At the time of its initial publication in 1904, The Higher Learning in America was known in educated circles as the most reflective study ever made of the university system in America. Veblen's evaluation of the misleading notions and erroneous beliefs were inherent in "the higher learning" was received as fair by most academics. As a result, many believed he paved the way to an improved age in college education.Just as applicable today as they were decades (...) ago, his sophisticated style remains deprecatingly amusing; his biting critique just as disquieting as it was at the turn of the 19th century. The Higher Learning in America remains a penetrating book by one of America's greatest social critics.American economist and sociologist THORSTEIN BUNDE VEBLEN (1857-1929) was educated at Carleton College, Johns Hopkins University and Yale University. He coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption." Among his most famous works are The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904), and Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution (1915). (shrink)

This study examines the emergence and evolution of madrasa as a specific organizational form of higher learning from a comparative-historical perspective. The article begins by discussing how the madrasa emerged and which factors contributed to its rise and spread among the Islamicate political regimes during the Middle Ages and afterwards. Then, it provides a comparison between the medieval European university and the madrasa, with particular attention to the characteristics of the legal systems on which they were founded and (...) the influences of the political environment on the respective institutions. It is argued that the differences in the legal tradition and the political authority structures may help us to grasp why madrasa and university produced different outcomes in terms of internal governance and institutional autonomy. The short discussion of the Ottoman case, where madrasas functioned as the main higher learning institutions at least until the adoption of the Western-style educational institutions from the 18th century, is presented as an illustrative case to test these assumptions. (shrink)

Volume 51, Issue 11, October 2019, Page 1063-1072.

In the United States of America, the years from 1880 to 1915 were a period of rapid urbanization, combined in some areas with intense industrialization. This paper explores the creation in cities of the new industrial heartland of new institutions of higher learning. The case studies chosen illustrate varying responses to local needs for scientific and technical expertise, and illuminate how new concepts of higher education in the United States helped to shape the emergent connection between science (...) and industry. (shrink)

Universities are expected to be places where knowledge is shared freely among academicians. However, the reality shows that knowledge sharing is barely present within universities these days. As Malaysia shifts towards building a knowledge-based society, academic institutions, particularly the public universities, now face ever-growing faculty demands for sharing quality resources and expertise. As a result, knowledge sharing in academia has become a rising concern. The purpose of this study, then, is to uncover the factors that propel knowledge sharing among academicians (...) in higher learning institutions of Malaysia. Using the Theory of Reasoned Action as the basis for this study’s research framework, data was gathered from 447 academicians in 10 public universities scattered throughout the country. Findings from the Partial Least Squares analysis revealed that extrinsic motivation, reciprocal relationships, sense of self-worth and subjective norm are vital determinants of an academician’s attitude towards knowledge sharing. In turn, this attitude that is formed will largely determine whether the academician engages in knowledge sharing behaviors or not. Besides having a positive effect on attitude, sense of self-worth also exhibited a positive impact on the subjective norm to share knowledge. Consequently, this subjective norm will have an impact upon knowledge sharing behavior. In addition, perceived behavioral control and organizational climate were discovered to have a direct influence on knowledge sharing behaviors. Implications, limitations as well as suggestions for future research are accordingly discussed in this paper. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In the last decade it has become en vogue for cognitive comparative psychologists to study animal behavior in an ‘integrated’ fashion to account for both the ‘innate’ and the ‘acquired’. We will argue that these studies, instead of really integrating the concepts of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’, rather cement this old dichotomy. They combine empty nativist interpretation of behavior systems with blatantly environmentalist explanations of learning. We identify the main culprit as the failure to take development seriously. While in some (...) areas of biology interest in the relationship between behavior and development has surged through topics such as extragenetic inheritance, niche construction, and phenotypic plasticity, this has gone almost completely unnoticed in the study of animal behavior in comparative psychology, and is frequently ignored in ethology too. The main aims of this paper are to clarify the relationship between the concepts of learning, experience, and development, and to investigate whether and how all three concepts can be usefully deployed in the study of animal behavior. This will require the full integration of the psychological study of behavior into biology, and of the idea of learning into a wider concept of experience. We lay out how, in a systems view of development, learning may just appear as one among many processes in which experience influences behavior. This new synthesis should help to overcome the age-old dualism between innate and acquired. It thereby opens up the possibility of developing scientifically more fruitful distinctions. (shrink)

