This edited volume examines the relationship between collective intentionality and inferential theories of meaning. The book consists of three main sections. The first part contains essays demonstrating how researchers working on inferentialism and collective intentionality can learn from one another. The essays in the second part examine the dimensions along which philosophical and empirical research on human reasoning and collective intentionality can benefit from more cross-pollination. The final part consists of essays that offer a closer examination of themes from inferentialism and collective intentionality that arise in the work of Wilfrid Sellars. Groups, Norms and Practices provides a template for continuing an interdisciplinary program in philosophy and the sciences that aims to deepen our understanding of human rationality, language use, and sociality.

Ever since Hart ́s The Concept of Law, legal philosophers agree that the practice of law-applying officials is a fundamental aspect of law. Yet there is a huge disagreement on the nature of this practice. Is it a conventional practice? Is it like the practice that takes place, more generally, when there is a social rule in a group? Does it share the nature of collective intentional action? The book explores the main responses to these questions, and claims that they fail on two main counts: current theories do not explain officials ́ beliefs that they are under a duty qua members of an institution, and they do not explain officials ́ disagreement about the content of these institutional duties. Based on a particular theory of collective action, the author elaborates then an account of certain institutions, and claims that the practice is an institutional practice of sorts. This would explain officials ́ beliefs in institutional duties, and officials ́ disagreement about those duties. The book should be of interest to legal philosophers, but also to those concerned with group and social action theories and, more generally, with the nature of institutions.

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

A celebrated social psychologist offers a radical new perspective on cultural differences that reveals why some countries, cultures, and individuals take rules more seriously and how following the rules influences the way we think and act. In Rule Makers, Rule Breakers, Michele Gelfand, “an engaging writer with intellectual range” (The New York Times Book Review), takes us on an epic journey through human cultures, offering a startling new view of the world and ourselves. With a mix of brilliantly conceived studies and surprising on-the-ground discoveries, she shows that much of the diversity in the way we think and act derives from a key difference—how tightly or loosely we adhere to social norms. Just as DNA affects everything from eye color to height, our tight-loose social coding influences much of what we do. Why are clocks in Germany so accurate while those in Brazil are frequently wrong? Why do New Zealand’s women have the highest number of sexual partners? Why are red and blue states really so divided? Why was the Daimler-Chrysler merger ill-fated from the start? Why is the driver of a Jaguar more likely to run a red light than the driver of a plumber’s van? Why does one spouse prize running a tight ship while the other refuses to sweat the small stuff? In search of a common answer, Gelfand spent two decades conducting research in more than fifty countries. Across all age groups, family variations, social classes, businesses, states, and nationalities, she has identified a primal pattern that can trigger cooperation or conflict. Her fascinating conclusion: behavior is highly influenced by the perception of threat. “A useful and engaging take on human behavior” (Kirkus Reviews) with an approach that is consistently riveting, Rule Makers, Ruler Breakers thrusts many of the puzzling attitudes and actions we observe into sudden and surprising clarity.

This book, by two editors of Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning, attempts to bring about a fundamental shift in how educators think about the meetings we attend. They make the case that these gatherings are potentially the most important venue where adult and organizational learning can take place in schools, and that making more effective use of this time is the key to increasing student achievement. In Meeting Wise, the authors show why meeting planning is a high-leverage strategy for changing how people work together in the service of school improvement. To this end, they have created a meeting-planning “checklist” to develop a common language for discussing and improving the quality of meetings. In addition, they provide guidelines for readers on “wise facilitating” and “wise participating,” and also include “top tips” and common dilemmas. Simple, succinct, and practical, Meeting Wise is designed to be read and applied at every level of the educational enterprise: district leadership meetings with central office staff, charter-school management summits, principals’ meetings with teachers, professional development sessions, teacher-team meetings, and even teachers’ meetings with parents and students.

The central assumption that guides this book is that research and practice about learning at the workplace has recently lost its critical edge. This book explores what has happened to workplace learning and organizational learning and studies what has replaced it. In addition, the book discusses to what extend there are reasons to revitalize it. Today, themes such as ‘innovation’, ‘co-creation’ and ‘knowledge sharing’ seem to have become preferred and referred to as theoretical fields as well as fields of practice. In several chapters of this book it is argued that the critical power of learning could be regained by starting a new discussion of how these new fields of practice can be substantiated by topics such as learning arrangements, learning mechanisms, and learning strategies. Hence, the aim of this book is to both advance and recapture our knowledge of learning in today’s increasingly complex world of work and organizing. The contributions in this work do so by revisiting classic research on workplace and organizational learning and discussing how insights from this body of literature evokes new meaning. It sets the stage for new agendas and rethinks current practices that are entangled in activities such as innovation, co-creation, knowledge sharing or other currently widespread fields of practice.

The reasons why people do not always act in accord with their attitudes has been the focus of much social psychological research, as have the factors that account for why people change their attitudes and are persuaded by such influences as the media. There is strong support for the view that attitude-behavior consistency and persuasion cannot be well understood without reference to the wider social context in which we live. Although attitudes are held by individuals, they are social products to the extent that they are influenced by social norms and the expectations of others. This book brings together an international group of researchers discussing private and public selves and their interaction through attitudes and behavior. The effects of the social context on attitude-behavior relations and persuasion is the central theme of this book, which--in its combination of theoretical exposition, critique, and empirical research--should be of interest to both basic and applied social psychologists.

Student retention continues to be a vexing problem for all colleges and universities. In spite of the money spent on creating programs and services to help retain students until they achieve their academic and personal goals, and graduate, the figures have not improved over time. This is particularly true for minority students, who have a greater attrition rate than majority students. Demographic information shows that the minority population in the United States is growing at a faster rate than the majority. It is imperative that educational institutions find ways to help improve retention rates for all students but particularly minority students. Retention rates should not differ appreciably among different racial/ethnic groups."The Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice" is the only scholarly, peer-reviewed journal devoted solely to college student retention. It has published many articles on minority student retention, and this topic continues to garner much attention. This book is a compilation of the very best of these articles, selected on the basis of reviews by a cadre of experts in the education field. The articles discuss African American, Latino/Latina, Asian and Asian Pacific, Native American, and biracial students, and institutional commitments to retaining a diverse student population. For those interested in this vital area, the collection will teach and inspire them to achieve greater heights and pay additional attention to retaining minority students in our colleges and universities.