Reclaiming professional identity through postgraduate professional development: careers practitioners reclaiming their professional selves

Careers advisers in the UK have experienced significant change and upheaval within their professional practice. This research explores the role of postgraduate-level professional development in contributing to professional identity. The research utilises a case study approach and adopts multiple tools to provide an in-depth examination of practitioners' perceptions of themselves as professionals within their lived world experience. It presents a group of practitioners struggling to define themselves as professionals due to changing occupational nomenclature resulting from shifting government policy. Postgraduate professional development generated a perceived enhancement in professional identity through exposure to theory, policy and opportunities for reflection, thus contributing to more confident and empowered practitioners. Engagement with study facilitated development of confident, empowered practitioners with a strengthened sense of professional self.     

Professional Identity Development: A Grounded Theory of Transformational Tasks of Counselors

The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to investigate practicing counselors' professional identity development at nodal points during their career. Through the use of 6 focus groups of beginning, experienced, and expert counselors, 26 participants shared their experiences, and 6 themes emerged to form a theory of transformational tasks of professional identity development. Through these tasks, counselors encountered issues of idealism toward realism, burnout toward rejuvenation, and compartmentalization toward congruency.     

Ethnic identity,thin-ideal internalization,and eating pathology in ethnically diverse college women

Although much research suggests that ethnic identity is positively correlated with psychological health for ethnic minority women, research examining ethnic identity's relationships to thin-ideal internalization, weight concerns, and eating concerns is sparse. Consequently, this study examined these relationships in European American, African American, Latina, and Asian American college women (N = 816). As expected, univariate analyses of variance indicated that European American women scored lowest on ethnic identity and highest on eating and weight concerns, whereas African American women scored lowest on thin-ideal internalization. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that ethnic identity was negatively associated with eating and weight concerns, while body mass index and thin-ideal internalization were positively associated. Ethnic identity moderated the relationship between thin-ideal internalization and eating concerns such that the relationship was stronger for participants with lower ethnic identity. These results suggest ethnic identity may be a direct or interactive protective factor against eating concerns in ethnically diverse college women.     

Toward a cosmopolitan ethos

There has been a rising trend in cosmopolitan moral theory to seriously take into consideration the human's rootedness in, and partiality toward, particular cultures, places, peoples and traditions. This essay suggests that reframing our theorizing on cosmopolitanism from one that primarily addresses an ethico-political set of questions to one that addresses questions related to moral psychology, personal and collective identity formation and the ways in which civilizations and cultural communities cultivate an ethos may assist in the task of generating a rooted form of cosmopolitanism. Conceptualizing cosmopolitanism as an ethos entails a shift from considering our moral obligations to distant others toward a focus on the types of dispositions and character traits necessary to forge a sense of intercultural solidarity. Through an analysis of the ideas of ‘diaspora’, ‘proximity’, ‘partiality' and the ‘foreign’, it will be suggested that through our rootedness in particularity, and our ability to be partial to particular persons and identify with particular cultures, we are capable of fostering a sense of world citizenship that can serve as a foundation upon which we can secure a tenable global ethic for our pluralistic society.     

Remedial responsibilities beyond nations

David Miller's theory of nationalism and national responsibility offers the leading alternative ‘anticosmopolitan’ theory of global justice. His theory claims that ‘nations’ may be held responsible for the benefits and harms resulting from their collective decisions. Nations may be held remedially responsible to help nations in need even where the former lack causal or moral responsibility, for example. This article critically examines Miller's position that remedial responsibilities – the responsibilities of nations to remedy others in need – can and should only be satisfied by nations. I argue that the characteristics that define and justify a particular understanding of nationalism extend to further constructions of identity, such as religious affiliation and other connections. The problem with Miller's position is that it is overly narrow by focusing solely on our national identities as the characteristic most relevant for determining remedial responsibilities. It is possible and desirable to widen our focus, enriching our understanding of global justice and remedial responsibility. Moreover, this wider perspective is an extension, and not a break from, Miller's position. Our shared identities should have significance for considerations of global justice and they can help us to develop a more robust view of anticosmopolitanism.     

Managing the interactions between multiple identities in inter-organizational collaborations: an identity work perspective

Inter-organizational collaboration (IOC) research considers the achievement of a collaborative identity as a key enabler of a successful collaboration. As a result, little has been said about the interactions between collaborative and non-collaborative identities. We build on narrative identity work and positioning theory, to explore how collaboration partners engage in identity work positioning to manage the interactions of the multiple identities emerging through the process of collaboration as they try to accomplish collaborative work. We illustrate this process through a qualitative longitudinal study of an educational partnership in Greece. Our analysis shows how IOC partners manage the interactions between collaborative and non-collaborative identities by positioning themselves, and others, in narratives of collaboration as part of their daily identity work when responding to emerging collaborative needs. Our research extends our current understanding of identity work processes in IOCs by demonstrating the paradoxical nature of the collaboration, which requires relying on both collaborative and non-collaborative identities for the successful achievement of aims. We therefore suggest that identity tensions should not be resolved but rather managed, since they enable partners to respond creatively to contextual organizational changes and make sense of the collaboration as it happens.     

Modernist Pills against Brazilian Alienism (1920–1945)

Abstract

Psychoanalysis arrived in Brazil at the turn of the twentieth century and was frequently used as a new tool in the process of conservative modernization. As such, it was used by psychiatrists, eugenicists and hygienists in their projects. But avant-garde Brazilian writers appropriated it in a different manner. They saw psychoanalysis as a new form of cultural therapy that represented the new Brazilian ‘modernity’. The paper deals precisely with this project. With this aim in mind, it analyses several works of the leading authors of the Modernist Movement and their Manifestos, seeking to draw attention to the particular way in which psychoanalysis was appropriated as a psychotherapeutic tool capable of assisting in the creation of an identity for the country. For this analysis, the concept of circulation and of appropriation were chosen as theoretical reference.     

Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the Netherlands: concepts,developments, and backdrops

In recent years, the Netherlands has been frequently confronted with public incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. After defining the complex concepts of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, presenting the theoretical approach to these phenomena, and sketching the societal context in which they are embedded, this article describes the development of the numbers of reported expressions of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the Netherlands since the turn of the century. It notes that the general level of annual numbers of recorded incidents of the phenomena has increased since 2000 and, at the same time, there are significant fluctuations in the numbers of notified incidents per year. These fluctuations correlate to outbursts of violence in the Middle East and to acts of violence committed in the name of Islam in the West, while the general higher level of incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia relates to numerous and various threats experienced in the context of the Dutch multi-ethnic society, changes in national identity, and trends in globalisation.     

Buddhist shrines: bringing sacred context and shared memory into the home

Previous research has recognized shrines in homes as sites of shared cultural memory with the function of contextualising religious narratives and bringing the sacred into the home. For Buddhists, shrines occupy a grey area between the cultural and the religious and have not been widely considered as indicators of religiosity. A quantitative study of 417 British teenagers self-identifying as Buddhists found that the 70% who had a home shrine were less likely to visit a Buddhist temple, but more likely to exhibit daily personal religious practice and to bow to parents. The attitude profile of those with shrines showed that these teenagers were generally happier at school, more collectivist, polarised regarding their identities, and strict about intoxicants. Heightened affective religiosity was linked with having a home shrine, particularly for female, late-teen, and heritage Buddhists. The article argues that, for these groups of Buddhists, a shrine represents a locus for shared memory, especially accessible to those of Sensing Psychological Types, but, for males, early teens, and converts, there is more a sense of shrines giving context to their Buddhist narratives.