Embodying Asian/American Sexualities is an accessible reader designed for use in undergraduate and graduate American studies, ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, and performance studies classes as well as for a general public interested in related issues. It contains both overviews of the field and scholarly interventions into a range of topics, including history, literature, performance, and sociology.

This volume defends a particular set of progressive political interventions on the basis of their being legitimate exercises of coercive political power, specifically focusing on the gendered division of labour, which is widely regarded as the predominant form of gender injustice.

According to Stereotype Threat Hypothesis, fear of confirming gendered stereotypes causes women to experience anxiety in circumstances wherein their performance might potentially confirm those stereotypes, such as high-stakes testing scenarios in science, technology, engineering, and math courses. This anxiety causes women to underperform, which in turn causes them to withdraw from math-intensive disciplines. STH is thought by many to account for the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields, and a growing body of evidence substantiates this hypothesis. In considering the plausibility (...) of STH as an explanation for women's disproportionate attrition from undergraduate philosophy programs, one is struck by dissimilarities between STEM and philosophy that appear to undermine the applicability of STH to the latter. In this paper, I argue that these dissimilarities are either merely apparent or merely apparently relevant to the plausibility of STH as an explanation for gender disparities in philosophy. I argue further that, if research from STEM uncovers promising strategies for confronting stereotype threat, we should think about how to apply those strategies in our introductory philosophy classrooms. (shrink)

Several philosophers of education argue that schooling should facilitate students’ development of autonomy. Such arguments fall into two main categories: Student-centered arguments support autonomy education to help enable students to lead good lives; Public-goods-centered arguments support autonomy education to develop students into good citizens. Critics challenge the legitimacy of autonomy education—of the state imposing a schooling curriculum aimed at making children autonomous. In this paper, I offer a unified solution to the challenges of legitimacy that both arguments for autonomy education (...) face. I first defend a particular construal of liberal legitimacy, and then consider each legitimacy challenge in light of that construal. I argue that the legitimacy challenges confronting both types of argument can be overcome. Further, I explain why we should pursue both arguments, rather than resting the entire case for autonomy education on one or the other. I conclude that each argument—if it can justify autonomy education at all—can justify autonomy education consistent with the requirements of liberal democratic legitimacy. (shrink)

Workplace bullying has a well-established body of research internationally, but the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world in the identification and investigation of this phenomenon. This paper presents a managerial perspective on bullying in organizations. The lack of attention to the concept of workplace dignity in American organizational structures has supported and even encouraged both casual and more severe forms of harassment that our workplace laws do not currently cover. The demoralization victims suffer can create toxic (...) working environments and impair organizational productivity. Some methods of protecting your organization from this blight of bullying are proposed. Bullying has always been part of the human condition; history is rife with references to abuse of power and unnecessary or excessive force. The classic bully story is of Joseph and his brothers, a tale of envy and hostility. The refinement of bullying to include various forms of legally defined social harassment is a relatively late phenomenon, however, dating to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the United States, bullying is not illegal, whereas it is illegal in many other countries. Bullying is not about benign teasing, nor does it include the off-color jokes, racial slurs, or unwelcome advances that are the hallmarks of legally defined harassment. Workplace bullying is the pattern of destructive and generally deliberate demeaning of co-workers or subordinates that reminds us of the activities of the schoolyard bully. Unlike the schoolyard bully, however, the workplace bully is an adult, usually (but not always) aware of the impact of his or her behavior on others. Bullying in the workplace, often tacitly accepted by the organizational leadership, can create an environment of psychological threat that diminishes corporate productivity and inhibits individual and group commitment. The two examples that follow will help to clarify the difference between harassment and bullying. (shrink)

