Educating Hopes

Acknowledging the negative impact poverty and violence can have on the educational process, I explore ways in which a pragmatic interpretation of hope can guide us in formulating preventive and responsive measures that are not intrusive on the normal curriculum. I draw on key pragmatic ideas presented by John Dewey to emphasize the habits central to a pragmatic theory of hope. Equally important is the notion of a community of hope that fosters the development of hope’s habits. A hopeful pedagogy enables us to fund students with habits that help them resist the disconnection and despair that can come from living and learning amid impoverished or violent conditions. I argue that teachers can emphasize hope’s relevance to achieving the goals of the curriculum; they can also promote students’ self-knowledge through personal narratives that identify past accomplishments and explore possible means to desired goods. To begin ameliorating the tenacious conditions that foster poverty and violence, we need to look beyond the confines of the classroom and school to the resources and coordinated efforts made possible by the larger community. A pragmatic interpretation thus focuses our attention on individual and communal habits that help us secure desired goods. My discussion demonstrates at least some of the ways in which hope is a valuable resource for actively responding to circumstances that impede the educational process.     

Hope,social support,and depression among Hong Kong youth: personal and relational self-esteem as mediators

Previous studies have shown that depression is negatively associated with hope and social support. However, little research has been undertaken to investigate the theoretical mechanisms underlying the connections among hope, social support, and depression. This study examined how two types of self-esteem (personal and relational) would mediate the relationship of hope and social support to depression among 384 Hong Kong adolescents (age: 12–18 years; M = 14, SD = 1.19). Participants reported their levels of hope, social support, personal self-esteem, relational self-esteem, and depressive mood. Results of the path analysis showed that both personal and relational self-esteem mediated the associations of hope and social support with depression. Hope and social support were associated with higher levels of personal and relational self-esteem, which were in turn related to decreased levels of depression. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Reason and revelation: Kant and the problem of authority

This paper explores the significance of authority for Kant’s understanding of the relationship between reason and revelation. Beginning with the separation of the faculties of Theology and Philosophy in Conflict, it will be shown that Kant sees a clear distinction between the authority of reason and that of revelation. However, when one turns to Religion, it is also clear that Kant sees an important, perhaps necessary, relationship between the two. Drawing on a variety of texts, in particular those concerning the public and private use of reason, this paper then explores the relationship between the authority of reason and that of revelation. From this discussion, several conclusions will be drawn regarding Kant’s understanding of the relationship between reason and revelation, namely that while distinct, the two are not necessarily in conflict and that, ultimately, the proper functioning of public reason must include some reference to revelation.     

Connection,Action, and Hope: an Invitation to reclaim the “Spiritual” in Health Care

The complex process of health has, until recently, been understood devoid of a spiritual component. The present article offers a model of health inclusive of spirituality with implications for the health communication field. Amending the assumptive non-relevance of spirituality to individual health, a growing body of scholarship in various disciplines recognizes the ways in which spirituality connects to overall wellness. As a whole, this literature equates spirituality with seeking, striving, and forward movement. Given the potential for health communication scholars to make significant contributions at the forefront of this research, this article proposes a dynamic model of health inclusive not only of the physical and mental, but of the spiritual as well. Recognizing its centrality to wellbeing, the model locates the spiritual self at the center. Specifically, the spiritual self is described as engaging action, hope, and connection to self, others, and/or the universe.     

Witnessing to Hope in the Christian Community Through Irony

The concept of witnessing to hope reminds us that nurturing hope is fundamentally a communal endeavor. In the Christian tradition, this witnessing takes a particular form. It involves the use of the ironic imagination: Death leads to new life, the poor are considered blessed, and the faithful boast in their suffering. It is argued that a central pastoral task is stimulating the ironic imagination. While this can take place in a number of settings, the focus here is on public worship. Practical examples of how this task might be executed are offered.

