Combining permanence and change: the strength of strong ideals

Filipa M. Ribeiro University of Porto

filipa.ribeiro@gmail.com

Virginiensis

4th International Conference on Science Matters 2013

Are ideals unfit in nowadays’ education?

If not, what is the place of ideals in higher

education?

Bringing back…IDEALS…

• Scientific research and teaching in HEIs should be primarily guided by ideals;

• Ideals are social facts and there are universal ideals that can be used as a ground basis for Science;

• These grounded ideals require the unification of knowledge created by natural & social sciences, humanities and arts;

• Ideals are the door to refute and enter into new paradigms.

Do we really want this type of products from Science…? Is google-profit science a priority?

What do we want from Science?

… Science at any price and no respect for nature…?

What do we want from Science?

Scientific hunt in Spain (September, 2013)

Methods Do scientists have ideals? Which ones?

• Data sample: 388 scientists around the globe;

• Random sampling method;

• 2009

Are ideals or values embedded in the knowledge networks of researchers?

• Interviews with academic staff members (n=30; 24 M and 6 F);

• At 4 universities and research

institutions in Catalonia; • Interviews took place between May

and August2013; • Selection of cases: Maximizing

variation in terms of academic positions; duration of tenure; academic disciplines; levels of departmental productivity.

Comparative synthesis among the different types of ideals

within the groups of natural and social sciences.

CURK: Colective utopia related to knowledge IUSJ: Individual utopias related to science as a job

IUK: Individual utopias related to knowledge IUSC: Individual utopias related to Science communication

NU: No utopias

Ideals in science

Phylo Psycho Sociol. Econo Journal. Educat. Polit. Demog. Hist. Geog.

CU

Knowledge

IU

Knowledge

IU

JOB

IU

Comm

No utopias

Types of ideals in the social sciences/humanities group

Why ideals? (2)

• 33% of respondents have NO IDEALS in natural sciences and aprox. 25% in social sciences.

?

Methods Do scientists have ideals? Which ones?

• Data sample: 388 scientists around the globe;

• Random sampling method;

• 2009

Are ideals or values embedded in the knowledge networks of researchers?

• Interviews with academic staff members (n=30; 24 M and 6 F);

• At 4 universities and research

institutions in Catalonia; • Interviews took place between May

and August2013; • Selection of cases: Maximizing

variation in terms of academic positions; duration of tenure; academic disciplines; levels of departmental productivity.

1. Thinking styles (1)

I prefer dealing with specific issues rather than general problems.

I like working with projects that allow me to work in new ways of performing

tasks.

I prefer situations that don’t make me think about details.

When dealing with a problem I usually prefer to solve it by myself.

I enjoy following methods and theories already used in the past.

I enjoy situations in which I can follow a established routine.

I like seeing how what I do fits in a certain perspective

I like changing routines to improve the way tasks are done.

I prefer situations in which I can apply my own ideas, without depending on

others.

I like problems that, in order to be solved, require fixed rules to be followed.

Adapted from Sternberg and Wagner (1991)

• Older researchers (> 37 years old) are more likely to engage with tasks, projects and situations that require commitment towards broad, global and abstract ideas;

• Younger researchers (<37) are more prone to work in collaborative settings;

• Significative relations between the scientific field and the thinking styles;

• All scientific fields value in a similar way the collaborative work.

1. Thinking styles (2)

2. Creation of knowledge (1)

Dense, but diverse network Sparse, but less diverse network

2. Creation of knowledge (2)

• Similarity eases collaboration but lowers the possibilities for knowledge creation;

• Strong ties = values + influence in ego’s trajectory

• Values + Ideals = alternative knowledge networks

Ideals as social facts

• Social order is formed within cognitive-symbolic relations (Reckwitz , 2002);

• Aesthetic consciousness: we recreate the world while we recreate

ourselves; our own desire to become something else; • Ideals, just as values, indicate the regard for a thing, situation, or

attitude, which for some reason is esteemed or prized by the ideal holder and to others;

• Ideals are not arbitrary man-made rules but stem from an inherent,

common regard for one’s own interest; • No one living in this world can escape relationships. Failure to meet

ideals and values puts one in conflict with oneself.

