Resources

Click Here for Book Review Abstract: Provides a developmental science basis to inform necessary transformations in undergraduate educational practices Argues that emerging adulthood is an especially dynamic time of reorganization and development of the brain that both influences, and is influenced by, the undergraduate experience Synthesizes advances in our understanding of human development and learning Has direct implications for undergraduate education practices The major challenges facing higher education are often framed in terms of preparing students for life-long learning. Society's 21st century needs require civic-minded individuals who have the intellectual and personal capabilities to constructively engage political, ethnic, and religious differences, work effectively, and live together with many different kinds of people in a more global society. In this volume, Robert J. Thompson aims to influence the current conversation about the purposes and practices of higher education. Beyond Reason and Tolerance adopts a developmental science basis to inform the transformations in undergraduate educational practices that are necessary to empower students to act globally and constructively engage difference. It synthesizes current scholarship regarding the nature and development of three core capacities deemed essential: A personal epistemology that reflects a sophisticated understanding of knowledge, beliefs, and ways of thinking; empathy and the capacity to understand the mental states of others; and an integrated identity that includes values, commitments, and a sense of agency for civic and social responsibility. Beyond Reason and Tolerance argues that to foster the development of these capabilities, colleges and universities must recommit to providing a formative liberal education and adopt a developmental model of undergraduate education as a process of intellectual and personal growth, involving empathy as well as reasoning, values as well as knowledge, and identity as well as competencies. Thompson focuses on emerging adulthood as an especially dynamic time of reorganization and development of the brain that both influences, and is influenced by, the undergraduate experience. Advances in our understanding of human development and learning are synthesized with regard to the direct implications for undergraduate education practices. Readership: Faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students in psychology, human development, and education who have an interest in intergroup relations and cognitive and social development during the period of emerging adulthood. (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review Abstract: Most of the claims about the purposes and achievements of higher education are irreducibly individualistic: it will change your life, through conversion or confirmation of faith, by improving your character, by giving you marketable “abilities,” by making you a better member of the community, or by being simply “capable” of operating more effectively in the contemporary world. All of these qualities scale up, of course, but in differing ways. David Watson explores the question of what higher education sets out to do for students through a number of lenses, including the “evolutionary” stages of modern university history, the sense participants and observers try to make of them, and a collection of “purposes,” or intended personal transformations. The resulting combinations are clustered around major questions about the role of universities for their students, and in society at large. He concludes by testing claims about the role of higher education in developing varieties of personal responsibility. The Question of Conscience identifies and explores how varied these claims have been over the long history of the higher enterprise, but also how strong and determined they invariably are. (From the Publisher)