The earth is the Lord's: the biblical view of the environment

The Church needs a characteristically Christian voice in environment discourse. The Bible offers this in the form of symbols and stories. Familiar terms such as righteousness, covenant and atonement originated in the biblical teaching about creation, and the liturgy of the Temple was to maintain the creation. Angels and their music described the powers of creation and cosmic harmony, and Adam lost all this when he chose secular knowledge rather than Wisdom from the Tree of Life.     

Catechists' conceptions of their catechetical learning environments

In ‘A Typology of Catechetical Learning Environments’ (2014), De Kock presented a typology for describing different types of catechetical practices. The typology serves as a theoretical framework for empirically investigating the effects of catechetical practices in church communities. This current article investigates, on the basis of interviews with catechists, whether the types of catechetical learning environments drawn from the typology are reflected in catechists' conceptions of their catechetical practices. It concludes that the stipulated categories are only partially reflected in the conceptions of learning goals at which respondents aim, as well as in the role divisions between catechumens and the catechist. Moreover, the types of learning environments drawn from the typology are not clearly reflected in catechists' own reflections on their catechetical practices. Implications for both the professional practice of catechesis and for further research are suggested.     

Inclusion

Summary

In a growing number of schools in the United States, it now is possible to walk into elementary, middle, and secondary classrooms and observe students who could be identified as having moderate and severe cognitive, physical, and emotional disabilities successfully receiving their education together with similar-aged classmates who have no identified special education needs (Falvey, 1995; Lipsky & Gartner, 1997; Schrag, 1998; Villa & Thousand, 1995). This practice of welcoming, valuing, and supporting the diverse learning needs of all students in shared general education environments is referred to as inclusive education, inclusive schooling, or inclusion. This article examines inclusive education along a number of dimensions. First, the evolution of the inclusion moment is briefly examined. After the construct of “severe disability” is considered in the context of inclusive education, various rationale for inclusion are examined along with outcome data, legislation, and legal and U.S. Department of Education decisions which forward inclusive policy. Next, eight factors most frequently associated with successful inclusive education are described and discussed. In describing the factors, examples are provided of specific assessment, planning, and communication processes that support the inclusion of students with intensive cognitive, physical, and emotional disabilities. The article ends with a discussion of the implications of inclusive education for a 21st Century democracy.     

Roles of Leisure in Coping with Stress Among University Students: A Repeated-Assessment Field Study

This article reports findings of a study to examine the effects of leisure coping on various stress coping outcomes including: immediate outcomes (perceived coping effectiveness, perceived satisfaction with coping outcomes, and perceived stress reduction) and distal or long-term outcomes (physical and mental ill-health and psychological well-being), above and beyond the contributions of general coping - coping not directly associated with leisure. A repeated-assessment field design was used to examine ways in which university students cope with stressors in their daily lives. The study found that leisure coping beliefs (leisure-generated dispositional coping resources) significantly predicted lower levels of mental and physical ill-health and greater levels of psychological well-being above and beyond the effects of general coping. Also, the use of leisure coping strategies (situation-specific stress coping strategies through leisure) was significantly associated with higher levels of perceived coping effectiveness and stress reduction when the effects of general coping were taken into account. Significant contributions of specific leisure coping dimensions were found as well.     

The direct and indirect benefits of dispositional mindfulness on self-esteem and social anxiety

This study investigated the long‐term health effects of combat stress reaction (CSR) among Israeli CSR casualties (112) and control veterans (184) of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), physical symptoms, and adverse health practices were examined 18 years after the war. The relationship between CSR, PTSD, physical symptoms and adverse health practices was examined via hierarchical linear regression. Findings indicate that although CSR was positively associated with more current physical symptoms and adverse health practices in univariate analyses, these associations were not significant once demographic differences between the groups were controlled. In contrast, current PTSD symptoms were positively associated with current physical symptoms (p < 0.001) and showed a trend association with adverse health practices (p = 0.06). PTSD was the most powerful predictor of current physical symptoms and appears to mediate the association between CSR and physical symptoms almost two decades after the war. Both combat stress reaction and the results of the study were discussed in the light of the theory of Conservation of Resources (COR).     

