinquishing the studio, establishing a post-studio practice, where the work is conceived and created out in the world, in dialogue with the world and reflective of the conditions it finds surrounding it. The white cube failed to ever achieve neutrality, his heightened concentration prevented him from ever neutralizing the space, so, instead of continuing to try to maintain the charade of a perfect blank, he acknowledged the unstoppable voice of place and turned all his efforts onto the object and the world, as a constant dialogue. Some artists push their studio space far from purity, domesticating it like a lair or a living room, and others destroy it, fill it with chaos or detritus, blacken or clutter it so as never to be starting from a blank, and thereby try to avoid the anxiety of facing that void. Similarly artists may never prepare a white canvas, a clean page, a marble block, or other form that is intentionally lacking, in order to try to escape the dialogue with emptiness. But Irwin, like O’Doherty, found an opponent in the white cube, and he learned not to fight it, rather he ended the conflict by making it an ally, an interlocutor, a collaborator. We can vainly strive to start from nothing, to find the lull, the clearing, and to always consider what we do in balance with the empty set. Somehow that intangible cloud of hazy nothingness, that softness of a lapse continually offers a place to bounce off of, to react to, to wrestle with, to rest with, in tension, or a place to begin. Robert Irwin. Excursus: Homage to the Square3 (1998) NOTES 1 Massumi. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. p271. 2 MOMA, NY. Eliasson, 360 ? Room for All Colours . Installation. 2002. (shrink)

This volume addresses key aspects of the philosophical psychology elaborated by Alexius Meinong and some of his students. It covers a wide range of topics, from the place of psychological investigations in Meinong's unique philosophical program to his thought-provoking views on perception, colors, "Vorstellungsproduktion," assumptions, values, truth, and emotions.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Directions in Contemporary German AestheticsMatthew PritchardÄsthetisches Denken, 6th ed., by Wolfgang Welsch. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1990 (2003), 223 pp.Aisthetik: Vorlesungen Über Ästhetik Als Allgemeine Wahrnehmungslehre, by Gernot Böhme. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2001, 199 pp.Ästhetische Korrespondenzen: Denken Im Technischen Raum, by Reinhard Knodt. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1994, 166 pp.The relationship between the Anglo-American and German aesthetic traditions is a paradoxical one. On the one hand, acquaintance with one or more figures from (...) the “great tradition” in German aesthetic thought over the last 250 years is a given for most philosophically oriented writers on aesthetics in Britain and America. Thinkers such as Kant or Adorno form a real and abiding part of our background. In some cases the connection with German intellectual lineages goes a good deal further. As an extreme case, take Terry Eagleton’s The Ideology of the Aesthetic,1 whose engagement with German thought is so deep that I have come across it as a set text for aesthetics courses in German universities (despite the fact that none of the dozen authors Eagleton analyzes are cited in their original language). On the other hand, interest in contemporary German aesthetics in English and American circles appears to be relatively slight. One would have little idea, from reading any of the philosophical journals in English, of just how much activity there is in this area, only a small proportion of which has been translated, cited, or reviewed. And yet the past two decades have seen the publication of dozens of relevant books by German authors, many proposing independent theoretical approaches. Among these—aside from the books reviewed here—are the substantial work done on performance and performativity by Erika Fischer-Lichte (Ästhetik des Performativen, 2004) and Dieter Mersch (Ereignis und Aura, 2002); the theoretical oeuvre of the prize-winning literary critic Karl Heinz Bohrer, of which Suddenness: On the Moment of Aesthetic Appearance, originally published in 1981, has made it into English; Ruth Sonderegger’s Romantic-leaning plea Für eine Ästhetik des Spiels (2000); Dieter Heinrich’s work on the philosophy of art and subjectivity, Fixpunkte: Aufsätze [End Page 117] und Essays zur Theorie der Kunst (2003); Martin Seel’s Aesthetics of Appearing (2004); the traditional neo-Kantian perspective of the late Rüdiger Bubner as set out in his Ästhetische Erfahrung (1989); Gábor Paál’s Was ist schön?—Ästhetik und Erkenntnis (2003); Konrad Paul Liessmann’s Reiz und Rührung: Über ästhetische Empfindungen (2003)... the list could be continued. And this is not to mention empirical-psychological approaches, works on the history of aesthetics, the reception accorded to analytical aesthetics and American philosophers such as Goodman and Danto, or the continuation of European poststructuralist and Frankfurt School traditions (for example, in the work of Albrecht Wellmer and Christoph Menke).Given this large “backlog” of writing not yet assimilated into Anglo-American discussion, it makes sense to be selective and range a little further than the most recently published texts. Owing to sheer diversity, I cannot honestly claim that the three books I am going to discuss here are “representative” of the interests driving contemporary German aesthetics. But I have chosen them for certain common traits, traditions, and emphases that seem to me to present a stimulating contrast with the approach of Anglo-American philosophical aesthetics, while retaining many points of contact with non-German thought. That the contrast does not come down to the crass standoff of “analytical” vs. “Continental,” and all the clichés about academic style that go with it, should become obvious. It is more interesting than that, and although I want to leave the details to the discussion of the three books, I can mention at the outset a few aspects I regard as important. One is that none of these authors addresses themselves exclusively to either the philosophy of art or to the aesthetics of nature and the environment. Instead they tend to make points relating to both, or to regard both as aspects of a single situation. “Environmental aesthetics” in Anglo-American philosophy—for instance, the work of Allen Carlson—is not only of recent date but is still a subdiscipline separated from aesthetics... (shrink)

