Partindo de acontecimentos recentes que evidenciam o aparecimento do tema da felicidade em pronunciamentos governamentais, em eventos de organizações internacionais, na assinatura de declarações, entre outros, esta pesquisa procura rastrear atuações que teriam contribuído para essa ascensão política da temática referida. Realizando uma reconstituição histórica relativa à produção de pesquisas sobre bem-estar subjetivo, constatou-se o papel decisivo exercido pela Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico (OCDE) no sentido de promover maneiras de conceber e mensurar o progresso que vão além da consideração do PIB (Produto Interno Bruto). Examinando os Fóruns Mundiais realizados pela OCDE nos últimos anos, foi possível identificar ocasiões decisivas para de incentivo à utilização de dados de pesquisas sobre bem-estar subjetivo por parte dos governos. A partir da perspectiva oferecida pela literatura sobre comunidades epistêmicas, a presente dissertação traz elementos para a compreensão da valorização do discurso científico no cenário político contemporâneo. / Considering the recent emergence of the theme of happiness, highlighted in governmental discourse, in congresses organized by international organizations, or in recently signed statements, among similar events, this research tries to track the actions that may have contributed to the political rise of the subject mentioned. Undertaking a historical reconstitution of the production of research on subjective well-being, we found that the decisive role was played by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), who tried to promote alternative ways of conceiving and measuring progress beyond the sole consideration of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). By analyzing the Global Forums organized by the OECD in recent years, it was possible to identify crucial occasions on which the use of research data on subjective well-being by governments was enhanced. From the perspective offered by the literature about epistemic communities, this thesis brings elements which help understanding the value of scientific discourse in the contemporary political scenario.

Esta tese apresenta uma reflexão acerca dos conhecimentos sobre a fauna e a flora do Novo Mundo produzidos pelas instituições vinculadas à Coroa espanhola entre os anos de 1570 e 1620. Para tanto, optou-se pela análise das crônicas oficiais e dos documentos expedidos pelo Consejo de Indias que demandavam informações sobre o mundo natural americano. As configurações e as funções que assumiam os saberes sobre os animais e as plantas nas estruturas burocráticas e no espaço discursivo das crônicas oficiais são elementos analisados ao longo dos quatro capítulos que compõem a tese. No primeiro apartado, além de discussões teóricas e historiográficas sobre as relações entre império, conhecimento e ciência, foram examinadas algumas das cédulas e instruções enviadas pelo Consejo de Indias a diferentes partes do continente no período anterior a 1570. O segundo capítulo foi dedicado à análise da reforma empreendida por Juan de Ovando no Consejo de Indias, sobretudo, em relação às leis e demandas relativas à coleta de dados e construção de conhecimentos sobre o continente americano, também foram discutidos aspectos relacionados à criação do cargo de cosmógrafo o cronista maior das Índias. O terceiro capítulo está dedicado ao exame das obras do primeiro cosmógrafo e cronista maior das Índias, Juan López de Velasco. O último capítulo está centrado no estudo dos dois cronistas oficiais das Índias que atuaram durante o reinado de Felipe III: Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas e Pedro de Valencia. Com a análise desse conjunto documental, pretendemos evidenciar a configuração de uma cultura epistêmica no seio das instituições oficiais, a qual estava em diálogo com tradições letradas e científicas do período, bem como com os anseios de constituição de uma ideia de império para a Monarquia Hispânica. / This thesis presents a reflection about the knowledge of the New Worlds fauna and flora, generated by the institutions linked to the Spanish Crown between the years of 1570 and 1620. For this, it was opted for the analysis of the official chronicles and documents issued by Consejo de Indias that demanded information about the American natural world. The configurations and the functions that took on the knowledge about animals and plants in the bureaucratic structures and in the discursive space of the official chronicles are analyzed elements during the four chapters that compound the thesis. In the first part, beyond the theoretical and historiographical discussions about the relationships among the empire, knowledge and science, were examined some of the documents and instructions sent by Consejo de Indias to different parts of the continent in the period before 1570. The second chapter was dedicated to the analysis of the reform made by Juan de Ovando in Consejo de Indias, mainly with regard to laws and demands linked to data gathering and knowledge building about the American continent and also were discussed aspects related to the creation of the cosmographer-chronicler major of Indies position. The third chapter is dedicated to the examination of the first cosmographer-chronicler major of Indies Juan Lopez de Velascos work. The last chapter is focused on the analysis of two Indies official chroniclers that acted during Felipe IIIs reign: Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas and Pedro de Valencia. With the analysis of this documentation, it is intended to emphasize the configuration of an epistemic culture within the official institutions, culture related to literate and scientific traditions of that period as well as to the desire to establish an idea of empire for the Hispanic monarchy.

