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Since work by Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and Paul Ricoeur, there has been sustained interest among philosophers in the view that narrative plays an essential role in how we understand our lives and selves or--more radically--in how we constitute ourselves as full persons. At one extreme, MacIntyre and Taylor argue that our desires and commitments are hierarchically organized, in the best case unifying our lives into narrative quests. At the other extreme, Galen Strawson has attacked narrativity as far from universal, as well as spurious when taken as an ideal. Thinkers such as Marya Schechtman, Peter Goldie, Daniel Dennett, and David Velleman defend conceptions between these extremes. After examining this background in detail, my dissertation offers an interpretation of Heidegger that supports a revised conception of narrative's role in self-understanding. Whereas existing theories are driven by master metaphors of the self as author, the self as a character, or of lives as stories, I argue that the relationship between the self and narrative is better understood through a notion of reading. Heidegger scholars disagree as to whether the notions of authenticity and historicality put forward in Being and Time support a narrative conception of the self. In my view, Heideggerian "everydayness"--how we are, prior to any reckoning with authenticity--amounts already to a version of the narrative self. Just as readers mid-story understand characters by projecting where they are going, we understand who we are by projecting provisional plotlines for our futures. Such understanding is made explicit in textual narratives, which preserve the structure of lived experience better than any other form of description. Literary narratives, especially certain kinds of experimental rather than "realist" ones, most accurately represent the structure of existential possibilities. Heidegger's notion of truth as disclosing provides a frame which makes the anti-naturalist implications of narrativity more coherent. By bracketing Heidegger's controversial notion of authenticity, conversation with recent work in Anglo-American philosophy on narrative and the self is facilitated. My revised conception of the narrative self establishes a basis for further work on how we use narrative to understand and organize our lives.

This study investigates ethical argumentation in Perelman and Gadamer to claim that the central theoretical framework in each philosophy simultaneously inflects and deflects available avenues of persuasion. I argue in each system there is a “confused notion” whose ambiguity underpins the available methods of rhetorical argument. For Perelman, the confused notion of the universal audience and its relationship to epideictic rhetoric determines the form of ethical persuasion that requires consensus in order to incite action for justice. For Gadamer, the confused notion of Vorurteil (prejudice, or fore- judgment) is used to critique tradition, Enlightenment reason, and historical hermeneutics. This mode of ethical argument suggests that open dialogue with an other is the best means for addressing prejudice in order to reach mutual understanding. I argue that by placing these two approaches to ethical argument into critical dialogue, their respective capacities, limitations, and distinctive rhetorical outcomes can be more clearly apprehended. / 10000-01-01

The purposes of this study were (a) to examine Zambian Junior high school pre-service science teachers' familiarity with, interest in learning more about electrochemistry, and their conceptual understanding and performance on electrochemistry (b) to examine the pre-service science teachers' ability to identify misconceptions on electrochemistry and their pedagogical ideas on how to address the identified misconceptions in junior high school classrooms, and (c) to establish the extent to which pre-service science teachers' familiarity with, interest in, conceptual understanding of, performance on, and pedagogical ideas for, electrochemistry are related. The electrochemistry concepts examined in this study were categorized into basic and advanced concepts. A sample comprised 66 junior high school pre-service science teachers at Mufulira College of Education in Zambia. The study used a mixed methods research design, and data were collected using a questionnaire, performance test, and interviews. The first two instruments collected quantitative data which was analyzed using non-parametric tests - Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney tests. The third instrument collected qualitative data which was analyzed by identifying the emerging themes that formed categories. The pre-service science teachers reported high familiarity and interest in the electrochemistry concepts examined. There were statistically significant differences in familiarity with and interest in all concepts among all the groups. The year in college and level at which electrochemistry was learned showed statistically significant differences for both familiarity and interest. Results further showed low pre-service science teachers' conceptual understanding and performance on electrochemistry test. Between group comparisons on conceptual understanding and performance were statistically significant for year in college and levels at which electrochemistry was learned. The pre-service science teachers interviewed exhibited inability to identify misconceptions in most scenarios on basic electrochemistry concepts. Furthermore, teachers' suggested pedagogical ideas for addressing the misconceptions comprised both learner-centered and teacher-centered instructional practices. As such, the pre-service science teachers' self-reported knowledge of electrochemistry was not consistent with their actual knowledge. Correlational analysis of familiarity, interest, conceptual understanding and performance revealed statistically significant correlations between familiarity and conceptual understanding, r(64) = 0.56, p = 0.000 and between performance and conceptual understanding r(64) = 0.64, p = 0.000 only. These results have implications for teacher education and science teaching and learning.