The Heart of School Leadership focuses on 50 areas that school leaders need to think about in order to nurture a cohesive school community.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 244-248 [Access article in PDF] Book Review The Social Self in Zen and American Pragmatism The Social Self in Zen and American Pragmatism. By Steve Odin. SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought. Albany: SUNY, 1996. xvi + 482 pp. Better late than never! As one of the few volumes—only two to date, actually—in the SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought to address a perennial philosophical (...) problem by drawing seriously upon both the Eastern (Zen Buddhism) and Western (American pragmatism) philosophical traditions, this book should have been reviewed in the pages of this journal a long time ago. Odin's thesis is that both traditions evidence a paradigm shift during the twentieth century from a monological and subjectivistic concept of an individualized self toward a dialogical and intersubjective concept of social self. He explores this hypothesis in the three parts of the book devoted to the social self in modern Japanese philosophy, the social self in Mead and American pragmatism, and a comparative analysis.Part 1 consists of three chapters focused on the philosophical thought of Watsuji Tetsuro (1885-1962) and Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945), and on the psychological investigations of Doi Takeo (dates not given, but whose primary works were published in the 1970s and 1980s). Watsuji's central idea is a Zen and Confucian ningenmodel of personhood whereby the self emerges in "the betweenness of person and person" as the individual (nin), understood primarily in temporal categories, and society (gen), understood primarily in the spatial categories of nature, community and family, mutually empty themselves into the other. (In a later chapter, Odin draws parallels between the yi-li—spontaneous, novel reaction-ritual action—dialectic of Confucianism and the I-me dialectic of George Herbert Mead.) This notion of self as ningen subsequently served, at least in part, the development of nihonjinron scholarship—"studies of Japanese identity"—as advanced by thinkers like Kimura Bin, Hamaguchi Eshun, and Kumon Shumpei. The goal has been to steer the middle way between individualistic (Western) and collectivistic (Confucian) conceptions of the self toward what Hamaguchi and Kumon call a contextualist (kanjin), and thereby truly Japanese, understanding.Odin's exposition of Nishida focuses on his idea of the true self—the perennial quest of the Zen tradition—as a "social self" (shakaiteki jiko) that emerges from the I-thou, self-other, and individual-environment dialectics that take "place" in the absolutely empty spatial "field" of basho.(Here, Odin suggests that rather than drawing from Martin Buber's philosophy, both Nishida and Buber drew common inspiration from Ludwig Feuerbach's Principles of the Philosophy of the Future [Grundsatze der Philosophie der Zukunft, 1843]). The true self is therefore the no-self in the locus of absolute Nothingness. As such, the true self is also the empty self. This leads Nishida to draw analogies in his last few essays between the Buddhist idea of sunyata, or "emptiness," with the Christian notion of kenosis, or "self-emptiness." In [End Page 244] keeping with the Zen insistence against reifying emptiness, however, the true self is that which overcomes nihilism but yet resists eternalism. Buddhist sunyatais now symbolized by the bodhisattva's self-negating vow of compassion for all sentient beings, even as Christian kenosis is symbolized by Christ's self-emptying love for the world. This leads to the true self conceptualized as the intersubjective self. Odin suggests that this insight of Nishida is latent in the Chan/Zen tradition as captured in the famous Ten Oxherding Pictures. He also briefly portrays how later Kyoto school thinkers like Ueda Shizuteru, Nishitani Keiji, Abe Masao, Tanabe Hajime, and MutoKazuo have extended Nishida's insights and contributed to the Buddhist-Christian dialogue.Meanwhile, Doi Takeo, a distinguished Japanese psychiatrist, has suggested that human intrapsychic drives are not limited to sexual and aggressive instincts as hypothesized by Freud. Rather, there is an amae or dependency drive that explains the human need for love, intimacy, warmth, protection, nurturing, and so forth. This other-reliance and relational aspect of the human being explains, at least from a psychoanalytical perspective, the... (shrink)

