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Experiential learning: current contributions and future trends in practice

Nearly 40 years after the publication of David Kolb’s 1984 book, Experiential Learning: Learning as the source of learning and development, experiential learning remains one of the most influential theories of learning in management education. A recent entry in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management outlines the background, history, and future of experiential learning in management education based on Kolb’s original formulation.

Experiential learning describes a four-phase process of learning that begins with experience. Experience serves as the raw material for the second phase of learning, reflection. During reflection, the learner understands the new experience in the context of prior experiences, which leads to greater insights and a sense of continuity in learning. The third phase is conceptualizing or thinking about experience in abstract ways. Abstraction means making connections to prior experiences, but also considering how the experience connects to ideas and concepts. The fourth phase is active experimentation where the learner considers next steps. In this fourth phase, the learner takes action, which in turn starts the cycle over again.

In the context of management education, experiential learning has inspired countless administrators, faculty, and students to adopt its principles to learning and teaching. In applied areas of learning such as training, leadership development, and employee learning, experiential learning remains the standard. Specifically, experiential learning has been used to:

direct the design and delivery of coursesserve as a guide to person-centered learningengage different approaches to learning and developmentprovide a framework to consider management learning techniques such as problem-based learning, team-based learning, simulations, case studies, and other active learning strategies.

Based on foundational theories from pragmatic thinkers such as John Dewey and William James, experiential learning theory explains learning as a life-long activity. One reason that experiential learning has been so influential is because it addresses a growing discontent in management education. For example, experiential learning provides an alternative to traditional modes of learning such as lectures and content-based learning that requires memorization. Other factors that have led to its popular adoption are based on the premise that experiential learning provides a means to address how people learn differently, and because it addresses both practical and theoretical aspects of learning.

In addition, experiential learning provides the basis to integrate different assumptions associated with learning. Experiential learning theory has served as an overarching theoretical framework to study variations on experiential learning. Critical approaches, psycho-social dynamics of learning, as well as recent developments associated with neuroscience all draw on the foundational insights of experiential learning. New understanding of how people learn from experience promises to usher in new insights. In particular, we see three strong trends associated with experiential learning research and practice.

Three trends in experiential learning practice

First, there is increasing recognition that experiential learning constitutes a stance towards learning and not just a set of tools, exercises, and techniques. Oftentimes, in discussions of experiential learning, the emphasis has been on its application as a set of learning techniques. This is understandable as experiential learning advocates for an engaging approach to teaching and learning. But experiential learning offers more than just techniques and tools. As a comprehensive approach to learning, it serves as a guide on how to engage learners. This idea, that the learning cycle can guide learning, results in an emphasis on process rather than technique. This idea was the basis for our textbook, Contemporary Organizational Behavior. We introduced readers and instructors to the learning cycle as the basis for learning organizational behavior concepts. Rather than emphasize any specific techniques, we instead encourage learners to engage their experience through cases, reflection, and application.

Second, there is a growing realization that experiential learning can be applied to various situations, including self-improvement and development outside of the classroom. Kay Peterson, founder and CEO of the Institute for Experiential Learning has shown how experiential learning can be a useful tool for self-improvement and personal development. In her book, co-authored with David Kolb, How you learn is how you live, Peterson shows how attention to one’s experience provides the basis for life-long learning.

Third, research is on the verge of developing a better understanding of various factors, including the role of emotions, behaviors, and attitudes are involved in the learning process. This includes an interest in the nature of experiences that initiate and sustain the learning process over time. Emerging concepts such as learning identity, approaching learning with creativity, and emotional engagement, show promise as factors that can support the initiation of learning and sustained learning. In addition, research is showing a fundamental role for expert and emotional support in facilitating learning processes.

Nearly 40 years after its initial articulation in Kolb’s classic book, experiential learning remains on a vibrant and exciting trajectory. The recognition that learning from experience is a natural process, but one that may require cultivating and facilitating, means that learning from experience can continue to provide the basis for learning in a variety of formats for years to come.

Featured image: Pexels via Pixabay

Inequality and economics: let’s go back to Adam Smith

Although the issue of economic inequality has long been neglected by economists, it has become increasingly important in academic and public debate over the past decade, as evidenced by the success of books by Piketty (Capital in the Twenty-First Century and Capital and Ideology), Atkinson (Inequality. What can be done?) or Milanovic (Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization). In addition, international institutions long considered pro-liberal, such as the OECD and the IMF, are now openly calling on governments to take redistributive and tax justice measures to enable more inclusive and equitable growth.

The reason for this recent and growing interest of economists in the issue of inequality is mainly due to the progress made in measuring inequality, but also and above all to the increase in inequality since the 1980s-1990s, which has been more or less significant depending on the country, combined with a slowdown in growth, particularly in the advanced countries. And the current global crisis of COVID-19 is likely to accentuate this phenomenon, since it has plunged many economies into recession and exacerbated inequalities within nations. Hence the numerous calls for exceptional wealth taxation to finance measures to support the economy and the resulting increase in public debt. The first tax measures announced by the Biden administration (increase in the corporate tax, the top marginal income tax rate and the taxation of capital income) and its willingness to implement a minimum corporate tax rate are aimed at reducing inequality and restoring tax justice in the US.

