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Can Virtue Be Taught?
Get PDFOne of Plato\u27s liveliest Socratic dialogues, the Protagoras, stages a debate between the greatest philosopher and the greatest sophist of their time, with other leading sophists in the audience. The debate concerns Protagoras\u27 own specialty: the teaching of \u27virtue \u27 or arete, a crucial term in ancient Greece that involves both moral goodness and human greatness. Protagoras and Socrates end up with oddly overlapping intellectual positions: Socrates contends that virtue is not something that\u27s taught, though h e believes that all of virtue is essentially a kind of knowledge. Protagoras denies that all virtues are forms of knowledge, though he maintains that they are in fact commonly taught, and taught especially well by himself. This historical fiction was composed some forty or fifty years after its dramatic setting, but its colourful and inconclusive portraits are probably roughly correct. (Most scholars consider Protagoras\u27 main speech there a paraphrase or imitation of his original writings, which have not survived.) These men were debating in new ways what was already an ancient theme. But since sophists won their fame and wealth through public speeches and private courses on matters social and ethical, and since these new professionals were often suspected as charlatans, old questions about virtue and teaching were a persistent element in the sophists\u27 environment
Digital Democracy
Get PDFExamines if the accessibility of more affordable digital production equipment and desktop video editing systems has democratized the quantity and quality of independent documentaries submitted to PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) stations for broadcast. Includes data gathered from surveys and interviews with PBS program and production personnel, independent filmmakers, and public television program distributors. Explores the relationship between the concept of radical democracy and public broadcasting of local productions
Eye on Ethics: Black, White... And Lots of Gray
No full textIn the long run, hard thinking about subtle but equally important ethical conundrums will lead us to provide superior service to clients, organizations, and communities. Our efforts to sort through the muddle will be more productive when we strive to recognize elusive ethical issues and engage in the kind of rigorous conceptual analysis and hard thinking needed to comply with social work’s ethical standards. As in health club workouts and physical therapy, the greatest gains occur when we push hard to challenge ourselves and avoid the paths of least resistance
The Face of Society
Get PDFWe have updated Ferree and Hall\u27s (1990) study of the way gender and race are constructed through pictures in introductory sociology textbooks. Ferree and Hall looked at 33 textbooks published between 1982 and 1988. We replicated their study by examining 3,085 illustrations in a sample of 27 textbooks, most of which were published between 2002 and 2006. We found important areas of progress in the presentation of both gender and race as well as significant areas of stasis. The face of society we found depicted in contemporary textbooks was distinctly less likely to be that of a white man, very prominent in the 1980s texts, and much more likely to be that of a minority woman. Thus, while only 34 percent of the pictures of identifiable individuals in the textbooks examined by Ferree and Hall were of women, almost 50 percent of such pictures were of women in the recent texts. Moreover, while the percentage of white men portrayed dropped from about 45 percent to 30 percent, the percentage of portrayals of minority women rose from about 11 percent to 22 percent. Another sign of progress has been the decreasing likelihood of textbooks to depict race and gender as being nonoverlapping categories: while women of color apparently had only race in the sample examined by Ferree and Hall, they had both gender and race in the sample we studied. Still, our examination of pictures as a whole as a unit of analysis found that blacks continue to be more likely than any other racial group to be depicted in the presence of other racial groups and, thus, to idealize the degree of social integration in American society. We also still see nonwhite women enjoying very little (in fact, no) visibility in sections devoted to theory, despite developments in feminist theory, generally, and multicultural feminist, specifically. In general, though, our analysis suggests that the various criticisms of introductory texts that have appeared in this forum and others can have an impact on the content of those texts and, by extension, the sociology we teach
Social Workers\u27 Management of Error
Get PDFSocial workers, like all professionals, sometimes make mistakes. For example, they may disclose clients\u27 confidential information inappropriately, fail to respond to clients\u27 reasonable requests in a timely manner, or engage in improper dual relationships with clients. Ideally, social workers who err would follow a protocol that honors the profession\u27s commitment to responsible and honest communication and minimizes the practical risks faced by social workers who might be named in lawsuits, licensing board complaints, and ethics complaints. This article explores the nature and forms of social work error and possible constructive responses to it that (a) protect clients, (b) minimize risk to social workers, (c) prevent future error, and (d) adhere to prevailing ethical standards in the profession
DNA Sequence Analysis of a Bioluminescent Marine Bacterium
Get PDFStudies the sequencing of the DNA fragment containing the gene phaC (PHA synthase) and undertakes the search for open reading frames and putative gene matches in a bioluminescent marine bacterium
What\u27s News At Rhode Island College
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What Do We Want Them to Want to Do?
Get PDFA significant body of research in psychology demonstrates how extrinsic rewards undermine intrinsic motivation of students. The conceptual weakness of the notion of intrinsic motivation makes the research findings at least suspect, and for sure excessively generalized. The research is often used to argue against compensating students for their academic work. It contributed to expansion of false beliefs about the possibility of significant increase of intrinsic learning motivation. These beliefs are grounded in several false assumptions: 1. The assumption of abundant curiosity; or a belief that children are all motivated to learn everything that is offered to them. It is false, because children\u27s indiscriminate curiosity inevitably focuses on a more narrow set of interests as the person\u27s identity develops. 2. The assumption that intrinsic motivation can be easily invoked, drawn to the surface. This assumption does not find support in experience. Moreover, education is different from entertainment in terms of objectives, so adding entertainment value to curriculum tends to diminish its educational value. 3. The main argument against extrinsic rewards is that if those are taken away, activity stops. But this argument is tautological: the definition of extrinsic rewards is that they create motives extrinsic to the person\u27s interest in the activity. The fact that the desired activity stops after withdrawing the rewards is simply another way of defining what extrinsic motivation is, not an argument against it. And finally, proponents of intrinsic motivation believe it can be extended to every activity. However, this is impossible, because having an interest or preference in one activity implies less interest or preference for another activity. Interest is selective, and is used by people to establish their identities. Therefore, some children will not like school learning simply because they are different from those children who do. The utopian thinking predictably has an effect opposite to its intention, namely, the strengthening of administrative and legal coercion in education. The solution seems to be to offer a number of extrinsic rewards for children to motivate their learning, without the fear that it will somehow destroy their intrinsic love of knowledge. In the near future, we need to rethink schools as places where children receive something tangible in exchange for their effort in learning the curriculum. For some, it is the belonging to the school community, for other, an opportunity to engage in activities that are truly desirable (sports or theater, or arts, or social activism). In the long run, we need to figure out a way of normalizing the educational industry by starting to pay older children salaries for their learning activity
What It Takes to Be a Man : A Comparison of Masculinity and Sexuality in Rebel without a Cause and River\u27s Edge
Get PDFCompares the teen films, Rebel without a Cause and River\u27s Edge, using cultural studies to analyze what they reveal about the complexities of masculinity and sexuality. Contends that while the cultural ideologies of the 1950s and 1980s promote a tough-guy hyper-masculinity, these films offer multiple models of masculinity, various forms of homosocial bonds, and veiled messages about homosexuality