From Margeret,

I am posting this comment from Margeret, it is to Daria's post, but it is too long for a comment so I am making it a separate post. I am doing this because I want to comment on it - all the way here from AERA in Denver

As I was reading Daria’s post for the ten capabilities proposed by Nussbaum I was presented with similar thoughts. I like the idea of focus groups and I am not all that familiar with how they are set up or for that matter how they are even carried out. Anyhow, I did some internet surfing to try and sort some things out. The first thing that comes to mind when reviewing Nussbaum’s capabilities, was a program that incorporates similarities of psychotherapy. So I did some investigating and here are my thoughts.
Nussbaum proposes ten additional capabilities that are perceived to him as being necessary and supported by all democracies. However, I have a couple of points to make regarding these. Deprivations can occur from a variety of means and in many cases individuals may not have the ability to recognize that they are lacking functional capabilities. Now my concerns with Nussbaum’s 10 additional capabilities is that they may be considered important by some, but not all individuals. I saw something on tv last night and so I was able to find a link as evidence of this so maybe my post was rejected for a reason. (http://www.vh1.com/shows/jessica_simpson_the_price_of_beauty/episode.jhtml?episodeID=166391) It’s the show where Jessica Simpson travels around learning beauty regimns across the world. Anyhow, They also meet with an exceptionally poor woman who lives in a favella, but has chosen plastic surgery over a better place to live for herself and her child. She comments this which made me think even more about this class – “The mother chooses this and she’s baffled but Jessica say “This doesn’t mean that the mother is a bad mother for choosing plastic surgery over providing food and shelter to her kids, it may just be that she doesn’t know any better.” And no I was flipping through the channels, I don’t watch this normally! Therefore, by establishing specific capabilities like he has done, he is not allowing the individual the “freedom” to acknowledge what basic and mental needs are necessary for he/she to maximize their abilities and determine the path of their own life rather than having it determined for them which is the paradigm that is currently in place with decisions being made by higher authority.
Now, after researching psychotherapy for quite a long time, I realized that a program approach with this outline perhaps within focus groups could allow for quite a few things. First let me explain what I learned about psychotherapy. There are 13 different approaches but the one that struck me the most was the medical non-medical model approach. The medical model works from a deficit approach where you view the individual as lacking something or having problems. Aside from this the non-medical approach allows individuals to become more aware of their capacity for self-direction and development. This increases the awareness of individuals to not only assess their current capabilities but better understand what factors and how they might be able to increase their capacity to function. The ten factors for Nussbaum are acknowledged indirectly as the individual gains awareness and eventually realizes their potential. The realization of one’s potential comes only when basic and mental needs are fulfilled.
What I believe Nussbaum is proposing is that these 10 capabilities make personal growth possible and that these basic capabilities are both necessary and critical for satisfying lower order necessities making self-actualization possible so that personal growth can occur. Maslow believes self-actualization is growth motivated rather than deficiency motivated. Therefore, the individual is not working from a deficit model.
So I agree that there is a set of basic capabilities that have to be available in order for this personal growth to take place. However, I think his proposed idea would lend more support if he were to give the individual the freedom for determining what resources are more important in allowing the individual to determine what lower deficiency needs are to be met in order for self-actualization to occur. Lower deficiency needs are part of the hierarchy triangle of needs as proposed by Maslow. Now in our first paper prior to meeting the first time, it states that Nussbaum does not believe there is a hierarchy to these needs, but Maslow’s approach does. A person must acknowledge what deficient needs exist and need to be met. It appears that his approach is similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He states that in order for higher level needs to be met the lower level needs must not only be met but maintained. Under this approach, in order for self-actualization to occur the individual must not only achieve the needs of previous levels but master them. Therefore, it defines a concrete set of levels that are dependent upon mastery of specific needs defined in previous levels.
My thing is that I believe that human needs are non-hierarchical. Human experience, whether it be influenced by norms and expectations of other individuals or societies and can be circumstantial and its effects varying by individual. Moreover, specific individuals and communities should be given the freedom to assess what needs and capabilities must be met in order for growth of the individual is not identifying deficient needs that are believed as making them incapable. Instead, humans have an inherent capacity to maximize potential and so the functional capabilities and freedoms come from increasing the individuals sense of their own well being. They merely are not granted capabilities you could give an individual as Nussbaum suggests. They arise from communication and dialogue, changes in behavior, which facilitate improvements allowing individuals to reach their full potential.

I'm Breaking Out While Trying Not to Freak Out

I am going to expand my number-loving, quantitatively focused brain and try my hand at qualitative research methods. I am also going to try to look at this proposed research through the lens of someone who understands the Capability Approach. Michael asked us to think of how we would apply all of the things we have read to a research project-this is my first [hopefully not too weak] attempt. Bear with me, I have a feeling it's going to be long and cumbersome. I am trying to combine focus groups and the capability approach. Wish me luck...

The Capability Approach emphasizes 1) functional capabilities/substantive freedoms, 2) human beings have the capacity to function in important ways if they wish, and 3) human beings can be deprived in many ways-ignorance, lack of financial resources, etc (I really like 2 & 3). In addition, Nussbaum adds to this approach giving ten capabilities that should be supported by all democracies.

1. Life. Being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length; not dying prematurely, or before one's life is so reduced as to be not worth living.
2. Bodily Health. Being able to have good health, including reproductive health; to be adequately nourished; to have adequate shelter.
3. Bodily Integrity. Being able to move freely from place to place; to be secure against violent assault, including sexual assault and domestic violence; having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction.
4. Senses, Imagination, and Thought. Being able to use the senses, to imagine, think, and reason—and to do these things in a "truly human" way, a way informed and cultivated by an adequate education, including, but by no means limited to, literacy and basic mathematical and scientific training. Being able to use imagination and thought in connection with experiencing and producing works and events of one's own choice, religious, literary, musical, and so forth. Being able to use one's mind in ways protected by guarantees of freedom of expression with respect to both political and artistic speech, and freedom of religious exercise. Being able to have pleasurable experiences and to avoid non-beneficial pain.
5. Emotions. Being able to have attachments to things and people outside ourselves; to love those who love and care for us, to grieve at their absence; in general, to love, to grieve, to experience longing, gratitude, and justified anger. Not having one's emotional development blighted by fear and anxiety. (Supporting this capability means supporting forms of human association that can be shown to be crucial in their development.)
6. Practical Reason. Being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one's life. (This entails protection for the liberty of conscience and religious observance.)
7. Affiliation.
   1. Being able to live with and toward others, to recognize and show concern for other humans, to engage in various forms of social interaction; to be able to imagine the situation of another. (Protecting this capability means protecting institutions that constitute and nourish such forms of affiliation, and also protecting the freedom of assembly and political speech.)
   2. Having the social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation; being able to be treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others. This entails provisions of non-discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, caste, religion, national origin and species.
8. Other Species. Being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature.
9. Play. Being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities.
10. Control over one's Environment.
    1. Political. Being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one's life; having the right of political participation, protections of free speech and association.
    2. Material. Being able to hold property (both land and movable goods), and having property rights on an equal basis with others; having the right to seek employment on an equal basis with others; having the freedom from unwarranted search and seizure. In work, being able to work as a human, exercising practical reason and entering into meaningful relationships of mutual recognition with other workers.
    
