Defiant spirituality: Care traditions in the black churches

Conclusion I have tried to demonstrate that black church defiant spirituality is a complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon. In essence it represents the quest of exiled African peoples to experience ontological harmony with God and all of creation. In the context of a racist society, it has adapted itself to the exigencies of survival and gradual liberation. Specifically, it has sought to reconstruct reality by religiously affirming God's sovereignty over the just and unjust. Also, it has negated black invisibility, subverted political anemia, and now struggles to resist and conquer an encroaching spiritual despair in post-industrial society.I have identified three basic treasures which the black church may offer to other cultures, namely, that care and discipline are the responsibility of every Christian, that authentic Christian worship nurtures commitments to individual and social transformation and it offers a full sensory experience. I close with words from one of America's greatest twentieth century poets, Langston Hughes (1974)—entitled Mother to Son: Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor—Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachra' landin's, And turnin' corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now —For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair. (p. 187)     

Residualanalysis in the polytomous rasch model

Residuals for check of model fit in the polytomous Rasch model are examined. Comparisons are made between using counts for all response pattern and using item totals for score groups for the construction of the residuals. Comparisons are also, for the residuals based on score group totals, made between using as basis the item totals, or using the estimated item parameters. The developed methods are illustrated by two examples, one from a psychiatric rating scale, one from a Danish Welfare Study.     

Reviews

Editor's note: The original edition of the book is (nearly) sold out, but a shortened, updated version will probably be published by Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks CA. Information can be obtained from: T.U.P., P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands.     

Internal approach to external sets and universes

A problem which enthusiasts ofIST, Nelson's internal set theory, usually face is how to treat external sets in the internal universe which does not contain them directly. To solve this problem, we considerBST,bounded set theory, a modification ofIST which is, briefly, a theory for the family of thoseIST sets which are members of standard sets.We show thatBST is strong enough to incorporate external sets in the internal universe in a way sufficient to develop the most advanced applications of nonstandard methods. In particular, we define inBST an enlargement of theBST universe which satisfies the axioms ofHST, an external theory close to a theory introduced by Hrbaek. HST includes Replacement and Saturation for all formulas but contradicts the Power Set and Choice axioms (either of them is incompatible with Replacement plus Saturation), therefore to get an external universe which satisfies all ofZFC minus Regularity one has to pay by a restriction of Saturation. We prove thatHST admits a system of subuniverses which modelZFC (minus Regularity but with Power Set and Choice) and Saturation in a form restricted by a fixed but arbitrary standard cardinal.Thus the proposed system of set theoretic foundations for nonstandard mathematics, based on the simple and natural axioms of the internal theoryBST, provides the treatment of external sets sufficient to carry out elaborate external constructions.Partially supported by AMS grants in 1993 and 1994 and DFG grant in 1994.Presented byRobert Goldblatt     

Internal approach to external sets and universes

In this article we show how the universe ofBST,bounded set theory (a modification ofIST which is, briefly, a theory for the family of those sets inIST which are members of standard sets) can be enlarged by definable subclasses of sets (which are not necessarily sest in internal theories likeBST orIST) so that Separation and Replacement are true in the enlargement for all formulas, including those in which the standardness predicate may occur.ThusBST is strong enough to incorporate external sets in the internal universe in a way sufficient to develop topics in nonstandard analysis inaccessible in the framework of a purely internal approach, such as Loeb measures.Presented byRobert Goldblatt     

Positive modal logic

We give a set of postulates for the minimal normal modal logicK ₊ without negation or any kind of implication. The connectives are simply , , , . The postulates (and theorems) are all deducibility statements . The only postulates that might not be obvious are

Me,us and them: Political identification and the third-person effect in the 1993 Australian federal election

