Is It Still a Movement?

In this address from 1971, the second general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Eugene Carson Blake, sets out the challenges facing the WCC at the beginning of the 1970s, identifying three key changes within the ecumenical movement: a shift in power and decision making away from the Protestant churches of North America and Western Europe; an organization more representative of churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and of Orthodox churches; and the ecumenical involvement of the Roman Catholic Church. It goes on to set out how the WCC, particularly since its conference on Church and Society held in Geneva in 1966, has been attempting to make Christian faith and morals relevant to a world experiencing rapid social, economic, and political change.     

Pedagogies of Hope

Hoping is an integral part of what it is to be human, and its significance for education has been widely noted. Hope is, however, a contested category of human experience and getting to grips with its characteristics and dynamics is a difficult task. The paper argues that hope is not a singular undifferentiated experience and is best understood as a socially mediated human capacity with varying affective, cognitive and behavioural dimensions. Drawing on the philosophy, theology and psychology of hope, five modes of hoping are outlined: patient, critical, sound, resolute and transformative. The key aim of the paper is to illustrate how different modes of hoping are associated with different pedagogical strategies. Phrased differently, the paper seeks to delineate a range of pedagogies of hope. The phrase ‘pedagogy of hope’ is very much associated with critical theory—one thinks instantly of, for example, Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux or bell hooks. There are many pedagogies of hope, however, and an explicitly conservative text such as William Bennett’s Book of Virtues has as strong a claim to the title as Freire’s radical and utopian ideas. A broader argument, therefore, is that there is nothing inherently radical or subversive about a pedagogy of hope. Pedagogies of hope can serve to reproduce social relations as well as to transform them.     

Temperament and Gender: Correlates of Toddler Social Competence

The relation between temperament, gender, and social competence was examined in a sample of 202 children ranging from 12 to 36 months of age. Gender and specific characteristics of temperament corresponded more with toddler social competence than did a more general style of temperament. Females were rated by mothers and group caregivers as more socially competent than males on all four measures used in the study and significantly more so on three of these measures. Characteristics of temperament most closely associated with toddler social competence were approach/withdrawal, adaptability to change, and general quality of mood.     

Motor Schema Formation and Retention in Young Children

The variability-of-practice hypothesis, a major prediction of Schmidt’s (1975) motor schema theory, was tested in an attempt to investigate motor-schema formation. In addition, schema retention was observed after a 2-week retention interval. The task involved preschool children in tossing a bean bag for appropriate distance. Four treatment groups received 100 practice trials equally divided over five days. Variation was provided by varying the weights of the bean bags. The testing situations involved tossing a criterion weighted bean bag as well as a novel weighted bean bag which none of the groups had experienced previously. In addition, all groups were tested on a new but similar task. The results supported the variability-of-practice hypothesis in terms of schema formation and transfer to novel tasks in the same movement class. After a two-week retention interval, loss in performance was significantly less for the group with variability of practice than all other groups.     

General Strain Theory and the Relationship Between Early Victimization and Drug Use

This study uses general strain theory to examine the direct and indirect relationship between early victimization and drug use. Few previous studies measure strain as victimization. Also, past studies tend to combine drug use measures with delinquency measures. This study expands this research by operationalizing strain as early victimization and using measures of both frequency and onset of drug use. National Survey of Adolescents data is used to test the hypotheses. The results show that when youth are victimized they will use drugs more frequently and use drugs at a younger age. These relationships were only partially mediated by social bonds and negative emotions.     

Influences on the Food Choice Behaviors of Adults With Severe Mental Illness

The objective of this research was to gain a deeper understanding of factors influencing the healthiness of food choice behaviors of community-dwelling adults with severe mental illness. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in an outpatient treatment facility with 20 program participants and 10 staff. Grounded theory analysis methods were used. Five dominant themes emerged: food availability, preference for simple food preparation, perceived cost of food, complexity of choice, and relative importance of healthy food choices. The theme of medication effects only emerged from staff interviews. This research can be useful to inform the design of nutrition interventions for this population.     

Reinforcement sensitivity theory and symptoms of personality disorder: Specificity of the BIS in Cluster C and BAS in Cluster B

Gray’s reinforcement sensitivity theory, consisting of the behavioral inhibition (BIS) and behavioral activation (BAS), is frequently used to represent basic dimensions of psychopathology. However, notably few investigations have examined the link between the BIS/BAS and symptoms of personality disorder (PD). Although the Fight-Flight-Freeze System has emerged in the revised model as an important aspect of motivation, the BIS (linked to anxiety) and BAS (linked to impulsivity) have been the primary foci. The current investigation uses a dimensional measure of PD, the schedule for nonadaptive and adaptive personality (SNAP; Clark, 1993) applied to two independent samples of English-speaking participants: undergraduates (n = 276) and clinical patients (n = 47). Results were consistent across both samples, demonstrating that symptoms of Cluster B PDs are indicative of high BAS levels whereas symptoms of Cluster C PDs are characterized by high BIS levels.     

Differentiation and Intimate Partner Violence

ABSTRACT

This study explored the impact of differentiation of self on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). We sought to determine if an individual's level of differentiation of self in a relationship adds to the variance accounted for in IPV perpetration by known risk factors, i.e., relational satisfaction, marital conflict, romantic jealousy, depression, and anxiety. Results indicated that differentiation of self in a relationship is a predictor for perpetration of physical intimate partner violence even after controlling for other known risk factors.