scholarly journals Transforming Confirmation Bias to Generate Critical Consciousness in News/Information Literacy and Social Science Courses

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Wittebols
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Flipped Classroom ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Social World ◽  
Literacy Education ◽  
The Self ◽  
Critical Education ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
The World

This paper synthesizes theory and research on confirmation bias (CB), curiosity, and news/information literacy education with the goal of understanding how helping students critique their tendency to engage in CB spurs curiosity and critical consciousness about learning. Curiosity about the self is spurred when people realize their CB tendencies. Curiosity about the larger social world is spurred when students learn how CB affects the way they look at the world. A flipped classroom approach reflects the work of Paulo Freire, who argued critical education should be experiential with faculty playing a facilitating, rather than an “expert” role.

scholarly journals Babel

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 52-76
Author(s):  
Nina Gładziuk ◽  
Paweł Janowski
Keyword(s):  
17Th Century ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Public Order ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World

What interests us here is the fact that Babel as a figure of confusion became almost the self-named epithet of 17th-century England. All the participants of the debate that took place during the revolution or the postbellum associated Babel with the conceptual chaos of the civil war. The lively “pamphlet war” then brought a pluralistic forum for public opinion in which all the confused languages of politics were equal. When all could read the Bible, everyone could read the story of Babel in their own way. But nothing could reconcile those who read the divine right of kings in it with those who read the divine right of the people in it. In the 17th century, Babel was seen as a figure of discursive confusion, as the confusion was experienced in the form of fanatical languages of arguing sects. Liberalism, if the English-speaking world is acknowledged to be its cradle, constitutes an attempt to escape the impasse of the discursive Babel via the legalistic means of the state of law. According to Hobbes, the irreversible multitude of languages makes one ask what public order can reconcile nominalism in the sphere of political opinion with the social Diaspora of individuals released from the bonds of status or corporation. How to build a state while one Christian faith is disintegrating into many sects fighting each other? How to build a state in the chronic pluralism of the social world and multifaceted dissociation of the traditional community? This is why Babel as a figure of confusion provides the primary conceptual capacity for the liberal organization of the world.

scholarly journals Fragile Pluralism

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Hans-Georg Soeffner
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Niklas Luhmann ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Tendency ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Interdisciplinary Journal

This essay first appeared in German in Magdalena Tzaneva, ed. Nachtflug der Eule: 150 Stimmen zum Werk von Niklas Luhmann. Gedenkbuch zum 15. Todestag von Niklas Luhmann (8. Dezember 1927 Lüneburg – 6. November 1998 Oerlinghausen). Berlin: LiDi EuropEdition (2013), 73–100. A shorter version of the essay was published in Hans-Georg Soeffner, and Thea D. Boldt, eds. Fragiler Pluralismus, Wiesbaden: VS Springer (2014), 207–24. The present translation for Entangled Religions – Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Religious Contact and Transfer is by Nicola Morris.   The article describes the emergence of pluralism within the process of globalization and the impact of this development upon individuals communication and the definitions of the ‘self’ and the ‘Other’. The author illustrates the pitfalls of the human tendency to view the world from an ethnocentric perspective and with the corresponding attitude. He argues that in ‘open societies’, successful citizens will be capable of recognising and articulating distinctions between individuals, as well as between groups, beliefs, lifestyles and attitudes. These citizens must also be aware and capable of adapting for their purposes the full repertoire of language games and role games in their social world, in order to perceive and utilise comprehensive systems such as frameworks for cooperation. These skills will help them implement ‘maxims of communication’ and ‘existential hypotheses’.

The Importance of the Act of Reading

1983 ◽  
Vol 165 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulo Freire
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

The question of the importance of reading is addressed by considering the ways in which experience itself is read through the interaction of the self and the world. Through examining memories of childhood, it is possible to view objects and experiences as texts, words, and letters and to see the growing awareness of the world as a kind of reading through which the self learns and changes. The actual act of reading literary texts is seen as part of a wider process of human development and growth based on understanding both one's own experience and the social world. Learning to read must be seen as one aspect of the act of knowing and as a creative act. Reading the world thus precedes reading the word and writing a new text must be seen as one means of transforming the world.

Critical Information/News Literacy and the Flipped Classroom: Student Evaluations of Information Searching and Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-225
Author(s):  
James H. Wittebols
Keyword(s):  
Media Literacy ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Flipped Classroom ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Student Evaluations ◽  
Information Searching ◽  
Critical Information ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Literacy Course ◽  
News Literacy

This article reports students’ responses to a critical information literacy course. The course has two unique elements which differentiate it from other information and media literacy courses: an assignment about confirmation bias and a facilitating, rather than an “expert” role for faculty to play in the course. After a review of key course elements, analysis of students’ anonymous reflection papers completed at the semester’s end is detailed. The data show students enthusiastically embraced the course.

scholarly journals Whatever Next and Close to my Self – The Transparent Senses and the ‘Second Skin’: Implications for the Case of Depersonalisation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Ciaunica ◽  
Bruna Petreca ◽  
Aikaterini Fotopoulou ◽  
Andreas Roepstorff
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
Sensory Inputs ◽  
Andy Clark ◽  
The World

