Citizenship,religion, gender and the politics of belonging: a case study of white,middle-class christian men in the East Midlands,United Kingdom

Religion, and in particular Christianity, is losing ground in the UK as fewer people identify as Christian and more people report having no religion. Although religion remains influential in politics, education and welfare, the role and legitimacy of religion in the public sphere is highly contested. This context of religious and cultural change provides the background for a case study of white, middle class, Christian men in the East Midlands and how they understand and experience citizenship in everyday life. The article examines how religious faith and citizenship are linked, and whether religion provides resources or barriers to citizenship. The article argues that the interviewed men draw on both status and practice based understandings of citizenship, and on both instrumental and expressive forms of masculinity, depending on context. Notably, some of the men invoke a defensive discourse in reference to alleged threats posed to Christianity by secular forces and by Islam. The findings have larger implications for the politics of belonging in the UK and Western Europe.     

COMMENTARY: THE IMPACT OF PSYCHOLOGY ON THIRD WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Parts of the basic conceptual framework of Western psychology have been imported, sometimes blindly, into the design of many Third World countries' education, industry, law and health services. Psychology needs to demonstrate its relevance to the particular sociocultural conditions of these countries and to development policy in each of these fields. This requires close collaboration with other social sciences. Theories and techniques developed in Western societies (e.g., pre-school enrichment and aptitude testing) need to be unpackaged so that Third World policy-makers can decide which aspects are most relevant to their goals. Revitalization of endogenous cultural development is essential for developing a valid and socially acceptable psychology. This requires both sensitivity to the cultural load of Western psychology and systematic exploration of distinctive indigenous concepts.     

Liberalism,Citizenship, and the Private Interest in Schooling

Schools in liberal societies are responsible for producing liberal citizens. However, if they have too robust a view of citizenship, they may find themselves undermining the view of good lives held by many pacific and law abiding groups. Here I argue against treating citizenship as an educational good that simply trumps private values when they conflict and in favor of a view that seeks a context sensitive balance between such conflicting goods. The paper explores Rawls's distinction between two moral powers as a way of understanding the character of some of the private interests in schooling.     

Admissions of racism in discourse on migration in Greece: Beyond the norm against prejudice?

The turn to language in social psychology is closely related to the study of prejudice as racist discourse has been the subject matter of some of the ground‐breaking discourse analytic work. A widely accepted argument was that there seems to be a norm against prejudice informing Western societies: people commonly engage in denials of prejudice when they make negative comments about minorities. Recent work has argued that, due to ideological shifts in the wider societal context or because denying prejudice may not be people's only rhetorical concern, it is possible to find people admitting prejudice. We examine how people in Greece, Greek majority and immigrants, formulate admissions of racism in interviews on migration and citizenship in Greece. Drawing on Ideological Dilemmas and Critical Discursive Social Psychology, we argue that these admissions ironically operate within the norm against prejudice and discuss our findings in relation to the wider socio‐political Greek context.     

Stripped of illusions? Exploring system justification processes in capitalist and post‐Communist societies

Sociologists and political scientists have often observed that citizens of Central and Eastern Europe express high levels of disillusionment with their social, economic and political systems, in comparison with citizens of Western capitalist societies. In this review, we analyze system legitimation and delegitimation in post‐Communist societies from a social psychological perspective. We draw on system justification theory, which seeks to understand how, when and why people do (and do not) defend, bolster and justify existing social systems. We review some of the major tenets and findings of the theory and compare research on system‐justifying beliefs and ideologies in traditionally Capitalist and post‐Communist countries to determine: (1) whether there are robust differences in the degree of system justification in post‐Communist and Capitalist societies, and (2) the extent to which hypotheses derived from system justification theory receive support in the post‐Communist context. To this end, we summarize research findings from over 20 countries and cite previously unpublished data from a public opinion survey conducted in Poland. Our analysis confirms that there are lower levels of system justification in post‐Communist countries. At the same time, we find that system justification possesses similar social and psychological antecedents, manifestations and consequences in the two types of societies. We offer potential explanations for these somewhat complicated patterns of results and conclude by addressing implications for theory and research on system justification and system change (or transition).     

Organizational Citizenship Behavior,Job Attitudes,and the Psychological Contract

Previous research has shown a positive relationship between job satisfaction and various dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior. These studies, however, have focused almost exclusively on civilian sector organizations. While insight gained from these studies is instructive, it remains to be seen if these relationships also exist in the context of military organizations. The relationships between job satisfaction as well as cynicism (as moderated by psychological contracts) with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) are explored. Data were collected from military officers (n = 151) attending a 10-month professional military education school. As an improvement over other similar studies, control measures were incorporated to address potential confounds associated with self-reported attitudes. Results showed job satisfaction was a strong predictor of OCB, cynicism was negatively related to the altruism dimension of OCB, and the relationship between cynicism and the altruism dimension of organizational citizenship behavior was moderated such that the relationship was stronger when there were high levels of perceived psychological contract support than when there were low levels of support.     

