The Agency Paradigm: A Pedagogical Tool to Facilitate Nuanced Thinking on Sensitive Issues

Sensitive issues, rife in religious studies and in theology, present a pedagogical challenge when teaching students to nuance their thinking around positions that are often sharply defined and elicit strong feelings. I developed a learning tool that I call the “Agency Paradigm.” The purpose of this tool is to help students comprehend diversity within religious traditions, particularly regarding the agencies of women who are committed to them. Drawing on the open and critical dialogue of emancipatory pedagogy, the Agency Paradigm encourages students to explore a range of ways women in world religions choose to act in varying contexts. This approach to teaching world religions increases students’ cognitive knowledge base and expands their understanding of each of the religions studied in the course, as examined through the perspective of differing women; it also assists them in developing their own agency through thoughtful reflection.     

Principles for Effective Asynchronous Online Instruction in Religious Studies

Asynchronous online instruction has become increasingly popular in the field of religious studies. However, despite voluminous research on online learning in general and numerous articles on online theological instruction, there has been little discussion of how to effectively design and deliver online undergraduate courses in religious studies. Drawing on recent research, experiences teaching and learning online, and interviews with colleagues, this paper discusses key principles of effective online instruction. It recommends instructors focus on humanizing their course website, “chunking” their course content, making their approach to the study of religion clear, structuring and monitoring online discussions, prioritizing prompt and constructive feedback, and making course material relevant to learners.     

IS CRITICAL THINKING EPISTEMICALLY RESPONSIBLE?

Abstract: There are at least three strategies we might take in approaching controversial issues: (i) we might accept the conclusions of experts on their authority, (ii) we might evaluate the relevant evidence and arguments for ourselves, or (iii) we might give up on finding the answers. Students of “critical thinking” are regularly advised to follow strategy (ii). But strategies (i) and (iii) are usually superior to (ii), from the standpoint of the goal of gaining true beliefs and avoiding false ones.     

De‐Centering and Re‐Centering: Rethinking Concepts and Methods in the Sociological Study of Religion

Four conceptual and methodological edges or areas of study are outlined. They are located near what have been the boundaries between the sociology of religion and other subfields, where we believe a potential exists to encourage a wide range of scholars to revisit some central concepts. Paying attention to these edges—as a means to de‐center to re‐center our debates in new ways—not only broadens and deepens our knowledge of the “religious,” it encourages us to reexamine long‐standing conceptual tools, unquestioned assumptions, and accepted methods in the sociology of religion. We illustrate these edges through a review of recent literature and examples drawn from our current empirical projects.     

Using the Job Demands-Resources model to investigate risk perception, safety climate and job satisfaction in safety critical organizations

Using the Job Demands-Resources model (JD-R) as a theoretical framework, this study investigated the relationship between risk perception as a job demand and psychological safety climate as a job resource with regard to job satisfaction in safety critical organizations. In line with the JD-R model, it was hypothesized that high levels of risk perception is related to low job satisfaction and that a positive perception of safety climate is related to high job satisfaction. In addition, it was hypothesized that safety climate moderates the relationship between risk perception and job satisfaction. Using a sample of Norwegian offshore workers (N = 986), all three hypotheses were supported. In summary, workers who perceived high levels of risk reported lower levels of job satisfaction, whereas this effect diminished when workers perceived their safety climate as positive. Follow-up analyses revealed that this interaction was dependent on the type of risks in question. The results of this study supports the JD-R model, and provides further evidence for relationships between safety-related concepts and work-related outcomes indicating that organizations should not only develop and implement sound safety procedures to reduce the effects of risks and hazards on workers, but can also enhance other areas of organizational life through a focus on safety.     

Hannah Arendt & Jean Baudrillard: Pedagogy in the Consumer Society

This paper considers the place of education within our “consumers’ society”, beginning with Hannah Arendt’s account of the rise of consumerism to a position of political dominance and the resulting eclipse of public life. Connections are then made between Arendt’s account of this rise and Jean Baudrillard’s account of the postmodern proliferation of signs and the transformation of the sign into a commodity. This radical “semiurgy” accelerates into a self-referential series of signs which entails the loss of reality – it contributes to the disappearance of the human subjectivity behind the creation of images. I argue that Baudrillard does not respond adequately to the dynamic that he describes so well. By contrast, Arendt’s concept of natality, I suggest, prepares the ground for a response to the forces of commodification that colonize the educational environment and threaten its critical possibilities. As youth and schools receive more and more attention from advertisers, students are sold by educational institutions to commercial interests who seek unfettered access to this “captive audience”. Yet education is profoundly compromised when youths are viewed as consumers and not as a social investment, when education is viewed merely as an opportunity to secure a new market.     

