Police responses to diversity: A social representational study of rural British policing in a changing representational context

In the first decade of the 21st century, British policing faced two new challenges in how it responded to social diversity: As well as instituting reforms in response to a highly publicized report describing the British police as ‘institutionally racist’ (Macpherson, 1999 ), they faced challenges associated with rapid increases in numbers of immigrants into the UK. Studying social representations at such times of change allows access into processes, themes and value systems that may otherwise remain hidden. This paper uses social representations theory to explore interview accounts provided by regular police officers of interactions with members of minority groups. Empirically, we focus on an area of diversity policing that has received relatively little previous attention: Police work in a rural context that has recently played host to large numbers of migrant workers. Our analysis shows that interviews operate as a site of resistance in which respondents attempt to rework hegemonic representations of the police as prejudiced and to re‐present themselves and their work as able to respond appropriately to diversity. Fairness as a defining characteristic of good police practice is a central representational theme that links identity construction processes to police work with minority groups. Recent immigrant groups are represented as both needing and deserving help to assimilate into British culture: Their lack of acculturation and language difficulties provide additional challenges to police work and to how this is judged as ‘fair’. We discuss the broader origins and implications of police officers' understandings of fairness and the use of social representations theory to study representational fields within organizational settings. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Propension à discriminer à l’égard du genre et dominance sociale

This work aims to study the propensity to discriminate (PTD) (Dovidio & Helb, 2005 ; Tisserant, Wagner & Barth, 2010) against gender and other salient criteria in the working place, such as ethnic origin and religious background. More precisely, we investigated the link between PTD and the social dominance orientation (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). 119 counsellors from French employment services answered a questionnaire dealing on concepts and attitudes towards social groups. Results show that social dominance, as a system of belief justifying social inequalities, generally predict the PTD of individuals, whatever the criterion of discrimination considered. The sex of counsellors can be considered as a moderating variable since females are less likely to accept inequalities than males do. We discuss the need for work and organizational psychologists to invest, alongside the managers, this field of research on equality, non-discrimination and diversity (ENDD).     

国外心理契约破坏及结果变量与调节变量：述评与展望

心理契约破坏是个体对组织未能履行其在心理契约中应承担责任的认知评价。文章首先结合以往研究探讨了心理契约破坏与相应结果变量的关系,然后探讨了调节变量的作用,最后从被试群体、研究方法及理论模型的构建上对未来研究进行了展望。     

Justification and legitimacy in global civil society

As some thinkers have sought in the concept of global civil society an ethically driven site of deliberation and even resistance, so others have criticized global civil society for its lack of legitimacy and representativeness. This article attempts to answer these criticisms – at least in part – by invoking a moral commitment to the value of justification. I argue that the idea of justification, when examined, offers us a particular understanding of legitimacy which would be attainable for global civil society actors. The article begins by setting out the case for concern about the legitimacy of global civil society. I then outline a certain understanding of justification, showing how a commitment to this conception provides both a response to critics of global civil society and an ethical baseline for humane actors within global civil society. I move on to trace the significance of the moral relevance of justification for actors' strategies. Lastly, however, I highlight the difficulty of justification in a diverse world. This is to say that the issues of legitimacy and strategy facing global civil society are only made more tractable, not dissolved, by an appeal to the importance of justification.     

Diversity and deliberation: bioethics commissions and moral reasoning

This article considers the sort of diversity in perspective appropriate for a presidential commission on bioethics, and by implication, high-level governmental commissions on ethics more generally. It takes as its point of comparison the respective reports on human cloning produced by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, appointed by President Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush's President's Council on Bioethics, under the leadership of its original chair, Leon Kass. I argue that the Clinton Commission Report exemplifies forensic diversity (the type of diversity between contesting parties in a legal case), while the Kass Council Report exemplifies academic diversity (the diversity found in a medieval disputatio). Drawing upon Thomas Aquinas, I argue that the type of diversity most appropriate for such advisory bodies is deliberative diversity, which facilitates the President's process of taking counsel. After considering their respective charges, I suggest that neither the Clinton Commission nor the Kass Council possessed an adequate degree of deliberative diversity for their respective tasks.     

Community Psychology: Where Do We Go from Here?

Following a developmental analogy, community psychology may be experiencing a mid-life crisis as it enters middle age. The field needs to determine where to go from here. This paper argues that the field should attempt to expand. Expansion can best be accomplished by celebrating the diversity of orientations within the field (e.g., those emphasizing prevention, empowerment, and the ecological perspective) and the wide range of human problems of interest to community psychologists. To promote expansion of the field, community psychologists need to seek out relationships with diverse groups, such as the international community, those working in applied settings, ethnic minorities, and students and early-career professionals.     

当代社会心理学发展的双重走向论评

本文以社会心理研究的不同学科取向、文化取向和方法论取向做为三条主要线索,对当代社会心理学发展的多元化道路和整合社会心理学的努力进行了分析评价。认为社会心理学发展的多元化道路主要是由于社会心理的多质性和社会心理学的边缘学科性质所决定的,社今心理学发展过程中的整合努力则主要是由于社会心理的整体性和社会心理学的学科统一性所决定的。分化与整合作为当代社会心理学研究和发展的一对予盾统一体,伴随了社会心理学发展的百年进程,推动着当代社会心理学新的发展。     

Training Family Therapists in a Multicultural Setting

Authors describe a multicultural training model for family therapists and psychologists at a traditionally conservative Afrikaans speaking university in South Africa. Black psychologists are now receiving high priority in a masters degree program that leads to professional registration licensure because of the needs of the population. The authors emphasize the importance of being able to think multidimensionally and creating a context in which students can do the same in such contexts.     

A Different Look at Assessment Centers: Views of Assessment Center Users

This study aims to shed light on possible problems of assessment center users and designers when developing and implementing assessment centers. Semi-structured interviews with a representative sample of assessment center users in Flanders revealed that, besides a large variability in assessment center practice, practitioners experience problems with dimension selection and definition, exercise design, line/staff managers as assessors, distinguishing between observation and evaluation, and with the content of assessor training programs. Solutions for these problems are suggested.