Relationship Between the Self-Concept of Children and Their Ability to Recognize Emotions in Others

The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between the self-concept of children and their ability to recognize emotions in others from facial expressions. It is hypothesized that children use their self-representations to interpret depictions of emotion in others and that higher self-concepts might be associated with earlier development of emotion recognition skills. A total of 54 children aged between 5 and 11 years participated in this study. Self-concept was assessed in all children using the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale for Children (Piers-Harris 2). To assess emotion recognition, a computerized instrument, the Penn Emotion Recognition Task (PERT), was applied. Despite the small sample of children, results show clear statistical effects. It is shown that emotion recognition ability is directly correlated with self-concept for intellectual/school status. The ability to correctly identify emotions from facial expressions is affected by general self-concept, intellectual/school status, and stimulus features of gender, intensity, and emotion. Further analysis shows that the general self-concept of children particularly affects the ability to identify happy faces. Children with a higher intellectual status score recognize happiness and neutral faces more easily. We concluded that the self-concept in children relates to the ability to recognize emotions in others, particularly positive emotions. These findings provide some support to the simulation theory of social cognition, where children use their own self-representations to interpret mental states in others. The effect of the self-concept for intellectual status on emotion recognition might also indicate that intellectual abilities act as a mediator between self-concept and emotion recognition, but further studies are needed.

Two Concepts of Intellectual Humility

One aim of virtue epistemology is to illuminate the nature and structure of individual virtues like curiosity, open-mindedness, and intellectual humility. Recently, two rather different accounts of intellectual humility have emerged. Robert C. Roberts has argued that intellectual humility should be understood negatively: that it is essentially an absence of certain concerns (e.g., a concern with intellectual status or power). By contrast, Jason Baehr and several co-authors have argued that intellectual humility has a positive character: that it is a matter of being alert to and willing to “own” one’s intellectual limitations, weaknesses, and mistakes. In this chapter, Baehr considers how these accounts stand with respect to each other, both logically and evaluatively. After tracing fundamental similarities between the two, he considers whether they share a common target or whether they attempt to get at two distinct virtues. Finally, he considers the relative merits and formational value of each account.

I Am Not Old

Chapter 3 explores the relations between age and socio-intellectual status within the rabbinic study house. It shows that alongside an attempt made in some rabbinic texts to present a harmonious picture of members of the study house as an ageless community, there are also various indications of intergenerational animosity, disharmony, and even cruelty. The first part of the chapter examines the ethos that Torah learning protects one from the predicaments of old age, and it also argues that the ethos of an ageless society of learners creates a social setting in which the young cannot be truly young. The second part of the chapter turns to sources that present ruptures and tensions in the idealized vision of intergenerational harmony in the study house and in the world of Torah learning, looking closely at one story of brutal excommunication (BT Mo‘ed Qatan 17a).

Intellectual History as History of Engagement? The French Scholarship

Few intellectual histories of France by non-French authors in recent years have produced the bitter polemic that Tony Judt's Past Imperfect: French intellectuals (1944–1956) elicited. Published in French at the same time as the English edition in 1992, the book was held to account for its questionable historiographical legitimacy, alleged inaccuracy in the treatment of sources, and not-so-hidden partisanship, even if it also received some positive reviews from authoritative specialists in the field in important national newspapers. Nevertheless, the general tone and content of the French academic reviews were largely negative, and in many ways this response was unsurprising: how could a study arguing that a certain dominant (and still alive) Jacobin philosophical tradition was characterized by a “marked absence of a concern with public ethics or political morality” be read otherwise? Further, in an often caustic style, Judt accused the postwar French intellectuals of being seduced by totalitarian tendencies. Such charge, not surprisingly, provoked a pointed defence of the intellectual and historiographical national sensibility, which was not above resorting to Continental stereotypes against the “Anglo-Saxon” cultural model. Nor was the negative reception surprising to Judt, who positioned himself explicitly in the text as an outsider, belonging to a different intellectual tradition. It is useful to remember this uproar today as one considers new books by Gisèle Sapiro and François Dosse, as it illustrates three important issues in a lively academic register: the continuity of a French approach to intellectual history, its difference from Anglo-American traditions, and a possible—although mediated—angle for understanding the nature of this French particularism, through the discussion of the historiographic projection of the idea of intellectual status.

Humanistic meanings in the educational conventions of modernity: on the problem of understanding the philosophical content of subjectivity

A holistic understanding of the current approaches and strategies circulating in the educational environment, where in a situation of global transformation, there is an intensive search for ways and methods to overcome the crisis, is relevant. Within the framework of the pedagogical and philosophical analysis, the authors attempt to discover new aspects of the humanistic content of subjectivity. It is necessary to recognize the absolute value in students, which is seen through the manifestation of individual qualities and abilities. This means that it is necessary to ontologically recognize any subject of knowledge as self-sufficient, regardless of the ranks on the institutional ladder that are common in social structures, in other words, it is necessary to go beyond the boundaries of evaluative categories that, as is known, determine the intellectual status of the subject according to the degree of acquired and certified knowledge. First, the teacher overcomes his power complex, dominance over the student, which is deliberately placed by the traditional approach in the position of ignorant and incompetent person. Secondly, the emphasis on such concepts as discipline, norm, and standard has been changed. Third, the strengthening of group solidarity, to guarantee the basic social meanings in a world of increasing risks, where there is a growing desire to consolidate not with society as a whole, as in previous eras, but with a separate small group. Fourth, the most important conceptual link in these constructions is the ability to communicate. Fifth, there is a rejection of excessive rationalistic perception of reality. A new post-materialistic pedagogical paradigm is formulated, which puts in the first place the deep aspects of the subject, conditioned by his emotionality, soulfulness, humanity, which are least associated with such behavioral parameters as punctuality, perseverance, and academic performance.