    
    Thanks, Wikipedia.
    
    
    What's this have to do with anything? I want to work with sick kids and their families. Help make their lives a little easier, keep their system from getting too far out of whack, enable them to maintain the 10 capabilities that are a given to all people in a democracy. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of research in this area of therapy, so I'm thinking of doing a focus group with the families of sick kids to find out what they feel they need to protect their capabilities. Focus groups generate information important to the advancement of programs, communities, and organizations. When you look at focus groups, they seem to match up pretty well with what we have talked about in class regarding the CA. For example:
    Focus groups (as compared to quantitive and popular survey methods] involve:
    1) Insight not Rules-it is the production of insight; you get not only the content but also emotions, ironies, contradictions and tensions. In other words, we get the meaning behind the facts.
    2) Social not Individual-we combine multiple individual perspectives to see how they fit together
    3) Flexibile not Standardized-using an interview guide [by a competent moderator] helps the group relax, open up, think deeply, and consider alternatives
    4) Words not Numbers-a frightening concept for a girl like me; themes/patterns/perspectives are utilized for analysis

I also love this from the Sen book:

"Unintended consequences dominate actual history-if the most important things that happen are not intended [and not brought about through purposive action], then reasoned attempts at what we are pursuing what we want may appear to be rather pointless."

While this immediately makes me think of love and the natural course it takes [though so many try to force it], I think it also applies to the benefit of focus groups. When the investigator takes a back seat and lets the participants guide the discussion, valuable pieces of information will inevitably come up to further guide the investigation.

So that was me thinking out loud on a blog for a few hours. Natasha has my brain headed in the dissertation direction. Feel free to comment.

I am going to post on the discussion we had yesterday and then perhaps individuals will comment on it. I'm not sure if this belongs in the introduction paper or the poverty paper or parts in both. We shall see where the idea goes.

The original discussion revolved around Sen's use of Adam Smith and the moral implications that are almost always forgotten in capitalism (e.g. social exchange theory) so that the actual idea devolves into Malthusianism and/or social Darwinism (they are very connected). I was surprised to find that Adam Smith wrote his book on moral sentiments before he wrote "The Wealth of Nations." I have been trying to understand what this means and the role that the social mirror plays in any market place - and how it related to redefining the market place in terms of capabilities rather than abilities - especially when it comes to human capital.

I think it is important to remember that Smith was initially a moral philosopher, and many of his ideas spring from his moral stance. He also was an empiricist in the tradition of John Locke. His attitude towards human morality is that we came to it through our own empirical observations - it is not something that we know and understand innately. Smith was essentially a behaviorist - at least in the idea that we learn what we observe. What we observe others in pain or in difficulty we begin to see ourselves in them. I believe there is a certain "There but for the Grace of God go I" aspect to his theory. Smith talks about sympathy, but it is not that kind of "feeling sorry for another" sympath, but the aforementioned sympathy. This causes us to care about justice for others. I believe this is a very important part of his thinking and one that Sen thinks must be incorporated if we are going to have a society based in the market place.

Later Smith would turn to economics. There is some argument that "Wealth of Nations" is totally separate from his moral philosophy but I don't think that is really possible. Smith though has become very much a utilitarian in the mode of the philosopher Bentham. Smith's idea is that we are going to work in our own self-interest in order to achieve the greatest level of happiness. This for Smith is as much a part of human nature as the social mirror that he described seventeen years earlier. The question is should society do anything to circumvent this self-interested. This is a very important question for Smith because again he is a moral philosopher first and foremost. Smith's answer is no because even though people do things in their self-interest that is not necessarily bad for others around them. Meaning if a baker makes bread and sells it so he can make money to achieve his pleasure the act actually helps people because he is making life better for the person who makes meat for sandwiches, the person who makes mustard, but especially the person who wants to eat the sandwich especially.

What keeps self-interest from flying out of control. I think in this case you have to consider the social mirror. Part of our own happiness is determined by the need to believe there is justice, that there is a level playing field. I think Sen would say that this is why say a deficit model is so dangerous. You are bringing a Malthusian argument into the fray - the idea that those who are suffering are doing so because of their own deficiencies, whether they be organic, family oriented, ecologically oriented, or based on their own rational choices. Other suffer not because the world is unjust but because they have somehow failed on their own in the race to the top. This allows us to ignore their plight, to say these people are not like us, they do no represent a social mirror, and therefore we do not have to feel bad about their lack of justice. We can even give these poor, deficient human beings charity - but to consider their plight that these people are in the situation they are in because of injustice - an injustice that you benefit from - and you should be devoting your time and energy to a more just society - a deficit model allows us to escape from this. This is why giving the dollar to the homeless man, or judging the woman for making rational choices leading to having ten children, does not lead us to a better society, and we should not concentrate on fixing what it wrong with individuals.

CA is really about abandoning the modern welfare state - and I would say our education initiatives - in favor of creating a level playing field. If there is no level playing field we must see those who struggle or who are somehow hurt as being part of our mirror. I want to offer an example from watching the news this morning. They are talking about standardized tests and an initiative to make them federal in nature. It made me think - what is the purpose of standardized tests. Is is simply to set up a deficit model - that those who do not do well are deficient somehow and we must figure out how to fix this?

CA and the fundamental attribution error

Upon numerous requests from Dr. Glassman I rented the movie Precious this weekend. The dramatic storyline and visuals presented in the movie helped me better understand the unfreedoms experienced by impoverished segments of the American population. The movie forced me to reconsider my position from last week that information is just as readily available to the less fortunate (e.g. the woman with 10 children must have known about the available birth control options) as it is for those who are more privileged. The privileged majority (myself) included blame those who struggle for their misfortunes failing to acknowledge the external factors which may contribute to their situation (mainly the lack of capabilities afforded them). This can be explained within a deficit model but it also reminds me of a core concept within social psychology; the fundamental attribution error (FAE). The FAE explains the tendency for individuals to over-value dispositional factors for the observed behaviors of others while under-valuing situational factors for those behaviors. Last Tuesday Dr. Serovich provided a text book example of the FAE when she suggested that my lack of initiative to take independent study may explain my deficit of applied research skills. Her lack of effortful adjustment (see explanations for FAE in the provided link) draws parallels to how most individuals view marginalized populations in their society. Of utmost concern to the Capability Approach is how it will overcome the collective attribution error that seems to stem from the psychology of its citizens. We might think about considering the FAE and similar psychological concepts in the Capability paper.