Background: Family members are often required to act as substitute decision-makers when health care or research participation decisions must be made for an incapacitated relative. Yet most families are unable to accurately predict older adult preferences regarding future health care and willingness to engage in research studies. Discussion and documentation of preferences could improve proxies' abilities to decide for their loved ones. This trial assesses the efficacy of an advance planning intervention in improving the accuracy of substitute decision-making and increasing (...) the frequency of documented preferences for health care and research. It also investigates the financial impact on the healthcare system of improving substitute decision-making. Methods/DesignDyads (n = 240) comprising an older adult and his/her self-selected proxy are randomly allocated to the experimental or control group, after stratification for type of designated proxy and self-report of prior documentation of healthcare preferences. At baseline, clinical and research vignettes are used to elicit older adult preferences and assess the ability of their proxy to predict those preferences. Responses are elicited under four health states, ranging from the subject's current health state to severe dementia. For each state, we estimated the public costs of the healthcare services that would typically be provided to a patient under these scenarios. Experimental dyads are visited at home, twice, by a specially trained facilitator who communicates the dyad-specific results of the concordance assessment, helps older adults convey their wishes to their proxies, and offers assistance in completing a guide entitled My Preferences that we designed specifically for that purpose. In between these meetings, experimental dyads attend a group information session about My Preferences. Control dyads attend three monthly workshops aimed at promoting healthy behaviors. Concordance assessments are repeated at the end of the intervention and 6 months later to assess improvement in predictive accuracy and cost savings, if any. Copies of completed guides are made at the time of these assessments. DiscussionThis study will determine whether the tested intervention guides proxies in making decisions that concur with those of older adults, motivates the latter to record their wishes in writing, and yields savings for the healthcare system. Trial RegistrationISRCTN89993391. (shrink)

Moral bioenhancement presents the possibility of enhancing morally desirable emotions and dispositions. While some scholars have proposed that moral bioenhancement can produce virtue, we argue that within a virtue ethics framework moral bioenhancement cannot reliably produce virtue. Moreover, on a virtue ethics framework, the pursuit of moral bioenhancement carries moral risks. To make this argument, we consider three aspects of virtue—its motivational, rational, and behavioral components. In order to be virtuous, we argue, a person must (i) take pleasure in doing (...) the right thing and have the correct motivational attitudes; (ii) reason correctly about what is called for in a particular ethical dilemma; and (iii) intentionally and continuously practice and cultivate virtues. These dimensions of morality—in short: precisely those emphasized in a virtue ethics framework—cannot be consistently or reliably met using existing moral bioenhancement technology. (shrink)

Inspired by, and in close relation with, the contributions of this special issue, Kuperberg elegantly links event comprehension, production, and learning. She proposes an overarching hierarchical generative framework of processing events enabling us to make sense of the world around us and to interact with it in a competent manner.

In this paper, I urge feminists to re-center fetal moral status in their theorizing about abortion. I argue that fundamental feminist normative commitments are at odds with efforts to de-emphasize fetal moral status: The feminist commitment to ensuring care for dependents supports surprising conclusions with regard to the ethics of abortion, and the feminist commitment to politicizing the personal has surprising conclusions regarding the politics of abortion. But these feminist insights also support the conclusion that, conditional on fetal moral status, (...) care for unwanted fetuses would be a social obligation that only derivatively falls to women who are unwillingly pregnant. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer a conceptualization of leadership as contemplative. Drawing on MacIntyre’s perspective on virtue ethics and Levinas’ and Gilligan’s work on the ethics of responsibility and care, we propose contemplative leadership as virtuous activity; reflexive, engaged, relational, and embodied practice that requires knowledge from within context and practical wisdom. More than simply offering another way to conceptualize the ethics of leadership, this research contributes to understanding the ethics of leadership in practice. Empirically, we analyze the narratives of (...) those in positions of formal authority and other organizational members in churches. We illustrate contemplative leadership as driven by a good purpose, derived from the unique organizational and broader societal context in which leadership occurs, and grounded in an ethical concern for the other. Contemplative leadership accounts for the complexity of experience and is discerned in mundane and everyday practices. We conclude with the implications for leadership theory, practice, and education. (shrink)

