The Middle-Class Nature of Identity and its Implications for Education: A Genealogical Analysis and Reevaluation of a Culturally and Historically Bounded Concept

We consider identity as a historically emerging discourse that requires genealogical analysis ― not to discover the roots of our identity but to commit [ourselves] to its dissipation (Foucault 1977, p. 162). We suggest analyzing identity through the history of socio-economic classes, their life struggles, ambitions, development, and reproduction. We see learning not as a project of transformation of identity, but rather as developing access to socially valuable practices and developing one‘s own voice within these practices (through addressing and responding to other voices). The access and voice projects free agents from unnecessary finalization and objectivization by oneself and others (Bakhtin 1999; Bakhtin 1990). In education, we should develop indigenous discourses of learning and develop a conceptual framework that makes analysis of diverse discourses possible. We argue that learning, as transformation of participation in a sociocultural practice to gain more access, is a better conceptual framework than learning as transformation of identity.     

Therapeutic Intervention,Bipolar Inclination,and Literary Creativity

Richards (1997) proposes an "edge-of-chaos" theory of creativity, suggesting that circumstances that present widely disparate perspectives and ideas not perfectly coordinated with each other can stimulate creative thought, especially among persons of bipolar mood inclination. Barnes's (1996) play therapy procedure is well constituted to meet the criteria stipulated by this theory. Forty-four college students experienced 40 min of play therapy, and another 44 read and interpreted children's stories from different cultures. Half the students in each condition showed an inclination toward bipolar mood disorder as measured by the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (3rd ed.; Millon, 1994); the other half did not. Persons with an inclination toward bipolar disorder who underwent play therapy exhibited creative performance significantly more than other persons.     

Bio-Inspired Design of Soft Robotic Assistive Devices: The Interface of Physics,Biology, and Behavior

Wearable assistive robotic devices are characterized by an interface, a meeting place of living tissue and mechanical forces, at which potential and kinetic energy are converted to one or the other form. Ecological scientists may make important contributions to the design of device interfaces because of a functional perspective on energy and information exchange. For ecological scientists, (a) behavioral forms are an assembly of whole functional systems from available parts, emerging in energy flows, and (b) nature explores for informationally based adaptive solutions to assemble behavioral forms by generating spontaneous patterns containing fluctuations. We present data from ongoing studies with infants that demonstrate how infants may explore for adaptive kicking solutions. Inspired by the ecological perspective and data from developing humans, ecological scientists may design interfaces to assist individuals with medical conditions that result in physical and/or mental impairment. We present one such device, what is called the “second skin,” to illustrate how a soft, prestressed material, worn on the skin surface, may be used synergistically with synthetic and biological muscles for assisting action. Our work on the second skin, thus far, suggests a set of ecologically inspired principles for design of wearable assistive robotic devices.     

The Relationship Between Personality,Burnout, and Engagement Among the Indian Clergy

This study examined the relationship between the Big Five personality dimensions, burnout, and engagement among 511 Indian Catholic diocesan priests. We expected that Neuroticism would be positively associated with burnout and negatively associated with engagement. Moreover, we expected Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness to be negatively associated with burnout and positively associated with engagement. Hierarchical regression analyses largely confirmed these expectations. Results are discussed in the context of the broader literature on burnout and engagement, as well as the literature on priesthood.     

Stress and stress management at the workplace

Anxiety sensitivity (AS), the fear of anxiety-related symptoms, is strongly implicated in the development of anxiety disorders and is associated with other types of psychopathology. Little is known, though, about the processes through which AS might precipitate distress. As a preliminary step in understanding mechanisms, the mediational role of stress perception was evaluated in a nonclinical sample using a cross sectional design. We conducted a comparison between trait anxiety (TA) and AS to test whether any observed relations were specific to fear of anxiety (AS) or whether associations could be explained by the more general construct. Perceived stress mediated the relation between AS, and specific AS components, and panic symptoms and depression; but not in analyses where TA was statistically controlled. Perceived stress was not found to mediate the relation between TA and panic symptoms or depression, although TA, perceived stress and depression were highly correlated. Although incremental validity was not demonstrated in the present study, stress perception may be an important process through which AS amplifies reactivity to demanding life circumstances and further study is warranted.     

Differentiation of Aggressive Behavior of Institutionalized Schizophrenics with the Hand Test

Changes and trends in personality assessment documented through examination of the first issues of the Journal of Personality Assessment (JPA) for the years 1937 to 1997 revealed the following: (a) compared to the Journal of Personality and PsychologicalReview, JPA published more women first authors and coauthors in every issue except in 1987; (b) of the total 8,524 individuals whose assessment protocols comprised data sets in the 7 issues, l,6 15 (19%) were patients and 4,839 (57%) were undergraduate college students; (c) combining patients and nonpatients, the average age of children under 13 was 12.24 years, the average age of high school students was 15.28 years, and the average age of adults was 24.20 years; (d) only 6% of the participants were identified as African American, Mexican American, Asian Americans, or other; and (e) in the 74 articles examined, 98 different tests, techniques, or tasks to assess personality were discussed. We suggest that future research should include a more diverse group of participants that includes more older people and more people of color.     

