Dr Schildkrout probes questions of ethnicity, religion, cultural change and the African national identity in this study of the immigrant community of Kumasi, Ghana's second largest city. She compares first- and second-generation immigrants - those born in their rural homelands, and those born in Ghana - in terms of their orientation to politics, to kinship, and to community participation. The author explores the meaning of ethnic identity for rural- and urban-born immigrants, and establishes certain generalizations about ethnicity based on these (...) comparisons. The book discusses the issues of migration, particularly interregional migration; the position of the 'stranger'; questions of cultural change in modern Africa; the 'generational gap' in the African context; the questions of citizenship and national identity in Africa today, and the emergence of new identities, regional, national and religious. This book has importance not only as a local case study that gives a full description of West African urban life, but also as a theoretical reconsideration of ethnicity that has application outside the African context. (shrink)

The second edition of H. P. Lee's The Australian Judiciary provides a timely update to this seminal text. The only definitive survey of the entire Australian judiciary, this text describes and evaluates the work, techniques, problems and the future of the different tiers of courts and judges. It discusses the role of the judiciary as the third sector of government and analyses and comments on judicial conduct, judicial independence and impartiality, the work of judges beyond the courts, the accountability of (...) judges and the dangers to judicial institutions. It is an excellent reference work which will appeal to legal scholars and practitioners throughout Australia and internationally. (shrink)

Despite the considerable body of scholarship and practice on interconnected systems of dominance and its effects on women in different social locations, Chicanas remain “outside the frame” of mainstream academic feminist dialogues. This article provides an overview of the contributions of Chicana intersectional thought, research, and activism. We highlight four major scholarly areas of contribution: borders, identities, institutional inequalities, and praxis. Although not a full mapping of the Chicana/latina presence in intersectionality, it proffers the distinctive features and themes defining the (...) intersectional terrain of Chicana feminism. (shrink)

There is increasing interest today in how the arts contribute to individual and community wellbeing. This scoping review identified and examined ways in which the arts have been used to address wellbeing in communities in the United States. The review examined 44 publications, with combined study populations representing a total of 5,080 research participants, including marginalized populations. It identified the types of artistic practices and interventions being conducted, research methods, and outcomes measured. It highlights positive associations found across a broad (...) spectrum of psychological, physical, and social outcomes, including improvements in self-esteem and identity formation, cognition, physical balance, and physical conditioning. It also reports negative outcomes of arts interventions that may be underreported. The study identifies the need for core outcomes sets and reporting guidelines for advancing evidence synthesis in this area. (shrink)

