Imaginaries of Development: The Rockefeller Foundation and Rice Research

This article is both a historical and contemporary analysis of the Rockefeller Foundation's changing role in rice research over the past 50 years, and though there are many overlaps between them, focuses on three broad periods: first, the RF's early work in rice research, particularly through the establishment of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Green Revolution era of the 1960s and 1970s; second, the development of the RF's rice biotechnology program in the 1980s; and third, the RF's focus on agricultural research in Africa, with rice research as a subset of their programmatic efforts, during the 1990s and beyond. Rice research in each of the different periods was driven by different framings of problems and potential solutions, incorporating wider ideologies, epistemologies, and key actors and networks, with the RF at the center. Viewed in this way, the Rockefeller Foundation's involvement in rice research cannot be seen ‘simply’ as an agricultural modernization project, but rather as simultaneously a sociopolitical project that extends particular modes of governance through homogenization and paternalism.     

Priming as a way of understanding children’s mental representations of the social world

Priming is a well established tool for experimental examination of how mental representations drive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that has been widely used in adult research. Priming is also a well established technique in cognitive development research. Social development research, however, has rarely used priming as a research method despite evidence that this technique is promising for helping researchers untangle causal connections between children’s mental representations and children’s social development outcomes. This paper discusses how priming methods may yield important insights into the role that children’s mental representations of the social world play in children’s social functioning. We begin by discussing the theoretical conceptualization underlying priming and priming methods. We next review evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of priming techniques in child development research. We conclude by suggesting ways in which priming can inform future research in social development using research examining attachment, social-information-processing, gender development, and mood and mental health as examples.     

基于教师评定的3~9岁儿童气质结构

该研究采用理论推导、开放式问卷和个案追踪相结合的方法,对744名3~9岁儿童的气质进行理论建构,自编儿童气质教师问卷,采用AMOS技术进行验证性因素分析,对3~9岁儿童气质结构进行研究。结果表明, 3~9岁儿童气质是由情绪性、活动性、反应性、社会抑制和专注性五维度组成的多维整体;研究所编制的3~9岁儿童气质教师评定问卷具有较好的信度和效度。     

In search of meaningful participation: Making connections between emotions and learning

Research on participation has advanced our understanding of children's everyday lives by increasingly bringing into focus what society perceives as ‘meaningful’. This piece is driven by a desire to extend this investigation by sharing a creative research journey. Here, we have combined our theoretical musings, initial conversations with children, and evolving methodological approaches to show how our research approach has changed as we seek meaningful ways to involve children. Accordingly, this paper highlights the positive consequences of a reflective research process that focuses on children's emotions as we consider children's capacities as learners. We argue that by critically engaging with what is meaningful in the context of participation, we can demonstrate the value of children's voices, challenging dominant discourses about children's competence.     

Psychology's own mindfulness: Ellen Langer and the social politics of scientific interest in “active noticing”

Ellen Langer's mindfulness construct is presented as “indigenous” to disciplinary psychology. Langer's early work laid the foundations for the research program she would come to call the psychology of possibility. Studying inattentive behavior (mindlessness) and intentionally reflective cognition (mindfulness) placed her work directly in line with the theoretical priorities of the 1970s and influenced the direction of research in several subdisciplines related to social cognition. Positioning Langer's work at an intersection crossed by various discourse communities in psychology explains much of its influence within the discipline. However, its relevance is additionally related to a broader field of research and application also employing the terminology of mindfulness. While superficially synonymous, the majority of mindfulness research is distinguished from Langer's due to differences in origination, definition, and goals. Comparative assessments are used as a lens through which to interrogate the social politics of mindfulness theories’ burgeoning success over the past half century.     

