Civic Tasks Research Articles

UKRAINIAN STUDIES ACTUALITIES OF THE MODERN TEACHER’S PEDAGOGICAL CULTURE

The article substantiates, defines, and discloses the current Ukrainian studies of the teacher’s pedagogical culture in the context of modern political, social, and cultural issues of national education system formation in Ukraine. Attention is focused on the fact that the current mission of the New Ukrainian School education is to strengthen and develop the national idea, which is the lifeblood of state growth and the way to victory. Thus, it is necessary to form a pedagogical culture based on Ukrainian studies, which should be everywhere in educational, cultural, artistic, scientific, and information environments. It has been proven that the cult of culture, primarily national, must be perceived as a methodology of modern education. It should serve not only historical truth, intellectualization, and humanization of the personality but also be a safeguard, caution, and protection against expansion in the future, strengthening the Spirit of the People, which is our indomitable strength. It has been found that, when forming the personality of a teacher, lecturer, and their pedagogical culture, it is necessary to pay attention to two key aspects – professional and cultural, because the institution of higher education should provide not only “knowledge” competencies, but also create a cultural teacher. Pedagogical culture is formed two-dimensionally – concordantly and logically, sensually and rationally, humanely and realistically, with heart and mind. It is a kind of synthesis of soul and reason (intellect). It has been established that Ukrainian studies should be considered an essential component in the education content, which makes it sound, intellectual, humane, and national, strengthening the social processes of state-nation creation. Since educational Ukrainian-centrism will make it impossible for the rudiments of “cultural and educational imperialism” of Moscovites to manifest, which has always tried to destroy the national-historical life of Ukrainians, planting the ideology of little russia and statelessness. They can realize the highest civic task of education, which is to cultivate respect for one’s own “I,” one’s Kindred, People, Ukraine, to serve as a spiritual, socio-political factor of consolidation and development of the Nation.

Are schools’ qualification and civic outcomes related? The role of schools’ student composition and tracking

In preparing generations for the future, schools fulfill a qualification and a civic task: providing youngsters knowledge and skills for the labor market, and equipping them to navigate democracy and society. Little research has considered how schools combine these tasks, particularly in relation to schools’ student composition in terms of socioeconomic (dis)advantages across vocational and academic tracks, the focus of this study. By means of a unique, combined dataset, qualification and civic outcome indicators of 101 Dutch secondary schools were examined. Results showed that schools’ qualification and civic outcomes were more positively related in academic than in vocational tracks, possibly informed by schools’ student composition: the role of student composition was stronger in academic than vocational tracks for both qualification and civic outcomes. This is discussed in relation to schools’ role in mitigating versus reproducing societal inequalities.

Civic Medicine: Physician, Polity, and Pen in Early Modern Europe ed. by J. Andrew Mendelsohn et al.

