Antonio Gramsci is one of the major social and political theorists of the 20th century whose work has had an enormous influence on several fields, including educational theory and practice. Gramsci and Education demonstrates the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's thought for contemporary educational debates. The essays are written by scholars located in different parts of the world, a number of whom are well known internationally for their contributions to Gramscian scholarship and/or educational research. The collection deals with a broad range (...) of topics, including schooling, adult education in general, popular education, workers' education, cultural studies, critical pedagogy, multicultural education, and the role of intellectuals in contemporary society. (shrink)

This essay examines the place of Sallust in Machiavelli's political theory. Such an examination is necessary and fruitful for two basic reasons. First, the interpretative and secondary literature on Machiavelli's classical sources has neglected, with very few exceptions, the influence and role Sallust may have played in the formulation of Machiavelli's thinking. Second, the essay argues that Sallust is important to Machiavelli's attempt to recover republican liberty. At the core of Machiavelli's project to discover 'new modes and orders' is the (...) fundamental Roman republican antithesis between libertas and dominatio. The very critique of dominatio presupposes a conception of libertas without which such a critique would be impossible. Sallust is a useful source for Machiavelli's inquiry into the political, social and military determinants foRA vivere libero e civile. Elements of such a political life are prefigured in Sallust's conception of republican politics, where 'cives cum civibus de virtute certabant' -- that is, where robust competition and healthy conflict express the virtus and the bonae artes of the body politic. In effect, Sallust is important to Machiavelli both as a historian who provides a useful critique of monarchy and despotism, and as a source through which Machiavelli is able to develop his conception of politics in general, and of republican politics in particular. (shrink)

In their efforts to uncover the principles of a robust conception of democracy, theorists of deliberative democracy place a premium on the role of political expression—public speech and reasoned debate—as the key to democratic processes. They also frequently hark back to historical antecedents in their quest to establish that deliberative procedures are more than “merely theoretical” and instead have a practical application. But for all this emphasis on the discursive and historical dimensions of democracy, these theorists have generally neglected the (...) rich resources available in the history of rhetorical theory and practice. It is the purpose of _Talking Democracy_ to resurrect this history and show how attention to rhetoric can help lead to a better understanding of both the strengths and limitations of current theories of deliberative democracy. Contributors, besides the editors, are Russell Bentley, Tsae Lan Lee Dow, Tom Murphy, Arlene Saxonhouse, Gary Shiffman, John Uhr, Nadia Urbinati, John von Heyking, and Douglas Walton. (shrink)

This book explores the sources of modern British liberalism through a study of the Edinburgh Review, the most influential and controversial early nineteenth-century British periodical. Founded by a group of young Scottish intellectuals in 1802, the Review served as a principal channel through which the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment gained wider currency, and did much to popularize the doctrines of economic and political reform. As Dr Fontana shows in this lucid and keen analysis, the first thirty years in the (...) life of the Review clearly display the new social and economic problems confronting European society in the aftermath of the French Revolution. (shrink)

A partir da constatação de problemas no desempenho leitor de universitários, projeto de pesquisa realizado na Universidade de Caxias do Sul buscou oportunizar aos alunos o desenvolvimento de habilidades de leitura pelo uso de material instrucional composto por sequências didáticas baseadas em diferentes gêneros do discurso. Descrevemos aqui a sequência que tem como núcleo o editorial. Os alunos envolvidos, ingressantes em cursos de graduação, foram divididos em grupo experimental (GE), submetido à sequência de leitura aqui descrita, e grupo de controle (...) (GC), que trabalhou os mesmos textos do GE com enfoque voltado à análise textual. A questão ecológica constituiu o núcleo temático, e, em cada sequência, propuseram-se quatro instâncias: pré-leitura, leitura-descoberta, pós-leitura e atividade interativa. Os resultados da investigação sugerem que o ensino explícito de leitura, apoiado em princípios sociointeracionistas e metacognitivos, pode contribuir positivamente para o desenvolvimento de habilidades de leitura. (shrink)