I tried posting this as a comment on the self-efficacy post but it wouldn't take. Let's see if it works now

There are two issues as we introduce the idea of CA that need to be reconciled. The first is the issue of self-efficacy and the need to believe not only are you capable of development but that you actually have the freedom to develop along the trajectory you wish to develop. And the second is the issue of capability as a whole, and how capability is not an aggregate way of looking at the world, but an individual way in which each individual makes his or her own choice. On Friday I had an hour long conversation - well you could call it argument - with a colleague about the development of schools. I made the argument that the focus on the establishment of schools should be local. All that the larger institutions should do is to provide the resources that allow for a general capability and that the communities be allowed to develop their own schools out of these capabilities. My colleague argued that while you should definitely give a voice to the local community there is also a necessity to bring some level of control back to the district level, back to the institutions. Her fear, and I think it is a good one, is that local control will lead to a concretization of what is dysfunctional about a community. They will never be able to grow. Let us say you have a specific community which forces women to wear a burka. If you allow local organizations to develop and run schools completely independently are you simply reinforcing the oppressive nature of a community towards some elements of its population?
At the same time if I come in and tell you there are certain ways that your community must be what does that do to freedom. And how would that work in terms of self-efficacy? Meaning if we tell individuals they must not have schools where females are forced to wear burkas what does that mean to the population of women who make the free choice to wear burkas and are forced not to (something that is happening in France right now.)
I believe there are three key points which we need to make and think about how they relate to the issue of human development all together. The first, and perhaps most important, is the issue of information. One of the keys for Sen and CA in general is the ability not only to access information but also to use it as a tool in developing a life trajectory. This gets to Travis' idea on using Friere as well. His whole idea of teaching literacy is not that you have it as a skill in and of itself, but that you have it as a tool. The reading involves the access of information while the dialogue it is looking to foster involves the use of information. This is why we are not just looking to develop bonding social capital within the community, but synergistic social capital in which the community trusts and incorporates the information it gets from the world around them (which in an of itself is a necessity). There is an integral link between information and human development that for some reason traditoinal theories of human development simply don't tap into. Information is almost seen as something separate. And I think this is something new that CA brings to the study of human development - actually though it really does reflect Dewey in some ways.
The second issue is that CA is more of an abductive theory than a deductive theory, and we have to look at human development abductively. For the most part theories of human development take a deductive approach, and this is how they are translated either into education or into interventions. We set the premise and then we attempt to develop hypothesis where those premises can be used to make the lives of individuals better. It is, in essence, a perspective based on constraints. So we assume that when we remove our own constraints the community will replace them with their own deductive constraints. Individuals must act in a certain way because these are the premises we set up in terms of what makes your life happy, or worthwhile, or puts it on a positive trajectory. But what if we are able to start establishing an approach to human development that was more about novelty than constraints. Communities would initially fear this, there is no doubt, but CA definitely brings us closer to this.
Third is the idea that there are universal values. The values are process oriented rather than product oriented. It is part of the Aristotelian approach of CA which Sen refers to but can never really buy into. But as we read Nussbaum more and more we will get an idea of what this means.

Self Efficacy

The post I just wrote below made me think of something I had not thought of before, and perhaps this can be the tie that Travis was looking for in the Introductory article (better than Bronfenbrenner). What role does Bandura's ideas on self-efficacy play in CA. I mean we develop a model where capability is the underlying concern for human development, but it is also true - if Bandura is right - that children learn from the positive reinforcement they observe in their parents. Instead of judging that woman with ten children what if you gave her a micro loan to open up a business and offered her childcare and helping in establishing that business. Now there would still be many commodities she did not have in her life but what would this mean not only for her own children but also the other young females in the neighborhood who came to her Italian Ices stand? How would it lead to increased levels of self-efficacy? Most of us would tend to give up on this woman with ten children, but does CA see her as an opportunity?


I am supposed to be working on a conference paper which I am supposed to deliver next week, but I choose freedom!!!

Poverty and Women

The Captivability Approach probably speaks to the issue of poverty and women more than most ways of thinking about human development. I have been thinking about the example that Maggie raised about the mother with ten children, that situation she was in, and how society and individuals within society judge her. We ask of course "why does that woman have ten children." This will come up again in our reading and our discussions, but many international approaches to poverty separate out women as a class and really focus on gender differences. This is because women are so much more likely to live in poverty than males, and are marginalized within a society, community, or neighborhood (even those that are already marginalized) than males. This is true in the United States as well - women are much more likely to live in poverty. And yet we don't really separate out women as their own group facing their own particular problems, really in a qualitatively different situation. Why is this? When we do separte out females in human development it is often to suggest some types of innate differences - that women use one part of their brain more than men - and it is usually during childhood. But we don't separate out women in terms of the capabilities society gives them in their own development, and how this leads to them so much more easily slipping into poverty (and because women almost always are taking care of children, how it relates to children slipping in to poverty.)

Let's think about this woman with the ten children again. It is almost automatic to consider her situation as the result of some type of deficit. How come she didn't know better? How could she let this happen to herself? Why doesn't she take better care of the children she has? You know what I almost never hear anyone talk about - why males have so many children. I think back to the Sen book and the way marginalized populations in the United States have so much lower mortality than even the most impoverished nations in the rest of the world To what extent does the capability of not being able to live and long and sustained life play in to the decisions of the woman. Consider a parent having a conversation with a fourteen year old daughter. The daughter asks whethere she should delay have sex. The parent says yes, but that even if you don't delay you must take precautions against getting pregnant (also STDs, but perhaps pregnancy is more of an issue in these conversations). The daughter asks why it is so important to avoid getting pregnant - as fourteen year olds sometimes do (and it makes sense. After all if biologically you can get pregnant what is the logic to not getting pregnant?). The parent says that because getting pregnant at a young age can drastically change the trajectory of your life, that you will not be able to do the things you want to do, you will not be able to accomplish the goals you want to accomplish. Life is a marathon, not a sprint, and there is time to have a child later. But now let us say you are having the same conversation with a fourteen year old girl from one of the poor neighborhoods that Sen talks about. She asks you why she shouldn't get pregnant. What are you going to say to her. Her life expectancy is one of the lowest in the world. The schooling gives her little if any chance for literacy, and even if it did she might not have the capability of going on with her education. She does not have a life of good food and good wine to look forward to because there aren't even decent restaurants in her neighborhood. She cannot present herself in public because the streets are too dangerous and she is fearful of being harassed if she does not have a protector. And she feels she has little if any impact on the world around her She has to stay inside her small apartment shut away from the world. She has almost no capabilities. What argument are you going to give this fourteen year old girl that she should go against her own strongest biological impulses and delay sex and/or pregnancy? It is the poverty of capabilities that leads to the later poverty we so easily judge her for.

