Factors Moderating Children's Adjustment to Parental Separation: Findings From a Community Study in England

Research findings show that there is marked variability in children's response to parental separation, but few studies identify the sources of this variation. This prospective longitudinal study examines the factors modifying children's adjustment to parental separation in a community sample of 5,635 families in England. Children's behavioral/emotional problems were assessed when children were aged 47 and 81 months; marital quality, maternal depression, socioeconomic circumstances, and demographic variables were assessed prior to the separation from maternal report. Results indicated that 346 mothers separated from their partners in the 3-year period. Preseparation differences were found for measures of family process and parent risk factors, with effect sizes ranging from small to trivial. Parental separation was associated with a significant but modest increase in behavioral/emotional problems, independent of marital quality, maternal depression, socioeconomic circumstances, and demographic variables. Moderation analyses showed that children of cohabiting parents had a greater increase in adjustment problems following parental separation than children of married parents. Further research elucidating the factors that moderate children's adjustment to parental separation is needed to improve our understanding of who may most likely benefit from preventive interventions.     

The structure of vocational interests in Filipino adolescents

The structure of vocational interests was investigated in Filipino high school students (N = 503), who rated their interest in 303 culture-relevant occupational titles and 93 major fields of study. Item-level principal components analyses identified general interest, prestige, and sex-type dimensions, rather than Prediger's (1982) People/Things and Data/Ideas dimensions. Additional factor analyses were conducted to derive scales that measure more specific interests, including Unskilled/Semiskilled Labor, Male-dominated, Engineering/Technology, Science, Medical, Arts, Commerce, Government/Law, and Education. The interest scales showed some resemblance or overlap with Holland's types, and gender differences on the scales conformed to expectations. However, the relationships among the scales and occupations were better accounted for by prestige and sex-type than by People/Things and Data/Ideas dimensions or by Holland's circular model. Developmental, cultural, educational, and economic factors that might account for Filipino students' focus on prestige and sex-type were discussed.     

Searching for salvation: An analysis of US religious searching on the World Wide Web

The goals of this research were to answer three questions. How predominant is religious searching online? How do people interact with Web search engines when searching for religious information? How effective are these interactions in locating relevant information? Specifically, referring to a US demographic, we analyzed five data sets from Web search engine, collected between 1997 and 2005, of over a million queries each in order to investigate religious searching on the Web. Results point to four key findings. First, there is no evidence of a decrease in religious Web-searching behaviors. Religious interest is a persistent topic of Web searching. Second, those seeking religious information on the Web are becoming slightly more interactive in their searching. Third, there is no evidence for a move away from mainstream religions toward non-mainstream religions since the majority of the search terms are associated with established religions. Fourth, our work does not support the hypothesis that traditional religious affiliation is associated with lower adoption of or sophistication with technology. These factors point to the Web as a potentially usefully communication medium for a variety of religious organizations.     

Constructing the boundaries of Anglican orthodoxy: An analysis of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)

This article examines the evolution of the transnational orthodox Anglican movement through the lens of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)—the movement’s most significant public expression to date. GAFCON represented the first large-scale event at which a sizable number of Anglicans (ordained and lay) from both the global North and global South gathered to galvanise an ‘orthodox’ response to the current ‘crisis’ in the Anglican Communion (a crisis precipitated by debates over the status of homosexuality). The analysis is based upon fieldwork conducted at GAFCON, a review of a range of documentary sources, and retrospective interviews with several attendees. The article argues that GAFCON constituted a key moment for the attempted framing of movement objectives for participants, other Anglicans, and outside observers, fixing a standard of orthodoxy in the final Jerusalem Declaration. While attempting to project an image of orthodox unity to outsiders, GAFCON leaders also made the negotiation of certain aspects of cultural difference central to the event’s purpose. Detailed examinations are provided of two topics (homosexuality and female ordination) that exemplify the ongoing negotiation of the boundaries of orthodoxy within the movement. The article concludes with reflections on the significance and further development of the movement.     

Leibniz's Concept of Substance and his Reception of John Calvin's Doctrine of the Eucharist

Leibniz saw the question of the eucharist as a crucial stumbling block to the agreement between Lutherans and Calvinists. Mandated together with Daniel Ernst Jablonsky to prepare working documents for the negotiations between Hanover and Brandenburg in 1697, Leibniz carefully read through the Calvinist Confessions of faith and the works of Calvin in their 1671 edition. He made an extensive collection of excerpts from the Confessions of faith and from Calvin's Institutes all intended to show that Calvinists admitted the substantial presence of Christ's body in the eucharist. (This collection of excerpts is analysed here for the first time and compared with another little-known document, the Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken). L. had argued previously in 1691/92 that, contrary to the assertions of Pellisson-Fontanier, his own conception of substance and of Christ's presence in the eucharist was completely different from Calvin's. However, by 1697, it was clear to Leibniz that Calvin's concept of substance, which was broadly speaking Aristotelian, was never defined clearly by the reformer, and could be made to coincide with Leibniz's own notion of substance as force rather than substance in its dimensional sense. At the same time L. dissociated Ubiquitarianism (doctrine characteristic of late sixteenth century Lutheranism, which defended the dimensional presence of Christ's body in heaven and in the eucharist, by arguing that Christ in his divine nature could cause his physical body to be present in several places at the same time) from Lutheranism. He also drove a wedge between the doctrines of Zwingli and Calvin. L. thus attempted to find religious union on a common ontology and he might well have succeeded if it were not for complex political circumstances, which ultimately caused the failure of the negotiations.     

