Intellectual Autonomy Research Articles

“The Right to Your City”: A Project of the Epistemological Urban Studies

Within the framework of a new interdisciplinary scientific scientific field – epistemological urbanism – the authors develop the idea of the human right to their city and show the epistemological nature of this right, which is explained by the fact that it is conditioned by the processes of cognition and scientific communication. Three main provisions are substantiated. Firstly, the city is an intelligent system. “The right to your city” is a specific right to scientific and intellectual production and consumption. Such a right is not realized in every locality designated as a city, but only where there are conditions for intellectual dynamics – where art, education and science are developing. Secondly, the intellectual system of the city has autonomy. Each city has its own intellectual resource. Realizing the right to their city, citizens are involved in the activity of the city's scientific and intellectual autonomy. In other words, a city where there are opportunities to realize the “right to the city” generates an autonomous scientific school or a set of scientific schools. Thirdly, cities (we are talking only about those cities where the right to their own city is realizable) how research centers form a scientific network. Not a scientific consortium with common ideas and goals, but a network based on the principles of proliferation. The authors insist on the decentralization of science not for the purpose of its enclavization, but for the purpose of developing the potential, multi-vector and intellectual self-realization of urban communities themselves. It is shown that the development of science as a whole (at the global or state levels) can be ensured by the heterogeneity of science itself (in this case, due to the development of urban universities): integration and differentiation give rise to an integration scientific and communicative process.

Remote Stories, Local Meanings: Knowledge Transfer and Acculturation Strategies in Nahua Sociocultural History

AbstractIn this paper I carry out a microphilological study of a section of the Codex Indianorum 7, a colonial devotional manuscript in Nahuatl preserved in the John Carter Brown Library. It contains wisdom teachings derived from the biblical Book of Tobit and directed to both parents and their children. I argue that this hitherto unstudied text reveals the Native author's liberty to creatively mold and adapt a culturally remote European prototype into the Native genre of oratorical art—the huehuehtlahtolli, or “words of the elders.” The author also skillfully embedded and contextualized the content of the biblical instruction in local cultural meanings understandable and valid to an Indigenous audience. As an example of cross-cultural translation and colonial textual production, this source provides new insights into Native forms of agency, intellectual autonomy, and acculturation strategies reflected in creative dialogues with European traditions, developed and maintained despite the seemingly substitutive Christianization policies imposed on Indigenous people in the sixteenth century.

Mixtures and Their Separation Methods: The Use of Didactic Games, the Jigsaw Method and Everyday Life as Facilitators to Construct Chemical Knowledge in High School

One of the difficulties found in Chemistry teaching, mainly in High School, is to establish relations among society, environment, science and technology. It is notorious and has required Chemistry teachers to have certain skills, including some that refer to several situations in everyday life. Therefore, this study aimed at introducing three methodological proposals to teach the content “methods of mixture separation”. The first proposal aimed at addressing concepts and procedures based on different situations found in everyday life. The second offered students some strategies to encourage them to form different points of view and opinions. It favored both intellectual autonomy and access to production of chemical knowledge collectively and collaboratively (the jigsaw method). The third was related to the use of didactic games to make learning easier. The use of games in Chemistry teaching is a methodology that has been used because it enables students to have pleasure and fun while learning. Four classes of freshmen (first year in High School) that attend the Instituto Federal do Triângulo Mineiro - Campus Uberlândia Centro (IFTM-UDICENTRO), located in Uberlândia, MG, Brazil, took part in this study. Results suggest that all methodologies under investigation are also efficient in online lessons. Teachers can use them all together or individually. In addition, the didactic game under study was adapted so that it could be played in online Chemistry lessons, since the world has still been affected by the infectious disease caused by the coronavirus. The adaptation of the game called “SeparaMix” has not been published in the literature yet). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17807/orbital.v13i5.1650

What is a Philosophy of Education?

