The Future of Public Policy

This article reports the results of research that uses policy network theory and advocacy coalition theory to deduce the implications for the future of public policy in EU Member States of king trends: all those technological, economic, environmental, and social trends that can be empirically verified, affect the lives of large numbers of people and are expected by relevant experts to continue for at least the next 20 years. The resulting policy implications can be summarized as more assertive security policies, more business-friendly economic policies, more liberal social policies, and increased public spending.     

Test anxiety in elementary school and junior high school students in japan

This study describes the sex difference, developmental trends of a modified Japanese version of the Test Anxiety Scale for Children (TASC, Sarason, Davidson, Frederick, & Waite, 1960) and presents evidence of negative effects of test anxiety on academic achievement. It was found that (a) the mean TASC scores for girls were found to be higher than boys across grades; (b) the developmental trends of anxiety scores showed the inversed V curves with the peak of 4th grades in elementary school, but in junior high school the curves were V shaped. Those results were explained in reference with selfdefensiveness, learning of anxiety, resistance to anxiety, and acquisition of self-concept; (c) the test anxiety was shown to have a negative effect on both academic achievement and intelligence test scores. Furthermore, it was to be also found in teacher-made tests that higher test anxiety students were inferior to lower in all the school subjects.     

Changing Patterns of Attendance at Religious Services in Canada, 1986–2008

According to the General Social Survey, the combined rate of weekly and monthly attendance at religious services in Canada has declined by about 20 points from 1986 to 2008. Approximately half of this decline stems from the increase in the proportion of people reporting no religion, who, for the most part, do not attend religious services. The other portion of this decline is attributable to eroding attendance rates among Catholics, particularly older Catholics, and Protestants in Québec. Attendance rates for Protestants outside of Québec show signs of increase. The reported increase in weekly attendance in Canada by the Project Canada surveys and cited by Bibby as a possible indicator of a religious renaissance is revealed as an artifact in the data due to an oversample of Protestants. I find another weighting problem in the Canadian Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating that leads to underestimates of aggregate religious attendance rates.     

Biology and a Theology of Evolution

The challenge and stimulus to theology that is constituted by the scientific version of Genesis which will prevail for the foreseeable future is expounded in relation to the significance of the succeeding stages of the life process and to the general features of biological evolution. A responsive theology of evolution is discerned as involving a renewal of insights associated with the themes of immanence, panentheism, the Wisdom and Word of God, and a sacramental universe. Such a revitalized theology allows one to conceive of humanity and Jesus the Christ in a fully evolutionary perspective without loss of an emphasis on the particularity of the Incarnation.     

Psychoanalysis in a changing world

The author reflects, in this opening speech of the IPA Berlin Congress, on some changes in the world, in Germany and in psychoanalysis in the 85 years that have elapsed since the previous congress in Berlin, in 1922. He emphasizes important developments in psychoanalytic theory and practice, research and applications to understand several wider realms. He also stresses the importance of psychoanalysis for the current discussion on the transgenerational effects of traumatic events, and connects all these aspects with the theme of the Congress-remembering, repeating and working through.     

Mental Illness Publications in Major Pastoral Care Journals from 1950 to 2003

The issue of mental illness has been of considerable interest to both of us over the past several years. The first author has taught a course on the subject for a decade, and his recent publications on the subject include several articles on John Nash (Capps, 2003b, 2004a,b, 2005b), a book on mental illness for pastoral care professionals (2005a), and an article on whether William James was a patient at McLean Hospital (2007). The second author has had experience with the mentally ill through his pastoral work at Trenton Psychiatrist Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, a mental hospital with a rather checkered history (see Scull, 2005), and in Scotland and has also written an article on John Nash (Carlin, 2006). This shared interest, together with evidence that serious mental illness in America has been steadily increasing (Torrey &; Miller, 2001, pp. 295–299), caused us to wonder what sort of attention mental illness has received in our major journals of pastoral care from 1950 to the present. Specifically, has this attention kept pace with the increase in mental illness?