Deliberative Teaching as an Emergent Field: The Challenge of Articulating Diverse Research Agendas to Promote Educational Experiences for Citizenship.

Democracies are increasingly dependent upon sustainable citizenship, that is, active participation and engagement with the exercising of rights in a field of plural interests, often contradictory and in conflict. This type of citizenship requires not only social inclusion, habits of knowledge, and evidence-based reasoning but also argumentation skills, such as the individual and social capacity to dispute and exercise individual and social rights, and to deal peacefully with sociopolitical conflict. There is empirical evidence that educational deliberative argumentation has a lasting impact on the deep and flexible understanding of knowledge, argumentation skills, and political and citizenship education. However, these three trends of research have developed independently with insufficient synergy. Considering the relevance of deliberative education for contemporaneous democracies and citizenship, in this paper we seek to converge in a field of interlocution, calling it deliberative teaching. Our aim is to propose a way to increase the dialog and collaboration between the diffuse literature on argumentation and education, highlighting both the main theoretical and empirical gaps and challenges that remain and the possibilities to advance our knowledge and the educational impact that this integrating field could offer.

Manifiesto por la Psicología en Chile: A propósito de la revuelta del 18 de Octubre 2019 / Manifesto for Psychology in Chile: On the subject of the revolt of October 18, 2019

Resumen La psicología en tanto práctica profesional y de investigación científica no puede ni debe permanecer aislada de los contextos en los que se desarrolla. Frente a los profundos sentimientos de malestar expresados por el pueblo chileno en movilizaciones sociales desde el 18 de octubre de 2019, que responden directamente a la implementación de un modelo neoliberal desprovisto de justicia social, como psicólogas y psicólogos nos sentimos llamados a levantar los requerimientos mínimos que consideramos que nuestra disciplina debe asumir. Bajo este marco, se presenta un Manifiesto que contempla 22 puntos, construido de manera colaborativa por 13 psicólogas y psicólogos de diversas instituciones que, en una labor colectiva, lo proponen como agenda de trabajo para los próximos meses. Sabiendo que este listado no es definitivo ni exhaustivo, lo ofrecemos a la comunidad como un punto de partida para la deliberación, discusión y debate dentro de Universidades, centros de investigación, sociedades científicas y profesionales y al aparato estatal, de manera de fortalecer el rol de la psicología en la problematización y reducción las inequidades e injusticias, así como en el fomento del bienestar psicosocial.

Abstract Psychology as a professional and scientific practice should and must not remain isolated from the contexts in which it develops. Considering the deep feelings of discomfort expressed by the Chilean people during social mobilizations since October 18th, 2019, in response to the implementation for decades of a neoliberal model devoid of social justice, as psychologists we feel summoned to raise the minimum requirements we think our discipline must assume about that matter. Under these assumptions, a Manifesto is presented. It includes 22 items, which have been elaborated by 13 psychologists from several institutions that, in a collective effort, propose them as an agenda to work on in the next months. Knowing that this list is not definitive or exhaustive, we offer it to the community as a point of departure for deliberation, discussion and debate within universities, research centers, scientific and professional societies, and the state apparatus, in order to strengthen the role of psychology in the problematization and reduction of inequities and injustices, as well as in promoting psychosocial well-being.

Self as an Aesthetic Effect.

Mainstream psychology has assumed a notion of the self that seems to rest on a substantialist notion of the psyche that became predominant despite important critical theories about the self. Although cultural psychology has recognized the diverse, dialogical, historical, narrative, and performative nature of self, as opposed to the idea of self as entity, it is not clear how it accounts for the phenomenological experience of self as a unified image. In this paper, we offer a theoretical contribution to developing the implications of a genetic approach to self in cultural psychology, taking into account an otherwise overlooked dimension: art and aesthetics. We draw on the work of classical authors relevant to cultural psychology, who, although geopolitically and theoretically diverse, are concerted in understanding human psychological life as part of a living process of becoming: James, Mead, Dewey, Vygotsky, Bakhtin, and Volosinov. Overall, the hypothesis developed throughout the paper is that self is produced within psychological individuation as an effect of the aesthetic activity involved in everyday discursive life. We deepen the ideas that self is not an entity but a process of open becoming and that cultural life entails a radical experience of alterity, but we recognize the psychological importance of the sense of unity and closure generated in this process. We argue that self entails not only the process of becoming but also an aesthetical effect of unity in becoming. Self as an aesthetic effect emphasizes the self as a discursive and technical process of production, involving a product that, despite not being a finished entity, is felt as unitary and as mine by virtue of a specific transformation of experience. We thus propose to define self, on one level, as an epistemological category that points to the paradoxes of identity and agency in psychological individuation, and, on a different level, as a twofold operation that makes possible the subjective experience of a constitutive effort as much as a transient but experienced identity or agency.