Relational Education: Applying Gergen’s Work to Educational Research and Practice

This article sketches the implications of Gergen??s relational approach for educational research and practice. Gergen suggests that we envision education as a set of processes intended to enhance relationships. This is a radical departure from most mainstream educational research and practice, which is designed to enhance the individual??s mind. We first examine three key assumptions about individuals and about knowledge that undergird mainstream educational research and practice??an emphasis on the individual as separate from the world, an account of knowledge as decontextualized and a tendency towards hierarchies which favor purified knowledge over lesser forms. We then describe three alternative assumptions from Gergen??s relational account of education??an emphasis on individuals as woven into contexts and knowledge as produced in relations, a view of knowledge as contextualized, and a view of knowledge and action as heterogeneous, not pure. We provide examples from current educational research and practice that illustrate these three assumptions about relational education.     

Children's right to be hostile: Emotions and agency through psychodynamic lens

This paper explores children's hostility towards adult researchers and shows how individual acts of hostility might be linked to wider contexts in children's lives and to their relationships with others. Drawing on ethnographic research with children in Slovakia and psychodynamic theories of Alfred Adler and Anna Freud, the paper argues for hostility to be seen as a legitimate form of children's political agency and one which might require escape from adult logics and interpretations. It suggests that children's hostility towards the researcher should be seen as a right before it is considered a problem, and it should not on its own exclude children from participation in research. Tracing the emotional dynamics of research-participant encounters and their links to other social relationships, personal histories and emotional materials, the paper suggests that recognising children's agency as too elusive for adult interpretations might facilitate new forms of research participation, one which would not rest as heavily on the adult conceptions of childhood.     

Ethics and practices of re‐presentation: Witnessing self and other

Context: The challenge of producing ethical representational practices is of critical interest to both practitioner‐researchers and research theorists. For practitioners becoming researchers a central ethical question may be how to manage a relational presence in writing their research, in ways that acknowledge participants, the research relationship, and a researcher's own subjectivity. Focus: The article offers examples from practitioner research to illustrate and theorise how researcher subjectivity is managed through the use of witnessing practices as a representational strategy. Witnessing practices – translated into counselling research from narrative therapy – offer researchers a strategy to take up a reflexive, relational presence in research reports. Discussion: Researcher witnessing honours the contributions of research participants as well as making visible the shaping effects of the research on a researcher's life. Through witnessing self and other, and thus declaring presence, privilege and partiality, re‐presentational ethics are made transparent.     

(Re)Searching for a client in two different worlds: Mind the research‐practice gap

A criticism voiced by counsellors and psychotherapists is that research does not truly reflect the complexities of therapy. Researchers, on the other hand, accuse practitioners of not attending to research findings and suggest that as a result they engage in an ill‐informed process. This polarised understanding can give rise to the situation where the client is missed, falling into the research‐practice gap. In reality the research‐practice gap gets smaller and smaller every time a practitioner employs — which is often the case — a complex and sophisticated construct system in search of a client's psychological distress. The metaphor of the ‘search’ seems to become a point of connection between the practitioner's search and the researcher's (re)search. As a way of exploring this issue, the paper briefly considers the research‐practice gap and the critique of current research. It argues that counsellors and psychotherapists are themselves engaging in research when they practise therapy since every counselling and psychotherapy session is basically a (re)search process.     

二孩家庭中的同胞嫉妒及其影响因素

随着多孩政策的开放,同胞嫉妒易发且普遍存在。同胞嫉妒指家庭中一个孩子与父母的亲密关系受到另一个孩子威胁或挑战时出现的认知、情绪和行为的复合体。本文深入挖掘同胞嫉妒的内涵、价值及其个体、养育者和社会文化等维度的影响因素,未来研究需要进一步注重综合作用机制研究;重视干预性研究,探索缓解同胞嫉妒的方法。     

Conflict and Convergence: The Ethics Review of Action Research

The article is based on the author’s experience as an administrator of three primarily social science institutional review boards (IRBs) to which researchers presented research protocols that purported to be minimal risk studies of teacher practice where the “teacher–researcher” was the “research subject.” Recently, educational, social, and behavioral science researchers encounter many problems with regard to their methodologies and the oversight mandate of the IRBs. There is a divergence between the IRB’s role and assumed bio-clinical predisposition and the ability of behavioral and social science researchers to have their research methodologies and research understood and appreciated by IRB members. The article explores some of the dilemmas confronting IRB members and administrators in the review and administration of the action research protocols, particularly those that involve vulnerable populations and which, from the practitioner–researcher’s perspective, focus on the practitioner–researcher as the object of the research.     