But why have economists long neglected the issue of economic inequality? While not exhaustive, we can identify three main reasons or beliefs (myths?) shared by a large number of economists. Firstly, the belief in the inverted U-shaped Kuznets curve, which tells us that inequality tends to increase in the first phase of a nation’s development and then decreases, which is now clearly contradicted by the facts. Secondly, the belief in trickle-down economics, i.e. that the enrichment of the richest will ultimately benefit the poorest, which has never been empirically proven. Finally, the belief that there is necessarily a trade-off between efficiency and equity, with the priority of economists being to determine how to achieve the former, by maximising wealth creation.

The latter two beliefs have a long history, and it is tempting to trace them back to the man generally regarded as the founding father of economics, Adam Smith. Indeed, Smith would have focused on how to maximise social wealth, the growth of which would benefit everyone, especially the poorest. Smith would have emphasised the benefits of economic growth in reducing absolute poverty, without regard to inequality as such, and he would have argued against state redistribution.

In fact, Smith took the issue of economic inequalities, which were very important in his time, quite seriously. But it should be noted at the outset that Smith, like all classical economists, was interested in the functional distribution of income rather than the interpersonal distribution, i.e. essentially the differences in income between the three social classes of workers, landowners and capitalists. The most recent estimates show a Gini index for incomes in Britain in the second half of the 18th century of over 0.5 and rising (compared to around 0.35 today). Moreover, it is estimated that the gap between the average income of workers and aristocrats was about 1 to 33, and 1 to 11 on average with capitalists. That said, Smith seemed more interested in the causes of inequality than in its level as such and emphasised the harmful consequences that inequality can have on the morality and happiness of individuals and nations. He also and above all sought to determine what are just and unjust inequalities and to reconcile efficiency and equity, rather than to oppose them. And contrary to what one might suppose, he also argued in favour of a (slightly) progressive tax system, at a time and in a nascent discipline when this position was very rare. Thus, not only should Smith not be held responsible for the lack of interest economists have long shown in the issue of inequality, but he can still enlighten us on this issue today.

Finding resonant spaces between Indian classical music and the Western choral tradition

Though I come from an Indian family, I often joke that I wouldn’t exist if my parents had actually lived there. I’m the only child of a Catholic mother from Goa and a Muslim father from Gujarat—both of whom decided to immigrate to America, and met one another in Orlando, Florida in the early 1970s.

I grew up in Los Angeles, speaking English to my parents and Gujarati to my grandparents—the latter in a thick American accent, and riddled with all kinds of grammatical errors. My grandparents found it hilarious and, much to my regret, they never corrected me. But when I look back at my childhood, I see that I was just starting down the path that has defined the music I write: I was trying to find places between my cultural identities that felt resonant to me.

TāReKiṬa is one of those resonant places. While Western classical music has had a choral tradition that goes back hundreds of years, there is no such tradition of ensemble singing in Indian classical music. The ingenuity in Indian music stems from solo improvisation, so the tradition never evolved to support ensemble singing, or the harmony and counterpoint that is so typical of notated music. And yet, now that our cultures are colliding in so many ways, so too is our music.

The sounds of TāReKiṬa are onomatopoeic syllables, similar to a scat in jazz. They are often used in Indian classical vocal forms called “taranas” or “tillanas”, where the syllables (which originate from the sounds made by Indian instruments) are mapped onto pitches, resulting in a scintillating display of vocal virtuosity.

Even though the syllables don’t carry inherent meaning, embodying them allows for deep engagement with the language and its unique, musical features. In Indian languages, consonants often place the tongue closer to the front of the mouth, which creates a more percussive sound. Even a single attempt to pronounce the syllables of TāReKiṬa with an American accent will make amply clear why these rhythmic vocal forms never emerged with the same prominence in Western music: our languages simply aren’t designed to support them—the way we pronounce consonants in the West often means that they get lost along the way.

One of the first things we learn about in Western classical music are the two opposing pitch frameworks: major and minor. In our minds, they are black or white, happy or sad, either/or—but not both. And yet, in Indian music, there are certain pitch frameworks, or raags, that contain what Western musicians hear as both major and minor. One such raag is Jog, the raag used in TāReKiṬa, which contains the major and minor 3rd. I love how easily Jog swings between these two poles, reminding us that even unabashed joy contains a bit of melancholy—that emotions that seem so different are often interconnected.

TāReKiṬa emerged over time from a beautiful relationship with Urban Voices Project, a choir of unhoused people living in Skid Row, in Downtown Los Angeles. It was entirely by accident that we stumbled upon their deep resonance with Indian rhythm. I wrote this piece as a gift so we could explore that point of resonance together.

You can imagine my surprise that this work, which was only ever intended for one group of people, has captured the imagination of choirs around the world. In recognition of their integral part in the creation of TāReKiṬa, a portion of the proceeds each year will go back to support Urban Voices Project, and the beauty they bring into the world through music every day.

The initial version of the piece was in three layers, with no specified voice types, and with no need for written music. It was designed to be flexible and easily learned, even on the spot, without the need to read notation. The foundation was a slow layer that set the pace, the middle layer had quick intricate rhythmic syllables, and the top layer was the solo melody, which was often sung by me, improvised over the texture of the group. The piece could go on indefinitely as singers were able to float between layers, with eyes closed immersed in meditation, like the melodic version of a drum circle. The new version for SATB choir, by contrast, is a quicker, more energized version of the initial piece—a short, invigorating leap into the vibrant world of Indian rhythm.

Like all resonating spaces, my work comes into being only when it brushes against the creative spirit of others. That mutual space, that dialogue between people, cultures and communities, is the place from which new sounds emerge.

