A posição de Rousseau sobre a importância da religião na sociedade é bastante peculiar: por um lado, ele apresenta severas críticas às religiões reveladas em geral e ao cristianismo em particular, apontando conseqüências nefastas da idéia de revelação - dentre as quais se destaca a intolerância - sobre a conduta dos indivíduos; por outro lado, Rousseau reconhece que a religião é útil e até mesmo necessária ao Estado, e não subestima o recurso aos deuses na obra do legislador; além disso, Rousseau se declara cristão, e não apenas afirma que o ensino de Jesus Cristo serve de fundamento à boa moral, como também chega a defender uma certa superioridade da revelação dos Evangelhos em relação às demais revelações escritas. Este estudo tem como objetivo esclarecer o estabelecimento da relação entre política e religião na obra de Rousseau a partir de um exame dos textos em que esse autor trata dos efeitos da religião na conduta dos homens, considerando-se em primeiro lugar a crítica feita pelo vigário saboiano às religiões instituídas e, em segundo lugar, a idéia de religião civil no contexto da filosofia política de Rousseau, com especial atenção para um de seus dogmas: o da santidade do contrato social e das leis. / Rousseau\'s attitude towards the importance of religion in society is quite distinctive: on the one hand, he criticizes revealed religions, particularly Christianity, in a very hard manner, pointing out harmful consequences of revelation - especially intolerance - on individual conduct; on the other hand, Rousseau recognizes that religion is useful and even necessary to State, and he does not underestimate the resort to the gods in Legislator\'s work; moreover, Rousseau declares himself Christian, and not only affirms that good morals is on the basis of Jesus Christ\'s teaching, but also defends a kind of superiority of Gospel revelation over other written revelations. The objective of this study is to understand how Rousseau establishes the relation between politics and religion in his work; this will be done through an examination of the texts in which that author deals with the effects of religion upon human actions, considering firstly the Savoyard Vicar\'s critique against established religions, and secondly, the idea of civil religion in the context of Rousseau\'s political philosophy, with special attention to one of its dogmes: the sanctity of social contract and laws.

Des origines de l'Histoire au lieu commun qu'il est aujourd'hui devenu, le mythe de l'Âge d'Or occupe une place singulière dans l'imaginaire collectif. Sans héros ni intrigue, synonyme d'une existence idéalisée, d'un état de plénitude, tout à la fois ancré dans le passé et l'avenir, il fournit à la littérature, à la poésie, à la philosophie, la possibilité de maintes réflexions sur l'humaine condition. Pourtant, dans le domaine des arts figurés, rares en sont les expressions avant les premiers soubresauts de la pensée moderne. La Renaissance – dont la dénomination même prend alors tout son sens – s'attachera à fixer des codes iconographiques toujours en vigueur. Les représentations d'une humanité insouciante, s'égayant par la nature ou festoyant, n'en recèlent pas moins toute la richesse de leurs pendants littéraires, de Virgile et d'Ovide notamment. Ainsi, l'Âge d'Or mis en images, sous couvert d'apparente simplicité, renvoie à des significations souvent mêlées qui ont trait à la politique, à la religion et à la morale. Considérées dans la sphère européenne, entre le XVème et le XVIIIème siècle, ces interprétations révèlent cependant des approches quelque peu différentes, qui reflètent peut-être des dissensions plus profondes. / From the origins of history to the commonplaces it has become today, the myth of the Golden Age takes up a peculiar place in the collective psyche. Without a hero or a plot ; synonymous with an idealized life and a plenitude state, deep-rooted in the past and the future at the same time, it provides literature, poetry and philosophy with umpteen thoughts about the Human Condition. Yet in the field of the figurative arts, the expressions of the first starts of the modern thought are scarce. The Renaissance – whose very denomination make sense then – will pay a particular attention to set iconographic codes which are still in force. The representations of a cheering up or entertaining careless mankind show all the richness of their literary counterparts, from Virgil to Ovid in particular. Thus, under the cover of a conspicuous easiness, the pictured Golden Age send back to often mixed significations wich refer to politicics, religion and morals. However, if considered in the European sphere between 15th and the 18th century, these interpretations show some slightly different approaches which may reflect some deeper dissentions.

