Cultural Capital, Cultural Knowledge and Ability

Bourdieu\'s theory of cultural reproduction has been interpreted in various ways, and several authors have criticised an overly narrow interpretation of cultural capital as simply consisting of \'beaux arts\' participation. For researchers, this raises the challenge of developing a broader interpretation of cultural capital which is still specific enough to be operationalised. This paper discusses the ways in which parents may transmit educational advantage to their children through cultural rather than economic means, and the forms of knowledge and skill which may be considered as \'cultural capital\'. An operationalisation of cultural knowledge is discussed, and empirical evidence is presented on differences in levels of cultural knowledge between the children of graduates and non-graduates.[No keywords]

Knowledge how, ability, and the type-token distinction

This paper examines the relationship between knowing how to G and the ability to G, which is typically presented in one of the following ways: (a) knowing how to G entails the ability to G; (b) knowing how to G does not entail the ability to G. In an attempt to reconcile these two putatively opposing positions, I distinguish between type and token actions. I t is my contention that S can know how to G in the absence of an ability to G token, where this action is derived from an action-type, but not in the absence of the ability to perform the action-type itself (G type). This refinement is an attempt to reconcile differences between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism (broadly construed) with regard to knowledge how and ability

Metalinguistic Knowledge and Language Ability in University-Level L2 Learners

Existing research indicates that instructed learners' L2 proficiency and their metalinguistic knowledge are moderately correlated. However, the operationalization of the construct of metalinguistic knowledge has varied somewhat across studies. Metalinguistic knowledge has typically been operationalized as learners' ability to correct, describe, and explain L2 errors. More recently, this operationalization has been extended to additionally include learners' L1 language-analytic ability as measured by tests traditionally used to assess components of language learning aptitude. This article reports on a study which employed a narrowly focused measure of L2 proficiency and incorporated L2 language-analytic ability into a measure of metalinguistic knowledge. It was found that the linguistic and metalinguistic knowledge of advanced university-level L1 English learners of L2 German correlated strongly. Moreover, the outcome of a principal components analysis suggests that learners' ability to correct, describe, and explain highlighted L2 errors and their L2 language-analytic ability may constitute components of the same construct. The theoretical implications of these findings for the concept of metalinguistic knowledge in L2 learning are considered. © Oxford University Press 2007

Goal Orientation and Ability: Interactive Effects on Self-Efficacy, Performance, and Knowledge

This study examined the direct relationship of goal orientation – and the interaction of goal orientation and cognitive ability -- with self-efficacy, performance, and knowledge in a learning context. The current paper argues that whether a particular type of goal orientation is adaptive or not adaptive depends on individuals\u27 cognitive ability. Results indicated that the direct associations of learning and performance orientations were consistent with previous research. Learning orientation was positively related to self-efficacy, performance, and knowledge, while performance orientation was negatively related to only one outcome, performance. The interactions between goal orientation and ability also supported several hypotheses. As expected, learning orientation was generally adaptive for high ability individuals, but had no effect for low ability individuals. In contrast, the effects of performance orientation were contingent on both individuals\u27 level of cognitive ability and the outcome examined. The implications of these results for future research on goal orientation are discussed

The Global Ability to Respond: Applying SARS Knowledge to H1N1 and Beyond

Influenza outbreaks may be alarming, but they are nothing new in the 21st century. At this point, the various strains of influenza have broken into cities and homes, acted as silent killers by causing fear, death and destruction, and spreading uncontrollably. This repetitive cycle arouses the question of when people will learn how to take care of these epidemics. Well, according to Flahault and Zylberman, knowledge may not be the only factor necessary to stop influenza from disrupting lives. The authors reveal that “Influenza epidemics occur regularly and prediction of their conversion to pandemics and their impact is difficult” meaning there is no tangible definition of each strain or explanation of what it will do (319). Despite this reminder of the lack of control humans have at the viral level, there are aspects of hope that are visible from one outbreak to the next. Specifically, response to the H1N1 epidemic of 2009 was much calmer than the typical reaction to epidemics in the past. This reveals that people were able to learn from past outbreaks, such as SARS in 2003. The effectiveness of response increased in a mere six years which offers a great deal of hope for the way future outbreaks will be handled

Unreflective epistemology

Virtue epistemological accounts of knowledge claim that knowledge is a species of a broader normative category, to wit of success from ability. Fake Barn cases pose a difficult problem for such accounts. In structurally analogous but non-epistemic cases, the agents attain the relevant success from ability. If knowledge is just another form of success from ability, the pressure is on to treat Fake Barn cases as cases of knowledge. The challenge virtue epistemology faces is to explain the intuitive lack of knowledge in Fake Barn cases, whilst holding on to the core claim that knowledge is success from ability. Ernest Sosa's version of virtue epistemology promises to rise to this challenge. Sosa distinguishes two types of knowledge, animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. He argues that while animal knowledge is present in Fake Barn cases, reflective knowledge is absent and ventures to explain the intuition of ignorance by the absence of reflective knowledge. This paper argues that Sosa's treatment of Fake Barn cases fails as it commits Sosa to a number of highly counterintuitive results elsewhere in epistemology