Featured image: excerpt from TāReKiṬa, published by Oxford University Press

Me, you, Europe, the Universe: recovery and revival at the 65th Eurovision Song Contest 2021

Already during the initial spread of the coronavirus pandemic during the early months of 2020, when the organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest determined the world’s largest and most extravagant musical competition could not take place in May, plans were underway for its return a year later, on 22 May, 2021 in Rotterdam. The intervening year was one of introspection, a year removed from Eurovision temporality as venue, contestants, and songs were retrofitted for the second sixty-fifth annual staging in 2021. The Eurovision mise-en-scène in Rotterdam was to be one of Europe’s recovery and revival, following prolonged pandemic and isolation. The Rotterdam Ahoy Arena would host live performances, if to a much-reduced audience of 3,500. The thirty-second postcards (short introductory videos for each artist) punctuating the songs in live performance uniformly staged a tiny room symbolizing lockdown on the empty landscape of a Dutch city. Healing now possible, the moment for celebrating new beginnings had arrived.

When the final votes were tallied, few of the estimated 200 million viewers in the global television audience would question the arrival of new beginnings, but many would question its meaning for Europe. The hard-rocking Italian band, Måneskin, performing “Zitti e buoni” (translated as “Shut Up and Sit Down”), became the winner of the Eurovision 2021, propelled to victory by the overwhelming support of the popular vote. Måneskin’s path to Rotterdam followed the traditional route of Italian entries, winning the Sanremo Song Festival earlier in the year. “Zitti e buoni,” however, circumvented, or rather, took no heed of, the themes of recovery and revival. “Zitti e buoni” harkened back to an earlier rock ‘n’ roll, mixing styles—here, a splash of metal, there a sustained swath of hip-hop—asserting Måneskin’s selfness and belying the collective cause of healing embraced by other entries. In its original version, there were instances in which the lyrics were so vulgar they had to be excised prior to the Eurovision. “Zitti e buoni” is a song about new beginnings, about mine, maybe yours, but who really cares.

Måneskin, “Zitti e buoni” (Shut Up and Sit Down), 2021 Eurovision winner

In order to reach first place, Italy needed the considerable popular support of 318 votes to surpass the close race between Switzerland and France, which had emerged as the first- and second-place finishers after the voting by the national juries. Switzerland’s Gjon’s Tears, singing “Tout l’univers” (The Whole Universe), had entered Eurovision 2021 as a favorite. Gion’s Tears had also been the Swiss entry in 2020, gaining considerable support with his gentle, compellingly distinctive ballad style. In “Tout l’univers” the Albanian-Swiss singer addressed an intense sense of intimacy to “you” and “our,” locating “me” in a troubled relation to the many, the whole universe.

Gion’s Tears, “Tout l’univers” (The Whole Universe), 2021 third-place finisher (Switzerland)

Barbara Pravi’s stunning chanson, “Voilà,” the French entry was similarly a favorite prior to the Grand Finale (“Je me casse” [I Gotta Go], sung by Malta’s Destiny was the third favorite). Though Pravi brought her own complex ethnic heritage to represent France—she is of both Iranian and Serbian heritage—“Voilà” staked its claim for Europeanness by weaving many stylistic threads into an exquisite fabric of Frenchness. Her debt to Parisian cabaret and Edith Piaf is undeniable, enhancing her sense of recovering self for new beginnings.

Barbara Pravi, “Voilà,” 2021 Second-place finisher (France)

The dominant themes of recovery and revival from the pandemic that ran through the broadcasts and media accounts during Eurovision Week and the days thereafter, strove to emphasize the hopeful and the positive: the Eurovision Song Contest is back, and Europe has emerged from its lockdown to celebrate its diversity in the songs of its nations once again. New beginnings were indeed possible. One does not have to listen very hard to such self-celebratory pronouncements to recognize that a dark side still lingers, especially in the voting procedures. The combination of two different voting totals—first, a jury of professionals in each country, second, the vox populi casting their votes by telephone and texting—revealed not only its own flaws, but also exposed some of Europe’s ruptures, before and now (almost) after the pandemic.

The conflict between the national juries and the popular voters is emblematic of the divisions between elite institutions of political power and a growing populism seeking to wrest its share of that power. Among the most disturbing issues of divisiveness and populism for me during Eurovision 2021 was the clear rejection of performers of color by the popular vote. That rejection could not be clearer up and down the charts during a year when the number of performers of color was greater than ever. Singers of color were penalized by the public at the top of the competitive list—Malta’s Destiny, with Nigerian heritage, was pulled from her competitive position following a paltry forty-seven popular votes—and at the bottom—the Netherlands’ Jeangu Macrooy, whose family heritage is that of the former Dutch colony, Suriname, received no votes, null points, in the popular voting. The insult to Macrooy, performing a song that openly recognized George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement, must also be called out as open racism in the Europe of the 2021 Eurovision. Macrooy’s voice was the most powerful of all calls for recovery and healing. He makes clear that the cost for new beginnings in a world that now follows pandemic and racism is considerable. It is his voice, raised as a clarion anthem in the Eurovision Song Contest, that might truly lead to the “Birth of a New Age.”

Jeangu Macrooy, “Birth of a New Age,” 2021 twenty-third-place finisher (the Netherlands)

Feature image : Sculpture of Eurovision 2021 trophy in Rotterdam, public domain via Unsplash.