La forme dialoguée a fait l’objet de réactualisations philosophiques et littéraires diverses au fil des siècles. Dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle, elle est réinvestie comme vecteur d’une nouvelle méthode éducative, qui affiche une conception renouvelée de l’enfant comme être singulier auquel il faut adapter la parole et les enseignements, afin de démontrer, par la « pratique », ce qu’est une éducation réussie. Prenant en compte la nature, l’âge et le caractère de l’enfant, ces mises en scène pédagogiques ont pour objectif de créer des modèles pour une éducation idéale, à la fois générale et raisonnée.Jouant sur la séduction d’une forme littéraire à la fois « totale », « nouvelle » et « naturelle », de nombreux auteurs recourent au dialogue pour présenter en détail des échanges éducatifs suivis : le dialogue permet en effet d’intégrer de nouvelles données dans l’éducation des enfants, par l’évocation vivante de la relation éducative, une temporalité enrichie et l’introduction d’éléments de réflexivité sur la pratique présentée. Les premières cibles de ces projets de rénovation éducative sont les jeunes filles, auxquelles sont dédiés des fictions spécifiques proposant une éducation domestique souvent ambitieuse.Situé au carrefour de deux questions cruciales, celle de la rénovation éducative du temps des Lumières, et celle de la constitution d’un champ littéraire – la littérature pour enfants, encore en gestation –, le dialogue éducatif de cette période se comprend mieux si l’on tient compte des stratégies rhétoriques et éditoriales de ses promoteurs. Celles-ci permettent de mieux percevoir et mesurer les ambitions et les résistances éducatives de cette période. L’illusion mimétique et pratique sur laquelle repose le dialogue éducatif donne accès à ce qui fait la doxa éducative des Lumières, prise entre pesanteurs, prétentions à la nouveauté et innovations effectives. / In the second half of the eighteenth century, the dialogic form has been used as a vehicle for a new educational methodology, which claims a renewed conception of the child as a unique being to which one must adapt one’s speech and teaching, in order to show, through “practice”, that which is a successful education. Taking into account the nature, the age and the character of the child, these pedagogical directions aim to create the models for an ideal education, both general and reasoned.Playing on the seduction of a literary form, at the same time “total”, “new” and “natural”, many authors resort to multi-faceted dialogue to present in detail some educational exchanges: indeed, dialogue permits the integration of new facts into children’s education, by the living reminder of the educational relationship, an enriched temporality and the introduction of elements of reflectivity on the presented practice. The first targets of these projects of educational reform are young girls, to which specific fictions are dedicated proposing an often ambitious domestic education.Situated at the intersection of two crucial questions, that of the educational reform of the Enlightenment, and that of the creation of a literary domain – children’s literature, still in gestation –, the educational dialogue of this period is best understood if one takes into account the rhetorical and editorial strategies of its promotors. These allow one to better perceive and measure the educational ambitions and oppositions of this period. The mimetic and practical illusion on which the educational dialogue is based gives access to that which makes the educational doxa of the Enlightenment, caught between ponderousness, ambitions to originality and effective innovation.

