This is the first English scholarly edition of this pivotal essay, accompanied by the first comprehensive commentary on it.

Nurses working or living near a community disaster have the opportunity to study health‐related consequences to disaster or disaster recovery. In such a situation, the researchers need to deal with the conceptual and methodological issues unique to postdisaster research and know what resources are available to guide them, even if they have no specialized training or previous experience in disaster research. The purpose of this article is to review issues and challenges associated with conducting postdisaster research and encourage nurses to (...) seek resources and seize opportunities to conduct research should the situation arise. Current disaster studies and the authors' personal experiences conducting maternal‐child research in post‐Katrina New Orleans (2005–2013) provide real‐life examples of how health professionals and nurses faced the challenges of doing postdisaster research. After catastrophic events, nurses need to step forward to conduct disaster research that informs and improves future disaster planning and healthcare responses. (shrink)

In 1997, the DfEE suggested that schools should consider 'setting' pupils by ability as it was believed that this would contribute to raising standards. This survey of primary schools aimed to establish the extent to which primary schools, with same and mixed age classes, implement different grouping practices including setting, streaming, within class ability and mixed ability groupings for different curriculum subjects. Schools were asked to complete a questionnaire indicating their grouping practices for each subject in each year group. The (...) findings showed that schools predominantly adopted within class ability groupings, either mixed or ability grouped, for most subjects. Ability grouping (within class and setting) was most common in mathematics, followed by English and science. Its implementation increased as pupils progressed through school. The type of setting adopted, same or cross-age, tended to reflect the nature of the class structures within the school. (shrink)

Background:Ethical competence in nursing practice helps clinical nurses to think critically, analyse issues, make ethical decisions, solve ethical problems and behave ethically in their daily work. Thus, ethical competence contributes to the promotion of high-quality care. However, studies on ethical competence in Malawi are scanty.Objectives:The aim of this study was to explore ethical competence among clinical nurses in selected hospitals in Malawi.Methodology:A cross-sectional survey was conducted in four selected hospitals in Malawi with a sample of 271 clinical nurses. Data were (...) collected using self-administered questionnaires, which included a Moral Competence Scale for Home Care Nurses. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were computed for the dataset using STATA version 12.0.Ethical consideration:The study protocol complied with all ethical requirements and was approved by the College of Medicine Research Ethics Committee under the University of Malawi.Results:The clinical nurses in Malawi are ethically competent. However, there is a significantly high number (p 0.05). Three determinants of high ethical competence level (strong will, judgement skills and recognition of discrepancy of intention) were identified through a reduced model after stepwise logistic regression analysis. Furthermore, results show that indicators of ethical competence include caring, confidentiality and observance of nurses dressing code. The study has also confirmed that the Moral Competence Scale for Home Care Nurses is a reliable tool to assess ethical competence in low-resource settings.Conclusion:The majority of nurses who completed the survey had low ethical competence. However, clinical nurses with high ethical competence level are required to competently manage complex ethical challenges in health facilities. Strategies for enhancing ethical competence such as continuing ethics education, establishment of ethics committees and provision of supportive supervision are recommended to enable nurses in Malawi attain a high level of ethical competence. (shrink)

Humans are social animals that rely on different ways to interact with each other. The COVID-19 pandemic strongly changed our communication strategies. Because of the importance of direct contact for our species, we predict that immediately after the forced social isolation, people were more prone to engage in direct rather than in virtual interactions, thus showing a lower mimicry response in the use of smartphones. In a non-longitudinal study, we collected behavioral data under naturalistic contexts and directly compared the data (...) of the mimicry response gathered immediately following the Italian lockdown (May–September 2020) with those gathered one year later (May–October 2021). Contrary to our expectations, the mimicry response in the use of smartphones was higher immediately after the lockdown than a year later. Probably the large use of these devices during the lockdown translated into a greater sensitivity to be affected by others’ smartphone manipulation. Indeed, social isolation modified, at least in the short term, the ways we interact with others by making us more prone to engage in “virtual” social interactions. The bright side of the coin unveiled by our findings is that the effect seems to diminish over time. The large behavioral dataset analyzed here (1,608 events; 248 people) also revealed that the mimicry response in the use of smartphones was higher between familiar subjects than between strangers. In this view, mimicry in manipulating smartphones can be considered an example of joint action that fosters behavioral synchrony between individuals that, in the long-term, can translate into the formation of social bonding. (shrink)

We believe the dichotomy of processes introduced in the target article is highly speculative, because the dichotomy is shaped by the questionable assumption of modularity and the complementary assumption of locality. As a result, the author falls into a line of circular reasoning that biases his analysis of the experimental and neuropsychological data, and weakens the proposed model.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe and explore the current state of internet regulation through content filters in Swedish public libraries. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected through an electronic survey directed to library managers of Sweden’s 290 main municipal libraries. 164 answers were returned, yielding a 57% response rate. The analysis comprises descriptive statistics for quantitative data and an activity theory approach with focus on contradictions for qualitative counterparts. Findings In total, 33% of the responding libraries report having (...) content filters; 50% have not; and a surprising 18% do not know. There is a strong correlation between internet misuse and positive attitudes towards filters, and, reversely, between lack of misuse and lack of active stances concerning filters. Rather than seeing this as weakness, the authors suggest that there is strength in a context-bound flexibility open to practical experience and weighting of values, ethics, legislation and local circumstances. More troublesome indications concern the high deferral of decision-making to local authorities (municipalities) whereby libraries are left with limited insight and influence. Research limitations/implications The situation calls for professional organisations to address political mandate questions, and educational programs to strengthen future information professionals’ knowledge of IT in general; filter issues in specific; and local authority decision-making. The study highlights the need of adequate information professional competences and mandates to decide on and oversee internet regulation. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first internationally published study on content filters in Swedish public libraries. (shrink)

