Paradigmatic Effects Research Articles

Beyond `The Design Process': An Alternative Pedagogy for Technology Education

`The design process' as an underpinning structure for technology education is well established. A number of increasingly complex models have been produced to describe the design process. These models have had a widespread, paradigmatic effect on the teaching of technology education. The development and implementation of models of the design process and the influence of these on teacher's classroom practice is examined, and it is then argued that the paradigm is fatally flawed, and that continued adherence to it is having a detrimental impact on children's learning in technology. It is suggested that the basis of an alternative pedagogy for technology education already exists within the research literature. Two examples of an alternative approach for teaching technology are described, and some practical limitations outlined.

The monolingualism of identity or aporias from the end of the world (Indicial notes on Fogo cruzado )

In 1989 the collection of drawings and short-stories in Galizan-Portuguese Fogo cruzado was published with an untitled and introductory non-literary text prepared by its authors. The process of its creation, publishing and reception was an extreme expression of the struggles determining cultural production in Galiza. In this introductory piece, a collective authorship proclaims the impossibility of Galizan literature. The text articulates two dominant structural lines in the relationships of the Iberian peoples, a paradigm of which is Galizan society: the absolute uncaninness of an unheimlich Portugal for Spain; the sinister implications of that condition for history, societies and cultures in the Peninsula. The most obvious crystalization of that structure is the sociolinguistic condition (especially in terms of standardization policies) of Portuguese in Galiza. This structure is determined by a double bind mechanism within the practices of, above all, intellectuals and politicians. The prefatory text of Fogo cruzado is written in the long shadow of a Berlin Wall in imminent collapse, being the final spectacular effect of capitalism’s restructuring of its productive and reproductive spheres. In such a context, literature, as it has been progressively constituted by the rise of capitalism, is becoming more and more an archaelogical object. This article proposes an aporetic approach to the impossibility of Galizan literature as constituting a paradigm for any national literary production at the end of the century. However, that paradigmatic effect is the specific result of the dislocation of a productive general condition: a non-literature within a defective nation and an excessive State.

Animal Learning and Motivation and Addictive Drugs

Highlights of a systematic analysis of the abstracts of over 1700 publications dealing with addictive drugs (primarily alcohol) in the context of animal learning and motivation are summarized under two main headings. The behavioral effects of drugs vary with the nature of the drug, the dosage, and the behavioral baseline; behavioral tolerance frequently results from continued practice in the drug state. The paradigmatic effects show that drugs can function effectively as conditional stimuli, unconditional stimuli, responses, and reinforcers. As a result, drug habits develop their own motivational support, leading to conditioned tolerance and conditioned addiction. It is contended that principles of animal behavior can provide a basis for a theory of human drug use and abuse, but that voluntary control of addictive behavior requires uniquely human cognitive processes.

Quality of life in psychosomatic research. A psychometric model.

The concept of 'quality of life' has had a paradigmatic effect in psychosomatic medicine by focussing on the measurements of psychological distress. This concept has been phenomenologically described under such names as discomfort and psychological boredom. Elements of fatigue, anxiety and depression seem to be core symptoms of dysfunctions in quality of life. An objective and nomothetic approach to quality of life has been demonstrated in this review when referring to the instrumental use of rating scales, e.g. the General Health Questionnaire. Furthermore, it has been recommended to follow the multiaxial approach of DSM-III including dimensions of personality, psychosocial stressors and social functioning.

Ekologi som kulturvetenskap – en radikal utmaning för museerna

Ecology as a humanistic discipline - a challenge for museumsIn the 1970s ecology forcefully entered both public debate and scientific thinking. It caused the 'greening' of politics both nationally and internationally and is slowly making its way into community planning; it has had what could be described as a paradigmatic effect on scientific discourse, primarily in various natural science fields, but also in social sciences.