An exploratory comparison of the inferential ability of EFL and ESL students : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management at Massey University

The ability to access and interpret information is a very important component in generating knowledge. However, people are not always able to discover information, quickly evaluate the importance of the information and access it (Tichenor, Donohue & Olien, 1970; Chatman, 1991; Sligo & Williams, 2002). Especially in a tertiary academic setting, the ability to access information and integrate information from various sources to infer what is not overtly stated in a text is an essential skill during the reading process (Kintsch, 1994; Barnes, Dennis, & Haefele-Kalvaitis, 1996; Cain, Oakhill, Barnes, & Bryant, 2001). Because of differences among people's educational background, existing pools of knowledge and communication abilities, the ability to access information will affect their inferential ability in the reading process (Alexander, 1994; Ericsson, 1996; Mckoon & Ratcliff, 1992). Although inferential ability is to be of consequence for academic functioning, very little research has been done on the comparison of inferential ability among students with English as their first language and those with English as their second language. This study examines the relative extent of text inferential ability among students with English as a first language (EFL) and students to whom English is a second language (ESL), employing the knowledge gap hypothesis, and assesses its implications. Using a procedure to assess inferential ability, this thesis compares the differences in inferential ability demonstrated by EFL and ESL students, employing cloze tests. This study found that EFL students' performance on the inferential ability and cloze item completion task is significantly better than that of their ESL counterparts via the first two scoring methods (Methods A and B). However, the inferential ability of ESL students is almost as good as their EFL counterparts when assessed by the third scoring method (Method C). The research findings suggest that Sligo and Williams (2002) are right in terming the knowledge gap as an amalgam of knowledge, comprehension and inference (p.6). Subsidiary analyses of the source of inference failures revealed different underlying sources of difficulty for both EFL and ESL students. The results of the research provide insights into the nature of gaps in accessing information and inference making. Education in a tertiary institution may or may not reduce gaps. Though both EFL and ESL students improved from their original starting level, the gaps of inferential ability between EFL and ESL students in the two tests, especially via Methods A and B, widened. In the second test, both EFL and ESL students made progress in inferential ability. Yet there still remained a gap between the two groups of students in test two as the knowledge rich individuals improved at a similar rate as the knowledge poor. The present study supports the contention of Sligo and Williams (2002) that there is an unexamined area at the heart of the knowledge gap hypothesis literature. The findings of the present study suggest the correctness of the proposal by Sligo and Williams (2002) that what knowledge gap hypothesis researchers call knowledge gaps should in fact be better described as some amalgam of gaps in knowledge, and/or inferential ability. This is the most significant finding of the present research

Distribution of goals addressed to a group of agents

The problem investigated in this paper is the distribution of goals addressed to a group of rational agents. Those agents are characterized by their ability (i.e. what they can do), their knowledge about the world and their commitments. The goals of the group are represented by conditional preferences. In order to deduce the actual goals of the group, we determine its ability using each agent’s ability and we suppose that the agents share a common knowledge about the world. The individual goals of an agent are deduced using its ability, the knowledge it has about the world, its own commitments and the commitments of the other agents of the group

Mary's Powers of Imagination

One common response to the knowledge argument is the ability hypothesis. Proponents of the ability hypothesis accept that Mary learns what seeing red is like when she exits her black-and-white room, but they deny that the kind of knowledge she gains is propositional in nature. Rather, she acquires a cluster of abilities that she previously lacked, in particular, the abilities to recognize, remember, and imagine the color red. For proponents of the ability hypothesis, knowing what an experience is like simply consists in the possession of these abilities. Criticisms of the ability hypothesis tend to focus on this last claim. Such critics tend to accept that Mary gains these abilities when she leaves the room, but they deny that such abilities constitute knowledge of what an experience is like. To my mind, however, this critical strategy grants too much. Focusing specifically on imaginative ability, I argue that Mary does not gain this ability when she leaves the room for she already had the ability to imagine red while she was inside it. Moreover, despite what some have thought, the ability hypothesis cannot be easily rescued by recasting it in terms of a more restrictive imaginative ability. My purpose here is not to take sides in the debate about physicalism, i.e., my criticism of the ability hypothesis is not offered in an attempt to defend the anti-physicalist conclusion of the knowledge argument. Rather, my purpose is to redeem the imagination from the misleading picture of it that discussion of the knowledge argument has fostered