We have investigated the emotional profile of dreams and the relationship between dream emotion and cognition using a form that specifically asked subjects to identify emotions within their dreams. Two hundred dream reports were collected from 20 subjects, each of whom produced 10 reports. Compared to previous studies, our method yielded a 10-fold increase in the amount of emotion reported. Anxiety/fear was reported most frequently, followed, in order, by joy/elation, anger, sadness, shame/guilt, and, least frequently, affection/eroticism. Unexpectedly, there was no (...) significant difference in the profiles of emotion reported by men and women. When the reports were scored for bizarreness, a significant correlation was found between the occurrence of bizarreness and major shifts in emotion. These results support the conclusion that dreaming is a mental state whose general emotional features are widely shared across individuals and strongly linked to cognitive features within individual dreams. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical assessment of two diverse methodological approaches in the contemporary movement of Everyday Aesthetics. The “weak formulation” asserts that ordinary objects are best understood on the model of fine art. I counter this claim with a distinction between aesthetic and artistic value. The “strong formulation” develops an ethical-existential theory of the everyday as one of belonging and familiarity which nevertheless causes us to lose what is uniquely aesthetic about our ordinary lives. I strive to find (...) a middle ground that contextualizes the aesthetic within human activities, concerns and judgements. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists have often maintained that in order to attribute mental states to other people one must have a ‘theory of mind’. This theory facilitates our grasp of other people’s mental states. Debate has then focussed on the form this theory should take. Recently a new approach has been suggested, which I call the ‘Direct Perception approach to social cognition’. This approach maintains that we can directly perceive other people’s mental states. It opposes traditional views on two counts: by (...) claiming that mental states are observable and by claiming that we can attribute them to others without the need for a theory of mind. This paper argues that there are two readings of the direct perception claims: a strong and a weak one. The Theory-theory is compatible with the weak version but not the strong one. The paper argues that the strong version of direct perception is untenable, drawing on evidence from the mirror neuron literature and arguments from the philosophy of science and perception to support this claim. It suggests that one traditional ‘theory of mind’ view, the ‘Theory-theory’ view, is compatible with the claim that mental states are observable, and concludes that direct perception views do not offer a viable alternative to theory of mind approaches to social cognition. (shrink)

“Modernity, Aesthetics and Subjectivity. A Historical-conceptual Reconstruction of the Reappropriations of Friedrich Schlegel’s Thought Within the Framework of Contemporary German Philosophy”. In this paper we analyze the interpretation of Friedrich Schlegel’s romantic thought developed by K. H. Bohrer and M. Frank. The aim is to show how, through this historical reference, the aforementioned authors reconstruct a conception of subjectivity that breaks with the modern postulate of an instituting subject and that allows to overcome the poststructuralist thesis of the death of (...) the subject. However, neither this alternative conception of the subject, nor the way in which the aesthetic dimension is characterized by Bohrer and Frank, are free of difficulties. As we will see towards the end of this paper, their anti-idealistic reading of Schlegel’s work is not only strongly unilateral, but unable to realize the specificity of contemporary artistic production. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper argues that different epistemic styles exist in science, and that these make up an important unit of analysis for studying science. On occasion these different sets of commitments to ways of doing and knowing about the world may fall along national boundaries. The case presented here examines German and American embryology around 1900 and shows that differences in goals and approaches make up different epistemic styles.In particular, the Germans sought causal mechanical explanations of as many phenomena as (...) possible, guided by strong theories which achieved confirmation when they fit with as much of the available data as possible. The Americans, in contrast, sought definitive facts, as many as possible, which might be quite specific or narrowly based. These facts could lead to empirical generalizations which, in turn, could guide the generation of new knowledge in the form of new facts. Thus, the two epistemic styles emphasized different goals, processes of investigation, and standards of evidence. (shrink)

Summary This paper notes and explores the attraction of Dugald Stewart's moral philosophy for women readers and a few women writers. Student lecture notes reveal the chronological development of his ideas, as he drew upon the works of Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, and Adam Ferguson, and responded to political events. Particular attention is paid to Stewart's comments relating to women and gender, through discussions of education, the institution of marriage, and population questions. After 1800, he shifted away from a speculative (...) conjectural history towards a philosophy of moral progress rooted in common sense philosophy and a belief in perfectibility. He taught a system of practical morality relevant to the education of children and strongly emphasised the importance of the association of ideas in childhood. For women readers, the message was contradictory in that he united an apparently conservative reinforcement of the relations of the sexes with a belief in the improvement of the condition of women through education in a modern, progressive, and commercial society. (shrink)

Advancing a creolizing reading of the eighteenth-century philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, this volume explores Rousseau’s strong resonances in Caribbean thought and politics.

Learning and Teaching in the Early Years provides a comprehensive, contemporary and practical introduction to early childhood teaching in Australia. A strong focus on the links between theory, policy and practice firmly aligns this text with the Early Years Learning Framework. Written for students of early childhood programs, this book covers learning and development, as well as professional practice in teaching children from birth to eight years. In recognition of the evolving role of educators, topic areas include learning, teaching, (...) working with families, leading, advocating and researching. Each chapter contains learning objectives, key terms and reflection points. Detailed case studies document the intersection between research, policy and practice, enhancing pre-service and practicing educators' appreciation of how a policy-aligned approach reinforces learning and development in the early years. This text draws on the latest research to present children's learning as a dynamic and active process requiring specific, intentional teaching behaviours. (shrink)

This article draws on an empirical investigation of how Australia’s cervical screening program came to be the way it is. The study was carried out using grounded theory methodology and primarily uses interviews with experts involved in establishing, updating or administering the program. We found strong differences in experts’ normative evaluations of the program and beliefs about optimal ways of achieving the same basic outcome: a reduction in morbidity and mortality caused by invasive cervical cancer. Our analysis demonstrates how (...) variations in values and preferences associated with key concepts underpinning public health such as benefit, harm and burden led to different perspectives on the purpose of an organized cervical screening program. These variations were largely driven by different bases of professional experience. Differently conceived purposes in turn led to conflict over how the program should be operationalized. Following Frith’s model of empirical bioethics, the results of the study both draw on and inform the existing public health and screening ethics literature. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultants (CECs) often face some of the most difficult communication and interpersonal challenges that occur in hospitals, involving stressed stakeholders who express, with strong emotions, their preferences and concerns in situations of personal crisis and loss. In this article we will give examples of how much of the important work that ethics consultants perform in addressing clinical ethics conflicts is incompletely conceived and explained in the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities Core Competencies for Healthcare Ethics Consultation (...) and the clinical ethics literature. The work to which we refer is best conceptualized as a specialized type of interviewing, in which the emotional barriers of patients and their families or surrogates can be identified and addressed in light of relevant ethical obligations and values within the context of ethics facilitation. (shrink)

