Beginning teachers and diversity in school: a european study

The work described here was undertaken with a view to preventing school failure in the broadest sense. It took place between 2001 and 2005 and was funded by the European Commission through the Comenius 2.1 programme that provides funding to educational institutions to improve the education of staff in schools by sharing good ideas and so improve the quality of teaching and learning in classrooms. We were fortunate to have had colleagues from Brazil join us so giving a Latin American dimension to our thinking. In this volume colleagues from the Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres de Versailles, the Universidad de Zaragoza, Università degli Studi di Bari, Escola Superior de Educação de Bragança, the Pontifcia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, and from St Patrick’s College Dublin took part in the work. This book is intended to contribute to reflections on teacher education, and in particular on how well young teachers are educated to meet the challenges presented by pupils who are in some difficulty in primary and secondary schools. We hope that this work will stimulate discussion both within teacher education institutions, and provide a European perspective to readers in all sections of the educational community in their thinking about the central problem of preventing school failure and promoting a genuinely inclusive context for all pupils in schools

Formation des enseignants: un exemple de recherche-action: Chypre, France, lrlande, République tchèque, Slovénie

Cet article rend compte d’un travail de recherche engagé par des universitaires de cinq pays, dans le cadre d’un projet européen sur l’enseignement des sciences. L’objectif est de bâtir des modules de formation qui engagent les enseignants de sciences dans un processus de modification de leurs pratiques et dans l’acquisition de démarches susceptibles d’accompagner la construction du savoir chez l’élève. Trois axes fondent ce travail : engager les enseignants dans des activités d’investigations ; s’appuyer sur le vécu des enseignants pour favoriser la mise en œuvre de ces démarches dans le quotidien de leurs classes ; mettre en valeur un travail multiculturel qui favorise la décentration et ouvre le champ des possibles

What Are Ideological Systems?

Ideology is a systemic property of cognition central to the transmission and actualization of beliefs. Ideologies take many forms including religious, philosophical, popular and scientific. They play a central role in both personal identity and in the way society holds itself together. Therefore, it is important to understand how to model identities. The article introduces ideologies as a function of cognition that have been described by political scientists and critical theorists. There follows a typology of ideologies that shows their increasing complexity as societies develop. These considerations lead to the identification of key elements and variables in an ideology that can be expressed mathematically together with some of their systemic relations. These variables may be used to estimate the validation of ideologies

Structure and Superstructures in Complex Social Systems

In classical sociology, there is a sharp separation between the superstructure reflecting cultural ideals and the concrete Structural Base (SB). The authors hypothesize a Doxical Superstructure (DS) in its own space at a higher level, containing concepts such as completeness, necessity and possibility associated with abstract concepts like beliefs, ethics, knowledge, relations and science. The DS or image (DS-image) is defined as the “explanation” (for the Subject-agent) of the Structural Base. A Mythical Superstructure (MS) is defined as a third superstructure. An analysis is carried out on the Structural Base. Concepts or denotative significances (d-significances) are defined for SB deontic relations. Alethic properties (existence, completeness, possibility and necessity) and deontic properties (permission, obligation and choice) of deontic relations are introduced, defined, and examined in relation to the Ideological Doxical Superstructure (IDS), including Meinong objects (thoughts, feelings and desires)

Language, Values, and Ideology in Complex Human Societies

Using language requires simultaneously verifying communication and the linguistic message of the speaker. There is, therefore, an emphasis on understanding, which is contained in the linguistic message. Understanding goes beyond what is said, and includes the immediate connotations, that is, semantics in the strict sense. Language must, therefore, be interpreted, though it is indeed transferred by the immediate meanings of the linguistic code. In the present article, the authors approached some of these issues from the point of view of the hermeneutics of spoken or written language, as a double proposal (ostensive and estimative) of the subject in relation to his/her reality

