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In the post-Apartheid era South Africa's universities have faced serious questions about the quality of their student learning in the face of near impossible challenges. The University of Cape Town, widely seen as the country's leading higher education institution, has shown remarkable resilience, however, in the range of initiatives it has launched to support and enhance student learning. These initiatives, designed with a common purpose, are of course intended to work together so that their effects might be compounded and realized in enhanced student learning outcomes. Drawing substantially on the power of compounding (which is itself redolent of the claim made by complexity theory that relations and emergence are crucial concepts), complexity theory offers unique insights into how and why things change – and also into how and why things remain largely the same or inexorably grind towards failure. The networked initiatives undertaken by the University of Cape Town constitute a case of learning refurbishment that is also well explained and understood in terms of complexity theory. This paper draws on concepts from complexity theory both to understand how learning might be enhanced in higher education institutions in severely straitened circumstances and to offer insights for education leaders and policy-makers in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. could witness further consolidation of populist authoritarianism, declining standards of civility, and perhaps also US withdrawing further from the global institutions that it had itself played a steering role in establishing. Or else Americans could demand a return to the political values to which it has long aspired and promoted around the world, even if it has seldom realized them.

Global flows of international students have diversified in recent years. As a result, the common association of this form of mobility with affluent members of the global middle class increasingly does not hold. This study focuses on one emergent student migration pattern that has been the subject of relatively little empirical research: that of African international students in China. The main aim is to establish how international student migration is experienced differentially by students positioned in their home societies in unequal ways, thereby moving beyond the notion that international student migration is a middle-class activity. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews with 40 students from 14 African countries, we apply Bourdieu’s theory of practice to examine the extent and nature of habitus transformation of students from a variety of social backgrounds. We show that differences in social background in this particular case led to distinct trajectories during the sojourn and in terms of post-study plans. Our study makes a theoretical contribution to the international student migration literature, arguing that the nature of transformation that took place among student migrants as a result of study was shaped by the nature of mobility, both spatial and social. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We defend in this paper the importance of redistributing power in the field of education development by enhancing the self-sustainability of education initiatives and minimizing their roots in dependency – these as pre-requisites for improving their sustainable development outcomes. We do this by considering an education development initiative run by the Barefoot College in India, and then developing an explanatory model based in complexity theory (as expounded by Edgar Morin) and in the capability approach (as developed principally by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum). We conclude that such a redistribution of power would help to ensure that education is better connected to its development context, more relevant to the interests and needs of the community it serves, and its quality enhanced. More generally, we reinforce existing arguments – but from the perspective and imperative of sustainability – why it is in the interests of policy-makers to devolve power and to provide resources to such initiatives. Doing so would enhance governments' prospects of realizing their education and social development goals. The arrogation of power and resources towards the centre, an almost natural impulse in policy-making, is, in the end, counter-productive, and threatens sustainable education and social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This naturalistic study was designed to examine the effectiveness of a 4-week skill-based group therapy that focuses on building resilience. The group, informed by Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993, 2015), targets general clients at college counseling centers and emphasizes mindfulness as a coping strategy to stress, cognitive rigidity, emotion dysregulation, and interpersonal difficulties. Results indicated that group members showed clinically significant improvement in psychological resilience and general mental health at the conclusion of group therapy. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of air exchange rates due to intentional window and door openings in a research test house located in a residential environment is presented. These data inform the development of ventilation rate control strategies as building envelopes are tightened to improve the energy efficiency of residential structures. Common physical processes in the building are evaluated for their ability to alter building air exchange rates through increased natural ventilation. The impact on indoor air quality as related to contaminant concentrations is not considered. Air exchange rates were determined for door opening frequency in addition to several window open areas using multiple zone tracer gas decay measurements. Data analysis shows that window opened area, door opening frequency, and indoor-to-outdoor temperature differences have the greatest effect on air exchange rates out of the measured parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on work in epistemology and the philosophy of science, this paper seeks to provide very general reasons for why a comparative