Shooting Genes,Distributing Credit: Narrating the Development of the Biolistic Gene Gun

Using oral histories with scientists, technology transfer managers and other collaborators who were involved with the development of the biolistic gene gun, I investigate how actors narrate their experiences of technology transfer. The individuals who worked on the gene gun draw on two different interpretive repertoires for describing the innovation process: a ‘localized’ repertoire that highlights defined moments and the conceptual contributions of a few individuals; and a ‘distributed’ repertoire that emphasizes longer time frames, the process of technical implementation and the importance of a network of collaborators. Each of these repertoires identifies a different assemblage of actors as deserving of credit and reward for the development of the gene gun. Examining how scientists employ these modes of describing the innovation process offers a way of thinking about how university inventors negotiate tensions around novel features of academic capitalism, such as personal profit arising from the commercialization of university technologies.     

Lost in Translation? The Need for ‘Upstream Engagement’ with Nanotechnology on Trial

Nowadays, the criticism of the so-called ‘deficit model’ and the need for ‘upstream engagement’ in science and technology are becoming part of the master narratives of public policies in many countries, especially concerning nanotechnology. This may be considered as a major success for STS scholars, whose research results have largely contributed to this change, especially those concerning the GMO controversies. Some STS scholars thus move from a position of distant and critical observers to the role of experts in social engineering or advisers of policy-makers. However, in their enthusiasm concerning the expected benefits of upstream engagement, institutions, TA practitioners and social scientists seem to ignore some important limitations as well as the implicit framing assumptions of the concept. Based on an experience made by a group of social scientists in the Grenoble area—one of the major ‘nanodistricts’ in Europe—our paper shows that the ‘upstream engagement’ concept is still embedded in a linear model of innovation and is not very useful to anyone pursuing the co-production of innovations. It is especially true when socio-technical networks are already aligned by powerful actors and a worldwide agenda as in the case of nanotechnology. In order to give an opportunity for public engagement to have a larger impact on decision-making, we propose an alternative approach, which combines Actor–Network Theory (ANT), as an analytical tool, with the reflexive and ongoing implementation of public participation. Public engagement is probably one of the critical loci where STS scholars must reflect on the articulation between the knowledge they produce and public policies in action.     

Authority and Legitimisation: the Intraecclesial Strategy of Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens

Abstract?

The election of Ieronymos as archbishop of Athens took place at a critical moment for the Orthodox Church of Greece (OCG). On the one hand, the social credibility of religious bureaucracy was waning. On the other, a fundamentalist faction within the Synod was essentially questioning his authority. In order to confront these problems, Ieronymos found the necessary social and religious legitimisation via the partial democratisation of the administrative function of the OCG as well as the restoration of its relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople (the Ecumenical Patriarchate). The decoding of this intraecclesial strategy, starting from his election in February 2008 until October 2009, is the topic of the present article.     

Exercising Research Skills: An Information Literacy Boot Camp for Religious Studies Graduate Assistants

Instructional librarians at the University of Dayton collaborated with a religious studies graduate program to offer a three-day information literacy workshop, or “boot camp,” to the program's graduate research assistants. The graduate program had found that the assistants' research skills did not meet the expectations of their faculty mentors, and the workshop sought to address these deficiencies. With input from the religious studies faculty, the workshop focused on catalog and database searching, Boolean logic, primary sources, and the Chicago citation style. The librarians incorporated active learning exercises into each workshop session. Assessment of the workshop suggested that the assistants gained confidence in these information literacy skills. Feedback from faculty also indicated that the assistants' research skills had improved.     

The Protestant Reformation and Catholic Publishing: A Framework for Contemporary Understanding

Drawing from the perspective of an interdisciplinary exploration of the sociocultural impact of the printing press and its effects on Catholic thinkers, educators, and worship practices, the author of this article explores the educational mission of Catholic publishing during the Reformation and how it has evolved in modern times. First, the author discusses the communication dynamics of the Reformation and specifically the impact of the printing press. Second, the author explores the historical reasons for why the Roman Church perceived the need for uniformity in worship. Third, the author focuses on how the Roman Church built upon this framework of uniformity to define and shape the issues that were being discussed when expanding their outreach to the public during this period. Fourth, the author shows how Catholic worship and education evolved within an interpretation that is relevant to the educational mission of Catholic publishers today.