Three days prior to the 1993 Australian federal election 54 Australian university students who identified with one of the two major political parties were surveyed regarding their perceptions of media campaign impact on self and others. Results provided evidence of a third-person effect (Davison, 1983) wherein respondents judged others us more influenced by the election campaign than themselves. Consistent with predictions derived from social identity theory and self-categorization theory (e.g. Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher and Wetherell, 1987), political ingroup members were also judged as less injuenced by campaign content than political outgroup members. Respondents who identified strongly with their preferred party judged self and ingroup members as less influenced by campaign content than did other respondents, and showed more evidence of positive intergroup differentiation. At the same time, however, these respondents exaggerated self–ingroup differences, challenging the theoretical assumption that intergroup diferentiation is associated with ingroup assimilation. Judgements of media impact on self and other also depended on the direction of the campaign message. Respondents believed ‘voters in general’ were persuaded in line with the intent of campaign content, while outgroup members were seen to be persuaded by material favouring their own side but to be uninfluenced by counter-attitudinal content. Election propaganda, irrespective of direction, was seen to amplify existing party preferences in self and ingroup members. Hence the relative invulnerability of self to media impact was pronounced when respondents judged the impact of pro-outgroup messages. Results suggest that perceptions of self–other differences in media vulnerability are influenced by the subjectively salient social relationship between self and other, and are governed by motivational needs, such as self-esteem, social-identity, and differentiation from others (cf. Brewer, 1991; Hogs and Abrams, 1993).     

Developing TODAM: Three models for serial-order information

TODAM2, a theory of distributed associative memory, shows how item and associative information can be considered special cases of serial-order information. Consequently, it is important to get the right model for serial-order information. Here, we analyze and compare three distributed-memory models for serial-order information that use TODAM’s convolution-correlation formalism. These models are the chaining model, the chunking model, and a new model, the power-set model. The chaining model associates each item with its predecessor; the chunking model uses multiple convolutions andn-grams to form chunks; and the power-set model interassociates all items in a set in a particular way to form a chunk. The models are compared in terms of their performance on seven basic tests of serial-order information—namely, serial recall, backward recall, recall of missing items, sequential probe tests, positional probe tests, serial-to-paired-associate transfer, and item recognition. The strengths and weaknesses of each model are discussed.     

Tropic implicature and context in the comprehension of idiomatic phrases

Research concerned with how people understand idiomatic expressions has focused primarily on lexicalization, familiarity or literalness. In contrast, this study examined the extent to which comprehending idiomatic phrases in context depends upon the words which make up such phrases. Using reading time as a dependent measure and by substituting idiomatic expressions with phrases which retain the equivalent semantic meaning in context, the role of familiarity and literalness were again investigated. The results lend support to the importance of familiarity in comprehending idiomatic expressions (Schweigert, 1991); however, they raise questions about the extent to which idiomatic phrases are syntactically frozen. The findings provide a platform for considering contemporary theories of idiomatic comprehension and related theories of meaning.     

Exposure-based models of human parsing: Evidence for the use of coarse-grained (nonlexical) statistical records

Several current models of human parsing maintain that initial structural decisions are influenced (or tuned) by the listener's or reader's prior contact with language. The precise workings of these models depend upon the grain, or level of detail, at which previous exposures to language are analyzed and used to influence parsing decisions. Some models are premised upon the use of fine-grained records (such as lexical cooccurrence statistics). Others use coarser measures. The present paper considers the viability of models based exclusively on the use of fine-grained lexical records. The results of several studies are reviewed and the evidence suggests that, if they are to account for the data, experience-based parsers must draw upon records or representations that capture statistical regularities beyond the lexical level. This poses problems for several parsing models in the literature.Aspects of this work were supported by ESRC grant No. R0023 4062 to Don Mitchell, by a Spanish Government grant DGICVT No. PB-92-0656-C04-02 to Fernando Cuetos, and by the Belgian National Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, of which Marc Brysbaert is a Research Associate. We are grateful to Chuck Clifton, Barbara Hemforth, Martin Pickering, Matt Traxler, and an anonymous reviewer-all of whom made helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.