The new social psychology of France: The Girardian School

Like Lacan, Girard's thought is centered not on appetite for objects but on the relation between the self and the subjectivity of the other, in this case by way of what Girard calls ‘mimesis’, a tendency to imitate not only the actions but also the inward attitudes, and especially the desires, of others; prompted by a sense of deficiency, we seek out something to desire, hoping to attain through it the ontological plenitude symbolized for us by the (god‐like) ‘mediator’ or model of our desire. Girard's theory of social origins is rooted in the idea that mimesis leads to generalized conflict which becomes resolved through a ‘victimizing mechanism’ culminating in a ‘sacrifice’. Girardian political economists, such as Paul Dumouchel, Jean‐Pierre Dupuy, and André Orléan, have drawn on these ideas in analyzing market mechanisms and the concepts of wealth and value. Jean‐Michel Oughourlian, a psychiatrist, has applied them to the analysis of suggestion and hypnosis, hysteria, and possession. The Girardian economists’ unmasking of the idea of wealth as an idol symbolizing our fascination with images of ontological plenitude adds a new element to the traditional Christian critique of avarice as well as the Buddhist critique of desire, and Oughourlian's analysis of the phenomena of possession and sorcery throws a new light both on traditional Wester demonology and on rituals of possession.     

The Devil's Tabernacle: The Pagan Oracles in Early Modern Thought,by Anthony Ossa-Richardson,Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, 342 pp. ISBN 978 0 691 15711 5, US$35.00 (hardback); ISBN 978 1 400 84659 7 (e-book)

In this article, I juxtapose Pentecostal churches with youth gangs, two popular barrio institutions that at first glance appear to be irreconcilable but when considered together evince organic parallels that reveal important insights into contemporary life in urban poverty. Reflecting on ethnographic data from the Dominican Republic and elsewhere, I argue that due to an analogous ritualization of everyday life – through rigorous rules and clearly defined consequences for breaking them – both Pentecostal churches and youth gangs, despite their ostensible differences, afford a unique kind of freedom in constraint, and by providing reliable spaces of predictability, control, and mastery, have become popular stages for managing the precariousness of barrio life in late modernity.     

Developing Measures of Community-Relevant Outcomes for Violence Prevention Programs: A Community-Based Participatory Research Approach to Measurement

Community-Based Participatory Research is a research paradigm that encourages community participation in designing and implementing evaluation research, though the actual outcome measures usually reflect the “external” academic researchers’ view of program effect and the policy-makers’ needs for decision-making. This paper describes a replicable process by which existing standardized psychometric scales commonly used in youth-related intervention programs were modified to measure indicators of program success defined by community partners. This study utilizes a secondary analysis of data gathered in the context of a community-based youth violence prevention program. Data were retooled into new measures developed using items from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, the Hare Area Specific Self-Esteem Scale, and the Youth Asset Survey. These measures evaluated two community-defined outcome indicators, “More Parental Involvement” and “Showing Kids Love.” Results showed that existing scale items can be re-organized to create measures of community-defined outcomes that are psychometrically reliable and valid. Results also show that the community definitions of parent or parenting caregivers exemplified by the two indicators are similar to how these constructs have been defined in previous research, but they are not synonymous. There are nuanced differences that are important and worthy of better understanding, in part through better measurement.     

Lotteries,Quasi-Lotteries,and Scepticism

I seem to know that I won't experience spaceflight but also that if I win the lottery, then I will take a flight into space. Suppose I competently deduce from these propositions that I won't win the lottery. Competent deduction from known premises seems to yield knowledge of the deduced conclusion. So it seems that I know that I won't win the lottery; but it also seems clear that I don't know this, despite the minuscule probability of my winning (if I have a lottery ticket). So we have a puzzle. It seems to generalize, for analogues of the lottery-proposition threaten almost all ordinary knowledge attributions. For example, my apparent knowledge that my bike is parked outside seems threatened by the possibility that it's been stolen since I parked it, a proposition with a low but non-zero probability; and it seems that I don't know this proposition to be false. Familiar solutions to this family of puzzles incur unacceptable costs—either by rejecting deductive closure for knowledge, or by yielding untenable consequences for ordinary attributions of knowledge or of ignorance. After canvassing and criticizing these solutions, I offer a new solution free of these costs.

Knowledge that p requires an explanatory link between the fact that p and the belief that p. This necessary but insufficient condition on knowledge distinguishes actual lottery cases from typical, apparently analogous ‘quasi-lottery’ cases. It does yield scepticism about my not winning the lottery and not experiencing spaceflight, but the scepticism doesn't generalize to quasi-lottery cases such as that involving my bike.