Human Rights: Universalism and Cultural Relativism

Human rights queryfalse are typically presented in terms of entitlements, correlative duties, claims, “trumps,” and remedies. 1 These framings, which draw principally on law and philosophy, emphasi...

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Nussbaum devotes a chapter in Sex and Social Justice to defending liberalism from common feminist critiques. Nussbaum claims approvingly that ‘[w]omen around the world are using the language of liberalism’, and insists that ‘[t]he deepest and most central ideas of the liberal tradition are ideas of radical force and great theoretical and practical value’ (1999b Nussbaum , Martha C. . 1999b . Sex and social justice . New York : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar], 56). While liberalism is a diverse tradition, and while Nussbaum's own work is informed by other theoretical traditions (in particular neo-Aristotelianism), in this essay I am following Nussbaum's own practice in treating her work as an example of ‘liberal’ feminism. 2. A version of the capabilities approach has also been developed by Amartya Sen within development economics. Sen argues that a comparison of people's capabilities is the most appropriate measure to use when comparing standards of living. Nussbaum clarifies her view of the similarities and differences between her and Sen's capabilities approaches in Sex and Social Justice (1999b, 11–15; see also Sen 1985 Sen, Amartya. 1985. Commodities and capabilities, Amsterdam: North-Holland. [Google Scholar], 1992 Sen Amartya . 1992 . Inequality reexamined . Oxford and Cambridge, MA : Clarendon Press and Harvard University Press . [Google Scholar]). 3. Indeed, this alliance is likely to be palatable to neither Nussbaum nor Butler, but this need not tell against it. Butler, at least, seems to offer up the possibility of a rapprochement in pursuit of political aims in a passage from Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence: We could disagree on the status and character of modernity and yet find ourselves joined in asserting and defending the rights of indigenous women to health care, reproductive technology, decent wages, physical protection, cultural rights, freedom of assembly. If you saw me on such a protest line, would you wonder how a postmodernist was able to muster the necessary ‘agency’ to get there today? I doubt it. You would assume that I had walked or taken the subway! (Butler 2004 Butler , Judith. . 2004 . Precarious life: The powers of violence and mourning . London : Verso . [Google Scholar], 48) 4. The phrasing is borrowed from Seyla Benhabib's chapter (1994) ‘Feminism and Postmodernism: An Uneasy Alliance’. 5. Frontiers of Justice (2006) provides an elaboration, and in some cases revision, of the capabilities approach, in the course of charting its relationship to the social contract tradition. As Nussbaum notes in Frontiers of Justice, Women and Human Development considers ‘issues of method and justification’ (2006, 5). Earlier formulations appeared in Nussbaum (1988 Nussbaum , Martha C. 1988 . Nature, function and capability: Aristotle on political distribution . Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy Supplementary vol. I . [Google Scholar], 1990 Nussbaum , Martha C. . 1990 . Aristotelian social democracy . In Liberalism and the good , R. Bruce Douglass , Gerald M. Mara , Henry S. Richardson . New York : Routledge . [Google Scholar], 1992 Nussbaum , Martha C. . 1992 . Human functioning and social justice: In defence of Aristotelian essentialism . Political Theory 20 2 : 202 46 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1993 Nussbaum , Martha C. . 1993 . Non-relative virtues: An Aristotelian approach . In The quality of life , Martha Nussbaum Amartya Sen Oxford : Clarendon Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 1995a Nussbaum , Martha C. 1995a . Aristotle on human nature and the foundations of ethics . In World, mind and ethics: Essays on the ethical philosophy of Bernard Williams , J.E.J. Altham Ross Harrison Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . [Google Scholar], 1995b Nussbaum , Martha C. 1995b . Human capabilities, female human beings . In Women, culture and development , Martha C. Nussbaum Jonathon Glover Oxford : Clarendon Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 1997a Nussbaum , Martha C. . 1997a . Capabilities and human rights . Fordham Law Review 66 : 273 300 .[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1997b Nussbaum , Martha C. . 1997b . The good as discipline, the good as freedom . In Ethics of consumption: The good life, justice, and global stewardship , David A. Crocker Toby Linden. Lanham , MD : Rowman & Littlefield . [Google Scholar], 1999b). 6. Butler is not alone in her criticism of Nussbaum's defence of universalism. Hilary Charlesworth (2000 Charlesworth, Hilary. 2000. Martha Nussbaum's feminist internationalism. Ethics, 111(1): 64–78. [Google Scholar], 72–77) queries the need for the strong claim of universality to undergird a feminist internationalism, preferring instead more subtle, dialogically based approaches to international collaboration. Avigail Eisenberg (2002 Eisenberg , Avigail. 2002 . Context, cultural difference, sex and social justice . Review of Sex and social justice by Martha C. Nussbaum. Canadian Journal of Political Science 35 3 : 613 28 . [Google Scholar]) suggests that Nussbaum tends to read the existence of a commitment to universal liberal principles back into the narratives of women in developing countries, and Gayatri Spivak (2004 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2004. Righting wrongs. South Atlantic Quarterly, 103(2/3): 523–81. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) views Nussbaum's approach as a ‘top-down’ model of engaging with the subaltern subject. For an approach that attempts to draw Nussbaum's work on the human into critical conversation with the work of postcolonial theorists, see Quillen (2001 Quillen, Carol. 2001. Feminist theory, justice, and the lure of the human. Signs, 27(1): 87–122. [Google Scholar]). 7. In a commentary on Nussbaum's advocacy of cosmopolitanism (Nussbaum 1990), Butler remarks: ‘it would be a great consolation, I suppose, to return to a ready-made universal perspective, and to compel everyone to identify with a universal moral attitude before they take on their various specific and parochial concerns’ (1996 Nussbaum , Martha C. . 1996 . Patriotism and cosmopolitanism . In For love of country: Debating the limits of patriotism , by Martha C. Nussbaum with Respondents , Joshua Cohen. Boston : Beacon Press . [Google Scholar], 45; emphasis added). 8. A number of commentators have questioned Nussbaum's reading here, suggesting that Nussbaum's Aristotle may contain rather more of Nussbaum than Aristotle. See, in this regard, Antony (2000 Antony, Louise M. 2000. Natures and norms. Ethics, 111(1): 8–36. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Mulgan (2000 Mulgan, Richard. 2000. Was Aristotle an ‘Aristotelian social democrat’?. Ethics, 111(1): 79–101. [Google Scholar]). 9. Nussbaum contends that people may sign on to this conception as the freestanding moral core of a political conception, without accepting any particular metaphysical view of the world, any comprehensive ethical or religious view, or even any particular view of the person or of human nature. (2000, 76) See also Rawls (1996 Rawls, John. 1996. Political liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar]). 10. Nussbaum similarly uses the figure of the Indian woman as a device in the construction of her argument. Ratna Kapur (2001 Kapur, Ratna. 2001. Imperial parody. Feminist Theory, 2(1): 79–88. [Google Scholar]) objects to Nussbaum's attack on Butler in the name of Indian women whose ‘material reality’, for Nussbaum, provides the ultimate rebuke to Butler's parodic politics. Kapur points out that this figuring relies on the self-evidence of the claim that abuse of women in India is much worse than in Nussbaum's own country, the United States (Kapur 2001, 80). Nussbaum makes a similar move in Women and Human Development, introducing the work with the stories of Indian women Vasanti and Jayamma, ‘two women trying to flourish’ (2000 Nussbaum , Martha C. . 2000 . Women and human development: The capabilities approach . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 15). 11. A number of other feminist theorists have been concerned by Butler's lack of a normative politics. In this regard, see Benhabib's and Fraser's contributions to Feminist Contentions (Benhabib 1995 Benhabib , Seyla. 1995 . Feminism and postmodernism: An uneasy alliance . In Feminist contentions: A philosophical exchange Seyla Benhabib , Judith Butler , Drucilla Cornell , Nancy Fraser. New York : Routledge . [Google Scholar]; Fraser 1995 Fraser , Nancy. 1995 . False antitheses: A response to Seyla Benhabib and Judith Butler . In Feminist contentions: A philosophical exchange , Seyla Benhabib , Judith Butler , Drucilla Cornell , Nancy Fraser. New York : Routledge . [Google Scholar]), and Lois McNay (1999 Mcnay, Lois. 1999. Subject, psyche and agency: The work of Judith Butler. Theory. Culture and Society, 16(2): 175–93. [Google Scholar]). For a thoughtful engagement with Butler's work that also pushes her on normativity but suggests a normative supplement that is more in keeping with Butler's own theoretical antecedents—Foucault and (especially) Nietzsche—than the deus ex machina of notions like non-hierarchy and human dignity, see Stone (2005 Stone, Alison. 2005. Towards a genealogical feminism: A reading of Judith Butler's political thought. Contemporary Political Theory, 4: 4–24. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 12. Butler's point is not that any and all resignifications of universality are good, or positive. Butler clarifies her emphasis on resignification in Feminist Contentions: my point is that re-signification is the domain in which a certain set of ‘agentic possibilities’ can be discerned and derived, and that such a domain of possibility is immanent to power. My question is not whether certain kinds of significations are good or bad, warranted or unwarranted, but, rather: what constitutes the domain of discursive possibility within which and about which such questions can be posed? (1995b Butler , Judith. . 1995b . For a careful reading . In Feminist contentions: A philosophical exchange , Seyla Benhabib , Judith Butler , Drucilla Cornell , Nancy Fraser. New York : Routledge . [Google Scholar], 138) 13. See, on this point, Antony (2000). 14. That Nussbaum would likely object to considering her capabilities approach as a ‘resignification’ in no way prevents us from doing so. 15. Nussbaum's own position on the relationship of capabilities and rights is clarified in Frontiers of Justice, where Nussbaum argues that the capabilities approach should be seen as a species of the human rights approach (2006, 285–91). 16. Butler, too, gestures towards this in her more recent work. In Precarious Life (2004) she offers an approach to conceptualising human community based on a shared corporeal vulnerability to harm. 17. In elaborating this, Nussbaum draws out another aspect of the relationship she sees between capabilities and rights. She argues that rights to, for example, political participation, free exercise of religion, free speech, should all be thought of as ‘secured to people only when the relevant capacities to function are present’. Thus, she insists on attending to the actual capability to exercise a right: by defining the securing of rights in terms of capabilities, we make it clear that a people in country C don't really have an effective right to political participation, for example … simply because this language exists on paper; they really have been given the right only if there are effective measures to make people truly capable of political exercise. (Nussbaum 2006 Nussbaum , Martha C. . 2006 . Frontiers of justice: Disability, nationality, species membership . Cambridge, MA : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press . [Google Scholar], 287)