FundaÃÃo de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Cearà / Este trabalho tem como objetivo principal analisar as manifestaÃÃes evidenciais e modais epistÃmicas e sua relaÃÃo com o grau de comprometimento do autor de artigos cientÃficos com o conteÃdo asseverado. Para a descriÃÃo e anÃlise dos dados, adotamos a perspectiva funcionalista da linguagem. Nesta, a lÃngua nÃo à entendida como um objeto autÃnomo, mas como um sistema que sofre pressÃes da situaÃÃo comunicativa. Dessa forma, a investigaÃÃo realizada parte das expressÃes em uso, buscando entender o funcionamento da lÃngua, pois à no uso que as expressÃes adquirem sentido. O corpus desta pesquisa à constituÃdo por nove artigos cientÃficos retirados de anais de encontros ocorridos na Ãrea de LinguÃstica, no perÃodo de 2008 e 2009. Optamos pela anÃlise da evidencialidade e da modalidade epistÃmica como domÃnios funcionais marcadores do nÃvel comprometimento do autor em artigos cientÃficos por pressupormos que, em tal gÃnero, poderemos encontrar vÃrias marcas dessas categorias utilizadas como estratÃgias de distanciamento, jà que o autor desse tipo de texto busca maior objetividade, conforme prescriÃÃo dos manuais de metodologia cientÃfica, distanciando-se do conteÃdo para garantir cientificidade ao seu trabalho. Coletamos 410 ocorrÃncias que foram analisadas quanto aos aspectos sintÃticos (meios de expressÃo e posiÃÃo da marca evidencial no enunciado), semÃnticos (tipo de domÃnio e tipo de fonte da manifestaÃÃo evidencial) e pragmÃticos (grau de envolvimento do autor de artigos cientÃficos com o conteÃdo enunciado e presenÃa de marcas explÃcitas de adesÃo). Os resultados obtidos comprovaram que a evidencialidade e a modalidade epistÃmica sÃo utilizadas em textos cientÃficos para promover um efeito de mÃdio comprometimento. Essa constataÃÃo revela que, o discurso cientÃfico à marcado pelo uso de expressÃes que âmascaramâ a subjetividade do autor e evidenciam um comprometimento parcial dele com a verdade enunciada. Quanto aos meios de expressÃo utilizados, verificamos a preferÃncia dos autores de artigos cientÃficos pelo uso de manifestaÃÃes evidenciais e modais epistÃmicas expressas atravÃs de itens verbais. No gÃnero analisado, constatamos maior recorrÃncia de evidencialidade reportada de fonte definida, com marca intercalada entre a fonte da informaÃÃo e o conteÃdo comunicado. / This study aims at analyzing evidentiality and epistemic modality and their relationship with the level of engagement of a scientific article writer and the stated content. To the description and analysis of the data it is used the functional perspective on language, in which the language is not understood as an independent object, but as a system under the pressure of communicative situations. Thus, this investigation focuses on the expressions in use, trying to understand the functioning of the language, since it is through the use that the expressions acquire meaning. In order to make this research possible the corpus used is constituted by 9 scientific articles taken from Linguistics annals published within the years of 2008 and 2009. We have chosen the analysis of evidentiality and epistemic modality as functional domains which mark the level of engagement of a scientific article writer since we have as a presupposition that in such case, we may find several registers of these categories used as detachment strategies, considering that the author of this type of writing leads towards objectiveness as stipulated by manuals of scientific methodology, getting detached from the content to preserve the work scientific style. 410 occurrences have been collected and analyzed concerning synthetic (means of expressions and position of evidential marks in the statement), semantic (type of domain and source of the evidential manifestation), and pragmatic (level of commitment of a scientific article writer with the stated content, and the presence of explicit marks of adhesion) aspects. The results proved that evidentiality and epistemic modality are used in scientific texts to promote an effect of medium engagement, revealing that the scientific discourse is marked by the use of expressions that mask the authorâs subjectivity and highlight their partial engagement with the established truth. Concerning the means of expressions used, we observed that scientific article writers prefer the use of evidential and epistemic modal manifestations expressed through verbal items. Regarding the analyzed genre, it has been found more occurrences related to the reported evidentiality from a definite source, with interspersed marks between the source of information and the established content.

