Parasitism Revealed: On the Absence of Concession

An examination of the role of ideologies from the past in shaping educational thought, action, policy and practice in the present. Takes the position that inequality is an expression of a fundamentally parasitic relationship forged during the 17th century colonial push and cemented institutionally in the early 20th century by a progressive version of social Darwinist thought known as eugenic ideology. Considered are the roles of historical disciplinary limitations, memory, and the co-optation of the language of social justice in perpetuating a racist, classist, hierarchy in education that has been bearing fruit for nearly two centuries. Warns against uncritical use of the language and framework of social justice specifically and progressivism in general

Eugenic Ideology and the Institutionalization of the ‘Technofix’ on the Underclass

This scenario for the twenty-first century, in which China assumes world domination and establishes a world eugenic state, may well be considered an unattractive future. But this is not really the point. Rather, it should be regarded as the inevitable result of Francis Galton’s (1909) prediction made in the first decade of the twentieth century, that “the nation which first subjects itself to rational eugenical discipline is bound to inherit the earth” (p. 34)” (Lynn, 2001 p. 320)

Eugenic Ideology and Historical Osmosis

Issues of inequity in education are plentiful, but too little attention has been paid to the origins of this inequity which is more tangible than has been acknowledged. This paper traces the early twentieth-century formation of our modern system of education by eminent psychologists and statisticians who were enacting their allegiance to the dominant belief system about intelligence and ability as connected to race and class as expressed and formulated by the eugenics movement. Specifically, this paper explicates the role of eugenic ideology in creating a system designed to sort and classify students according to preconceived notions about their ability and worth to society resulting in a system of education that has served to fortify inequity ever since

Some statistical aspects of the long-term gill net monitoring programme for pike Esox lucius in Windermere (English Lake District)

For more than 55 years, data have been collected on the population of pike Esox lucius in Windermere, first by the Freshwater Biological Association (FBA) and, since 1989, by the Institute of Freshwater Ecology (IFE) of the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. The aim of this article is to explore some methodological and statistical issues associated with the precision of pike gill net catches and catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) data, further to those examined by Bagenal (1972) and especially in the light of the current deployment within the Windermere long-term sampling programme. Specifically, consideration is given to the precision of catch estimates from gill netting, including the effects of sampling different locations, the effectiveness of sampling for distinguishing between years, and the effects of changing fishing effort