Eric Partridge and the etymology of slang (part two)

This is part two of the essay begun last week (26 May 2021). Partridge, quite correctly, distinguished between cant (the language of the underworld) and slang (informal language). The vocabulary of criminals is often international, while slang tends to be local. However, one should not rely on this distinction too heavily. For instance, British slang owes something to the Romany language and Shelta, the secret language of itinerant Irish tinkers and other artisans. The situation in France and Germany is similar (except for the absence of Shelta), while American slang has absorbed many words from the New York Yiddish. Partridge was interested in Romany and Shelta and often wrote about them. Of course, he was not a student of those languages, and no one expected such expertise from him. More important was his other weakness, namely, his fondness for intelligent guessing. In dealing with the basic vocabulary of Indo-European, Semitic, and Finno-Ugric, to give the best-known examples, we operate with language families and certain regularities. By contrast, in slang, every case is an individual riddle. It was Partridge’s lack of a serious philological background that often exposed him to ridicule. Yet, while dealing with such a murky subject as the origin of slang, one never knows who will laugh last. Below, I’ll again cite a few of his conjectures that may be worth discussing.

Tanner

Money is a fertile field for slang. A case in point is tanner, “sixpence.” The oldest hypotheses of its etymology are uninspiring, to say the least. Today’s Internet cites two more suggestions (one traces tanner to a family name). According to Partridge’s correct observation, a tanner was earlier known as simon, and he quoted an old riddle:

Image by sarflondondunc

“What is the earliest banking transaction mentioned in The Bible? —When Peter lodged a tanner with Simon.”

The pun is on lodge. In Acts X: 6, we read: “He [Peter] lodged with one Simon a tanner” (a different Simon from the one whose name the word simony commemorates). Thus, one simon a tanner. According to Partridge, he offered that explanation in 1937. “It was greeted with howls of ribald mirth—except by very few. These few have become less few.” I am sorry he gave no references. Who derided the explanation and why? Who endorsed it? At present, several scholars in the English-speaking world study the history of just such words. It would be interesting to hear their opinion. Perhaps they will leave comments.

Spiffing, spivHe laughs best who laughs last. (Image by Pexels via Pixabay.)

Spiffing “excellent” and spiv “one who makes a living without working for it,” along with spif(f)licate “overcome, crush,” which is supposedly unconnected with the first two. Partridge offered no definitive etymology but cited spiffed (Scottish and Yorkshire) “anything unusually good” and dialectal spif(f) “neat, smart, dandified; excellent.” One wonders whether spiffing and its kind are indeed of dialectal origin. The group spif has a rather typical onomatopoeic appearance. Compare Russian pif-paf (from German?) “the sound made by a gunshot,” English piffle “talk ineffectively,” puff, and even the puffed-up puffin. German pfiffig “smart, cute” also comes to mind. Such words are often used as the bases of other fanciful formations (for instance, German Pfiffikus “smart person, rogue, etc.”). Wasn’t spifflicate coined with the original sense “to impress tremendously; crush”? If, by any chance, pfiffig made it to England or the United States, pf would of course have become p, and adding the notorious s-mobile, so often celebrated in this blog, is never a problem.

A puffed-up puffin. (Image by Ray Hennessy via Unsplash.)Good scout

In 1939, Partridge wrote:

“A fairly recent Americanism is good scout, as in ‘Smith is a good scout’, or an exclamation ‘good scout!’… the phrase was anglicized very soon after the [First World] War, probably owing to the influence of the American soldiers.”

Partridge believed that the exclamation goes back to the days of early wars between the American colonists and natives. I do not know how the phrase originated, but I doubt Partridge’s explanation for chronological reasons and notice that the exclamation great Scot is, most probably, also an Americanism, strange as it may seem. In any case, the earliest citation in the OED goes back to 1893, and in 1896, a correspondent to Scottish Notes and Queries remarked that he had never heard the phrase and wondered whether the spelling should be Scot or Scott.

Stooge

A stooge is a decoy, an informer; an assistant doing some unpleasant work; an understudy, etc. According to Partridge, a stooge is also a learner; a deputy or stand-in; an overwilling fellow; a third-rater. “Decoy” and “informer” make one think of “stool pigeon.” Partridge did not object to this etymology of stooge but preferred the derivation from studious, pronounced stoo-djus. That suggestion (going back to Partridge?) was mentioned in a noncommittal way in the post-war supplement to The Oxford English Dictionary. Stooge from stoo-djus looks good, but Partridge says that the word’s earliest sense was “learner.” Was it really? Stooge seems to have originated in the underworld, rather than in a schoolyard. Lots of German slang goes back to students’ argot. In England, the hotbed of students’ slang used to be Oxford/Cambridge, but stooge was hardly coined there.

*

A fairly ugly and totally unplugged plug-ugly: a bloke but not a blockhead. (Image by Tycho Atsma via Unsplash.)

Eric Partridge’s greatest drawback was his lack of serious schooling in historical linguistics: he was a gifted self-taught man. His opinions on the origin of slang are worth consulting; unfortunately, he did not believe that the history of research was worth knowing and bravely volunteered his opinions. Thus, he made several remarks on the origin of bloke, a word believed to be from Shelta. It is tempting to compare bloke with blockhead, but here Partridge was right in saying that bloke has never meant “fool.” I wonder: Can plug-ugly (a nineteenth-century Americanism) be of any help? No one knows what plug has to do with it. A German variant of block or bloke? Ugly is transparent enough! The most enigmatic part is the pronunciation of the vowel. Whence the long o? Partridge’s own hypothesis is hard to take seriously. He accepted the idea that the word’s root was “the Hindustani loke ‘man’” and believed that “the b- was caused by the initial letter of a word too low for mention here.” (Did he mean bloody? Pygmalion, with its famous not bloody likely, was presented as early as 1913, and Partridge wrote those lines in 1939.)

