(1987). An Ethnography of AESA: A Collective Insider's Perspective on the Organization (AESA Presidential Address--1986) Educational Studies: Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 359-373.

The increasing complexity of human subjects research and its oversight has prompted researchers, as well as institutional review boards, to have a forum in which to discuss challenging or novel ethical issues not fully addressed by regulations. Research ethics consultation services provide such a forum. In this article, we rely on the experiences of a national Research Ethics Consultation Collaborative that collected more than 350 research ethics consultations in a repository and published 18 challenging cases with accompanying ethical commentaries to (...) highlight four contexts in which REC can be a valuable resource. REC assists: 1) investigators before and after the regulatory review; 2) investigators, IRBs, and other research administrators facing challenging and novel ethical issues; 3) IRBs and investigators with the increasing challenges of informed consent and risk/benefit analysis; and 4) in providing flexible and collaborative assistance to overcome study hurdles, mediate conflicts within a team, or directly engage with research participants. Institutions that have established, or plan to establish, REC services should work to raise the visibility of their service and engage in open communication with existing clinical ethics consult services as well as the IRB. While the IRB system remains the foundation for the ethical review of research, REC can be a valuable service for investigators, regulators, and research participants aligned with the goal of supporting ethical research. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 116-118.

Children’s understanding of status and group norms influence their expectations about social encounters. However, status is multidimensional and children may perceive status stratification differently across multiple status dimensions. The current study investigated the effect of status level and norms on children’s expectations about intergroup affiliation in wealth and popularity contexts. Participants were randomly assigned to hear two scenarios where a high- or low-status target affiliated with opposite-status groups based on either wealth or popularity. In one scenario, the group expressed an (...) inclusive norm. In the other scenario, the group expressed an exclusive norm. For each scenario, children made predictions about children’s expectations for a target to acquire social resources. Novel findings indicated that children associated wealth status to some extent, but they drew stronger inferences from the wealth dimension than from the popularity dimension. In contrast to previous evidence that children distinguish between high- and low-status groups, we did not find evidence to support this in the context of the current study. In addition, norms of exclusion diminished children’s expectations for acquiring social resources from wealth and popularity groups but this effect was more pronounced between wealth groups. We found age differences in children’s expectations in regards to norms, but not in regards to status. The implications of how these effects, in addition to lack of effects, bear on children’s expectations about acquiring resources are discussed. (shrink)

In Western industrialized countries, women report using health services, and certain medications, more often than do men. Often, analyses are based on data that exclude objective measures of morbidity and that come from cross-sectional surveys, which precludes the use of socioeconomic covariates that are endogenous to seeking care. Here, differences in objective cognitive and physical function, as well as differences in reporting on illness, propensity to seek care, and socioeconomic resources are expected to account for differences in care-seeking behaviour among (...) women and men. This model is applied to the question of medication use in Ismailia, Egypt, using two waves of survey data and in-home tests of physical function from 896 adults aged 50 years and older. The results show that women use medications more often than do men, and that differences between women and men in reported morbidity and disability, observed cognitive and physical function, and economic resources account for womens and men’s care-seeking behaviour in later life. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 99-101.

René Girard developed his theory largely as a response to what he saw as Freud's profound discovery, namely, a recognition that violence and conflict are at the root of all social relations. Girard, however, rejected Freud's psychology of the autonomous subject and his emphasis on the family of origin dynamics in favor of the intersubjective experience of mimetic desire occurring between persons anywhere at any age. With imitation of others as the guiding theoretical principle of mimetic theory, Girard placed psychological (...) movement in the relational realm and developed a psychology of interdividuality that offers a convincing account of the contagious rivalry that either directly or tacitly flows through much human... (shrink)

Few medieval pilgrims' guides were written in English; even fewer were illuminated. This chapter examines Oxford, Queen's College, MS 357, a manuscript made in England in the late fifteenth century, which possesses both qualities. The manuscript contains a variety of texts written in Latin and English including pilgrims' guides, prayers to be said at holy sites in Palestine, travellers' tales, and descriptions of miracles that have taken place at shrines. It is also exuberantly illuminated. The miniatures begin with an Annunciation (...) and end with Christ in Judgment. These two images form the parentheses around the others in the manuscript, which depict sites in the Holy Land. The miniatures and decoration unite the disparate texts, turning them into a scale model of salvation history and providing a prompt to virtual pilgrimage. (shrink)

This essay considers medieval sewing in light of Austin's speechact theory. Analysing manuscripts, relics, indulgences, and even a bishop's mitre, the article argues that stitching was a way to enact, or intensify, the ritual purpose of objects, whether that was ceremonial, devotional, or authoritative. Whereas a speech act functions by its utterance, stitches act by forming visible and often ceremonious attachments between materials in order to aggrandise, embellish, assert and layer author ity, or swathe an object in textiles as if (...) it were a relic. _German_ Dieser Essay betrachtet mittelalterliches Nähen im Licht von Austins Sprechakttheorie. Indem er Manuskripte, Reliquien, Ablässe und sogar die Mitra eines Bischofs analysiert, argumentiert der Artikel, dass Nähen eine Weise war, den rituellen Gebrauch der Objekte einzusetzen oder zu intensivieren – ob es sich nun um zeremonielle, devotionale, oder autoritative Zwecke handelte. Während ein Sprechakt durch seine Äußerung agiert, handeln Nähstiche, indem sie sichtbare und oft feierliche Verbindungen zwischen Materialien schaffen, um Autorität zu steigern, zu verschönern, zu behaupten und zu schichten – oder um einen Gegenstand in Textilien zu hüllen, als handelte es sich um eine Reliquie. (shrink)

