Millian Radical Democracy: Education for Freedom and Dilemmas of Liberal Equality

2003 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 404-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Baum
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Democracy Education ◽  
Working People ◽  
Moral Qualities ◽  
Educational Tracking ◽  
Social Arrangements ◽  
Iq Tests

This paper returns to J. S. Mill to draw out democratic conceptions of education and equality that challenge still-current conceptions of intractable human inequalities. Mill acknowledges that individuals differ in abilities. Nonetheless, he develops a broad conception of ‘education for freedom’ and insists that only ‘wretched social arrangements’ prevent virtually all people from exercising capacities for self-government in citizenship, marriage, and industry. In the same breath, he qualifies his democratic egalitarianism with reference to a sub-class of working people whose ‘low moral qualities’ leave them unfit for such self-government. Modern liberal states largely dismiss Mill's more radical democratic impulse. Meanwhile, they reiterate and refine his exclusionary one through new practices for constructing and managing inequalities – for example, IQ tests, educational ‘tracking’, and social science categories like the ‘underclass’. I reconsider this divided legacy of Mill's egalitarianism as a basis for rethinking the limits of today's ‘meritocratic’ egalitarianism.

scholarly journals Utopias and Dystopias as Models of Social Technology

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Ferreira da Cunha
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
Unusual Feature ◽  
Social Technology ◽  
Social Planning ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Nancy Cartwright ◽  
Social Arrangements

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2015v19n3p363This paper presents some proposals for social science advanced by Otto Neurath, focusing on scientific utopianism. Neurath suggests that social scientists should formulate ideals of social arrangements in utopian style, aiming at discussing scientific proposals with a community. Utopias are deemed as models of social science, in the sense proposed by Nancy Cartwright. This view is contrasted with the claim that scientism might lead to dystopian consequences in social planning, drawn from Aldous Huxley’s fiction and from Paul Feyerabend’s philosophy of science. Thus, social science displays a unusual feature: sometimes a model has to be called off, in spite of its perfect functioning, because it brings about unwanted consequences. In the planning of a free democratic society, this ambiguity of utopia and dystopia is highly desirable, for it stimulates essential debates. Social science, therefore, is to be regarded from a plural and fallibilist standpoint.

Radikale Demokratiebildung

2021 ◽  
Vol 97 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-445
Author(s):  
Werner Friedrichs
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Education ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Democracy Education ◽  
New Form

Abstract Radical Democracy Education In the article, the question of the form of democratic education is central. Especially the Anthropocene gives rise to future tasks that must be theorized on the basis of a more radical understanding of democratic coexistence and that require a new form of democratic education. Fundamental to this is a change in the basic epistemological assumptions of democratic education. In the process, interfaces with artistic practices emerge. Ideas of methodical implementations arise in the context of aesthetic practices.

Maximum Likelihood for Social Science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Ward ◽  
John S. Ahlquist
Keyword(s):  
Maximum Likelihood ◽  
Social Science

The Education of Research Psychologists in Sweden

2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Larsson ◽  
Josef Frischer
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Doctoral Programs ◽  
Science Department ◽  
Research Education ◽  
The Core ◽  
Social Science Department ◽  
Learning Alliance ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
The Government

The education of researchers in Sweden is regulated by a nationwide reform implemented in 1969, which intended to limit doctoral programs to 4 years without diminishing quality. In an audit performed by the government in 1996, however, it was concluded that the reform had failed. Some 80% of the doctoral students admitted had dropped out, and only 1% finished their PhD degree within the stipulated 4 years. In an attempt to determine the causes of this situation, we singled out a social-science department at a major Swedish university and interviewed those doctoral students who had dropped out of the program. This department was found to be representative of the nationwide figures found in the audit. The students interviewed had all completed at least 50% of their PhD studies and had declared themselves as dropouts from this department. We conclude that the entire research education was characterized by a laissez-faire attitude where supervisors were nominated but abdicated. To correct this situation, we suggest that a learning alliance should be established between the supervisor and the student. At the core of the learning alliance is the notion of mutually forming a platform form which work can emerge in common collaboration. The learning alliance implies a contract for work, stating its goals, the tasks to reach these goals, and the interpersonal bonding needed to give force and endurance to the endeavor. Constant scrutiny of this contract and a mutual concern for the learning alliance alone can contribute to its strength.

Assessment of journals in social science psychology.

1989 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 961-964 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Feingold
Keyword(s):  
Social Science
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