Does Pluralism in Economics Education Make Better Educated, Happier Students? A Qualitative Analysis

This paper contributes to the debate on pluralism in the economics curriculum. Here pluralism means a diversity of theoretical perspectives. One set of pedagogical arguments for pluralism are those found in 'liberal' philosophy of education. To this end, the first part of the paper presents arguments for pluralism based on 'liberal' pedagogical arguments. The paper also notes more instrumental arguments for pluralism and the barriers to such an approach. Finally, the paper considers new primary evidence from focus groups on student perceptions of economics. This evidence shows support for the arguments that a pluralist curriculum is popular and develops cognitive capacities of criticism, comparison and analysis – exactly those argued for in (liberal) pedagogical discussion – as well as judgement, understanding and writing skills. However, pluralism as a teaching strategy may be more difficult for those delivering it.

Does pluralism in economics education make better educated, happier students? A qualitative analysis.

This paper contributes to the debate on pluralism in the Economics curriculum. Here pluralism means a diversity of theoretical perspectives. One set of pedagogical arguments for pluralism are those found in ‘liberal’ philosophy of education. To this end, the first part of the paper presents arguments for pluralism based on ‘liberal’ pedagogical arguments. The paper also notes more instrumental arguments for pluralism; and barriers to such an approach. Finally, the paper considers new primary evidence from focus groups on student perceptions of economics. This evidence shows support for the arguments that a pluralist curriculum is popular and develops cognitive capacities of criticism, comparison and analysis – exactly those argued for in (liberal) pedagogical discussion – as well as judgement, understanding and writing skills. However, pluralism as a teaching strategy may be more difficult for those delivering it.Students; pedagogy, pluralism, perceptions, focus groups

Genomic heterogeneity of historical gene flow between two species of newts inferred from transcriptome data

The role of gene flow in species formation is a major unresolved issue in speciation biology. Progress in this area requires information on the long‐term patterns of gene flow between diverging species. Here, we used thousands of single‐nucleotide polymorphisms derived from transcriptome resequencing and a method modeling the joint frequency spectrum of these polymorphisms to reconstruct patterns of historical gene flow between two Lissotriton newts: L. vulgaris (Lv) and L. montandoni (Lm). We tested several models of divergence including complete isolation and various scenarios of historical gene flow. The model of secondary contact received the highest support. According to this model, the species split from their common ancestor ca. 5.5 million years (MY) ago, evolved in isolation for ca. 2 MY, and have been exchanging genes for the last 3.5 MY Demographic changes have been inferred in both species, with the current effective population size of ca. 0.7 million in Lv and 0.2 million in Lm. The postdivergence gene flow resulted in two‐directional introgression which affected the genomes of both species, but was more pronounced from Lv to Lm. Interestingly, we found evidence for genomic heterogeneity of interspecific gene flow. This study demonstrates the complexity of long‐term gene flow between distinct but incompletely reproductively isolated taxa which divergence was initiated millions of years ago

Fixation and consensus times on a network: a unified approach

We investigate a set of stochastic models of biodiversity, population genetics, language evolution and opinion dynamics on a network within a common framework. Each node has a state, 0 < x_i < 1, with interactions specified by strengths m_{ij}. For any set of m_{ij} we derive an approximate expression for the mean time to reach fixation or consensus (all x_i=0 or 1). Remarkably in a case relevant to language change this time is independent of the network structure.Comment: 4+epsilon pages, two-column, RevTeX4, 3 eps figures; version accepted by Phys. Rev. Let