Showing papers on "Surprise published in 1974"

The School Achievement of Immigrant Children: 1900–1930

Abstract: Public schooling has held a central place in the mythologies celebrating the assimilation of immigrants into American life. It is no surprise then to find that the historiography of schooling and immigration has been characterized by a good deal of polemic and a paucity of data. Depending upon their political persuasions, scholars have either described the schools as an immense success in providing opportunities, or as reactionary institutions designed to perpetuate the existing class order.

Reaffirming the Regulation of the Poor

Abstract: Since its publication over two years ago, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare has evoked considerable controversy. This did not surprise us. What did surprise us, and continues to make us wonder, is that so much of this controversy is about the role of humanitarianism in relief giving. We ourselves are skeptical that it has much role at all: "The key to an understanding of relief-giving," we said in the introduction, "is in the functions it serves for the larger economic and political order, for relief is a secondary and supportive institution. Historical evidence suggests that relief arrangements are initiated or expanded during the occasional outbreaks of civil disorder produced by mass unemployment, and are then abolished or contracted when political stability is restored. We shall argue that expansive relief policies are designed to mute civil disorder, and restrictive ones to reinforce work norms. In other words, relief policies are cyclical-liberal or restrictive depending on the problems of regulation in the larger society with which government must contend." Such a view, we went on to observe, "clearly belies the popular supposition that government social policies, including relief policies, are becoming progressively more responsible, humane, and generous."' Nevertheless, one set of critics, mainly conservative social scientists,

A Critical Look at Textbooks for Consistency between Theory and Practice

Abstract: Even before a person opens a textbook dealing with art educational theory and practice, it is expected to be consistent. Surely this comes as no surprise since that book's very nature suggests an interrelated content. Basically this means that all theoretical and practical ideas are expected to correspond with and follow from one another. To be more specific, this means that an author's teaching beliefs or theoretical statements should, unless otherwise noted, serve as an underlying rationale for his presented teaching practices. While consistency helps to strengthen the credibility of a book's content, inconsistency has little if any redeeming value. Contradictions can alter its instructive potential precisely because they interfere with such basic goals as comprehension and learning. Neither the coherence of the presented ideas nor a reader's understanding of them is enhanced if a writer contradicts that which he himself has stated. In this respect, Strawson (1971)6 aptly remarks that self-contradiction frustrates a standard purpose of speech to communicate something. Contradicting oneself, he explains, is like writing something and then erasing it. It is the same thing as uttering words but not saying anything [pp. 2-3]. By stating one thing and then another, an author invariably ends up doing just that stating nothing. His contradictory assertions merely cancel themselves out and in the process leave a reader confused. One would think that even the sheer possibility that such things could happen would be reason enough for a writer to be consistent in his recommendati ns. However, the most apparent reason for him to do so has yet to be mentioned. It is simply this. Value claims commit a statement-maker to a

Footnote to the History of Riefenstahl's 'Olympia'

Abstract: clusion to be drawn is that sheer visual correspondence can be as meaningless in film as in life). But then should Eisenstein's three lions be scattered rather than juxtaposed, as they are, in sequence to give the illusion of a single lion springing to its feet? No. Because the symbolic message-the People's spirit awakening-is (a) otherwise impossible to suggest in terms of the lion image, and (b) left to us to deduce. But in Roeg's case, we seem to be having some kind of coded message thrown at us, though actually there is none except what our own fancy can superimpose. If the essence of film is that what we see is whatever has been cut into the frame (and what we don't see has been, just as consciously, excluded from the frame), then a delicate balance must be kept between surprise and expectation. And by this criterion, too, Don't Look Now fails, over-weighted as it is toward surprise. The best films walk the tightrope: Rules of the Game, L'Avventura, Vertigo, The Fire Within, Four Bags Full, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Each unpredictable from shot to shot, yet inevitable.

The future's not what it used to be

Abstract: As a result of dependence on foreign energy imports, communities should accept the fact that an overriding characteristic of the immediate future will be surprise. The consequences of planning simply by projecting recent trends could be calamitous. Cities should not waste money planning for or building accommodations to the type of enormous growth that has historically been experienced. Planning should be focused on increased density, not increased sprawl. (1 drawing, 1 graph)