The literature relating to the work of Piaget is large and still growing. Some of it is Piagetian; some of it is critical. Most of this has been directed towards his experimental methodology and the conclusions drawn from it. The justification for the present contribution lies in what the authors believe to be the special embodiment in Piagetian thought of a central theme of our time. This theme is that the only possibility of truth lies in measurability and that knowledge is not recognisable unless it satisfies this criterion. This work is concentrated in the first instance on Piaget's claims that mental structures are exclusively logical mathematical in form, especially since this part of his work has received least attention. This book was first published in 1985.
Jean Piaget is often considered to be one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century in the field of cognition. The author of this book challenges Piaget's frequent dual use of the meanings of words within the same paragraph. Extensive comparisons and examples of this extraordinary phenomenon are presented. Conclusions are offered to explain Piaget's intent. Contents: Introduction; The Absolute Subject; Piaget's Dual System; The Marvellous Monad; Activities of the Absolute; Appendix; Bibliography.
Surveying the expanding conflict in Europe during one of his famous fireside chats in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt ominously warned that "we know of other methods, new methods of attack. The Trojan horse. The fifth column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery. Spies, saboteurs, and traitors are the actors in this new strategy." Having identified a new type of war -- a shadow war -- being perpetrated by Hitler's Germany, FDR decided to fight fire with fire, authorizing the formation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to organize and oversee covert operations. Based on an extensive analysis of OSS records, including the vast trove of records released by the CIA in the 1980s and '90s, as well as a new set of interviews with OSS veterans conducted by the author and a team of American scholars from 1995 to 1997, The Shadow War Against Hitler is the full story of America's far-flung secret intelligence apparatus during World War II. In addition to its responsibilities generating, processing, and interpreting intelligence information, the OSS orchestrated all manner of dark operations, including extending feelers to anti-Hitler elements, infiltrating spies and sabotage agents behind enemy lines, and implementing propaganda programs. Planned and directed from Washington, the anti-Hitler campaign was largely conducted in Europe, especially through the OSS's foreign outposts in Bern and London. A fascinating cast of characters made the OSS run: William J. Donovan, one of the most decorated individuals in the American military who became the driving force behind the OSS's genesis; Allen Dulles, the future CIA chief who ran the Bern office, which he called "the big window onto the fascist world"; a veritable pantheon of Ivy League academics who were recruited to work for the intelligence services; and, not least, Roosevelt himself. A major contribution of the book is the story of how FDR employed Hitler's former propaganda chief, Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstengl, as a private spy. More than a record of dramatic incidents and daring personalities, this book adds significantly to our understanding of how the United States fought World War II. It demonstrates that the extent, and limitations, of secret intelligence information shaped not only the conduct of the war but also the face of the world that emerged from the shadows.
This collection of original contributions by leading researchers celebrates the 1996 centenary of the births of the two most seminal figures in education and developmental psychology - Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Research in their footsteps continues worldwide and is growing. What are the implications for the future for this extensive programme? Which of the large body of findings has proved most important to current research? Based around five themes, these original contributions cover educational intervention and teaching, social collaboration and learning, cognitive skills and domains, the measurement of development and the development of modal understanding.
This volume contains the proceedings of the conference 'Jean Piaget (1896-1980): A British Tribute - The Continuing Debate', held at Brighton Polytechnic on 22-23 May 1981. The collection of papers goes beyond a particular event which took place at a specific time. It stands on its own as a sustained inquiry as to how Piaget's theory is seen in relation to a range of areas of knowledge. Pairs of academics from various disciplines who have worked on aspects of Piagetian theory engaged in 'for and against' debates. The scope of the volume is therefore interdisciplinary.
Reading involves decoding and comprehension components and, to become efficient, it requires a large number of cognitive and linguistic processes. Among those, the phonological awareness, the alphabetic principle, the decoding, the fluency, the lexical development and the text comprehension development. The reading comprehension is strongly related with the development of vocabulary, oral language, linguistic skills, memory skills and ability to make inferences, and the world experiences of each individual. These processes become important only when the professional needs to deal with students presenting difficulties in learning how to read. The difficulty using the knowledge of conversion rules between grapheme and phoneme to the word reading construction characterizes the dyslexia, which is a specific learning disorder with a neurological source. These difficulties presented by students with dyslexia interfere in their learning process impairing the learning development. Knowing and following the reading development and its processes, as well as obtaining the punctuation of fluency abilities and students comprehension allow us to understand what happens when the student presents difficulties to read. This could help in the identification of learning disabilities and in the development of intervention programs.
Originally published in 1972, there were many ‘classics’ dealing with assessment and testing on the market at the time, but most of these left the inexperienced reader bewildered in the early stages, because of their size and insufficient explanation of the many technical terms used. There were a distinct lack of books which gave students in Colleges of Education dealing with psychology for the first time a simple explanation of basic terms in assessment and testing, and which introduced them briefly to the different types of tests available. Assessment and Testing aimed to fill this large gap. It looks at such key psychological terms as ‘sample’, ‘objectivity’, ‘subjectivity’, and such basic statistical terms such as ‘mean’, ‘standard deviation’, and ‘normal curve of distribution’. Because it assumes that the reader has no knowledge of such terms, it gives careful and simply illustrated explanations of each. In the same way, in simple language, with any technical terms explained and illustrated, it explains intelligence and personality tests, questionnaires, sociometric measures, projection techniques, and other areas of assessment and testing which every practising teacher will meet. The book aims to be essentially practical. It is appreciated all the time that the readers are those who will teach children. It is designed to provide a solid foundation upon which the reader can build later to augment his own experience of identifying children’s particular needs.
One of the foremost authorities on the use of sign language with hearing children provides a guide for teachers and parents who want to introduce signing in hearing children's language development. Marilyn Daniels provides a complete explanation for its use, a short history of sign language and its primary role within the Deaf community, an identification of the steps to reading success delineated with suggestions for incorporating sign language, and finally the results of studies and reactions of children, teachers, and parents. She shows how sign language can be used to improve hearing children's English vocabulary, reading ability, spelling proficiency, self-esteem, and comfort with expressing emotions. Signing also facilitates communication, aids teachers with classroom management, and has been shown to promote a more comfortable learning environment while initiating an interest and enthusiasm for learning on the part of students. Sign language is shown to be an effective agent to accelerate literacy in hearing children from babyhood through sixth grade. A comprehensive exploration of the physiological rationale for the educational advantage sign carries is presented. Overlapping integrated brain activities are incited by movement, vision, meaning, memory, play and the hand itself when sign language is used. Recent findings clearly indicate this bilingual approach with hearing children activates brain growth and development.
On subjects from Superman to rock 'n' roll, from Donald Duck to the TV news, from soap operas and romance novels to the use of double speak in advertising, these lively essays offer students of contemporary media a comprehensive counterstatement to the conservatism that has been ascendant since the seventies in American politics and cultural criticism. Donald Lazere brings together selections from nearly forty of the most prominent Marxist, feminist, and other leftist critics of American mass culture-from a dozen academic disciplines and fields of media activism. The collection will appeal to a wide range of students, scholars, and general readers.
