Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Thomas Huxley (1852-1895) had different, but substantial, effects on the history of education. Rousseau's educational theories supplied the intellectual foundation for pedagogical progressivism. Huxley's educational writings helped to enlarge the scope of the British curriculum to include such things as…

This article is based on a talk that was given by the author at the Institute of Historical Research on 3 February 2011, on the Victorian polymath Francis Galton and the malign legacy of his eugenic theories. It pays tribute to the pioneering work of the late Brian Simon in challenging the whole idea of "fixed innate intelligence" and in…

We respond to the commentary of Franklin, Wright, and Davies ("Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102", 239-245 [2009]) by returning to the simple contrast between nature and nurture. We find no evidence from the toddler data that makes us revise our ideas that color categories are learned and never innate. (Contains 1 figure.)

With the success of graduates directly influencing the college's reputation and ranking, leadership propensity should be an important selection criterion in higher education institution's undergraduate admissions processes, but is it? For most colleges and universities, selection is done through a paper application containing only a sliver of the…

In response to Eugene Matusov's article in this journal, Kritt addresses assumptions of the large-scale testing central to NCLB. Discussion of studies of urban kindergarten children that examine cognitive variability, including the assertion of ability, focuses on how this affects the student as a learner, as well as as a teacher. In contrast,…

The connection that critics make between medical genetics and eugenics is historically fallacious. Activists on the political right are as mistaken as activists on the political left: Genetic screening was not eugenics in the past, is not eugenics in the present, and, unless its technological systems become radically transformed, will not be…

From its inception, environmental education (EE) has shouldered the imposition of impartiality on its methods and practices. Considering the reality of global climate change, the author urges the adoption of the more accurate theory of humans' relation to the natural world. This theory necessitates partiality toward healthy, functioning natural…

Comments on the article by E. Diener, R. E. Lucas, and C. N. Scollon (see record 2006-05893-003) which cited a study by Tellegen et al. in which the Well-Being scale of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ), administered to 44 pairs of monozygotic reared-apart (MZA) twins, yielded a within-pair correlation of 0.48. I contend that,…

Sir Francis Galton's (1869/1892) notion of nature versus nurture is a cornerstone of psychology: It was recently featured in two issues of the Monitor (March and April 2004) and was infused throughout the January 2005 issue of the American Psychologist. R. L. Sternberg, E. L. Grigorenko, and K. K. Kidd offered keen insights into the pitfalls in…

This article presents replies to published comments on the authors' original article (R. L. Sternberg, E. L. Grigorenko, and K. K. Kidd. G. Carey cited in his response to their article a study by Tang et al. (2005) showing that "of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their…

In the latter part of last year a Macquarie University academic aroused outrage with his comments over the supposed links between race and criminality. For his colleagues and the union alike, the case provided a difficult example of the clash of shared academic values and the right to speak. Here four participants in the controversy-- from NTEU's…