Thesis (M.S.)--Miami University, Dept. of Family Studies and Social Work, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 26-27).

Across North America concerns have been raised about the social, emotional, and mental health of our youth. Many primary prevention programs have been proposed to address these issues, however, few have met the criteria for effective interventions, including being longitudinal, cross-curricular, emphasizing specific concepts and skills, and being within the skills and understandings of teachers and the school system at large (McCombs, 2004). The Respecting Diversity (RD) program is a social and emotional learning (SEL) intervention designed by teachers that uses a Multiple Intelligences (MI) framework to develop self-awareness, self-respect and respect for diverse others. It teaches skills such as goal setting, meta-cognition, and perspective taking that underlie SEL. The program is designed to develop, a safe, positive classroom climate to begin the school year, and facilitate social and academic learning. The study herein was intended to explore emotional and behavioral outcomes of the RD program. The study involved 218 intermediate (grades 4-7) students and their teachers, divided into intervention and control groups. Students were assessed pre and post intervention for the development of self-awareness, self-respect, awareness of others, and respect for others. Measures of classroom climate were also included. Students completed several measures of SEL, and a selected sample were interviewed to obtain detailed information about their experiences in inclusive diverse classrooms, and with the RD program itself. Data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods, including thematic content analysis procedures and repeated measures MANCOVA’s. Both students and teachers indicated that the RD program significantly increased students’ self-respect, awareness of others, and respect for others, while students in control classrooms decreased in these factors. Classroom climate also significantly improved for treatment classrooms, and, similarly, decreased in control classrooms. Results are discussed in terms of their educational implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines Robert Nozick’s critique of John Rawls’s theory of justice, focusing on the Chamberlain Argument as a challenging example in their debate. The Chamberlain Argument illustrates the tension between Rawls’s theory, which aims to distribute resources according to a certain pattern for social benefit, and its implications on individual freedom. Nozick argues that such patterned theories infringe upon individual liberty by coercively redistributing resources. Through analysis of patterned theory, it becomes evident, Nozick claims, that such frameworks prioritize specific distributions over individual liberty. I find that Nozick made a valid point in his objection to Rawls. However, I consider that the problem of patterned theories represented by Nozick in his critique of Rawls, is rooted in the first principle, not in the second. I assert that there is much more literature on Rawls’s second principle, but much less on his first principle. To address Nozick’s critique, this thesis proposes a modification to Rawls’s first principle, emphasizing self-respect as a foundational value. By reconceptualizing liberty within the Rawlsian framework, this thesis aims to fortify it against objections like the Chamberlain Argument, ultimately enhancing its coherence and theoretical robustness. For this reason, the research question is as follows: How can the Rawlsian theory overcome the Chamberlain argument? The one thesis I will pursue is that Rawls’s two principles can be immune to Nozick’s Chamberlain Argument, when the first principle is modified according to the priority of rights over liberty. To do so, the goal is to defend a Rawlsian pattern theory of justice. Firstly, I show that the first principle should be grounded on the priority of the rights instead of the good of the person. By reconceptualizing the concept of self-respect, I show that Rawls’s first principle is mainly focused on a negative concept of liberty, which I modify to a positive concept through what I call reciprocal self-respect. Secondly, I formulate responses to Nozick’s Chamberlain Argument and argue that social justice requires a holistic view of the society, not only as individuals, but also as collective and common. This view emphasizes the interdependency of individuals in a society, which presupposes duties of reciprocal self-respect, chosen rationally in the original position behind the veil of ignorance. Thus, Chamberlain would never have been able to make profits and succeed without society, infrastructure, opportunities and hotbed for success and self-determination.

The diploma thesis (D)evaluation at School deals with the phenomenon of evaluation in the school environment in a broader sense. It focuses in particular on the psychosocial context of evaluation processes. It is a qualitative study focusing on diffrent forms of assessment by teaching staff and their influence on the behaviour of pupils. The study is based on data collected at several school institutions and is mainly based on hundreds of hours of observation and dozens of interviews. Most of the evaluation methods described in the thesis are part of the so- called hidden curriculum of the school and are often not reflected by the teaching staff. These are in particular different types of assessments from position of power, which can negatively affect the class climate and also have a potentially destructive effect on the development of pupils' personality. The thesis is devoted, of course, to more appropriate, respectful methods of evaluation. But it also points to the fact that even such assessments are no guarantee that pupils' behaviour will be disciplined and cooperative. The thesis discusses various modes of pupil responses to power and respectful evaluations by teaching staff, depending on the type of tune-up class as a social group. The main aim of the thesis is to highlight the gap between theory...

This essay focus on the normative debate between cosmopolitanism and statism in the context of global distributive justice. The notion of basic structure and negative rights examines separately in two questions to understand distributive justice as a global subject rather than only national. Statists as Rawls holds the position that global distributive justice prerequisite a basic structure with coercive instrument. Pogge as cosmopolitan arguments for the existence of global basic structure, by addressing inequalities in real-world politics, in the form of negative rights violation. The aim of this study is to justify global distributive justice on cosmopolitan duties, based on normative political theory, reflective equilibrium, and conceptual analysis. The main issue is formulated into two questions in the following: • Does reciprocity constitute a global basic structure that presupposes resource distribution? • Can self-respect as foundation of rights justify global distributive justice? I do this first by analyzing the concept of basic structure, based on the notion reciprocity. This is to identify the basic structure of the global system that prerequisite global distributive justice. Second, I analyze Pogge’s formulation of negative rights as cosmopolitan rights, to modify them to a positive concept of rights. This is in purpose to avoid the libertarian counterargument presented by Narveson, that negative rights fail as a ground of cosmopolitan duties. I show first that coercion is not a necessary condition, but only sufficient for the basic structure. Thus, the global basic structure exists and prerequisite distributive justice, based on reciprocity. Unlike the national basic structure of coercive instrument, the global basic structure grounds on several global threats and challenges that tie all nations as alternative concept of coercion. Second, I show that cosmopolitan duties can be grounded on positive rights. I do this through the notion of self-respect and deontological ethics, which success to avoid the libertarian critique of cosmopolitan duties.