Managing Cultural Diversity: North-American Experiences and Suggestions for the German Unification Process

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of thinking of assimilation and multiculturalism as strategies for managing cultural diversity. The illustrative case is Germany and its recent unification. These contrasting strategies have been most extensively explored in North America, and these experiences are reviewed through a discussion of the different forms that assimilation and multiculturalism take and the psychological underpinnings each involves. The recent shift in emphasis from assimilation to multiculturalism in Western societies is highlighted, leading to the conclusion that a fundamental contradiction exists between the ideals of meritocracy that pervade these societies and the ideals of collective multiculturalism.     

Organizational citizenship behavior and organizational commitment in Nepal

The present study examines the structure of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and its relation to organizational commitment in Nepal. Four-hundred and fifty employees of five Nepalese organizations filled out standardized questionnaires. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed two factors of OCB, altruism and compliance, replicating Western models of extra-role behavior. Structural equation analysis showed a positive relation between affective and normative commitment on the one hand and both citizenship factors on the other. Continuance commitment was negatively related to compliance and unrelated to altruism. The findings thus confirmed the structure and usefulness of the concepts in an under-researched geographical area. Findings of the research are discussed within the Nepalese sociocultural context.     

Time for Paradigmatic Substitution in Psychology. What are the Alternatives?

This article focuses on the “machine paradigm” in psychology and its consequences for (mis)understanding of human beings. It discusses causes of the mainstream epistemology in Western societies, referring to philosophical traditions, the prestige of some natural sciences and mathematical statistics. It emphasizes how the higher psychological functions develop dialectically from a biological basis and how the brain due to its plasticity changes with mental and physical activity. This makes a causal machine paradigm unfit to describe and explain human psychology and human development. Some concepts for an alternative paradigm are suggested.     

Jung in education: a review of historical and contemporary contributions from analytical psychology to the field of education

The available literature on the influence of Jungian thought on the theory and practice of education leaves the impression that although the work of Carl Jung and analytical psychology have much to offer the field of education, the Jungian influence has so far been slight. While this has certainly been true, the last decade or so has nevertheless witnessed an increased scholarly interest in exploring how analytical psychology may inform and inspire the field of education. As an explanation for this burgeoning interest in Jung, several of the contemporary contributors mention that analytical psychology has the potential of functioning as a counterbalance to the tendencies in Western societies to focus on measurable learning targets and increasingly standardized measures of teaching and assessment. It seems pertinent then to gain an overview of how analytical psychology has so far inspired the field of education and how it may fruitfully continue do so in the future. To this end this paper is structured chronologically, starting with the different phases of Jung's own engagement with the field of education and ending with later post‐Jungian applications of his concepts and ideas to education.     

Community Action and Research as Citizenship Construction

Social change, well-being and liberation have been intertwined in community research and action, as much as being used as political common-places. In this paper, it is argued that community research and action can have a political character. The epistemological premises shared by both the community and political spheres are discussed, and concepts are defined. The way community psychological action can produce changes is illustrated by an experience carried out with children from poverty sectors of Caracas, Venezuela, intended to construct citizenship by developing awareness about values, civic rights and duties, while experiencing the advantages of participation, peaceful negotiation and solidarity, during art classes. Topics regarding citizenship values and ethics were painted and discussed in a participatory way. Results about how the children developed consciousness about those topics, relating them to their lives, are presented.     

Social citizenship and social psychology

This paper outlines the concept of social citizenship, which was first theorized in the late 1940s alongside the creation of the UK welfare state and concerns citizens' rights to a basic income and standard of living. It suggests that social citizenship—particularly welfare provision—is a useful and important topic for social psychological research, albeit one that has been largely overlooked. We provide an overview of key developments in social citizenship and consider the impact of 30‐plus years of neoliberal governance in Western democracies, which has resulted in ongoing changes to how welfare rights and responsibilities are configured, such as policies that make social citizenship rights contingent on conduct. We outline social scientific work that examines these shifting ideas of citizenship, personhood, welfare, and conditionality and make the case for a critical discursive psychological approach, which we illustrate with a brief empirical example. We suggest that critical discursive social psychology is particularly well‐placed to examine how psychological assumptions are built into both policy and lay discourse and how these can legitimate interventions designed to work on the conduct of the unemployed, such as therapeutic and behavior change initiatives. Finally, we argue that psychology is faced with a choice; while there are opportunities for the discipline to contribute to the design and implementation of such initiatives, to do so requires accepting the basic values of the underpinning neoliberal agenda. Instead, it is vital to place these assumptions under the critical microscope and explore how they work to obscure structural disadvantage.     