This poverty of capabilities is not even speaking to the oppression she feels as a woman both within the larger society of the United States, within her neighborhood, and within her own family. She is labeled as a caretaker who has few rights and liberties almost from the beginning.

Okay, so now you are saying what could be done about this? How about if you started a small women's cooperative in a local neighborhood that offer micro loans and helps start up businesses right in the local ecology One woman opens up a successful green grocer, another opens a thriving Italian Ices stand, and yet a third open a coffee shop. A woman opens a twenty four hour childcare center. But what would it mean in terms of capabilities to do this. And what would it mean in terms of human development. Think about Bandura and the issue of self-efficacy.

Environment as experience vs. environment as ideology

This thought stems from a dialouge between Dr. Glassman and Travis this morning. Travis I don't remember what you asked but Dr. G, responded with well not all resources hold the highest level of importance for all populations and all socities. So some clean water would be important and for others medical support would be more important than clean water. So I was thinking and this was another "doodle" idea of mine for something yet entirely different last quarter. The ideas that we have serve as motivators for our beliefs, actions, and consequences. Experience and observation serve as concrete evidence, and how do you argue against evidence?

Human Development

Okay, here is a beginning at least for a general introductory piece on CA. I am looking for whoever it interested to add some stuff at the end.

Study of human development often focuses on attributes and abilities of individuals. We tend, at least in the United States, to understand humans as they are, as individuals, in comparison to other individuals. There is often a push and pull between those who look to emphasize context more ( ) and those who believe in a more intrinsic development ( ). There are developmental perspectives more concerned with the human in interaction with their own genetic structures ( ), with the environment ( ), with other humans ( ), with interconnected systems of activity ( ), but more often than not the critical analysis comes down to what the human is able to do at a given point in time - Are they able to decode symbols? Are they able understand and codify the space around them? Are they able to understand what another is thinking? Are they able to overcome barriers? Are they able to succeed at a given task based on age, and/or social context, and/or individual history, and/or social history? In this paper we offer a different perspective on human development - perhaps the equivalent of taking a painting we have known and appreciated our entire lives and turning it upside down (or perhaps right side up). We introduce the Capability Approach (CA) of Amartya Sen as a qualitatively different way of looking at human development. Sen initiated CA initially as a way of understanding developmental economics. His ideas suggest that in understanding human development it would be better to focus on the different capabilities provided by and through the proximal social system. It is these capabilities that allow humans to flourish and fully function, rather than on single, measurable attributes that can be used for purposes of comparison. The idea of a person being capable to flourish in the context of particular needs and life circumstances, and that this capability is based on a basket of "goods" or "commodities" is central to Sen's approach. This basket of goods mixes utilitarian needs with substantive values, but always comes back to any human being to find and follow their own trajectory, their own pattern of development.

We attempt to take some of Sen's core ideas, and those of some of his closest collaborators, and apply them to the way we study and understand human development in everyday life. Some of the concepts we look to bring to the forefront are the importance of individual comparison as opposed to aggregate comparisons. The roles that life context and situation play in understanding individual capability and its relationship to human functioning. The interconnected nature of capabilities and the ways in which attempts to establish or enhance single abilities can actually be detrimental to capabilities. The inter relationship between freedom and development.

What Google trends say about Sen

Every once in a while, I check Google labs and see what they have new and interesting. One of my favorites is google trends, where you search for a specific concept, person or keyword and find out the trends that this word has been searched online. What I really like about this is that it also gives you the peak points of search and news deadlines about this at that time.
So, here is something interesting, check this out: http://trends.google.com/trends?q=amartya+sen&date=all&geo=all&ctab=0&sort=0&sa=N

This graph shows the frequency of searches for Amartya Sen in Google (upper level), and also the frequency that he appeared in the news (lower level). (BTW, keep in mind that he won Nobel prize in economics in 1998.). Obviously, the searches have ups and downs over time until today, but the peak is late 2003, then a sharp decline in 2004. Interestingly, the lower level in the graph ( the frequency he appeared in the news) does not necessarily correspond to the public concern to his approach – it is way less than total searches on his name. In other words, it took media for a while to take him seriously whereas the internet users already ‘knew’ him. One possibility is that he is Indian and this region was the one he was searched most (Maybe an ingroup bias for Indians). However, when you look at the languages, you will see that it was not Hindi or English that had the most hits, but Italian and Spanish websites. It seems like google trends show how Sen became ‘globalized’ in 2000s, first in India, and then in Europe.
You may ask: Why bother posting this here?

Well, I think it shows that we can ‘google’ how ideas diffuse in the www and we have access to this information as lay people. Information is not restricted to researchers (i.e. demographers), but to everyone.

Homelessness as lack of capability in an ecological systems framework

I started to think about CA from Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. I was reading an empirical paper comparing parenting practices of homeless mothers and housed mothers (Koblinsky, Morgan & Anderson, 1997 – cannot give a hyperlink, not open access!). It was a pretty dull, boring, and conventional paper, but I was struck by their comparisons of physical environment of these children (homeless shelter vs. home). The children of homeless mothers in shelters, compared to the housed, poor mothers, had significantly less resources for learning stimulation (i.e. fewer toys, chaotic environment noise etc.), also fewer resources for academic and language stimulation (i.e. books). This emphasis on the physical environment suggests a broader understanding of poverty – these families do not only lack housing (instrumental goods), but they also lack the resources associated with regular housing (substantive goods). For example, being housed may mean belonging to a certain community, and even having social support via neighbors. They also lack structure in home environment with toys and books for children. This makes me think there are levels of poverty – on one hand, families may be poor and inadequate resources, and housed, on another hand they may be unstable moving from one shelter to another. The key is, as Sen argues, they do not only have low levels of income, but they also suffer from social exclusion and deprivation. They are deprived in the sense that they do not have basic functionings – i.e. basic needs for learning, connecting and relating to others. For instance, a family in a homeless shelter lacks privacy in that context where the physical environment is shared by many families/adults. They are also isolated from society, almost become socially invisible by surviving in shelters, they are outside of our reach, and we do not interact with them in our daily lives. This makes me think that CA and provision of basic functionings are pretty much multilayered in the ecological contexts of the disadvantaged populations. In the macro level, the current social policy restricts shelter stays to 30 days at most, exacerbating the instability of the families. In the exolevel, the shelter staff is overinvolved in parenting practices of these women, taking it for granted that they ‘cannot’ parent adequately. In the mesolevel, the child-mom interaction is limited via other factors i.e. mom seeking a job and has many stressors to deal with on top of parenting. Taken together, the experience of the homeless child in the microsystem is lack of capabilities we observe, not only in physical environment, but also in educational, cognitive and social development.