The world changes and we are encouraged to change with it, but is all change good? This book asks us to stop and consider whether the higher education we are providing, and engaging in, for ourselves and our societies is what we ought to have, or what commercial interests want us to have. In claiming that there is a place for a higher education of learning, such as the university, amongst our array of tertiary options the book (...) attempts to explore what this might be. Drawing from the existential literature and in particular Heidegger, the book investigates the case for such a form of higher education and settles on existential trust as the ground upon which the community of scholars that ought to be the university can flourish. This book is written for those who are concerned about the trends towards performativity and for those who are not yet so concerned! It offers a controversial and, some might say, idealistic view of what might be but makes no apology for that since the book proposes that higher education is becoming evermore unacceptable for those who value democracy, tolerance and learning. (shrink)

The expression ‘a university without research is a dignified high school’ is becoming a both local and global concern in the academia. The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which collaborative research methodologies can enhance integration of faculties of arts and humanities in the universities in Malawi for knowledge development and transfer. It has been argued over and over that universities are spotlighted by their outstanding work in research, developing and sharing ideas, new inventions and creativity (...) within the spectrum of partnership development. While striving for partnership through collaborative research approaches, research activities still remain an area of concern in institutions that offer diverse tertiary education in Malawi. The question of how can these institutions or faculties engage each other in collaborative research methodologies in the quest of knowledge development and transfer remains crucial and relevant The study analyzed strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of the existing research methods in Arts and Humanities and how the two disciplines can create a space for amalgamation so that research findings can benefit both disciplines. The study reveals that collaboration in various disciplines is a challenge owing to variations of conceptual analyses and the deficiency of technical no-how of both teaching staff and students as well as tools for data collection and analysis as may be emphasized in each of the areas of study; Arts and Humanities. Furthermore, while other institutions of higher learning have research ethics committees for checks and balances as a collaborative tool, some institutions do not know that this committee plays a crucial role in the field of research. Within this backdrop, there is need to develop research collaborations within an institution or with other institutions of higher learning that have a well-defined research profile for mutual benefits as far as collaborative research methodologies are concerned. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to encourage and highlight discussion on how to improve the teaching of research ethics in institutions of higher education in Malaysia. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 21 academics in a research-intensive university in Malaysia, interviewees agreed on the importance of emphasizing the subject of research ethics among students, as well as academics or researchers. This study reveals that participants felt that there is an urgent need to improve the current awareness and knowledge of (...) issues related to misconduct in research among students and academics. The results of this study indicate a need for better teaching on the subject of research ethics in order to prevent misconduct in research. Finally, it concludes with suggestions that there should be a clear definition of research misconduct, to include consequences when engaging in misconduct; a separate research ethics syllabus for pure and social sciences should be conducted; research ethics should be implemented as a core subject, and there should be an early intervention and continuous learning of research ethics, with an emphasis on ethics training. (shrink)

Formation of a Religious Landscape: Shiʿi Higher Learning in Safavid Iran. By Maryam Moazzen. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 151. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. xiii + 290, illus. $149, €129.

Developing World Bioethics, Volume 22, Issue 2, Page 76-85, June 2022.

These ten essays are concerned with the broader aspects of analytic philosophy. White would like to see the tools of logical analysis, developed over the past 50 years, applied to fields other than logic and scientific methodology, in particular, to the philosophy of law, politics, education, religion, and history. In the title essay he argues that religion should be taught as part of our cultural heritage, and not for the purpose of encouraging student commitment.--L. S. F.