The relationship between musical and linguistic skills has received particular attention in infants and school-aged children. However, very little is known about pre-schoolers. This leaves a gap in our understanding of the concurrent development of these skills during development. Moreover, attention has been focused on the effects of formal musical training, while neglecting the influence of informal musical activities at home. To address these gaps, in Study 1, 3- and 4-year-old children ( n = 40) performed novel musical tasks (...) (perception and production) adapted for young children in order to examine the link between musical skills and the development of key language capacities, namely grammar and phonological awareness. In Study 2, we investigated the influence of informal musical experience at home on musical and linguistic skills of young pre-schoolers, using the same evaluation tools. We found systematic associations between distinct musical and linguistic skills. Rhythm perception and production were the best predictors of phonological awareness, while melody perception was the best predictor of grammar acquisition, a novel association not previously observed in developmental research. These associations could not be explained by variability in general cognitive functioning, such as verbal memory and non-verbal abilities. Thus, selective music-related auditory and motor skills are likely to underpin different aspects of language development and can be dissociated in pre-schoolers. We also found that informal musical experience at home contributes to the development of grammar. An effect of musical skills on both phonological awareness and language grammar is mediated by home musical experience. These findings pave the way for the development of dedicated musical activities for pre-schoolers to support specific areas of language development. (shrink)

Comte’s ideas were spread in Britain through the medium of J S Mill’s System of Logic. Positivism in this version was much like the original in France: it was an historical theory about the classification of knowledge through three progressive stages. Progress referred to both scientific knowledge and civilisation. Comte’s system omitted the subject of psychology, but Mill’s followers, G H Lewes and Alexander Bain, remedied this by incorporating this discipline into the Comtean canon as an evolutionary doctrine.Comte had excluded (...) psychology from the ranks of the sciences because it lacked independence. That is, the mind’s ability to alter its environment by use of volition or will meant that it was not the sort of phenomenon that was analyzable using scientific method. Lewes, in countering this idea, based psychology in biology so as to emphasise those aspect of the discipline that were analogous to other sciences. Lewes saw the mind as the brain and regarded volition as very much like a reflex action or an instinct that might be beyond the mind’s control. Lewes also faulted Comte or classifying knowledge in an intellectual system that was not drawn from science. In place of Comte’s stages, Lewes substituted Herbert Spencer’s empirically-based notion of “ascending complexity”. This developmental thesis was not based upon natural selection, but upon the theory that both biological organism and the mind developed increased functionality as they evolved.Leslie Stephen’s positivism, unlike Lewes’, was not based upon data from neurophysiology. Instead it was a philosophical defence of a secular school of philosophy that began with Hume and Bentham and stretched forward to Lewes and Spencer. Rather perversely for a self-proclaimed member of a school that included Bentham, Stephen’s chief purpose was to attack utilitarianism, which he regarded as the opposition to evolutionary philosophy. Utilitarianism, Stephen argued, attributed too great a role to the intellect at the expense of the feelings. In his view, the latter were the important factors in decision-making and they were analogous to instincts and not subject to a utilitarian calculus. (shrink)

