Educational risk factors for psychological truancy in Lesotho: a qualitative exploration

A qualitative case study design was used to explore educational risk factors that may contribute to psychological truancy in a Lesotho secondary school. Purposively sampled teachers (n = 4, females = 50%) and pupils (n = 4, females = 75%), who have experience of psychological truancy, took part in a focus group and individual interviews. Inductive content analysis was used to analyse data emanating from the interviews. The findings indicate that pupil–teacher relationships, the use of English as medium of instruction and a lack of resources may be educational risk factors contributing to psychological truancy. Positive pupil–teacher relationships and active classroom engagement are prerequisites for successful and active learning.     

Structure of the Modern Japanese Family: Evidence From the Results of a Doll Location Test by Adolescents

To test Herzberg's (1966, 1987; Herzberg, Mausner, &; Snyderman, 1959) motivator-hygiene theory, I examined the relationship between work values and job satisfaction. Educators (N # 386) from 18 Canadian secondary schools were asked to report the degree to which they experienced 16 work values and five dimensions of job satisfaction. Factor analysis suggested five sets of work values: intrinsic work-related, intrinsic work-outcome, extrinsic job-related, extrinsic job-outcome, and extrinsic people-related. Regression analyses identified the best predictors for each of the five dimensions of job satisfaction. The results support and extend Herzberg's theory. In addition to those identified by Herzberg, other factors contributed portions of variance to the five dimensions of job satisfaction.     

‘Ought’ and Control

Ethical theorists often assume that the verb ‘ought’ means roughly ‘has an obligation’; however, this assumption is belied by the diversity of ‘flavours’ of ought-sentences in English. A natural response is that ‘ought’ is ambiguous. However, this response is incompatible with the standard treatment of ‘ought’ by theoretical semanticists, who classify ‘ought’ as a member of the family of modal verbs, which are treated uniformly as operators. To many ethical theorists, however, this popular treatment in linguistics seems to elide an important distinction between agential and non-agential ought-statements. The thought is that ‘ought’ must have at least two senses, one implicating agency and connected to obligations, and another covering other uses. In this paper, I pursue some resolution of this tension between semantic theory and ethical theory with respect to the meaning of ‘ought’. To this end, I consider what I believe to be the most linguistically sophisticated argument for the view that the word ‘ought’ is ambiguous between agential and non-agential senses. This argument, due to Mark Schroeder, is instructive but based on a false claim about the syntax of agential ought-sentences—or so I attempt to show by first situating Schroeder's argument in its proper linguistic background and then discussing some syntactic evidence that he fails to appreciate. Then, I use the failure of this argument to motivate some more general reflections on how the standard treatment of ‘ought’ by theoretical semanticists might be refined in the light of the distinction important to ethical theory between agential and non-agential ought-statements, but also on how ethical theory might benefit from more careful study of the dominant treatment of modals as operators in theoretical semantics.     

The Effect of Anxiety on the Conditioning Rate and Stability of the PGR

Two separate experiments were completed to test the effect of valence on performance of kindergarten Ss on a conservation task. Forty-eight Ss in Experiment I, with a mean age of 5.5 years, were asked to conserve a volume of liquid. A significant number of Ss failed to conserve the volume (p < .001), but when valence—desirability of the liquid to drink—was added, a significant number of Ss changed their choices (p < .02) to show conservation. Thirty-eight Ss in Experiment II, with a mean age of 5.5 years, were asked to conserve volume of liquid with valence attached to the first choice. A significant (p < .01) number of Ss showed conservation of volume. The results of the two experiments were compared and discussed in relation to valence and language development as relevant variables in conservation tasks.     

‘If I knew where the enemy,or even Germany was,we could have fired in that direction’: Bion's experience of war

The role of a child psychotherapist's gender is not often considered in terms of treatment outcome. This paper discusses how aspects of being a male child psychotherapist influenced the successful treatment of a very young boy with Asperger's Syndrome. The paper highlights how the nature of his very early relationship with his mother and the absence of his father were the basis of his difficulties resulting in that diagnosis. It shows that his desire to seize the opportunity of working with a male enabled him to understand his feelings about his father, why it was so difficult to want to be with him and not his mother, and why he could not be without her.

Le rôle joué par le sexe du psychothérapeute d'enfants dans les effets du traitement est rarement pris en compte. Dans cet article, l'auteur montre qu'à un certain niveau le fait d'être un psychothérapeute homme eut une influence sur la réussite de la thérapie d'un très jeune garçon présentant un syndrome d'Asperger. Selon l'auteur, la nature de la relation précoce entre ce petit garçon et sa mère, ainsi que l'absence de son père, étaient à l'origine des difficultés qui conduisirent à ce diagnostic. Il montre que le désir de l'enfant de se saisir de l'occasion ainsi offerte de travailler avec un homme lui permit de comprendre trois éléments essentiels : ses sentiments à l'égard de son père, la raison pour laquelle il lui était tellement difficile de vouloir être avec lui plutôt que de rester avec sa mère, et ce qui faisait qu'il ne pouvait pas se passer de celle-ci.