Classical Confucian philosopher Mengzi 孟子 offers resources that can help shed light on the metaphysical status of moral qualities and answer the question of how we come to perceive them. I argue that Mengzi puts forward an account of virtue as sensitivity similar to that offered by John McDowell. Both thinkers endorse a particular kind of motivationally internalist naturalistic moral realism, and both explain virtue as analogous to perception of secondary qualities. I offer an original contribution to existing literature by (...) further arguing that Mengzi’s view includes an understanding of moral perception as including perception of uniquely human roles and the moral obligations they generate. This essay thus offers a novel textual interpretation of the _Mengzi_. Based on this interpretation, it then puts forth the argument that Mengzi’s version of virtue as sensitivity allows the Confucian thinker to avoid criticisms of McDowell’s “Sensitivity Account” of virtue. In particular, I argue that Mengzi’s account of sensitivity—as one that includes sensitivity to human roles and relationships—is better able to explain variation in perceived moral qualities both over time and across cultures. This is because Mengzi’s view recognizes that what is called for morally shifts with the agent’s social roles. Thus, a Mengzian-influenced Sensitivity Account of virtue can better account for differences in moral judgment by emphasizing that moral facts are a feature of human relationships, which likewise vary between cultures and individuals and change over time. (shrink)

Little previous research has examined attitudes about societal and ethical issues (SEI) among interns participating in research experience for undergraduate programs (REUs) in nanotechnology, thus neglecting an important population for understanding the burgeoning views of the next generation of nanotechnology researchers. This study surveyed a sample of interns (N = 85) participating in the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network’s (NNIN) REU program during the summer of 2012. Our questions focused on interns’ experiences with education on ethical issues, as well as their (...) attribution of responsibility for considering ethical issues, motivations to talk about ethical issues, and comfort level of discussing ethical issues with faculty, mentors, lab staff, and other REU students. Among key findings was that lab culture related to the extent to which REU interns felt comfortable discussing ethical issues. In addition, those who reported more discussions about ethical issues with their mentors were more likely to consider themselves as responsible for considering ethical issues. We conclude with recommendations and future research directions. (shrink)

In this article, I develop and defend a prioritarian principle of justice for the distribution of educational resources. I argue that this principle should be conceptualized as directing educators to confer a general benefit, where that benefit need not be mediated by improved academic outcomes. I go on to argue that it should employ a metric of all-things-considered flourishing over the course of the student's lifetime. Finally, I discuss the relationship between my proposed prioritarian principle and the meritocratic principle that (...) it is presumed to supplement. (shrink)

ObjectivesTo investigate which of two sources of information about an older adult’s wishes—choices made in an advance directive or proxy’s opinion—provides better insight into the older adult’s preferences measured in hypothetical clinical situations involving decisional incapacity.MethodsSecondary analyses of data collected from 157 community-dwelling, decisionally competent adults aged 70 years and over who attended a group information session on advance directives with their proxy. Older adults were invited to complete a directive introduced during the session, designed to express healthcare preferences. An (...) average of 3 months later, older adults were asked during an interview whether they would want to receive each of four medical interventions and what their goals of care would be should they develop one of three sudden health events, assuming that they had severe dementia. Proxies were asked to guess the older adult’s answers in each of the seven scenarios.ResultsEighty per cent of the older adults completed the directive. Choices they made in the directive were more in line with the preferences they stated during the interview than were their proxies’ guesses at their answers. However, concordance was relatively low, with percentages of agreement ranging from 43% to 83% across scenarios.ConclusionsFindings suggest that a directive might provide better insight into a person’s wishes than the person’s proxy, although neither source is perfect. A multifaceted decision-making model that includes both sources of information might better serve the interests of older adults who have lost the capacity to make decisions on their own.Trial registration numberISRCTN89993391; Post-results. (shrink)