The experience of peer rejection in the classroom, an environment in which students spend a large part of their time, is accompanied by a sense of social pain which can have a profound effect on self-perception and attitude toward the overall school environment. These attitudes can be subsequently reflected in the student’s behavior at school and in his/her school success. The research aims to identify differences in the perception of school life (interpersonal and intrapersonal) (...) among rejected and popular upper-primary school students. For this purpose, the sociometric nomination method and a questionnaire measuring the student’s perception of the school environment were used. From a total of 1,625 students (aged 11–15) from 20 schools, 312 students with the status of popular (liked) and rejected (disliked) were included in the research. The multivariate analysis of covariance (with age and gender as covariates) results revealed no significant differences between the two contrasting groups (popular and rejected) in terms of the perception of school life (interpersonal and intrapersonal). The results of the research indicated a different perception of the school environmentwithinthe groups of rejected and popular students rather than differencesbetweenthe groups. Both the rejected and popular students report contradictory attitudes toward school life. Half of the students indicated that they feel lonely at school and have no confidence in teachers, considering the school a place where they do not like to learn, where they are troubled and where they do not like to talk to their classmates. Perhaps counterintuitively, a larger number of popular students stated that they feel lonely than did the rejected students from the class. Although the results do not paint a very positive picture of perceptions of the school environment, this should be seen as an opportunity to develop active class work with a greater emphasis on strengthening collective trust in the school. (shrink)

Law schools are failing both their staff and students by requiring them to prize reason and rationality and to suppress or ignore emotions. Despite innovations in terms of both content and teaching techniques, there is little evidence that emotions are effectively acknowledged or utilised within legal education. Instead law schools are clinging to an out-dated and erroneous perception of emotions as, at best, irrational, and at worst dangerous. In contrast to this, educational and scientific developments have demonstrated that emotions are (...) a fundamental, inescapable part of learning, teaching and skills development. Harnessing these emotions will therefore have a transformative effect on legal education and enable it to adapt to the needs and demands of the 21st century. This book provides a theoretical overview of the role played by emotions in all aspects of the life of the law school. It explores the relationship between emotions and key traditional and contemporary approaches to legal education, the ways in which emotions can be conceptualised, their interaction with the politics and policies of legal education and their role within teaching and learning. The book also considers the importance of emotional wellbeing for both law students and legal academics Overall, this book argues for a more holistic form of legal education in which emotions play a valuable (and valued) role. This requires a new vision for law schools, in which emotions are acknowledged and embedded at all levels, institutional and personal. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying safety measures, including confinement, has meant an unprecedented challenge for the world population today. However, it has entailed additional difficulties for specific populations, including children and people with disabilities. Being out of school for months has reduced the learning opportunities for many children, such as those with less academic resources at home or with poorer technological connectivity. For students with disabilities, it has entailed losing the quality of the special attention they often need, (...) in addition to a more limited understanding of the situation. In this context, a case study was conducted in a special education classroom of a secondary education school. This class started implementing Dialogic Literary Gatherings with their special education students before the COVID-19 confinement and continued online during the confinement. Qualitative data was collected after a period of implementation of the gatherings showing positive impacts on the participants. The case study shows that interactive learning environments such as the Dialogic Literary Gatherings can provide quality distance learning for students with disabilities, contributing to overcome some of the barriers that the pandemic context creates for the education of these students. (shrink)

The paper presents an overview of research on working memory as a predictor of early school achievements. We contrast two main areas of research on the role of working memory in school achievements: the first concerns the structural model of working memory and the second focuses on executive functions. Then, we discuss the facet model of working memory as a promising approach merging the two research branches on working memory tasks as predictors of early school achievements. At (...) the end we present exemplary results of the research conducted on a national sample of six- and seven-year-olds in Poland, which indicates strong relation of working memory functions with the measures of competences in mathematics, reading, and writing. Additionally, the mediation analyses, with parents’ education as a covariate, indicate that the influence of age on achievements in math, reading, and writing in six- and seven-year olds is mediated by working memory functions. (shrink)

