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Here goes just a liitle Peter :_ >From Simon Priest ( 1990 The Semantics of Adventure Education in Miles and Priest 19990) "risk is the potential to lose something of value" (: 116) In this comment we need to ask just what is this "value" that Priest assumes ! He does not say. That risk is attached to "value" is also a comment from Antony Giddens (1997 in the "Politics of Risk" book. Without "value" there is no risk involved. This is a comment attached to the point that risk is one aspect of a instrumental-calculative rationality coming as it did into the English language only with tade and commerce. But from this we are led into some strange questions. Risk is also attached to "gain" and not only to "loss" and here lies one common argument. We make "risks" bad. Risk is also attached to "value" and "value" itself was only a term that became common inside of that same period of trade and capitalist expansions. "Value" like "risk" are recent words one the trade-winds of change as it were. It was with this backround that I have written on risk in the past and it is from this backround that I continue to write about it all. I f we have zero "value" we have the only chance to have a "zero" risk in this sense - where does that lead us? I would be happy to join this little debate for I think it brings out many of the issues that rattle so many in the fields of OAE today - especially in research. steve bowles Peter Bunyan wrote: > As a profession there is a need to come to some agreement over our > operational definitions. One of the central definitions is that of 'RISK', > whilst I am clear in my own mind about real and perceived risk, I read in a > publication recently the following: > > Risk= (Probability x Magnitude) + Public Outrage > > Aside from risk to the profession, or the facilitator this would suggest > that an individual at risk from a rock fall would be exposed to different > levels of risk depending on the context. If no other individual knew about > the risk outcome this is a much smaller level of risk than if a public > enquirey occurred after the event. > > Am I wrong in my thinking or have I missed something, is the blame society > we live in even eroding our working definitions? > > Pete. > > Peter Bunyan 01243 816317 > Adventure Education Component Leader > School of Physical Education > University College Chichester > Chichester PO19 4PE > > > > > > > > > > > > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%