Challenging ‘Belief’ and the Evangelical Bias: Student Christianity in English Universities

Abstract

Popular and academic accounts of university-based religion tend to privilege evangelical Christianity, presented as a morally conservative, conversionist movement at odds with university contexts, which are widely assumed to be vehicles for a progressive Western modernity. This is especially the case in the UK, given the association of higher education with secularisation, yet virtually no research has studied this interface by examining the lives of students. This article discusses findings from the three-year project “Christianity and the University Experience in Contemporary England”, including a nation-wide survey of undergraduate students, in examining how the experience of university shapes on-campus expressions of Christian identity. We argue that a sizeable constituency of undergraduates self-identify as ‘Christian’, but evangelicals emerge not as the dominant majority, but as a vocal minority. The emerging internal complexity is masked by a public discourse that conceives of religion in terms of propositional belief and presents evangelicalism as its pre-eminent form.     

Emotional intelligence influences on the work performance of early career academics: An exploratory study

We aimed to investigate emotional intelligence (EI) influences on the work performance of early career academic (ECA) staff. Participants were 220 early career academic staff at a rural South African university (female = 56.8%, 77.7% aged between 20 and 40 years, black = 89.1%). They completed an emotional intelligence scale as well as a measure of work performance. Results, following structural equation modelling, indicated that perception and regulation of emotion aspects of EI to significantly, positively influence the ECA’s job, interpersonal, non-organisational and hierarchical success. ECA staff high on EI perceived to relate better with others, and to be proactive in their adaptive behaviours when change manifests. The ways in which ECA staff appraise and respond to emotionally charged workplace communication appear to influence their likelihood to succeed in the work adjustment.     

Family Relations Test Responses of Retarded Readers: Reliability and Comparative Data

The Family Relations Test (FRT) was administered to 46 retarded readers and readministered after a 3-week interval. Test-retest reliabilities were in the .70s, .80s, and .90s for major response classifications. Responses of the retarded readers were similar in configuration to those reported for other clinic groups and normal Ss but not to response patterns of institutionalized emotionally disturbed children. Future research may need to consider children's perceptions of family relationships in the context of parental and sibling data. Specific tactics for future research are suggested.     

Celebrazioni di Giuseppe Peano nel 150° della nascita e nel 100° del Formulario Mathematico

After an introduction which demonstrates the failure of the equational analogue of Beth’s definability theorem, the first two sections of this paper are devoted to an elementary exposition of a proof that a functional constant is equationally definable in an equational theory iff every model of the set of those consequences of the theory that do not contain the functional constant is uniquely extendible to a model of the theory itself.Sections three, four and five are devoted to applications and extensions of this result.Topics considered here include equational definability in first order logic, an extended notion of definability in equational logic and the synonymy of equational theories.The final two sections briefly review some of the history of equational logic     

The Emerging Church in Transatlantic Perspective

Is the Emerging Church movement (ECM) a single transnational movement? Or is it a series of parallel religious orientations framed by nationally specific contexts? Cross‐national comparisons of the many manifestations of the ECM remain scarce, especially as the development of the ECM across the globe (e.g., in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand) is most certainly affected by divergent histories and socioreligious landscapes. Focusing on a comparative analysis of the United Kingdom and the United States, I trace how these different cultural contexts determine variant patterns of ECM identity formation. Overall, a global perspective on the ECM calls for a theorization of the national development of religious movements and takes seriously the cultural and historical experiences that shape both its emergence in particular nations and the differentiated development of distinctive manifestations of ECM identity.     

A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of the Effects of Police Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) on Response-to-Resistance in a Large Metropolitan Police Department

The current study provides a statistically rigorous program evaluation of the impact of police body-worn cameras (BWCs) on police response-to-resistance (e.g., use of force). Results indicate that BWC officers’ mean frequency of response-to-resistance decreased by 8.4% from the 12 months pre-BWC implementation to the 12 months post-BWC implementation compared with a 3.4% increase observed for the matched sample of non-BWC officers. Police departments should consider adopting BWCs alongside other strategies to reduce police response-to-resistance, and to improve transparency and accountability. Study limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.     

