Word: notionalism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...notion that Harvard's tuition increase represents an assault on the middle class, as suggested by Meredith B. Osborn (Opinion, "Disappearing in the Middle," Mar. 2), doesn't hold water...
First, they incorporated the idea of Orientalism into their work commonly depicting people as types rather than individuals. These staged images reinforced Western prejudices and conceptions of the Middle East by an air of "authenticity" to these notions. For Europeans at the time, photographs were objective and offered "proof" for their pre-conceived notions. One example is a disconcerting picture of a man in the act of prayer. The photography positions the viewer as God, or the person to whom the man is praying. Not only does the photography exhibit a complete lack of respect for the native people...
...most part don't believe that a proxy war to overthrow Saddam is a sound strategy - they have serious doubts, echoed by many in the Pentagon, about the abilities of a loose and diverse coalition of opposition groups to defeat the dictatorship, much less of the notion that such an outcome would actually enhance regional stability...
...racial gap in test scores is one of the most vexing problems in social science, in part because it opens the door to the whole creepy notion of eugenics. Eugenicists believe that the human species would advance more quickly if it discouraged reproduction among certain groups deemed unfit - say, those that score poorly on aptitude tests. It's worth noting that the SAT was designed by a psychology professor who became a leading member of the eugenics movement before denouncing it later in life...
...Research from colleges that have dropped the SAT requirement reinforces the notion that the test measures little. Bowdoin College, which started the sat-optional movement in 1969, often studies how well its admissions officers predict college performance without SATs. It has repeatedly found that its rating - a numerical value assigned each applicant on the basis of GPA, essays and other factors - correlates very highly with the student's GPA at Bowdoin. Factoring in SAT scores improves that correlation only slightly. The College Board says that, across many colleges, SAT scores improve the correlation between admissions predictions and GPA realities...