The study reported in this paper explored the ethical requirements of social research participants, an area where there is still little empirical research, by interviewing people who had participated in one of five recent social research studies. The findings endorse the conceptualization of informed consent as a process rather than a one-off event. Four different dynamics of decision-making were followed by participants in terms of the timing of decisions to participate and the information on which they were based. Multiple information (...) events were important, as was verbal as well as written information. Study participants reacted unfavourably to the idea of written consent. Although prior information was relevant to participant experience of the interview, what emerged more strongly as relevant was the behaviour of interviewers and the interviewing strategy used. The authors suggest that naturalistic, authentic approaches to information-giving are necessary, and that in scrutinizing them research ethics committees need to look not only at written information but also at verbal information giving, and how interviewer information-giving is supported by training and supervision. They suggest that committees also need to concern themselves more broadly with who will carry out interviews and the training, mentoring and monitoring in place to shape their conduct of interviews. In considering research instruments, research ethics committees need to consider not only whether interviewers will capture accurate and appropriate data but also whether they are likely to lead to a satisfactory interaction for participants. Given the impossibility of anticipating each individual participants information needs and their reaction to the interviewing strategy, the authors suggest that interviewers and participants need to be encouraged to negotiate the conduct of interviews jointly, and discuss how such negotiating roles might be supported. (shrink)

This study analyzed consumers' willingness to pay for non-pirated computer software and examined how attitudes toward intellectual property rights and perceived risk affect WTPs. Two commonly used software products, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, were used in the study as objects to reveal consumer assessed values. A consumer survey was administered in Taiwan and the total valid samples were 799. Respondents in this study included students from senior high schools, colleges, and graduate schools, and general consumers who were no longer (...) full-time students. The estimated average WTP for Windows was USD 58.55 and for Office was USD 53.49, much lower than the respective suggested retail prices in the market. Social norms had strong positive influences on willingness-to-pay for software products. The prosecution risk did not significantly increase WTPs for software products due to the reason that individuals who used pirated software were not at a high risk of being prosecuted. Performance risk was positively correlated to WTPs for software products. The respondents segmented into the low-WTP cluster were more likely to use pirated software than those in the high-WTP segment. Source reliability, legitimacy, technical support, and customer service were emphasized in decisions of respondents in the high-WTP segment and could be used in marketing strategies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, and: Anne Conway: A Woman PhilosopherJane DuranWomen Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, by Jacqueline Broad; 204 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. $65.00. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher, by Sarah Hutton; 280 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. $75.00.Recent work on women philosophers has, in general, approached the topic from two vantage points: on the one hand, a number of anthologies have (...) been published, wherein commentators present a small portion of the woman thinker's work, often without the background necessary for a fuller understanding. On the other hand, some few women philosophers have been the subject of full-length works, but these have tended, by and large, to be women thinkers of the twentieth century, with whose work we are already familiar. Two recent books, one by Jacqueline Broad and the other by Sarah Hutton, go a long way toward improving the situation.Work by Eileen O'Neill, Sarah Hutton and Margaret Atherton, among others, has helped familiarize us with the notion that the seventeenth century—that era so commonly associated with Descartes and the rise of modern philosophy—was also a time of rich theorizing by women philosophers. Jacqueline Broad's book possesses many virtues: it has the finely-tuned style of the careful historian, while at the same time not failing to demonstrate acquaintance with a range of contemporary feminist commentary. Part of the problem in addressing women thinkers of the past is another version of what we are now tempted to call the essentialism problem: does it make sense to think that there is a style that might be demarcated as "feminine," or that might, in some way, pertain uniquely to women theorists? These are difficult issues, but a partial response to the question is to try to remember that it is not for no reason that women thinkers have, indeed, been left out of the canon. As Broad herself says, women philosophers "are now mere footnotes to the standard historical-intellectual accounts of the early modern period" (p. 1).Broad does a superb job of navigating between the need to set out the plain tenets of the thinker's philosophy, and the desire to try to tie it into these larger questions. In six chapters, she addresses the work of Elizabeth of Bohemia, [End Page 200] Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Masham and Catharine Trotter Cockburn The chapters on Elizabeth, Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell are particularly strong—here part of the difficulty is that we do have familiar commentaries addressing the work of these women, and it is hard to try to see them in a new light. We are accustomed, for example, to think of Elizabeth merely as Descartes's correspondent. As is the case with information that is currently coming to bear on the question of Harriet Taylor Mill's input into the work of John Stuart Mill, it is difficult for us to see Elizabeth as a thinker in her own right, or, indeed, to give her the credit that Descartes himself gave her; as Broad notes, he had described her as "the only person I have so far found who has completely understood all my previous works" (p. 13). Margaret Cavendish's reputation has suffered from the somewhat scattered approach of her writings, and Broad cites her "reputation for eccentricity" (p. 38). Nevertheless, the sheer volume of her work and its allusion to the problems addressed by the Cambridge Platonists (areas also worked on by Anne Conway) demands that she be taken far more seriously than she has in the past. Astell has become known largely for her more overtly feminist works, such as A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, but she was also the author of several other pieces addressing issues in metaphysics, and again the amount of her work and its citation during her own time would militate against the notion that it should not receive thorough examination.Broad does a wonderful job of setting out the main philosophical questions found in these theorists' works, and she excels at pitting their views against those of the various male philosophers whose work—according to... (shrink)

This article examines the work of the seventeenth-century thinker Catharine Trotter Cockburn with an eye toward explication of her trenchant empiricism, and the foundations upon which it rested. It is argued that part of the originality of Cockburn's work has to do with her consistent line of thought with regard to evidence from the senses and the process of abstract conceptualization; in this she differed strongly from some of her contemporaries. The work of Martha Brandt Bolton and Fidelis Morgan is (...) cited, and there is an auxiliary argument to the effect that Cockburn is probably better known as a playwright than she is as a philosophical thinker. (shrink)

Using material taken from contemporary feminist theory and also from work on human rights, it is argued that rape is a form of torture, and that it operates on powerful levels, both literally and metaphorically. Part of the argument is that rape has achieved the status it has as political force for exploitation because of strong beliefs about cultural reproduction and about the roles that women play in cultural reproduction.

