Nazi indoctrination and anti-Semitic beliefs in Germany.

Attempts at modifying public opinions, attitudes, and beliefs range from advertising and schooling to "brainwashing." Their effectiveness is highly controversial. In this paper, we use survey data on anti-Semitic beliefs and attitudes in a representative sample of Germans surveyed in 1996 and 2006 to show that Nazi indoctrination--with its singular focus on fostering racial hatred--was highly effective. Between 1933 and 1945, young Germans were exposed to anti-Semitic ideology in schools, in the (extracurricular) Hitler Youth, and through radio, print, and film. As a result, Germans who grew up under the Nazi regime are much more anti-Semitic than those born before or after that period: the share of committed anti-Semites, who answer a host of questions about attitudes toward Jews in an extreme fashion, is 2-3 times higher than in the population as a whole. Results also hold for average beliefs, and not just the share of extremists; average views of Jews are much more negative among those born in the 1920s and 1930s. Nazi indoctrination was most effective where it could tap into preexisting prejudices; those born in districts that supported anti-Semitic parties before 1914 show the greatest increases in anti-Jewish attitudes. These findings demonstrate the extent to which beliefs can be modified through policy intervention. We also identify parameters amplifying the effectiveness of such measures, such as preexisting prejudices.

[Management of minors returning from regions controlled by Islamic State]. / Prise en charge de mineurs revenant de zones contrôlées par l'État islamique.

Certain children's welfare accommodation facilities have, since the end of 2015, taken in minors returning from regions controlled by Islamic State. These complex situations challenge professionals and involve political, media-related and religious issues. They require understanding of the process of radicalisation in order to be able to support the children and their families. In this context, training and team work are essential.

Ethics Teaching in Higher Education for Principled Reasoning: A Gateway for Reconciling Scientific Practice with Ethical Deliberation.

This paper proposes laying the groundwork for principled moral reasoning as a seminal goal of ethics interventions in higher education, and on this basis, makes a case for educating future specialists and professionals with a foundation in philosophical ethics. Identification of such a seminal goal is warranted by (1) the progressive dissociation of scientific practice and ethical deliberation since the onset of a problematic relationship between science and ethics around the mid-19th century, and (2) the extensive mistrust of integrating ethics in science and engineering curricula beyond its "applied," "practical," or "professional" implications. Although calls by international scientific and educational bodies to strengthen ethics teaching in scientific education over the past quarter century have brought about a notion of combining competence in a certain field with competence in ethics, this is neither entrenched in the academic community, nor fleshed out as regards its core or instruments to realize it. The legitimate goals of ethics teaching in higher education, almost settled since the 1980s, can be subsumed under the proposed seminal goal, and the latter also would safeguard content and methods of ethics interventions against the intrusion of indoctrinative approaches. In this paper, derivation of the proposed seminal goal rests on an interpretation of the Kohlbergian cognitive-developmental conception of moral adulthood consisting in autonomous principled moral reasoning. This interpretation involves, based on Kant's conception of the virtuous person, integrating questions about the "good life" into the domain of principled reasoning.

"Vegan Teachers Make Students Feel Really Bad": Is Teaching Sustainable Nutrition Indoctrinating?

The transformation toward more sustainable food choices may be supported by an education for sustainable nutrition. In schools, biology teachers play a key role in educating students as sustainability change makers, as biology lessons provide various opportunities to deal with ESD-topics such as sustainable nutrition. Teachers' classroom practices may be influenced by their personal choices regarding sustainable nutrition. Additionally, students may see their teachers as role models for sustainable behavior. This presents the risk of students adopting teachers' beliefs and behaviors without reflection. Teaching sustainable nutrition is therefore in potential conflict with indoctrinating young people toward sustainable diets. To date, no studies have addressed the perceived risk of indoctrination in the context of teaching sustainable nutrition in relation to teachers' personal beliefs, behaviors, and teaching practices. Therefore, this study explored whether biology teachers themselves perceive a risk of indoctrination when teaching sustainable nutrition, and what methods they use for teaching it in a non-indoctrinating way. For this purpose, we conducted semi-structured interviews with seven in-service biology teachers from high schools in Germany. Data for this explorative qualitative study were collected from July to October 2021 using convenience sampling. These were analyzed by qualitative coding and content analysis. The preliminary results of this study show that participants recognize a high risk of indoctrination when teaching sustainable nutrition, primarily due to their own teaching actions, such as deciding whether to reveal their own dietary choices to students. While some participants believed teachers must be restrained, others thought that open communication about personal choices could benefit student decision-making skills. In terms of avoiding indoctrination when teaching sustainable nutrition, participants advocated for student-centered and multi-perspective teaching approaches. Based on the findings, initial implications for further research and teacher training are discussed.