Advancing a Community Psychology of Men

This commentary reviews and integrates several themes described in this special issue on men. Social forces of the past and present such as colonialism and hegemonic masculinity are noted as a continuing influence on men’s social roles, as are the social-justice movements that contribute to the liberation of women and sexual minorities. The early sections of the commentary examine the studies in the context of these forces and movements, emphasizing how men both resist and accept traditional masculinities. In the latter sections the commentary turns to the research process –first with a discussion of the structural and constructionist themes in the studies, followed by the issue of how men are classified (implicitly or otherwise) as either agents or targets of oppression. The implications of these for community psychology research with men are considered, along with the idea that research is a social “performance” in which a researcher’s concern about her or his audience influence the research process. The conclusion summarizes the challenges of conducting research with men while making the case that community psychology offers some distinct advantages in managing them. Of particular value is the field’s emphasis on diversity, social justice, and social ecology.     

物质主义者自我概念的特点和相关理论

物质主义的经典研究分别从人格、价值观、目标和需要的角度界定和理解物质主义的相关现象。自我概念一直是贯穿物质主义研究的线索, 但直到最近研究者才试图以它为理论基点统摄与整合已有研究。相关研究表明, 物质主义者对自我的评价较低, 表现为低自尊、权变性自尊; 对自我的认识具有不一致性, 表现为自我概念不清晰、外显-内隐自尊分离、以及自我差距(理想自我与现实自我的差距)。最近出现的两个综合理论——物质主义的自我逃离理论与物质主义的认同目标追求理论提出, 物质主义是个体将物质拥有作为逃避自我的方式或满足自我认同动机的手段。这两个理论弥补了现有物质主义研究缺乏整合性理论的不足。未来研究可以通过借鉴有关自我概念的理论, 超越单纯的物质主义者自我匮乏的思路, 从而做出更大的理论贡献。     

From the ground up: cultural considerations in research into children’s spirituality and theology

Cultural diversity is a hallmark of human life and communities across the globe. Yet research into children’s spirituality and theology does not often intentionally consider culture. In this article, the author addresses this gap by drawing from original qualitative research into how children generate theological meaning in different cultural contexts in order to propose three suggestions for research into children’s spirituality and theology. By beginning with the lives of the children who participated in this study, the author argues that such research must explore not just the content of children’s theologies, but also the processes by which they generate theology, that one needs to consider children’s theologies as phenomena created and held both individually and collectively, and that culture must be attended to at every stage of the research process.     

Why did Mary Shelley Write Frankenstein?

Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus” is presented here as her encoded image of unconscious emotions too painful for her waking personality to deal with. Her innovative image of man-made life is taken as emerging from the confrontation of her hopes for secure love with painful events in her life with Percy Shelley. This paper proposes that her novel served as a waking expression of unconscious feelings of hurt in reaction to Percy. The monster’s role is here decoded as her way to consciously process the idea that parts of her relation to Percy were so hurtful as to deform it into a miscreant. It is further proposed that the losses and frustrations of her earliest years inclined her to accept Percy’s violations in the hope of the secure love she longed for. The answer offered to this paper’s title accounts for why “Frankenstein” is taken to refer to the unnamed monster and not its creator.Anthony F. Badalamenti is a research scientist in psychiatry. He has a private practice in psychoanalysis and works at quantifying psychiatric research with Columbia University Psychiatric Institute, The Nathan Kline Institute and The University of New England. He holds PhDs in mathematics from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and in systems from Bell Telephone Laboratories. He is a member of the Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, from whom he received a distinguished research award, the American Mathematical Society, the Society for General Systems Research and the New York Academy of Sciences. He has published over 60 papers in psychiatric research.     

