From workers education to societal competencies: approaches to a critical, emancipatory education for democracy

This article presents two conceptions concerning critical political education for workers, developed in Germany in the 1960s and the 1990s respectively. First, the conception of “Sociological Imagination and Exemplary Learning” published in 1968 by the German philosopher and sociologist Oskar Negt (1975). Further the elaboration of this conception, which since the 1980s is known as “Societal Competencies“ (Negt, 1986). These competencies concern fundamental knowledge, which enables people to make political judgments, and act politically in democratic societies in an enlightened and reflected way. This conception deliberately distinguishes itself from the economic, instrumentalist notions of key qualifications and key competencies, which at least since the 1970s have been discussed with the aim of maintaining individual employability and competitiveness. ‘Societal competencies’ aim for individual and collective emancipation, the development of the capability to make judgments, and autonomy in the sense of the enlightened political agency and participation in democratization processes. (DIPF/Orig.

From workers education to societal competencies: approaches to a critical, emancipatory education for democracy

This article presents two conceptions concerning critical political education for workers, developed in Germany in the 1960s and the 1990s respectively. First, the conception of “Sociological Imagination and Exemplary Learning” published in 1968 by the German philosopher and sociologist Oskar Negt (1975). Further the elaboration of this conception, which since the 1980s is known as “Societal Competencies“ (Negt, 1986). These competencies concern fundamental knowledge, which enables people to make political judgments, and act politically in democratic societies in an enlightened and reflected way. This conception deliberately distinguishes itself from the economic, instrumentalist notions of key qualifications and key competencies, which at least since the 1970s have been discussed with the aim of maintaining individual employability and competitiveness. ‘Societal competencies’ aim for individual and collective emancipation, the development of the capability to make judgments, and autonomy in the sense of the enlightened political agency and participation in democratization processes. (DIPF/Orig.

Neoclassical Growth Theory and Heterodox Growth Theory: Opportunities For and Obstacles To Greater Engagement

This paper explores the possibilities for and likely impediments to greater engagement between neoclassical and heterodox growth theorists. Simple structural models are used to identify the essential “mechanics” of the growth process in both the neoclassical and heterodox traditions, and these are shown to point to important areas of theoretical overlap and even observational equivalence. It is argued, however, that the resultant opportunities for greater engagement between growth theorists are tempered by a number of obstacles, that are methodological, rhetorical and sociological in nature.Neoclassical growth theory, heterodox growth theory, endogenous growth

Generative adversarial deep learning in images using Nash equilibrium game theory

A generative adversarial learning (GAL) algorithm is presented to overcome the manipulations that take place in adversarial data and to result in a secured convolutional neural network (CNN). The main objective of the generative algorithm is to make some changes to initial data with positive and negative class labels in testing, hence the CNN results in misclassified data. An adversarial algorithm is used to manipulate the input data that represents the boundaries of learner’s decision-making process. The algorithm generates adversarial modifications to the test dataset using a multiplayer stochastic game approach, without learning how to manipulate the data during training. Then the manipulated data is passed through a CNN for evaluation. The multi-player game consists of an interaction between adversaries which generates manipulations and retrains the model by the learner. The Nash equilibrium game theory (NEGT) is applied to Canadian Institute for Advance Research (CIFAR) dataset. This was done to produce a secure CNN output that is more robust to adversarial data manipulations. The experimental results show that proposed NEGT-GAL achieved a grater mean value of 7.92 and takes less wall clock time of 25,243 sec. Therefore, the proposed NEGT-GAL outperforms the compared existing methods and achieves greater performance

What’s new in a new competence regime?

This editorial will pursue this notion of competence as a governing regime in discussion of what’s new by highlighting some distinctive material circumstances which have supported its dominance. We trace the wider emergence of lifelong learning in the European policies of the 1990s from discourses from outside education. We argue that this reflected and fueled scepticism over whether education could fulfill societal needs. Education, before and after the Second World War had been seen as a force for social change. But after Reagan and Thatcher in the 1990s, and now coming from groups who gained influence in the development of neo-liberal policy agendas, this skepticism supported a turn to the market. Education was understood to need to become more flexible and functional in support of the labour market. Knowledge and skills became the ‘objects’ of value and disappointed expectations of the potential of education to transform societies paved the way for a new discursive constellation. The velocity of wider social and economic change, an older relative shift towards post-Fordist work production mechanisms and the new European Union agenda of monitoring and comparing skills and competencies combined to support a new governing regime. (DIPF/Orig.

A QUANTITATIVE APPROACH TO THE FEEDLOT REPLACEMENT DECISION

Livestock Production/Industries,