Religion and development ethics in global perspective: a case study of a foreign Christian NGO in China

ABSTRACT

Much academic writing on religion and development tends to focus on the values, beliefs, and modes of operation of religious organizations to examine whether religion contributes ethically to development. A problem with such an approach is its disregard of the contested and evolving nature of religious participation in development in broader national and global contexts. What constitutes ethical religious contribution to development? How can we study the question sociologically? To answer these two questions, I develop Roland Robertson’s notion of the global field to present a framework for analyzing the dynamic interaction between religion and development ethics. In terms of methodological contribution, the framework proposed here prompts us dynamically to contextualize the issue of religious development ethics with reference to four components that make up the global field: the religious agent, the national society, the global civil society, and the global discourse on wellbeing and development. This means that, from an analytical perspective, what is proper or ethical in religious development ethics should not be construed in absolute terms, but in terms of degree and variation. I demonstrate the usefulness of such a contextual approach by drawing on research on ‘GMV’ (pseudonym for an international Christian medical professional services group actively engaged in community development) in China and examining the relationship between religious NGOs, the party-state, and evolving discursive practice of development in the country.     

A Laughing Matter? The Uses of Humor in Medical Interactions

Motivation and Emotion - As Coser (1962) demonstrated in her landmark hospital study, a humor is one of the great tools of reassurance on the hospital ward. After all, if something is ridiculous,...     

Response to Intervention for Middle School Students With Reading Difficulties: Effects of a Primary and Secondary Intervention

This study examined the effectiveness of a yearlong, researcher-provided, Tier 2 (secondary) intervention with a group of sixth-graders. The intervention emphasized word recognition, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, Participants scored below a proficiency level on their slate accountability test and were compared to a similar group of struggling readers receiving school-provided instruction. All students received the benefits of content area teachers who participated in researcher-provided professional development designed to integrate vocabulary and comprehension practices throughout the school day (Tier 1). Students who participated in the Tier 2 intervention showed gains on measures of decoding, fluency, and comprehension, but differences relative to students in the comparison group were small (median d = +0.16). Students who received the re searcher-provided intervention scored significantly higher than students who received comparison intervention on measures of word attack, spelling, the state accountability measure, passage comprehension, and phonemic decoding efficiency, although most often in particular subgroups.