Chance and Necessity: Hegel’s Epistemological Vision

In this paper the authors provide an epistemological view on the old controversial random-necessity. It has been considered that either one or the other form part of the structure of reality. Chance and indeterminism are nothing but a disorderly efficiency of contingency in the production of events, phenomena, processes, i.e., in its causality, in the broadest sense of the word. Such production may be observed in natural and artificial processes or in human social processes (in history, economics, society, politics, etc.). Here we touch the object par excellence of all scientific research whether natural or human. In this work, is presented a hypothesis whose practical result satisfies the Hegelian dialectic, with the consequent implication of their mutual reciprocal integration. Producing abstractions, without which, there is no thought or knowledge of any kind, from the concrete, that is, the real problem, which in this case is a given Ontological System or Reality.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature

Beliefs, Epistemic Regress and Doxastic Justification

By justification we understand what makes a belief epistemologically viable: generally this is considered knowledge that is true. The problem is defining this with a higher degree of precision because this is where different conflicting conceptions appear. On the one hand, we can understand justification as what makes it reasonable to acquire or maintain a belief; on the other, it is what increases the probability that the belief is true. This work tries to prove that beliefs depend on other beliefs that are epistemically justified and that such beliefs are the result of (i.e., they arise from) our privileged intuition of reality. For this, we examine the concept of epistemic regress. Epistemic reasons authorize a proposition P to be the conclusion of an argument in which such reasons function as premises and are vulnerable to epistemic regress. The three most important approaches to epistemic regress are Infinitism, Coherentism and Foundationalism.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This research work has been partially funded by the Generalitat Valenciana through the project CIBEST, postdoctoral stay grants at Northwestern Polytechnical University titled: Optimization of the Smarta application in collaboration with NPU (CIBEST/2022/205). This research work has been partially funded by the Spanish Government and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) through the project TRIVIAL: Technological Resources for Intelligent VIral AnaLysis through NLP (PID2021-122263OB-C22)

Walking Through Cantor's Paradise and Escher's Garden: Epistemological Reflections on the Mathematical Infinite (II)

Infinity is not an easy concept. A number of difficulties that people cope with when dealing with problems related to infinity include its abstract nature, understanding infinity as an ongoing, never ending process, understanding infinity as a set of an infinite number of elements and appreciating well-known paradoxes. Infinity can be understood in several ways with often incompatible meanings, and can involve value judgments or assumptions that are neither explicit nor desired. To usher in its definition, we distinguish several aspects, teleological, artistic (Escher); some definitive, some potential, and others actual. This article also deals with some still unresolved aspects of the concept of infinity

Walking Through Cantor's Paradise and Escher's Garden: Epistemological Reflections on the Mathematical Infinite (I)

Infinity is not an easy concept. A number of difficulties that people cope with when dealing with problems related to infinity include its abstract nature: understanding of infinity as a never-ending process, understanding infinity as a set of an infinite number of elements, and understanding some well-known paradoxes. Infinity can be understood in a number of ways, some of which are incompatible, and can involve value judgments or assumptions that are neither explicit nor desired. In its definition, we distinguish several aspects, teleological, artistic (Escher 2000 Escher, M. C. Estampas y dibujos. Colonia: Ed. Taschen, 2000. (In Spanish).), some essential, some potential, and others actual. Cantor's work on set theory is linked to infinity and has implications for belief in God

Solutions of Extension and Limits of Some Cantorian Paradoxes

Cantor thought of the principles of set theory or intuitive principles as universal forms that can apply to any actual or possible totality. This is something, however, which need not be accepted if there are totalities which have a fundamental ontological value and do not conform to these principles. The difficulties involved are not related to ontological problems but with certain peculiar sets, including the set of all sets that are not members of themselves, the set of all sets, and the ordinal of all ordinals. These problematic totalities for intuitive theory can be treated satisfactorily with the Zermelo and Fraenkel (ZF) axioms or the von Neumann, Bernays, and Gödel (NBG) axioms, and the iterative conceptions expressed in them