Edith Stein is honored today not only because of her sainthood but because of what is now seen as important and groundbreaking work in phenomenology done under especially arduous conditions. Thus it may be said with some accuracy that Stein is, among philosophers, in the comparatively rare category of being acknowledged both for her work and her exemplary life. Writing on Stein has standardly proceeded with an emphasis on the biographical factors that caused her to live and write as she (...) did. One often reads that Stein was reared in a strongly Judaic tradition—her family was more observant, for example, than the family of Simone Weil—but that experiences she had as a young woman caused her to turn in the .. (shrink)

BackgroundCervical cancer disproportionately burdens disadvantaged women. Organised cervical screening aims to make cancer prevention available to all women in a population, yet screening uptake and cancer incidence and mortality are strongly correlated with socioeconomic status. Reaching underscreened populations is a stated priority in many screening programs, usually with an emphasis on something like ‘equity’. Equity is a poorly defined and understood concept. We aimed to explain experts’ perspectives on how cervical screening programs might justifiably respond to ‘the underscreened’.MethodsThis paper reports (...) on a grounded theory study of cervical screening experts involved in program organisation. Participants were 23 experts from several countries and a range of backgrounds: gynecology; epidemiology; public health; pathology; general practice; policy making. Data were gathered via semi-structured interview and concepts developed through transcript coding and memo writing.ResultsMost experts expressed an intuitive commitment to reducing systematic differences in screening participation or cancer outcomes. They took three different implicit positions, however, on what made organised programs justifiable with respect to underscreened populations. These were: 1) accepting that population screening is likely to miss certain disenfranchised groups for practical and cultural reasons, and focusing on maximising mainstream reach; 2) identifying and removing barriers to screening; and 3) providing parallel tailored screening services that attended to different cultural needs. Positions tended to fall along country of practice lines.ConclusionsExperts emphasised the provision of opportunity for underscreened populations to take up screening. A focus on opportunity appeared to rely on tacit premises not supported by evidence: that provision of meaningful opportunity leads to increased uptake, and that increased uptake of an initial screening test by disadvantaged populations would decrease cervical cancer incidence and mortality. There was little attention to anything other than the point of testing, or the difficulties disadvantaged women can have in accessing follow up care. The different approaches to ‘improving equity’ taken by participants are differently justified, and differently justifiable, but none attend directly to the broader conditions of disadvantage. (shrink)

This study analyzed consumers' willingness to pay for non-pirated computer software and examined how attitudes toward intellectual property rights and perceived risk affect WTPs. Two commonly used software products, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, were used in the study as objects to reveal consumer assessed values. A consumer survey was administered in Taiwan and the total valid samples were 799. Respondents in this study included students from senior high schools, colleges, and graduate schools, and general consumers who were no longer (...) full-time students. The estimated average WTP for Windows was USD 58.55 and for Office was USD 53.49, much lower than the respective suggested retail prices in the market. Social norms had strong positive influences on willingness-to-pay for software products. The prosecution risk did not significantly increase WTPs for software products due to the reason that individuals who used pirated software were not at a high risk of being prosecuted. Performance risk was positively correlated to WTPs for software products. The respondents segmented into the low-WTP cluster were more likely to use pirated software than those in the high-WTP segment. Source reliability, legitimacy, technical support, and customer service were emphasized in decisions of respondents in the high-WTP segment and could be used in marketing strategies. (shrink)

A complex conjuncture of ideological constructions obscured and rationalized the systematic exploitation of farm women. First, farming and homemaking, to which people cling in an attempt to avert the alienation of wage labor, provide a basis for evaluating one's labor in terms that, ironically, makes them vulnerable to super-exploitation. Second, agrarian ideologies, with their strongly patriarchal bias, did not allow women to understand themselves as public actors. Modernizing elite ideologies, specifically the equation of entrepreneurial individualism and efficiency with “progress” and (...) affluence, and the “cult of domesticity” with its redefinition of men's and women's roles, promised women greater equality within the family; however, these normative codes simultaneously opened the farm and home to greater dependence on capitalist markets. The ideology of entrepreneurial individualism also provided templates through which farm men and women (mis)understood their relative poverty as being the result of private, individual choices. In addition, virtually all media assumed a sector differentiated only by commodity, rendering size, class, or other distinctions invisible. Finally, the ideology of separate spheres, as it developed in the nineteenth century, created a segmented and discriminatory labor market for women. The period focused on, the late 1940s and the 1950s, was crucial in establishing the terms of the post-War order. (shrink)

Exploring informal components of clinical reasoning, we argue that they need to be understood via the analysis of professional wisdom. Wise decisions are needed where action or insight is vital, but neither everyday nor expert knowledge provides solutions. Wisdom combines experiential, intellectual, ethical, emotional and practical capacities; we contend that it is also more strongly social than is usually appreciated. But many accounts of reasoning specifically rule out such features as irrational. Seeking to illuminate how wisdom operates, we therefore build (...) on Aristotle’s work on informal reasoning. His account of rhetorical communication shows how non-formal components can play active parts in reasoning, retaining, or even enhancing its reasonableness. We extend this account, applying it to forms of healthcare-related reasoning which are characterised by the need for wise decision-making. We then go on to explore some of what clinical wise reasoning may mean, concluding with a case taken from psychotherapeutic practice. (shrink)

