Sem-analysing events: towards a cultural pedagogy of hope

This paper locates the concept of learning among real-life human experiences and events. Functioning as a sign, a meaningful event can be understood in terms of a cultural extra-linguistic “text.” Reading and interpreting diverse cultural “texts” are equivalent to constructing and learning critical symbolic lessons embedded in a continuous process of our experiential, both intellectual and ethical, growth. The paper employs Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abjection and her method of semanalysis as a synthesis of philosophy, psychoanalysis and semiotics. Extending semiotic analysis to the level of informal education, the paper asserts that real-life events, such as the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, can become a means towards constructing the cultural pedagogy of hope paramount to sustaining a global society.

God as Teacher: Jewish reflections on a theology of pedagogy

In western religion we are accustomed to conceiving God in political terms as King, Ruler, or Lawgiver. This often results in a coercive conception of religion and education in which people are forced to do and believe that to which they would otherwise object. This essay explores images of God found in rabbinic readings of the Hebrew Bible as teacher and parent. These images form the basis of a non-coercive view of religion and education rooted in cultivation, nurture, and persuasion rather than force. According to this account, the authority of religious and educational leaders should be grounded in moral purpose rather than the exercise of power.     

Teaching Islam in contemporary America: Digital ethnography and the affective challenges of Islamic studies pedagogy

In this article we address the affective dimensions and challenges of teaching about Islam and Islamic studies in the current American political and cultural environment and make two related arguments. First, we explain how the impact of certain kinds of digital media in the past few years has heightened the association of Islam with violence in the minds of many Americans, leading to a classroom affective environment characterized by the “posttraumatic” experience of knowledge about Islam. Second, we argue that the pedagogical use of digital media as a tool for ethnographic and empathic engagement with individual Muslim lives can help meet this particular teaching challenge. We show how the pedagogical employment of digital ethnography can turn the affective power of digital media into a positive learning tool, and model its responsible social and intellectual use.     

Holding hope and hopelessness: therapeutic engagements with the balance of hope

Hope and hopelessness are coexisting and powerful experiences in the human condition. The dynamics of hope and hopelessness within intimate relationships are complex, and individual and family experiences of hope and hopelessness are embedded within historical contexts and wider social processes. This article rests on a relational set of understandings about hope and hopelessness, and offers a dual exploration. It focuses first on the complexities of the patterns of hope and hopelessness within families, and then on the complexities of the therapist's relationship to hope and hopelessness and the family's experience. Orienting to the balance of hope in constellations of hope and hopelessness provides one compass point of therapeutic practice. Reflective practice enables the use of the therapist's involvement in the therapeutic relationship, and helps the therapist to witness the coexistence of hope and hopelessness in a way that nurtures hope and emotionally holds both hope and hopelessness.     

Self-harm as a sign of hope

The author describes psychotherapeutic treatment with a woman who uses severe forms of self-harm to express her hope that she can find real understanding and an environment that can respond to her. She discusses the significance of the earliest experiences of maternal care and the particular importance of the skin; she describes how traumatic breakdowns in early care are unconsciously re-created in later assaults on the body, which serve to communicate distress, anger, protest and the hope that a real attempt will be made to relate to the person who self-harms. Self-harm is viewed not as a suicidal gesture, but rather, as an attempt to preserve life, and to represent and contain unbearable states of minds. The author outlines ways in which self-harm can create a narrative and embody unbearable feelings and unspoken thoughts. It is seen as a form of self-expression and communication, both conscious and unconscious, which is not wholly destructive but has important hopeful and self-preservative aims.     

Christian hip hop as pedagogy: a South African case study

Drawing on interviews with creators of Christian hip hop music in South Africa, this article demonstrates that this genre of popular music and youth culture is utilised as a form of pedagogy to transmit religious beliefs and values to contemporary youth. The pedagogical aspects of hip hop have been recognised in research on the topic, but the religious pedagogical uses of hip hop have been under-analysed within the social sciences. After outlining the global development of hip hop as a pedagogical practice, this article will demonstrate that, under the influence of North American Evangelicalism, South African Christian hip hop attempts to promote Evangelical orthodoxy and orthopraxy in response to the secular and religious practices of South African youth.     

Temperance: with a consideration of evil,violence, and pedagogy

The article investigates the meaning of temperance by noting some cultural assumptions, raising the question as to why this classical virtue has largely disappeared from modern ethical discourse. By means of some historical notes temperance is identified as the unifying virtue in the person and in society. In its Christian form it is related to love of the transcendent goal of human life. By being similarly goal driven, education should consider the cardinal virtues and celebrate them through worship.     

Joining a group's task: the discovery of hope and respect

When engaged with others in tension-filled dialogue, the temptation is for us to treat the other disrespectfully by unconsciously choosing an exclusive subgroup in our minds to belong to, and assigning the other to a devalued group. Unconsciously asserted exclusive membership allows us to deny the ways in which, by disconnecting the other, we are also alienating parts of ourselves. Using three stories, the author explores the notion of unconscious group membership and raises the possibility of discovering a shared membership in the midst of conflict. Internalized shared group membership can constitute a mediating "third" to a dyad in apparent opposition. The shared internal context both contains and defines the pair within a task and set of values that can be used to transcend apparent conflict.     

