Culture has an important impact on attachment. This commentary highlights three aspects about culture and attachment in middle childhood: (1) the need to have a more sophisticated consideration of the implication of cultural values, (2) the need to incorporate the role of societal or political ecological contexts, and (3) the need to solve the…

This paper is a commentary to a paper by Anne Solli, Frank Bach and Björn Åkerman on how students at a technical university learn to argue as biotechnologists. Solli and her colleagues report from an ethnographic study performed during the first semester of a 5-year program in biotechnology at a technical university in Sweden. Their study…

The reception of "Ex corde ecclesiae" has been uneven across the disciplines, with scant interest in distinctly Catholic pedagogies outside of the humanities. This essay argues that Catholic universities can distinguish themselves by how they present science and technology in their curriculum by drawing from the interdisciplinary field…

An analysis of the influence of the mass media on the moral state of Russian society discerns negative consequences of that influence, and sees the mass media (particularly television) as involved in the cultural degradation of the population. It argues in favor of state, social, and pedagogical controls to facilitate a more positive role of the…

The Canadian Education Association, originally called the Dominion Educational Association, was established 120 years ago and held its first annual meeting in Montreal in July 1892, at a time when free and compulsory public education was just gaining a foothold in Canada. The pivotal role of public education has always been to reflect the values…

In this article, the authors address the conversation that, given the recent developments in the philosophy of mind, especially in terms of its cognitive turn, one task for philosophers of music might be to begin to speculate about the properties of music and organized sound that enable them to perform their various moral and cultural roles. The…

In this commentary, I focus on the construction of identity and the important role of discoursing in this process. Rather than being "influenced" by external institutions, I argue, we form our identities by participating in the practices and discourses of many institutions and communities, appropriating their norms and values and, at the same…

This is a critical response to the papers by Shusterman, Sartwell, and Stroud. I claim that Shusterman has missed the inter-human moral aesthetics of Confucianism, that Sartwell has misunderstood Taoism's idea of "receptivity," confusing it with anarchist "passivity," and Stroud has not overcome the "Gita's" injunction to sacrifice the self,…

Autistic means a subject has limited affect or may be without affect altogether. Though traditionally individuals are described as autistic, the authors find it increasingly apparent that American society is becoming autistic as a whole, as citizens are desensitized to needs of neighbors near and far, losing the commensurate loyalty of being in…

The belief that there is one right way or method of inquiry to pursue truth as it is constructed has been rejected by postmodernism. Postmodernism challenges and opens up the central idea that only one set of limits are possible in supporting professional practice. Postmodernism designs a way to look at concepts through the context of meaning. The…

This commentary suggests that individuals' perceptions of mental retardation may be at least partially the result of social factors. Interactionist/phenomenological theoretical tenets are summarized to develop the view that mental retardation is socially constructed. The influence of values in how society treats people with retardation is briefly…

The problem with textbooks reflects the deeper uncertainties in our culture. As a society, we have lost sight of what it is we want our children to learn. (Author/GC)

The author discusses the restraint of liberty. He notes that whereas the underlying importance given to liberty within a society's scheme of values does vary over time, it is pivotal reflection in moral, social, and political theory to ask whether this variation may be legitimated. (CT)

Argues that technicism, the uncritical acceptance of the values of a modern technologically based society, leads to endemic environmental degradation. Proposes a reconceptualization of environmental literacy to include purposeful action based on a critical understanding of the social, economic, and political underpinnings of our environmental…

Asserts that men's confusion concerning sexual harassment stems primarily from the difficulty inherent in trying to differentiate between traditional male sexual behavior and sexual harassment. Describes the "5C" model of traditional heterosexual male sexuality (control, conquest, competition, climax, and confusion). Presents approaches for…