Dentro do domínio teórico da Semiótica da Escola de Paris, o crer e o saber são concebidos como modalidades que se articulam em um único e mesmo universo cognitivo e que encontram distinção pelo modo de relacionamento e valorização que estabelecem com o objeto cognitivo. Inicialmente abordadas sob uma perspectiva eminentemente categorial, como a de Greimas (1983), que descreve o ato epistêmico por meio de termos alocados nas categorias previstas no quadrado semiótico e de operações juntivas, elas passam posteriormente por certa reformulação teórica, notadamente a feita por Zilberberg (1988), que privilegia os aspectos tensivos aderidos aos termos. Com base, de forma central, nessas noções, este trabalho tem como objetivo investigar as oscilações tensivas associadas às operações cognitivas do sujeito, o funcionamento, a distinção, a hierarquização e o intercruzamento do saber e do crer no interior do fazer interpretativo humano, a incidência do crer no âmbito da produção de conhecimento e as condições de verdade na ciência enquanto prática discursiva. Para tanto, procuramos fomentar uma discussão teórica acerca desse tema, reunindo, além dos textos paradigmáticos de Greimas e Zilberberg, formulações de outros semioticistas que também se debruçaram sobre a questão do crer e do saber, como Fontanille (1982) e (1987), Pottier (1983), Landowski (1983), Coquet (1983) e Geninasca (1983). A fim de ensejar tais reflexões, empreendemos a análise, munidos dos procedimentos metodológicos e das ferramentas de investigação textual providas pelos autores supracitados, de três objetos que põem em jogo as modalidades crer e saber, exploram-nas tematicamente e extraem alguns efeitos de sentido de sua oposição, sobreposição, exacerbação, atenuação e falta: o conto Funes, o memorioso (1944), de Jorge Luis Borges, o longa-metragem Doubt (2008), de John Patrick Shanley, e um breve poema recitado por Antonio Abujamra no programa televisivo Provocações. Ao realizarmos este estudo, buscamos ainda fazer face à previsão de Greimas e Courtés, encontrada em seu Dicionário de Semiótica (1979), que aponta o crer, por sua centralidade no fenômeno humano de produção discursiva, como tema pertinente para a pesquisa semiótica dos anos a virem. / In the framework of French Semiotics, knowing and believing are conceived as articulated modalities at the same and unique cognitive universe and that can be discriminated by the type of relationship and valuation they establish with the cognitive object. Initially treated by a categorical perspective, as Greimass (1983), who describes the epistemic act by means of the semiotic square terms and junctive operations, they suffer a theoretical reformulation by Zilberberg, who privileges tensive aspects associated to the terms. Based on these notions, this study aims to investigate tensive oscillations linked to subject cognitive operations, understand in each way knowing and believing operate and cross each other in the cognitive dimension, and also how they can be discriminated and placed on hierarchy. We also intend to discuss how believing takes part in sciences and the conditions of truth in science as a discursive practice. Keeping this in mind, we promote a theoretical debate about these modalities, resorting to, besides Greimas and Zilberberg, authors that also thought and wrote about knowing and believing, as Fontanille (1982) e (1987), Pottier (1983), Landowski (1983), Coquet (1983) e Geninasca (1983). In order to give rise to those reflections, and based on the methodological procedures and approach text tolls provided by the aforementioned authors, we undertake the analysis of three objects that thematically explore the modalities knowing and believing and extract some sense effects from their opposition, overlap, exacerbation, attenuation and lack: the short story Funes the memorious (1944), by Jorge Luis Borges, the movie Doubt (2008), by John Patrick Shanley, and a brief poem recited by Antonio Abujamra at a television show named Provocações. By the fulfillment of this study, we also aim to tackle Greimas and Courtés prediction, at their Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage (1979), that points out the concept of believing, for its centrality at the human phenomenon of discursive production, as a relevant theme for the semiotics research of the years to come.