School can be an epicenter for expressing what troubles or energizes the wider community. Taking a step back from the messiness of today's issues and clarifying what we mean by school may provide a new or refreshed lens for viewing these institutions. Schools are sacred, not in a religious sense but in terms of their potential value. At all levels of schooling, teaching and learning are its sacred tasks. And teaching and learning are sacred because the knowledge and (...) skills they impart can potentially open the learner's mind to meaning-making, wisdom, and self-understanding, where values are clarified and life commitments are made. Seeing the school as sacred implies that its environs are sacred space, its schedules are sacred time, and its actions are sacred rites. They are to be respected, protected, and nurtured. This has profound implications for our demeanor and actions, teaching approaches, curriculum planning, administrative priorities, policy-making, and resourcing. (shrink)

Ethics for School Leaders: The Human Condition and Organizational Dynamics focuses on the ethically complex situations school leaders face and how they balance a complex array of organizational demands, interpersonal dynamics, and ethical concerns to achieve the greater good for their students and for everyone else in the school environment.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Literature, Politics, and CharacterOliver Conolly and Bashshar HaydarWhat is the relationship between literature and politics? We might interpret this question in terms of causality. For example, we might ask whether literature has any effects in the world of politics and if so how. Auden famously proclaimed that poetry makes nothing happen, while it was central to Brecht's dramaturgy that theatre has certain political effects on its audience. Conversely, we (...) might see literature as an effect of political causes and claim that certain political environments give rise to certain types of literature, and that those political backgrounds thereby explain certain aspects of literary phenomena. Both kinds of causal relationship are at the heart of Marxist literary criticism, and of the many schools of academic criticism which share the Marxist assumption that individual consciousness, and its literary manifestations, are subordinate to political environment.These causal questions are important and interesting, particularly if approached with requisite critical tact. However, in this paper we would like to focus on the epistemological and normative questions of whether literature is suited to communicate political knowledge or insights, and whether we value, or rather ought to value, literature for such communication. These two questions are in our view intimately related. While there is no doubt that literary works can be made to communicate virtually all kinds of knowledge, from knowledge about the Big Bang to knowledge how to smuggle illegal immigrants into First World countries, these kinds of knowledge are not what we go to literature for. We go to literature and value it for giving us knowledge which it is peculiarly suited to communicate. It is natural to praise a novel for its insight into, say, character but odd to praise a novel for its [End Page 87] insight into, say, meteorology. This is because literature is suited at communicating insights into character, and is not suited at communicating insights into meteorology.The suitability of literature to explore the inner life derives from the expressive and imaginative possibilities inherent in the very medium of literature. For example, Henry James's Portrait of a Lady reveals the inner logic (or psychologic) that underlies the self-destructive behavior of its heroine, Isabel Archer, her disastrous choice of husband being dictated by a desire to prove a point to herself—that she is indifferent to his poverty relative to that of the other suitors—rather than an informed sense of her true interests.1 This is not to say that literature is the only medium in which insight into character can be communicated, but that this is one of the kinds of insight which literature is suited at communicating.The question of whether literature is suited to impart political insights is thus determinative of the question of whether its doing so counts towards its value as literature.2 This is the question to which we now turn.IThe question of whether literature is suited to impart political insights presupposes an understanding of the scope of the political, and the kinds of phenomena that can properly be called political. The scope of the political can be conceived more or less broadly. The narrow view is that politics is concerned with the nature and legitimacy of the state, government, legal and other coercive institutions. The broad view is that politics is concerned with power relations between social groups that are mediated not through institutions but through attitudes.The distinction can be illustrated with reference to two kinds of feminist argument. Feminist arguments for laws on sex discrimination and equal pay, and their proper implementation, are political in the narrow sense. However, feminists may also argue, irrespective of such institutional changes, that social attitudes towards women—the attitudes of a given society, including those of women—should be changed in certain ways. For example, a generally held view that emphasizes the importance of women's appearance, their role as adjuncts to their husbands—the kinds of views that were prevalent in the 1950's, say—is open to challenge by feminists outside a narrow institutional framework. The reason this [End Page 88] stance is political is that it concerns systemic attitudes which underpin power relations between one group... (shrink)