The article considers what is a philosophy and its relation to education . The modern academic development of philosophy has questioned the theoretical basis of specific aspects of knowledge and human experience, including education. It is an active rather than a passive or descriptive discipline. Education is defined similarly as a process by which knowledge, skills (including collecting empirical evidence and reasoning from it), cultural norms, values, and beliefs are acquired. The development of the modern philosophy of education is considered with its emphasis on conceptual analysis. Education is philosophically the conscious development of maturity requiring capacity for both intellectual and economic autonomy. Issues in the contemporary philosophy of education are then considered, particularly the challenges of post-modernism and post-truth for a philosophy of education in an Internet world. It identifies the need for comparative philosophical perspectives other than Occidental ones and suggests philosophical anthropology and comparative education as potential guides. It concludes that although there is now no consensus on how a coherent contemporary philosophy of education may be developed, analysis of concepts, metaphysical reasoning, and ethics may still provide a basis for a coherent and defensible philosophy of education whatever the comparative cultural setting.

Understanding the industry/state interface in creative industries studies

It is time to transcend the cultural studies vs. media industries debate in media industries studies. To take advantage of the exemplary focus on real-world behavior of media industries that Stuart Cunningham brought to the field, scholars need to articulate the normative values informing their media industries research. This is necessary in order to preserve academics’ intellectual autonomy, and to maintain scholarly rigor.

Unruly Memory and Historical Order

This paper explores the complex history of “undisciplined histories” by looking at the tension between political engagement and scientific detachment in revolutionary scholarship, a field perpetually torn between historicist methods and presentist purposes. From the controversies surrounding the 1889 Jubilee to the patriotic uses of history during the Great War, the historiography of the French Revolution continuously challenged the principles and methods of history as an academic discipline. This period’s omnipresence in nineteenth-century “memory wars” delayed its academization, which became effective only in the aftermath of the Centenary when newly implemented university chairs, scholarly journals, and historical societies established the history of the French Revolution as a central research topic. However, the advent of the First World War challenged the historians’ impartiality and detachment as they committed to defend their homeland in their historical writings while striving to preserve their intellectual autonomy.

Organizational role ambiguity as a proxy for uncertainty avoidance

Despite studies’ mixed results regarding the construct validity of Hofstede’s (2001) Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) Index and findings linking UA to related psychological, physiological, and behavioral health outcomes at the cultural level of analysis, none have examined the concurrent criterion-related validity of UA. The current study attempts to do so by introducing organizational role ambiguity (ORA), operationalized as an organization’s structured communication strategy about performance expectations between work role, division, and organization, as a correlate of UA. Data on ORA, risk-taking, and organizational satisfaction were collected from over 15,000 respondents in 20 countries and data on cultural values, wealth, sources of guidance, personality, and satisfaction were extracted from published data. Results show that ORA negatively correlates with UA and intellectual autonomy values, as well as organizational satisfaction, but positively correlates with risk-taking, masculinity values, lateral (coworkers as) sources of guidance, agreeableness, and job satisfaction. Thus, ORA, a construct organizations often assess in engagement and climate surveys, appears to be a reasonable correlate of UA. The country’s cultural context of UA is reflected in the collective experience of an organization’s communication structures within a given country. These findings have implications for organization’s accessing their own, already available, ORA data to understand its implications on employee experiences, as well as for intercultural training and global research on occupational stress.

“The Vanished Power of the Usual Reign”: Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace, and the Struggle for Hegemony in History

Abstract This reappraisal essay on Jackson Lears’s No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920 (1981) considers the book’s substantial but diffuse influence among historians by examining it against the background of, and in conversation with, the new social history. The success of this subfield in the 1970s and—while morphing into cultural history—the 1980s created professional as well as theoretical problems for practitioners of “old fashioned” history, especially for intellectual historians. Especially confounding was the question of how to theorize the transmission of ideas from intellectual or cultural elites to the rest of society. “History from the bottom up” had posited far more cultural and intellectual autonomy for the subaltern classes than intellectual historians could grant without fundamental changes in method as well as choices of what to write about. No Place of Grace cut through this problem with an array of new theoretical and rhetorical moves, elevating the concept of cultural hegemony to an essential role in the further analysis of elite transmission of ideas. This essay ends by considering the effects of this conceptual breakthrough, including the costs of focusing on subtler forms of domination over the raw effects of physical force and material inequality.