Understanding the role of hope in counselling: Exploring the intentional uses of hope

In this paper we look at various conceptual models of hope and research evidence for the integral role that hope plays in counselling. We recognize hope as a dynamic process during which counsellor and client interact in ways that can be mutually influencing and we review research that explores this reciprocal process. A model for the intentional use of hope in counselling that recognizes both implicit and explicit approaches is offered. Metaphors for hope-work that position and re-position both counsellor and client in ways that may foster hope are explored. Finally, we provide suggestions for initiating conversations in which hope can be an explicit therapeutic focus.     

Not without hope: a Reformed analysis of sickness and sin.

A Reformed understanding of sickness requires that connections be drawn between the structural effects of sin and the ways that sickness is experienced in people's lives. Such an understanding can be an important resource for the bioethicist, both the bioethicist who speaks from the Reformed tradition and the bioethicist who speaks to patients and caregivers who may assume that sin and sickness are connected, but may understand that linkage in overly simplistic ways.     

Kant's conception of pedagogy

Confronted with the thoroughgoing marketisation of education, scholars have revisited the nature of pedagogy. The work of Immanuel Kant is a resource for critiquing the channelling of the transformation of self and society into rapacious consumerism. Kant's exploration of the connection between inner freedom and political freedom has been recast as pedagogy of the oppressed. Countering the dismissal of the Enlightenment as an accomplice of colonialism and imperialism, Kantian pedagogy is enlisted in the struggle against the forces undermining the very structure of liberal democracy and humanity on a global scale. This essay points to the limitations of this revindication on the grounds that it leaves undisturbed the formative complicities at work in the current crisis, complicities all too familiar to those who teach and learn.     

An analysis of hope as a psychological strength

Psychologists have placed an increased emphasis on identifying psychological strengths that foster healthy development. Hope, as operationalized in Snyder's hope theory Snyder, C. R., Hoza, B., Pelham, W. E., Rapoff, M., Ware, L., & Danovsky, M., et al. (1997). The development and validation of the children’s hope scale. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 22, 399-421], is one such cognitive-motivational construct that has received recent attention as a potential psychological strength that may serve as a protective factor for adolescents in the face of adverse life events. This longitudinal study, involving middle and high school students, provided evidence of (1) stability of hope reports of adolescents over a 1-year period, (2) predictive validity of adolescent hope reports, and (3) hope's functional role as a moderator in the relationship between stressful life events and adolescent well-being. Taken together, the results provide support for consideration of hope as a key psychological strength in youth. The findings are consistent with theories of motivation in which individual differences in hopeful thinking are conceptualized to play a functional role in linking life events and psychological well being.     

Structuring argumentation in a social constructivist framework: A pedagogy with computer support

What we usually think of as higher order skills in argumentation can be profitably viewed as systematic structures for organizing and representing information. Standard terms like line of argument, synthesis, analysis and draft can be viewed as ways of constructing, storing, and accessing data in a social context — data structures for social communication. What makes argument difficult are the multiple structures that arguers have to construct and negotiate when reading and composing. In this paper, we describe the WARRANT project, a project designed to identify data structures of written argument and to design and implement computer tools to aid in the reading and design of argument.     

Deep hope: A song without words

Hope helps alleviate suffering. In the case of terminal illness, recent experience in palliative medicine has taught physicians that hope is durable and often thrives even in the face of imminent death. In this article, I examine the perspectives of philosophers, theologians, psychologists, clinicians, neuroscientists, and poets, and provide a series of observations, connections, and gestures about hope, particularly about what I call "deep hope." I end with some proposals about how such hope can be sustained and enhanced at the end of life. Studies of terminally ill patients have revealed clusters of personal and situational factors associated with enhancement or suppression of hope at the end of life. Interpersonal connectedness, attainable goals, spiritual beliefs and practices, personal attributes of determination, courage, and serenity, lightheartedness, uplifting memories, and affirmation of personal worth enhance hope, while uncontrollable pain and discomfort, abandonment and isolation, and devaluation of personhood suppress hope. I suggest that most of these factors can be modulated by good medical care, utilizing basic interpersonal techniques that demonstrate kindness, humanity, and respect.     

Radical hope in revolting times: Proposing a culturally relevant psychological framework

Growing research supports the link between individual expressions of hope and psychological well‐being. In this paper, we draw on psychological theories of hope, racial and ethnic studies, and the literature on radical healing to propose a framework of radical hope. Although the proposed multidimensional framework integrates cultural practices of People of Color in the United States, it is flexible enough to be adapted to other contexts. The paper begins by providing a brief review of the literature that conceptualizes the concept of hope in the field of psychology as a prelude to comparing the concept to the interdisciplinary notion of radical hope. Based on this body of work, we then introduce a culturally relevant psychological framework of radical hope, which includes the components of collective memory as well as faith and agency. Both components require an orientation to one of four directions including individual orientation, collective orientation, past orientation, and future orientation. The framework also consists of pathways individuals can follow to experience radical hope including (a) understanding the history of oppression along with the actions of resistance taken to transform these conditions, (b) embracing ancestral pride, (c) envisioning equitable possibilities, and (d) creating meaning and purpose in life by adopting an orientation to social justice. We conclude with a proposed research agenda for radical hope.