L’objet de cette thèse est d’étudier la morale des histoires tragiques, du milieu du XVIe siècle au début du XVIIe siècle, à partir de la notion d’exemplarité. Cette notion nous permet de dépasser l’opposition entre l’histoire tragique conçue comme « histoire de loi » ou comme une littérature à sensation et de trouver une voie médiane entre le moralisme de l’une et immoralité de l’autre. La morale des histoires tragiques est avant tout une morale de l’exemple. Nous montrons que l’idée que l’exemplarité traverse une crise à la Renaissance doit être largement relativisée et que le mode d’énonciation de la nouvelle favorise son fonctionnement exemplaire. Nous analysons ensuite comment l’exemplarité morale permet de comprendre le positionnement générique des histoires tragiques et explique en grande partie son rapprochement avec l’histoire et la tragédie, conçues comme des genres moraux. Enfin, nous étudions la nature et les problèmes de cette exemplarité qui repose sur la force des mauvais exemples et sur des cas extraordinaires qui semblent aller à contre-courant des prescriptions morales. Les histoires tragiques tentent de mettre sur pied un nouveau type d’exemplarité qui s’appuie sur le cas singulier et non plus sur la répétition d’exemples semblables. / This thesis aims to show how exemplarity allows for a fresh analysis of the morality of tragic short stories, known as “histoires tragiques”, between the second half of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th. The ”histoires tragiques” are neither just “histoires de loi” nor sensationalistic stories, and exemplarity helps us find a middle way between the former’s moralism and the later’s immorality. The morality of the “histoires tragiques” essentially works through examples: on this basis, we first put into perspective the crisis that exemplarity is thought to be going through during the Early modern period. We then argue that, through moral exemplarity, we can understand how the “histoires tragiques” take after the two moral “genres” of history and tragedy. Lastly, we study the limits of this exemplarity, which mainly proceeds from the seduction of bad examples and extraordinary cases that seem to be in contrast with commun moral. As the “histoires tragiques” don’t rely anymore on the repetition of similar exemples, this singularity of cases can be seen as a mean to renew exemplarity.

Comment se fait-on sujet de Dieu dans une société envisagée comme l’une « des plus sécularisées du monde » ? Dieu exerce-t-il un pouvoir sur les humains ? Quels sont les rouages du changement moral dans le domaine religieux ? C’est autour de ce faisceau de questionnements que s’est construit ce travail de recherche, en prenant le milieu pentecôtiste suédois comme étude de cas ethnographique. Le contexte nordique est un contrepoint comparatif heuristique pour l’anthropologie du christianisme. Il permet de mener une discussion critique avec de nombreux travaux menés dans les « pays du Sud ». En Suède, les pentecôtistes engagent en effet une « conversation » avec d’autres forces que celles qui sont si prégnantes ailleurs. Les variables économiques, sociales ou politiques y sont bien différentes et les agents de la surnature des systèmes de croyances coutumiers en sont absents. Ici, c’est le « séculier », à la fois comme régime de subjectivation et comme figure plus ou moins imaginée de l’altérité de l’intérieur, qui devient l’interlocuteur privilégié et l’alter ego de référence dans la construction des subjectivités chrétiennes. À l’intersection entre anthropologie du christianisme et anthropologie morale, il est question dans ce travail de penser les techniques de subjectivation morale des pentecôtistes en Suède comme autant de manières de rendre Dieu co-présent au monde. Il s’agit de voir comment ce dispositif de construction de soi et de transformation du monde, que les pentecôtistes appellent le « travail de Dieu », se réarticule et se renouvelle en permanence le long de la frontière instable et poreuse entre le religieux et le séculier. / How does one shape oneself as a subject of God in a society that is purportedly « one of the most secularized in the world »? Does God have a power over human beings? What are the mechanics of moral change in the religious field? The research presented here is based on these general questions, using the Swedish Pentecostal milieu as a specific ethnographic case study. The Nordic context offers a heuristic comparative counterpoint for the anthropology of Christianity. It provides the discipline with ethnographic data allowing a critical discussion of the many studies carried out in developing countries. Indeed, Swedish Pentecostals can be observed engaging a conversation with significant forces different than elsewhere. In Sweden, social, political and economic variables are very different and the supernatural agents of customary systems of belief are absent. It is the secular, both as a subjectivation mode and as a more or less imagined « other » from the inside, that becomes the privileged interlocutor and prime alter ego in the shaping of Christian subjectivities. At the intersection of the anthropology of Christianity and moral anthropology, this work deals with the techniques of moral subjectivation, all of them being ways of making God present to the human world. This research questions the ways in which this self-fashioning and world-transformation apparatus, that Pentecostals call the « Work of God », permanently (re)adjusts itself along the porous and unstable boundary between the religious and the secular.