Addressing the Challenge of Epistemicide and African Self-Understanding through a Study of Chinweizu’s Ubuntology: Groundwork for the Intellectual Autonomy of the Black Race

Abstract In this article, I explore the forms of knowledge available among contemporary African intellectuals to identify their possible outcomes. I examine Chinweizu’s concerted effort in Ubuntology: Groundwork for the Intellectual Autonomy of the Black Race (2004). Through a critical review of this monograph, I suggest other ways to address the challenge of knowledge creation and consumption in Africa. I examine the work through the notion of epistemicide. First, I discuss epistemicide – a major claim that the knowledge design in Africa presently is against the intellectual well-being of the African people. I provide justifications of the claim to epistemicide. Thereafter, I provide a critical intervention to the challenge of epistemicide Chinweizu discussed in Ubuntology: Groundwork for the Intellectual Autonomy of the Black Race (2004). Subsequently, I argue for the need to go beyond epistemicide, and to pursue a system of knowledge creation (or knowledge acquisition, or knowledge application) that will liberate Africa.

Majority world successes and European and American failure to contain COVID-19: Cultural collectivism and global leadership.

United Nations and World Health Organization data show a positive correlation, r = .53, p < .0001, N = 189, between COVID‐19 infection rates and the human development index (HDI). Less wealthy, less educated countries with lower life spans were also more successful in maintaining lower fatality rates, r = .46, p < .0001, N = 189 whereas 9 of the top‐10 countries in the world in per capita fatalities due to COVID‐19 were Western societies high in HDI. Similar positive correlations were found between COVID‐19 infection and fatality rates and a smaller sample of 76 countries measured on Schwartz intellectual autonomy (or individualism), and negative correlations of similar magnitude were found for embeddedness (or collectivism). East Asia was a global leader in preventing the spread of COVID‐19 because of a vigilant public concerned for public safety and compliant with public safety measures. African Union leaders coordinated their responses, and bought into a continent‐wide African Medical Supplies Platform that prevented panicked competition for scare supplies. Western global media and scholars have not paid attention to the successes of East Asia, Africa, and the South Pacific in fighting the pandemic. It is worth asking why this should be the case; understand the weaknesses of extreme individualism in fighting a pandemic requiring coordinated and unified public response, and consider the lessons for global scholars from the pandemic for doing research in the future.

Projeto de vida: uma proposta democrática-participativa para as juventudes do Ensino Médio

Esta pesquisa caracteriza-se como um processo investigativo-formativo a partir da problemática: como mobilizar os saberes das juventudes do Ensino Médio tencionando o protagonismo na formação ao longo da vida, com objetivo de compreender a produção de saberes e representações de estudantes do Ensino Médio no Instituto Estadual de Educação Vicente Dutra – RS - IEEVD, considerando um processo compartilhado de construção dos seus projetos de vida a partir das reflexões realizadas de maneira compartilhada com os sujeitos envolvidos. A concepção teórico-metodológica esteve sistematizada a partir da pesquisa-formação com abordagem (auto)biográfica, tendo como fio condutor os círculos dialógicos investigativos-formativos, priorizando as narrativas que mobilizaram as subjetividades, do grupo de estudantes do Ensino Médio, articulando as experiências vividas aos contextos em que estão inseridos, capacitando-os a expressarem seus interesses e desejos na prospecção de futuro. A pesquisa resultou em um Roteiro Orientador para a construção compartilhada do Projeto de Vida dos estudantes de Ensino Médio. Espera-se potencializar o protagonismo e a autonomia intelectual dos estudantes do Ensino Médio para a tomada decisão consciente, evitando o abandono e o fracasso escolar.