Appfrica

This article is particularly relavent to the Capability Approach and Daria's interest in applications. Unfortunatley I cannot be credited for my title's play on words :(

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/12/africa.apps/index.html

Deprivation vs. Attribution in Defining Poverty

Sen (1999) makes an important turn in the way that the condition of poverty is defined and understood, and sets up an important difference between the meaning of poverty in the United States and in the United Nations and affiliated organizations. In the United States we tend to define poverty both from a utilitarian perspective and along a continuum of a single attribute that can be easily aggregated (the two tend to often go together). Poverty is utilitarian because it makes the assumption that wealth is tied to happiness. Those who have less wealth are necessarily less happy or context, less able to meet their material needs. Poverty is something that must be addressed from the perspective of material wealth, in particular increase in income, and all policy that is meant to address poverty issues is at its base driven by increasing income (e.g. provide better education so that those in poverty will be able to get better jobs, provide health care assistance to businesses so that they will be able to hire more workers). Interventions are viewed solely from an instrumental perspective - what will thise intervention do to increase the likelihood that the individual will be able to increase material wealth. One of the dangers in defining poverty along the lines of a single attribute is that it becomes part of the definition of the individual. That is a person in poverty is a person who does not have enough material wealth to achieve a level of happiness. It is very easy then to make this attribute a characteristic rather than a condition of the individual - it becomes who they are and something about the indvidual that can be "fixed." A second danger in defining poverty in this way is that the single attribute becomes a continuum along which you place individuals in order to determine their level of poverty. Comparisons between both societies and individuals become absolute where a person with a higher level of material wealth is considered to be in better condition vis a vis poverty than a person with a lower level of material wealth, and all judgments are made on this basis.

What is never taken into account as issues such as freedom, individual liberties, and individual differences. Most interesting of the three in the United States is individual liberties, because such a premium is put on this issue in public discourse, and it is very much what Rawls ( ) would describe as a "public good." To the contrary, usually when individual liberties are discussed in the context of poverty it is about taking away liberties "for their own good." Those who have less material wealth must be watched over and guided in the direction of greater wealth. Inherent in this position is the idea that any person who has lack of material wealth as a characteristic has in some way "failed" in society (a Malthusian position, but one that is either overtly or covertly taken across the political spectrum). A second issue almost never mentioned in the more utilitarian definition of poverty is freedom - in particular the way that limits of freedom are both a cause and a consequence of poverty. Those in poverty are often considered to have the same freedom as those who are not in poverty - if there is a lack of freedom it is in some way based on personal choice or personal actions.

Sen offers a counter to this utilitarian vision of poverty. He suggests that poverty is based far more on deprivation, unfreedom, the inability to achieve critical capabilities because of social circumstances, than on any one single attribute.

Hey All,

We are starting with the truly experimental part of this - trying to write papers on the web. The way this is going to work is I am going to make blog posts related to specific paper - beginning sections of them. Choose the paper you are most interested in (try and limit to one because I'm hoping to get a lot of work out of you guys) and beging commenting on it. It would be great if everybody commented, but devote your original ideas and most of your energy to just one of the papers (but follow along with all of them and offer interesting perspectives when you can). I will at various time try and put everything together in a single piece that looks something like a paper and send it around to the actual authors. Then hopefully authors will post future sections (whoever they are).

Right now I would like to start three papers

The Hyperlinks/ZPD paper I talked about with Maggie

The poverty paper that I already started with Gizem

A paper that just introduces the idea of CA to American audiences, especially those who study human development

Hyperlinks, the Zone of Proximal Development, and Freedom: A Capability Approach to Reading

Reading has become one of the flashpoints of our modern educational system. While reading has always been important as a skill, it is only recently that it has been separated from the larger curriculum and given precedence over curriculum content and considered primarily in terms of its instrumental worth (Sen 1999). Aggregate measurements of reading skills have come to dominate discussions of educational policy ( ) and and school value. Taking a decidedly utilitarian perspective (Arrow....) it is assumed that reading skills will eventually lead to higher levels of competitiveness for both the student and the society and raise income levels on an individual scale and GDP on a national scale. Emphasis has been placed on instruction and testing of reading abilities. Value of both instruction/instructor (overtly) and the student (covertly) is determined and reified through this testing process.

L.S. Vygotsky ( ) argued against using the type of direct testing often used for reading as a tool for determining the abilities of children. He argued that direct testing determined how well a child could perform at a given moment, but it missed the far more important information about how well a child could master the activity in more dynamic (and from Vygotsky's larger theoretical approach context relevant) learning conditions. Vygotsky referred to this "space" between how the child performed during a decontextualized "on-demand" test and a learning situation where the child was motivated, comfortable with the learning process, and the goal was mastery of task The Zone of Proximal Development. Three quarters of a century later the economist Amartya Sen added another idea that we believe is relevant both to the teaching of reading and Vygotsky's idea of the Zone of Proximal Development (at least as it has been used and interpreted in the United States - Glassman 2003). Sen (1999) makes the argument that rather than attempting to develop specific, measurable abilities that are easily measured and compared, we as a society should be more concerned with the development of capabilities that enable individuals to move towards what Aristotle referred to as a flourishing of the human condition. Sen often refers to literacy as a key capability, but we go further in this paper attempting to understand what literacy as a capability means and how this might affect the way that we teach and understand reading. At the core of Sen's Capability Approach (CA) is the idea of freedom - the feeling of capability is tied directly to an individual's sense of freedom in their lives. We make the argument that if you remove freedom from the development of literacy that the learner never really sees and understands it as a capability that has both substantive and instrumental worth in their lives, but as a task that is required of them, what Sen calls an unfreedom.

The Zone of Proximal Development and CA both have implications for reading and literacy -but they both have flaws as well. The difficulty with The Zone of Proximal Development is the emphasis that is put on the role of the mentor or teacher. The teacher in a ZPD scenario serves as both as facilitator and guide. The development of the child is both dependent and to a certain extent controlled by the mentor who determines direction and goals of the developmental process. This might actually have a level of efficacy when the child and the mentor share the same culture, understanding of what mediated artefacts are important, and social goals. The mentor is preparing the child for the expectations of society and the child understands and is motivated by this. But the same process can have profound consequences is the child and mentor do not share the same culture, the same experience. The Zone of Proximal Development can become a Zone of Unfreedom where development becomes drudgery. The difficulty with CA is in actually providing an environment and the tools necessary for a child to feel a sense of freedom and at the same time a willingness to develop the types of capabilities that is recognized as enhancing (rather than diminishing) those freedoms.