Reviewed by: Civic Medicine: Physician, Polity, and Pen in Early Modern Europe ed. by J. Andrew Mendelsohn et al. Sarah-Maria Schober J. Andrew Mendelsohn, Annemarie Kinzelbach, and Ruth Schilling, eds. Civic Medicine: Physician, Polity, and Pen in Early Modern Europe. The History of Medicine in Context. London: Routledge, 2020. 316 pp. $160.00 (978-1-472-45358-7). It is rare for an edited volume to change the reader's perspective on a whole field of studies. Civic Medicine, however, has the potential to do just that. It presents early modern European medicine as deeply entangled in the public life of civic communities. Building on a justified critique of the economically inspired concept of the "medical marketplace," J. Andrew Mendelsohn, Annemarie Kinzelbach, and Ruth Schilling propose a concept of early modern medicine that understands medical practices primarily as "civic activities" aiming at the "common good" much more than at "goods exchange" (pp. 8–9). Medicine and the early modern physician are shown as profoundly involved in polity, responsibilities, and local context. The empiric evidence is overwhelming: Physicians in early modern cities took on civic tasks en masse. They organized public health, epidemic management, and poor relief. They inspected bodies regarding illnesses such as leprosy, acted as experts in criminal cases, approved drugs, taught, and oversaw other health care providers. In addition, they functioned as local historians, catalogued the natural environments of the community, took on diplomatic functions, or acted as mayors. Civic authorities were particularly interested in their academic skills, which is why practices of writing figure prominently in the volume. Civic Medicine changes our perspective on several master narratives like professionalization or social disciplining and shows that understanding early modern medicine and its practices requires a focus on communal ties rather than concepts of state-building or economic development. The volume, therefore, is also a plea for local histories of medicine instead of national ones. Its essays focus on specific settings, mainly cities in Central Europe and Italy, where the office of "city physician" was particularly widespread and stable over several centuries. Civic Medicine succeeds in bringing together areas of research that have traditionally been disconnected, like the history of public health, charity, diplomacy, knowledge, scholarship, and publishing. It focuses on physicians as "major figures of intersection" (p. 8). Instead of a history of "control" from above—or a history of "choice" from below—it offers a history "from between" (p. 1), taking the physicians' practices of communication in their written and oral forms as its starting point. The book begins with a concise introduction by the editors followed by a longer essay by J. Andrew Mendelsohn in which the concept of "civic medicine" is explained in depth. Then follow the eleven chapters of the book, arranged in five parts. The first three contributions by Michael Stolberg, Sabine Schlegelmilch, and Fritz Dross explore the ways in which physicians entered community life using [End Page 413] their writing expertise, sending letters of applications to the authorities, swearing oaths, and signing contracts as city physicians. While oaths and contracts show that some elements of the office were fixed and stable, there was also room for negotiation by the physicians as well as the authorities. Part II focuses on evaluating and reporting. Laura Di Giammatteo, J. Andrew Mendelsohn, and Annemarie Kinzelbach analyze various forms of writing and communication by physicians within and around urban government. We learn about the complex interaction between medicine and polity in early modern Milan and the breadth of physicians' administrative tasks. Writing in the early modern Milanese Tribunale di Sanità was "not just a means of government. It was government" (p. 146). In the German city of Nördlingen, too, physicians, like other actors of the urban administration, acted not only "on paper" but "by paper" (p. 162). The third part of the volume comprises three very rich articles that all share a profound interest in the locale. Valentina Pugliano introduces the reader to the Venetian physician Cornelio Bianchi, who treated patients in Damascus and acted as "diplomatic physician." Bianchi's exceptional notebook shows him in interaction with the local population, using writing models from merchant handbooks to travelogues, pondering on his own state of health...

Networks, Politics, and the Literary Public Sphere: The Foundation of Modern Democracy in Taiwan (1970s–1990s)

This article examines how literature is a networked social space of political repression and resistance, refracting broader contestations over national sovereignty, self-determination, and identity. Politicizing the traditionally apolitical “world of letters” in Habermas’s Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, this article employs a novel analysis of the influence that the literary public sphere wields over political consciousness. Using the historical case of Taiwan’s literary networks from the 1970s to the 1990s, this article asserts that the literary public sphere produces a rational-critical generalization of knowledge and exposure to dissonant perspectives that invigorates civil society by creating intelligentsia. Through intelligentsia, ideas within the Taiwanese literary public sphere birthed powerful Dangwai parties that instituted democracy, informed their platforms, and ushered in a new wave of political elites. The Taiwanese case demonstrates how civic tasks can predict political tasks with enough force to stimulate a unique postcolonial political consciousness and spark a revolution.

Ethnocultural and Social Dominants of Pedagogical Education in Conditions of National Region

Teacher education at the present stage of its development undergoes changes because of the processes of globalization in general plus the influence of the Bologna process. This diminishes the level of Russian pedagogical experience. For the country like Russia, with its diversity of languages, traditions, ethnicities and cultures the pedagogical traditions of peoples are of a great importance for the modern teacher education. The main idea of the article is that “the civic task of education and the education system is to give each one absolutely mandatory amount of human knowledge, which is the basis of self-identity of the people” (from an article by Vladimir Putin “Russia: the national question”). The purpose of this article is to identify and study of ethno-cultural and social dominants of teacher education in the national region. The main approaches in considering the Russian system of teacher education in the article are defined as: evolutionary, axiological, regional approaches which allow us to consider the teacher education as a cultural-historical and ethno-cultural phenomenon. As an example for the analysis and synthesis of the Russian teacher education in historical perspective and actual measurements two national republics of the Volga region—Mari El and the Chuvash Republics are taken.

School Choice, Brand Loyalty and Civic Loyalty

Applying a philosophical perspective to the concept of loyalty, I consider how the commodification of education may affect the ties between people. Using both theories of brand loyalty and Albert Hirschman's distinction between exit and voice, I examine how human loyalties may be formed in general and also in the field of education. I conclude that the overemphasis on ‘vertical’ loyalty (e.g. loyalty of the ruler and ruled, brand loyalty) demanded by marketisation can undermine and may, under certain conditions, erase the very structures of ‘horizontal’ loyalty (between equal citizens in a democratic society) essential for the civic arena. These structures are also necessary for schools to function in their civic task of educating the future citizenry.