«Русский миф» в травелогах Винченцо Кардарелли и Коррадо Альваро о Советской России

The aim of the article is to study the functioning of the key components of the Western “myth of Russia” in travelogues by Italian writers, who visited the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, in the period of frequent cultural, political and economic contacts between the two countries. The study is based on the analysis of the travelogues by Vincenzo Cardarelli (The Journey of a Poet in Russia, 1928-1929, published in 1954) and by Corrado Alvaro (The Masters of Deluge: A Journey to Soviet Russia, 1935). Among journalists working in the USSR in those years, famous writers enjoyed a certain degree of intellectual autonomy, compared to common reporters, and were less dependent on editorial policies and censorship that is why their travelogues are among the most interesting Italian testimonies about the USSR of that period. The analysis of the texts shows that in spite of many differences in ideology, travel itinerary, and the tone of writing, the travelogues of both authors are based on the same elements of the “Russian myth”, which formed in Europe during the 19th century and still shapes the Western image of Russia to a great extent. Relations between Russia and Italy are considered in the context of the East-West dichotomy, which makes the authors see Russia as a barbarian Asian country. This image together with the concept of the “Russian soul” generates a specific idea of the Russian national character, which describes Russians as collectivist, passive, fatalist, driven by a “nomadic instinct”, eager to suffer, primitive and close to nature, infantile. The analysis of the topoi of the official Fascist propaganda of that period demonstrates that elements of the “Russian myth” in the Italian travelogues interact with propaganda cliches and, consequently, come to serve certain political interests, creating in public consciousness the image of the Other and thus highlighting the superiority of the Western (and, particularly, Italian) civilization. The travelogues of the 1920s and 1930s, which criticize the Soviet reality, describe Bolshevism as a typically Russian phenomenon, and support nationalist and anti-Slavic trends in Italian society, are used by the Fascist authorities as an instrument of fight against Socialists, their main ideological opponents, and, consequently, provide legitimacy to Mussolini's regime. At the same time, visits of Italian intellectuals to the USSR increased public interest towards Soviet Russia and contributed to the development of cultural and, indirectly, political and economic contacts between the two countries.

O USO DO MODELO PADRÃO DE ARGUMENTAÇÃO DE STEPHEN TOULMIN NO ENSINO DE CIÊNCIAS NO ÂMBITO DA DISCIPLINA DE FÍSICA: ALGUNS RESULTADOS DE PESQUISA E REFLEXÕES A PARTIR DE DEBATES EM SALA DE AULA

Este artigo tem como objetivo principal apresentar resultados de análise sobre um módulo de ensino realizado em uma turma do primeiro ano do Ensino Médio de uma escola pública do RS, no âmbito de uma pesquisa mais abrangente de estudos de pós-doutoramento do primeiro autor. A pesquisa investiga a pertinência de tratar de temáticas científicas variadas utilizando como referencial teórico-metodológico o ensino por argumentação, particularmente a teoria da argumentação de Stephen Toulmin, delineada e desenvolvida no seu livro “Os Usos do Argumento”. O módulo aqui referido foi realizado na disciplina regular de Física, onde foram tratados temas interdisciplinares como missões e corridas espaciais, colonização planetária e questões socioambientais. A proposta foi a de apresentar conceitos básicos sobre estas temáticas, para, a partir de então, conduzir debates e diálogos orientados, sob a supervisão do pesquisador, com os estudantes, estimulando a capacidade argumentativa deles acerca destas questões, fazendo com que os mesmos apresentassem razões que justificassem suas argumentações. As aulas foram gravadas e foram produzidas anotações em um diário de campo, reunindo um conjunto de dados que, a partir da análise, permitiram investigar a natureza dos argumentos construídos em sala de aula pelos estudantes sob a perspectiva do padrão de argumentação de Toulmin. Fazemos também reflexões sobre a importância de tal método na educação científica para fomentar nos jovens características essenciais como o desenvolvimento de autonomia intelectual e de pensamento crítico sobre questões científicas.