perspective needs to be applied to the inferential procedures of research methodologies where these concern the issue of justifying knowledge claims. In particular, the paper explores the role of culture on a number of important patterns of reasoning that figure in inferential arguments in research methodologies. The patterns examined are induction, both enumerative and analytical, hypothetico-deductive reasoning, and abductive inference. In each case it is argued that substantive theories about the world, including cultures, significantly affect inferential procedures. Examples chosen to illustrate this in more detail mostly reflect the impact of Confucian heritage cultures on inference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essential yeast protein Cdc13 facilitates chromosome end replication by recruiting telomerase to telomeres, and together with its interacting partners Stn1 and Ten1, it protects chromosome ends from nucleolytic attack, thus contributing to genome integrity. Although Cdc13 has been studied extensively, the precise role of its N-terminal domain (Cdc13N) in telomere length regulation remains unclear. Here we present a structural, biochemical, and functional characterization of Cdc13N. The structure reveals that this domain comprises an oligonucleotide/oligosaccharide binding (OB) fold and is involved in Cdc13 dimerization. Biochemical data show that Cdc13N weakly binds long, single-stranded, telomeric DNA in a fashion that is directly dependent on domain oligomerization. When introduced into full-length Cdc13 in vivo, point mutations that prevented Cdc13N dimerization or DNA binding caused telomere shortening or lengthening, respectively. The multiple DNA binding domains and dimeric nature of Cdc13 offer unique insights into how it coordinates the recruitment and regulation of telomerase access to the telomeres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I discuss Sande Cohen's engagements with Specters of Marx, Jacques Derrida's most sustained and significant contribution to historical theory (a term that I take to include historiography and philosophy of history) broadly construed. I begin by asserting Cohen's importance for contemporary historical theory in general and, specifically, all historical theory influenced by Derrida's work and/or concerned with issues of justice. I support this assertion by providing an outline of what I understand to be some of the main themes and emphases of Cohen's critique of historiography and historical culture - a critique that has not been given sufficient attention by most historians and historical theorists. Following a few introductory comments regarding Specters, and a more detailed discussion of the idea of 'the messianic' contained therein, I turn to the specifics of Cohen's critique of the mode of philosophical thinking in that text, linking the points he makes back to the themes and emphases of his position previously described. Cohen's critique takes in a range of concepts found in Specters, such as 'the messianic' and 'haunting/hauntology' as well as Derrida's idea of the 'new scholar': the model historiographer. This essay seeks to explore the reasons why Cohen finds Specters to be a 'deeply problematical' text vis-a-vis historical theory. However, in keeping with the desire for 'legitimate contentiousness' advocated by Cohen, and whilst acknowledging the brilliance and timeliness (in terms of current developments in contemporary historical theory that draw on Derrida's work) of his engagement with the (Cohen's word) 'historiospectography' he understands Derrida to be advancing, this paper concludes by raising some questions regarding aspects of his criticisms of Specters; a - minor - critique in response to (aspects of) Cohen's critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a brief introduction to complexity theory, this paper considers how various themes in the field relate to the philosophical study of education. Issues and questions introduced include the challenge of complexity theory for the philosophy of education—and, conversely, some critical challenges for complexity theory from educational philosophy; complexity theory and educational continuity and change; the importance that complexity theory places on interpretive perspectives that are transphenomenal, transdisciplinary and transdiscursive; the risks of simplifying complexity to a point that excludes its ambiguities and includes only its dominant usages; the degree of coherence between Dewey's philosophical orientation and that of complexity theory; how Foucault might be read as a complexity theorist; how educational research informed by complexity theory might ask different questions with different analytical perspectives—connectionist, holistic, non-linear, rather than input–output ‘black-box’ causal modelling, for example; and how curriculum, teaching, the epistemology of schooling, and the ‘education of consciousness’—understood as an emergent phenomenon—might be different when viewed from the perspective of complexity theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers questions of continuity and change in education from the perspective of complexity theory, introducing the field to educationists who might not be familiar with it. Given a significant degree of complexity in a particular environment (or ‘dynamical system’), new properties and behaviours, which are not necessarily contained in the essence of the constituent elements or able to be predicted from a knowledge of initial conditions, will emerge. These concepts of emergent phenomena from a critical mass, associated with notions of lock-in, path dependence, and inertial momentum, suggest that it is in the dynamic interactions and adaptive orientation of a system that new phenomena, new properties and behaviours, emerge. The focus thus shifts from a concern with decontextualised and universalised essence to contextualised and contingent complex wholes. This is where complexity theory seeks the levers of history. The paper posits the notion of inertial momentum as the conceptual link between the principle of emergent phenomena as developed principally in the natural sciences and the notion of socio-historical change in human society. It is