Maquiavel, a república e o desejo de liberdade

O objetivo do artigo é compreender alguns aspectos do republicanismo de Maquiavel concedendo atenção à sua teoria dos humores. Mais especificamente, trata-se de entender qual a natureza do desejo do povo e seu papel na vida política. A principal hipótese deste trabalho é a de que a função que Maquiavel atribui ao povo, o guardião da liberdade, exige, para seu cumprimento, a participação ativa do cidadão nos afazeres cívicos, isto é, sua inscrição no espaço público como agente político. Essa inscrição não pode ser inteiramente compreendida se o desejo que caracteriza o povo carecer de qualquer determinação, isto é, se for tomado somente em uma perspectiva negativa.

How much do we count? interpretation and error-making in the decennial census

Following a critique of the 1990 decennial census procedures, we conducted a field study among low-income, inner-city residents in 1991 to examine how they conceptualized and managed the civic task of census response. Interpretations about the purpose and meaning of the census, about commitment to the task, and about connection to government, singly and together with literacy skills (e.g., reading and general literacy competence), were associated with errors that are not detectable by evaluative methodologies used regularly by the Census Bureau. The validity and reliability of census data, and possibly other self-administered survey research, will be increased by greater use of knowledge about both interpretation and literacy skills in formulating data collection procedures.

The Rise and Fall of Black Britain

As if to confirm the nostrum that all things cultural and economic are transnational, poetry's stock in the U.K. has soared in the nineties, much as it has here in the U.S. Individual issues are up, and the entire portfolio is performing well: small poetry presses are thriving, Penguin has revived its once-seminal Modern Poets series with great fanfare, and poetry has even been assigned various civic tasks, from humanizing the London Underground to (literally) reporting the evening news. There as here, established page-poets are along for the ride, and the odd performance poet of an earlier generation gets paid her ritual respects. But the real catalysts of the poetry boom are younger folks-grandchildren of Albion, in the words of poetry activist Michael Horowitz-who, like their counterparts in the U.S., work in a variety of styles across the line dividing hiphop from highbrow. Often reluctant to assume the mantle of poet, they crowd -some gratefully, some sheepishlyunder spoken word, the modish umbrellalabel the press has eagerly held aloft. The term has become so hip and hyped, especially since the triumphant I994 and I995 tours of Manhattan's Nuyorican Poets Cafe, that nowadays you can't swing a dead metaphor without hitting a poetry slam. As with their Nuyorican counterparts, part of the cachet of the new U.K. poken-word artists is that their skins and their voices cover a delicious range of tones. After an uneasy decade in which it was merely touchy, what's now called the black-and-Asian experience in Britain is once again hot, and Albion's grandkids are understood to speak authentically to it and for it. Fred D'Aguiar, a poet and novelist of Guyanese descent who's had occasion to track such trends, calculates that there are at least sixty poets of Afro-Caribbean or Asian descent currently living and working in the U.K.; many of them-including John Agard,Valerie Bloom, Jean Binta Breeze, Merle Collins, Lemn Sissay, and Benjamin Zephaniah-are primarily per-

The constitution, citizenship and ethnicity

Attempts to establish a unitary sense of Canadian citizenship through symbolic engineering at the constitutional level are self‐defeating. Canadians must accept that their only basis for a common ethnicity is their continuing engagement in the challenge of maintaining a political community in which they can accomplish significant civic tasks together while respecting their multiple identities.

Class, Caste, and Intellectual Elite in Comparative Perspective

Although comparative education and sociology of education have but recently been accepted as academic subjects in some universities, it is obvious that the social structure of any community and occupational distribution of its members are intimately connected with the system of education. Since the time of Plato, the educational system was looked upon as a means of preparing the rising generation for its future occupational and civic tasks. In the Middle Ages, society was clearly divided into three classes, Wehrstand, Lehrstand, and Niihrstand, according to which there were three ways of training: grammar schools and universities for clerical professions; courtly and military training for the warriors, and guild apprenticeship for the craftsmen. The adaptation of education to social status and occupation was complete. Nevertheless, it was not strictly a caste system, and social mobility on a small scale made it possible for the sons of lower classes to rise both in Church and State. The Renaissance, and subsequent industrialization and urbanization of Western Eu-

Shouldering Civic Tasks

Shouldering Civic Tasks