Die Rolle des Geschlechts des Kindertherapeuten wird nicht oft bezüglich des Behandlungsergebnis in Betracht bezogen. Dieser Artikel diskutiert, wie Aspekte dessen, ein männlicher Kindertherapeut zu sein, die erfolgreiche Behandlung eines sehr kleinen Jungen mit Asperger Syndrom beeinflussten. Der Artikel unterstreicht, wie die Art seiner frühen Beziehung zu seiner Mutter und die Abwesenheit seines Vaters die Grundlage seiner Schwierigkeiten bildeten, die zu dieser Diagnose führten. Es zeigt, dass sein Wunsch, die Gelegenheit zu ergreifen, mit einem Mann zu arbeiten, ihm ermöglichte, seine Gefühle seinem Vater gegenüber zu verstehen, warum es so schwierig war, mit ihm und nicht seiner Mutter sein zu wollen und warum er nicht ohne sie sein konnnte.

Riassunto: Il ruolo che gioca il sesso dello psicoterapeuta infantile non è solitamente considerato in relazione al risultato del trattamento. In questo articolo si discute come il fatto di avere un terapeuta maschile abbia influenzato per certi aspetti il risultato positivo del trattamento di un bambino molto piccolo che soffriva della Sindrome di Asperger. L'articolo illustra come la natura della sua primissima relazione con la madre e l'assenza del padre furono alla base delle sue difficoltà che portarono alla diagnosi. L'articolo mostra come il desiderio del bambino di lavorare con un terapeuta maschile gli ha permesso di capire i suoi sentimenti verso il padre, perché era così difficile voler restare con lui e lo stesso non succedeva con sua madre, e perché non poteva restare senza di lei.     

Invisible injuries and silent witnesses: The shadow of racial oppression in workplace contexts

Abstract

Internalized oppression is the primary means by which all of us hold on to, ‘agree’ and re-enact our unresolved and repressed difficulties. This paper will examine this particular phenomenon with specific regard to black and white relations in workplace contexts. The reality of prevailing external and internal issues will be fully discussed to highlight factors relating to racial oppression, capacity for resilience and their deleterious effects on black identity development.     

Three Ways of Being Church

This article proposes a theological re-appraisal of three images of the Church: institution, servant and community. The defining characteristics of an institution can be applied positively to the Church when it is seen to have been instituted by Jesus Christ. But what is instituted is a continuing relationship grounded in Christ's own presence. The servant Church is characterized by its commitment to the purposes of God in ‘secular’ society and the promise of God's kingdom. The community model of the Church has two common expressions, one emphasizing social relationships, one stressing mystical communion, but these are grounded in the trinitarian community itself. While each model has its own contribution and integrity, taken together they suggest mutual inter-dependence, itself reflecting the divine community and expressed in the mutually affirming virtues of faith, hope and love.     

“Turning a blind eye” on sexual abuse,boundary violations and therapeutic practice

This article explores the themes related to ‘turning a blind eye’. This is first discussed in terms of the marvellous benefits of turning a blind eye and not seeing; this is followed with a discussion about the dangers of seeing and encountering the erotic. History and myth are referenced. Sex is special: the most powerful of all sensual experiences and therefore brings with it the power to transform or distort the mind. The link is made between pivotal developments in psychoanalysis and blindness to erotic manifestations in both patients and therapists. There follows a detailed discussion of the correspondence between Jung and Freud concerning the former’s severe boundary violations with Sabina Spielrein. From there, I discuss later developments within psychoanalysis which continues the theme of ‘turning a blind eye’. I bring this theme up to date with a clinical example of my own illustrating a multiple reluctance to see sexual abuse. The discussion concludes with thoughts about seeing and not seeing erotic material and/or sexual abuse prompted by the grave of Jimmy Savile. I conclude this article with some additional ideas stimulated by the discussion following my original lecture.     

Caught in the crossfire: A case of mistaken identity among religious revivalists and secularists

The discussion of Islamic and Protestant revivalisms inflames not only believers but secularists as well. This paper is about standpoint and perceived standpoint in relation to carrying out feminist research about why some women in a liberal democracy join revivalist movements. The article also discusses the variegated nature of power relations within the research process. Situated within a Women's Studies Centre the author found herself in the crossfire between secular feminists and religious revivalists—some members of each group insisting she represented the position of the opposing view. This paper explores the conflictual situation and resulting ‘epistemological vertigo’ in circumstances where revivalists and secularists each believed in the stereotype of the other and assumed the researcher embodied it.     

Writing against...

The German ‘headscarf debate’ was sparked off by a dispute concerning a teacher who refused to remove her hijab at work. ‘Case Ludin’ brought the issue to national attention and eventually led to new legislation in half of Germany's 16 federated states. This article focuses on a critical analysis of a party-political debate around Case Ludin in the Baden-Württemberg parliament in 1998. The analysis shows that whilst party-politicians claimed to be concerned with issues of social justice as well as with the protection of constitutional rights and democratic values, the party-political arena of this debate has been preoccupied with the discursive construction of German national identity and its assumed incompatibility with Muslim identity. It comes to the conclusion that discourses used in this debate reproduce stereotypical images associating Islam with ‘gendered oppression’, political extremism and irreconcilable difference, and that these discourses continue to shape current debates in Germany and beyond.