In real-time, Twitter strongly imprints world events, popular culture, and the day-to-day; Twitter records an ever growing compendium of language use and change; and Twitter has been shown to enable certain kinds of prediction. Vitally, and absent from many standard corpora such as books and news archives, Twitter also encodes popularity and spreading through retweets. Here, we describe Storywrangler, an ongoing, day-scale curation of over 100 billion tweets containing around 1 trillion 1-grams from 2008 to 2020. For each day, we (...) break tweets into 1-, 2-, and 3-grams across 150+ languages, record usage frequencies, and generate Zipf distributions. We make the data set available through an interactive time series viewer, and as downloadable time series and daily distributions. We showcase a few examples of the many possible avenues of study we aim to enable including how social amplification can be visualized through ‘contagiograms’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Education and Feminist AestheticsGauguin and the ExoticJane Duran (bio)IntroductionMuch has been made of the way in which Gauguin came to characterize the differences that he saw between the French and Tahitian populations once he had embarked on the series of voyages for which he is now celebrated.1 Although there is evidence to support a number of interpretations with respect to his portrayals of women, one theme has been paramount (...) in a great deal of the commentary: Gauguin came to see the women of Tahiti as not only emblematic of the island itself, and the island's culture, but as the embodiments of a certain sort of feminine grace. The contrasts that Gauguin himself invoked between the "naturalness" of the Polynesian women and what he took to be the falsity of women of his own class in Europe, especially France, has been the subject of much writing. In our attempts to educate undergraduates with respect to categories of oppression, we can appeal to the work of Gauguin as a valuable source of understanding concerning these issues.Given the Eurocentrism of the time, and given that it is roughly this same time period that Said will later go on to associate with the rise of Orientalism, it is probably not possible that Tahiti, its women, and its various flora and fauna could have been seen as anything other than vestiges of the natural in a world already too tamed. Words such as "savage" are used frequently in the criticism of the day to explain Gauguin's subjects, and some of the themes of his work seem to have been chosen specifically because they lent themselves to such an interpretation, at least in European eyes.2 But Gauguin goes a bit further than this crude caricature indicates, at least insofar as his portraits of female figures are concerned. It is clear that, for the [End Page 88] artist, they represent all that is to him unknown about Tahiti, and that at the same time they are coded as the natural, the innocent, and even the holy. An examination of some of his works will bear out the extent to which this is the case.IRegarding Gauguin's attitudes toward Tahiti and its women, Britt Salvesen has noted in recent commentary thatGauguin infused his art with mystery, often by depicting enigmatic female figures, traditional symbols of nature and its secrets. In Tahiti he expected to encounter exotic and sensual women. Given Gauguin's complicated position as both observer and participant in Tahitian society, his ambition to represent the "country's female type" bears close examination. He owned illustrated travel books in which, as he noted scornfully, "all the [natives] … look like Minerva or Pallas Athena." He aimed to disrupt this conventional projection of European ideals and fantasies onto Tahitian women.3As Salvesen indicates, Gauguin expected to find, and did find—by his lights—"exotic" and "sensual" women. Feminist analysis has provided us with an overwhelming amount of material about the extent to which such projections onto women as a group become a near universal human cultural trope, but few individuals allow us to make such strong comparisons with respect to projections on differing female figures as Gauguin does. That he is able to discern the ridiculousness of Academy art with its emphasis on "Pallas Athena" is obvious; what he chooses to do himself is something else again.Inaugurating a variety of personal relationships with women and girls as young as thirteen years of age,4 Gauguin developed a view of the Tahitian woman as emblematic simultaneously of the culture, of a certain sort of innocence, and of a virtually transcendental sacredness. That these images might be thought, naively, to have little to do with sensuality reflects the degree to which we fail to understand that for Gauguin, as for others after him, the sensual itself was sacred. Salvesen notes that one of the early relationships was with the "thirteen-year-old Tehamana. … [o]f Polynesian origin, [in]experienced, and of a seemingly 'impenetrable' character, Tehamana offered Gauguin the mysterious experience he sought in life and art."5If Tehamana represents one take on woman-as-elementally... (shrink)

Three lines of argument are employed to show that Glymour's position on the epistemology of geometry is probably not as strong theoretically as the position of the underdeterminists whom he attempts to refute. The first argument centers on Glymour's implicit use of a realist position on intertheoretic reference, similar to that employed by Boyd and other realists. Citations are made to various portions of Glymour's work, and the relationship between the imputed theory of reference and Glymour's position spelled out. (...) The second line of argument refutes Glymour's contention that his criteria for choosing among theories are strongly based and not a priori, and a third line of argument rephrases Glymour's original position in a way which more clearly shows its implicit base and manifests as well the vagueness from which the formulation of the position suffers. It is concluded that a thorough examination of Glymour's deoccamization yields conclusions similar to those of the underdeterminists. * This paper is the result of work begun in a seminar on Philosophy of Science held at Rutgers University in the late 1970's. Work was continued at the University of California, Santa Barbara under the generosity of Grant DOE (OSERS) G0083/03651. I would like to thank colleagues from both institutions, and I owe a special debt of gratitude to an anonymous reviewer for the journal. (shrink)

Intentionality has recently made a strong appearance in philosophy of language and even in the area which might best be described as the intersection of philosophy of language and cognitive science. That intentionality, as part and parcel of a given conceptual apparatus, may help us out in determining how best to analyze certain sorts of speech acts seems obvious. What may not be so obvious is that intentionality, even in its role as aid to the pragmatics of philosophy of (...) language, can be of assistance in epistemic justification theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, and: Anne Conway: A Woman PhilosopherJane DuranWomen Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, by Jacqueline Broad; 204 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. $65.00. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher, by Sarah Hutton; 280 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. $75.00.Recent work on women philosophers has, in general, approached the topic from two vantage points: on the one hand, a number of anthologies have (...) been published, wherein commentators present a small portion of the woman thinker's work, often without the background necessary for a fuller understanding. On the other hand, some few women philosophers have been the subject of full-length works, but these have tended, by and large, to be women thinkers of the twentieth century, with whose work we are already familiar. Two recent books, one by Jacqueline Broad and the other by Sarah Hutton, go a long way toward improving the situation.Work by Eileen O'Neill, Sarah Hutton and Margaret Atherton, among others, has helped familiarize us with the notion that the seventeenth century—that era so commonly associated with Descartes and the rise of modern philosophy—was also a time of rich theorizing by women philosophers. Jacqueline Broad's book possesses many virtues: it has the finely-tuned style of the careful historian, while at the same time not failing to demonstrate acquaintance with a range of contemporary feminist commentary. Part of the problem in addressing women thinkers of the past is another version of what we are now tempted to call the essentialism problem: does it make sense to think that there is a style that might be demarcated as "feminine," or that might, in some way, pertain uniquely to women theorists? These are difficult issues, but a partial response to the question is to try to remember that it is not for no reason that women thinkers have, indeed, been left out of the canon. As Broad herself says, women philosophers "are now mere footnotes to the standard historical-intellectual accounts of the early modern period" (p. 1).Broad does a superb job of navigating between the need to set out the plain tenets of the thinker's philosophy, and the desire to try to tie it into these larger questions. In six chapters, she addresses the work of Elizabeth of Bohemia, [End Page 200] Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Masham and Catharine Trotter Cockburn The chapters on Elizabeth, Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell are particularly strong—here part of the difficulty is that we do have familiar commentaries addressing the work of these women, and it is hard to try to see them in a new light. We are accustomed, for example, to think of Elizabeth merely as Descartes's correspondent. As is the case with information that is currently coming to bear on the question of Harriet Taylor Mill's input into the work of John Stuart Mill, it is difficult for us to see Elizabeth as a thinker in her own right, or, indeed, to give her the credit that Descartes himself gave her; as Broad notes, he had described her as "the only person I have so far found who has completely understood all my previous works" (p. 13). Margaret Cavendish's reputation has suffered from the somewhat scattered approach of her writings, and Broad cites her "reputation for eccentricity" (p. 38). Nevertheless, the sheer volume of her work and its allusion to the problems addressed by the Cambridge Platonists (areas also worked on by Anne Conway) demands that she be taken far more seriously than she has in the past. Astell has become known largely for her more overtly feminist works, such as A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, but she was also the author of several other pieces addressing issues in metaphysics, and again the amount of her work and its citation during her own time would militate against the notion that it should not receive thorough examination.Broad does a wonderful job of setting out the main philosophical questions found in these theorists' works, and she excels at pitting their views against those of the various male philosophers whose work—according to... (shrink)

