Action and emotion in everyday life

This study of naturally occurring behaviour employed a "beeper technique" to investigate the actions carried out by 152 subjects in eight different groups, viz. adult students, employed students who were also parents, unemployed, art students, doctoral students, alcoholics, retired people and a control group. Actions were sampled for seven subsequent days, five times per day between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. at randomly selected occasions. Each action was rated on a number of variables, shortly after it was sampled (median delay approximately 10 min). Some of the findings were: Time allocation corresponded well with national estimates. Being under situational control was highly aversive. Instrumental and consummatory orientations correlated positively. The background variables were, on the whole, only rather weakly related to action ratings, but it was found that women and retired persons tended to report a higher level of well-being.     

Documentary Bioethics: Visual Narratives for Generations X and Y

Narrative bioethics is primarily understood to involve storytelling through the use of literature. This article suggests that other forms of media are necessary to convey stories of an ethical nature to an audience broader than one being trained as medical professionals. "Documentary bioethics" is a manner to present and interpret stories of an ethical nature using forms of popular electronic media in a reality-based documentary style to society at large, specifically Generations X and Y.     

A new look at time and eternity

In his Systematic Theology, Vol. III, Wolfhart Pannenberg argues that God as eternal comprehends the different moments of time simultaneously and orders them to constitute a whole or totality. The author contends that this approach to time and eternity might solve the logical tension between the classical notion of divine sovereignty and the common sense belief in creaturely spontaneity/human freedom. For, if the existence of the events constituting a temporal sequence is primarily due to the spontaneous decisions of creatures, and if their being ordered into a totality or meaningful whole is primarily due to the superordinate activity of God, then both God and creatures play indispensable but nevertheless distinct roles in the cosmic process.     

Church and Culture: Protestant and CatholicModernities

This article reviews the church and culture relationship developed in Gaudium et Spes and Lumen Gentium and proposes a Catholic account of modernity as a way in which the contemporary mission of the church in today's culture can be creatively and faithfully carried forward. After an initial outlining of the definitions of church and culture proposed by the Vatican documents, I then go on to position my proposal of a Catholic modernity in relation to some important current accounts of the church and culture relationship that tend towards a rejection of secular culture. I argue that Protestant accounts of modernity have dominated in philosophical and sociological theories and draw on my previous work on Max Weber to illustrate the significance of this for developing a Catholic account of modernity. I conclude by sketching some of the important issues which would need to be addressed in formulating a systematic account of a Catholic modernity.     

Stability and change in the prestige rankings of occupations over 49 years

The social status of occupations has remained stable over a 49-yr period beginning with Count's study that found occupations in a well-defined, prestige order. This prestige hierarchy has obtained throughout several replicated studies, some of which controlled the variables of race, educational level and sex. The prestige level of occupations have withstood the test of time including World War II and even sociological and educational changes.     

Effect of socioeconomic status on general and at-risk high school boys' willingness to accept same-sex peers with LD

Thirty-eight educationally successful and 33 educationally at-risk high school boys from varying SES backgrounds participated in a study to determine their willingness to allow same-sex peers with LD to participate in activities in the school, out-of-school, and both contexts. Kruskal Wallis One-way Analysis of Valance of Ranks results indicated that, regardless of academic designation, boys from low SES backgrounds were more willing than their counterparts to accept peers with LD. Significant differences among SES groups were found in several activities performed in the out-of-school contexts, especially those with emotional or cognitive connotations. Discussion addresses the importance of training classroom teachers and general education students in maintaining an inclusive environment.