My study brings to the fore the individualistic and contextual nature of values and values education. The variance, as is largely argued in this study, is embedded in deep-rooted beliefs and experiences, and the environment that the respective teachers find themselves in. Values and values education has been a sticky issue since time immemorial. The challenge continues to surround the questions of definition, whose values, which values, and how best to promote them. This study specifically investigates the seemingly sensitive political/religious, but critical question of how teachers, in the midst of a complex and non-homogenous society, respond to values. The study, through a retrospective analysis of the development curve of values education in Kenya, unearths the dilemma that teachers and policy makers experience as they attempt to get to grips with the concept of values and appropriate pedagogical methods to apply in the promotion of such values. Through a broad based literature review combined with primary data collected in Kenya, I attempt to explain the intricacies of the stark and stubborn disparity that exists between policy stated aims and actual practice. This disparity, I argue, is largely because issues that affect teachers’ personal lives have not featured adequately in the policy arena. The findings suggest that such issues are considered “messy” and inappropriate for scientific analysis. Secondly, they are delicate convictions, belonging to the private realm, and thus a challenge to unravel as scholars fear intruding on the personal lives of teachers. In order to unearth the intricacies of teacher beliefs and practices, I adopted a participatory approach in this study. The direct contact and discussions with teachers enabled me to untangle the web surrounding the meanings teachers attach to values as a concept. Through observation sessions, I began to appreciate how teachers negotiate these meanings simultaneously with their hectic classroom practice. This study contributes to the discourse on values education by confirming a subtle framework used by teachers. Previous studies have identified two mindsets that teachers use in their professional practice; i.e. rational and emotional. In this study, I add that there is a subtle consideration that teachers constantly refer too, which I call the “survival framework”. I found that teachers, due to the loss in the paternalistic pattern of home, school and church with regards to values, have less confidence in deciding what values to promote. Due to the volatile emotions that values can elucidate, teachers have devised individual ways of interpreting values whilst ensuring that their professional assignment is not jeopardised. It is due to this individualistic approach, that experiences in values education were manifold. I conclude the study by stating that the “survival” interpretive framework confirms three basic principals. Firstly, values will constantly be in a state of construction and reconstruction. Secondly, there is no direct correlation between holding a value and acting upon it; and lastly, values education efforts can only hope to reduce the gap in interpretation and implementation, but will never accomplish a standardised democratic system across the board. / Thesis (PhD (Education Policy Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Education Management and Policy Studies / PhD / unrestricted

M.Tech. / This research study examines ways in which the use of graphic imagery and printmaking in visual art may help to create social awareness and responsiveness to human rights. My study examines how a critical level of social awareness at higher education level, can lead to an ability to make choices as responsible citizens in terms of redress and social justice. My research focuses on two curricular interventions for first and second year Visual Art printmaking students who are introduced to issues of human rights through projects that require both personal and public engagement. This study is grounded in the history of printmaking as a democratic medium that proposes a function for inculcating social consciousness. The contextual framework for this study includes recent countrywide political developments and human rights abuses (such as the xenophobic attacks) as well as HIV/AIDS issues, which contrast with the lack of visibility of social-awareness campaigns at a higher education institution. Issues of human rights are introduced to incoming university Visual art students as part of the curriculum. I focus my research on a specific educational programme-intervention engaging social injustices as human rights violations. I use a mixed-method approach as well as aspects of Action research as methodologies to explore the curricular interventions and analyse visual solutions as a process to create awareness about these issues. I examine the extent to which a curriculum-based visual graphics programme may be used as a means to advocate human rights and social justice. In an educational environment, the means of addressing these social injustices are that these have to be participatory, non-invasive and empowering. These values should subscribe to a system of ethical standards which promote agency among respondents initially and thereafter, in the community at large. Human rights awareness also addresses the lack of social and political acumen and criticality among visual art students. Individual change impacts on citizenship by means of inculcating a broader social awareness through individual acts of civic engagement.

