A Global, Democratic, Institutional and Humble Cosmopolitanism? Response to Contributors in Symposium on The Humble Cosmopolitan

This article engages contributions from Cricket Keating, Natasha Behl, Fred Lee and Jaby Mathew, and Brooke Ackerly’s introduction, in a symposium on The Humble Cosmopolitan. It first notes insights taken for the development of a democratic cosmopolitanism oriented to political humility from the work of Indian Dalit-rights champion and constitutional architect B.R. Ambedkar, and from interviews conducted with globally oriented Dalit activists. It then considers Mathew’s concerns about accommodation of the moral importance of local democratic practices, and Keating’s about the book’s emphasis on advancing institutional over attitudinal changes. It addresses issues Behl raises around attention to alternate conceptions of citizenship, e.g., ones which would center Dalit women’s voices; and Lee’s concerns about whether the model can recognize the importance of subaltern nationalisms. Responses focus on ways in which the model seeks to enable individuals to challenge political arrogance from a position of co-equal citizenship in regional and global institutions.

The Heist: Neoliberal Education and the Theft of Time

In education, time is a scarce commodity. Through prescriptive policy, and scripted curriculum in some jurisdictions, policy makers attempt to steal local teacher and learner control over what is taught, how it is taught, and what is learned. That theft amounts to a heist. While clock-time cannot (and should not) be disregarded, this paper offers a critique of conventional views on time as it is embedded in neoliberal education policy and practice. In this paper we ask how education can better contribute to more durable learning by taking up alternate conceptions of time. By dispensing with high levels of standardization and prescription and instead focusing on an education of experience, relevant to learners and not bound by chronos, schools might encourage la durée, or durable learning, resulting in education focusing on teaching students how to live well with others in a meaningful .

‘The good English’: The ideological construction of the target language in adult ESOL

This project problematizes hegemonic conceptions of language by looking at the construction of ‘English’ in a nonprofit, community-based adult ESOL program in New York. I use ethnographic observation and interviews to uncover the discursive and pedagogical practices that uphold these hegemonic conceptions in this context. I find that the structural conditions of the program perpetuate a conception of ‘English’ shaped by linguistic racism and classism, despite the program's progressive ideals. Linguistic authority is centralized through the presentation of a closed linguistic system and a focus on replication of templatic language. This allows for the drawing of linguistic borders by pathologizing forms traditionally associated with racialized varieties of English, pointing to the persistence of raciolinguistic ideologies. Nevertheless, students destabilize these dominant ideas, revealing a disconnect between mainstream understandings of language and the way adult immigrant learners actually use language, and pointing to possibilities for alternate conceptions and pedagogies. (Language ideology, raciolinguistics, Standard English, adult ESOL)

Development and psychometric analysis of an inventory of fundamental concepts for understanding organic reaction mechanisms

The fundamental concepts for organic reaction mechanisms inventory (FC-ORMI) is a multiple-choice instrument designed to assess students’ conception of fundamental concepts for understanding organic reaction mechanisms. The concepts were identified from open-ended interviews and a national survey of organic chemistry instructors reported in a previous study. This manuscript describes the development of the inventory items related to these identified concepts and the psychometric analysis of the instrument. In the developmental stage, open-ended questions were administered to first-semester organic chemistry students (N = 138), and open-ended interviews were conducted with students (N = 22) from the same pool to gain insight into their thought processes. The answers revealed alternate conceptions which were used to formulate distractors for the inventory. A pilot version and a beta version of the inventory were administered to 105 and 359 first-semester organic chemistry students, respectively. From these administrations, the 26-item alpha version was developed and administered to first-semester undergraduate organic chemistry students (N = 753). Psychometric analysis was conducted at the item and test level using Classical Test Theory and Rasch analysis. The results indicate that the items on the FC-ORMI function well to reveal students’ alternate conceptions. The instrument meets the acceptable standards of validity and reliability for concept inventories.