abstract: A cornerstone of children’s socio-cognitive development is understanding that others can have knowledge, thoughts, and perceptions that differ from one’s own. Preschool-aged children often have difficulty with this kind of social understanding, i.e., they lack an explicit theory of mind. The goal of this dissertation was to examine the role mental state language as a developmental mechanism of children’s early understanding of their own mental states (i.e., their introspective ability). Specifically, it was hypothesized that (1) parents’ ability to recognize and appropriately label their children’s mental states and (2) children’s linguistic ability to distinguish between their mental states shapes the development of children’s introspective ability. An initial prediction of the first hypothesis is that parents should recognized differences in the development of children’s self- and other-understanding in order to better help their children’s introspective development. In support of this prediction, parents (N = 400, Mage = 58 months, Range = 28-93 months) reported that children’s understanding of their own knowledge was greater than children’s understanding of others’ knowledge. A prediction of the second hypothesis is that children’s linguistic ability to distinguish between and appropriately label their own mental states should determine their ability to make fined grained judgments of mental states like certainty. In support of this prediction, children’s (N = 197, Mage = 56 months, Range = 36-82 months) ability to distinguish between their own knowledge and ignorance states was associated children’s ability to engage in uncertainty monitoring. Together, these findings provide support for the association between children’s linguistic environment and ability and their introspective development. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2018

The principal contribution of the study is a conceptual account of classroom activities in school science, which incorporates both ethical and conventional science understandings within a single conceptual framework. In order to illustrate and explore the strengths and limitations of the conceptual framework developed, an exploratory case study involving 7 science classes was conducted at 2 schools. The 'classroom practices and understandings' conceptual framework presents a novel approach for understanding activities of students and teachers in the science classroom. According to this framework 'understanding' is a grasp of inferential connections as part of either practical or cognitive types of activity, whereas a 'practice' is a set of activities organized by understandings, rules and characteristic aims, emotions, and projects. On this basis the grounds for a given understanding are described in terms of a unifying structure for both ethical and science understandings. In both cases 'authority in understanding' refers to the specific sources of authority for a given understanding, which may include authoritative individuals in addition to more conventional grounds such as reasons or evidence. Finally, 'richness' of understanding refers to the quality of such connections to sources of authority in understanding, and is thus is a measure of the strength of understanding generally. Classroom lessons developed for the exploratory case study focused on ethical questions of sustainability. These were implemented in the science classroom at two research sites, with the researcher acting as guest teacher. One site focused on study of ecology in grade 11; the other site focused on study of genetics in grade 10. At both sites student interviews were conducted to supplement the findings of the classroom-teaching component. The findings support the integrity of the conceptual framework, while highlighting significant challenges for seeking to make explicit the sources of authority in science students' ethical understandings. Building from the conceptual framework and cases studies, a number of further directions for empirical and theoretical research are suggested. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Despite the vast research on the protracted conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state, recent battles in the South-East of Turkey have increased the anti-Kurdish attitudes and discourses in Turkish society. I argue that Kurdish marginalized individuals conflict understandings are silenced in the Turkish social and political landscape.This study examines how Kurdish social identities narrate their conflict understanding between Kurds and Turks. The aim is to get a deeper understanding of the Kurdish participant’s feelings, attitudes, experiences and perspectives in an intergroup environment. This study contributes to the knowledge of intergroup relations and tensions in the Turkish social setting and sheds light into out-group prejudice and discrimination in Turkey. The study uses a theoretical framework linking peace and conflict theories such as prejudice, discrimination, in-group and out-group, enemy images, cultural- structural and direct violence, intergroup contact theory and reconciliation. The dataset consists of sixteen semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in three different cities in Turkey; Ankara, Diyarbakir and Istanbul. The interview material was analyzed through a thematic analysis with a qualitative approach. The research found that the identifying characteristics of being a Kurd in today’s Turkey are to fight against injustice, oppression, assimilation and shared feelings of discrimination. Keywords: Kurdish perspectives, thematic analysis, Oral History, out-group, discrimination, enemy images, cultural violenceWords: 13944