While dealing with the words of the type mentioned above, one notices with surprise that so many of them supposedly came from Romany, Shelta, and Irish, or that they reached slang from some remote dialect. Apparently, it is not enough to pin them down to a seemingly probable source: one should be able to trace each item from the lending language (dialect) to London or to the American underworld. Many of those words are short-lived. My students often tell me that they don’t understand the slang used in the films of the fifties and are amused that I know those words; yet I know them passively, as I know the vocabulary of Beowulf. Anyway, for an etymologist no word is too recent or too old.

Eric Partridge’s stock of knowledge was such than any student of slang will learn something from him. Etymology was not his forte, but those who risk studying the derivation of words should familiarize themselves with everything their predecessors said about the subject. Wrong guesses may show the way to good solutions. I certainly have come to praise Partridge, not to bury him.

Featured image: Jaffa’s Old City – Simon the Tanner’s House, by Yoshi Canopus (CC BY-SA 4.0)

100 years after the Tulsa Race Massacre

The below is an edited version of the new foreword to the upcoming edition of Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation written by Alfred Brophy.

On 1 June 1921, mobs comprised of ordinary white Oklahomans destroyed Greenwood, a black neighborhood in Tulsa sometimes referred to as “Little Africa.” They were alarmed by rumors that a black man had raped a white woman and that a “negro uprising” was afoot. They were disturbed by assertiveness displayed by black veterans of World War I. They were resentful of the evident ambitiousness and affluence of Greenwood’s upper class and viewed its success as an affront to white supremacy. Separated from white Tulsa by railroad tracks, Greenwood was subject to the common deprivations imposed upon black communities in Jim Crow America. Yet, its residents had succeeded in endowing it with an attractive collective buoyancy reflected in an entrepreneurial verve that led some to call its main thoroughfare “the Black Wall Street.” Animated by a conviction that Negroes must be made to stay in their “place” at the bottom of the social pyramid and habituated to the use of vigilante violence against blacks, the rioters proceeded to subject their African American neighbors to injury, murder, looting, pillaging, and arson. At least a hundred residents of Greenwood were killed while thirty-five city blocks were torched, destroying churches, businesses, and all sorts of other dwellings. The riot rendered more than a thousand families homeless.

As is typical in eruptions of mass, white-on-black, racially-motivated violence, the riot in Tulsa involved a failure of governments—municipal, state, and federal—to cloak African Americans with the equal protection of law. Police authorities not only failed but, to a significant extent, did not even try to protect Greenwood from the vengeful mobs. Worse still is that many of the whites who engaged in “Negro hunting” had been negligently deputized by state and local police authorities. In Tulsa, putative guardians of law and order frequently allied themselves with racially-motivated criminals.

In Reconstructing the Dreamland, initially published in 2002, Professor Alfred L. Brophy excavates this baleful episode. He uncovers the riot’s antecedents, its unfolding, and its aftermath. He details the initial acknowledgment by some prominent whites that Tulsa as a polity had committed a terrible crime against Greenwood that warranted restitution, the superseding campaign (largely successful) to blame the riot on the victimized black community, and the layers of deceit and indifference that have, until recently, enshrouded this tragic episode.

“Brophy carefully utilizes sources that have often been slighted: findings by black journalists, reminiscences of African American witnesses, briefs by black attorneys.”

Rightly dissatisfied with the distorted version of events bequeathed to the public by an all-white grand jury that blamed blacks predominantly for the riot, Brophy carefully utilizes sources that have often been slighted: findings by black journalists, reminiscences of African American witnesses, briefs by black attorneys. Attentive to the full spectrum of observers, Brophy is insistent that the Greenwood perspective be fully considered. By doing so, he unveils corrective facts and forgotten interpretations. He also uncovers a spectrum of views that contended for primacy within Greenwood. He introduces readers to African Americans who thought it best to resort to arms to thwart lynching and to black litigants and attorneys who displayed more faith in the administration of law than state and federal tribunals deserved. Brophy’s exploration of litigation arising from the Tulsa riot is especially noteworthy. He describes in detail the legal doctrines that were invoked to thwart efforts to obtain redress for police malfeasance and to recover under insurance contracts.

For most of Reconstructing the Dreamland, Brophy narrates what happened in Tulsa, analyzing evidence and assessing competing interpretations. In the concluding chapter he speaks prescriptively, maintaining that Tulsa and Oklahoma ought to do something to acknowledge concretely the governmental derelictions bound up with the riot. More specifically, he argues that survivors are owed an apology and reparations. Addressing concerns that the rectification he urges would open the way to a flood of claims generated by countless injustices, Brophy stipulates four criteria by which demands for reparations could sensibly be limited. Using those criteria, he compares the case for reparation in Tulsa to those in which reparations have been granted to others and concludes that surviving victims of the tragedy in Greenwood have an even stronger claim than victims who have attained relief in analogous circumstances.