领导职业支持对组织公民行为的影响:心理资本的作用

本研究探讨领导职业支持对工作团队成员组织公民行为的影响机制,研究采用问卷调查法,以10个地市的66个工作团队303名成员为调查对象,在控制被试的教育程度、工作经验及人口统计学变量之后,运用多层线性模型分析领导职业支持与团队成员心理资本及其组织公民行为的关系。结果发现：（1）领导职业支持对团队成员心理资本和组织公民行为有积极促进作用;（2）无论在团队层次还是员工层次,领导职业支持对成员组织公民行为有积极促进作用,成员心理资本在二者之间起完全中介作用。     

Commentary on Allan Kellehear's “Near-death experiences and the pursuit of the ideal society”

Allan Kellehear's article raised four questions for me: (1) whether the near-death experience (NDE) presents enough data about the nature of a transcendent society for it to be a useful model for earthly societies; (2) the degree to which transcendent societies have to address the practical considerations of a material society; (3) whether NDEs are projections of experiencers' cultural concepts about the nature of the transcendent realm(s); and (4) the kind of hope offered by the growing awareness of the features of Western NDEs. I address these questions by referring to transcendent realm concepts and NDEs in the anthropological literature, particularly that of the North American Indian Prophet Movement.     

个体危机干预中的伦理学问题

在现代社会中,越来越多的人陷入了不同程度的心理危机中,个体危机干预技术正在得到越来越广泛的应用。个体危机干预是一种短程的心理治疗,在危机干预过程中,对干预对象的隐私权、知情同意权等问题尚未形成相应的伦理规范。为促进危机干预工作的健康发展,对这两个方面的伦理学问题加以讨论,尝试提出一些能够指导个体危机干预工作实践的伦理规范。     

Emancipation from what? The concept of freedom in classical Ch'an Buddhism

This essay attempts to articulate an understanding of the goal of ‘freedom’ in classical Ch'an Buddhism by setting concerns for ‘liberation’ in relation to the kinds of authority and regulated structure characteristic of Sung dynasty Ch'an monasteries. It begins with the thesis that early Western interpreters of Zen have tended to emphasise the dimensions of Zen freedom that accord with modem Western versions of freedom presupposing tension between freedom and authority as well as between individual autonomy and the demands of a communal setting. These dichotomies, assumed by modem Western interpreters, appear to have been absent from this medieval Chinese context, thus suggesting that their concepts of freedom and liberation must have differed significantly from our own. The essay examines classical Ch'an rhetoric and practices in an effort to reconceive what ‘freedom’ might have meant in this context and concludes with a proposal for this reconception.     

The unmaking of citizenship education for adult immigrants in Canada

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in citizenship education, particularly in the schools. One area, however, that has remained conspicuously absent from the discussion is citizenship education for adult immigrants. This paper reports on the results of studies examining citizenship education for adult immigrants in Canada from 1947 to the present. We conducted interviews with policy-markers and citizenship applicants, reviewed relevant documents, and surveyed program providers across Canada. We conclude that current trends in Canadian citizenship policy are in keeping with larger trends in globalization and consumerism and propose that the Canadian government increase its civil investment in immigrants if the country is to develop an informed and active citizenry.     

Education as an intergenerational process of human learning, teaching, and development

In this article I argue that the future of psychological research on educational processes would benefit from an interdisciplinary approach that enables psychologists to locate their objects of study within the cultural, social, and historical contexts of their research. To make this argument, I begin by examining anthropological accounts of the characteristics of education in small, face-to-face, preindustrial societies. I then turn to a sample of contemporary psychoeducational research that seeks to implement major, qualitative changes in modern educational practices by transforming them to have the properties of education in those self-same face-to-face societies. Next I examine the challenges faced by these modern approaches and briefly describe a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary system of education that responds to these challenges while offering a model for educating psychology students in a multigenerational system of activities with potential widespread benefits.     

Psychological Similarities and Differences between Women and Men across Cultures

Most research looking at psychological similarities and differences between women and men has been carried out in North America and Western Europe. In this paper, I review a body of cross‐cultural evidence showing that it is precisely in these Western countries that women and men differ the most in terms of personality, self‐construal, values, or emotions. Much less‐pronounced gender differences are observed, if at all, in Asian and African countries. These findings are unexpected from the perspectives of the two most influential frameworks applied to sex differences coming from evolutionary psychology and social role theory. However, recent research related to social comparison and self‐categorization theories suggests a promising approach to explain why more egalitarian societies can paradoxically create greater psychological differences between women and men.     

Immigration and the interplay among citizenship, identity and career: The case of Ethiopian immigration to Israel

Migration is a common phenomenon of the globalization era. In this article we explore the interplay of three foundational concepts in the migration experiences of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Israel: citizenship, identity and career. Through our analysis we examine the multiple layers of being an immigrant citizen. Following immigration, as reflected in empirical studies with members of this community, we have observed tensions between inclusion and exclusion, equality and difference, work and family as well as gender role transformation, family restructuring, and generational differences. These issues are discussed in the context of the development of active citizenship and career. Career development is found to be a core process in the enactment of citizenship, the promotion of a sense of belonging and deeply related to identity formation. Identity as an overarching perspective, with its personal and collective meanings, plays an important role at the intersection between citizenship and career.