Rousseau's Insight

My comment makes a point out ofRousseau's original insight: that education forsocial participation ought to start within thestudent's lifeworld, and not, as in our days, with the immediatedemands of modern, time-ridden consumerculture. When time is turned into a commodityand place is turned into a transit point forpeople constantly on the move, presence in acommon lifeworld is lost. I take issue with thedominant thinking of education in terms of timeand efficiency, and suggest that we startthinking of education more in terms of placeand presence. I propose that modern thinkers ofeducation – of which I mention a few here –contributed significantly to the pedagogy ofplace or presence. I don't see time as a stringmade up of past-present-future, but rather asan expanding mental and pragmatic universe ofhere-and-nows. The term kairos catchesthis presence as the capacity for doing theright thing at the right moment, that is, themoment when the past has prepared the ground sothat the future can come as a gift. Thisconception is, I think, an important ground forthe idea of an education for citizenship.     

Rescuers and the Rescued

ABSTRACT: There is a fairly widespread but unverified belief that persons working on certain taboo areas may be similar to the population they serve and drawn to such work by their own personal problems in these areas. Two groups, 51 suicide prevention volunteers and 31 suicide attempters, were compared with respect to demographic characteristics and for psychological attitudes and experiences pertaining to suicide, death, and mental status by means of a death questionnaire developed by Shneidman. Comparative analysis revealed substantial differences between volunteers and clients. Demographically, the volunteers were older, better educated, more affluent, and contained a greater proportion of Protestants. Psychologically, the volunteers were distinctly different in regard to suicide. In contrast to their clients, the volunteers reported greater emotional stability, much less fantasy about suicide, almost no actual suicide attempts, and a disinclination to consider suicide as a justifiable problem-solving option.     

Sexual Debut Ages in Heterosexual,Lesbian, Gay,and Bisexual Young Adults in Norway

This study estimates sexual debut ages in young heterosexual, lesbian, gay, and bisexual men and women in Norway. A questionnaire survey was completed online by 27.2 % of a representative national web sample of 2090 persons aged 18–29 years. Three self-selected samples of 924 respondents completed an extended version of the survey online. Lesbian and bisexual women reported earlier experience of orgasm through masturbation than heterosexual women (median 13.1 vs. 15.2 years), and heterosexual men (median 13.5) reported earlier debut than heterosexual women. There was a statistically significant difference between heterosexual and lesbian and bisexual women’s age at the first experience of receptive vaginal sex (median 16.8 vs. 15.4 years). As regards experience of insertive vaginal sex, a significantly higher percentage of heterosexual men than women, and of heterosexual and lesbian and bisexual women, reported experience. It was more common among lesbian and bisexual women than heterosexual women to have had oral sex with another woman, but in neither group did the cumulative percent reach 50 % by the age of 29 years and the median could not be estimated. Gay and bisexual men reported earlier receptive anal sex debut than heterosexual men. With regard to insertive anal sex, gay and bisexual men accumulated experience earlier than heterosexual men, and lesbian and bisexual women acquired this experience earlier than heterosexual women. Compared to heterosexuals, LGB persons of both genders engage in more varied sexual activities. Lesbian and gay persons have same-sex experiences at an earlier age than bisexuals.     

Coping With Strain (CWS) course – its effects on depressive symptoms: A four‐year longitudinal randomized controlled trial

The Coping With Strain (CWS) course is a modification of the Coping With Depression (CWD) course. CWD is by far the most studied psycho‐educational intervention to reduce and prevent depression, but CWD has never been tested in a randomized controlled trial in the workplace. This study seeks to examine the extent to which CWS, on a short‐term and a long‐term basis, reduces depressive symptoms in employees. After advertising at workplaces, 119 employees were randomized into Intervention Group I (IG1), which immediately participated in CWS, or Intervention Group II (IG2), which functioned as a control group for six months until its participation in CWS. The follow up period lasted for four years in both IG1 and IG2. Linear mixed models were fitted to the data. Depressive symptoms were significantly reduced during the course. The reduction of depressive symptoms was maintained over a period of four years in both IG1 and IG2, although there is a slight increase towards the end of the follow‐up period. CWS is effective in reducing depressive symptoms among employees. The effects are long lasting and may be maintained over a period of four years.     

Parasuicide and Use of Intoxicants Among Norwegian Adolescents

Self-reported history of parasiticide was analyzed with respect to use of intoxicants in a national sample of 12,000 Norwegian adolescents. The proportion of parasuicides was 8.3%, being higher among girls and among those living without both parents, and it increased with age, with use of intoxicants, depression, and loneliness. Calculations of relative risks and adjusted odds ratios demonstrated positive associations between parasiticide and use of intoxicants, and no significant gender differences were found. The findings are discussed with reference to impacts of intoxication and risk-taking behavior.     

Enhanced occipital and anterior cingulate activation in men but not in women during exposure to angry and fearful male faces

Blood-oxygenation-level-dependent signal was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging in 24 healthy young subjects (12 men and 12 women) during viewing of angry, fearful, and neutral male and female face pictures. Exposure to angry male as opposed to angry female faces activated the visual cortex and the anterior cingulate gyrus significantly more in men than in women. A similar sex-differential brain activation pattern was present during exposure to fearful but not neutral faces. Previous behavioral studies indicate enhanced physiological arousal in men but not in women during exposure to angry male as opposed to female faces, and brain imaging studies have shown that the occipital cortex and the anterior cingulate gyrus are influenced by activity in the autonomic nervous system as well as by visual attention. Hence, we suggest that the elevated occipital and anterior cingulate activation in men during confrontation with other angry and fearful males may reflect enhanced vigilance in a potentially dangerous situation.     

Bird on Dispositions and Antidotes

In The Philosophical Quarterly , 48 (1998), Alexander Bird raises an objection against the conditional analysis of dispositions: where an 'antidote' is present all the supposed conditions for manifestation of a disposition are fulfilled but the manifestation does not occur. But Bird's argument suffers from equivocation. If we spell out properly whether the disposition's conditions are to include the presence of the antidote or not, the apparent counter-examples disappear. So his examples do not undermine the conditional analysis of dispositions; they show merely that we need to be careful about describing the examples consistently.