Three Responses to ‘Can There Be Genocide Without the Intent to Commit Genocide?’

FEMINISM AND THE CHANGING STATE

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsFarid ManouchehrianFARID MANOUCHEHRIAN recently completed his master's degree in Ibsen Studies at the University of Oslo's Centre for Ibsen Studies. Email: manouchehrian.f@gmail.comNotes1 As Byron Nordstrom notes, until the last decade of the nineteenth century, “Women never reached an age of legal independence,” and “their rights to own property were restricted” (2000 Nordstrom, Byron J. 2000. Scandinavia since 1500. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar], 250).2 The idea that male protagonists subjugate their wife’s fortune in order to advance their social status is not, however, limited to the three plays written from 1892 to 1896. It can be traced back to Ibsen’s very first play, Catiline (1850), in which Catiline sells his wife’s childhood home “for the purposes of bribery” so that he obtains the Senate “consulship” (Ibsen 1970 Ibsen, Henrik. 1970. The Oxford Ibsen: Volume I, Early Plays. Translated by James McFarlane and Graham Orton. London: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], 53–56).3 The view to which Miller refers is also noted by Maurice Maeterlinck (1905 Maeterlinck, Maurice. 1905. The Treasure of the Humble. Translated by Alfred Sutro. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Co. [Google Scholar], 114–119), and later by Orley I. Holtan (1970 Holtan, I. Orley. 1970. Mythic Patterns in Ibsen’s Last Plays. Minnesota: The University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar], 16).4 As a case in point, Chengzhou He maintains that “Among Ibsen’s last twelve plays, the first quartet […] has been generally known as Ibsen’s social problem dramas” (2003 He, Chengzhou. 2003. “Ibsen and Chinese Problem Drama.” Ibsen Studies 3 (1): 54–70. doi:10.1080/15021860304317.[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 54). See also Michael Meyer (1971 Meyer, Michael. 1971. Ibsen: A Biography. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. [Google Scholar], 512), Thomas David (1983 David, Thomas. 1983. Modern Dramatists: Henrik Ibsen. London: Macmillan. [Google Scholar], 101–102), Naomi Lebowitz (1990 Lebowitz, Naomi. 1990. Ibsen and the Great World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. [Google Scholar], 130), Lars Nylander (2005 Nylander, Lars. 2005. “Between Desire and Ethics.” Ibsen Studies 5 (1): 105–110.[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 106), and Elizabeth Wright (2010 Wright, Elizabeth. 2010. “Re-Interpreting the Master Builder: A Response to J.S. Hurst.” Forum for Modern Language Studies 46 (3): 297–309. doi:10.1093/fmls/cqq009.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 303–304).5 Emphasis on biographical, psychological, or existential aspects of The Master Builder can also be seen in Eva Le Gallienne (1970 Gallienne, Eva Le. 1970. “Introduction of the Master Builder 1955.” In Henrik Ibsen: A Critical Anthology Edited by James McFarlane. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd. [Google Scholar], 423), James McFarlane (1989 McFarlane, James. 1989. Ibsen and Meaning. Norwich: Norvik Press. [Google Scholar], 272), Harold Clurman (1977 Clurman, Harold. 1977. Ibsen. New York: Macmillan.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 167–168), Brian Crow (1981 Crow, Brian. 1981. “Romantic Ambivalence in the Master Builder.” Studies in Romanticism 20 (2): 203–223. doi:10.2307/25600296.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 204), Bjørn Hemmer (1994 Hemmer, Bjørn. 1994. “Ibsen and the Realistic Problem Drama.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen, edited by James McFarlane, 12–26. New York: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 71), Michael Goldman (1999 Goldman, Michael. 1999. Ibsen: The Dramaturgy of Fear. New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar], 44), Theoharis C. Theoharis (1999 Theoharis, Constantine Theoharis. 1999. Ibsen’s Drama: Right Action and Tragic Joy. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. [Google Scholar], 152), and Jørgen Dines Johansen (2002 Johansen, Jørgen Dines. 2002. “Mimetic and Diegetic Space in Ibsen’s Late Plays.” Ibsen and the Arts: Painting - Sculpture - Architecture. Ibsen Conference in Rome, 24–27 October 2001, 133–149. [Google Scholar], 147–148).6 Albeit in a different context, James L. Calderwood argues that “Ibsen’s entire oeuvre, viewed diachronically, can become whole, and wholly understood, only when his late plays beginning with The Master Builder are informed by his earlier ones, uniting the romanticism and realism of the past within their symbolic structures” (1984 Calderwood, James L. 1984. “The Master Builder and Failure of Symbolic Success.” Modern Drama 27 (4): 617–637. doi:10.3138/md.27.4.617.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 624).7 Jameson’s political interpretation of literary texts is underpinned by his concentric frameworks—the “three horizons” which he identifies as political, social, and historical (1983, 60). My reading of Solness’s symbolic fall takes place on both the political and the social levels. To elaborate, Jameson posits that on the political level, “the object of study […] as the individual work is grasped essentially as a symbolic act” (1983, 61). He further underlines that “a symbolic act is on the one hand affirmed as a genuine act, albeit on the symbolic level, while on the other it is registered as an act which is ‘merely’ symbolic, its resolutions imaginary ones that leave the real untouched, suitably dramatizes the ambiguous status of art and culture” (1983, 66). To understand the literary text as a symbolic act on the social level, Jameson notes that “For Marxism, the very content of a class ideology is relational, in the sense that its values are always actively in situation with respect to the opposing class and defined against the latter.” He remarks that “a ruling class ideology will explore various strategies of the legitimation of its own power position, while an oppositional culture or ideology will, often in covert and disguised strategies, seek to contest and to undermine the dominant value system” (1983, 69).8 It must be noted that the origin of this quotation is from Frode Helland’s book, namely “Melankoliens Spill: En Studie i Henrik Ibsens Siste Dramaer, in which he writes, “For Aline har selve tanken om ‘rigtigt hjem’ blitt en umulighet. […] Hun har hatt et hjem som nå er ødelagt, og ‘det nye’ kan aldri lege tapet av det gamle” (2000, 90). I have used Mark Sandberg’s translation.9 The presupposition reinforcing the notion that the death of the children is Aline’s fault is also mentioned by Orley I. Holtan (1970 Holtan, I. Orley. 