Development and test of a model of interdisciplinary competencies

Interdisciplinary work offers both innovative potential and challenges in collaboration. The present paper summarizes three studies intended to foster a psychological, competency-focused understanding of interdisciplinary work. In a qualitative interview study (Study 1) with expert practitioners of interdisciplinarity, we used the critical incident technique to explore which individual competencies support interdisciplinary collaborations and improve innovative outcomes. Focusing on competencies specific to interdisciplinarity, we derived a four-dimensional model. In Study 2, we tested the model dimensions (1) initiative for exchange, (2) target group-specific communication, (3) knowledge integration, and (4) reflection in a quantitative survey study among N = 315 employees who were experienced in interdisciplinary work using exploratory structural equation modelling. Finally, in Study 3, we studied the convergent and divergent validity of interdisciplinary competencies as well as their role in predicting team outcomes. Here, a dyadic sample of N = 448 target persons and N = 153 interdisciplinary colleagues were surveyed. We discuss possible applications for the new model of interdisciplinary competencies and the developed self-report instrument.     

From reading to thinking: Student lines of thought in a seminar on Christianity and colonialism

This article describes a seminar I taught on Christianity and colonialism. I wanted to introduce students to some content while also allowing them to practice some of the expert skills that we use in religious studies, and more specifically in my own sub‐discipline, the anthropology of religion. In particular, I wanted to make more visible some of our practices of critical reading, and how these can feed into practices of complex thinking. However, given the differences between undergraduate and expert practices, what does “critical reading” and “complex thinking” look like in the undergraduate religion classroom? The article presents student readings and lines of thought through the semester, and describes how these undergraduates began to approach complex thinking on the topic of Christianity and colonialism.     

反向思考和类比思考对锚定效应的影响

采用基于锚定效应经典研究范式的自编问卷对120名在校大学生进行调查研究。研究一通过对参与者使用反向思考与类比思考的应对方案前后的数据比较,考察两种思考方法是否能够降低锚定效应的影响。以往同类研究中发现,时间压力作为一个重要影响因素会对最终结果产生重大影响。研究二基于研究一加入时间压力来考察高时间压力是否能够使应对方案失效。结果表明,反向思考和类比思考的应对方案能够降低锚定效应的影响,高时间压力下应对方案依然有效。这一结果启示我们,在决策时,要有批判精神,要三思而行,做一个理智的决策者。     

Emancipatory education versus school-based prevention in African American communities

Schools have become strategic settings for the work of community psychologists. In a review of 177 primary prevention programs for children and adolescents, Durlak and Wells (1997) found that 129 (72.9%) were based in schools. The literature in community psychology describes many school-based prevention programs targeting problems such as substance abuse, school maladjustment, delinquency, and violence (e.g. C. A. Mason, A. M. Cauce, L. Robinson & G. W. Harper, 1999). A large number of these programs are based in schools in African American communities and include social–cognitive, decision making, affective education, and other skills-building modules along with direct instruction. In this paper, it is argued that ideas from emancipatory education (e.g. Freire, 1998) and African-centered education (e.g. H. Madhubuti & S. Madhubuti, 1994; M. J. Shujaa, 1995) should guide school-based interventions in communities of people of African descent. There is an extensive and distinguished history of emancipatory schools and school-based programs in African American communities. Included in this history are the freedom schools during reconstruction, the SNCC Freedom Schools, the Liberation Schools of the Black Panther Party, the Malcolm X Academy in Detroit, Sankofa Shule in Lansing, the Institute for Positive Education/New Concept Development Center in Chicago, the Benjamin E. Mays Institute in Hartford, and the schools affiliated with the Council of Independent Black Institutions (CIBI) to name just a few. This paper will first provide a brief, critical review of the role of schools and social oppression. Second, primary prevention programs in communities of people of African descent will be examined, questioning some of the dominant methods and assumptions. Next, underlying assumptions about relationships between African identity, educational success, and healthy outcomes for young people will be addressed. This will be followed by a discussion of African-centered emancipatory education, focusing specifically on the role of students as agents of social change and the importance of critical reflection on African cultural resources. The Benjamin E. Mays Institute will be presented as an example of how ideas from an African-centered emancipatory approach to education have been incorporated within a school serving a community of people of African descent in Hartford, Connecticut.