Reconstructing the Dreamland emphasizes the centrality of racially motivated violence in American history. Nowadays when reference is made to the term “race riot,” many immediately conjure up images of the disturbances in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd or the disturbances in 1992 after the infamous acquittals of the police officers who assaulted Rodney King or the disturbances in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In those riots, people of color comprised the bulk of the looters and arsonists. Reconstructing the Dreamland recalls an earlier tradition of race rioting in which whites targeted blacks and their property for destruction. Indicative of the significance of that tradition is that revulsion against it was the immediate spur for the creation of the most important racial self-defense organization in American history—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP was created in direct response to the Springfield, Illinois riot of 1908—an anti-black pogrom eerily similar to that which engulfed Greenwood. For the first several decades of the NAACP’s existence, its primary activity consisted of publicizing the truth about racially motivated lynchings and riots, including the frequent complicity of police. Failures of police to extend to blacks the equal protection of the law (including protection against police brutality) have nourished cynicism toward police authority that is conspicuously evident within many African American communities. For those who want to know more about the etiology of this cynicism—or, perhaps, it is better termed realism—Reconstructing the Dreamland offers sobering detail.

“Brophy’s book not only recounts history; it also makes history in an important sense by keeping alive through meticulous scholarship the memory of an important event.”

During the twenty years that have elapsed since the initial publication of Reconstructing the Dreamland, there has emerged a new appreciation for the depth, prevalence, and intensity of anti-black racism. It is evident in studies undertaken by governments—such as the 2001 Tulsa Race Riot Commission Report for which Brophy served as a consultant. It is embodied in the planning for Greenwood Rising, a museum sponsored by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission. It is reflected and reinforced in the Oklahoma public school curriculum that directs that attention be paid to the Tulsa atrocity. It has seeped into popular culture as in the terrifying opening scene of the HBO television series “The Watchmen,” a scene that recreates the chaotic violence that overcame Greenwood. It has prompted scholars in many disciplines—history, sociology, political science, literary studies, law— to write scores of articles and books examining racially motivated violence. Brophy has contributed splendidly to this flowering of research and analysis. His book not only recounts history; it also makes history in an important sense by keeping alive through meticulous scholarship the memory of an important event. Revisiting meaningful scholarship is always timely. But for alarming reasons this is a particularly apt moment to re-read Reconstructing the Dreamland. Surges in racial violence, ongoing scandals of racist policing, and determined efforts to falsify history make clear that the story of the Tulsa riot and the deplorably inadequate responses to it remains hauntingly pertinent today.

Featured image by Sam Coin via Unsplash

Success of Ontario menthol cigarette ban: more menthol smokers quit tobacco

Recently, the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expressed intention of banning menthol among tobacco products—a move that could have enormous impact on health in US and in particular on reducing the disparity of health faced by Black Americans.

The province of Ontario, Canada implemented a ban on menthol-flavoured tobacco products in January 2017, before a nation-wide menthol ban on October 2017. Two years following the ban, data from our study showed that the menthol ban was associated with significant level of quitting smoking among regular menthol smokers compared to non-menthol smokers. If we extrapolate the results of a menthol ban to the US, it suggests that this low-cost intervention might lead to over 1 million people quitting smoking in the US long term, including over 200,000 Black Americans. This finding is consistent with the results of other shorter-term evaluations of the Canadian menthol ban. Our experience in Ontario can inform the US policy makers to take action needed to implement this important intervention.

Menthol is a flavouring agent which is added to cigarettes that masks the taste of tobacco, provides greater discretion, induces strong sensory effects, and leads to greater nicotine dependence. Menthol is popular among younger people who initiate smoking with menthol and progress to regular cigarette use. Menthol smokers also find it hard to quit smoking compared to non-menthol smokers.

Even more so, menthol cigarettes have been actively promoted to Black Americans by the tobacco industry—currently 85.8% of Black American smokers smoke menthol cigarettes. While other flavours in tobacco that were predominantly used by White Americans have been already banned by the FDA, menthol was specifically left out of those bans, leaving Black Americans exposed to greater risks. Rectifying this injustice requires immediate action to include menthol on the list of banned additives.

Prior to our research the concern was that the impact of banning menthol was hypothetical. Despite implementation of a menthol ban in a few countries (i.e., Canada, Brazil, Ethiopia, Turkey, and European Union countries including the United Kingdom) and several states of the US, there is very little data on real-world effectiveness of menthol bans. We have now been following up an Ontario cohort of 1,821 smokers over two years to understand the long-term impact of the menthol ban on smoking behaviour. Our study found that one month after the ban, a higher proportion of menthol smokers attempted to quit smoking than had planned before the ban. At a one-year post-ban follow-up, 63% of daily menthol smokers and 62% of occasional menthol smokers made a quit attempt since the ban compared to 43% of non-menthol smokers. Similarly, two-year follow-up data revealed that regular menthol smokers were more likely to successfully quit and make more attempts to quit than non-menthol smokers. Consistent with these findings, analysis of cigarette wholesale data in Ontario revealed drops in overall cigarette sales in the post-ban period.

“At a one-year post-ban follow-up, 63% of daily menthol smokers and 62% of occasional menthol smokers made a quit attempt since the ban compared to 43% of non-menthol smokers.”

Data from evaluation of the national menthol ban in Canada is just emerging which suggests similar findings, with higher rates of quit-attempts, successful quitting, and preventing relapse among menthol smokers compared to non-menthol smokers. In addition, few people were found to still smoking menthol cigarettes after the ban in Ontario, with no significant increase in illegal menthol cigarette or “contraband” purchasing or transition to menthol “replacement” packs. It is clear that menthol ban is an effective policy in increasing smoking cessation among prior menthol smokers.