As the grandchild of Italian immigrants, photographer Gina J. Grillo has a personal impetus in her photographic studies of ethnic and immigrant life in the United States. In Between Cultures, Grillo explores the struggles immigrant children face as they develop their cultural identity in an environment completely new and foreign to them. Following the tradition of the pioneering photographers Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine, Grillo portrays the immigrant experience through children's eyes, unearthing a complex and poignant world. She begins (...) with images of newly arrived immigrant families at O'Hare International Airport during their first few hours in the United States, and then follows them through the gates and into Chicago's urban life: through her chronicle of citizenship ceremonies, cultural celebrations, weddings and dances, and other everyday scenes of immigrant life, Grillo captures the crucial elements that shape not only the characters of the children, but also the neighborhoods in which they reside. For adults, emigration to America is filled with both hope and fear, yet it is tempered by a mature understanding. For children, however, this same journey unfolds in the unrelenting present as they must constantly negotiate their individual identities and allegiances to culture, country, and kin. With moving quotations and drawings by immigrant children woven into Grillo's visual sequence, Between Cultures is a unique meditation on the development of individual identity through the reconciliation of multiple cultural heritages. (shrink)

The Good Supervisor engages readers in dialogue and active reflection on the strategies of effective supervision of PhDs, postgraduate and undergraduate research. Accessibly written, it encourages supervisors to reflect on and enhance their research supervision practice with a diversity of students on a variety of research projects: Postgraduate and undergraduate levels, international and distance students practice and professional research research leading to creative process and products/creations the PhD by publication supervising your colleagues interpersonal skills managing diversity in learning styles, gender, (...) age and culture. The book is also useful for students undertaking research. There is special focus on research skills development.and on supporting students through and beyond the examination process. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the late ontology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in particular the system he began to develop in The Visible and the Invisible, can be conceived of as a form of Radical Enactive Cognition, as described by Hutto and Myin in Radicalizing Enactivism. I will begin by discussing Clark and Chalmers’ extended mind hypothesis, as well as the enactive view of consciousness proposed by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch in The Embodied Mind. However, neither Clark and Chalmers’ extended (...) mind hypothesis nor the enactive view of consciousness advanced by Varela et al. are radical enough to fully capture Merleau-Ponty’s late ontology. Inasmuch as Hutto and Myin’s formulation combines features of the extended mind thesis and enactivism, and expresses both in a sufficiently radical fashion, it overcomes the deficits of both theories and can serve as a translation, so to speak, of Merleau-Ponty’s “ontology of the flesh” into contemporary terms. In particular, their formulation makes explicit several central aspects of his theory: the intimate, mutually constitutive relationship between perceiver and perceived world, the equal weight given to the contributions of perceiver and world within this relationship, and the displacement of representational content from its central position in the understanding of consciousness. It is thus the ideal vehicle for demonstrating some perhaps unexpected ways in which Merleau-Ponty’s thought is compatible with contemporary conversations concerning the nature of mind. (shrink)

The use of African American as a new denomination for a group previously referred to as Black has rapidly become standard practice in American society. This paper analyzes how the introduction of African American in our ordinary language marks the elaboration of a new social reality. As the concept becomes part of our social life, it is transformed into a real “phenomenon” of social representation that formalizes behaviour and orients communication. Such a transformation requires that the new term infiltrates people's (...) everyday lives sufficiently to concretize it into a common reality. The analysis presented here outlines three key processes in the emergence and formation of the social representation of African American. The first one is anchoring which familiarizes the new object by linking it with preexisting categories in our minds. The second process is objectification which assures the crystallization of the object. A figurative core is created to allow the projection of images. At this point people can talk about the object, and through communication the object takes on meaning. This naturalization is the third process to conclude the transformation of the object into a social reality. These steps have allowed African American to become the carrier for a modification of cognitions and broadening of attitudes concerning the group. (shrink)