Este trabalho discute a denotação dos sintagmas indefinidos contendo \'um\' e \'algum\' na posição pré-nominal no português do Brasil e argumenta em favor de uma distinção entre ambos. O objetivo é delimitar as propriedades semânticas desses dois indefinidos e as contribuições de cada um para as sentenças em que aparecem. Tendo como ponto de partida os trabalhos de Kratzer & Shimoyama (2002) para o indefinido \'irgendein\' do alemão, Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito (2003) para o \'algún\' do espanhol e para o \'some\' do inglês e Pires de Oliveira (2005) para o indefinido \'qualquer\', esta dissertação defende que \'algum\' é um indefinido que marca a falta de conhecimento do falante em relação ao referente, ao passo que \'um\' pode ser usado para referir-se a um indivíduo específico e não apresenta tal efeito. Por meio da análise da intuição dos falantes do PB e da análise dos dados a partir das propostas dos autores citados acima, foi possível constatar que \'um NP\', quanto ao comportamento quantificacional, (i) apresenta variabilidade de força quantificacional; (ii) pode ser antecedente de pronome anafórico; (iii) não tem seu escopo restringido por sentenças-se, (iv) pode combinar-se com sentenças relativas não-restritivas. Não é um indefinido epistêmico e devido a isso (i) pode ser lido como fazendo referência a um indivíduo em especial; (ii) não induz a alargamento de domínio; (iii) não está associado à livre escolha dentro de um conjunto de alternativas e (iv) não induz a um efeito epistêmico. Por sua vez, \'algum NP\' quanto ao comportamento quantificacional, (i) não apresenta variabilidade de força quantificacional; (ii) pode ser antecedente de pronome anafórico; (iii) tem seu escopo restringido por sentenças-se, (iv) não pode combinar-se com sentenças relativas não-restritivas. \'Algum NP\' é um indefinido epistêmico e devido a isso (i) não pode ser lido como fazendo referência a um indivíduo em especial; (ii) induz a alargamento de domínio; (iii) está associado à livre escolha dentro de um conjunto de alternativas e (iv) induz a um efeito epistêmico. A análise proposta nesse trabalho é feita sob a perspectiva teórica da Semântica Formal e é relevante na medida em que contribui para uma tipologia translingüística. / This work studies the denotation of indefinite phrases with \'um\' and \'algum\' in the pre-verbal position in Brazilian Portuguese and it argues in favor of a distinction between them. The goal of this dissertation is to discuss the properties that distinguish these two indefinites and the semantic contributions they provide to sentences where they appear. The works of Kratzer and Shimoyama (2002), Alonso-Ovalle and Menéndez-Benito (2003) and Pires de Oliveira (2005) are the background to the analysis proposed here. This dissertation argues that \'algum\' is an epistemic indefinite that marks speakers\' lack of knowledge about who (or what) satisfies her existential claims. However \'um\' does not induce to this epistemic effect and can be appropriate when the speaker intends to refer to a specific individual. The analysis of the speaker\'s intuition and the analysis of data (departing of works of the mentioned authors) permitted to conclud, in the respect to quantification: \'um NP\' (i) presents variability of quantificational force; (ii) it can be antecedent of an anaphoric pronoun; (iii) it does not have its scope constrained by if-sentences; (iv) it can be combined with nonrestrictive clauses. \'Um NP\' is not an epistemic indefinite and, due to this, (i) it can be read as an \"referential\"; (ii) it does not induce to the domain widening; (iii) it is not associated with free choice effect; (iv) it does not induce an epistemic indefinite. On the other hand, \'algum NP\' (i) presents variability of quantificational force; (ii) it can not be antecedent of an anaphoric pronoun; (iii) it has its scope constrained by ifsentences; (iv) it can not be combined with non-restrictive clauses. \'Algum NP\' is an epistemic indefinite and, due to this, (i) it can be read as an \"referential\"; (ii) it induces to the domain widening; (iii) it is associated with free choice effect; (iv) it induces an epistemic indefinite.The proposals of this work are made under the theoretical point of view of Formal Semantics and are relevant because they contribute to studies concerned with a general theory of indefinites.