Si l’héroïsme médiéval s’élabore avant tout, dans sa composante guerrière, au masculin singulier, la tradition narrative française prévoit néanmoins quelques espaces à l’expression de la prouesse féminine. Du xiie au xve siècle, les romans illustrent plusieurs figures d’amazones ou de veuves viriles. Cependant, cette promotion à l’héroïsme semble difficile à concevoir dans le cas de personnages féminins assumant le rôle d’épouse ou d’amante. Pour vérifier cette constatation, l’enquête se tourne vers les romans idylliques qui ont connu un certain succès au (...) Moyen Age. La relation d’amour réciproque et relativement égalitaire pourrait nous laisser croire que les jeunes amants sont susceptibles de partager le renom de leurs aventures. L’analyse de plusieurs romans montre qu’il n’en est rien. Une exception cependant permet de distinguer le Roman de Floriant et Florete et surtout sa source directe, Erec et Enide de Chrétien de Troyes comme ferment possible d’un héroïsme de l’épouse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Alexandra Kertz-Welzel’s “Two Souls, Alas, Reside within My Breast”: Reflections on German and American Music Education Regarding the Internationalization of Music EducationPhilosophy of Music Education Review, 21, no.1 (Spring 2013): 52–65Leonard TanAs a Singaporean who, like Kertz-Welzel, spent four years residing in the United States, I read the article with great interest. Born to traditional Chinese parents, I was raised steeped in Confucian values, savored Chinese operas, (...) and spoke Mandarin as a child. When I went to school in postcolonial Singapore, however, the medium of instruction was primarily English. I read Enid Blyton in primary school, Shakespeare in secondary school, and Chaucer in Junior College. My university studies in music were Western-centric. All seemed fine until my doctoral studies in the United States when I was inspired by my music education professor to revisit my cultural roots and to read Chinese philosophy. It was [End Page 113] no easy task reading the original texts—they were written on bamboo slips more than two thousand years ago in classical Chinese, and I needed tuition from my mother. Nevertheless, as I worked my way slowly but surely through each character, one thing became unmistakably clear: although I had read more Western than Asian philosophy, many ideas in the ancient Chinese texts resonate with the innermost recesses of my being and are unmistakably a part of who I am as a Chinese Singaporean, albeit one schooled in Western ways.Two souls, alas, have been residing within my breast! Like Kertz-Welzel, I had to find a way to reconcile my two scholarly identities. How may one negotiate the seeming chasm between the Chinese and Western philosophical worlds? In this paper, I sketch some insights gleaned from my journey into the world of comparative philosophy, specifically, classical Chinese philosophy and American pragmatism. In particular, I address two obstacles to the internationalization of music education identified by Kertz-Welzel, namely, the tendency for researchers to know only one scholarly tradition well, and the use of English as an international language. I then proffer Dewey’s metaphor of “friendship” as a way of charting a new “silk road”—one that blends Eastern and Western ideas—for the philosophy of music education.As noted by Kertz-Welzel, many researchers only know one scholarly tradition well. Dangers lurk when scholars have limited knowledge of foreign philosophical enterprises. To begin with, one may fall into the trap of stereotypical preconceptions. For example, I have been asked if it were methodologically sound to juxtapose Chinese philosophical aphorisms with the closely argued texts of the American pragmatists. The basis of this critique is understandable: think Confucius and aphoristic phrases that teach humans how to lead moral lives immediately spring to mind; think Dewey and one is reminded of the depth and breadth of his philosophical arguments. Chinese philosophical texts, however, are by no means mere aphorisms. While the Analects of Confucius may, prima facie, appear as if it were a random collection of brief sayings, many passages relate to one another and cohere as a philosophy. The rich commentarial tradition that spans over two thousand years further augment the range of insights embedded in the Analects. Post Confucius, Xunzi, the philosopher best known for his argument that human nature is evil and ought to be cultivated through ritual (li 禮) and music (yue 乐), articulated his philosophy through thirty-two books that rival Dewey in richness and complexity.1 For two souls to reside within one breast, one has to remain vigilant against potential stereotypes.The tendency to know only one scholarly tradition well may also inadvertently cause one to judge a foreign philosophical tradition using the standards of the familiar one. When encountering Confucius for the first time, scholars schooled in European philosophy may, as Hegel did, criticize him for being a [End Page 114] shallow moralizer obsessed with rituals (li 禮) rather than a speculative philosopher concerned with theoretical matters.2 Such a judgment is misguided as it ignores the fact that the Chinese philosophical tradition was founded on a set of metaphysical assumptions that differed from its Greek counterpart. Seeing the cosmos in discrete, quantitative, and unchanging terms, the ancient... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Handbook of Research and Policy in Art EducationCharles M. DornHandbook of Research and Policy in Art Education, edited by Elliot Eisner and Michael Day. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004, 879 pp., $90.00 paper.The Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education is an 875-page compendium of articles addressing nearly every conceivable issue in the field and is, if nothing else, a valuable tour de force for any reader (...) who wants to come up to speed on issues in the field. It is not, however, either strictly a handbook or a complete exploration of either art education policy or research. This in no way diminishes its potential value as a source for policy issues and research that are of significant concern to the field.The publication presents 36 individual or joint authored chapters on (1) historical currents in art education, (2) policy perspectives impacting the teaching of art, (3) learning in the visual arts, (4) teaching and teacher education, (5) forms of assessment in art education, and (6) emerging visions of the field. Each of the six sections begins with a short introductory statement by the researcher responsible for reviewing the essays in that session. These section editors include F. Graeme-Chalmers, Ralph Smith, Anna Kindler, Enid Zimmerman, Elisabeth Soep, and Arthur Efland. Forty-one authors contributed to the book's contents, all of which have nationally recognized expertise in handling the topic discussed.Editors Elliot Eisner and Michael Day view the book as an effort to bring together research and theory, policy, and concepts that guide and give shape to what people in art education try to accomplish—which is, of course, a rather ambitious goal. Even the editors admit the Handbook meets some but not all of these competing orientations. They also claim that the Handbook serves as an assertion that art education is a scholarly field, perhaps even to a fault through mostly ignoring qualitative issues regarding goals, expressive art form, and aesthetics. Also, the editors admit that the Handbook will be a disappointment, which is true, especially with respect to its emphasis on rationales rather than policy problems, on assessment appreciation rather than policy and research, on assessment in art education history as a record of events rather than as policy windows, and on emerging visions as older forms of social and political discourse rather than policy issues, implementation, and evaluation.Nevertheless, the Handbook addresses a number of important policy issues, providing well-developed and valuable views of the field by a variety of important authors and, in some cases, with some rarely seen insights into the nature of the field. I will only review the most salient ideas of the chapter authors in each of the six sections and then comment on what I believe are promising, and sometimes somewhat troubling, directions pointed out in the chapters, including what promises have not been fulfilled. [End Page 111]Section I, on historical currents, includes chapters by F. Graeme Chalmers; Mary Ann Stankiewicz, Pat Amburgy, and Paul Bolin; and John Howell White. Chalmers provides a very thorough overview of the literature on the history of art education, including what he calls the broad perspectives on art education, history, and research interests of art education historians. Overall, he references nearly 300 publications. Stankiewicz, Amburgy, and Bolin then address specific movements in nineteenth-century art education and art, including a brief history of the social function of art, drawing instruction in schools, industrial drawing, manual training, the arts and crafts movement picture study, and progressive education with over 120 references. White, who follows, provides a similar review of major forces, focusing mainly on art education influences in the twentieth century, addressing the contributions of various art educators, arts organizational leaders, artists, government initiatives, and the critical and divergent influences of key post–WW II art education writers. He also documents his work with nearly 300 sources.Section II, on policy perspectives, contains seven chapters, including ones by Ralph Smith; Samuel Hope; Constance Bumgarner Gee; Lois Hetland and Ellen Winner; H. Gene Blocker; and E. Louis Langford and Kelly Scheffer. In Section II, Sam Hope outlines the power of policy and its effect... (shrink)

