<p><span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi / mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">The basic premise of this study was that when a learner is confronted with two contradictory explanations of the same phenomenon, there is cognitive dissonance in the learner as the learner tries to determine which of the two explanations is correct. An argumentation-based instructional intervention programme (ABIIP) was created for and used on and by the Grade 10 learners in order to attempt to ameliorate this cognitive conflict. </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi">The purpose of this study was to determine the relative impact of that intervention programme on Grade 10 learners&rsquo / conceptions of lightning and thunder. The programme was designed to help learners to develop argumentative skills and use the acquired skills to negotiate and harmonise divergent and conflicting explanations of the nature of lightning and thunder that are propounded by different worldviews (Science and indigenous knowledge).</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi">The research design was primarily a case study of 16 Grade 10 learners of the Xhosa ethnic group at a high school in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The Xhosa people are a typical example of a people whose cultural values were undermined and whose voice was silenced by the colonisers and whose local knowledge has been repressed and replaced by forms of Western privileged knowledge and understandings but who remain, deeply and resolutely, steeped in their cultural values and practices, making them a classic example of a people who would battle to harmonise the indigenous and the scientific explanations of natural phenomena. The research instruments used were questionnaires which were administered to learners, educators, community leaders, indigenous knowledge holders and experts to solicit information on causes, dangers and prevention of lightning / individual and group activities as learners went through the lessons on both argumentation and on lightning / follow up interviews and discussions with learners individually or in groups to seek further clarification of the ideas the learners would have raised in their earlier responses to questionnaires or group discussions / guided and reflective essays by the learners to determine the learners&rsquo / levels of understanding of the major tenets of the two thought systems and the relationship between the two worldviews and to determine the qualitative gain, if any, that the learners got from the intervention programme / observation schedules used by the researcher during participant observation of group discussions and during the lessons on lightning / an achievement test on lightning / field notes used by the researcher for memoing observations and reflections as the research process proceeded / informal and serendipitous sources of information. <span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi">The collected data were analysed, mostly, qualitatively. Frequencies, percentages and t-test values were used to express and analyse quantitative data. Aspects of several analytical frameworks that included Toulmin&rsquo / s Argumentation Pattern (TAP) [and its modified versions such as that of Leitao (2000) and that of Osborne et al (2004)] and Contiguity Argumentation Theory (CAT) were used to attach meaning to the collected data and to address the research questions.</span></span></p>

Abortion remains a contentious issue, which greatly raises ethical problems. This thesis examines the leading arguments in the Swedish abortion debate around the – in terms of legislation – critical years of 1938 and 1974. With Foucault's genealogical method, Butler's theories of gender as a social construction in relation to power and doxa, the study examines what the development of the argumentation says about the views on morality, the woman's body, life, individual and state? How has the arguments pro and against abortion changed over time and what does this say about the norms that guide and orientate the arguments? The most obvious change in argumentation is seen in the shift from an absolute moral and conservative position into an increasingly relativistic and liberal position, and this study will argue that this shift has its prerequisites in the changing status of the citizen and state. Yet, despite these developments, a moral ambivalence can be discerned in the arguments advanced in favour of the right to abortion. The question of what life is grievable and when this occurs is constantly negotiated. This constant negotiation is modulated and modified by different discourses. As this study shows, the absolutistic and the relativistic discourse gives rise to radically different positions. But while the relativistic discourse once radicalized the discussion on abortion, mainly because it served to relativize an absolutist position, it serves radically other purposes today. The subjectivist stance could even be seen to threaten individual’s right to self-determination over their own bodies.

Zugl.: Halle (Saale), Univ., Diss., 2006

Univ., Diss--Tübingen, 2007.

Univ., Diss.--München, 1994.

Zugl.: Halle (Saale), Univ., Diss., 2006

Zugl.: München, Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2007

Thèses (M.A.)--Université de Sherbrooke (Canada), 2003. / Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 20 juin 2006). Publié aussi en version papier.

Diss.--Philosophische Fakultät I--Universität Zürich, 1993/1994. / Bibliogr. p. 170-175.

Texte remanié de: Th. doct.--Liège. / Contient le texte latin des 4 versions des "Sophismata asinina" de Guillaume Heytesbury. Bibliogr. p. 635-640.