Locus-of-hope and life satisfaction: The mediating roles of personal self-esteem and relational self-esteem

Research has demonstrated that hope is linked to better psychological well-being; however, little research has been conducted to examine the mechanisms underlying the link between hope and psychological well-being. The current study examined whether two types of self-esteem (personal and relational) would mediate the relationship between four loci-of-hope (internal, family, peers, and spiritual) and life satisfaction among Hong Kong and Macau college students (n = 1008). Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses. Consistent with the hypotheses, both personal self-esteem and relational self-esteem partially mediated the effects of internal hope on life satisfaction. Moreover, relational self-esteem mediated the effect of external-family locus-of-hope on life satisfaction. Interestingly, a suppressing effect of personal self-esteem on the relationship between external-peers locus-of-hope and life satisfaction was found. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Promoting Positive Future Expectations During Adolescence: The Role of Assets

Positive future expectations can facilitate optimal development and contribute to healthier outcomes for youth. Researchers suggest that internal resources and community‐level factors may influence adolescent future expectations, yet little is known about the processes through which these benefits are conferred. The present study examined the relationship between contribution to community, neighborhood collective efficacy, purpose, hope and future expectations, and tested a mediation model that linked contribution to community and collective efficacy with future expectations through purpose and hope in a sample of 7th grade youth (N = 196; M_age = 12.39; 60 % female; 40 % African American; 71 % economically disadvantaged). Greater collective efficacy and contribution to community predicted higher levels of hope and purpose. Higher levels of hope and purpose predicted more positive future expectations. Contribution to community and neighborhood collective efficacy indirectly predicted future expectations via hope. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Gods or rituals? Relational faith,spiritual discontent,and religious practices as predictors of hope and optimism

The current study investigates the incremental validity of a variety of functional religiosity variables such as religious practices, organizations, and self-designations as religious or spiritual, and content variables such as spiritual attachment to one's deity, meaning-making, values/beliefs, and faith maturity to predict unique variance in measures of hope and optimism, above and beyond the variance predicted by the five-factor model of personality. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that positive and negative relational percepts with a deity, religious denomination, levels of spiritual commitment and meaning-making predicted significant incremental variance in various aspects of hope and optimism, above and beyond the variance predicted by a measure of the five-factor model of personality. Private prayer, attendance at religious services, congregational support, and identity as a religious person did not predict incremental variance in overall hope and optimism. Exploratory analyses indicated significant gender differences in the patterns of incremental criterion validity of the religiosity variables. The results are discussed in light of expectancy-value models of religiosity.     

Finding hope

Abstract

This paper defends a theory of hope according to which hopes are composed of a desire and a belief that the object of the desire is possible. Although belief plus desire theories of hope are now widely rejected, this is due to important oversights. One is a failure to recognize the relation that hope-constituting desires and beliefs must stand in to constitute a hope. A second is an oversimplification of the explanatory power of hope-constituting desires. The final portion of the paper uses an enhanced understanding of the psychology of hope to make progress on normative questions about hoping well.     

Correlates and predictors of an Arabic translation of the Snyder Hope Scale

Snyder, C. R. (1994) has defined hope as goal-directed thinking in which the person has the perceived capacity to find routes to goals (called pathways thinking), along with the motivation to use those pathways (called agency thinking). Using this definition, Snyder, C. R., et al. (1991) developed and validated the trait Hope Scale. This Hope Scale was translated from English to Arabic for the present sample of Kuwaiti college students. Results showed that the scale manifested excellent internal and test–retest reliabilities. In addition, a principal components analysis affirmed the presence of the two expected factors, pathways and agency components. Furthermore, the concurrent validation of the Arabic Hope Scale (AHS) was also demonstrated. The AHS was positively correlated with measures of positive affect, optimism, satisfaction with life, self-esteem, and extraversion, whereas the AHS was inversely related to measures of negative affect, anxiety, and pessimism. The findings strongly support the use of the AHS in Arabic speaking samples.