Cette étude vise à fournir une description détaillée de l’évidentialité en anglais dans une approche contrastive avec le tibétain. Elle repose sur un corpus spécialement recueilli au Tibet et en Angleterre (TSC et CSC/LAC, 2010-2012, 10 h.). Le tibétain possède un système évidentiel complexe et grammaticalisé dont la description peut fournir une grille d’analyse préliminaire pour notre étude de l’évidentialité en anglais. Des exemples authentiques et des données quantitatives issus du corpus nous permettent d’illustrer et de compléter les descriptions du groupe verbal tibétain dans plusieurs travaux pionniers antérieurs à la présente recherche (Tournadre & Sangda Dorje 1998) afin de poser les bases de la sémantique évidentielle. Les marqueurs évidentiels qui émergent dans les parties tibétaine et anglaise du corpus sont examinés afin de déterminer les paramètres qui motivent leur utilisation. Les marqueurs tibétains sont principalement grammaticaux et intégrés à des paradigmes syntaxiques : copules, suffixes verbaux et enclitiques. Les marqueurs évidentiels anglais sont lexicaux ou semi-grammaticaux : verbes de perception, verbes de cognition, verbes de discours, modaux, adverbes, conjoints, parenthétiques et marqueurs de discours (Nuyts 2001a, Cappelli 2007, Sanders & Sweetser 2009, Mortensen 2010, Whitt 2010, Gisborne 2010, Miller 2008, Boulonnais 2010, Gurajek 2010, Kaltenböck et coll. 2011, Heine 2013). Cette description de l’évidentialité en tibétain et en anglais nous permet d’analyser les conséquences d’un rendu grammatical ou lexical de cette notion (Talmy 2000, Bybee et coll. 1994, Nuyts 2001a, Boye & Harder 2009). Des analyses quantitatives et qualitatives du corpus contrastif et sur large corpus illustrent les différences de complexité, d'optionalité, de fréquence, de restriction sémantique, de prise en charge, de statut informatif, et de stratégie de discours dans les deux systèmes.Enfin, nous réévaluons la dichotomie, souvent considérée comme acquise, entre évidentialité grammaticale et lexicale (Aikhenvald 2004). Nous avançons que les marqueurs évidentiels des deux langues se positionnent à différents endroits sur un continuum multidimensionnel lexique-grammaire. Cette étude ne remet pas en question que le système évidentiel tibétain est plus grammaticalisé que le système anglais, mais démontre que ce dernier présente tous les signes d’une grammaticalisation partielle. Nous concluons ainsi que l’évidentialité est une notion pertinente et nécessaire pour une description linguistique complète de l’anglais. / This study aims to give a detailed description of evidentiality in English in contrast with Tibetan. It is based on a specialised corpus collected in Tibet and in England (TSC and CSC/LAC, 2010-2012, 10 h.).Tibetan has a complex and grammaticalised evidential system, and its description can provide a preliminary analytical grid for a semantic assessment of English evidentiality. Athentic examples and quantitative data from the corpus illustrate and supplement the analyses of the Tibetan verb phrase from previous research (Tournadre & Sangda Dorje 1998), in order to lay the foundation of the semantics of evidentiality. The evidential markers that emerge in the Tibetan and English sections of the corpus are examined so as to determine the parameters that motivate their usage. Tibetan evidentials are mainly grammatical and paradigmatised: copulas, verb suffixes and enclitics. English evidentials are either lexical or semi-grammatical: perception verbs, cognition verbs, speech verbs, modals, adverbs, conjuncts, parentheticals and discourse markers (Nuyts 2001a, Cappelli 2007, Sanders & Sweetser 2009, Mortensen 2010, Whitt 2010, Gisborne 2010, Miller 2008, Boulonnais 2010, Gurajek 2010, Kaltenböck et al. 2011, Heine 2013).This survey of Tibetan and English evidentiality provides precise data for the analysis of the consequences of a grammatical or a lexical rendering of this notion (Talmy 2000, Bybee et al. 1994, Nuyts 2001a, Boye & Harder 2009). Qualitative and quantitative evidence illustrates the differences in complexity, optionality, frequency, semantic restriction, speaker commitment, informative status and discourse strategy in the two systems. Finally, this study reassesses the assumed dichotomy between grammatical and lexical evidentiality (Aikhenvald 2004), arguing that evidentials in both Tibetan and English inhabit a lexicon-grammar multidimensional continuum, merely in different positions. This study does not question that the Tibetan evidential system is more grammaticalised than the English one, but it shows that the latter presents all the signs of partial grammaticalisation. This reassessment leads to the conclusion that evidentiality is a relevant and necessary notion for a thorough linguistic description of English.

