Biko on non-white and black: improving social reality

This paper examines Steve Biko’s distinction between black and non-white as a project in the “amelioration” of social concepts and categories. Biko himself—it has been persuasively argued by Mabogo More and Lewis Gordon—writes in the tradition of existential phenomenology. More and Gordon explore Biko’s continuity with Frantz Fanon, and in this paper I draw on their interpretations, attempting to complement and elaborate on these continuities. I also, however, attempt to show how Biko moves beyond Fanon in crucial ways, solving problems that Fanon confronted. By examining Fanon’s and Biko’s categories in light of recent work in social metaphysics, I explore the ways Biko attempts to transform an existing set of oppressive social categories in the world into new social categories

Lower Bounds for On-line Interval Coloring with Vector and Cardinality Constraints

We propose two strategies for Presenter in the on-line interval graph coloring games. Specifically, we consider a setting in which each interval is associated with a $d$-dimensional vector of weights and the coloring needs to satisfy the $d$-dimensional bandwidth constraint, and the $k$-cardinality constraint. Such a variant was first introduced by Epstein and Levy and it is a natural model for resource-aware task scheduling with $d$ different shared resources where at most $k$ tasks can be scheduled simultaneously on a single machine. The first strategy forces any on-line interval coloring algorithm to use at least $(5m-3)\frac{d}{\log d + 3}$ different colors on an $m(\frac{d}{k} + \log{d} + 3)$-colorable set of intervals. The second strategy forces any on-line interval coloring algorithm to use at least $\lfloor\frac{5m}{2}\rfloor\frac{d}{\log d + 3}$ different colors on an $m(\frac{d}{k} + \log{d} + 3)$-colorable set of unit intervals

Montessori Early Childhood Teacher Perceptions of Family Priorities and Stressors

Teachers of young children work closely with families. One component of teacher-family partnerships is teachers’ understanding of family priorities and stressors. This study examines Montessori early childhood (ages three through six) teacher perceptions of family priorities and stressors through an analysis of responses to two parallel surveys.  Eighty teachers (37% of those who received the survey) and forty-nine family members (representing a 55% response rate) completed the survey.  Significant differences were found between teachers’ perceptions of four (of seven) family priorities and families’ actual responses. Teachers ranked “making academic progress” as the most important of seven possible family priorities. However, families stated that “developing kindness” is the most important priority for their young children. No significant differences were found when comparing teacher rankings of family stressors with actual family responses. Montessori early childhood teachers ranked “not having enough time” as the most stressful of six possible stressors. Families confirmed that time pressures cause them the most stress. Maria Montessori’s recommendations for teachers and families are summarized. Recommendations for building stronger family partnerships in the context of Montessori’s philosophy, for example on-going self-reflection, are provided.            Keywords: Montessori, teacher-family partnerships, early childhood teacher perception

Redefining the State\u27s Response to Domestic Violence: Past Victories and future Challenges

What role should the state play in the fight against domestic violence? Although most activists in the early domestic abuse movement viewed government institutions with a robust dose of suspicion, over time they began to look to the state for substantial assistance. During this period-the late sixties and seventies-increased hope for a positive governmental role appeared to be well-founded. The civil rights, feminist, and labor movements had pushed the federal government into expanding civil liberty guarantees and economic protections. Laws were enacted prohibiting sex- and race-based discrimination, health care got a strong boost through the creation of Medicaid and Medicare, and workplace safety guarantees were expanded. And in the seventies and eighties, on the domestic violence front, state legislatures enacted civil protection order statutes that were the first laws specifically designed to protect victims of intimate abuse

Existence and properties of p-tupling fixed points

We prove the existence of fixed points of p-tupling renormalization operators for interval and circle mappings having a critical point of arbitrary real degree r > 1. Some properties of the resulting maps are studied: analyticity, univalence, behavior as $r$ tends to infinity.Comment: LaTeX 2

Free Speech at Work: Verbal Harassment as Discriminatory (Mis)treatment

In his reply to my article on workplace harassment law and freedom of speech, Professor Volokh does not respond to my most important critiques of his earlier work. For example, he fails to grapple with the true complexity of the problem by focusing exclusively on one side of this conflict of rights-the burden that the law imposes on workplace expression. Equal attention must be paid to the other side: the harm inflicted by discriminatory speech on employees of a single gender. As I describe in detail in my original piece, these harms may include: an adverse effect on the quantity and quality of a woman\u27s work; emotional and physical stress-related problems such as fear, anxiety, depression, humiliation, nausea, fatigue, and headaches; and costs to the government of over $130 million a year due to decreased worker productivity, sick leave awards, and replacement of employees who leave their jobs because of sexual harassment

The Google Library Project: When East Doesn\u27t Meet West

Att den här rapporten har blivit skriven beror på flera faktorer. Systematisk forskning om barn- och ungdomslitteraturens användningssammanhang har sedan lång tid tillbaka varit ett försummat inslag i litteraturvetenskapen. Tiden förefaller nu av många orsaker mogen för initierandet av forskning med dylik inriktning. Den tvärvetenskapliga miljön vid Institutionen för Tema vid universitetet i Linköping har efter nio års verksamhet skapat sällsport lyckliga betingelser för en pragmatiskt orienterad litteraturforskning. Särskilt gäller detta för Tema Kommunikation, där merparten av den nödvändiga kompetensen finns företrädd. De inflytelser jag mottagit i denna miljö har på ett avgörande sätt präglat min uppfattning om hur barn- och ungdomslitteraturforskning bör bedrivas. Föreliggande rapport kan ses som en fördjupning och utvidgning av inslag i Tema Kommunikations programförklaring Kommunikation mellan människor (Hansson, Janson, Linell & Sjölander, 1979). Särskilda kurser på akademisk nivå med sikte just på barns och ungdomars läsning har under senare år inrättats vid våra universitet. De är (eller borde åtminstone vara) vitala inslag i den nya lärarutbildningen. För att dessa kurser inte helt skall omineras av reguljära internanalytiska studier och kunskapsstoff behövs ett komplement av det slag som presenteras i föreliggande rapport. Dessutom finns i rapporten rikligt med uppslag till forskningsuppgifter som kan komma till användning som seminarie- och specialarbetsuppgifter på olika nivåer i grundutbildningen. Att en översikt av föreliggande slag är av nöden har jag insett efter mina kontakter med lärare och lärarutbildare i olika sammanhang. Just den typ av rön och förslag till forskning som här kommer att framläggas har genomgående efterlysts. Projektet Forskning och svenskundervisning har försökt att tillgodose denna efterfrågan med utgivandet av en skriftserie med samma namn. Ytterligare publikationer inom serien kan påräknas. Det är glädjande att kunna konstatera att efterfrågan på dessa skrifter har varit stor och att de har kommit till konstruktiv och systematisk användning i bl a fortbildningssammanhang. Det är min förhoppning att denna problemöversikt skall röna samma mottagande

Electronic charge density in helium in the first order shielding approximation

Electronic charge density for ground state of helium as function of nuclear charg