Towards an Understanding of Nurturing and Restraining Relational Patterns in School Communities

This study aimed to understand the nature of nurturing and restraining relationships in a school communiy. The inquiry entailed a single instrumental case study of a selected school community in a semi-urban context in South Africa. Participants were learners (n=720), teachers (n=33) and administrative and terrain staff members (N=8) as well as two parents. Data on participants' perceptions of relationships in the school community were collected using work sessions/nominal group techniques, visual representations, and focus group interviews. Thematic analysis of the data revealed connectedness, respect, care and transparent communication as aspects that nurture relationships. Limited connectedness between people, the abuse of power, shifting of responsibility and disrespect for one another were revealed as aspects that restrain relationships.     

Response to Stuart Kurtz and Ann Pederson

I respond herein to reviews of my recent book by Ann Pederson and Stuart Kurtz. With respect to Pederson's concerns, a constructive theology formulated from the ideas of communication theory need not necessarily neglect pressing historical issues of the poor and powerless. The potential for such relevance remains strong. This is true as well for the application of the system to particular myths and rituals. Also, while I speak positively of computers as instruments of disclosure and the theories upon with they are based as resources for theological construction, this should not be construed as an endorsement of just any application of information technology in a world that tends to distort all good things. With respect to Kurtz's concerns, while thermodynamics plays a role in discussions of the primordial chaos, notions from communication theory are far more central. Also, the use of the language of the theory for theology does not necessarily require theological relevance for all of Claude Shannon's technical conclusions. My uses of infinity are taken from traditional theology and analytic geometry rather than from pure mathematics, although fruitful development along those lines is entirely possible. Pederson and Kurtz are generous with both their praise and concerns. The praise will encourage me to further this project along lines provided by the concerns.     

From Noosphere to Theosphere: Cyclotrons, Cyberspace, and Teilhard's Vision of Cosmic Love

Two theme–setting quotations introduce this essay—that of Yeats's falcon, deaf to the falconer's call, adrift in space above the blood–dimmed tide, counterpoised to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's call to abandon old nationalistic prejudices and build the earth. With primary references to the thought of Teilhard, along with, among others, to Ewert Cousins, Andrew M. Greeley, Karl Jaspers, Marshall McLuhan, Ilya Prigogine, Karl Rahner, Leonard Swidler, David Tracy, and Alfred North Whitehead, I argue that the most crucial intellectual paradigm shift of the twenty–first century will challenge humanity to take the turn from uncritical attachment to rigid absolutism or atomistic fragmentation toward a sense of open–ended, off–centered centeredness and fluid connections—from a static to a dynamic model of reality. Central to my argument is the Teilhardian reinterpretation of the Christian metaphors of creation, fall, incarnation, salvation, and the eschaton in the evolutionary terms of the emergence of cosmic consciousness from the chrysalis of the world of the past—from chaos to order, from biosphere via noosphere to theosphere. Facilitated by the exponential growth of populations, collaborative research, science, technology, and global communication (most dramatically manifested by the Internet), this emergent understanding of what it means to be human can, first, foster the awareness that in humanity evolution has become conscious of itself, and then, gradually, precipitate the formation of “the global village” (the mystical body of Christ), as respectful dialogue replaces diatribe and the dualistic pugilism of Samuel Huntington's “Clash of Civilizations” is gradually transformed into a nonadversarial mentality that values shared humanity and a common purpose. Thus, eons hence, empowered by love–energy, the transmutation of the human into the ultra–human can take the ultimate quantum leap into a yet higher dimension where spirit/energy is no longer in need of flesh/mass, and Earth can be safely left behind.     

Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots

Grey parrots ( Psittacus erithacus ) solve various cognitive tasks and acquire and use English speech in ways that often resemble those of very young children. Given that the psittacine brain is organized very differently from that of mammals, these results have intriguing implications for the study and evolution of vocal learning, communication, and cognition.     