Johann Michael Haydn (1737–1806), court musician to the prince-archbishop of Salzburg, composed the Missa Sancti Hieronymi in 1777, apparently intended to mark the name-day of his employer: 30 September, the feast-day of St. Jerome. Because of its wind-band scoring, this Mass is unique, not only among Haydn’s Masses, but also in the Mass repertoire of Salzburg, and apparently in that of all late eighteenth-century Austria. The present article discusses the environment in which Haydn functioned and its effect on the practice (...) of church music in Salzburg and generally in Catholic Austria. Haydn’s employer, Archbishop Colloredo, was a proponent of Enlightenment thinking. He expressed in his Hirtenbrief of 1782 ideas opposed to the kind of sacred music then prevalent in Austria, in particular, the orchestral Mass. Reflective of the new Gottesdienstordnung promulgated by Emperor Joseph II, the proposed changes include the introduction of congregational hymns in the vernacular and severe reduction in numbers of liturgies and the amount of music allowed in them. Colloredo finds support for his ideas in the writings of St. Jerome and other church fathers. Given Haydn’s strong Catholic faith and dedication as a composer of sacred music, the article suggests that although he wrote the Missa as a dutiful servant of his employer, he meant it above all as a tribute to St. Jerome. (shrink)

The subject of this book is young children's emotional-social learning and development within early childhood care and education settings in Aotearoa-New Zealand. The focus on emotional complexity fills a gap in early childhood care and education research where young children are frequently framed narrowly as 'learners,' ignoring the importance of emotional functioning and the feelings with which children make sense of themselves and the world. This book draws on original data in the form of narrative-like framed events to creatively illustrate (...) the complexities in children's diverse ways of feeling, thinking, playing, being, and becoming. Events illuminate the feelings and meanings of observed experiences in holistic and contextualised gestalts. Awareness of unconscious processes, the feeling of feelings, and cultural dimensions of development and meaning-making are addressed. The book emphasises the emergent and psychodynamic nature of children's development and learning with strong links to the role of play and playfulness in the events, drawing on two ethnographically inspired research projects that present theory, experience and practice in real-life events. (shrink)

Studies investigating the COVID-19 pandemic from a psychological point of view have mostly focused on psychological distress. This study adopts the framework of existential positive psychology, a second wave of positive psychology that emphasizes the importance of effective coping with the negative aspects of living in order to achieve greater wellbeing. Trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) can be crucial in this context as it refers to emotion-related personality dispositions concerning the understanding and regulation of one’s emotions and those of others. (...) The present study investigated the relationship between trait EI and both wellbeing and psychological distress (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress), while exploring the mediating role of meaning-centered coping (proactive transformative strategies based on meaning in life) and maladaptive coping (i.e., behavioral disengagement and self-blame) during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 326 Lebanese adults completed measures of trait EI, wellbeing, psychological distress, coping, and meaning-centered coping. Results showed a strong positive correlation between trait EI and meaning-centered coping. Trait EI also correlated positively with wellbeing and negatively with psychological distress. Structural equation modeling showed that meaning-centered coping partially mediated the relationship between trait EI and wellbeing. Maladaptive coping fully mediated the relationship between trait EI and psychological distress. Findings indicate that trait EI is positively related to dealing with a stressful situation such as the pandemic in positive ways at both the cognitive level, by reformulating the situation to see something valuable in it, and behavioral level, by being proactive about it. Trait EI was positively linked to seeing the situation as an opportunity for personal growth, finding personal meaning in this situation, maintaining an attitude of hope and courage, and acting more responsibly with one’s self and others during the current crisis. In turn, this coping formula was related to lower psychological distress and improved mental health. These results are consistent with the existential positive psychology framework and can inform implementation programs and policies aiming at raising awareness and promoting healthy and successful coping during the pandemic. (shrink)

This research project investigated the extent to which nurses engage in two important kinds of ethical behaviours: ethical activism (where they try to make hospitals more receptive to nurses’ participation in ethics deliberations) and ethical assertiveness (where they participate in ethics deliberations even when not formally invited). This research probed not only the extent to which nurses engage in these ethical behaviours but also whether this is influenced by professional, training and organizational factors. A random sample of 165 nurses from (...) three major hospitals in Los Angeles provided the data. Regression analyses indicate that both ethical activism and ethical assertiveness are strongly influenced by nurses’ perceptions of the receptivity of hospitals to their inclusion in ethics deliberations. In addition, nurses’ education in ethics is a significant predictor of ethical activism. The findings have important implications for the content of nurses’ ethics training as well as for expanding the boundaries of nurses’ participation in ethics deliberations. The authors define ethics deliberations as specific meetings of a number of people to discuss an ethical issue, such as one regarding the care of a patient. (shrink)

The Patients Changing Things Together (PATCHATT) programme supports individuals with a life-limiting illness to lead a change that matters to them. Individuals join a facilitated online peer support group to identify an issue they feel strongly about, plan for change and take action to bring that change about. The programme is developed and guided by a Programme Advisory Group with clinical and lay membership. This article charts the trialling of the patients changing thing together ethics pack, designed to support all (...) members of the Programme Advisory Group in taking an equal role in ethical decision-making as they guide the programme's ongoing development. As a trial of its efficacy, the pack was used by the author to consider an ethical dilemma at the heart of the development of the Patients Changing Things Together programme, that is, is it ethical to offer a community palliative care programme which has the potential to bring participants harm as well as good? The author reports a strong ethical argument for offering this programme, while concluding the need for the Programme Advisory Group to make the final decision, using the Patients Changing Things Together ethics pack to consider the results of the evaluation of the programme's pilot. The article concludes that this pack provides an effective tool to guide ethical novices through the ethical complexities of developing a community-based palliative care intervention programme. It raises the issue that such inclusivity is achieved through a normative decision-making process which denies the fluidity and creativity which may inform the best ethical decision-making practice. (shrink)