Pupil Physical Abuse by Teachers

Abstract

Corporal punishment is one of the most controversial disciplinary practices currently being used in school settings despite the vulnerability that it creates for students to be physically abused. Some cultures continue to believe that corporal punishment is a useful tool for teaching children to be respectful, honest, and productive members of society. The present study attempted to discern the nature and extent of corporal punishment used by teachers in the secondary schools located in six provinces of Zimbabwe between 1990 and 1997, as well as what actions were taken against these teachers. The results of the present study suggest that the majority of the perpetrators were male, had received official training for their position, and were sanctioned with a fine.     

A look at how we look at others: Orientation inversion and photographic negation disrupt the perception of human bodies

Although disproportionate inversion effects have often been considered manifestations of the special processes recruited by upright faces, several papers using sequential matching tasks have reported that body postures also produce sizeable inversion effects. However, comparison of inversion effects observed with transient body postures and effects elicited by judgements of facial structure is complicated by qualitative differences between the stimuli and the tasks. Here we report a series of experiments that use attractiveness judgements to provide a better comparison of the effect of inversion as well as contrast negation on face and body perception. Significant effects of inversion and negation were observed for both face and body stimuli. While the magnitude of the inversion effects was broadly comparable, the negation effect was considerably larger for faces. These effects converge with evidence from cognitive neuroscience to suggest that both faces and bodies recruit similar orientation-specific processes distinct from processes used for generic objects.     

Cognitive styles and person–environment fit: Investigating the consequences of cognitive (mis)fit

There is currently considerable interest in the key elements of person–environment fit to understand vocational behaviour and to develop strategic human resource management practices. In the light of this interest, we wanted to investigate (1) whether people within similar functions have similar cognitive styles, and (2) what the consequences of cognitive (mis)fit are on three work attitudes, using two large-scale databases (N = 24,267 and N = 2,182). We identified a knowing-oriented cognitive climate in finance, information technology (IT), and research and development (R&D) functions; a planning-oriented cognitive climate in administrative and technical and production functions; and a creating-oriented cognitive climate in sales and marketing functions and general management. Furthermore, we found that the relationship between people's cognitive styles and work attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, job search behaviour, and intention to leave) does not depend on the cognitive climate in which they work. However, we did find that people with a higher creating style on average score higher on intention to leave and job search behaviour in comparison with people who score lower on the creating style, irrespective of the cognitive climate they are working in. The cognitive climate also partially affects job satisfaction and intention to leave after controlling for cognitive styles. In summary, cognitive styles and cognitive climate seem to have separate influences on people's work attitudes. Our findings are relevant for selection and recruitment policies of organizations and in the context of training, job design, and workforce planning.     

Assessing knowledge-intensive work environment: General versus situation-specific instruments

The aim of the present study is to examine to what extent general and situation-specific work environment instruments capture the salient work characteristics in a knowledge-intensive context. We conducted qualitative open-ended interviews with 30 employees (24 men and six women) from a Norwegian university department. The information from the interviews was content-analysed and coded on the scales of five work environment instruments; two general instruments (the General Nordic Questionnaire for Psychological and Social Factors at Work [QPSNordic] and the Job Diagnostic Survey [JDS]) and three situation-specific instruments (Assessing the climate for creativity [KEYS], Situational Outlook Questionnaire [SOQ], and the Organizational Climate Measure [OCM]). The results showed that situation-specific work environment instruments covered significantly more statements about the work environment than the general instruments. More statements could be categorized on the organization and individual levels, compared to group and leadership levels. The situation-specific instruments covered more statements than general instruments at the organization level. These statements were mainly related to the organizational context, social and relational characteristics, and encouragement of creativity and organizational impediments to creativity. The findings support the value of situation-specific instruments for assessing the work environment in knowledge-intensive organizations.