[pt] A pesquisa analisa como estudantes de uma escola pública de ensino médio da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro discutem e resolvem dilemas morais que envolvem questões de justiça, dignidade humana e práticas de discriminação e preconceito em função das diferenças de gênero, etnia e orientação sexual, tendo como referencial teórico a ética do discurso (Jürgen Habermas) e a teoria do desenvolvimento moral (Lawrence Kohlberg). Os dilemas morais foram aplicados e analisados através da metodologia de grupos focais. O trabalho foi motivado pela constatação da existência de muitas relações conflitivas no cotidiano escolar, causadas, em grande parte, pela falta de reconhecimento e respeito às diferenças interpessoais, bem como, pelos limites na formação docente para lidar com esses conflitos. A pesquisa teve como objetivo caracterizar os dilemas morais e investigar o processo de aprendizagem de atitudes e valores, a partir do referencial teórico selecionado, privilegiando os temas relacionados à diversidade no cotidiano escolar. A investigação está inserida no projeto de pesquisa institucional Diversidade Cultural, Prática Pedagógica e Mínimos Éticos (2008-2010), que vem sendo desenvolvido pela linha de pesquisa Ética Intercultural e Prática Pedagógica, do Grupo de Estudos sobre Cotidiano, Educação e Culturas (GECEC), do Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação da PUC-Rio. / [en] This research examines how students, from a public high school of Rio de Janeiro, discuss and resolve moral dilemmas involving issues of justice, human dignity and practices of discrimination and prejudice on the basis of gender differences, ethnicity and sexual orientation, having as theoretical background both the discourse’s ethics (Jürgen Habermas) and the theory of moral development (Lawrence Kohlberg). The moral dilemmas were applied and analyzed using the methodology of focal groups. This work was motivated by the finding of many conflicting relationships in school life, caused largely by lack of recognition and respect for interpersonal differences as well as because of the limits on teacher training to deal with these conflicts. The study aimed to characterize the moral dilemmas and investigate the learning process of attitudes and values from the selected theoretical framework, focusing on issues related to diversity in school life. This research is bound to an institutional research project entitled Cultural Diversity, Educational Practice and Ethical Minimum (2008- 2010), which is being developed by the research line Ethics and Intercultural Pedagogical Practice, from the Study Group on Everyday Life, Education and Cultures (GECEC), at the Graduate Program in Education at PUC-Rio.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a growing digitization technique appears in many contexts as something new and foreign. AI is considered by many as the driving force in the future of digitalization. The finance industry is one of the industries that may be affected since they already have several digitization tools today. Banks have an important function in our society and therefore it’s important for companies and also consumers, to understand what the application of AI can offer.   The purpose of this study is to generate a greater understanding of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used in Swedish banks today, which ethics- and regulatory aspects that can affect the implementation of AI and how banks take the future use of AI in consideration. The study is based on a qualitative method where five explorative and semi structured interviews with different banks have been conducted. Respondents consists of two niche banks and three more established banks where 35-60 minutes interviews have been done while the respondents explained how they use AI in daily activities, how they consider ethical aspects regarding the use of AI and how they see the future use of AI in daily activities. This study has come to the conclusion that the banks use AI in different ways and that they value AI differently. Well established banks work more with IT-support for the organization where support is of great importance while the niche banks works with AI from a more holistic perspective with credit- and loan processes in focus. It appears that banks also want to use AI in consideration of money laundering and compliance. This study also presents how banks take the law, ethical aspects and work environment in consideration and how these factors is affected or not affected with the application of AI.

The average level of sexual knowledge and attitudes about sexual situations among surveyed high school seniors in Gregg County, Texas are presented in this thesis.