Compared to Canada, menthol sales are much more prevalent in the US, where 35% of all cigarettes sold are mentholated. However, in response to a hypothetical menthol ban, menthol smokers in the US expressed higher rates of intention to quit tobacco than Canadian population. Again, this rate was higher among vulnerable groups like African Americans, women, and those with less than a high school education. The results of our study suggest that the impact of a menthol ban would be even greater in the US in magnitude than seen in Ontario, with even larger impact among Black Americans. Other studies suggest that if a menthol ban were implemented in the US in 2011, an estimated 633,252 deaths could be averted by 2050 and our real-world evaluation highlights the validity of this estimate. Hence, in respect of available evidence and substantial public health benefits, it is now high time that the US should act to implement a nation-wide menthol flavour ban in cigarettes.

Featured image by Joshua Freake via Unsplash

Can children’s rights be the scaffold for love in the care system?

Recently, Scotland has incorporated in its legislation the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This is part of an ambitious process aiming to reform the care system following a root-and-branch review led by care-experienced people. Its outcome, “The Promise,” has received cross-party support and is now entering its implementation phase.

I have been using the UNCRC in my work since 1999 when I first started to work for children in state care. In my view, its provisions passed the test of time and it is a great framework if it is not misinterpreted and if it is used correctly. And there are some great resources to avoid misinterpretation such as The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child–A Commentary edited by John Tobin. In my study analysing the care experiences of young people from Romania, the UNCRC was a useful way to understand what went wrong in the care system as they were growing up in different types of placements (residential care, foster care or adoption).

The fundamental difference between a human rights approach and psychologised one, in which children are seen through their adversity rather than through their potential, is that the former brings care to the moral domain. Such an approach places children’s dignity (and their voice) at the heart of the care system. This has a number of implications. A rights-based approach can be at odds with systems dominated by a “risk” culture that regard children as potential victims of abuse (and adults as potential perpetrators) because these tend to overprotect children and limit their participation in decisions that affect their everyday life. Research indicates that children raised in low-risk environments by overprotective parents carry a risk of developing anxiety or challenging behaviour. Risk-oriented systems tend to make care a red tape exercise for professionals and a disempowering and a potentially oppressive experience for the young people, impacting negatively on the child’s self-esteem.

“Ensuring that carers and professionals engage with children in a meaningful way is the cornerstone for a system based on ethics of care and children’s rights.”

In order to be a good parent, the state must aim and act similarly to good parents: helping children to gradually develop their autonomy even if that involves making mistakes; ensuring that they are raised in fairness, with unconditional support and respect; and nurturing their talents. Ensuring that carers and professionals engage with children in a meaningful way is the cornerstone for a system based on ethics of care and children’s rights. Listening to children will make them feel important and it will help them develop their self-trust, self-respect, and self-esteem.

The safest way to protect children against abuse is not to ban carers from hugging children they care for but to help children recognise abuse and create complaint mechanisms they trust in, where they feel confident to speak about it if necessary. Care must be an empowering experience and not a stigmatising one. Listening to children’s worries, giving them the confidence to ask questions they have on their mind and involving them in decisions about their care will create a different foundation for how they feel about growing up in care. A rights-based approach will make care experience a dignified one and a matter of justice rather than a matter of moral luck.

Care-experienced people in Scotland and in England demanded “love” in the care system. This is not only a legitimate request but also one that can be achieved. In one of his Notebooks, Albert Camus says that “the loss of love is the loss of all rights even though one had them all.” By twisting it around, treating children in care as rights holders will perhaps contribute to them feeling that they are loved, at least in the way C.S. Lewis understood love: not necessarily as an affectionate feeling but “a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”

Featured image by Myriams-Fotos via  Pixabay

The robots are coming! But could they—and should they—take your job?

Will a robot take your job? The fear of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital automation as a growing threat to human labour has been on the rise in recent years. The widespread potential impact of these technologies has fuelled media interest. Some reports claim that between half and one-third of jobs could be eliminated in the near future. The BBC has even provided a helpful calculator where you can assess the risk to your own occupation from automation.

Concerns regarding the impact of new technologies on jobs are, of course, nothing new. From the Luddites, through to the computer revolution of the 1960s, to today’s anxiety about the impact of smart technologies, apocalyptic narratives have commonly accompanied new technological possibilities. Despite these concerns, so far, over the long term at least, employment has continued to grow and the occupational structure has evolved, adapting to and incorporating changes wrought by new technologies. Yet, say many contemporary commentators, this time is different.

The argument now advanced is that progress in AI, machine learning, and robotics threaten to replace jobs right across the occupational structure. More directly, AI and robotisation are identified as “general purpose technologies,” potentially applicable to a wide range of contexts and capable of replacing human workers in jobs even with complex and non-routine elements.

But how worried should we be? In short, our research suggests not as worried as some of the more breathless accounts would have us believe. For one thing, many of the estimates of job losses are based on a form of technological determinism: it is assumed that because tasks can potentially be automated, they will be, wiping out jobs in the process. Yet, occupations typically comprise a range of tasks and not all these tasks are susceptible to automation. Moreover, it is too simplistic to assume that the nature of occupations will remain static. Technological developments afford the opportunity to reconfigure the mix of tasks within occupations, thereby altering the content of jobs rather than destroying them. New jobs are also likely to be created, as technology is used and applied in society. Rumours of the death of work, in short, look exaggerated.

Whilst the engineer and computer scientist can tell us what can be done, the economist would ask whether there are incentives to do it. Here, the adoption of new technologies depends critically on context, as we have argued in our research. A key influence on the decision to automate is the relative cost of producing goods or services using available technology or labour. In relatively low cost, labour abundant economies there is less incentive to automate. This helps explain why the use of industrial robots, for example, is so much lower in the UK than Germany or South Korea. The relative cheapness of labour also matters for the dynamics of the economy and job creation: a low wage economy (such as the UK) with less extensive and deep automation will also tend towards lower productivity, lower wages and higher costs, hence weakening product and labour demand right across the economy. Paradoxically, too little automation might pose a more immediate and pressing challenge to living standards and worker prospects than too much.

