Indigenous theorizing in a complex world

Indigenization in psychology leads to modes of theorizing based within local knowledge communities and defined in terms of culturally relevant criteria. The present study offers a conceptualization of the social psychology of science in terms of complexity theory. The value of alternative choices in advancing psychological knowledge is shown by a knowledge landscape whose shape depends on the diversity of paradigms within the community. Dominance by a single paradigm (such as a Western world view) leads to a single-peaked landscape where advances in knowledge are judged using only the criteria of that paradigm. Here, the most effective form of working is incremental step-by-step research; but this ignores the historical context of the indigenous community and runs the risk of promoting a kind of psychology that is irrelevant to its values and priorities. Indigenization is presented as a complexification of the knowledge community building on a diversity of world views, leading to a rugged, multiple-peaked knowledge landscape. Four features of working on rugged landscapes are examined: path dependence, showing the importance of history for shaping the direction of research; fostering research progress through seeding of multiple starting points; the benefits of locally dense networks within knowledge communities; and the role of policy-makers in tuning knowledge landscapes. Examples are drawn from the development of indigenous psychology within a number of countries.     

Children as Mystics, Activists, Sages, and Holy Fools: Understanding the Spirituality of Children and Its Significance for Clinical Work

This article explores children's spirituality and its significance for health care providers seeking to provide “spiritually competent care” of children amidst religious and spiritual diversity. Four metaphors of different spiritualities evidenced among children are explored: mystics, activists, sages, and holy fools. The article addresses issues clinicians face such as the problem of defining spirituality in relation to religion, and countertransference around religious and spiritual matters. Current research shows that spiritual and religious involvements constitute positive factors promoting resiliency and health in children. James W. Fowler's theory of faith development facilitates an exploration of questions concerning how children develop a belief system, leading to a view of children's spirituality as multidimensional. This article preserves the less formal conversational style of an earlier version's presentation in Grand Rounds at the UCLA Medical Center's Neuropsychiatric Hospital on December 10, 2003.     

WHAT IS A SCIENTIFIC WORLD VIEW,AND HOW DOES IT BEAR ON THE INTERPLAY OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION?

Abstract. What is a scientific worldview, and why should we care? One worldview can knit together various notions, and therefore understanding a worldview requires analysis of its component parts. Stripped to its minimum, a scientific worldview consists strictly of falsifiable components. Such a worldview, based solely on ideas that can be tested with empirical observation, conforms to the highest levels of objectivity but is severely limited in utility. The limits arise for two reasons: first, many falsifiable ideas cannot be tested adequately until their repercussions already have been felt; second, the reach of science is limited, and ethics, which compose an inevitable part of any useful worldview, are largely unfalsifiable. Thus, a worldview that acts only on scientific components is crippled by a lack of moral relevance. Organized religion traditionally has played a central role in defining moral values, but it lost much of its influence after the discovery that key principles (such as the personal Creator of Genesis) contradict empirical reality. The apparent conundrum is that strictly scientific worldviews are amoral, while many long‐held religious worldviews have proven unscientific. The way out of this conundrum is to recognize that nonscientific ideas, as distinct from unscientific ideas, are acceptable components of a scientific worldview, because they do not contradict science. Nonscientific components of a worldview should draw upon scientific findings to explore traditional religious themes, such as faith and taboo. In contrast, unscientific ideas have been falsified and survive only via ignorance, denial, wishful thinking, blind faith, and institutional inertia. A worldview composed of both scientific components and scientifically informed nonscientific components can be both objective and ethically persuasive.     

Empowering communities through social media

Multicultural competence is a cornerstone of modern day counseling psychology. The new multicultural and social justice competencies highlight the integration of social justice and multicultural frameworks. These competencies include community engagement through social justice advocacy. Social media may be one way to advocate for social justice for underserved or marginalized communities. Social media networks impact in the Arab Spring and the 2016 United States (U.S.) Presidential election suggests that people may utilize social media to inform and act on their social or political views. Throughout this article, we will explore the benefits of social media for raising critical consciousness, as defined by Freire, and examine how counseling psychologists can utilize social media to engage in social justice advocacy in diverse communities.     

Diverse community contexts and community resources for sexual and gender minority youth: A mixed‐methods study

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth face marginalization and oppression on the basis of their SGM identity, and they often lack traditional support systems to deal with these minority stressors. SGM community resources may alleviate the impact of the stressors that SGM youth face, but these have not been studied in relation to the size and climate of SGM youth's communities. This mixed‐methods study examined the relationship between community size and the climate toward SGM individuals and the availability and utilization of SGM community resources. Survey findings indicate that nonmetropolitan communities were associated with less availability and utilization; hostile communities were associated with lower availability only. Interview findings reveal nuanced complexities on the relationship between community and resource provision. Implications for future research and community practice are discussed.     