Due to their consolidated nature, corporate sustainability reports often mask the evolution of organizations’ sustainability initiatives. Thus, to more fully understand the environmental performance of an organization, it is essential to examine the experiences of specific projects and how they relate to corporate sustainability. Based on case studies of green projects in four different organizations, we find that it is difficult to determine the environmental impact of a project a priori, even in cases where environmental considerations are included as part (...) of the initial project scope. Instead, the decision to integrate environmentally favorable elements into projects is a dynamically occurring interaction between competing institutional logics and organizational identities, which create windows of opportunity for individual agency. During these windows, individuals may engage in reinforcing microprocesses that support traditional practices, or invoke enabling microprocesses to facilitate green decision-making, consistent with ecosystem logics. The process model developed in this paper provides a new perspective on the temporal and contextual dimensions of environmental championship behaviors, and sheds light on otherwise puzzling results such as why organizations with strong environmental orientations continue to struggle with delivering projects with strong positive environmental impacts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scott Joplin and the Quest for IdentityEarl Stewart and Jane DuranIn his innovative work I Wanna Be Me: Rock Music and the Politics of Identity, Ted Gracyk does much to dismantle notions of cultural authenticity and theft as they are currently articulated by some critics. Explaining that such concepts are less monolithic than some have claimed, Gracyk writes:While popular musicians often "pick up" the music of other cultures, (...) such practices are culturally, politically, and morally complex. In discussing such issues, I hope to show that they are even more complex than is typically thought. Here, I borrow an insight from Michelle Moody-Adams, who argues that prevailing positions in social and cultural anthropology assume that cultures are internally integrated wholes and that each culture is fundamentally a set of self-contained and discrete practices and beliefs. The same assumptions infest discussions of appropriation in cultural studies, folk-lore studies, and ethnomusicology. But these assumptions are highly questionable.1Gracyk's overall point is that what has frequently been simplified as "theft" or "inauthentic" is not susceptible to such easy formulation; indeed, Gracyk contends there is scarcely such a thing as a pure musical tradition.Gracyk's sophisticated argument is one, however, that itself admits of gradations and emendations. While it is no doubt accurate that there is very little that might count as artistically or culturally pure (hence, very little that can justifiably be claimed to have been stolen), some work is much more evocative of a cultural point of view than other efforts, and some work is much more centrally located within a given culture and its traditions than other musical work. In this article we shall make the twofold argument that much of the work of Scott Joplin is located in a tradition that is manifestly African derived, and that the composition of such work had, as one of its motivators, the desire to make a cultural statement. Thus, more so than some of Gracyk's exemplars, Joplin's work is strongly culturally attached, and its attachment needs to be duly noted.IThe origins of Joplin's work speak to the concerns of the nineteenth century and of the period immediately subsequent to emancipation. Most of [End Page 94] the black leadership of the time was united in its belief that a nationalist art would serve in the reconstruction of the image of African Americans. During the latter part of the nineteenth century many of these leaders saw the spiritual as the ideal folkloric basis for a serious black artistic expression. In music this notion was given strong support as a result of a concurrent interest on the part of European composers in African American music—an interest fed by the aesthetic of romanticism, which encouraged artistic investment in the strange, unusual, primitive, and exotic.Most classically trained African American composers attempted to comply with the vision of these black leaders by constructing a more or less European-style music tinctured with African American folk elements. The result would be a set of works that to this day has failed to be adopted by the African American community at large.Scott Joplin tried a different approach. He sought to create an African American musical expression that would be predicated upon an African American vernacular style—ragtime. Joplin essentialized his music in many ways. First, by choosing ragtime as a stylistic paradigm he assured the preservation of black rhythm. Second, to promote continuity and coherence he often employed rhythmic relationships between contrasting sections. Third, he frequently employed African American folk idioms like pentatonicism and call-and-response (antiphony) as interregnal devices in the structure of his melodies. Fourth, to assure an intrastructural linkage with the African American vernacular music of his day, he frequently used phrase structures that were consistent with those employed in folk music, particularly the black spiritual, for example, aaab. In his opera, Treemonisha, he based his libretto largely on black dialect, thus linking it with black literary tradition. These are but a few of the devices Joplin employed to assure a strong cultural essentialism to his music. As a result, Joplin has been acknowledged as one of the great icons of... (shrink)

In 2004, Natalie Lloyd and Jane Mulcock initiated the Australian Animals & Society Study Group, a network of social science, humanities and arts scholars that quickly grew to include more than 100 participants. In July 2005, about 50 participants attended the group's 4-day inaugural conference at the University of Western Australia, Perth. Papers in this issue emerged from the conference. They exemplify the Australian academy's work in the fields of History, Population Health, Sociology, Geography, and English and address (...) class='Hi'>strong themes: human-equine relationships; management of native and introduced animals; and relationships with other domestic, nonhuman animals—from cats and dogs to cattle. Human-Animal Studies is an expanding field in Australia. However, many scholars, due to funding and teaching concerns, focus their primary research in different domains. All authors in this issue—excepting one—are new scholars in their respective fields. The papers represent the diversity and innovation of recent Australian research on human-animal interactions. The authors look at both past and present, then anticipate future challenges in building an effective network to expand this field of study in Australia. (shrink)

In this interdisciplinary book, Keala Jewell reunites Giorgio de Chirico with his brother, Alberto Savinio, a prolific writer and painter who has been kept at the margins of the discussion of Surrealism and, more generally, the culture politics of twentieth-century Italy. Yet as Jewell demonstrates, the brothers worked together during their formative years in Munich and Paris and always shared, on the one hand, a drive to salvage Mediterranean myth and history and, on the other, a deep involvement with art’s (...) power to shape cultural identity and authority. Rather than looking for a key to unlock the secrets of the brothers’ recurrent use of dislocated spaces and bizarre hybrid figures, Jewell focuses on assessing the issues of identity and mastery put at stake in the haunting enigmas that characterize their paintings and writings. Deeply impressed by Nietzsche, she argues, they believed the "human" is inherently unstable and must be constantly "rewoven" with analogies and metaphors seized from empowering states of being. Jewell’s approach to the de Chirico brothers breaks new ground, not only because it brings them together as artists and writers but also because it sets the brothers within the context of myth, history, and Italian culture politics, instead of French surrealism and its aesthetic and psychoanalytic theories. Further, Jewell’s strong readings of little-known paintings and notoriously difficult texts like Giorgio de Chirico’s _Ebdòmero_ will expand and diversify the sources used in modernist studies. (shrink)

