The making of modern scientific personae: the scientist as a moral person? Emil Du Bois-Reymond and his friends

This article examines the notion of the 'scientist as a moral person' in the light of the early stages of the commodification of science and the transformation of research into a big enterprise, operating on the principle of the division of labour. These processes were set in train at the end of the 19th century. The article focuses on the concomitant changes in the public persona and the habitus of scientific entrepreneurs. I begin by showing the significance of the professional networks that were built up and maintained to further a group's research ideas and the careers of its members, thus demonstrating one condition on which depended their practice of science and their ability to earn a living. This leads to a characterization of the changing styles of work, thought and life, and to a consideration of public perceptions and of the ways in which a new self-image of scholarship and science was fashioned. A critical discussion of the public role of these mandarin scientists follows in order to highlight the strains created by the commodification of science at a time of international tensions and conflicts, when shared beliefs in scholarly cosmopolitanism were subverted by appeals to science and scholarship to work in the service of one's own nation as its 'courtiers'. Various considerations of peculiar analogies between national styles of research and the style of social organization are then noted. In the final section, the article queries the long-term impact of these developments on the ideal of the scientist as a 'moral person'. Taking a cue from Max Weber and pursuing reflections by Zygmunt Bauman on 'science moralized', I argue that the emergence of a type of 'specialists without spirit' was an unintended but fatal consequence of the changes in research practices promoted by scientific entrepreneurs such as Du Bois-Reymond. I conclude that the temptation to sever the ties to a general ethos of civil virtues lay in the rationalization, specialization and potential de-humanization of the objectifying scientific outlook once advocated for its efficiency.

Easier analysis and better reporting : modelling ordinal data in mathematics education research

This article presents an examination of the use of Rasch modelling in a major research project, 'Improving Middle Years Mathematics and Science' (IMYMS). It is unarguable that it is important to take students' perceptions, or views, into account when planning learning and teaching for them. The IMYMS student perceptions survey is an attempt to make visible these student viewpoints, and report them in a way that is accessible to teachers and researchers involved in the project. The project involves four clusters of schools from urban and regions of Victoria to investigate the role of mathematics and science knowledge and subject cultures in mediating change processes in the middle years of schooling. There are five secondary and twenty-eight primary schools. The project has generated both qualitative and quantitative data, with much of the qualitative data being ordinal in nature. Reporting the results of analyses for a range of audiences necessitates careful, well-designed report formats. Some useful new report formats based on Rasch modeling -the Modified Variable Map, the Ordinal Map, the Threshold Map, and the Annotated Ordinal Map - are illustrated using data from the IMYMS project. The Rasch analysis and the derived reporting formats avoid the pitfalls that exist when working with ordinal data and provide insights into the respondents' views about their experiences in schools unavailable by other approaches.

Effective mathematics learning environments : primary teachers' beliefs and practices

A first priority for changing teaching practice is to make problematic for teachers aspects of their current practice. As part of a project on improving mathematics and science teaching in the middle years of schooling, teachers were asked to rate their practice against components of effective teaching and learning and to rate each of these according to their perceived importance. Findings suggest that primary teachers endorsed the components as representing effective practice, scoring most components higher than their actual practice. Gaps were particularly evident for items relating to challenging students conceptually and higher-order thinking, with these becoming the basis for some of the action planning for change.

Rethinking causality: pattern as the science of change

In this book, Linda Glassop describes an integrative framework referred to as the SOP model of change. The SOP model is derived from the notion that structures (S) are organised (O) by processes (P). The concept of SOP is relevant to any real thing, at any level of analysis

Re-imagining science education : engaging students in science for Australia

The author stresses the need for schools and science teachers to develop new approaches to attract the imagination of students in Australia. He believes that changes in the nature of post-industrial societies and in the accessibility of science knowledge and youth expectations are the culprits of crisis in science education. He argues that schools and teachers should re-examine the purposes of school science. He suggests that science re-imagining needs to be supported by national effort, create teacher development and training initiatives and assessment.

