Value (ethics)

About: Value (ethics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 21347 publications have been published within this topic receiving 461372 citations.

Building new identities in teacher preparation for inclusive education in Ghana

Abstract: “We want our classrooms to be just and caring, full of various conceptions of the good. We want them to be articulate, with the dialogue involving as many persons as possible, opening to one another, opening to the world” (Greene 1993 as cited in Nieto & Bode, 2008). These words sum up inclusive education as a multifaceted practice that deals with value and belief systems, invites and celebrates diversity and difference arising from family background, social class, gender, language, socio-economic background, cultural origin or ability with human rights and social justice at its core. In this paper we reflect critically on current pedagogical practices in Ghana in relation to inclusive education. Using a critical post-colonial discursive framework the paper takes up the challenge to problematise the existing pedagogical practices, which are intensely oppressive. It examines the impact of colonial and cultural practices (beliefs, values, norms) on teaching and learning, using data obtained from three focus groups with 21 student teachers, a total of 42 hours of non-participant observation of their classroom teaching and existing research commentaries. We found that current pedagogical practices are prescriptive, mechanistic, and do not value student diversity and different learning styles. We conclude with new directions for teacher education programs in Ghana that value and celebrate diversity, and difference.

Identity, consciousness, and value

Abstract: The topic of personal identity has prompted some of the liveliest and most interesting debates in recent philosophy. In a fascinating new contribution to the discussion, Peter Unger presents a psychologically aimed, but physically based, account of our identity over time. While supporting the account, he explains why many influential contemporary philosophers have underrated the importance of physical continuity to our survival, casting a new light on the work of Lewis, Nagel, Nozick, Parfit, Perry, Shoemaker, and others. Deriving from his discussion of our identity itself, Unger produces a novel but commonsensical theory of the relations between identity and some of our deepest concerns. In a conservative but flexible spirit, he explores the implications of his theory for questions of value and of the good life.

Civilising barbarians : missionary narrative and African textual response in nineteenth-century South Africa

Abstract: This is the story of how allegories of human value, cast in narrative dualities based on "civilization" and "barbarism", were prescribed, reified and denied in the 19th-century's struggles over human identity in South Africa. As fluid forms of subjectivity and pre-national persuasion slowly emerged into the stratifications, boundaries and principalities later to become "South Africa", a battle was waged to give textual form and narrative shape to conceptions of "proper" human presentation. This process, illustrating how pervasive a broad sense of textuality may have been in the settling of material destinies, coincided with the supremacy of the book and the printed text as ultimate media for resolving questions of all kinds, from the mundane to the transcendental. The book takes a view of colonialism in South Africa - missionary colonialism in particular - as a discursive process rather than "realpolitik" primarily, and in so doing tells an important tale about the stories which were partly responsible for delivering South Africa into the paradoxical "modernity" of segregation and apartheid.

The Deep Ecology Movement

Abstract: The supporters of the movement are deeply concerned about the decline of the conditions of life on the planet. What Bernard E. Rollin calls aesthetic value may be a sort of value closely related to the intrinsic value discussed within the deep ecology movement. Elsewhere Rollin criticizes those who maintain that natural objects have intrinsic value on the grounds that such people see value as a mystic property. But even people without special mystical talents speak about intrinsic value of a sort that does not need to be buttressed by poetic rhetoric. Work is in progress to move from international environmental cooperation to the creation of a system of international environmental conventions. Conventions comparable in thoroughness to that of Bern are desperately needed to cover the Third World. But there is no moral or other basis for requiring developing countries to adopt the environmental conventions of rich nations.

A Taxonomy of Organizational Impression Management Tactics

Abstract: INTRODUCTION As the information highway makes ever increasing inroads through the internet into our homes and offices, thousands of commercial, academic, and government organizations have discovered a new medium for conveying information about their products, services, and achievements to interested parties world wide (Cronin, 1994). However, computer-mediated promotions are just the latest manifestation of organizational efforts to favorably shape their organizations' impressions. More conventional media and presentations include: 1) corporate advertising (Sethi, 1977), 2), glossy annual reports (Smilowitz and Pearson, 1989), 3) well orchestrated "pseudo-events" that promote organizational achievements and are covered by the mass media (Alvesson, 1990), and 4), and concerted efforts at "damage control" following image-threatening predicaments (Dutton and Dukerich, 1991; Ginzel, Kramer, and Sutton, 1992). While the circumstances and purposes for which these presentations are used clearly vary, each represents a means whereby organizations attempt to manage the impressions they make on key audiences. Organizational leaders and representatives engage in impression management because they believe such behavior will improve the organization's relations with key constituencies. Indeed, as Pfeffer (1981, p. 26) observed, "Every organization has an interest in seeing its definition of reality accepted, ... for such acceptance is an integral part of the legitimation of the organization and the development of assured resources." Hence, in addition to striving to achieve organizational performance, top management is expected to manage constituent perceptions of performance by making sense of the organization's actions and projecting a favorable image (Ginzel et al., 1992). PRIOR RESEARCH The last decade has witnessed growing academic interest in the impression management behaviors exhibited both within, and by, organizations. The term "impression management" refers to the regulation of actions and/or information to shape others' perceptions of oneself (Schlenker and Weigold, 1992). Increasingly, scholars have adapted impression management theory from social psychology and applied it to organizational settings. While most focus on individual behaviors (Bozman and Kacmar, 1997; Gardner and Martinko, 1988; Giacalone and Rosenfeld, 1989, 1991; Wayne and Liden, 1995), a few researchers have shown the applicability of this construct at the macro-organizational level. For example, Sutton and Kramer (1990) demonstrated how President Reagan's administration was able to manage the impressions of the world's press in the Iceland arms control talks with the Soviet Union. Elsbach and Sutton (1992) concluded that socially controversial organizations use image management tactics to manipulate external constituencies' interpretations of members' illegitimate actions. Similarly, Elsbach (1994) showed how the California cattle industry uses impression management to gain legitimacy following controversial events. The case of a Swedish consulting firm was described by Alvesson (1990) to illustrate how the value of events, actions and structures may be designed to positively impact the firm's image. Ginzel et al. (1992) have illustrated the process whereby organizations explain predicaments to diverse audiences in order to minimize damage to their images. The quality of the above research is impressive. It clearly illustrates that organizations attempt to regulate and control information and influence constituents' impressions to gain specific rewards. Nevertheless, a taxonomy of the basic types of organizational impression management (OIM) tactics employed by organizations is lacking. In contrast, a number of taxonomies of impression management behaviors have been advanced at the micro-level (Cialdini, 1989; Jones and Pittman, 1982; Tedeschi and Melburg, 1984; Tedeschi and Normam, 1985), which have contributed to both the theory and subsequent research in this area. …