Secondary Generalist

Speaking of Ecology and Society, check out the abstract for an upcoming article: With a...

Wed, 23 May 2012 20:01:41 -0400

Speaking of Ecology and Society, check out the abstract for an upcoming article:

With a worldwide increase in disasters, the effects of climate change are already being felt, and it is the urban poor in developing countries who are most at risk. There is an urgent need to better understand the factors that determine people’s capacity to cope with and adapt to adverse climate conditions. This paper examines the influence of formal education in determining the adaptive capacity of the residents of two low-income settlements: Los Manantiales in San Salvador (El Salvador) and Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), where climate-related disasters are recurrent. In both case study areas, it was found that the average levels of education were lower for households living at high risk, as opposed to residents of lower risk areas. In this context, the influence of people’s level of education was identified to be twofold due to (a) its direct effect on aspects that reduce risk, and (b) its mitigating effect on aspects that increase risk. The results further suggest that education plays a more determinant role for women than for men in relation to their capacity to adapt. In light of these results, the limited effectiveness of institutional support identified by this study might also relate to the fact that the role of formal education has so far not been sufficiently explored. Promoting (improved access to and quality of) formal education as a way to increase people’s adaptive capacity is further supported with respect to the negative effects of disasters on people’s level of education, which in turn reduce their adaptive capacity, resulting in a vicious circle of increasing risk.

From Climate Change, Adaptation, and Formal Education: the Role of Schooling for Increasing Societies’ Adaptive Capacities in El Salvador and Brazil.

William Deresiewicz in the NYT: I always found the notion of a business school amusing. What...

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:29:08 -0400

William Deresiewicz in the NYT:

I always found the notion of a business school amusing. What kinds of courses do they offer? Robbing Widows and Orphans? Grinding the Faces of the Poor? Having It Both Ways? Feeding at the Public Trough?

Wow. Things sure have changed since I was in b-school.

I’m teaching an econ class this summer; I’d better update the syllabus.

Also: It’s going to be a long five months.

Krugman: Eddie Lazear has an op-ed in the WSJ on the fiscal cliff that, among other things,...

Tue, 22 May 2012 20:01:00 -0400

Krugman:

Eddie Lazear has an op-ed in the WSJ on the fiscal cliff that, among other things, pooh-poohs any concerns that sudden cuts in spending might hurt the economy. He weasels a bit, but basically conveys the impression that there’s no evidence for Keynesian effects.

What this signifies to me is the politicization and corruption overtaking the economics profession. I’ll give Eddie the benefit of the doubt; he is probably just going by what his friends say.

That’s via Scott Sumner, emphasis added by me.

Look at what Krugman is accusing Lazear of in this section:

Being dismissive of counterargument
Carefully using language to “convey an impression” without truly making a claim
Politicizing the economics profession

I’ll give Krugman the benefit of the doubt; he probably just lacks anything resembling self-awareness.

Growing into Interdisciplinarity: How to Converge Biology, Economics, and Social Science in...

Mon, 21 May 2012 19:09:40 -0400

Growing into Interdisciplinarity: How to Converge Biology, Economics, and Social Science in Fisheries Research?

Pretty interesting article in the new Ecology & Society that may be worth a skim to anyone doing comparative education, since it is by definition an interdisciplinary field.

Thus, interdisciplinarity requires the tribes to learn how to communicate across the disciplinary boundaries.

That about sums up my first year in CIE, which I mostly spent translating sociology into economics so I could understand what people were talking about (with mixed results).

This weekend the NYT ran an extensive article on student loans. From the opening paragraphs: ...

Thu, 17 May 2012 20:31:13 -0400

This weekend the NYT ran an extensive article on student loans. From the opening paragraphs:

Kelsey Griffith graduates on Sunday from Ohio Northern University. To start paying off her $120,000 in student debt, she is already working two restaurant jobs and will soon give up her apartment here to live with her parents…Ms. Griffith, 23, wouldn’t seem a perfect financial fit for a college that costs nearly $50,000 a year. Her father, a paramedic, and mother, a preschool teacher, have modest incomes, and she has four sisters.

Today, I read this on USA Today:

Three percent of recent college grads say their parents have actually sat in with them during interviews, and one percent claim Mom or Dad wrote their thank you notes afterwards.

