This chapter focuses on education and the courses it considers cultural entities. Using three different evolutionary analogies, it explains how education can emerge, evolve or change in response to external factors. The emphasis is on the emergence of Science, Technology and Society (STS) courses in tertiary and secondary education in Britain. The discussion begins by focusing on education as a cultural artefact and how educational change is influenced by culture. The chapter then examines the phases of development of the STS (...) curriculum in British education and the application of evolutionary thinking to the major trends in educational reform that have affected Britain and other countries during the last century, citing some of the later writings by Donald Campbell. It also highlights the importance of identifying both the organisms whose evolution was being tampered with, and the ‘habitat’ in which they had to exist, in order to understand the extreme and damaging educational changes of the 1990s in Britain. Finally, it considers trends in STS education in the post-Thatcher era. (shrink)

In meeting the challenges of fashioning a new health care system, South Africa stands poised to contribute to a better future for its own citizens and the subcontinent.

In meeting the challenges of fashioning a new health care system, South Africa stands poised to contribute to a better future for its own citizens and the subcontinent.

J C Glass, W Johnson; Lakatosian Methodology and the Practical Implementation of a Liberal Notion of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 25, I.

This contribution is derived from a more extensive 2018 PhD study in which the contested nature of the discourses on reconciliation is explored. It provides a conceptual analysis of how reconciliation is understood in the Kairos Document. Regarded as an outstanding example of a theological response to the problem of apartheid, what is often overlooked is the tension implicit in its approach which, in turn, has serious implications for how matters of social justice are understood and acted upon. Here, the (...) need for political, economic and cultural liberation is emphasised. It is assumed that social justice can only follow upon liberation, and that reconciliation is only possible on the basis of following justice. In this contribution, I contend that those who take this approach are confronted with the danger of self-secularisation, of reducing the Christian confession to nothing more than an example of religious affiliation that may be tolerated as long as its particular claims are not foregrounded. The obvious danger, as may be the case with the Kairos Document, is one of being socially relevant without having anything distinct to offer. This, in turn, has serious implications for how its history and significance are approached pedagogically. (shrink)

This paper assesses the state of research ethics in low- and middle-income countries and the achievements of the Fogarty International Center's bioethics training program since 2000. The vision of FIC for the next decade of research ethics education is encapsulated in four proposed goals: (1) Ensure sufficient expertise in ethics review by having someone with long-term training on every high-workload REC; (2) Develop LMIC capacity to conduct original research on critical ethical issues by supporting doctoral and postdoctoral training and career (...) paths for research ethicists; (3) Make research training and review at LMIC institutions sustainable by identifying additional funding mechanisms and models; (4) Make institutional research systems more ethical and efficient through context-specific training integrated into all levels of scientific training. (shrink)

Lakatos' MSRP is utilized to provide a response to Koertge's claim (in her ‘Does Social Science Really Need Metaphysics?’) that the heuristic significance of metaphysics has been vastly overrated. By outlining the hard cores and positive heuristics of the two major research programmes in economics (namely, the ‘orthodox’ and ‘Marxist’ research programmes), the paper demonstrates (in opposition to Koertge's claim) not only that the metaphysical statements in the respective hard cores are far from vague but also how these exert an (...) important regulative influence both on the theories and economic policy recommendations generated within the respective programmes. It also indicates how the adoption of the MSRP method of appraisal in economics would help to protect against the danger of entrenched metaphysical dogmatism with its implications not only for economic policy recommendations but also for moral and political recommendations. * We appreciate the assistance given by Professor N. Koertge, who provided us with translations of her articles, and the helpful comments of an anonymous referee. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSchumpeter’s theory of socialism pivots on his response to Ludwig von Mises’s claim that rational economic calculation is “impossible” in a socialist economy. Mises held that because socialism eliminates market prices for the means of production, it is impossible under socialism to know the relative scarcities of productive inputs, and thus to determine rationally which of any number of technologically feasible production projects to pursue. Schumpeter appears to assume away Mises’s epistemic concerns about socialism by contending that it is theoretically (...) possible to determine which goods should be produced in a socialist economy if all the relevant data are known—which begs the question Mises had asked. Did Schumpeter really commit such an elementary error of interpretation? Or was the appearance of doing so part of his attempt to communicate to the reader of Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy a host of reservations about the likely consequences of socialism in practice, even as he ostentatiously praised its feasibility in principle? (shrink)