LOYALTY AND THE ART OF WISE LIVING: THE INFLUENCE OF PLATO ON THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF JOSIAH ROYCE

This essay investigates Josiah Royce's sustained interest in the Platonic dialogues by focusing not only on Royce's explicit commentary on Socrates and Plato but also on significant philosophical connections between Royce and these figures. In section 1, we explain the nature of loyalty according to Royce and how Socratic loyalty exemplifies Royce's ideas in both evident and surprising ways. In section 2, we claim that Royce's treatment of “lost causes” (particularly truth as a lost cause) relates to Socrates' dedication to the logos; the Platonic dialogues are reinvestigated in order to make this point. In section 3, we explain the nature of “cause” both in Royce's thought and in the Platonic dialogues in order to see how loyalty to a cause culminates in the art of wise living—Socrates' philosophical practice.     

Individual differences in ego depletion: The role of sociotropy-autonomy

In his cognitive theory of depression, Beck (1987) suggested that highly sociotropic individuals have a strong need for social acceptance whereas highly autonomous individuals have an excessive need for achievement. Research by Baumeister (2000) has suggested that a phenomenon known as ego depletion, the weakening of performance on tasks following active self-control, occurs because it depletes a limited inner resource. The present study examined whether individuals who are highly sociotropic or autonomous would respond differently when faced with tasks requiring self-control. Participants completed the Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale (Clark et al. 1995) and engaged in two active self-control tasks. The results revealed that sociotropy levels were negatively correlated with persistence on tasks that require self-control whereas autonomy was positively correlated to persistence on the same task. In addition, the results suggested that, following a task requiring self-control, highly sociotropic individuals expend less effort, whereas highly autonomous individuals expend more effort on subsequent tasks requiring self-control.     

The police officer's terrorist dilemma: trust resilience following fatal errors

Suicide attacks have raised the stakes for officers deciding whether or not to shoot a suspect (‘Police Officer's Terrorist Dilemma’). Despite high‐profile errors we know little about how trust in the police is affected by their response to the terrorist threat. Building on a conceptualisation of lay observers as intuitive signal detection theorists, a general population sample (N = 1153) were presented with scenarios manipulated in terms of suspect status (Armed/Unarmed), officer decision (Shoot/Not Shoot) and outcome severity (e.g. suspect armed with Bomb/Knife; police shoot suspect/suspect plus child bystander). Supporting predictions, people showed higher trust in officers who made correct decisions, reflecting good discrimination ability and who decided to shoot, reflecting an ‘appropriate’ response bias given the relative costs and benefits. This latter effect was moderated by (a) outcome severity, suggesting it did not simply reflect a preference for a particular type of action, and (b) preferences for a tough stance towards terrorism indexed by Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA). Despite loss of civilian life, failure to prevent minor terror attacks resulted in no loss of trust amongst people low in RWA, whereas among people high in RWA trust was positive when police erroneously shot an unarmed suspect. Relations to alternative definitions of trust and procedural justice research are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Collaboration Between Clergy and Mental Health Professionals: A Review of Professional Health Care Journals From 1980 Through 1999

Given the frontline role of community clergy in mental health care, this study examined how collaboration with clergy was viewed by mental health and other health professionals outside of the religious community. Searches of health care journals on Medline and PsycINFO yielded 44 articles from non‐religious journals from 1980 through 1999 that specifically addressed collaboration between clergy and mental health professionals. Seven themes were identified through content analysis, including the benefits of collaboration to each profession, the need to increase the clergy's knowledge about mental heath, and the importance of referrals. Discussion about interdisciplinary referrals significantly increased over time, r_ø (1, N = 44) = .31, p < .05).