On the theory of mental representation block. a novel perspective on learning and behavior.

Understanding the mechanisms behind memory, learning, and behavior is crucial to human development and significant research has been done in this area. Classical and operant conditioning and other theories of learning have elucidated different mechanisms of learning and how it modulates behavior. Even with advances in this area, questions remain on how to unlearn faulty ideas or extinguish maladaptive behaviors. In this paper, a novel theory to improve our understanding of this area is proposed. The theory proposes that as a consequence of the brain's energy efficiency evolutionary adaptations, all learning following memory consolidation, reconsolidation, and repeated reinforcements or strengthening over time, results in a phenomenon called mental representation block. The implications of this block on learning and behavior are significant and broad and include cognitive biases, belief in a creator or God, close-mindedness, dogmatism, physician misdiagnosis, racism, homophobia, and transphobia, susceptibility to deception and indoctrination, hate and love, artificial intelligence and creativity.

Indoctrination, Islamic schools, and the broader scope of harm.

Many philosophers argue that religious schools are guilty of indoctrinatory harm. I think they are right to be worried about that. But in this article, I will postulate that there are other harms for many individuals that are more severe outside the religious school. Accordingly the full scope of harm should be taken into account when evaluating the harm that some religious schools may do. Once we do that, I suggest, justice may require that we choose the lesser harm. To simplify matters, I focus my attention on the stigmatic harm done to Muslims, and the role that Islamic schools might be expected to play in mitigating that harm. If the full weight of stigmatic harm is factored into the ethical analysis concerning Islamic schools, then I suggest that there are sufficiently weighty pro tanto reasons for Muslim parents to prefer an Islamic school over the alternatives, notwithstanding the potential indoctrinatory harm.

Incitement, genocide, genocidal terror, and the upstream role of indoctrination: can epidemiologic models predict and prevent?

We apply the models and tools of epidemiology and public health to propose a unified field theory showing the role of ideologies, indoctrination, and incitement, in genocide, genocidal terror, and terror by groups or individuals. We examine the effects of indoctrination and incitement as exposures and risks in relation to genocide and genocidal terror. Incitement has been recognized as a trigger to these outcomes but indoctrination is upstream to incitement. Population-wide exposure to indoctrination increases susceptibility to the effects of incitement. These relationships have been seen in all major genocides and genocidal terror in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There is some insight into the relationship between ideology, incitement, and genocidal acts of violence from the so-called localized genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Syria, and most recently, among the Rohingya in Myanmar. There is a need to recognize the upstream role of ideologies of hate in order to determine the degree to which indoctrination posed, and continues to pose, a contributing factor. Epidemiologic models, such as the iceberg model of exposure and disease and the concept of "sick individuals" and "sick populations," guide our understanding of the content and spread of indoctrination and incitement and can provide essential insights for prevention. The hateful indoctrination and ideologies behind genocidal violence must be countered and replaced by positive ideologies and role models that emphasize respect for life and human dignity for all.

Tricks of the Trade: Motivating Sales Agents to Con Older Adults.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: Financial fraud is estimated to cost consumers approximately $50 billion annually. To examine how new hires are trained to engage in fraud, this study analyzed a sales training transcript from Alliance for Mature Americans (Alliance). In 1996, Alliance was charged with using deception and misrepresentation to sell more than $200 million worth of living trusts and annuities to 10,000 older adults in California. DESIGN AND METHODS: Transcribed recordings from a 2-day Alliance sales training seminar were analyzed using NVivo10, coded inductively, and examined to identify emergent themes. RESULTS: Predominant themes were as follows: (a) indoctrination using incentives and neutralization techniques and (b) training on persuasion tactics targeted at older adults. Findings suggest that sales training focuses on establishing the company's legitimacy, normalizing unethical sales practices, and refining trainees' knowledge about how to influence older consumers. IMPLICATIONS: Predatory and fraudulent businesses peddling ill-suited products threaten the economic security of older Americans. Improved insights into sales manipulation strategies can guide the development of protective policies including educational approaches to help older adults detect scams and resist purchasing fraudulent products.

Homophobia and academic freedom.

SUMMARY Addressing homophobia and heterosexism as a teacher raises issues of respect for the intellectual freedom of your students. The central thesis of this article is that these issues are best addressed on the basis of general principles of academic freedom-that is, intellectual freedom in educational and research contexts. Three cases are analyzed on the basis of principles developed by the Academic Freedom Coalition of Nebraska (AFCON). These principles permit advocacy, rather than requiring neutrality, but do not permit indoctrination. That is, instructors may express and justify their own ideas relevant to the curriculum and try to convince students to adopt those ideas and/or abandon alternatives, but must not coerce or require belief, censor or punish students who remain unconvinced, or restrict access to alternative views.