We believe that the concepts of ZPD and CA can be brought together, and work together in a way that is revolutionary for the child and the educational establishment as a whole, by using some of the new cyber technologies that offer a new and different type of freedom in heterogenous societies - in particular the tool of hyperlinks.

Relative to the first class

Glassman you'll find it exciting to know that I reflect upon Sen quite often now! Anyhow I was in my tutoring session last night and afterwards I was filling out my paperwork on the daily activities for the day. The gals that run the program always are interested in talking about the lives of these children and figure out how I handle my group because I have not only the youngest children in the program but the most at one time as well. The things that I pay particular attention to now are motivators that I have somewhat extracted from some of Sen's ideas. I look for a variety of ways to maximize the reading skills that we are working on.

That is not the reason for this post. The reason for this post was to give some incite to communities that many of us are not familiar with and really only have certain perceptions about. I was sitting with one of the leaders last night and was discussing neighborhood resources. I brought up a particular example of grocery stores and our discussion relating to resourcing of informational resources and availability of resources like grocery stores and etc. I explained the idea you brought up in class about the lack of food items and healthy food options that more privelaged communities have. She provided some interesting feedback. She told me that it makes sense because she grew up in an African American neighborhood and she recalls that her mother was never able to shop more towards the city, but rather had to use more convenient and proximal resources. She said it wasn't that they didn't have the money they didn't have the transportation to get there. Therefore, they were stuck with the only option of the one or two corner markets that were near them. She said what you often find there is old food, higher priced items, limited selections, and few fresh alternatives. For example, she said you would never find fresh salad bars like you would find at the more conventional grocery stores. She merely said those alternatives are not available to them. I found this very interesting because despite what we discuss it's difficult to really relate to this until you hear someone talk about these things from a personal experience. She said what you see then is that families are forced to have a limited number of alternatives and that this further limits the opportunities that parents can provide to their children. Just thought I would share!!!

What would SEN Say????

I couldn't resist I promised the class during one of your coffee runs to post this!

Health Care - Saturday Night Live - Apr 10- Tina Fey - Video - NBC.com

Census not a socialist plot to spy on the American Public - Saturday Night Live - Obama Census Cold Open - Video - NBC.com

Capability Approach/classroom education

I am participating not as a class member, but rather as a friend/follower and would like to thank everyone for opening up the blog.
The major difficulty I see in capability approach is moving beyond our own authoritarian tendencies. For example, I now live in a rural state in upper New England with a total population of 1.3 million people. As in many rural states, significant pockets of poverty exist with individuals who proudly do not "fit" in to the status quo. I was shocked one day when reading the local newspaper and saw one of the communities held a "hillbilly day". I went to class the next day and asked my students about this and they explained to me that the identification as a "hillbilly" was a snub to mainstream society who frequently looks down upon them. When you drive around and live in rural areas, you find a completely different culture than what exists in urban and suburban America. Returning to our personal authoritarian tendencies - how many of us do make judgements concerning those who live in poor, rural areas? And as a result of marginalizing the rural poor, end up completely ignoring their existence or worse just feeling superior to those ignorant hillbillies? This phenomena is occurring on all levels of the ecological system - from the macrosystem to the microsystem.

Education policy - this is soooo messed up. I could rant about national standards, race to the top, the reauthorization of ESEA, but will use some self-restraint. Instead, I would like to address University teaching. I teach undergraduates in early childhood education (birth to age 8) at a small public liberal arts university in Maine. I agree that education itself can be quite boring and non-motivating - in a large part because of authoritarian education policy (getting back to CA). Here is an example of what I think everyone is talking about from two experiences I have had this year. During fall semester there was a group of students in my introductory early childhood class who continually used their computers during class to social network. Drove me crazy, but in all honesty the students would not have been social networking had felt more connected to the class material - my fault. For the past two weeks, the students this semester have had their computers in class but working on an adult version of the Project Approach. The students are engaged, not much social networking if any, and will be presenting their culminating projects this next Friday. My role in their projects has almost been non-existent. In fact, I feel unnecessary as they have taken over their own learning. This is what education should look like.

If I ruled the world

Related to Daria's post just below click on this link,

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/if-i-ruled-the-world-8/

Clearly we are on the verge on some really big change in how we understand education, intelligence and information. If this a good thing? Real my comment to Daria's earlier post, and hopefully before the end of the weekend I will also have one up about Therapy.

Who are we becoming? The one thing I am certain of is that academia is pretty much clueless about all of this. What does that say about us?

Six Hours in at BnN I Found this Gem....

Clearly, I am becoming a blogaholic. I spent 5 hours at my lovely Barnes and Noble doing work for Natasha, cruised the magazine section on my way out, and came across this article. I won't date a guy that uses a flip phone, and apparently kids prefer smart phones. I do love the similarity.

Because my brain is tired, I just copied and pasted some snippets. The article is long, but I felt it tied in to a lot of what Maggie was talking about with her kids and learning via the internet, as well as our talk on teacher's getting replaced by technology.

*TeacherMates-"The programs are synced with the reading and math curricula used in the school -- right down to the same spelling words each week...During the time her class spends with TeacherMates each day, Flowers [teacher] can devote more focused time and attention to small groups of students. TeacherMate is the brainchild of a bearded technology lawyer turned social entrepreneur from Evanston, Illinois, named Seth Weinberger, who punctuates his verbal volleys with waving hands and liberal profanity. He says he's on year 15 of a 30-year personal life plan to transform schooling in America using technology." His program is Innovations for Learning-here's their blog. Side note*When I applied to PhD school, I wanted to focus on video game research-thank you, Weinberger for this research direction.

*Whereas Weinberger wants to improve teaching practices at existing schools, Kim focuses overwhelmingly on empowering kids to teach themselves. He sees technology as a liberating force, helping kids in rich and poor countries alike bypass schools, with all their waste, bureaucracy, and failures, entirely. "Why does education need to be so structured? What are we so afraid of?" he asks. "The more you expect from a kid, the smarter they're going to get."

*The Internet is a many-to-many environment, which is in the early stages of having a major impact on education. It involves a fairly major change in the concept of what education is, which is one of the reasons we use the term 'learning' as distinct from 'education.' It's student-centered and student-empowered.