argued that educational and institutional change is less a consequence of effecting change in one particular factor or variable, and more a case of generating momentum in a new direction by attention to as many factors as possible. Complexity theory suggests, in other words, that what it might take to change a school's inertial momentum from an ethos of failure is massive and sustained intervention at every possible level until the phenomenon of learning excellence emerges from this new set of interactions among these new factors, and sustains itself autocatalytically. The paper concludes with a summary consideration of the conditions that contribute to the emergence of new properties and behaviours in a system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces some of the debates in the field of critical thinking by highlighting differences among thinkers such as Siegel, Ennis, Paul, McPeck, and Martin, and poses some questions that arise from these debates. Does rationality transcend particular cultures, or are there different kinds of thinking, different styles of reasoning? What is the relationship between critical thinking and learning? In what ways does the moral domain overlap with these largely epistemic and pedagogical issues? The paper concludes by showing how Peters, Evers, Chan and Yan, Ryan and Louie, Luntley, Lam, Doddington, and Kwak, respond to these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explore one possible motivational (quasi-) philosophy for historians continuing to write history in the wake of Derridean deconstruction. This philosophy of history is structured around one of the alternative terms for deconstruction in Derrida's work, namely the notion of ‘the impossible’. Throughout this paper I will be concentrating on John Caputo's interpretation of Derrida's work and, in the process, addressing some alternative (mis)readings of deconstruction (i.e. those at odds with my own reading and that of Caputo's) as they relate to the development of a philosophy of history and historical praxis generally. Specifically, I will argue for the importance of Caputo's exegesis of—and reflections on—‘the impossible’, as well as his own closely related notion of ‘a hermeneutics more radically conceived’, as important starting points for the development of a viable philosophy of history after the postmodern turn; a philosophy of history that is undecidably future oriented as opposed to closure oriented. I will argue that the implications of Derrida's work, and particularly of Caputo's reading of Derrida (and, in my estimation, Caputo is the most stimulating and suggestive interpreter and developer of Derrida's thought currently writing), opens up vital possibilities and challenges for historians in the production of their histories. Following Caputo, I will argue that a philosophy of history that is ‘open’ to and structured around exploring ‘the impossible’ is inescapably religious and messianic in structure—albeit in the Derridean sense of ‘religion without religion’ and ‘messianicity’—thus re-emphasizing the axioms of faith and belief vis-à-vis the role and work of the historian rather than—although not in opposition to—relativism and scepticism. In the course of this argument I suggest some possible distinctives of a philosophy of history that is shaped by a passion for ‘the impossible’—as opposed to appropriating it as just another method—as well as Caputo's associated desire for a hermeneutics more radically conceived and consider how they might, in turn, mould the types of histories produced by historians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of education programmes in different cultures invites the question whether we are justified in doing so in cultures that may reject the programmes’ underlying principles. Are there indeed ethical principles and educational ideals that can be justified as applicable to all cultures? After a consideration of Zygmunt Bauman's postmodern rejection of the possibility of universal ethics, Ι cite and extend Harvey Siegel's defence of multiculturalism as a transcultural ethical ideal. I conclude the paper with a justification of the transcultural normative reach of moral principles that I have elsewhere defended as the ethics of integrity . The paper's significance lies in its justification of educational interventions founded in these principles across different cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on the Curriculum 2005, one of the government's initiatives to address the legacy of apartheid education and proposed by the outcomes-based education (OBE) in South Africa. Concerns of writer Jonathan Jansen on OBE; Reason for proposing the Curriculum 2005; Conclusion.

The use of a school guidance service to transmit the economic and cultural interests of the ruling group(s) in a country is explored through the case-study of guidance in the Republic of South Africa, and in particular the introduction of guidance as a subject in Black schools in 1981. An analysis of the syllabus for guidance in Black schools reveals a social-control strategy on the part of the power group, which is different to that used within the White guidance service. Whereas the White service emphasises cultural interests, the Black-school syllabus stresses the economic interests of the ruling group. Each service, however, reflects the tension between economic and cultural interests, and the guidance situation in South Africa demonstrates the complex relationship between these interests, as well as that between group power relations and the nature of guidance services. The case-study also comments upon the relationship between the power of the ruling group in South Africa and the degree to which its economic and cultural interests are made explicit in the syllabus of its guidance services. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the renewed critical realism as well as the implications for education after postmodernism era. The emergence of postmodernism in an era of modernity when people had available the wherewithal to make progress through human efficacy informed by reason and rationality is tackled. The most significant implications for educational theory of the end of postmodernism is also explored.