California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Latest update: June 20, 1999
Faculty on the Site.

Habermas expressed considerable concern that we have lost the skills of discourse, that we no longer are used to making alternative validity claims and discussing them in our daily conversations. Calhoun shares that concern in his description of our "administered" society.

This section of the site is designed to bring us all to acute awareness of the difficulty of effectively stating validity claims, especially in a social context so fraught with change. We have elsewhere defined the responsibility of hearing in good faith as a responsibility that includes helping the "other" to express his/her claim in terms that can be grasped and fairly considered by all.

To gain some understanding of the difficulties read the passage on study time written by one of our really serious students. Although the passage gives the impression that she studies very little, that wasn't really the case. She was focussed on the interruptions, the barriers to the fantasy world of immersion in one's studies. So that is what we hear. Good faith listening will move us to question, to examine actual behavior (this student once stayed two hours past the class in a statistics lab), and then to guide the student into a restatement that will help clarify her validity claim. Good editing can do that. Good faith listening must do that.

The contribution of the "fifteen" minutes piece led us to investigate all the wicked little unstated assumptions involved in the concept of the "serious student." Join us in making that text happen.

CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY & ACTION RESEARCH 

13-16 JULY 1999 
International Conference 

"This conference has three aims, and the final call for papers is for three different kinds of work: (i) to bring together critical psychologists, and for this we invite critical psychologists working practically and/or theoretically to submit proposals; (ii) to bring together good examples of action research, and for this we invite action researchers working with the theory and/or practice of action research to submit proposals; and (iii) to expore connections between critical psychology and action research, and for this we invite psychologist working at the interface of critical perspectives and action research to present their work."

"We have papers so far from Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa, United States and Venezuela. The final deadline for abstracts is 31st April 1999 (100-150 words for papers)."

"The conference is designed to provide an overview of key themes in critical psychology and action research, and the links between the two, and so the structure takes us through conceptual / practical / historical foundations, theoretical / cultural / institutional resources, arenas in which action research has been developed, and threads of debate and difference between perspectives."

"The conference will provide a forum to discuss ways of changing the world through varieties of action research, and to critically reflect on how psychology needs to change to be up to the task. There will be keynote talks, individual papers, symposia and workshops. The conference will encompass theories, methods and examples of action research. Sessions will focus on issues of conscientization, cultural destabilization, education inclusion campaigns, feminist research, mental health intervention, practical deconstruction and radical therapeutic activities. Abstracts of successful submissions will be published at the conference, and selected papers published in Annual Review of Critical Psychology."

"Further information on the conference is on the Bolton Institute Psychology Website."