Local supplier corporate social responsibility in developing countries represents a powerful tool to improve labour conditions. This paper pursues an inter-organizational network approach to the global value chain literature to understand the influence of suppliers’ collective behaviour on their CSR engagement. This exploratory study of 30 export-oriented and first-tier apparel suppliers in Bangladesh, a developing country, makes three relevant contributions to GVC scholarship. First, we show that suppliers are interlinked in a horizontal network that restricts unilateral CSR engagement. This is (...) justified in that unilateral CSR engagement is a source of heterogeneity in labour practices; consequently, it triggers worker unrest. Second, we present and discuss an exploratory framework based on four scenarios of how suppliers currently engage in CSR given their network’s pressure toward collective behaviour: unofficial CSR engagement, geographic isolation, size and competitive differentiation, and external pressure. Finally, we show the need to spread CSR homogeneously among suppliers and to reconceptualize the meaning of CSR in developing countries, encouraging more scrutiny toward horizontal dynamics. (shrink)

Book reviews: HARRIS, Elizabeth J.; HEDGES, Paul; HETTIARACHCHI, Shanthikumar. Twenty-First Century Theologies of Religions : Retrospection and Future Prospects. Leiden: Brill; Boston: Rodopi, 2016. 396 p.. ISBN 978-90-04-3224-62.

No âmbito educacional, a articulação entre teoria e prática encontra na metodologia das oficinas pedagógicas um recurso oportuno. Este artigo caracteriza a oficina pedagógica como forma de construir conhecimento a partir da ação e da reflexão e relata sucintamente uma experiência de oficinas oferecidas a professores da Rede Municipal de Ensino. O resultado das oficinas sugere ser essa técnica bastante eficaz na formação continuada de professores.

The paper discusses the relation between philosophy and politics in the thought of Antonio Gramsci. It argues that the relation is adumbrated in Gramsci's concept of hegemony, which is simultaneously the politicization and the historicization of thought and knowledge. The concept of hegemony describes a reciprocal relation between the kaleidoscopic movement of historical reality (that is, relations of power) and the formulation and dissemination of moral and intellectual structures of thought (that is, modes of thinking and feeling).

Mainstream theories of decision making conceptualise uncertainty in terms of a well-defined probability distribution or weighting function. Following Knight, radical Keynesians consider subjective expected utility (SEU) theory and its variants as a restricted theory of decision-making applicable to situations of risk and, hence, of limited relevance to the understanding of crucial economic decisions under conditions of fundamental uncertainty in which probabilities are ill-defined, possibly non-existent. The objective of this paper is to outline a radical Keynesian theory of decision-making under uncertainty, (...) arguing that Keynes's suggestion to a two-dimensional probability-credence framework provides the basis for determining the limitations of mainstream approaches and points the way forward to the construction of a more general encompassing theory relevant to psychologists and economists outside of the Keynesian tradition. (shrink)

A partir da constatação de problemas no desempenho leitor de universitários, projeto de pesquisa realizado na Universidade de Caxias do Sul buscou oportunizar aos alunos o desenvolvimento de habilidades de leitura pelo uso de material instrucional composto por sequências didáticas baseadas em diferentes gêneros do discurso. Descrevemos aqui a sequência que tem como núcleo o editorial. Os alunos envolvidos, ingressantes em cursos de graduação, foram divididos em grupo experimental (GE), submetido à sequência de leitura aqui descrita, e grupo de controle (...) (GC), que trabalhou os mesmos textos do GE com enfoque voltado à análise textual. A questão ecológica constituiu o núcleo temático, e, em cada sequência, propuseram-se quatro instâncias: pré-leitura, leitura-descoberta, pós-leitura e atividade interativa. Os resultados da investigação sugerem que o ensino explícito de leitura, apoiado em princípios sociointeracionistas e metacognitivos, pode contribuir positivamente para o desenvolvimento de habilidades de leitura. (shrink)