Remaking Political Studenthood: Zimbabwean Student Activism during the 2000s ‘Crisis’

During the post-2000 ‘crisis’ in Zimbabwe, student activists were some of the most vocal critics of Robert Mugabe’s regime and a key constituency in the coalition of partners surrounding the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Yet what it meant to be a student activist changed significantly during these years. These changes are best understood, this article argues, through the concept of ‘political studenthood’, a historically constituted and widely recognized transitional subjectivity that helped shape student activists’ collective behaviours and individual aspirations, and which provided routes into mainstream politics. The dominant form of political studenthood in Zimbabwe was reworked during the crisis, as material hardship and political polarization pushed activists into ever more dependent relationships with the MDC. These dependencies undermined student leaders’ historically radical and autonomous political authority, and caused resentment among many student activists, leading to ruptures in civic organizations and the splitting of the student union. Rank-and-file activists, who suffered expulsion from university and state oppression, also came to depend on the party to continue their activism. Their dependence eroded the intellectual status and radical protest traditions of their political studenthood, rendering them akin to MDC party youth—expendable instruments of MDC leaders.

Comparison of seasonal prevalence of Otitis media with effusion (OME) in mentally handicapped versus normal school-going children.

Objectives: Otitis media with effusion is widespread in pre-school and school-going children. The objective of this study was to compare the prevalence of otitis media with effusion (OME) in normal versus mentally handicapped children in perspective of seasonal variation. Study Design: Randomized controlled trial. Setting: Pakistan Air Force Hospital Masroor, Karachi. Period: From January 2015 till August 2016. Material & Methods: 208 children between 3-8 years of age were divided into ‘Mentally Normal’ and ‘Mentally Handicapped’ groups based on a cut off intelligence quotient score of 70. Results: Otitis media with effusion uniformly affected all school children. Tympanometric pressures from middle ears of both study groups responded indifferently from each other (p value 0.467 and 0.365 for right middle ear, and 0.708 and 0.920 for left middle ears, in summer and winter, respectively). However, most caregivers of mentally handicapped children exhibited greater concerns about complications associated with otitis media with effusion in winters (p value 0.002). Conclusion: Otitis media with effusion is an insidious condition which remains under diagnosed and adversely affects auditory function and speech. Children may develop this condition regardless of their intellectual status. However craniofacial dysmorphism puts a child at a greater risk of otitis media with effusion. Awareness at primary education and healthcare level, a high index of suspicion in these children, careful examination and prompt referral for expert otologic intervention is pivotal in avoiding complications.

Subsegmental Osteotomy Technique With Distraction Osteogenesis for Natural Frontal Contouring in Metopic Synostosis

Vectoring issues occur due to the dynamics of unidirectional procedure that is selected. To circumvent such difficulties, we have devised subsegmental osteotomy with distraction. In our technique, frontal bone flap was divided into 4 segments that were linked to each other by suturing wires in an 8-year-old patient with trigonocephaly. Subsegmental osteotomy and wiring of bone flap enabled us to slide bone in a more curvilinear manner and achieve natural contour. Distraction was initiated on postoperative day 7 at the rate of 1 mm/d for 20-mm gain. At the 9-year follow-up, the patient showed improved head shape and intellectual status.

Intellectual characteristics of adolescents with chronic gastroduodenitis

Intellect is one of the indicators of children’s health, characterizing the optimality of the age development and the success of adaptation processes. In the case-control study, were included 60 adolescents with chronic gastroduodenitis (CGD) in the period of remission (main group), average age – 13 years old. The comparison group consisted of 22 children with the I group of health. A comparative evaluation of the features of the course of the antenatal period, childbirth, and features of early development of the child was carried out. Were estimated the indicators of stress level, social adaptation (M. Gavlinova’s questionnaire), intellectual functions (D. Veksler’s test). It was shown that the total index reflecting the level of stress in children of the main group was 173.03 ± 82.69 points compared to the index of children of the comparison group – 96.34 ± 38.5 points (p < 0.01). In the main group, compared with the control, children with low level of adaptability were more likely to meet, less often children with an average level of adaptation (34.8% / 21, CI 27.4-41.4% vs 55.3% / 12, CI 42, 32-63,28, р < 0,05) and there were no children with a high level of adaptation. In children with CGD, Veksler’s WISC method (for children 5-16 years of age) showed a slight decrease level of verbal, non-verbal and total IQ in comparison with healthy peers. Among the risk factors that affect intellectual status, the most important were the burdened perinatal history, the nature of feeding in the first year of life and the unbalanced diet in subsequent periods of life.

Wild Strawberries from Reichenau: Ruminations on Authority and Difference in Eleventh-Century “Gregorian” Chant

One of the paradoxes of Gregorian chant is the way in which written sources become ever more plentiful across the Middle Ages while commentaries on its cultural and intellectual status take the opposite direction, becoming rare after the ninth century. An exception to that trend is the essay De varia psalmorum atque cantuum modulatione (On the Varied Modulation of Psalms and Chants), a substantial yet little known offering from the music theorist and liturgist Berno of Reichenau (d. 1048). Previously considered to be of uncertain authorship and doubtful musical value, the work is now shown to be an authentic witness, in part through evidence provided by a rediscovered manuscript (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Mus.ms.theor. 95). This permits a new appreciation of the author's unique and revealing agenda—to soothe the many tensions reportedly incited by the textual content of chant. With resonances in contemporary music theory, De varia psalmorum testifies to divergent practices in need of a new theoretical underpinning, as well as to previously unstudied cultures of textual correction existing between the ninth and twelfth centuries. In so doing it offers a rare insight into the liturgical chant traditions of the post-Carolingian age, both in Berno's native Germany and further afield.