Erdoğan intensifies assault on Turkish civil society Deeply worrying reports from the Turkish Medical Association suggest that the Turkish President Recep Erdoğan is hardening his attack on civil society in Turkey, using the legitimate activities of the TTB as the flimsiest of pretexts. In January 2018, the TTB issued a short statement raising concerns about the impact on public health of Turkey’s military operation in the Kurdish-controlled region of northern Syria. It denounced the operation saying ‘No to war, peace immediately’. (...) In response to the Association’s press release, the Turkish president publicly accused the 83 000 strong TTB of being terrorist sympathisers. ‘This institution has nothing to do with Turkishness and nothing about them is worthy of the notion of Turkishness’, he said. 1 Eleven of its senior doctors, including the Association’s chairman, were later detained following an order from a Turkish prosecutor. President Erdoğan made it... (shrink)

Background Outbreaks of infectious disease cause serious and costly health and social problems. Two new technologies – pathogen whole genome sequencing and Big Data analytics – promise to improve our capacity to detect and control outbreaks earlier, saving lives and resources. However, routinely using these technologies to capture more detailed and specific personal information could be perceived as intrusive and a threat to privacy. Method Four community juries were convened in two demographically different Sydney municipalities and two regional cities in (...) New South Wales, Australia to elicit the views of well-informed community members on the acceptability and legitimacy of: making pathogen WGS and linked administrative data available for public health researchusing this information in concert with data linkage and machine learning to enhance communicable disease surveillance systems Fifty participants of diverse backgrounds, mixed genders and ages were recruited by random-digit-dialling and topic-blinded social-media advertising. Each jury was presented with balanced factual evidence supporting different expert perspectives on the potential benefits and costs of technologically enhanced public health research and communicable disease surveillance and given the opportunity to question experts. Results Almost all jurors supported data linkage and WGS on routinely collected patient isolates for the purposes of public health research, provided standard de-identification practices were applied. However, allowing this information to be operationalised as a syndromic surveillance system was highly contentious with three juries voting in favour, and one against by narrow margins. For those in favour, support depended on several conditions related to system oversight and security being met. Those against were concerned about loss of privacy and did not trust Australian governments to run secure and effective systems. Conclusions Participants across all four events strongly supported the introduction of data linkage and pathogenomics to public health research under current research governance structures. Combining pathogen WGS with event-based data surveillance systems, however, is likely to be controversial because of a lack of public trust, even when the potential public health benefits are clear. Any suggestion of private sector involvement or commercialisation of WGS or surveillance data was unanimously rejected. (shrink)

Alexithymic traits, which entail finding it difficult to recognize and describe one’s own emotions, are linked with poor trait emotional intelligence and difficulties in identifying and managing stressors. There is evidence that alexithymia may have detrimental consequences for wellbeing and health, beginning in adolescence. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated the prevalence and incidence of alexithymia in teenage girls, testing the statistical power of TEI and student burnout to discriminate between high- and low-alexithymic subjects. A sample of 884 female high (...) school students attending three Italian academic-track high schools completed self-report measures of alexithymia, school burnout, and TEI. Main descriptive statistics and correlational analysis preceded the discriminant analysis. The mean alexithymia scores suggest a high prevalence of alexithymia in female adolescents; as expected, this trait was negatively correlated with TEI and positively associated with school burnout. Participants with high vs. low alexithymia profiles were discriminated by a combination of TEI and burnout scores. High scores for the emotionality and self-control dimensions of TEI were strongly associated with membership of the low alexithymia group; high scores for the emotional exhaustion dimension of school burnout were indicative of membership of the high alexithymia group. These findings suggest crucial focuses for educational intervention: efforts to reduce the risk of emotional exhaustion and school burnout should especially concentrate on enhancing emotional awareness and self-control skills, both strongly associated with low levels of alexithymia. (shrink)

The existence of a strong link between socio-economic background and individual preferences has been documented among both children and grown-ups. Here, we study whether such a correlation persists even in a highly homogeneous population of young adults: university students. Our findings indicate that participants living in an area characterized by a high socio-economic environment tend to trust more and are more inclined to reciprocate higher levels of trust, as compared to those coming from less wealthy neighborhoods. This behavioral difference (...) is, at least in part, driven by heterogeneities in beliefs: subjects from the most affluent part of the city have more optimistic expectations on their counterpart’s trustworthiness than those living in a lower socio-economic environment. By contrast, no significant differences emerge in other preferences: generosity, risk attitudes, and time preferences. Finally, we do not find any systematic evidence of out-group discrimination based on neighborhood identity. (shrink)

While a large body of research has provided quantitative data on children’s levels of happiness, positive emotions and life satisfaction, the literature reflects a dearth of studies that analyze these dimensions from a narrative and qualitative point of view. Folk and fairy tales may serve as ideal tools for this purpose, since they are concerned with several concepts scientifically investigated by research in the field of positive psychology, such as resilience, self-realization, personal growth and meaning in life. The aim of (...) the present study was to explore children’s well-being and positive emotions using an innovative narrative approach, which involved interviews and group discussions, as well as the analysis of fairy tales written and discussed in a group context. The sample included 95 school children who were asked to report and discuss in a group setting situations or experiences which triggered positive emotions and happiness in them. Guided by their teachers and a school psychologist, they were then asked to write their own original fairy tale drawing on the positive emotions that had previously emerged. Positive emotions were found to be triggered mainly by interpersonal relationships with peers as well as with family members. Hobbies and leisure time were also strongly associated with happiness and hedonic well-being, while personal fulfilment, self-esteem and goal achievement emerged as highly significant for children. In sum, the findings suggest that this school psycho-educative intervention based on narrative strategies provided useful information on children’s well-being and yielded positive feedback, the implications and possible further applications of which are discussed. (shrink)