Self-concept is strongly influenced by beliefs about one’s personal psychological attributes, and these beliefs are held with varying degrees of confidence and consequence. Hence, it is investment in self-views of those attributes that helps to regulate and maintain stable self-concept. Self-view investment is relevant to numerous self-related functions, but high self-view investment can also contribute to maladaptive self-views. Theory suggests that mindfulness cultivates a less personal, more objective perception of one’s thoughts, emotions and behaviors, and training in mindfulness has been shown to alter self-referential processing. The current pilot study (N=21) investigates the possible role of dispositional mindfulness in two forms of self-view investment, epistemic certainty and emotive importance, as indicated by self-reported and neural (functional magnetic resonance imaging-based) indicators of investment. Results indicated that dispositional mindfulness was positively associated with self-reported epistemic certainty but not emotive importance. Trait mindfulness was associated with activity in the amygdala and parahippocampal gyrus during judgements of both epistemic certainty and emotive importance. Caudate activity was positively associated with trait mindfulness specifically for judgements of emotive importance.

In 2012, National Research Council published a new science education framework that explains the science practices and its importance in understanding the process of knowledge development. The students were expected to engage in all the practices by grade 12. All science teachers need some kind of support to improve their understandings of these science practices (NRC, 2012). An important key component of engaging teachers in scientific investigations is to have the teacher participate in a research laboratory experience (NRC, 1996). Research Experiences for Teachers programs (RET) serve as a promising form of professional development to achieve this goal. These programs allow teachers to experience scientific inquiry. The context of the study was a Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program supported by National Science Foundation It was located in an United States university Environmental Engineering program. There were five preservice and ten inservice teachers in this research. In addition, there were six professors and eight graduate students who served as mentors. Each teacher worked with a specific professor and graduate student mentor in their research projects that are related to the management of the nitrogen cycle, provision of clean water, or urban infrastructure improvement. Also, four professors from engineering and science programs were interviewed to find out what each science practice means to them. The research design of this study was mixed methods that combined quantitative and qualitative research approaches into a single study. In this study, two teachers were selected for the case study based on their experiences and improvements. The study utilized different data sources such as surveys, interviews, observations, and documents. Each research question was addressed based on the results of overall analysis of all the teachers, as well as the results of each case. To find out whether there was a statistically significant difference between the pre-, mid-, and post teacher surveys, repeated measures ANOVA was used for each item. In addition, for the items that showed a statistical difference a Tukey test was conducted to find -which surveys -were significantly different from each other. Also, partial eta squared effect size was calculated for each item. Professor and graduate students' surveys were analyzed by a repeated measures ANOVA and Tukey tests. All interviews were transcribed by the researcher. The data from the interviews were coded and analyzed using a qualitative analysis software. In order to analyze the data in the observations, coding of the qualitative data procedure was employed. The teachers' poster presentations were evaluated by using the researcher-created rubric that has the criteria for each expected part of the poster presentation. The findings of this research suggest that teachers have naive understandings of science practices before they participate in an RET program because they do not have opportunities to learn what those practices mean. The findings also suggest that the teachers