从《周易》的原点看人文精神与新世纪跨文化交际

中国的“人文”精神源远流长 ,从《周易》我们可以找到它的源头。在新世纪全球化的语境中 ,研究东西方文化与文学中人文精神的发展趋势与跨文化交际的关系 ,具有十分重要的学术价值和现实意义。本文旨在分析源于《周易》的中国人文精神的特点与传统 ,在与西方的比较中探讨跨文化交际的发展趋势及其相关问题。     

A Fine Risk To Be Run? The Ambiguity of Eros and Teacher Responsibility

Teachers are often placed in a space of tensionbetween responding to students as persons andresponding to students through theirinstitutionally-defined roles. Particularlywith respect to eros, which has becomeincreasingly the subject of strictinstitutional legislation and regulation,teachers have little recourse to a language ofresponsibility outside an institutional frame. By studying the significance of communicativeambiguity for responsibility, this paperexplores what is ethically at stake forteachers in erotic forms of communication. Specifically, it is Levinas's own ambiguousunderstanding of the ethical significance oferos, and what we have to learn from it, thatoffers a way of reading the place of eros inresponsibility. I conclude my discussion withsome thoughts on what a renewed understandingof responsibility might mean at the personaland institutional levels.     

Covert communication in laboratories, classrooms, and the truly real world

Hundreds of research studies have demonstrated that one person's expectations for the behavior of another person can actually affect that other person's behavior. These studies implicate the operation of processes of covert communication, communication that is subtle, largely nonverbal, and ordinarily unintended. The earliest studies of these processes showed that through their expectations, laboratory researchers unwittingly affected the responses of their research participants. Later studies showed that teachers' experimentally induced expectations about their pupils affected the pupils' intellectual performance. Most recently, studies of covert communication processes have extended to diverse contexts, such as the judicial and health care systems. For example, research indicates that judges' beliefs about the guilt of trial defendants can be unwittingly communicated to juries by the judges' nonverbal behavior during jury instruction. In addition, studies of covert communication in medical contexts show that physicians' effectiveness in persuading their patients to enter into treatment can be predicted from their tone of voice in talking to or about their patients. For example, one study showed that surgeons who used a bossy tone of voice when talking to their patients were more likely to be sued by their patients than were surgeons who used a more respectful tone. In sum, then, we have learned a great deal about the importance of subtle processes of nonverbal communication, but a great deal more is yet to be learned about these processes as they occur in the relatively sheltered context of laboratories and classrooms and in the rough-and-tumble of the truly real world beyond.     

团体心理辅导对大学生人际交往影响的长期效果的研究

以团体心理辅导技术对34名大学生进行为期6周的团体心理辅导,并于9个月后对辅导的效果进行再评估.结果表明:团体心理辅导对大学生人际交往问题的干预有效;实验组的干预对大学生人际交往影响不仅有即时提高与改善效应,还有潜在的长期效应;因为交往各变量的复杂性,在团体辅导后各变量的具体变化趋势又略有不同.     

Dialogue in joint activity: Complementarity,convergence and conventionalization

Dialogue is tightly interwoven within everyday joint activities that require moment-by-moment coordination of utterances and actions. A common account of coordination is that it is established via progressive convergence (alignment, entrainment, similarity) of interlocutors' representations and behaviour. In order to examine how coordination is established and sustained, this paper distinguishes between (1) Semantic coordination of referring expressions (2) Procedural coordination of the timing and sequencing of contributions. Drawing on data from a series of maze experiments, this paper shows how both kinds of coordination result in the rapid development of highly elliptical, systematized and normative conventions. Focussing on how these conventions are established, this paper shows how interlocutors exploit partial repetition as an interactive resource, resulting in interlocutors' turns becoming progressively divergent and complementary. Further, this paper develops the claim that since repetition is best conceived as a special case of complementarity, it cannot be the general explanation of coordination.     

EFFECTIVENESS OF FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING WITH AND WITHOUT EXTINCTION AND PUNISHMENT: A SUMMARY OF 21 INPATIENT CASES

Functional communication training (FCT) is a frequently used treatment for reducing problem behavior exhibited by individuals with developmental disabilities. Once the operant function of problem behavior is identified by a functional analysis, the client is taught to emit an appropriate communicative response to obtain the reinforcer that is responsible for behavioral maintenance. Studies on FCT have typically used small numbers of participants, have reported primarily on clients for whom FCT was successful, and have varied with respect to their use of other treatment components. The main purposes of the present study were to evaluate the efficacy of FCT for treating severe problem behavior in a relatively large sample of individuals with mental retardation (N = 21) and to determine the contribution of extinction and punishment components to FCT treatment packages. FCT with extinction was effective in reducing problem behavior for the majority of clients and resulted in at least a 90% reduction in problem behavior in nearly half the applications. However, when demand or delay-to-reinforcement fading was added to FCT with extinction, treatment efficacy was reduced in about one half of the applications. FCT with punishment (both with and without fading) resulted in at least a 90% reduction in problem behavior for every case in which it was applied.