You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me: Covenant in Faith and History

In this paper I have attempted to explore "covenant" in faith and history, as it extends throughout the entire framework of the Bible and the entire history of the people who produced it. With such a monstrous topic, a comprehensive analysis of the material could take a lifetime to do it justice. Therefore, I have taken a very specific approach to the material in order to investigate the evolution of covenant from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) to the Christian Scriptures (New Testament). I have made every effort to approach this thesis as a text-based, non-doctrinal discussion. However, having my own religious convictions, it has, at times, been difficult to recognize and escape my biases. Nevertheless, I am confident that this final product is, for the most part, objective and free from dogmatism. Of course, I have brought my own perspective and understanding to the material, which may be different from the reader's, so there may be matters of interpretation on which we differ, but c 'est fa vie in the world of religious dialogue. The structure of this paper is symmetrical: Part I examines the traditions of the Torah and the Prophets; Part II, the Gospels and Paul's letters. I have balanced the Old Testament against the New Testament (the Torah against the Gospels; the Prophets against Paul) in order to give approximately equal weight to the two traditions, and establish a sense of parallelism in the structure of my overall work. A word should also be said about three matters of style. First, instead of the customary Christian designation of time as B.C. or A.D., I have opted to use the more modem B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) notations. This more recent system is less traditional; however, more acceptable in academic and, certainly, more appropriate for a non-doctrinal discussion. Second, in the body of this paper I have chosen to highlight several texts using a variety of colors. This highlighting serves (1) to call the reader's attention to specific passages, and (2) to compare the language and imagery of similar texts. All highlighting has been added to the texts at my own discretion. Finally, the divine name, traditionally vocalized as "Yahweh," is a verbal form of the Hebrew "to be," and means, approximately, "I am who I am." This name was considered too holy to pronounce by the ancient Israelites, and, the word adonai ("My LORD") was used in its stead. In respect of this tradition, I have left the divine name in its original Hebrew form. Accordingly, should be read as "the LORD" throughout this paper. All Hebrew and Greek translations, where they occur, are my own. The Greek translations are based on the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible.

Wolves in sheeps' clothing: Creationist manipulation of Kansas science standards

So the question that animates this paper is this: what happens when a state's education policy seeks to make popular social and religious values a central part of its education standards in direct confrontation with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? I will try to answer that question in three ways. First, I will examine the tactics used in the manipulation of curricula to reflect social and religious values, with special focus on the Kansas case. Second, I will try to ascertain the determinants of success in these efforts; under what conditions are movements to impose creation science on public school curricula likely to succeed, and when to fail? Third, I will try to place these struggles over educational curricula, and between religion and science, in broader context, focusing on what they tell us about the nature of public policy making in the contemporary United States.

Emotion, reason and tradition : essays on the social, poltical and economic thought of Michael Polanyi

This collection of essays demonstrates the continuing importance of the work of Michael Polanyi for the understanding, not only of the great events of the 20th century, but also of the problems that face us in the 21st century. Polanyi moved liberalism away from a negative, sceptical and rationalist basis towards an acceptance of trust, tradition and faith in transcendent values. His conception of the free society is not one merely of doing as one pleases nor vacuously 'open', but one of individual and communal self-dedication to those values and ideals.These essays, authored by a distinguished international and interdisciplinary panel of invited contributors, examine Polanyi's specific insights in the theory of knowledge, the nature and source of social order and the philosophy of economics and science and draw relevant comparisons between Polanyi and related thinkers such as Popper, Hayek and Mises. This book shows the sources of Polanyi's ideas and his distinctive contribution to philosophy generally, to social and political thought and to economics.

Design and analysis of hull configurations for a low-cost, autonomous underwater robot as an enabling technology for system of system applications

The objective of this research is to model and analyze candidate hull configurations for a low-cost, modular, autonomous underwater robot. As the computational power and speed of microprocessors continue to progress, we are seeing a growth in the research, development, and the utilization of underwater robots. The number of applications is broadening in the R&D and science communities, especially in the area of multiple, collaborative robots. These underwater collaborative robots represent an instantiation of a System of Systems (SoS). While each new researcher explores a unique application, control method, etc. a new underwater robot vehicle is designed, developed, and deployed. This sometimes leads to one-off designs that are costly. One limit to the wide-scale utilization of underwater robotics is the cost of development. Another limit is the ability to modify the configuration for new applications and evolving requirements. Consequently, we are exploring autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) hull designs towards the goal of modularity, vehicle dexterity, and minimizing the cost. In our analysis, we have employed 3D solid modeling tools and finite element methods. In this paper we present our initial results and discuss ongoing work.