Autonomía y formación a nivel posgrado. Una reflexión sobre las tensiones del proceso formativo desde La reproducción / Autonomy and training at the postgraduate level. A reflection on the tensions of the training process from Reproduction

¿Es la autonomía intelectual de un estudiante en formación producto de su proceso formativo a nivel posgrado? ¿En qué medida la autoridad pedagógica de un director de tesis ahoga o motiva autonomía intelectual de su tutorado para que con autoridad pueda este auto-representarse en obras y productos académicos? ¿Cómo conciliar las metas de las instituciones educativas a nivel posgrado de formar para la investigación y a la vez pretender desarrollar la autonomía intelectual del estudiante al que se le pretende formar como investigador educativo? Con base en experiencias previas en la Maestría y el Doctorado en Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, se comparten algunas consideraciones respecto al tema sugerido, y analizadas desde la obra de Bourdieu y Passeron La reproducción, en donde se logra identificar al menos cuatro tipos o dimensiones de autoridad en los actos pedagógicos, que permiten comprender el grado de autonomía intelectual alcanzable por el estudiante de posgrado por el tipo de lecturas y producciones académicas que realiza, no necesariamente durante su proceso formativo, sino una vez acabado éste, pues así podría hablarse de un habitus investigativo “bien formado”. ABSTRACT Is the intellectual autonomy of a student in training a product of his training process at the postgraduate level? To what extent does the pedagogical authority of a thesis supervisor stifle or motivate the intellectual autonomy of his student so that can be self-authorized in academic works and products? How to reconcile the goals of educational institutions at the graduate level of training for research and at the same time trying to develop the intellectual autonomy of the student who is intended to be trained as an educational researcher? Based on previous experiences in the Master’s and Doctorate in Educational Sciences of the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo, some considerations regarding the suggested topic are shared, and analyzed from the work of Bourdieu and Passeron Reproduction, where manages to identify at least four types or dimensions of authority in pedagogical acts, which allow understanding the degree of intellectual autonomy achievable by the graduate student by the type of readings and academic productions he performs, not necessarily during his training process, but once finished this one, because thus one could speak of a “well-formed” investigative habitus.

Expressions of self-ageism in four European countries: a comparative analysis of predictors across cultural contexts

AbstractSelf-ageism has a significant negative impact on older people's ageing experiences and health outcomes. Despite ample evidence on cross-cultural ageism, studies have rarely looked into the way cultural contexts affect self-ageism. In this article, we compare expressions of self-ageism and its possible predictors across four European countries based on two questionnaires in a study sample of 2,494 individuals aged 55 and older. We explore how predictors of self-ageism are moderated by cultural values in a comparative fixed-effects regression model. We empirically show that similarly to ageism, self-ageism is not present in the same way and to the same extent in every country. Moreover, the level to which cultures value hierarchy and intellectual autonomy significantly moderates the association between self-ageism and individual predictors of self-ageism. Our study adds to the small existing body of work on self-ageism by confirming empirically that certain expressions of self-ageism and individual predictors are susceptible to change in different cultural contexts. Our research results suggest that self-ageism interventions may benefit from a culturally sensitive approach and imply that more culturally diverse comparisons of self-ageism are necessary to figure out fitting ways to reduce self-ageism.

Palestinians inside Israel

Abstract The Palestinian student movement inside the Israeli academy was established within hostile universities. Palestinian students were not engaged in any institutional production of knowledge and therefore could not develop an alternative, anti-colonial framework within the Israeli academy. These conditions made the national student movement into a mirror of the traditional political parties in Israel, marked by the uncritical adoption of the traditional parties' positions. The student movement was administered by party power at all levels and was denied any organizational or intellectual autonomy. The parties remained dominant over student politics, and we have not seen any radical breaks with them. This strong tie has weakened the potential for a revolutionary, anti-Zionist approach within the Palestinian student movement and has resulted in its gradual collapse.