Context also matters in thinking about how automation develops and how it is used to reconfigure or replace jobs. Who is directing research in AI and new technologies? Too often large tech companies dominate the agenda, their goal being to remove the highest cost human input into production. The human element in automation—the quest for a higher quality of working life—is crowded out by a commercial imperative to make more profit.

“Technology could, instead, be used to complement human labour and enrich jobs, raising productivity and sustaining employment opportunities.”

In private companies, too, there is a focus on “shareholder value,” with automation used to lower labour costs. Here the risk is that technology is developed and used to lower average wages and to lower skill levels. While higher short-term profits may be realised, these gains may be at expense of workers who suffer lower quality jobs.

But what of the alternatives? Technology could, instead, be used to complement human labour and enrich jobs, raising productivity and sustaining employment opportunities. Here, there is a role for the state, not just through the adoption of a more directive approach to research and development funding in this area, but through a combination of leadership, information, persuasion, example, regulation, and procurement practice. In these ways, the state could have a positive impact on job design such that automation and AI is incorporated in ways that enrich rather than destroy jobs. Whilst anathema to adherents of free-market economics, the role of government in COVID-19 vaccine development provides a glimpse of the positive role that the state can— and should— play in the economy.

To this, one can add the potentially positive role of technological developments and labour-saving innovations in lightening work in human society. Across the political spectrum, from the liberal John Maynard Keynes to the radical Karl Marx, the prospect for technological development to liberate people from long work hours and to allow for greater human flourishing within and beyond work was at one time central. Yet, in recent times, this vision for technological development has been neglected, with very little debate about how technological developments could and should be harnessed to improve society rather than simply deliver individual gains for corporations, their owners or shareholders. Our research suggests the need for a revival of a more positive vision of automation and the future of work.

The point is, there is nothing deterministic about the new technologies of AI and automation. How they impact upon jobs and on economic and social structures depends crucially upon the choices we make as societies—a fact that is sadly too often forgotten.

Featured image by 6eo tech, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Finding music in the life and letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay

I first became aware of the work of Edna St. Vincent Millay after composer Alison Willis set one of her poems (“The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver”) for Juice Vocal Ensemble, a group I co-founded with fellow singers and composers, Kerry Andrew and Anna Snow. The collection from which this particular poem is taken won Millay the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 and helped to further consolidate her blossoming career, not only as a poet but also as a writer of plays and short stories, receiving mass-recognition under the pseudonym, Nancy Boyd.

Millay studied piano and theatre from a young age, and made her first stage appearances performing her poetry and playing the piano. In 1927, she wrote the libretto for an opera, with music composed by Deems Taylor. It was Millay that decided the subject matter for the opera, choosing an English Medieval legend, keen to explore the Anglo-Saxon roots of American settlers. The King’s Henchman premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 17 February 1927, and received critical acclaim. This in itself seems a particularly striking achievement given the lack of opportunities for female creatives by the same institution not only during Millay’s lifetime, but on into the twenty-first century too: the Metropolitan Opera commissioned their first ever operas from female composers, Mizzy Massoli and Jeanine Tesori, as recently as 2018.

Edna’s poetic writing style was fairly formal in that she followed the form, rhyme, and meter of traditional sonnets. However, she harnessed the strength of that tradition and used it as a scaffold on which to explore and challenge societal perceptions of women, feminism, and sexuality. It was in researching her poetry that I stumbled across her letters. In the, now sadly out of print, book, The Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay, you can read all about her love of music, her thoughts on politics and sexuality, and about her relationships. Her literary genius has always been rather overshadowed by the stories of her “risqué” personal life, but rather than setting her poems, I found myself drawn to the content of these letters, the writing style of which were far more modern and less rhythmically confining.

Choosing a text suitable for setting to music can be a time-consuming and thoroughly engrossing process, and one that often reflects internal and external influences. At the time of researching a text to set for my new choral work, Love Letter, I was angered by the increasingly negative anti-LBGT agenda in the US, the rise of the far right across the world, and the news of many countries turning back the clock on issues of women’s rights and equality. Due to the pandemic, there are now certainly even more political and socioeconomic parallels between what was happening during Edna’s lifetime and what is happening now, and during this time I have found the succinct beauty and honesty of her letters incredibly comforting.

One paragraph from her letter to her lover Arthur Ficke really appealed to me:

“It doesn’t matter with whom you fall in love, nor how often, nor how sweetly. All that has nothing to do with what we are to each other, nothing at all to do with You and Me.”

Musically, I wanted to match the simplicity and clarity of this text. I didn’t want to get in the way of it, but simply for it to feel natural, uplifting, and joyous. The choral music world is such a rich tradition and brings communities of people together, and yet sometimes the texts we sing about regarding love are confined to those of religious significance. My hope is that the freedom Edna so delighted in and celebrated in her life resonates with others and provides a moment to acknowledge the importance of acceptance and equality in love and relationships in modern life.

As Olivia Gatwood observes: “So much of Millay’s work realizes that we don’t have a choice which world we end up in, and because of that, we have no choice but to somehow make it our own.”

Image credits: Edna St. Vincent Millay in Mamaroneck NY, 1914, by Arnold Genthe. (Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.)