Scanners, brokers and providers : partners in developing learning programs

This paper reports some of the findings from a project that aimed to identify effective processes for ensuring that the content of learning activities is relevant to the changing needs of clients, and evolves so as to always incorporate the best available knowledge and science. This paper focuses on findings relating to the drivers for the development of new or substantially revised learning programs. The project, ‘Providing client-focussed education and training’, was funded by the FarmBis section of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. The project also produced a self-assessment checklist for training providers to identify ways of improving the development and delivery of training. The key issues include continuous monitoring of client’s needs, and actively seeking opportunities to meet and work with industry organisations, other training providers and funding bodies.

There appear to be two drivers for the development of learning programs. One is problems or opportunities identified by people and organisations that could be termed ‘scanners’ and who tend not to be potential participants, the other is learning needs expressed by individuals or enterprises who want to participate in learning activities.

Scanners are typically industry organisations, government agencies and researchers, but may include providers and participants. Scanners identify learning needs that are not yet being expressed by potential participants, with the occasional exception of leading primary producers. Expressed participant needs drive the development of other programs. Providers become aware of the need for a new or substantially revised program, for example as a result of feedback from an existing program, because of legislative change or from delivering a similar program in other industries or contexts (for example computer training). Brokers (such as industry organisations who work to connect providers and participants) and ‘champions’ of training help participants identify and articulate their learning needs.

Gaining representations of children's and adults' constructions of sustainability issues

In this decade of Education for Sustainable Development, it is timely to consider the methodological issues associated with researching this topic not only with adults but also with the young children who, as members of the next generation, will experience the success or otherwise of current environmental sustainability efforts. We argue that it is important when making methodological choices to recognize that both the sustainability issues themselves and the way individuals learn about these issues, are socially and culturally constructed. In this article we are interested in ways of gaining representations of individuals' mental constructions of environmental sustainability issues. We recount experiences from two projects, one which used the approach of analyzing children's drawings to gain representations of how children in Mexico understand environmental issues and the other which employed adult participant-directed photography as the principal data collection method conducted mainly in the north of South Africa.

Intertextual turns in curriculum inquiry : fictions, diffractions and deconstructions

This thesis is based primarily on work published in academic refereed journals between 1994 and 2003. Taken as a whole, the thesis explores and enacts an evolving methodology for curriculum inquiry which foregrounds the generativity of fiction in reading, writing and representing curriculum problems and issues. This methodology is informed by the narrative and textual 'turns' in the humanities and social sciences - especially poststructuralist and deconstructive approaches to literary and cultural criticism - and is performed as a series of narrative experiments and 'intertextual turns'. Narrative theory suggests that we can think of all discourse as taking the form of a story, and poststructuralist theorising invites us to think of all discourse as taking the form of a text; this thesis argues that intertextual and deconstructive readings of the stories and texts that constitute curriculum work can produce new meanings and understandings. The thesis places particular emphasis on the uses of fiction and fictional modes of representation in curriculum inquiry and suggests that our purposes might sometimes be better served by (re)presenting the texts we produce as deliberate fictions rather than as 'factual' stories. The thesis also demonstrates that some modes and genres of fiction can help us to move our research efforts beyond 'reflection' (an optical metaphor for displacing an image) by producing texts that 'diffract' the normative storylines of curriculum inquiry (diffraction is an optical metaphor for transformation). The thesis begins with an introduction that situates (autobiographically and historically) the narrative experiments and intertextual turns performed in the thesis as both advancements in, and transgressions of, deliberative and critical reconceptualist curriculum theorising. Several of the chapters that follow examine textual continuities and discontinuities between the various objects and methods of curriculum inquiry and particular fictional genres (such as crime stories and science fiction) and/or particular fictional works (including Bram Stoker's Dracula, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, and Ursula Le Guin's The Telling). Other chapters demonstrate how intertextual and deconstructive reading strategies can inform inquiries focused on specific subject matters (with particular reference to environmental education) and illuminate contemporary issues and debates in curriculum (especially the internationalisation and globalisation of curriculum work). The thesis concludes with suggestions for further refinement of methodologies that privilege narrative and fiction in curriculum inquiry.

