Since the end of 1996, teachers at the Faculty of Policy Sciences at Nijmegen University, The Netherlands, have been working on a new educational programme called "Political and Social Sciences of the Environment" (PSSE). In fact, the PSSE curriculum builds on the Environmental Policy Sciences curriculum that had existed since 1989, and which from 1998 onwards integrated the former programme (Social Sciences and Environmental Studies). The (re)designing of the PSSE curriculum has been inspired by innovative ideas in education, in which project training plays an important role. This paper discusses the educational background of the new curriculum, its main structure and the goals and functioning of project training therein. We relate our efforts to the goals of pursuing sustainability in higher education, and conclude by summarising the specific profile and features of the curriculum.
How do Filipinos remember their history? To date this question still has no systematic answer. This article provides quantitative, descriptive results from two nationally representative surveys that show how Filipinos view three of the country's major historical events: the Spanish colonization of the Philippines; martial law under President Ferdinand Marcos; and the 1986 People Power Revolution. The descriptive results include several takeaways, including: first, the modal response towards all three events was indifference (versus positive or negative feelings); second, positive feelings towards martial law were highest among those who were alive at that time; third, the distribution of feelings towards these historical events was similar across individuals with different educational achievement; and finally, a surprising proportion of respondents expressed positive feelings towards both martial law and People Power. We discuss the potential limitations of our study and conclude by considering the implications of these results for the Philippines' contemporary politics. (Contemp Southeast Asia/GIGA)
Extensive empirical evidence and theoretical developments in multiple disciplines stimulate a need to expand the range of rational choice models to be used as a foundation for the study of social dilemmas and collective action. After an introduction to the problem of overcoming social dilemmas through collective action, the remainder of this article is divided into six sections. The first briefly reviews the theoretical predictions of currently accepted rational choice theory related to social dilemmas. The second section summarizes the challenges to the sole reliance on a complete model of rationality presented by extensive experimental research. In the third section, I discuss two major empirical findings that begin to show how individuals achieve results that are "better than rational" by building conditions where reciprocity, reputation, and trust can help to overcome the strong temptations of short-run self-interest. The fourth section raises the possibility of developing second-generation models of rationality, the fifth section develops an initial theoretical scenario, and the final section concludes by examining the implications of placing reciprocity, reputation, and trust at the core of an empirically tested, behavioral theory of collective action.