still have naive understandings after they participate in an RET program. This is a very important contribution to the literature, in that it is difficult for the teachers to teach those practices in their classrooms if they do not have complete and appropriate understandings of what those practices actually mean. The findings also indicated that teachers' participation in the RET program helped them to improve their abilities to engage in science practices but they need more experience, knowledge, and abilities to engage in the specific practices where they had least improvements. The analysis also indicated that the teachers who actively engaged in the science practices, had productive discussions with the graduate student mentors and participated the quick lessons they gave, read the literature for their research, used new techniques and methods, and participated in the research group meetings improved more on the abilities of engaging in science practices compared to the teachers who did not have the opportunity to participate in the practices because of the structure of their projects, had low interest, and received most of the information directly from the graduate students.

In recent years, sentimentalist care ethics has been developed and defended as a normative ethical theory alongside and in opposition to Kantian liberalism. Carol Gilligan introduced the idea of a woman’s moral perspective that emphasizes maintaining relationships and responding to need, and saw it as a different way of framing moral issues. Care ethics is no longer associated only with women, and it is presented as a theory for both men and women that has its own distinctive accounts of ethical notions like justice and autonomy. These accounts have developed from analyses of injustice towards women and uncaring attitudes that they face in patriarchal societies, but ironically, care ethics has failed to discuss women’s anger at their own mistreatment, and their inability to deal with that anger. This notable lacuna in the care ethics literature is of philosophical importance because analyzing the phenomenon of women’s anger uncovers epistemic issues that have not been addressed. I discuss these epistemic issues in order to strengthen care ethics from within and extend it into other areas of ethics. My goal is to make care ethics a real contender among normative ethical theories and a truly feminist ethic.

Public library services are evolving in response to the changing informational needs and behaviours of the citizens of the knowledge society. Reference statistics are declining and the move to self-service, virtual reference and an increasing use of mediating information and communication technologies calls into question the ongoing role of human, face-to-face information interaction at the public library’s front-line reference “desk”. An ethnographic case study of face-to-face adult reference service was conducted in a large Canadian urban public library. Over 8 months during 2006, a pilot study was conducted, followed by 170 hours of observations at the reference desks in three branch libraries of varying sizes and semi-structured interviews with front-line reference staff, library managers and reference service clients. 480 reference interactions were documented and policy documents were reviewed. An inductive staged process of analytical abstraction, a narrative approach to the interpretations and a critical reflexivity as participant researcher were employed. The main contribution of this study is the articulation of a practice framework for understanding and studying the reference service within the public library as organization. Sharing knowledge, finding meaning and learning are the outcomes of this epistemic practice. A typology of four reference encounters characterized in three dimensions of interpersonal communication; information exchange and mode of practice is detailed. This study challenges previous interpretations of reference services as a transactional, unitized question-answer activity and depicts it in a larger context as an interactional, relational set of activities that altogether characterize an epistemic practice. The three dimensions of structure (library organization), agency (reference staff and clients) and objects (library collections) anchor this conceptual framework – they are interdependent dimensions interacting to illuminate a robust understanding of face-to-face reference service. This study responds to previous research in which the reference process is studied separately from its social practice and its structural-organizational contexts.