I live in a strange country.

(See also: Amgen Tour Of California General Classification Set...

Thu, 17 May 2012 20:12:04 -0400

(via Dave Zabriskie wins his sixth time trial title, earns honor...

Thu, 17 May 2012 20:10:55 -0400

(via Dave Zabriskie wins his sixth time trial title, earns honor - USATODAY.com; The shot is from last year, but worth a reblog as Capitan America takes yellow in California.)

Good schools make good neighbors: Human capital spillovers in early 20th century agriculture: ...

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:49:16 -0400

Good schools make good neighbors: Human capital spillovers in early 20th century agriculture:

Formal schooling has a significant impact on modern agricultural productivity but there is little evidence quantifying the historical importance of schools in the early development of the American agricultural sector. I present new data from the Midwest at the start of the twentieth century showing that the emerging public schools were helping farmers successfully adapt to a variety of agricultural innovations. I use a unique dataset of farmers containing detailed geographical information to estimate both the private returns to schooling and human capital spillovers across neighboring farms. The results indicate that public schools contributed substantially to agricultural productivity at the turn of the century and that a large portion of this contribution came through human capital spillovers. These findings offer new insights into why the Midwest was a leader in the expansion of secondary education.

New paper by John Parman at William & Mary. Need to read this.

merlin: 10,000 Singers - Symphony No. 9, Fourth Movement (“Ode...

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:21:23 -0400

merlin:

10,000 Singers - Symphony No. 9, Fourth Movement (“Ode to Joy”) (Osaka-jō Hall, 2011)

What it says on the tin. Ten-thousand (non-professional) Japanese singers, wailing the shit out of some Ludwig Van.

Pretty amazing.

Sanity Break: 10,000 member choir sings Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”

In this video from Osaka, Japan, a 10,000 member amateur choir performs the “Ode to Joy” section of Beethoven’s Symphony Number Nine. The concert is an annual event, but this year’s performance — recorded in late December 2011 — was dedicated to the victims of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Jump straight to 06:40 if you just want the money shot. But, don’t miss out on some of the wide, crowd shots. It’s shivery.

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter, drunk with fire,
Heavenly one, your sanctuary!

@FakeCivilWar is far and away my favorite jokey twitter.

Tue, 01 May 2012 19:30:59 -0400

@FakeCivilWar is far and away my favorite jokey twitter.

Yeah, buddy

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:11:07 -0400

Yeah, buddy

"GOOD. FAST. CHEAP. PICK ONE. (WE THINK YOU KNOW WHICH ONE.) Exceptional web design takes time and..."

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:53:26 -0400

“

GOOD. FAST. CHEAP. PICK ONE. (WE THINK YOU KNOW WHICH ONE.)

Exceptional web design takes time and money, and we’re firm believers that you get what you pay for…and what you wait for. If you need it next week for the spare change that fell out of the couch, we’re not your guys.

”

- Full Stop — Web design from Pittsburgh, PA

Going pro means having the courage to turn away business.

felixsalmon: This guy just donated $40 million to build a...

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:01:31 -0400

felixsalmon:

This guy just donated $40 million to build a velodrome in Brooklyn Bridge Park. I love New York.

"Who do you think made the first stone spears? The Asperger guy. If you were to get rid of all the..."

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:43:00 -0400

“Who do you think made the first stone spears? The Asperger guy. If you were to get rid of all the autism genetics, there would be no more Silicon Valley.”

- Temple Grandin

David Dow took a break from writing books in favor of judicial activism to complain about judicial...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:22:26 -0400

David Dow took a break from writing books in favor of judicial activism to complain about judicial activism. I just want to comment on this thing that keeps coming up:

First, Congress’s authority in passing the law rests on an elementary syllogism: You don’t have to drive, but if you do, the government can make you buy insurance. The logical structure at work here is that if you are going to do something (drive, for example), the government can make you purchase a commercial product (insurance, for example), so long as it has a good reason for doing so (making sure you can pay for any damage you do). That logic is obviously satisfied in the health-care context. You are going to use medical care, so the government can make you buy insurance in order to make sure you can pay for it. Liberty, like every other human and constitutional right, is not absolute. Under some circumstances, it can be regulated.