I first met Ivor Grattan-Guinness and his wife Enid in the late summer of 1970. I was in England following an intensive course in German at the Goethe Institute in Prien am Chiemsee, and had arrang...

Socrates is one of the most important yet enigmatic philosophers of all time; his fame has endured for centuries despite the fact that he never actually wrote anything. In 399 B.C.E., he was tried on the charge of impiety by the citizens of Athens, convicted by a jury, and sentenced to death (ordered to drink poison derived from hemlock). About these facts there is no disagreement. However, as the sources collected in this book and the scholarly essays that follow them (...) show, several of even the most basic facts about these events were controversial in antiquity, and the questions persist today: How and why was Socrates brought to trial? Why did the jurors, members of the world's first democracy, find him guilty? When he was given an opportunity to escape execution, why did he refuse to do so and instead accept the punishment that he and his friends agreed was unjustly assigned to him? How exactly did Socrates die? Differences of opinion on these and other issues continue to arouse our curiosity and to challenge new generations of students and scholars. The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies is the first work to collect in one place all of the major ancient sources on Socrates' death--those of both his critics and his defenders--as well as recent scholarly views. Part I includes new translations of Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and the death scene from Phaedo, as well as other ancient sources that shed light on Socrates' trial and execution. Part II features some of the most influential recent scholarship on this historically momentous event with work by M. F. Burnyeat, Robert Parker, Mark L. McPherran, Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Richard Kraut, Christopher Gill, and Enid Bloch (whose essay is published here for the first time). Ideal for undergraduate surveys of ancient Greek philosophy and upper-level courses on Socrates and Socratic philosophy, this unique collection provides an unprecedented look into the many perplexing questions surrounding the trial and execution of this remarkable man. (shrink)