Supporting Out‐of‐School Time Staff in Low Resource Communities: A Professional Development Approach

Federally funded out‐of‐school time (OST) programs provide academic support, enrichment, and safety for students and families in low‐resource communities. However, programs struggle to meet these aims, in part because of the lack of program structure and limited training and support for staff. This observational case study documents the training and technical assistance (TA) delivered to OST frontline staff and program leadership to implement Positive Behavior in Out‐of‐School Time (Positive BOOST), an adaptation of positive behavior interventions and supports conducted in multiple settings. Findings across three programs indicate that varied levels of TA (i.e., business as usual, performance feedback, coaching) are associated with different levels of staff‐ and program‐level implementation. Taken together with previous research, these findings suggest that targeted investment in developing the skills of OST staff and improving program‐wide outcomes is critical for supporting youth in low‐resource communities.     

“The Thing Happened as He Wished”: Recovering an American Indian Cultural Psychology

One of the chief questions confronting mental health professionals who serve American Indian communities is how best to offer genuinely helpful services that do not simultaneously and surreptitiously reproduce colonial power relations. To ensure that counselors and therapists do not engage in psy‐colonization, it is crucial to recognize the sometimes divergent cultural foundations of mental distress, disorder, and well‐being in “Indian Country.” In this article, I will consider four excerpts from a research interview undertaken among my own people, the Aaniiih Gros Ventres of north‐central Montana. At a superficial level, these excerpts seem to reinforce reigning sensibilities that are readily familiar within the mental health professions. And yet, closer analysis of these interview excerpts reveals several tantalizing facets of an indigenous cultural psychology that may well continue to shape life and experience among tribal members in this setting. I recover this distinctive cultural psychology through archival representations of cultural and community life, including analysis of an important tribal myth. This analysis makes possible an alterNative interpretation of these interview excerpts, grounded in an aboriginal cosmology, that yields important implications for conceiving a more inclusive knowledge base for psychology that only robust community engagement can reveal.     

Beyond the Belmont Principles: A Community‐Based Approach to Developing an Indigenous Ethics Model and Curriculum for Training Health Researchers Working with American Indian and Alaska Native Communities

Individuals responsible for carrying out research within their diverse communities experience a critical need for research ethics training materials that align with community values. To improve the capacity to meet local human subject protections, we created the research Ethics Training for Health in Indigenous Communities (rETHICS), a training curriculum aligned within American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) context, culture, and community‐level ethical values and principles. Beginning with the Belmont Report and the Common Rule that defines research with human subjects (46 CFR 45), the authors convened three different expert panels (N = 37) to identify Indigenous research values and principles common across tribal communities. The resulting culturally grounded curriculum was then tested with 48 AI/AN individuals, 39 who also had recorded debriefing interviews. Using a thematic analysis, we coded the qualitative feedback from the expert panel discussions and the participant debriefings to assess content validity. Participants identified five foundational constructs needed to ensure cultural‐grounding of the AI/AN‐specific research training curriculum. These included ensuring that the module was: (a) framed within an AI/AN historical context; (b) reflected Indigenous moral values; (c) specifically linked AI/AN cultural considerations to ethical procedures; (d) contributed to a growing Indigenous ethics; and (e) provided Indigenous‐based ethics tools for decision making. Using community‐based consultation and feedback from participants led to a culturally grounded training curriculum that teaches research ethical principles and procedures for conducting research with AI/ANs. The curriculum is available for free and the community‐based process used can be adapted for other cultural groups.     

Collaboration with Urban Community Stakeholders: Refining Paraprofessional‐led Services to Promote Positive Parenting

This paper describes the process of a community–academic partnership to navigate implementation challenges for a school‐based service model led by paraprofessionals to promote positive parenting in high poverty urban communities. We describe the process by which we (a) identified implementation challenges, (b) sustained a university–community collaboration to redesign the paraprofessional service model, and (c) assessed the feasibility of the new model involving four social service agencies in 16 schools with over 600 families. The structure and process of the collaboration and refinement are described with attention to who was best positioned to engage in the collaboration and how the partnership worked to balance scientific rigor with responsiveness to paraprofessional workforce strengths. Feasibility data indicated that the revised model was successfully implemented by paraprofessional staff; 92.2% of possible staff monthly reports were completed and discussion of key goals was incorporated into 94.2% of interactions. Continual monitoring provided critical feedback from stakeholders as we drew on and interpreted these various sources of information to build and refine the service model. We suggest that these processes are critical steps to bridge the research‐to‐practice gap, by promoting practices that are aligned with the needs of children and families, and the staff who serve them.     

日本市场经济的伦理支撑与反思

集团主义、忠诚、竞争合作、报恩等是支撑日本市场经济的主要伦理原则。对这些原则的研究,是建设社会主义经济伦理的重要参考。