TEACHING ETHICS THROUGHOUT THE CURRICULUM

Case 94. Intellectual Animosities and Teaching

Situation

Professor Quinn is an acknowledged expert in statistical methods for the social sciences. She is teaching both the undergraduate and graduate methods courses and has been doing so for many years. She feels that recent critiques of positivist methods on the part of cultural studies sorts, feminists and others, are invalid and that they will, in fact, destroy whatever credibility the social sciences have achieved as sciences. She extols the virtues of positivist methods in her classes and decries the onslaught of mediocrity represented by its critics. 

Questions

1.    Does Professor Quinn have an obligation to learn and objectively present a topic or newly emerging approach with which she disagrees?
2.    Does Professor Quinn have an obligation to omit critiques of competing approaches with which she disagrees from her lectures?


     Reflect on the above questions and form your own answers before clicking the Discussion key to review the commentary provided with this case.