*"The challenge of putting such ideas into practice -- and getting the kids into the educational driver's seat -- is so daunting it's almost laughable. Still, when you've seen a tiny child eagerly embracing a device that lets her write, draw, figure out math, and eventually find an answer to any question she might ask, it's hard not to feel the excitement of the moment, or its revolutionary potential. We're talking about leapfrogging over massive infrastructure limitations to unleash what Kim calls "the only real renewable resource" -- the inventive spark of 1 billion children. "They're creative, these children," he says, "no matter where they are."

Enjoy, sorry for the general copy/paste method, my brain is fried but I wanted to share the article with you guys. Off to Target to buy wedding gifts and other oddities I don't really need. I am also starving.

Blogging and Therapy...

Apparently we aren't the only ones at The Ohio State University who are looking at blogs. Right on our Research website, front page news is the work that Anderson-Butcher is doing on Teen Bloggers and Risky Behavior [look at that, my very first hyperlink]. She found that most teens are blogging about 'positive behaviors' as opposed to 'risky behaviors.' Positive behaviors included, playing video games (65%), watching television (45%), doing homework (40%) and browsing the internet (29%). First of all, I'm just going to go ahead and throw out the idea that if you are Blogging online, then you are browsing the internet...so we should just go ahead and throw out that one. If you want to keep it, then who is to say what they are doing is a positive activity? Maybe they are all Googling the cure for cancer, but more than likely it's Facebooking, fantasy sporting, chatting, or porn hunting. Not saying there is anything completely negative with any of the above activities, but can we really call it positive? Let's take a look at the top two-video games and watching television. That's really great. Over 50% of the posts involved sedentary activities that are at times associated with marijuana use. 65% reported being bored...where is the activity? They said that these teens are bored between the hours of 3-6pm, at times when [according to the study] teens are most at risk for alcohol use or having sex. Fortunately, "They're filling their time with this social networking. So that's definitely a positive." How?! With obesity rates on the rise and school performance dwindling, how can we encourage sedentary activities between 3-6? That's prime after school activity time. What is going on with these selected bloggers that they are home between these hours and not participating in school activities? We should encourage activeness! And as for the likelihood to drink and have sex during these hours-yes, I can for sure see the sex happening [but as far as I know, if it's consensual, not jailbait, and you use protection, it's just a lovely form of cardio], but who is going to get hammered minutes before dear old Mom and Dad roll in to make dinner?

Okay, second rant...They offer up the idea that social workers [I'll go ahead and take it a step up the ladder and think about their ideas in terms of family therapists] should blog as a tool to build relationships with teens on their caseloads. They also encourage texting your clients to offer 'support' between sessions [Keep in mind, this study included a social worker as an author]. One of the golden rules of good, healthy therapy is to have boundaries. This is why office phone lines were invented-privacy! Giving your client a cell phone number to reach you at breaks those boundaries, and while some clients could respect that it's a 'for emergencies only' thing-most can't. That sense of immediate response only encourages the client to text the therapist for every little thing, mountains out of molehills and whatnot. Blogging feels like a decent idea, but the risk of confidentiality being violated seems too great. Solution? If you really want to embrace technology, go with a happy medium-create a work email. Set guidelines-maybe it'll take up to 24 hours to respond, or you won't answer on the weekends, etc., but it does allow for an easier flow of information between sessions. Important*for your legal safety, make sure you add a statement at the end that let's them know that email is NOT a secure form of communication and you can't guarantee confidentiality. I'd try to refrain from using last names too.

So kudos, OSU, you did blog research-personally, I think it's lacking, but I'm guessing there was a dearth of research. There, I blogged. And if you made it all the way to the end, then you deserve to be entertained. My family is super conservative, loves Jesus, and takes Easter very seriously. The second two were true. Anywho, family games are a big deal and this year was no exception. The initial games are really just warm-ups to the Big Show, the SuperBowl of games if you will-the Balloon Pop Game. Yes, we line up youngest to oldest and throw darts at a board of 61 balloons. Why 61? Well, there's 10 of us, that's 6 turns each~and the extra balloon? It says you get an extra turn. Booya. Each balloon is filled with a rhyme. You do what the rhyme says and you collect your prize. Four balloons contain [and yes I got this one] "A tisket a tasket, you won a basket." If this were a normal Easter, it'd be filled with Jelly Beans and Catholic Guilt~however, ours are filled with toys and lottery tickets. I won 15 dollars. Take that. Other balloons contain mini-games, including Deal or No Deal, Blind Man's Jar, Dip Your Hand in Gel, Yuck, and of course, everyone's favorite, Bobbing in Jello for Plastic Creatures Worth Selected Dollar Amounts. There is only one tub of Jello that three kids get to stick their faces in. The backwash gets a little much by the third person. The video is my lovely sister. Note my aunt saying, "always with your mouth" and the three foot long snake that she scores [it was worth 2$]. It took Jesus three days to rise. It took my Gram four days to make the Jello needed for this game.

I want to talk about the Capability Approach (CA) in general and what it means in terms of human development. Hopefully some of you have gotten to watch the video of Sen. The reason I find CA so interesting is because it switches our perspective of human development - away from the manner in which it has been considered my entire academic life. And it also makes me question why I considered human development in this manner.

Up until this point I have considered and studied human development as basically an individual phenomenon. Not so much that it is determined by individual attributes, although there are some avenues of research that make this argument, but as an individual responsibility. When I say responsibility I don't mean it in the traditional sense, like if you take out a car you are responsible for what happened to it. I mean responsibility in the sense that it is best understood as something an individual does, and if something does happen or does not happen in the developmental process we have to look at what is going on with the individual. Even in more socio-cultural theories what we are looking at is the individual's relationship with the society around them. This I think has allowed us to ignore some of the more dramatic social problems.
It is rarely asked, given everything else being perfect, or at least okay, does the individual even have the capability to develop. And what do we mean by development? Does it mean reaching a certain end point, achieving a specific ability? And who is making this decision about what it means to develop.

I have been struggling over the last couple of weeks to come up with a metaphor for the questions I am struggling with in the context of CA and would really like help from you guys in developing it, because this is such a different way of thinking about human development, and one that we are not used to, I'm not sure we can really understand it without placing it in the context of some familiar, everyday activity. I have been thinking of the metaphor of gardening. I want to grow a wonderful tomato plant. So what do I do. Well perhaps I think genetic material is important so I make sure I choose good seeds, or at least have a really good understanding of the line of tomato plants leading up to this line of seeds, its strength and weaknesses. I understand the importance of the surrounding plants, cross pollination, so I surround the plant with other strong plants. I have heard playing music for the plants helps them grow so I make sure to use this new technique. I make sure to weed on a daily basis. I try and do everything I can for this plant.

