User:Ed Ardizzone/sandbox

The Development of Dance as an Academic Discipline
Dance was seen as a primarily physical discipline up until the late 20th century, as although the first introduction of dance as a college major took place in the University of Wisconsin in 1926, at this point it was still considered part of 'physical education' and was taught mainly to women, perpetuating the typical gendered view of it as a discipline. In the 1980s however, it started to form an additional pathway into academia.

In 1982, at the summer conference of the National Association of Teachers and Lecturers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), Betty Redfern presented her paper, 'Philosophical aesthetics and the study of dance as an academic discipline', in response to the increase in dance activity within the education system. The following year dance was examined for the first time in British state schools at GCSE level (then known as Ordinary Level), with emphasis on the academic sides of the discipline such as composition, appreciation and history alongside the aspect of performance- then later in 1986, dance was expanded to examination at Advanced Level. Syllabuses were created to reflect the natural overlap between dance and the social, political and environmental issues which are often explored by choreographers, composers, designers and other roles within dance production.

At this time, the first academic dance courses in higher education were also being created. One of main proponents of this was Kurt Petermann, who in the First National Ballet Conference in East Germany in 1977, advocated for the importance of the study of dance as a discipline within the academy. 1986 also saw students admitted onto the first academic course in dance studies in Germany at the College of Performing Arts in Leipzig, alongside the creation of similar courses in the UK and USA.

Psychology: Validity of Evidence in Psychological Research
There is a fine line in psychological research between following the ethical guidelines of the British Psychological Society (BPS) and maintaining the highest level of validity possible, as often these two necessities can counteract each other. For example, guidelines express the need for fully informed consent from participants in a psychological investigation, however this can often cause participants to show demand characteristics, and behave differently towards the situation to how they normally would , calling into question the validity of any evidence collected, as it may not be an accurate representation of human behaviour.

There are two types of evidence within psychology, in the forms of primary and secondary data. The validity of these can be called into question in different ways; for example, primary data, collected by the psychologist for their specific investigation, can have a lower level of validity due to the methodological constraints of getting informed consent. This can be avoided through the use of deception, and whilst this is also technically not advised in the BPS guidelines, psychologists can deem it necessary on grounds that it may be the only way to carry out their research. Using deception can call validity into question again, as it can be argued that experimenters are not necessarily measuring what they intend to measure if they have to act through the guise of measuring something else - however through peer review processes and appropriate experimental design, often the benefits of the research outweigh the costs and so the evidence can be viewed has having high validity.

The validity of evidence from secondary data is often questionable as more often than not, the data being used has not been collected for the sole purpose of the investigation, and is being reinterpreted from its original study that had a different aim. Whilst this can be a positive as it highlights the interdisciplinary nature of psychology, allowing collaboration which a range of other disciplines such as economics and geography, and also has often already been through statistical analysis meaning its significance is already known , it also introduces a subjectivity towards the data and once again raises the question whether the experimenters are measuring what they intend to measure, especially considering they are not doing the actual data collection themselves.

Truth in Psychology: Contrast of Approaches
Truth plays a valuable role in modern psychology, with its ability to justify the many varying areas of psychological research, particularly considering psychology's status as a more recently developed and ever-changing discipline. This means however that the majority of key psychological studies and breakthroughs have taken place over the past century, and the discipline has had little time to become refined, experiencing a multitude of paradigm shifts and constituting of various conflicting approaches, making the concept of truth within psychology difficult to incorporate into practice.

For example, the age old 'nature vs nurture' debate. The conflict between the Biological approach of viewing human behaviour as hereditary or having a biological aetiology and the Behaviourist approach and Social Learning Theory, which view all human behaviour as a result of humans reacting to their environment. These two very different explanations of the same behaviour make it difficult to determine 'truth' within the discipline, especially in cases like the murder of James Bulger, wherein there was huge public debate over whether the perpetrators must have been 'born evil' to commit such unforgivable acts at a young age or they were re-enacting scenes from the film 'Child's play 3' which had been at Jon Venables' house. So when psychology plays a role in criminal conviction, as it did here determining the length of sentencing and methods of rehabilitation for Venables and Thompson, truth is integral to the process- and when there are such different versions of it, it is hard to provide.

Power in Psychology: Gender Inequality within Mental Illness Diagnosis
Gender imbalance is pervasive within psychological academia, with 46% of all male psychology faculty being professors in 2013/14, compared to just 28% of female psychology faculty according to the American Psychological Association. There is debate over the reasons for this disparity, with evidence to suggest at least partial responsibility from women's choice, as seemingly women are more likely to pursue clinical work over research positions. Yet research has also shown constant subtle forms of sexism towards women's research in psychological academia, with them winning less research funding and research covering topics deemed to be 'more female' (sexual violence, reproductive experiences) being evaluated more harshly in peer review processes. However, there is no debate over the fact that this imbalance creates a reality in which mental illness in women is often misdiagnosed or goes completely undetected, due to the overwhelmingly male perspective in diagnostic research, particularly in personality and developmental disorders. Therefore, women are subjected to indirect coercion via an institutionalised bias towards men within mental illness diagnosis.

Using autism as an example, historically it was thought that the disorder simply affected more men than women as early researchers were all male and simply disregarded the female experience- this lead to an underrepresentation and systematic exclusion of women in studies causing a distinct lack of information and an inability to diagnose women on the autistic spectrum. More recent, inclusive research has shown characteristics of autism in women as differing to the classic characteristics in men, for example, more neurotypical special interests (eg. boybands rather than bus timetables) and less conspicuous repetitive behaviour. These differences ensure that women have to present characteristics of a much higher severity than men in order to be diagnosed, placing unfair requirements on women's symptoms and often preventing them from getting the help they need.