Expressions of Religiosity and Spirituality among Australian 14 Year Olds

This article describes and reports on part of a research project that was carried out by three researchers, among 248 Year 6 (11 years old) and 338 Year 9 (14 years old) students in the Catholic schools of Victoria, Australia. The research set out to discover information about religious affiliation and practice among the young people, the ways in which they typically expressed spirituality, and the extent to which religious affiliation and practice did or did not provide a framework for, and nurture, their spirituality. This paper reports on the findings of the research in relation to the Year 9 students, detailing characteristics of the spirituality of the young people and demonstrating that it cannot be assumed that Church affiliation and practice nurture young peoples' spirituality. The research was introductory and provocative in that it indicates some discrepancies with other research in one of its six areas, that of religious practice. While possible reasons for this discrepancy are given, it is hoped that the research described here will provoke further and more specific studies.     

‘God’s got your back’: teenage boys talk about God

This paper reports on ongoing research that has gathered data from 1100 boys, between 15‐ and 18‐years‐old, on the ways in which they experience and express spirituality. The paper is set against the background of a previous paper in this journal (Engebretson, 2004 Engebretson, K. 2004. Teenage boys, spirituality and religion. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 9(3): 263–278.  [Google Scholar]), that introduced the research and gave its theoretical framework. The focus of this paper is on the boys’ articulated experiences of the transcendent. The paper reports on these, claiming that transcendent experiences occurred for the boys in times that involved risk, fear, challenge, need and loss. Their sense of God was personal, one who was always there, who understood, who listened, who cared and protected. The paper then critically analyses why a much smaller percentage of boys who were given the opportunity to answer these questions did so, in comparison with the much higher percentage who answered the other questions on the questionnaire. Finally, questions are posed that will guide the research as it continues.     

Conversations about religious education

The wide‐ranging field of theory about religious education may be thought of as a series of ongoing and at times overlapping conversations (Foster, 2003 Foster, C. (2003). Where shall we sit? The vocational conversation of a religious educator. Religious Education, 98(3): pp. 311–330[Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]), each most meaningful within its own context, whether this context is educational, ecclesial or societal. This paper begins by mapping these conversations, then uses them as a lens through which to view the perceptions of 57 student teachers of religious education, as they describe critical incidents that occurred for them in their teaching practice. In this way it is possible to see where, in the ongoing conversations about religious education, the student teachers' perceptions fall. This brings insights to theory development in religious education, and the educational as well as social factors that influence it. Along the way the task requires a discussion of the role of reflective techniques in promoting teacher thinking, and an explanation of the processes through which the student teachers' perceptions were collected. A critical analysis of the student teachers' thinking about religious education concludes the paper and sets direction for further research.     

Why do individuals respond to fraudulent scam communications and lose money? The psychological determinants of scam compliance

Why do so many people all over the world, so often, react to completely worthless scam offers? In two questionnaire studies, one of which included the distribution of an experimentally manipulated simulated scam, we investigated differences between respondents who did and did not report past compliance with scams. We found that the principal differences were in their response to very high‐value incentives, in the extent to which they reacted with positive emotions to the thought of winning a large prize, in their reliance on signs of official authority, and in their self‐confidence. The first two of these can be regarded as forms of visceral processing. Some of these differences suggested a dispositional difference between victims and non‐victims.     

Teenage boys,spirituality and religion

This paper reports on a pilot study concerning adolescent boys and spirituality, and specifically on data gathered from interviews with 20 boys of 15-17 years. The data from these interviews will inform the development of a questionnaire to be used more widely in the next stage of the research. The paper also explains and justifies the analytical schema through which the interviews were conducted and analysed and a subsequent instrument for broader use developed. It describes the rationale and background of the study, presents the schema that was developed to analyse the interviews and explores some of the ideas that emerged from the interviews that, along with the analytical schema, have helped to structure the questionnaire.     

Cross‐level,three‐way interactions among work‐group climate,gender, and frequency of harassment on morale and withdrawal outcomes of sexual harassment

We examined the effects of gender and work‐groups' perceptions of climate for sexual harassment on the relationship between individuals' sexual harassment experiences and job‐related outcomes (namely, job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, work withdrawal, and job withdrawal). Drawing from a variety of theories, we proposed that a beneficial climate would buffer men from negative outcomes, but would intensify negative outcomes for women. Significant three‐way interactions were found for job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and job withdrawal. Results indicated that beneficial work‐group climate perceptions buffered men from decrements in job satisfaction and work withdrawal, but intensified decrements in all three outcomes for women. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Using the family life cycle with later life families

The development of a family clinic for later life families within an Old Age Psychiatry service is briefly described. An extended life cycle model has been found useful in understanding and working with such families and is also described, together with two cases which illustrate the practical application of the model.     

Judgments of Sexual Harassment Court Case Summaries

Understanding third-person judgments of sexual harassment is important because of their role in bystander intervention, popular opinion, and perhaps even labeling experiences as harassment. We employed Brunswikian principles of representative design (sampling from natural environments and allowing environmental factors influencing judgments to intercorrelate) and multiple regression plus relative weight analyses to examine judgments about summaries of actual U.S. sexual harassment court cases. Potential factors influencing judgments (cues) were identified and coded by raters. Results suggest that naturally occurring cues were intercorrelated to some extent, and people use different aspects of these rich situations to make judgments. We also found that some less-studied cues (i.e., target's withdrawal from the workplace, number of incidents) are more important than that the previous research would suggest, while some often-studied cues (i.e., status of the harasser, target's response to the harasser) are less important. Participants overall used very few cues, even when many were available. Future research should employ Brunswik's representative design to use more realistic scenarios that allow for intercorrelated, naturally occurring cues. Especially if results can be replicated, theories about how judgments of sexual harassment are made can be developed that reflect the complex realities of sexual harassment judgments that our study revealed. Representative design could also be employed to help theory development in other scenario-based areas of organizational research. Ours is the first study of judgments of sexual harassment that used a Brunswikian approach to study actual court case summaries. This has allowed for a unique examination of this complicated phenomenon.     

A consequentialist account of Narveson’s dictum

Philosophical Studies - In population ethics, Narveson’s dictum states: morality favours making people happy, but is neutral about making happy people. The thought is intuitively appealing;...