1970. Mythic Patterns in Ibsen’s Last Plays. Minnesota: The University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar], 100), Hansgerd Delbrück (2000 Delbrück, Hansgerd. 2000. “Falling for the Sphinx: The Heritage of the Oedipus Myth in Henrik Ibsen’s the Master Builder.” Ibsen Studies 1 (1): 30–53. doi:10.1080/15021860008574040.[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 36–37), Jon Morgan Stokkeland (2016 Stokkeland, Jon Morgan. 2016. “The Poet and the Laws of Life: Narcissism and Object Relatedness in Ibsen’s Late Plays.” American Imago 73 (3): 307–324. doi:10.1353/aim.2016.0016.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 317), and Yuji Omori (2018 Omori, Yuji. 2018. “A Homeless Architect: Nietzschean Philosophy of the Earth in the Great God Brown.” The Eugene O’Neill Review 39 (2): 279–293. doi:10.5325/eugeoneirevi.39.2.0279.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 285).10 See also James L. Calderwood (1984 Calderwood, James L. 1984. “The Master Builder and Failure of Symbolic Success.” Modern Drama 27 (4): 617–637. doi:10.3138/md.27.4.617.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 621) and Gail Finney (1994 Finney, Gail. 1994. “Ibsen and Feminism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen, edited by James McFarlane, 89–105New York: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 102).11 Among Ibsen’s critics, Eleanor Marx, Karl Marx’s youngest daughter, is one of the first intellectuals who “hailed Ibsen as a spokesman of […] Marxism, Socialism and Fabianism” (Durbach 1994 Durbach, Errol. 1994. “A Century of Ibsen Criticism: Marxism, Propaganda and Shaw, Varieties of Ibsenite Criticism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen, edited by James McFarlane, 233–251. New York: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 233). For Eleanor, “the ‘miracle’ was Marxist change with its promise of economic and intellectual emancipation for women and workers alike” (Durbach 1994 Durbach, Errol. 1994. “A Century of Ibsen Criticism: Marxism, Propaganda and Shaw, Varieties of Ibsenite Criticism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen, edited by James McFarlane, 233–251. New York: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 234). As a socialist, she believed that “the struggle is primarily class-based, not gender-based” (Durbach 1994 Durbach, Errol. 1994. “A Century of Ibsen Criticism: Marxism, Propaganda and Shaw, Varieties of Ibsenite Criticism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen, edited by James McFarlane, 233–251. New York: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 235). Since bourgeois hegemony is inextricably intertwined with patriarchal ideology, in my view, associating Ibsen with only one cause (gender or class conflict) might result in a dogmatic approach to his works. Hence, I suggest that in each of his late plays Ibsen observes his society from different angles and provides distinct symbolic resolutions for social conflicts.12 It is important to note that I do not consider Hilde is a savior of the working class. As I will further argue, I only suggest that one of the interpretations of Hilde’s role is that she has a plan to take back Aline’s property by encouraging Solness to climb of the new house and overcome his fear of Ragnar. Therefore, resolving the class contradiction is just one of the implications of Hilde’s strategy to save Aline from patriarchal oppression.13 See also Richard Schechner (1962 Schechner, Richard. 1962. “The Unexpected Visitor in Ibsen’s Late Plays.” In Educational Theatre Journal 14 (2): 120–127. doi:10.2307/3204527.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 125), Ronald Gray (1977 Gray, Ronald. 1977. Ibsen – A Dissenting View: A Study of the Last Twelve Plays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar], 161), Thomas David (1983 David, Thomas. 1983. Modern Dramatists: Henrik Ibsen. London: Macmillan. [Google Scholar], 123), James McFarlane (1989 McFarlane, James. 1989. Ibsen and Meaning. Norwich: Norvik Press. [Google Scholar], 295), Naomi Lebowitz (1990 Lebowitz, Naomi. 1990. Ibsen and the Great World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. [Google Scholar], 49 and 135), Benjamin Bennett (1990 Bennett, Benjamin. 1990. Theater as Problem: Modern Drama and Its Place in Literature. New York: Cornell University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 22), Michael Goldman (1999 Goldman, Michael. 1999. Ibsen: The Dramaturgy of Fear. New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar], 44), Theoharis C. Theoharis (1999 Theoharis, Constantine Theoharis. 1999. Ibsen’s Drama: Right Action and Tragic Joy. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. [Google Scholar],150), and Camilla Chun-Pai Hsieh (2010 Chun-Pai Hsieh, Camilla. 2010. “Control, Surrender and Self-Transcendence: Notes on Shakespeare’s the Tempest and Ibsen’s the Master Builder.” In Ibsen and the Modern Self, edited by Kwok-kan Tam, Terry Siu-han Yip and Forde Helland. Hong Kong: Open University of Hong Kong Press. [Google Scholar], 234).14 Olivia Noble Gunn also argues that tower-climbing is both “confirming and contradicting Solness’s vision, enabling and undoing his plan, mimicking a similarly circular or rising and collapsing pattern in its climber’s at once certain and guilty self-understanding” (2015 Gunn, Olivia Noble. 2015. “The Master Builder’s Tragic Quotidian.” Ibsen Studies 15 (1): 40–65. doi:10.1080/15021866.2015.1087715.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 56).