In his paper ‘Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science’ Andy Clark (2013) seminally proposed that the brain’s job is to predict whatever information is coming ‘next’ on the basis of prior inputs and experiences. Perception fundamentally subserves survival and self-preservation in biological agents such as humans. Survival however crucially depends on rapid and accurate information processing of what is happening in the here and now. Hence the term ‘next’ in Clark’s seminal formulation must include not only the temporal dimension (i.e. what is perceived now); but (ii) also the spatial dimension (i.e. what is perceived here or next-to-my-body). In this paper we propose to focus on perceptual experiences that happen ‘next’, i.e. close-to-my-body. This is because perceptual processing of proximal sensory inputs has a key impact on the organism’s survival. Specifically, we focus on tactile experiences mediated by the skin and what we will call the ‘extended skin’ or ‘second skin’, that is immediate objects/materials that envelop closely our skin, namely clothes. We propose that the skin and tactile experiences are not a mere border separating the self and world. Rather they simultaneously and inherently distinguish and connect the bodily self to its environment. Hence these proximal and pervasive tactile experiences be viewed as a ‘transparent bridge’ intrinsically relating and facilitating exchanges between the self and the physical and social world. We conclude with potential implications of this observation for the case of Depersonalisation Disorder, a condition that makes people feel estranged and detached from their self, body and the world.

scholarly journals Whatever Next and Close to My Self—The Transparent Senses and the “Second Skin”: Implications for the Case of Depersonalization

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Ciaunica ◽  
Andreas Roepstorff ◽  
Aikaterini Katerina Fotopoulou ◽  
Bruna Petreca
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
Sensory Inputs ◽  
Depersonalization Disorder ◽  
Andy Clark ◽  
The World

In his paper “Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science,” Andy Clark seminally proposed that the brain's job is to predict whatever information is coming “next” on the basis of prior inputs and experiences. Perception fundamentally subserves survival and self-preservation in biological agents, such as humans. Survival however crucially depends on rapid and accurate information processing of what is happening in the here and now. Hence, the term “next” in Clark's seminal formulation must include not only the temporal dimension (i.e., what is perceived now) but also the spatial dimension (i.e., what is perceived here or next-to-my-body). In this paper, we propose to focus on perceptual experiences that happen “next,” i.e., close-to-my-body. This is because perceptual processing of proximal sensory inputs has a key impact on the organism's survival. Specifically, we focus on tactile experiences mediated by the skin and what we will call the “extended skin” or “second skin,” that is, immediate objects/materials that envelop closely to our skin, namely, clothes. We propose that the skin and tactile experiences are not a mere border separating the self and world. Rather, they simultaneously and inherently distinguish and connect the bodily self to its environment. Hence, these proximal and pervasive tactile experiences can be viewed as a “transparent bridge” intrinsically relating and facilitating exchanges between the self and the physical and social world. We conclude with potential implications of this observation for the case of Depersonalization Disorder, a condition that makes people feel estranged and detached from their self, body, and the world.

Power of Darkness: Narrative and Biographical Reflexivity in A Series of Unfortunate Events

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-212
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH BULLEN
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Project Risk ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
High Earning ◽  
Textual Culture ◽  
Children’S Exposure ◽  
Central Claim

This paper investigates the high-earning children's series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, in relation to the skills young people require to survive and thrive in what Ulrich Beck calls risk society. Children's textual culture has been traditionally informed by assumptions about childhood happiness and the need to reassure young readers that the world is safe. The genre is consequently vexed by adult anxiety about children's exposure to certain kinds of knowledge. This paper discusses the implications of the representation of adversity in the Lemony Snicket series via its subversions of the conventions of children's fiction and metafictional strategies. Its central claim is that the self-consciousness or self-reflexivity of A Series of Unfortunate Events} models one of the forms of reflexivity children need to be resilient in the face of adversity and to empower them to undertake the biographical project risk society requires of them.

‘A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust’: The World and Self in Thomas Hardy's Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Recurrent Theme ◽  
Body Subject

The essay discusses selected poems from Thomas Hardy's vast body of poetry, focusing on representations of the self and the world. Employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concepts such as the body-subject, wild being, flesh, and reversibility, the essay offers an analysis of Hardy's poems in the light of phenomenological philosophy. It argues that far from demonstrating ‘cosmic indifference’, Hardy's poetry offers a sympathetic vision of interrelations governing the universe. The attunement with voices of the Earth foregrounded in the poems enables the self's entanglement in the flesh of the world, a chiasmatic intertwining of beings inserted between the leaves of the world. The relation of the self with the world is established through the act of perception, mainly visual and aural, when the body becomes intertwined with the world, thus resulting in a powerful welding. Such moments of vision are brief and elusive, which enhances a sense of transitoriness, and, yet, they are also timeless as the self becomes immersed in the experience. As time is a recurrent theme in Hardy's poetry, this essay discusses it in the context of dwelling, the provisionality of which is demonstrated in the prevalent sense of temporality, marked by seasons and birdsong, which underline the rhythms of the world.

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