Life Sustains Life 1. Value: Social and Ecological

I would like to address the question of social and ecological value by bringing two approaches to this question into conversation with one another and show their connections. The two approaches are those of Jonathan Schell and Akeel Bilgrami. The connection between the two approaches is their shared interest in the ‘conditions that sustain life’ on earth. The answer to the question of what are the conditions that sustain life is, in my opinion, ‘life sustains life’: that is, living ecological systems sustain themselves and the living systems with which they interact (symbiosis)

A New Kind of Europe? Democratic Integration in the European Union

The most urgent problem facing the European Union is to develop the best approach to conflicts over integration in the fields of culture, economics and foreign policy. The paper argues that a particular form of democratic integration is better than the two predominant approaches. This approach draws on the actual practices of the democratic negotiation of integration that citizens engage in on a daily basis but which tend to be overlooked and overridden in the dominant approaches.economics; democracy; law; diversity/homogeneity

Communication Networks, Hegemony, and Communicative Action

Communicative action now commonly takes place in electronically mediated global networks and the networks are a powerful form of social ordering. This article analyzes the different forms of power that operate in communicative networks and how these alter communicative action. It suggests that the more optimistic literature on global and network governance, arguing and bargaining, and soft norm generation has not taken these new modes of hegemony fully into account. An analysis of the possible forms of communicative freedom in networks rounds off the article.sovereignty; identity; multilevel governance; Europeanization

Life Sustains Life 2. The ways of re-engagement with the living earth

This article argues that we need to learn from the living earth how living systems sustain themselves and use this knowledge to transform our unsustainable and destructive social systems into sustainable and symbiotic systems within systems. I first set out what I take to be four central features of sustainable living systems according to the life and earth sciences. Secondly, I set out what I take to be the main features of our unsustainable social system that cause damage to the ecosphere on the one hand and give rise to the illusion of independence from it on the other hand. I then turn to several ways of responding to the sustainability crisis that are informed by this way of thinking about our interdependent relationship in and with ecosocial systems. These are ways of dis-engaging from our unsustainable practices, beginning to engage in practices of re-engaging and reconnecting socially and ecologically, and thus beginning to bring into being unalienated and sustainable ways of life on earth. If the symbiotic interdependency thesis of the first section is true, then participants in these connecting practices should be empowered in reciprocity by the interdependent relationships they connect with, and thus initiate expanding virtuous cycles. This reciprocal empowerment is discussed in the final section

La conception républicaine de la citoyenneté dans les sociétés multiculturelles et multinationales

Les notions républicaines de liberté des citoyens et de liberté des peuples sont d’une aide précieuse pour qui veut comprendre les luttes contemporaines pour la reconnaissance. Ces luttes visent à modifier les normes, jugées trop contraignantes, qui régissent la participation des citoyens. La solution n’est pas, comme le croient les auteurs libéraux, de définir une fois pour toutes les normes régissant la participation dans les milieux multiculturels, puisque les différences identitaires chères aux citoyens changent avec le temps. Il s’agit plutôt d’instituer une forme de démocratie constitutionnelle dont les normes publiques de reconnaissance des citoyens ne sont pas fixes mais souples et au sein de laquelle les citoyens seraient libres de contester, de négocier et de modifier les normes dominantes de la participation. La réponse ne réside pas dans une théorie de la justice, mais dans des pratiques républicaines de liberté renouvelées.The republican notions of freedom of citizens and of peoples enable us to better understand contemporary struggles for recognition. These struggles seek to modify the prevailing norms governing citizen participation on the ground that they unnecessarily constrain the ways in which citizens are able to participate. The solution is not to try to determine the just norms of participation in conditions of cultural diversity once and for all, as liberal theorists assume, for the identity-related differences that matter to citizens change over time. Rather, the solution is to develop a form of constitutional democracy in which the norms of public recognition of citizens are not fixed but flexible and in which the citizens themselves are always free to challenge, negotiate and modify the prevailing norms governing participation. The solution is not to be found in a theory of justice but in modified republican practices of freedom