I am a child of the 1970s. I grew up in Adelaide in the Dunstan decade. My earliest political recollection is of my parents discussing the dismissal of Whitlam in 1975. I believed university educat...

Justification, Disagreement and the Liberal State

In this paper I look back at The Piano in two ways. Firstly, I am ‘looking back’, in that quotidian sense of looking behind, over our shoulders at the past, at a film made 16 years ago and set in t...

Human rights invoked in the international context are often treated as having self-evident content. The focus is on implementation and enforcement. The urge to enforcement is especially strong when...

The modern city and the making of sport

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. A compelling account of the impact of neo-liberalism on subjectivity is given in Davies and Saltmarsh (2007 Davies , Bronwyn , and Sue Saltmarsh . 2007 . Gender economies: Literacy and the gendered production of neo-liberal subjectivities . Gender and Education 19 ( 1 ): 1 – 20 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 2. Analyses of music and the historical overviews of music analysis in various publications support this view. See, for example, the following widely used analytical textbooks: Nicholas Cook, A Guide to Musical Analysis (1987 Cook , Nicholas . 1987 . A guide to musical analysis . London and Melbourne : J.M. Dent . [Google Scholar]) and Allen Forte, The Structure of Atonal Music (1973 Forte , Allen . 1973 . The structure of atonal music . New Haven, , CT and London : Yale University Press . [Google Scholar]). These are focused on music of the Western tradition and its male composers. Male composers also dominate discussion in the following: Bent and Drabkin (1984 Bent , Ian , with William Drabkin . 1984 . The new Grove handbooks in music: Analysis . London : Macmillan . [Google Scholar]), Pople (1994 Pople , Anthony 1994 . Theory, analysis and meaning in music . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . [Google Scholar]), and in recent issues of Music Analysis, Perspectives of New Music and Music Theory Spectrum. Although critical of the positivist approaches to analysis, Kerman's Musicology (1985 Kerman , Joseph. 1985 . Musicology . London : Fontana/Collins . [Google Scholar]) does not specifically identify women as an unrepresented group in his call for the discipline to embrace criticism. Fred Maus's critique (1993) reveals analysis to be like a science-oriented theory, which might be one reason for the absence of women's music. 3. The earliest challenge was issued by Joseph Kerman (1980 Kerman , Joseph. 1980 . How we got into analysis, and how to get out . Critical Inquiry 7 : 311 – 31 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), followed by another from Kerman in Musicology (1985). As Kofi Agawu notes, Kerman's book (1985) was 'a key text in debates about the nature and purposes of musicology from the mid-1980s onwards' (2004, 280). Maus (1993 Maus , Fred Everett . 1993 . Masculine discourse in music theory . Perspectives of New Music 31 ( 2 ): 264 – 93 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) was among the early voices calling for the inclusion of feminist theory in music analysis. Other challenges to musicology for a more critical perspective came from important figures such as Susan McClary (1989 Mcclary , Susan . 1989 . Terminal prestige: The case of avant-garde music composition . Cultural Critique 12 : 57 – 81 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] 1991 Mcclary , Susan . 1991 . Feminine endings: Music, gender, and sexuality . Minneapolis and Oxford : University of Minnesota Press . [Google Scholar]); Lawrence Kramer (1992 Kramer , Lawrence . 1992 . The musicology of the future . Repercussions 1 ( 1 ): 5 – 18 . [Google Scholar] 1993 Kramer , Lawrence . 1993 . Music criticism and the postmodernist turn: In contrary motion with Gary Tomlinson . Current Musicology 53 : 25 – 35 . [Google Scholar]); Philip Brett (1994 Brett , Philip. 1994 . Musicality, essentialism and the closet . In Queering the pitch: The new gay and lesbian musicology P. Brett , E. Wood and G.C. Thomas . London and New York : Routledge . [Google Scholar]); Rose Subotnik (1991 Subotnik , Rose . 1991 . Developing variations: Style and ideology in Western music . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press . [Google Scholar]); Gary Tomlinson (1993 Tomlinson , Gary . 1993 . Musical pasts and postmodern musicologies: A response to Lawrence Kramer . Current Musicology 53 : 18 – 24 . [Google Scholar]); Ruth Solie (1993 Solie , Ruth . 1993 . Introduction: On 'difference' . In Musicology and difference: Gender and sexuality in music scholarship Ruth A. Solie . Berkeley and London : University of California Press . [Google Scholar]); more latterly, Robert Fink (1999 Fink , Robert. 1999 . Going flat: Post hierarchical music theory and the musical surface . In Rethinking music N. Cook and M. Everist . Oxford : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]); and numerous others. 4. While there has been a tendency in some quarters for the terms 'critical' musicology and 'new' musicology to be used interchangeably, it is important to note that the US 'new musicologists' came under fire from the UK 'critical musicologists' for their apparent lack of self-reflexivity and for failing to recognise the biases of their accounts of modernism, which they were accused of perpetuating. See Clarke (2004 Clarke , David. 2004 . Editorial: Twentieth-century music—plural . Twentieth Century Music 1 ( 2 ): 155 – 59 . [Google Scholar], 156). It is also important to note that while these debates are happening in the Northern hemisphere there is a virtual silence from Australia musicology. 5. The earliest disparaging review of McClary's work was given by Pieter C. Van den Toorn (1991 Van Den Toorn , Pieter C. 1991 . Politics, feminism, and contemporary music theory . Journal of Musicology 9 ( 3 ): 257 – 99 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). He followed this with an attack on the 'new' musicology in his book Music, Politics, and the Academy (1995 Van Den Toorn , Pieter C. . 1995 . Music, politics, and the academy . Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of California Press . [Google Scholar]), in which he stressed the importance of structural analysis. He argues that focusing on cultural issues diminishes the experience and value of music. Ruth Solie (1991 Solie , Ruth . 1991 . What do feminists want? A reply to Pieter van den Toorn . Journal of Musicology 9 ( 4 ): 399 – 410 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) provided a measured response to Van den Toorn's initial criticism of McClary, but ultimately she sides with the feminist position. Other reviews, many of which are negative, include Elaine Barkin (1992 Barkin , Elaine. 1992 . Either/other . Perspectives of New Music 30 ( 2 ): 206 – 33 . [Google Scholar]), to which McClary herself replied (1992 Mcclary , Susan . 1992 . A response to Elaine Barkin . Perspectives of New Music 30 ( 2 ): 234 – 239 . [Google Scholar]); Treitler (1993 Treitler , Leo. 1993 . Gender and other dualities of music history . In Musicology and difference: Gender and sexuality in music scholarship Ruth A. Solie . Berkeley and London : University of California Press . [Google Scholar]); Higgins (1993 Higgins , Paula . 1993 . Women in music, feminist criticism, and guerrilla musicology: Reflections on recent polemics . 19th Century Music 27 ( 2 ): 174 – 92 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]); Kallick (1993 Kallick , Jenny . 1993 . Review . Journal of Music Theory 37 ( 2 ): 391 – 402 . [Google Scholar]); Sayrs (1993/94 Sayrs , Elizabeth. 1993/94 . Deconstructing McClary: Narrative, feminine sexuality, and feminism in Susan McClary's Feminine endings . College Music Symposium: Journal of the College Music Society 33–34: 41–55. [Google Scholar]); and Temple (1996 Temple , Mary Kay . 1996 . War inna babbelogue . The Musical Times 135 ( 1841 ): 5 – 9 . [Google Scholar]). See also Martin (1995 Martin , Peter J. 1995 . Sounds and society: Themes in the sociology of music . Manchester and New York : Manchester University Press . [Google Scholar]). 6. Significant among the number of books to surface during in this period were: McClary (1991 Mcclary , Susan . 1991 . Feminine endings: Music, gender, and sexuality . Minneapolis and Oxford : University of Minnesota Press . [Google Scholar]); Citron (1993 Citron , Marcia . 1993 . Gender and the musical canon . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . [Google Scholar]); Cook and Tsou (1994 Cook , Susan C. , and Judy J. Tsou 1994 . Cecilia reclaimed: Feminist perspectives on gender and music . Urbana and Chicago : University of Illinois Press . [Google Scholar]); Green (1997 Green , Lucy. 1997 . Music, gender, education . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]); Macarthur and Poynton (1999 Macarthur , Sally , and Cate Poynton 1999 . Musics and feminisms . Sydney : Australian Music Centre . [Google Scholar]); Hisama (2002 Hisama , Ellie M. 2002 . Gendering musical modernism: The music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . [Google Scholar]); and Macarthur (2002 Macarthur , Sally . 2002 . Feminist aesthetics in music . Westport, , CT : Greenwood . [Google Scholar]). There were also a number of articles published in journals and books, including a sustained effort to keep women's music on the agenda by key figures such as Eva Rieger, Susan McClary, Suzanne Cusick and Ruth Solie. Suzanne Cusick has recently taken over the editorship of the annual Women & Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, which focuses on women's music. 7. Perhaps the most noteworthy example, owing to its almost exclusive attention given to music by male composers in the early 1990s, was the journal Perspectives of New Music, which included a feminist theory forum. See, in particular, Perspectives of New Music 1992, 30 (2): 202–43; 1993, 31 (2): 230–93; 1994, 32 (1): 8–88; and 1994, 32 (2): 148–49. 8. Koskoff substantiates this claim in a footnote, citing a wide-ranging array of recent literature written from the respective genre-perspectives. 9. I have borrowed the clever title of Koskoff's article which signifies just about all the possible ways in which she would conceive her genderist ethnomusicological work to be viewed: 'left out', 'out in left field', 'left the field' or simply 'left'. 10. She suggests that a separation between genderist ethnomusicology and musicology began to emerge in the 1990s, an observation confirmed from a search of over 1,500 books and articles written since the 1990s on women and music, with more publications devoted to Western musicology and significantly less to ethnomusicology. See Koskoff (2005, 90–93). 11. See, for example, publications associated with the 'new' or 'critical' musicology from around the turn of the twenty-first century, such as: Cook and Everist (1999 Cook , Nicholas , and Mark Everist 1999 . Rethinking music . Oxford : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]), which includes one article out of 24 devoted to gender and feminism, and a sprinkling of others which deal with feminist issues and politics in among larger discussions of music; Born and Hesmondalgh (2000 Born , Georgina , and David Hesmondalgh 2000 . Western music and its others: Difference, representation, and appropriation in music . Berkeley and London : University of California Press . [Google Scholar]); Lochhead and Auner (2002 Lochhead , Judy , and Jospeh Auner 2002 . Postmodern music/postmodern thought . New York and London : Routledge . [Google Scholar]); Clayton, Herbert, and Middleton (2003 Clayton , Martin , Trevor Herbert , and Richard Middleton 2003 . The cultural study of music: A critical introduction . New York and London : Routledge . [Google Scholar]); and Dell'Antonio (2004 Dell'antonio , Andrew 2004 . Beyond structural listening? Postmodern modes of hearing . Berkeley and London : University of California Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 12. See Macarthur (2007 Macarthur , Sally . 2007 . Gender and the tertiary music curriculum in Australia . In Music in Australian tertiary institutions: Issues for the 21st century . Available from http://www.nactmus.org.au/NACTMUS2007/tertiary_music_curriculum.html [Google Scholar]). Statistics also paint a dismal picture for women composers in the concert hall. Jennifer Fowler's analysis (2006 Fowler , Jennifer . 2006 . The BBC Proms: Where are the women? Journal of the IAWM 12 ( 2 ): 21 – 22 . Also published as: Fowler, Jennifer. 2006–2007. Where are the women? Music Forum 13 (1): 24–25. [Google Scholar]) of the British Proms, with data gathered from 1989 to 2006, showed that women's music constituted less than 1 per cent of music programmed in the Proms (with more than 100 composers represented each year), and that in 2006 there were no women composers and no women conductors represented. Macarthur's analysis of women's music performed by Australian music groups in the period 1985–1995 showed that of a total of around 15,000 works their music constituted less than 2 per cent of all music performed, a statistic which dropped to 1 per cent in 2004–2005. See Sally Macarthur (2006a Macarthur , Sally . 2006a . The cultural work of the musical work: Light Sorrow (1985), Black Sun (1989) . In Intercultural music: Creation and interpretation Sally Macarthur , Bruce Crossman , and Ronaldo Morelos . Sydney : Australian Music Centre . [Google Scholar] b Macarthur , Sally . 2006b . Raising the platform for women . Music Forum 12 ( 2 ): 40 – 43 . [Google Scholar]). These data yielded a statistically significant result and have been shown to resemble other statistics which, from time to time, are posted to the e-mail membership list of the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM). 13. Green (1997 Green , Lucy. 1997 . Music, gender, education . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) identifies the links between music and ideology in British secondary education, demonstrating how patriarchal attitudes towards femininity and women's music are maintained, reproduced and become self-perpetuating. 14. Agawu makes the point that: 'we are urged to look beyond formalism and positivism, and to embrace criticism, especially his (Kerman's) brand of criticism. Interpretations, not facts, are in short supply, we are told' (2004, 267; emphasis added). 15. Braidotti suggests that 'human bodies caught in the spinning machine of multiple differences at the end of postmodernity become simultaneously disposable commodities to be vampirised and also decisive agents for political and ethical transformation' (2005, 171). 16. See Halberstam (2005, 76–92), where she suggests that the relations between time and space, between 'seeing and not seeing, appearing and disappearing, knowing and not knowing' (2005, 78) necessarily, at some point, render the transgendered character in the film Boys Don't Cry invisible in order to remain viable. 17. The 'nomad' is a philosophical concept drawn from Deleuze that was developed by Braidotti (1994 Braidotti , Rosi . 1994 . Nomadic subjects: Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory . New York : Columbia University Press . [Google Scholar]). It is an analytical device that is applicable to subjectivity and for thinking about the ways in which subjects transgress boundaries and subvert conventions. It makes multiple connections and is in a constant state of flux. It is both dynamic and transgressive. According to Elizabeth Gould, nomadism includes a figuration that is at once metaphorical and embodied in an intellectual style and consciousness that suggests alternative subjectivities, making possible political agency in the context of fluid identities. It represents a theoretical style in design, and analysis of research that is fundamentally expressive and material. (2004 Gould , Elizabeth. 2004 . Feminist theory in music education research: Grrl-illa games as nomadic practice (or how music education fell from grace) . Music Education Research 6 ( 1 ): 67 – 80 .[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 68) Applied to the institutional setting of music, the nomad could be conceived as a feminist who simultaneously works within and outside the conventions of institutional practice. In this conception, the feminist nomad musicologist is actively resistant to the authority of the institution as it attempts to constrain its mobility and produces work that is both political and theoretical. 18. Another work of Boyd's that makes a similar extra-musical connection as Angry Earth to events in the wider social domain is Black Sun for orchestra (1989, pub. 1998), which is a musical reflection on the Tiananmen Square massacre. 19. In an interview on Radio National with Andrew Ford, Saturday 16 September 2006 (2006b), Boyd described how she embodied the anger of the work. 20. Tacey states that: 'The revelation of the sacred in this country will … be profoundly feminine. The feminine face of God is creational, embodied and immanental … To emphasise this feminine dimension means that we have revealed and unconcealed the feminine aspect of God the Father' (2000, 256). While recognising that both men and women have access to the feminine, Tacey suggests that there is a discernable paradigm shift underway in which women's contribution to culture is becoming more visible than it has ever been hitherto. He says that the 'masculine principle', which has dominated the institutional Judaeo-Christian Church for centuries, 'requires grounding, "incarnation", and reinvigoration through passionate involvement in the mysteries of the feminine and in natural creation' (2000, 102), adding that, 'women, the body and nature constitute the missing Trinity in our Western religious traditions, philosophical and sociopolitical world view' (2000, 232).