Lyric Effects

This chapter historicizes and theorizes an alternative record of lyric practice that emerged in the Depression but has been obscured. Specifically, the writings of communist poets Genevieve Taggard and Edwin Rolfe allow for an exploration of alternate conceptions of the poetic lyric, where lyric becomes a means to reinvent structural aspects of self in relation to the dialectics of historical change. After demonstrating how Rolfe’s engagements with the romantic lyric reasserted traditional terms of lyrical agency on the historical ground of capitalist crisis, the chapter mobilizes Taggard’s notion of a “lyric effect” to provide a different understanding of the contours of the lyric subject as well as the links between experiments with lyric and forms of collective action. Subsequent sections take up important aspects of Depression poetic discourses: the reception of Rolfe’s poetry in the left press; Taggard’s and Rolfe’s engagements with Romanticism, especially Walt Whitman’s legacy; and Taggard’s interest in music and radio technology. Across these topics, the chapter demonstrates how abstracted versions of the romantic lyric, choral music, and oral recitation become “lyric.” The final section turns to the contemporary reception of Rolfe’s poetry to forward a methodological polemic about the relationship of lyric reading to historical practice.

THE NEW GENEALOGY OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

This article pursues an immanent critique of a scholarly movement and mood that I call “the new genealogy of religious freedom” and sketches an alternative proposal. The new genealogy of religious freedom claims that religious freedom is incoherent, systemically biased, oppressive, ideological—and necessarily so. Its critique deploys a methodology inherited from Nietzsche and targets a vision of religious freedom associated with “foundationalists” like Kant and Rawls. This article calls both the methodology and the vision into question. The version of genealogy that this movement promotes proves self-destructive and incoherent, veering toward nihilism and unable to account for its own status ascritique. Its attack on foundationalist religious freedom is effective, but it presupposes—and targets—conceptions of freedom, neutrality, and power that we need not endorse. For foundationalists and genealogists alike, these assumptions define religious freedom. This article rejects those assumptions and that vision of religious freedom. It sketches a pragmatist, dialectical vision of religious freedom rooted in alternate conceptions of power, freedom, and neutrality and a corresponding strategy for legally defining “religion,” inheriting the strengths of genealogy and foundationalism while avoiding their weaknesses.

Novice Explanations Of Hurricane Formation Offer Insights Into Scientific Literacy And The Development Of Expert-Like Conceptions

The ability to explain scientific phenomena is a key feature of scientific literacy, and engaging students’ prior knowledge, especially their alternate conceptions, is an effective strategy for enhancing scientific literacy and developing expertise. The gap in knowledge about the alternate conceptions that novices have about many of Earth’s complex phenomena (National Research Council, 2012), however, makes this type of engagement in geoscience courses challenging. This study helps to fill this gap by identifying and describing how novices to geoscience explain a complex scientific phenomenon, hurricane formation. Using a pragmatism methodology, 326 students in introductory-level geoscience courses at two public universities in the United States of America, in Georgia (n=168) and Nebraska (n=158), were surveyed. The questionnaire was designed to target and collect novices’ explanations of a single complex Earth phenomenon – hurricane formation. Constant comparative analyses of textual content and diagrams revealed a variety of alternate conceptions. The data suggess that novices seldom invoke scientific first principles, which students matriculating through the education system are expected to learn before college, in their explanations. Two theoretical models synthesize the alternate conceptions and illustrate pathways of conceptual change along which students might move from more novice-like to more expert-like ways of scientific thinking. Our findings provide a basis for the development of instructional activities that aid students in developing more expert-like conceptions of hurricane formation and other complex Earth phenomena.

Genocide Prevention and Western National Security: The Limitations of Making R2P All About Us

The case for turning R2P and genocide prevention from principle to practice usually rests on the invocation of moral norms and duties to others. Calls have been made by some analysts to abandon this strategy and “sell” genocide prevention to government by framing it as a matter of our own national interest including our security. Governments’ failure to prevent atrocities abroad, it is argued, imperils western societies at home. If we look at how the genocide prevention-as-national security argument has been made we can see, however, that this position is not entirely convincing. I review two policy reports that make the case for genocide prevention based in part on national security considerations: <em>Preventing Genocide: A Blue Print for U.S. Policymakers</em> (Albright-Cohen Report); and the <em>Will to Intervene Project</em>. I show that both reports are problematic for two reasons: the “widened” traditional security argument advocated by the authors is not fully substantiated by the evidence provided in the reports; and alternate conceptions of security that would seem to support the linking of genocide prevention to western security—securitization and risk and uncertain—do not provide a solid logical foundation for operationalizing R2P. I conclude by considering whether we might appeal instead to another form of self interest, “reputational stakes”, tied to western states’ construction of their own identity as responsible members of the international community.