Ontological possibilities the rethinking teaching on the "nature of science"

An extensive literature documents teachers’ failure to include ideas about the 'nature of science' (NOS) in their classroom programmes, despite widespread advocacy for this as an essential component of more inclusive science teaching. This thesis frames much of the existing NOS literature as a deficit literature that focuses on epistemology, while largely ignoring the ontological realities of the classroom and overestimating individual teacher’s agency to change their enacted curriculum. Epistemologically-focused NOS reforms are positioned as curriculum 'add-ons', which teachers are likely to ignore. A NOS focus on ontology would entail curriculum restructuring, attending first to the contexts in which scientific knowledge is produced, and the ways it acts in the world. In any case, science itself has changed in recent years. Drawing from the sociology of science, in particular the work of Bruno Latour, the thesis compares traditional philosophical thinking about the ontology of science with more recent 'networked' views. Brent Davis explains the educational implications of key ideas from complexity science. Political philosopher Stephen White adds an ethical dimension. His ideas are used to argue for replacing 'strong' ontologies of realist science with more nuanced and actively tended 'weak' ontologies, as appropriate to the rapid sociological changes of the twenty-first century. The thesis argues that epistemological uncertainties that could lead to the suspicion of relativism are potentially threatening in the classroom because of hegemonic pressures towards consensus and a certain, safe status for the knowledge taught. Seeking an alternative pathway to change, Daniel Liston’s conceptualisation of teaching as a passionate act informs the analysis of the empirical component of the thesis. Eight recipients of New Zealand Royal Society Science Teacher Fellowships were interviewed on four occasions over two years. They discussed their personal learning during a year-long sabbatical to carry out an extended science investigation and their thoughts and actions on returning to the classroom. Narrative methodology is used to explore the teachers’ stories, revealing both passion for their personal learning and an ethical concern for their students’ learning to care for both the natural world and science as a means of its investigation. The thesis argues for the use of ontological approaches to the initial introduction of NOS ideas in school science, with epistemological concepts added only once a topic has been grounded in what Latour calls 'matters of concern'.Two potential teaching strategies—the production of network diagrams and the use of Davis's 'bifurcations'as a critical inquiry tool—are the focus of hypothetical experimentation. First in the context of global warming, and then addressing the challenges posed to teaching evolution by the proponents of 'intelligent design', these strategies are shown to have the potential to address some of science education’ s thornier issues, not just the NOS question. However, when conflicting expectations create tensions for teachers in the classroom moment, it is difficult for them to introduce reflective, deeply philosophical changes to their representation of science. Their working realities need to be acknowledged, and the tensions ameliorated, if we expect substantive change in their current practice.

Telecommunication technology and the professional development of teachers : challenge and opportunity

The thesis explores an effective model for using the internet in a distance training program for secondary school teachers. The professional development program, the dissertation, titled The Virtual University: Professional development for teachers, was initiated based on aspects of telecommunication technology and the professional development for Thai school teachers. The question of this program was “How could information technology be used in developing an appropriate professional development model for Thai teachers?” Prior to the project, the four research studies were conducted to formulate the related base line information and supported framework for the program development. The four researches are: (1) Telecommunication Technology in Thai Schools, (2) The Role of University on Science Teachers Development, (3) Computer Education Curriculum for Student Teachers: Theory and Practice, and (4) Teachers’ Perceptions of the Academic Link Project Between Schools and Universities for Teacher Professional Development. The first research study provides the information about the necessary basic factors for change in Thai secondary schools and the new insights and understandings about change in Thai schooling. The major findings were the understandings about teachers’ need for professional development, the available support in Thai school for professional development, and the limitations of professional development of teachers. The second research study provides the information about the roles of university faculty on initiation and operation of science teacher development programs, science teaching and learning resources centers, science instructional media design and production services, science teaching clinics, and science teachers’ associations. The third research study provides the conceptual framework for both preservice and inservice curriculum development program for teacher development. The last research study provides a base of descriptive information about the perspectives of school teachers towards the academic link project between schools and universities and the partnership which can assist in its establishment. The findings of these four research tasks were used for the formation of the framework of the dissertation. The EDNET Project, an example of teachers’ professional development through the information technology based training, was developed and implemented with ten school teachers in Khon Kaen.