(a) I can choose not to drive, and therefore choose not to purchase car insurance. ACA requires me to purchase insurance or be considered a criminal, regardless of my personal choices. It’s not the same at all.

(b) I am required to purchase liability insurance, to protect the person I harm in an accident, not myself, or my property. Health insurance covers me, not people I may harm through my actions. It’s not the same at all.

(c) States require drivers to purchase liability insurance, not the Feds. And New Hampshire doesn’t even require. It’s not the same at all.

I’m not saying there aren’t limits to liberty or that we can’t regulate things. I’m saying this dumb drivers insurance analogy people have used for years now makes no sense.

It’s sad when good scholars and smart people will say pandering nonsense in the popular press to help out their team (see also: Krugman).

Related: It’s also sad that defenders of the individual mandate have to reach back to 1792 for any precedent, and that apparently doesn’t bother them. If there were no constitutional concerns with the federal government requiring individuals to purchase a good or service, why hasn’t it happened in the past two hundred years? I question the strength of a case that rests on citizens being forced to purchase muskets to put down rebellions and defend against “Indian tribes.”

Clearly, I’m just some idiot and not a legal scholar of any kind. But these arguments all take a “this is basic logic” tone that is plainly not true. Basic logic says that individual mandate is something new, something that the United States has not required citizens to do for nearly her entire history. And GEICO has nothing to do with it.

Contingent valuation is a survey-based economic technique for the valuation of non-market...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:42:12 -0400

Contingent valuation is a survey-based economic technique for the valuation of non-market resources, such as environmental preservation or the impact of contamination. While these resources do give people utility, certain aspects of them do not have a market price as they are not directly sold – for example, people receive benefit from a beautiful view of a mountain, but it would be tough to value using price-based models. Contingent valuation surveys are one technique which is used to measure these aspects. Contingent valuation is often referred to as a stated preference model, in contrast to a price-based revealed preference model. Both models are utility-based. Typically the survey asks how much money people would be willing to pay (or willing to accept) to maintain the existence of (or be compensated for the loss of) an environmental feature, such as biodiversity. -Wikipedia

How awesome would it be to use contingent valuation to find willingness-to-pay numbers for educational services, and then compare these to direct costs of education (in fees and/or taxes) and determine if there is producer or consumer surplus? And then to do this in Hunterdon County, New Jersey and Siem Reap, Cambodia and compare as a percentage of income to get an idea of who values education more?

Very awesome.

"Here’s the thing, Dan. If you’re going to enjoy a sandwich you need to understand that..."

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:34:16 -0400

“Here’s the thing, Dan. If you’re going to enjoy a sandwich you need to understand that it starts and ends with bread… everything in the middle is a choice. We’ll be right back.”

- Merlin as Dr. Phil; so good

D’oh: Do not attend graduate school unless you are fully supported by—at minimum—a...

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:42:10 -0400

D’oh:

Do not attend graduate school unless you are fully supported by—at minimum—a multiyear teaching assistantship that provides a tuition waiver, a stipend, and health insurance that covers most of the years of your program. The stipend needs to be generous enough to support your actual living expenses for the location. Do not take out new debt to attend graduate school. Because the tenure-track job market is so bleak, graduate school in the humanities and social sciences is, in most cases, not worth going into debt for.

More at The Chronicle

carinteriors: Maxda RX-7, late ’80s

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:46:17 -0400

carinteriors:

Maxda RX-7, late ’80s

David Spencer in The Freirean Approach to Adult Literacy Education: The term “problem...

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 10:42:05 -0400

David Spencer in The Freirean Approach to Adult Literacy Education:

The term “problem posing” is often misunderstood, perhaps because of the negative connotations given the word “problem” and the frequent reference to problem-solving skills in education. In the Freirean approach, cultural themes in the form of open-ended problems are incorporated into materials such as pictures, comics, short stories, songs, and video dramas, that are then used to generate discussion. The teacher asks a series of open-ended questions about these materials that encourage students to elaborate upon what they see in them. Ultimately, this questioning process leads the students to define the real-life problem being represented, discuss its causes, and propose actions that can be taken to solve it (Freire, 1970, 1973; Wallerstein, 1983). Ideally, the solutions evolving from the group’s discussion will entail actions in which reading and writing skills are required, thus giving learners a concrete purpose for the literacy they are developing.