Intergroup dynamics of extra-legal police aggression: An integrated theory of race and place

The police are empowered to use various forms of coercion to accomplish legitimate duties, but they also may employ them gratuitously in violation of law or departmental policy. These extra-legal behaviors range in severity from verbal abuse, such as racial slurs and profanity, to unjustified physical force resulting in severe injury or death. Racial and ethnic minorities, especially those residing in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods, may be disproportionately targeted for such practices. Scholars have offered several explanations for the differential employment of extra-legal police aggression, but an integrated theory of minority disadvantage has yet to be developed. In this article, we synthesize the existing literature into a model of extra-legal police aggression that considers intergroup dynamics of race and place. We argue that ordinary social-psychological processes triggered by the characteristics of neighborhoods explain extra-legal police aggression against minority citizens.     

Intelligence,Practice and Virtue: A Critical Review of the Educational Benefits of Expertise in Physical Education and Sport

The paper calls for a re-evaluation of physical education’s cognitive value claims, as this issue is fundamental to many of the conceptual difficulties the subject faces. Current epistemological challenges are reviewed before analysing the structural connections between intelligent practice and intelligent virtues, and the possibilities for physical education to better articulate its’ intrinsic and instrumental values claims. The paper evaluates arguments made on this basis and reviews revised curriculum planning and pedagogical practices, which could support an enhanced focus on learners’ wider aspirations and achievements; factors crucial for a virtuous life. While applauding enquiry into the possibilities for considering physical education as a moral endeavor, the paper raises concerns about conceptual clarity in intellectual and empirical accounts of virtue. The paper concludes by advocating further research on the interrelationship between intellectual and empirical accounts of skill, evaluation of learners’ decision-making and the aims of physical education and school sport programmes.     

Michel Foucault and the “care of the self” approach to the Buddhist dharma

In line with a particular form of analysis as developed by Michel Foucault, this article proposes to elucidate a particular way of understanding Buddhist monastic culture as detailed in the rules concerning behaviour (the Vinaya), which may be called the “care of the self approach”. To develop this argument, the article first describes the nature of the Vinaya as a “training scheme” rather than a system of prohibitions or rules. Second, it examines the nature of confession or what is called “truth telling”. Third, it examines the nature of transgression of the Vinaya rules. Fourth, I examine the Vinaya and the role of ethics. Lastly, it is shown how these approaches to monastic Buddhism deal with the nature of the transformation of desire to construct what may be seen as a form of “ethical technology” or alternatively as a “transgressive technology”.     

Social Buffering by God: Prayer and Measures of Stress

Social buffering is characterized by attenuation of stress in the presence of others, with supportive individuals providing superior buffering. We were interested in learning if the implied presence of a supportive entity, God, would reduce acute stress. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: prayer, encouraging self-talk, and control. They were subsequently placed in a stressful situation. Self ratings of stress were lower among the prayer and self-talk conditions relative to controls. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures only among those who prayed were lower than controls; however, prayer and self-talk did not differ. Prayer alone did not significantly reduce stress, perhaps because the majority of students in the prayer condition did not consider reading a prayer to constitute praying.     

Teaching and Learning Forgiveness: A Multidimensional Approach

Abstract. This essay seeks to illumine the teaching and learning of the practice of forgiveness by relating a range of theoretical perspectives (theological, psychological, and socio‐cultural) to the process of cultivating the practical wisdom needed for forgiveness. We discuss how a Trinitarian “epistemology of the cross” might lead one to a new way of perceiving life’s constraints and possibilities and relate this theological epistemology to three psychological approaches for understanding forgiveness – a narrative approach, object‐relations theory, and consciousness development theory. Our discussion of these theoretical perspectives is explicitly related to the practice of teaching and learning forgiveness, outlining learning activities we have used in a course we taught (which ranged from case studies and film to lectures and discussions based on close readings of biblical and theological texts) and reporting highlights in our students’ work.