Modern Constitutional Democracy and Imperialism

To what extent is the development of modern constitutional democracy as a state form in the West and its spread around the world implicated in western imperialism? This has been a leading question of legal scholarship over the last thirty years. James Tully draws on this scholarship to present a preliminary answer. Part I sets out seven central features of modern constitutional democracy and its corresponding international institutions of law and government. Part II sets out three major imperial roles that these legal and political institutions have played, and continue to play. And finally, Part III surveys ways in which the persisting imperial dimensions can be de-imperialized by being brought under the shared democratic authority of the people and peoples who are subject to them

Reconciliation Here on Earth

I would like to discuss two interconnected projects of reconciliation. The first is the reconciliation of indigenous and non-indigenous people (natives and newcomers) with each other in all our diversity. The second is the reconciliation of indigenous and non-indigenous people (human beings) with the living earth: that is, reconciliation with more-than-human living beings (plants, animals, ecosystems and the living earth as a whole). I will not discuss formal reconciliation procedures carried on by governments, courts and commissions. Rather I focus on more basic, informal and transformative practices of reconciliation and the shared responsibilities we all have to engage in these two projects of reconciliation. This first section sets out the general argument and the following three sections explore aspects of it

Preparing Pre-Service Music Educators to More Effectively Teach Students with Special Needs

This qualitative study analyzed the current required coursework of pre-service music educators to prepare for teaching students with special needs at Pennsylvania degree-granting institutions. It surveyed graduates of Pennsylvania degree-granting institutions on their experience in preparing teaching students with special needs and the challenges and barriers faced as in-service teachers. An additional survey targeted the perceptions of current Pennsylvania music education professors and their thoughts on preparing pre-service music educators for teaching students with special needs. The surveys explore the answers to whether coursework designed for pre-service music educators to teach students with special needs successfully are adequate. The current literature on in-service teachers teaching music to students with special needs targets in-service teacher professional development on the topic. While there is research on the perceptions of music teachers teaching students with special needs and inclusion, very little research exists on examining the undergraduate level coursework required to successfully teach music to special needs students. Data collected identifies deficiencies in specific music courses on teaching students with special needs in the undergraduate curriculum, as well as the need for field experience. Findings include the quality of the current coursework in the undergraduate curriculum, in-service teachers’ perceptions and attitudes toward their individual preparedness for teaching special needs students, intersection with music therapy, and calls for future research. Future research includes revising curricula at higher education institutions, targeted professional development for in-service music educators, and collaboration with music therapists and special educators

Accounting for transsexualism

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This study reports the systematic collection of accounts from 204 transsexual subjects, most of whom attended the Gender Identity Clinic at Charing Cross Hospital (Fulham). A review of the literature covers cross gender behaviour in other societies, recent biological, social and psychological studies on gendered and cross gendered behaviour, a medical history of transsexualism and 'sex reassignment surgery'. Psychological 'frames' for the study of cross gendered careers are derived from attributional theories, and symbolic interactionist approaches to the construction of sexual categories of behaviour and experience. The collection of accounts follows a methodology derived from Harr & and his associates' ethogenic approach to the study of social behaviour, and the principles of generating 'grounded (sociological) theory' propounded by Glaser and Strauss. There is a short statistical section on the population of research subjects as a whole. Transexuals' accounts, some 500 exerpts, are marshalled under nearly 200 headings and subheadings. These cover almost all areas of relevant life experience. The conclusions argue that there is a fundamental weakness in the imposition of psychiatric 'syndromes' on gender dysphoric phenomena. Rather, 'gender dysphoric careers' are proposed as fluctuating enterprises in the construction of meanings, some meanings being more fateful and workable than others. An attributional -'imaginative involvement' model to account for transsexualism is explicated. The implications which can be drawn from this, for the way the management of these unfortunate people could be improved, completes the text.North west thanes regional health authorit