Indoctrination

Abstract: In this paper, we report on an experiment on corruption which investigates various determinants of corruptibility. We found that economics students are significantly more corrupt than others, which is due to self-selection rather than indoctrination. Moreover, our results vary with gender — male students of economics are most corrupt, male non-economists the least. Also, agents are no less corrupt if rewarded in addition to, and independently of a possible bribe. Our experiment isolates the influence of self-interest on cooperation from other influences such as risk attitude and expectations regarding the behavior of others.

Abstract: Introduction Reginald D. Archambault. Philosophy and the Theory and Practice of Education L. Arnaud Reid. Common Confusions in Educational Theory Edward Best. What is an Educational Situation? Leslie R. Perry. Education as Initiation R. S. Peters. Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge Paul H. Hirst. Teaching Philosophy now J. P. Corbett. Two types of Teaching John Wilson. Instruction and Indoctrination R. F. Atkinson. A Deduction of Universities A.Phillips Griffiths.

Abstract: How do ordinary citizens, government officials, opinion leaders, or social scientists attempt to solve social problems? How competent are we at defining the problems, seeking information, and finding answers? In this important and controversial book, a distinguished social scientist meticulously analyzes our attempt to understand society so that we can reshape it. In so doing, he largely bypasses both epistemology and contemporary highly abstract theory on knowledge and society in order to acheive a far more concrete analysis of discourse and inquiry in social problem solving. There is a tragic discrepancy, argues Charles E. Lindblom, between our abilities to solve problems and the difficulty of the problems to be solved. We must make do with inadequate information and inconclusive analyses, for the task is less one of learning the truth than of proceeding in inquiry and decisions when the truth cannot be known. Lindblom discusses the many obstacles that prevent us from solving social problems, focusing in particular on learned incompetence. According to Lindblom, parents teach children not to think certain thoughts, and schools often engage more in indoctrination than education. Political rhetoric and commercial sales promotion feed a steady diet of misrepresentation. Social science does help. But because it is dependent on popular thought, it shares the impairments of thought found in both political figures and ordinary citizens. It also develops its own distinctive impairments and is to a degree crippled by its narrow view of scientific method--often more interested in proving than probing. Although social science can be improved in ways that Lindblom outlines in his book, social inquiry calls for such significant contributions from lay thought that it renders many conventional ideals of scientific problem solving inappropriate. Lindblom contends that the route to better social problem solving is not through either scientific or popular consensus or agreement, however much they are valued in the world of science and social science, but through a competition of ideas. The index of a society's competence, he states, is in its discord over ends, values, or purposes. "As usual, Lindblom cuts through to the core of the issue: How is society to understand its central problems and challenges? With originality and courage, he takes on the social scientists and the policy analysts, and presents an inspiring picture of a self-guiding democracy that continuously deliberates over means and ends. A signal contribution." --Robert B. Reich, Harvard University

Abstract: Governments use public education and public ownership of schools and the media to control the information that their citizens receive. More totalitarian governments as well as those with larger wealth transfers make greater investments in publicly controlled information. This finding is borne out from cross sectional time-series evidence across countries, and is confirmed when specifically examining the recent fall of communism. My results reject the standard public good's view linking education and democracy, and I find evidence that public educational expenditures vary in similar ways to government ownership of television stations.