The National Defense Education Act, the American Association of University Professors and the dilemma of academic freedom in the mid-twentieth century

PurposeThis study asks how American institutions of higher education defended the principles of academic freedom (or intellectual autonomy) during the 1950s, even as they became increasingly dependent on the federal government's financial support, their eligibility for which required an oath of political loyalty under the terms of the National Defense Education Act of 1958. Universities whose students or professors resisted the oath faced a dilemma of institutional governance as well as intellectual integrity during the early years of the Cold War.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws on documentary and archival sources, including the Congressional Record, the AAUP Bulletin, student pamphlets, newspapers and other publications of the US federal government, and on secondary sources.FindingsThe author finds that the US federal government began to invest heavily in higher education during the 1950s, but financial support was often accompanied by political oversight. Higher education institutions and their professors struggled to reconcile a sense of responsibility for national service with a desire for academic freedom. The findings show how the federal government treated institutions of higher education and dealt with the issue of academic freedom during the Cold War.Originality/valueThis study draws on a large pool of primary sources and previous research to offer new insights into an enduring ideological tension between academic freedom, public service and financial patronage.

Forming Autonomous Citizens – The Role of Education

Forming intellectually autonomous and active citizens is a major goal of education. Several areas of autonomy can be identified in education, such as school autonomy, curriculum autonomy, educators' autonomy, and the formation of autonomous citizens. The development of intellectual autonomy is realized, first and foremost, through the content of social studies and political literacy within an educational context of democratic principles of operation. The aim of this paper is to explore the concept of intellectual autonomy and the parameters by means of which intellectual autonomy is fostered through formal education. This paper involves a theoretical meta-analysis of the subject. It is concluded that school constitutes a primary context for developing political literacy, which achieves its goal by being able to shape intellectually autonomous and active citizens who can understand the significance of collective social action and gain self-fulfillment.

Liz Tomlin, Political Dramaturgies and Theatre Spectatorship: Provocations for Change

Political Dramaturgies and Theatre Spectatorship offers a theoretical interrogation of how contemporary political theatre makers manage the space between performance and audience to encourage political efficacy. Thorough and occasionally dense, the book argues convincingly that political theatre can both respect spectators’ intellectual autonomy while also steering them toward counter-hegemonic ideologies.

Defense Against the Dark Arts: Justice Jackson, Justice Kennedy and the No-Compelled-Speech Doctrine

According to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, “The to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought. If this is so, and I believe it is, then the greatest threat to freedom, the darkest of the dark arts of government, occurs when the law compels persons to and thus commandeers their intellectual autonomy. And only a vibrant First Amendment is an adequate defense against this darkest of the dark arts. The purpose of this Article is to trace the Supreme Court's First Amendment jurisprudence protecting speaker autonomy and the right not to speak from its origins in the flag salute cases to the present. In particular, I will focus on two magnificent judicial opinions defending this fundamental free speech right, the majority opinion of Justice Jackson in West Virginia State Bd. Of Educ. v. Barnette, and the concurring opinion of Justice Kennedy in Nat 'I Inst. Of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra (NIFLA). These two eloquent and powerful opinions are true landmarks of liberty, strong shields against authoritarian government and its tyrannical attempts to coerce ideological orthodoxy by compelling individuals to say things they wish not to say. In Justice Kennedy's case, his concurring opinion in NIFLA was issued near the end of his final Term on the Supreme Court, and thus it represents an exclamation point on his wonderful legacy of protecting freedom of thought and freedom of speech. Although these opinions are separated by seventy-five years, they share a common understanding of the importance of the First Amendment for the protection of intellectual autonomy from authoritarian officials and compelled ideological conformity.