Ideals in HE… • To overcome the effects of the atrophy of ends and of the hypertrophy

of means to better tackle the educational imbalances;

• To guarantee the diversity (and well-matched strategies) in local and individual development;

• To make the most of researchers’ networks; “Purposeful research”;

• To increase internal coherence in the relationships between institutions and individuals;

• To maximize the legitimization of and by educational policies (policy= purposive course of action designed to address concern);

• To better assess technological and scientific breakthroughs.

Ideals: How?

1. Conceptual framework

2.Technological analysis

3. State of the art

4.Pre-analysis of the

market

5. Comparative

analysis

Ideals as intuitive interfaces

Ubiquitous disciplines beyond conflicts of

epistemic values

Biocentrism + Ecocentrism

To every crisis a double strategy…

Level Variables Model

1. Techno economic Micro-macro

economy

Conventional for

profit institutions

2. Socio-political Quality of life, basic

needs, groups,

classes, institutions

and power.

Broaden

conventional;

reformist,

dependent model.

3.Ideals (axiological) Environmental

limitations

System of values

and ideals

Ecodevelopment

New development

Which ideals?

Biodiversity

Family

Work

Equanimity Availability

Initiative

Continuity and evaluation

Citizenship

Responsibility & Empowerment

Love & well-being

Freedom

Affection & Motivation

Knowledge

Humanity & Wisdom

Moral progress Hypothesis, verification &completion.

Society is all and each one of us

Evolution is action

• How to recycle urban solid waste?

• How to increase net primary productivity?

• How not to produce genetically modified organisms?

• How not to introduce chemicals into the environment?

• How to protect and promote conservation and restoration operations of land and ecosystems?

Balance or eternity?

Human supremacy on Earth is over. And now what?

Specism and multiculturalism

We must opt for a widespread option of attitudes and behaviours that spread and disseminate the diversity (multiculturalism) and cultural specificities. The most rich fruitful and sustainable environments (and nations) are not those who boil down and close upon themselves, but the ones that change and multiply in accordance to the biodiversity and the largest possible number of opportunities.

Ethics as an instinct

To rethink the use of arable soil, to

establish priorities, to optimize the

choice on the seeds, to hold and

protect the seedlings of the locations

prone to landslides, flash floods or

fires, to promote agricultural and

livestock research, to protect native

species, as well as to redeploy the

conduct of the three, r's (reduce,

reuse and recycle) presents itself not

only as an economic necessity, but

also as an ethical imperative.

Environmental policy and development

Economy and society

Economy can promote society, and society should reinforce the ontological unity between the human being and the environment

that surrounds it aiming at a perfect symbiosis.

Aesthetics and culture

If culture does not encourage a better understanding of us and of our surroundings, it will isolate us, makes us sick or pathological

beings. Culture with ideals as a social reality is the synthesis of all human creativity, in an individual and collective dynamics.

Ideals as the bound

• The future potential of HE and HEIs depends on the ideal-based research; • The world is in environmental and moral crisis. Ideals are needed now

more than ever; • Education and educational policies are incomplete without ideals; • Strong teaching and learning must entail permanent and

transdisciplinary values and ideals so that universities become places of a true ubiquitous education where everything that is taught and learnt cracks the shell of convention.

• Developing policy or legislation with impacts on people or land without accommodating ideals on biodiversity and development is incompletely researched or developed;

• To uphold social justice.

Is ideals-based science a vain utopia?

• Ideals allow us to combine a permanent valuable basis towards improved changes.

• Ideals always suggest different reflections and avoid mental colonisations.

• Utopic is to think that the current models of development can continue to exist against all the limitations that we have (as the current crisis shows).

“Please don't make the mistake of thinking the arts and sciences are at odds with one another. That is a recent, stupid and damaging idea. You don't have to be unscientific to make beautiful art, to write beautiful things."

- Tim Minchin, musician, comedian and writer in his 2013 occasional

address at the University of Western Australia's graduation ceremony.

THANK YOU!

Filipa M. Ribeiro filipa.ribeiro@gmail.com http://giesteira.academia.edu/FilipaRibeiro

Aknowledgements: Credits for the pictures: Carlos Garrido