Gabrielle Suchon,Freedom, and the Neutral Life

ABSTRACT

A central project of Enlightenment thought is to ground claims to natural freedom and equality. This project is the foundation of Suchon’s view of freedom. But it is not the whole story. For, Suchon’s focus is not just natural freedom, but also the necessary and sufficient conditions for oppressed members of society, women, to avail themselves of this freedom. In this paper I, first, treat Suchon’s normative argument for women’s right to develop their rational minds. In Section 2, I consider Suchon’s three necessary and sufficient conditions for freedom and the manners in which women are blocked from meeting them. The normative argument together with the obstacles to women meeting the conditions for freedom raises the question of how to get women into a position where they can enjoy the freedom to which they are entitled. In Section 3, I outline Suchon’s answer: women must live a life without attachment. I argue this answer situates Suchon both chronologically and theoretically between the Béguines, a medieval women’s spiritual movement, and twentieth-century feminist separatism. I conclude that Suchon’s view of freedom is radical, both for its time and ours, and deserves greater attention from historians of philosophy and of feminist thought.     

Youth mentoring: The American Dream comes to the UK?

This paper examines the ways in which the North American experience has influenced youth mentoring programmes in the UK and focuses on the theoretical assumptions about young people which have underpinned mentoring interventions. A more critical approach to this North American 'legacy' is required if the value of this form of intervention is to be accurately assessed. The paper argues that an over-reliance by mentoring interventions on developmental paradigms has curtailed their capacity to take account of the wider social context in which young people are making their transitions to adulthood. It is suggested that alternative theoretical frameworks which address the complexity and multiplicity of youth transitions hold more promise for understanding and theorising the role of mentoring in the UK setting. A recent Scottish study of informal mentoring processes attempted to open up these theoretical possibilities by using a framework which recognised young people as active participants and agents. This study revealed that a range of models of mentoring may be in place within informal mentoring relationships. The paper argues that findings from this study demonstrated a need for a more critical approach to the 'classic notion' of mentoring as exclusively a one to one relationship between an adult and a young person. Since mentoring is now a highly popular form of intervention with 'socially excluded' young people these questions about the theoretical base for the concept require urgent attention.     

An assessment of social validity trends in applied behavior analysis

Research articles published during the first 31 years of Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis were assessed for reports of social validity measures. Two measures of social validity (treatment outcome and treatment acceptability) were assessed for each article. In addition, articles were assessed for the incorporation of analog versus naturalistic settings. Overall, treatment outcome and acceptability measures were reported in less than 13% of articles. In addition, studies conducted in naturalistic settings were more likely to report social validity measures than studies conducted in analog settings. Possible reasons for the deficit in the reporting of social validity measures and potential outcomes of this deficit are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Phenomenological Study of Immigrant Parents of Adolescents with Delinquent Behavior in Israel

Scarce qualitative literature has focused on understanding the perspective of parents of adolescents involved in crime, and no prior literature has examined how the status of being a parent of an adolescent who is involved in delinquency intersects with being an immigrant parent. The current phenomenological study examined, through the eyes of immigrant parents, how they comprehend their children’s involvement in delinquent behavior. This study examined in-depth semistructured interviews conducted with fourteen immigrant parents (10 mothers and 4 fathers) from the former Soviet Union in Israel of children treated in rehabilitation facilities for delinquent youth. Data analysis revealed a gradual decline in children's behavior ascribed to the developmental stage of adolescence, the pressures of immigration, and cultural conflict. These three factors are interwoven together to create a fabric within which they see their children turning to crime. Parents' gradual loss of control is balanced by attempts to idealize the parent–child relationship and to minimize the severity of the offenses committed. They describe various differing and even contradictory experiences of themselves as parents and their struggles to piece together incohesive, alternating experiences of themselves as parents. Despite the critical role they can play in their children’s rehabilitation, as well as the distress that they themselves experience, parents of children involved in delinquent behavior have often been ignored in research. Acknowledging parents' perspectives and experiences can allow development of appropriate therapeutic strategies to support them and maximize their abilities to support their children.     

Behavioral skills training to increase interview skills of adolescent males in a juvenile residential treatment facility

Some studies suggest that acquiring employment following release from prison may reduce recidivism; however, few studies have evaluated procedures for teaching job-related skills to adolescents in residential detention facilities. Stocco et al. (2017) used behavioral skills training (BST) to improve interview skills of college students. The current study used a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants to evaluate the extent to which BST improved interview skills for 7 adolescents who had been adjudicated for sexual offenses. Results show that BST increased appropriate responses to interview questions for 4 students and BST plus modifications (i.e., stimulus and response prompts) increased correct responding to questions for the other 3. In addition, BST increased appropriate questions, correct posture, and smiling, and decreased fidgeting for all 7 students. We briefly discuss the social implications of teaching interview skills to adjudicated adolescents, as well as the limitations of the findings.     

Non-directive play therapy as a means of recreating optimal infant socialization patterns

The paper proposes that non-directive play therapy recreates conditions similar to those created between a carer and infant during normal development. By the heightening in therapy of essentially normal developmental processes the child with harmful or inadequate relationship experiences is enabled to rework and reintegrate these into normal interactiv patterns. Ways are reviewed in which non-directive play therapy exemplifies important attachment properties in an individual's primary relationships, and recreates healthy carer-infant patterns of interaction such as topicsharing, face-to-face interactions, mutuality and symbolic play, in order to bring about therapeutic change. This primary corrective function is similar to other responsive therapeutic approaches, but it is argued that a particular strength of non-directive play therapy lies in its inherent flexibility and responsiveness to the individual child, which resembles normal infant socialization with a sensitive carer.