During the early 1920s, members of Brooklyn's elite Hamilton Club were profoundly interested in the industrial relations policies adopted by businessmen in Worcester, Massachusetts. Somehow they ha...

Bibliography

The history of science came early to Oxford. Its first champion was Robert T. Gunther, the son of a keeper of zoology at the British Museum and a graduate of Magdalen College who took a first there in the School of Natural Science in 1892, specializing in zoology ([figure 1][1]). As tutor in natural

Over the last decade, researchers have become increasingly interested in students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and how these beliefs develop. Although initial psychological accounts portrayed epistemic development as a domain-independent process of cognitive maturation, recent studies have found trajectories of epistemic development to vary considerably across contexts. However, few studies have focused on cultural context. This article examines the role community values and practices play in fostering particular epistemological orientations by comparing the epistemological beliefs of 5th, 8th, and 12th graders (N = 200) from General and Religious schools in Israel regarding 2 controversies: belief in God and punishment of children. In both controversies, older participants were less likely than younger participants to consider the controversy rationally decidable. However, this shift emerged earlier in the God controversy than in the punishment controversy. In the God controversy, General pupils were less likely than Religious pupils to consider the question rationally decidable or their own beliefs infallible. But no such school differences were observed in the punishment controversy. Qualitative and quantitative analyses linked these differences to divergent discourse practices at General and Religious schools, suggesting that the relations between learning and epistemic development are more intricate than has been assumed hitherto. Epistemology is an area of philosophy concerned with questions of what knowledge is and how it is justified. Although few people give these questions such detailed and sustained attention as professional philosophers, anyone attempting to acquire, produce, or evaluate knowledge relies, at least implicitly, on some set of epistemological beliefs. Such beliefs are of obvious interest to educators. To understand how students acquire, evaluate, and justify knowledge, we need to understand what they consider knowledge to be. And to help students become discerning consumers and responsible producers of knowledge, we need to understand how people learn to exercise reflective judgment in the face of competing claims. The psychological study of epistemic development is undergoing something of a renaissance. Interest in this area can be traced back to Piaget (1970) Piaget, J. 1970. Genetic epistemology New York: Columbia University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Dewey (1933) Dewey, J. 1933. How we think Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Co. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], and beyond (e.g., Plato's Theaetetus). But only recently have psychologists begun to draw together hitherto disparate strands of empirical inquiry to chart in detail the course of epistemic development from infancy to adulthood (see, e.g., Hallett, Chandler, & Krettenauer, 2002 Hallett, D., Chandler, M. J. and Krettenauer, T. 2002. Disentangling the course of epistemic development: Parsing knowledge by epistemic content. New Ideas in Psychology, 20(2-3): 285–307. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Kuhn, Cheney, & Weinstock, 2000 Kuhn, D. 2000. Metacognitive development. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(5): 178–181. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Wainryb, Shaw, Langley, Cottam, & Lewis, 2004 Wainryb, C., Shaw, L. A., Langley, M., Cottam, K. and Lewis, R. 2004. Children's thinking about diversity of belief in the early school years: Judgments of relativism, tolerance, and disagreeing persons. Child Development, 75(3): 687–703. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Initial research in this field was conducted largely within a neo-Piagetian paradigm. Epistemic development was characterized as a progression through discrete stages or levels of epistemological understanding, each following the other in invariant sequence and constituting a comprehensive transformation of the individual's conception of knowledge (see, e.g., Chandler, 1975 Chandler, M. J. 1975. Relativism and the problem of epistemological loneliness. Human Development, 18(3): 171–180. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Kitchener & King, 1981 Kitchener, K. S. and King, P. M. 1981. Reflective judgment: Concepts of justification and their relationship to age and education. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2: 89–116. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Perry, 1970 Perry, W. G. 1970. Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years: A scheme Troy, MO: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. [Google Scholar]). Researchers differed somewhat in their nomenclatures and in their criteria for distinguishing levels of epistemological sophistication, but they concurred broadly in positing at least two major shifts in epistemological understanding (for recent reviews, see Hofer & Pintrich, 1997 Hofer, B. K. and Pintrich, P. R. 1997. The development of epistemological theories: Beliefs about knowledge and knowing and their relation to learning. Review of Educational Research, 67(1): 88–140. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2002 Hammer, D. and Elby, A. 2002. "On the form of a personal epistemology.". In Personal epistemology: The psychology of beliefs about knowledge and knowing Edited by: Hofer, B. K. and Pintrich, P. R. 169–190. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. [Google Scholar]). Initially, the individual subscribes to an objectivist conception of knowledge, in which every question is believed to have a single, correct answer that is knowable with absolute certainty. Subsequently, in a radical shift, objectivism is abandoned in favor of subjectivism, and the individual equates all knowledge claims with matters of personal taste or preference. Finally, a balance is achieved in which objective and subjective aspects of knowing are coordinated. At this "evaluativist" stage (cf. Kuhn, 1991 Kuhn, D. 1991. The skills of argument Cambridge, , England: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), the individual sees knowledge as something that is constructed tentatively by evaluating the evidence for and against competing beliefs and points of view. There was some debate about the precise relations of these stages to Piaget's stages of intellectual development (see, e.g., Boyes & Chandler, 1992 Boyes, M. C. and Chandler, M. 1992. Cognitive development, epistemic doubt, and identity formation in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 21(3): 277–304. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, they were viewed by most researchers as a kind of "post-formal operations" taking up the formal operational attainments of hypothetical thinking and perspective-taking and applying them wholesale to knowledge claims as such, in a form of meta-metacognition (see, e.g., Kitchener, 1983 Kitchener, K. S. 1983. Cognition, metacognition and epistemic cognition: A three-level model of cognitive processing. Human Development, 26: 222–232. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Kuhn, 2000 Kuhn, D. 2000. Metacognitive development. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(5): 178–181. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Moshman, 2003 Moshman, D. 2003. Intellectual freedom for intellectual development. Liberal Education, 89(3): 30–38. [Google Scholar]). Empirical support for this model of epistemic development came from several parallel research programs. Overall, these studies provided substantial evidence of development in the hypothesized direction (Hallett et al., 2002 Hallett, D., Chandler, M. J. and Krettenauer, T. 2002. Disentangling the course of epistemic development: Parsing knowledge by epistemic content. New Ideas in Psychology, 20(2-3): 285–307. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Hofer & Pintrich, 1997 Hofer, B. K. and Pintrich, P. R. 1997. The development of epistemological theories: Beliefs about knowledge and knowing and their relation to learning. Review of Educational Research, 67(1): 88–140. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; King & Kitchener, 1994 King, P. M. and Kitchener, K. S. 1994. Developing reflective judgment San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. [Google Scholar]). However, the ages at which the key shifts in epistemological understanding were observed varied enormously from program to program. As Hallett et al. (2002) Hallett, D., Chandler, M. J. and Krettenauer, T. 2002. Disentangling the course of epistemic development: Parsing knowledge by epistemic content. New Ideas in Psychology, 20(2-3): 285–307. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] noted regarding the emergence of subjectivism, "one could read selectively from the literature and, with good reason, conclude that such abilities put in their appearance at either 4 or 6 or 8 or 12 or 16 or 20, or in receipt of a Ph.D." (p. 289). These vast discrepancies have led researchers to reexamine some of the assump-tions underlying their models and measures of epistemic development. In particular, researchers have begun to question the comprehensiveness of shifts in epistemological understanding and to attend more closely to the variety of contexts within which epistemic beliefs are held, employed, and articulated (cf.Elby&Ham-mer, 2001 Elby, A. and Hammer, D. 2001. On the substance of a sophisticated epistemology. Science Education, 85(5): 554–567. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Hammer&Elby, 2002 Hammer, D. and Elby, A. 2002. "On the form of a personal epistemology.". In Personal epistemology: The psychology of beliefs about knowledge and knowing Edited by: Hofer, B. K. and Pintrich, P. R. 169–190. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. [Google Scholar], 2003 Hammer, D. and Elby, A. 2003. Tapping epistemological resources for learning physics. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 12(1): 53–90. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This attention to context has taken several forms. One line of research has sought to show that epistemic development is a some-what domain-dependent process that occurs with respect to some kinds of knowledge claim before others. For example, it has been proposed that subjectivism emerges in relation to aesthetic claims before it emerges in relation to claims about the physical world (e.g., Hallett et al., 2002 Hallett, D., Chandler, M. J. and Krettenauer, T. 2002. Disentangling the course of epistemic development: Parsing knowledge by epistemic content. New Ideas in Psychology, 20(2-3): 285–307. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Kuhn et al., 2000 Kuhn, D. 2000. Metacognitive development. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(5): 178–181. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Wainryb et al., 2004 Wainryb, C., Shaw, L. A., Langley, M., Cottam, K. and Lewis, R. 2004. Children's thinking about diversity of belief in the early school years: Judgments of relativism, tolerance, and disagreeing persons. Child Development, 75(3): 687–703. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Another line of research has sought to show that epistemological beliefs are multi di-mensional rather than unitary. For example, it has been proposed that people's beliefs about the complexity of knowledge develop more or less independently of their beliefs about its certainty (e.g., Schommer, 1990 Schommer, M. 1990. Effects of beliefs about the nature of knowledge on comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(3): 498–504. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1993 Schommer, M. 1993. Comparisons of beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning amongst post-secondary students. Research in Higher Education, 34(3): 355–370. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Although the accumulated empirical evidence is as yet suggestive rather than conclusive (see Elby&Hammer, 2001 Elby, A. and Hammer, D. 2001. On the substance of a sophisticated epistemology. Science Education, 85(5): 554–567. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Hallett et al., 2002 Hallett, D., Chandler, M. J. and Krettenauer, T. 2002. Disentangling the course of epistemic development: Parsing knowledge by epistemic content. New Ideas in Psychology, 20(2-3): 285–307. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], pp. 303–304; Kuhn et al., 2000 Kuhn, D. 2000. Metacognitive development. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(5): 178–181. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], pp. 321–322), both research programs hold out the possibility of disentangling the course of epistemic de-velopment by identifying elements of epistemological understanding that emerge at different points in the lifespan(cf.Hallett et al.,2002 Hallett, D., Chandler, M. J. and Krettenauer, T. 2002. Disentangling the course of epistemic development: Parsing knowledge by epistemic content. New Ideas in Psychology, 20(2-3): 285–307. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 290; Wainryb et al. 2004 Wainryb, C., Shaw, L. A., Langley, M., Cottam, K. and Lewis, R. 2004. Children's thinking about diversity of belief in the early school years: Judgments of relativism, tolerance, and disagreeing persons. Child Development, 75(3): 687–703. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, "domains" and "dimensions" are not the only contexts within which epistemic beliefs are situated. Just as people's epistemic beliefs may be affected by the particular content of the knowledge claims being evaluated, so too may they be affected by the particular procedures of knowledge evaluation practiced in, and sanctioned by, the communities in which they participate (cf. Hammer & Elby, 2003 Hammer, D. and Elby, A. 2003. Tapping epistemological resources for learning physics. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 12(1): 53–90. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Few studies have directly examined cross-cultural variation in epistemological beliefs. And those that have done so have tended to focus on comparisons between U.S. and East Asian college students (e.g., Chan & Elliott, 2002 Chan, K. and Elliott, R. G. 2002. Exploratory study of Hong Kong teacher education students' epistemological beliefs: Cultural perspectives and implications on beliefs research. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27(3): 392–414. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2004 Chan, K. and Elliott, R. G. 2004. Epistemological beliefs across cultures: Critique and analysis of beliefs structure studies. Educational Psychology, 24(2): 123–142. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001 Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I. and Norenzayan, A. 2001. Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2): 291–310. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Zhang, 1999 Zhang, L. F. 1999. A comparison of U. S. and Chinese university students' cognitive development: The cross-cultural applicability of Perry's theory. Journal of Psychology, 133(4): 425–439. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Nonetheless, the findings of such studies are highly suggestive. Especially striking is Zhang's finding that Chinese students' epistemological beliefs shifted over the college years in exactly the opposite direction to those of their U.S. counterparts. Specifically, rather than moving from objectivist to subjectivist conceptions of knowledge, similar to their peers at U.S. universities, Chinese students appeared to shift from more subjectivist conceptions of knowledge to more objectivist ones. Such findings raise intriguing questions about the relations between culture and epistemic development, and about the relations between learning and epistemic development more generally. For a field of inquiry dominated by educational psychologists, remarkably little is known about these relations. As Hofer and Pintrich(1997) Hofer, B. K. and Pintrich, P. R. 1997. The development of epistemological theories: Beliefs about knowledge and knowing and their relation to learning. Review of Educational Research, 67(1): 88–140. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] noted, "there is little empirical evidence for precisely what fosters epistemological development or how epistemological beliefs are altered" (p. 123). Research has shown that schooling makes a difference(e.g. Bell&Linn, 2002 Bell, P. and Linn, M. C. 2002. "Beliefs about science: How does instruction contribute?". In Personal epistemology: The psychology of beliefs about knowledge and knowing Edited by: Hofer, B. K. and Pintrich, P. R. 321–346. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. [Google Scholar]; King&Kitchener, 1994 King, P. M. and Kitchener, K. S. 1994. Developing reflective judgment San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. [Google Scholar]), but it has yielded little insight into how or why it makes a difference. Moreover, researchers have tended to equivocate between viewing epistemological beliefs as causes and effects of learning—as age-dependent constraints on instruction on one hand andasoutcomesof instructionon the other hand (cf. Kuhn, 1991 Kuhn, D. 1991. The skills of argument Cambridge, , England: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2003 Kuhn, D. 2003. Understanding and valuing knowing as developmental goals. Liberal Education, 89(3): 16–22. [Google Scholar]; Schommer, 1990 Schommer, M. 1990. Effects of beliefs about the nature of knowledge on comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(3): 498–504. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1993 Schommer, M. 1993. Comparisons of beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning amongst post-secondary students. Research in Higher Education, 34(3): 355–370. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Cross-cultural studies of age trends in epistemological belief are one way to investigate systematically the relations between age, learning, and epistemic development. If the nature and timing of age-related shifts in epistemological belief vary cross-culturally, then this is presumably because participants in different cultures learn, through participation in practices particular to their respective communities, to treat knowledge claims in different ways. To the extent that researchers can pinpoint such practices and measure their impact on individuals' epistemological beliefs, we can begin to characterize more precisely the relations between learning and epistemic development. However, in designing such studies, researchers must take great care to distinguish between reportage and editorial. "Development" is a value-laden term. Theoretical models of psychological development do more than describe a sequence; they attach values to different points along the sequence. Specifically, they define some psychological states or capacities as more mature, adequate, or sophisticated than others. When developmental studies are restricted to homogeneous cultural settings, within which there is little serious disagreement among experts about the relative adequacy of different psychological states or capacities, the risk of bias in diagnosing participants' levels of development is relatively slight. However, as the cultural heterogeneity of the sample increases, so too does the risk that the model on the basis of which participants' development is diagnosed is ethnocentrically biased against a portion of the sample. For example, beliefs that are defined as immature by the developmental model might be considered mature within one of the cultures from which the sample is drawn, or vice versa. These dangers exist to some extent in all cross-cultural studies of psychological development (see Cole & Scribner, 1974 Cole, M. and Scribner, S. 1974. Culture and thought: A psychological introduction New York: Wiley. [Google Scholar]; Greenfield & Bruner, 1966 Greenfield, P. M. and Bruner, J. S. 1966. Culture and cognitive growth. International Journal of Psychology, 1: 89–107. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Shweder, Mahapatra, & Miller, 1990 Shweder, R. A., Mahapatra, M. and Miller, J. G. 1990. "Culture and moral development.". In Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development Edited by: Stigler, J. W. 130–204. New York: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). However, in cross-cultural studies of epistemic development the danger is even more clear and present. This is because there are at least four levels at which epistemological judgments can be made, and as one ascends from the first level to the fourth, the value assumptions implicit in these judgments become less visible to the naked eye but never quite disappear. At the first, most basic level, there arejudgments about the epistemic status of par-ticular claims, such as whether a given assertion (e.g., "Eating people is wrong") is known or merely believed (e.g., "John doesn't know that eating people is wrong; he merely believes that eating people is wrong"). At one level of abstraction up from such judgments, there are judgments about the epistemic status of general classes of claim, such as judgments about whether knowledge is possible about, say, matters of aesthetics or morality (e.g., "There are no such things as moral truths or moral knowledge; morality is a question of commitment—not of what is or is not the case"). At yet another level of abstraction up from such judgments, there are further judgments about the criteria by which epistemic states are distinguished one from another, such as judgments about what differentiates knowledge from belief or opin-ion (e.g., "Knowledge is justified true belief;if a belief is true but not justified, or jus-tified but not true, then it isn't known"). And beyond this third level, there is a fourth level of judgments about the relative adequacy of particular criteria for distinguishing between epistemic states, such as judgments about whether the subjectivist equation of knowledge with opinion is less adequate than the evaluativist's insistence that knowledge differs from opinion in being supported by evidence (e.g., "Subjectivism is inferior to evaluativism because it fails to account for our belief that some claims are better supported than others"). According to this analysis, authors of contemporary models of epistemic development are themselves exercising a form of epistemological judgment in articulating their models. Specifically, they are operating at the fourth level (outlined previously), expressing their own beliefs about the relative adequacy of particular epistemological orientations. This is all well and good as long as the beliefs in question are compatible with the epistemological beliefs, values, and practices of the communities to which the model is applied. However, in cross-cultural studies of epistemic development, such compatibility cannot be assumed in advance of the investigation itself. Accordingly, if one wishes to avoid ethnocentrism, one cannot conduct a cross-cultural study of epistemic development without suspending, at least temporarily, one's hierarchical assumptions about the relative adequacy of particular epistemological orientations. This is not to say that researchers are not entitled to opinions of their own about the relative adequacy of particular epistemological beliefs or that all talk of epistemic development is inherently ethnocentric. It is merely to point out that because standards of epistemological maturity may themselves vary across cultures, assumptions about the relative adequacy of particular epistemological beliefs must not be built into the design of cross-cultural studies. This study, therefore, departs from previous studies of epistemic development by dropping the assumption that some epistemological beliefs are inherently more adequate than others. By dropping this assumption, I do not affirm the contrary assumption that all epistemological beliefs are equally adequate. Rather, I adopt a form of methodological agnosticism to reduce the scope for ethnocentric bias in the study'sdesign. In the Discussion section, I return to the question of hierarchy and review the assumptions of contemporary models of epistemic development in light of my findings. This study investigates the relations between age, learning, and epistemic devel-opment by comparing the epistemological beliefs of pupil sat Religious schools and General schools in Israel about two controversies: one religious and the other nonre-ligious. Specifically, this study asks three questions. First, how do beliefs about the nature of religious claims vary with age and school? Second, to what extent are these age and school differences attributable to underlying group differences in religious commitment and general epistemological sophistication? Third, how are variations in epistemological belief across ages, schools, and controversies related to educational practices at Religious and General schools, respectively?