What is missing from this great planting and why might it fail. I did not take into account that it was on the wrong side of the fence and would not be getting enough sunshine. I made sure it was near a water source, but I did not take into account how pure the water was or even meets minimum standards for this plant. I forgot that animals come around and eat from available gardens and did not build in some way to protect it. Despite the effort I put into the tomato plant it never actually had the capability to flourish. Was I starting from the wrong place?

Hey guys,

I just ran across something pretty interesting on an academic listserv. There is an academic named Jenna Williams who seems to be trying to do exactly what I have been talking about and Mitch likes so much - develop her academic career through a blog. She combines more academic posts with poetry and movie reviews and all sorts of stuff. Here is the link

http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com/

Go over and take a visit. I bet that she would love it if you posted something in the comments section. Anyway it's a blast, and a real sign of how fast everything is moving.

And hey guys, Post something, it's feeling awful lonely lately - although I did like the cartoons.

Enjoy...

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1200

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1201

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1208

Gatekeeping? At least there is humor in it...

Hyperlinks and ZPD

This post is primarily for Maggie (so if anybody sees her tell her to go read the blog) but for everybody else as well. As you remember yesterday Maggie was talking about her idea for hyperelinks and I started talking about the relationship to Sen and Freedom. Okay, do you all remember the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development from Vygotsky. Many people in the United States looove that theory but I have always had trouble with it because it is so controlled by the adult in a mentor-neophyte relationship (see my article in Educational Researcher). But what if you look at following hyperlinks as basically a zone of proximal development but one that is created by the neophyte/child him or herself. They will keep following hyperlinks as far as their level of development will allow, where interest is actually pushing them to the end points of their abilities, because they have the freedom to follow those end points and are not constrained by either adults or even peers, nor do they have to please these people.

This also speaks to Mitch's complaint that individuals will just go as far as they want to go. But maybe they will just go as far as they are capable of going where their own individual abilities are driven by their interest and their freedom of movement through the blogosphere. They will stop, but where they do stop can be considered the far end of their zone of proximal development.

Hi,

I also want to talk about poverty for those of you who are interested and might take a look at the paper that Gizem and I have been working on. The big issue is how exactly do we define poverty and why do we define it that way. Aristotle suggested that the major human activity for individuals is to move towards a flourishing of human functioning. This means exactly what it says, that humans should be able to function in the best manner possible - in terms of their relationships with others, their thinking about the world around them, their ability to negotiate the world around them. So there is no one thing that we are working towards, no great knowledge, no specific ability, but the way in which you live your life, and how you feel in living your life. What is poverty, or what we want to look at as poverty is the capability to achieve this type of functioning.

This is where the issue of freedom comes in. To what degree is poverty the deprivation of material possessions and to what degree is it the deprivation of freedom, including the deprivation of a long life and good nutrition?

Blogs and information

Mitch, Wow I can't believe how much you wrote. But I am glad we had today's class before I responded. The issue of whether information is good or not is an interesting one. The truth is that we are often fed information that is inaccurate or outright false by sources we are supposed to trust. Here is a link to an article on a raid in Afghanistan and the way in which it was covered by the American media.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/05/afghanistan/index.html

One of the things to notice is that the information was reported by gatekeepers who were supposed to offer good information like CNN and the NYTimes so we automatically believed them. If it had not been for the internet and the ability to communicate and transfer information quickly there would be no way to know what really went on or have a good idea of what is going on in Afghanistan. This level of information and transparency offers us an enormous amount of freedom in our decision making process. Without the internet Glenn Greenwald who wrote the article would have been at a tremendous disadvantage. He was able to go beyond the information offered by gatekeepers and this is critical. I am not sure how well gatekeepers are reacting to this, suggesting that this is somehow dangerous - but the question we need to ask is freedom dangerous? Freedom is certainly something we fear. I think it is possible to put this in the context of Foucault.

A second source mentioned in this article is Wikileaks which is a site where peope can send primary information and when it is verified it is released to through this site to the public. Wikileaks always demands primary sources. What is interesting about Wikileaks is that nobody really knows where they are of who they are, with the belief that it would be too dangerous for people running the site if people did know. And this is an issue that I don't think Sen touches on very much but which is quite important which is that because the internet makes information so fluid it enables individuals to post and access information without social blowback. Now many people say there is a down side to this because it allows for instance minors to access information that perhaps parents don't won't available to them. Will the internet eventually change the meaning of parenting.

Let's return to the project Maggies was discussing today. Why do we think that hitting links will increase comprehension and reading abilities. It is not actually the hitting of links that causes this but something else. Is it the ability of individuals to have some level of control over their own lives in a way that education usually doesn't afford. Is it because the reason or rationale behind their journey is transparent? Is it because learning happens better in the context of personal freedom? Is this why for instance people learn better in an upper middle class environment than in a poverty environment?

WWW

I requested the "Blogs as Freedom" manuscript because the world wide web fascinates me. The Internet has sparked an information revolution of sorts where anyone with access can obtain information instantly. This capability allows users to take control of their lives to an extent that has never been seen before (freedom). Three weeks ago the motor which powered my driver side window broke leaving my window in the down position with an 80% chance of precipitation in the forecast. After cursing my POS truck I began weighting my options: 1) take my truck to the auto repair shop and have them convince me that my window was a difficult fix that would cost a lot of money (control of information), or 2) fix the problem myself. The latter would not even be an option without the world wide web. After scouring several blogs which explained were GMC hides the bolts necessary for removing the door panel I was able to at least get my window back to its upright position, keeping me dry until I can afford to get the motor fixed.

This example illustrates how the Internet can provide simple capabilities to individuals who dont have them. Dr. Glassman's manuscript elequently explains how the blogosphere can provide capabilites more important than my basic troubleshooting example. However, I think the manuscript lacks the discussion of two important and interrelated phenomenas. First, the article fails to mention the surfeit of inaccurate information which polutes the world wide web. What good is shared information if that information does not enhance the capabilities of its community? In this sense the increased flow (amount) of information found on the internet may be more harmful. This brings me to the second phenomena that I believe should be mentioned in the manuscipt; internet wikis. In my opinion wikis (http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/what-is-a-wiki) are the purest form of blogging, allowing any reader to edit the content of the webpage they are reading (increasing the flow of information, whether accurate or not). It is for this reason that experts (academics in particular) are terrified of wikis. In fact I was shocked to see Wikipedia cited numerous times in Dr. Glassman's manuscript because I was trained to never reference a wiki. I dont necessarily agree with this stance (and I assumed Dewey wouldnt either) but it seems to be the consensus and should be mentioned in relation to the potential spread of innacurate information.