This study examines the tensions between the western concept of professional independence and accountants’ commitment to significant others under the care perspective of guanxi. The principle of professional independence is founded on arm’s-length transactions to avoid undue influence on professional and ethical judgement. However, in the relational society of China, social interactions based on Confucianism elicit a duty of care and concern towards significant others in important relationships. For a professional accountant, the commitment to persons with whom they have guanxi (...) is potentially at odds with their commitment to professional independence. Data collected from interviews with Chinese accounting professionals, accounting academics and expatriate accountants working in China provide insight on how Chinese accounting professionals discharge their obligations under guanxi. Notions of guanxi and the rules of exchange identified in Hwang’s (Knowledge and action: A social psychological interpretation of Chinese cultural traditions, Sin-Li, Taipei, 1995) model of “Confucian ethics for ordinary people” provide the lens to explain the ethical dilemmas facing Chinese accountants. The findings suggest that accounting professionals prioritise the interests of their superiors and clients over the users of financial reports. Despite accountants’ moral obligation to protect the public interest, personal and professional obligations in China struggle to extend beyond client or employer interests mostly because of the absence of a formal relationship or connection with the public. This contrasts sharply with the notion of professional independence practised in western societies, where accounting professionals must be independent of their clients and superiors and commit to a duty to protect the public interest. The outcome of this study demonstrates the impediments to transplanting western concepts to different cultures. (shrink)

Mass communication researchers face ethical dilemmas during the course of their work, and those dilemmas are more than the trilogy of informed consent, deception, and privacy. As part of a project for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, we surveyed members of the association's Communication Theory and Methodology Division. Researchers, in an open?ended question at the end of the survey, said their concerns about ethics in research ranged from journal publication practices to proprietary research.

Children and adolescents with an intellectual disability and autistic traits often attend special needs schools where they are surrounded by peers with diverse characteristics. Given the role that peers can play in social development, we examined whether autistic traits development in students with ID and high levels of such characteristics are influenced by the level of autistic traits among the schoolmates they like most. Furthermore, we investigated the degree to which this peer influence susceptibility depends on students’ gender. A longitudinal (...) design, with data collection points at the beginning and the end of a school year, was used. Staff reported on 330 students with high levels of autistic traits who attended 142 classrooms in 16 Swiss special needs schools. Results showed that students’ future individual level of autistic traits was not predicted by the autistic traits level of preferred peers, controlling for individual autistic traits at T1, level of general functioning, gender, and age. However, the peer effect was significantly moderated by students’ gender, indicating that girls but not boys were susceptible to peer influence. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for understanding autistic traits development and directions of support for children and adolescents in their peer context. (shrink)

Cette réflexion sur le champ de recherche en communication interculturelle part du principe que les avancées théoriques s'élaborent au travers d'une dynamique ancrée autant dans le contexte des pratiques de recherche que dans l'évolution interne du champ de recherche. Tout d'abord, on tente de délimiter les moments clés qui ont présidé à l'émergence de ce nouveau domaine des deux côtés de l'Atlantique. Une fois établi que la communication interculturelle est un nouveau champ de recherche où se constituent un langage, des (...) théories et des méthodologies qui lui sont propres, la deuxième étape consistera à dresser la carte de son territoire, autrement dit, à préciser quels sont les objets, les approches et les postures méthodologiques qui coexistent dans ce champ.This reflection on the field of intercultural communication research assumes that theoretical advances are developed through a dynamic rooted both in the context of research practices in the internal evolution of the field of research. Firstly, we try to define the key moments that led to the emergence of this new field on both sides of the Atlantic. Once established as intercultural communication is a new field of research which is a language, theories and methodologies that are unique, the second step is to map its territory, ie to specify which objects are the methodological approaches and postures that exist in this field. (shrink)

In “Omnibenevolence and Eternal Damnation”, I consider whether it is consistent to hold both that God is omnibenevolent and that he infinitely punishes human beings for the commission of finite transgressions. In exploring this problem, I discuss the utilitarian and retributive notions of punishment and justice, the possible mitigating effect of forewarning, and differing conceptions of the nature of the relationship of God to human beings. My conclusion is that it is inconsistant to hold both of these beliefs.