Social Psychology of Women and Gender1

A selective overview of work in the field from 1970 to 1985 is presented. Sex comparisons are presented as an extensive research area needing theory-based empiricism. In another major area, gender belief systems, important progress has been made in studying the effects of stereotypes on subsequent behavior. Methodological critiques and advances are discussed. Two sources of research are highlighted: women's experience and theory. Examples are given of research advances stemming from women's experience and a case study is provided of the value of personal experience to the researcher. Theories focusing on individual differences are critiqued. Theory focusing on situational factors such as power and status are highlighted. Sherif s (1982) delineation of the self-system is presented as a major integrated theory. Directions for future work are provided focusing on inclusion of women of color, lesbians, and women from all social strata to understand the varieties of women's experience. A move to knowledge that is “gendered” rather than female-centered is proposed.     

Was Hirschi Right?: A National-Level Longitudinal Examination of Religion as a Social Bond

The current research re-examines Hirschi’s (1969) omission of religion as a social bond by examining the impact of religious commitment and religious salience on substance use in National Youth Survey Family Study respondents, both in adolescence/early adulthood, and again in middle adulthood. This approach allows for a longitudinal examination of a large, nationally representative sample of respondents. Results challenge Hirschi’s decision, and suggest that, particularly in adolescence, a person’s religious service attendance, and belief in religion, do affect their likelihood of substance use. Further research is suggested.     

Taking emotions seriously: Fun and pride in participatory research

The article focuses on emotions in participatory research with children and young people. We approach emotions as a generative site for exposing assumptions about participation, as well as participation rights more widely. Our reflections emerged out of revisiting two participatory research projects involving young people (aged 14 to 25) and identifying the significant, but under-articulated importance of emotions in this work. Research is often planned and described in emotionally ‘neutral’ terms, although participatory research necessarily relies on building relationships and engaging emotionally in a research process with others. In our own projects we retrospectively identify and trace the circulation of two salient emotions of fun and pride. We identified fun as an explicit emotion often invoked in the research process, but often under-theorised, and treated almost instrumentally, as something necessary to make the research process flow. The project with young queer women drew our attention to questions of pride, and the role of pride as a transformative emotion which draws our attention to what matters in young people's lives, particularly when it is not anticipated. We argue for the analytical value of emotions, not only as a key component of participatory research design, but also as a site for analysis and knowledge production, if we are to explore seriously research that is intended to respect and support children and young people's participation rights.     

Academic careers in Asia: A cross-cultural analysis

Using Berry’s (1980) acculturation model as our theoretical foundation, we provide a conceptual framework for the cross-cultural analysis of academic careers in Asia in contrast to the United States. Consistent with Berry’s model, we propose a classification of three approaches to research (Adopted Western, Asian, and Integrationist) that can be selected by Asian academics. An individual’s acculturation level or cultural identity is then proposed as the key factor in influencing his or her decision of which research approach is selected. Next, we examine the cultural contextual factors in the academic environment in Asia that interacts with the three approaches to research and conclude that the Integrationist approach, while quite challenging, is likely to be the most productive in the long run. Finally, we discuss some unanswered questions raised by our analysis.     

The India Experience

This article featuring India constitutes one of five articles in a collection of essays on local capacity-building in research ethics by graduates from the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for Bioethics MHSc in Bioethics, International Stream program funded by the Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences. Research ethics is a growing area of work and interest in India. Ethics review remains the weakest component in the mechanism of good clinical practice, and there is a severe dearth of professionals trained in ethics who can provide leadership. Although the Indian Good Clinical Practice Guidelines, the Indian Medical Council Act, and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act require that the Indian Council of Medical Research’s ethical guidelines be followed as a mandatory requirement for physicians who conduct research, there is a pervasive lack of awareness of basic requirements guiding the ethical conduct of research. There is a great need to strengthen India’s research ethics capacity and regulatory framework for research.