The Effect of Peer-Group Argumentative Dialogue on Delayed Gains in Scientific Content Knowledge.

Experimental evidence has shown the effect of peer-group argumentation on scientific concept development. However, questions regarding how and why it happens remain. The aim of this study is to contribute, with experimental evidence gathered in naturalistic settings (classrooms), to the understanding of the relationship between peer-group argumentation and content knowledge learning, exploring the role that individual argumentative skills play. In total, sixty-one fourth-grade students (aged 9-10 years) participated in the study (thirty-nine female). One teacher was invited to teach a thematic unit (Forces), with lesson plans especially developed to foster argumentation in the classroom. The second teacher taught as usual. Students' conceptual understanding and argumentative skills were evaluated individually, both before and after the lessons. Although there were no differences in the immediate post-test scores between groups (after controlling for pre-test), the intervention group showed significantly higher scores in delayed post-tests. Regression analyses showed that the ratio of argumentative utterances per minute of group work predicted students' scores in delayed post-test disciplinary content knowledge after controlling for initial levels of learning. Argumentation skill gains did not impact learning, but initial levels of argumentation skills predicted delayed scientific content knowledge post-test.

Evaluación del ambiente educacional en programas de especialización médica / Evaluation of the educational environment in medical specialty programs

Background: The Postgraduate Hospital Education Environment Measure (PHEEM) questionnaire, is a valid and reliable instrument to measure the educational environment (EE) in postgraduate medical education. Aim: To evaluate the EE perceived by the residents of a postgraduate training program using the PHEEM. Material and Methods: The PHEEM was applied in 2010-2011 in 35 specialty programs. We calculated their individual results and compared means of both global and individual domain scores of the PHEEM, by gender, university of origin and nationality. Cronbach's alpha coefficients and D study (Generalizability theory) were performed for reliability. Results: Three hundred eighteen residents were surveyed (75.7% of the total universe). The mean score of the PHEEM was 105.09 ± 22.46 (65.7% of the maximal score) which is considered a positive EE. The instrument is highly reliable (Cronbach's alpha = 0.934). The D study found that 15 subjects are required to obtain reliable results (G coefficient = 0.813). There were no significant differences between gender and university of origin. Foreigners evaluated better the EE than Chileans and racism was not perceived. The programs showed a safe physical environment and teachers with good clinical skills. The negative aspects perceived were a lack of information about working hours, insufficient academic counseling, and scanty time left for extracurricular activities. Conclusions: This questionnaire allowed us to identify positive aspects of the EE, and areas to be improved in the specialty programs. The PHEEM is a useful instrument to evaluate the EE in Spanish-speaking participants of medical specialty programs.

[Evaluation of the educational environment in medical specialty programs]. / Evaluación del ambiente educacional en programas de especialización médica.

BACKGROUND: The Postgraduate Hospital Education Environment Measure (PHEEM) questionnaire, is a valid and reliable instrument to measure the educational environment (EE) in postgraduate medical education. AIM: To evaluate the EE perceived by the residents of a postgraduate training program using the PHEEM. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The PHEEM was applied in 2010-2011 in 35 specialty programs. We calculated their individual results and compared means of both global and individual domain scores of the PHEEM, by gender, university of origin and nationality. Cronbach's alpha coefficients and D study (Generalizability theory) were performed for reliability. RESULTS: Three hundred eighteen residents were surveyed (75.7% of the total universe). The mean score of the PHEEM was 105.09 ± 22.46 (65.7% of the maximal score) which is considered a positive EE. The instrument is highly reliable (Cronbach's alpha = 0.934). The D study found that 15 subjects are required to obtain reliable results (G coefficient = 0.813). There were no significant differences between gender and university of origin. Foreigners evaluated better the EE than Chileans and racism was not perceived. The programs showed a safe physical environment and teachers with good clinical skills. The negative aspects perceived were a lack of information about working hours, insufficient academic counseling, and scanty time left for extracurricular activities. CONCLUSIONS: This questionnaire allowed us to identify positive aspects of the EE, and areas to be improved in the specialty programs. The PHEEM is a useful instrument to evaluate the EE in Spanish-speaking participants of medical specialty programs.