This essay considers medieval sewing in light of Austin's speechact theory. Analysing manuscripts, relics, indulgences, and even a bishop's mitre, the article argues that stitching was a way to enact, or intensify, the ritual purpose of objects, whether that was ceremonial, devotional, or authoritative. Whereas a speech act functions by its utterance, stitches act by forming visible and often ceremonious attachments between materials in order to aggrandise, embellish, assert and layer author ity, or swathe an object in textiles as if (...) it were a relic. (shrink)

Can moments of spiritual atonement (the Holy Grail Experience) be explained away as heightened awareness and other more mundane worldly phenomena? The author posits that part of the puzzle can be accounted for by the following factors: hypnotic phenomena such as time distortion, time orientation, fantasy proneness, absorption and a movement from dissociation to association. Knowledge about sensory modalities, internal dialogues and peripheral sensing, and about meditation and awareness, may also help to verbalise this magical moment of “grace”. Writings on (...) conversion experiences and mysticism may also assist us in investigating this phenomenon, when time stands still, and when for brief moments in life we become absorbed in the wonderment of life at its zenith - a taste of eternity. Contextual elements of prior social isolation and sensory deprivation are investigated as possible contributions to this unique phenomenon. In this conceptual article, the author explores the Holy Grail experience from both spiritual and secular viewpoints. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 6, Edition 1 May 2006. (shrink)

Research is increasingly recognised as a key component of medical curricula, offering a range of benefits including development of skills in evidence-based medicine. The literature indicates that experienced academic supervision or mentoring is important in any research activity and positively influences research output. The aim of this project was to investigate the human research ethics experiences and knowledge of three groups: medical students, and university academic staff and clinicians eligible to supervise medical student research projects; at two Australian universities. Training (...) in research ethics was low amongst academic staff and clinicians eligible to supervise medical student research. Only two-thirds of academic staff and students and less than half of clinicians surveyed indicated that specific patient consent was required for a doctor to include patient medical records within a research publication. There was limited awareness of requirements for participant information and consent forms amongst all groups. In the case of clinical trials, fewer clinicians and students than academics indicated there was a requirement to obtain consent. Awareness of the ethics committee focus on respect was low across all groups. This project has identified significant gaps in human research ethics understanding among medical students, and university academic staff and clinicians. The incorporation of research within medical curricula provides the impetus for medical schools and their institutions to ensure that academic staff and clinicians who are eligible and qualified to supervise students’ research projects are appropriately trained in human research ethics. (shrink)

Every so often a book comes along that transforms one’s perspective on a major development in the history of science. Kenneth Caneva’s is one of them. Built upon decades of immersion in the primary...

Background: Clinical genomic implementation studies pose challenges for informed consent. Consent forms often include complex language and concepts, which can be a barrier to diverse enrollment, and these studies often blur traditional research-clinical boundaries. There is a move toward self-directed, web-based research enrollment, but more evidence is needed about how these enrollment approaches work in practice. In this study, we developed and evaluated a literacy-focused, web-based consent approach to support enrollment of diverse participants in an ongoing clinical genomic implementation study. (...) Methods: As part of the Cancer Health Assessments Reaching Many (CHARM) study, we developed a web-based consent approach that featured plain language, multimedia, and separate descriptions of clinical care and research activities. CHARM offered clinical exome sequencing to individuals at high risk of hereditary cancer. We interviewed CHARM participants about their reactions to the consent approach. We audio recorded, transcribed, and coded interviews using a deductively and inductively derived codebook. We reviewed coded excerpts as a team to identify overarching themes. Results: We conducted 32 interviews, including 12 (38%) in Spanish. Most (69%) enrolled without assistance from study staff, usually on a mobile phone. Those who completed enrollment in one day spent an average of 12 minutes on the consent portion. Interviewees found the information simple to read but comprehensive, were neutral to positive about the multimedia support, and identified increased access to testing in the study as the key difference from clinical care. Conclusions: This study showed that interviewees found our literacy-focused, web-based consent approach acceptable; did not distinguish the consent materials from other online study processes; and valued getting access to testing in the study. Overall, conducting empirical bioethics research in an ongoing clinical trial was useful to demonstrate the acceptability of our novel consent approach but posed practical challenges. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page 22-23.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 9, Page 42-43, September 2011.

Participants in this study were ethnic Hungarian secondary students attending high schools in Romania in which Hungarian was the primary language of instruction. Attitudes of participants toward ethnic and cultural groups were measured using a variation of the Bogardus (1933) Scale of Social Distance. Results were consistent with predictions based on Allport's intergroup contact theory. Students reported a wide range of tolerance levels for majority and minority ethnic groups with which they were likely to have contact in Romania. However, the (...) students reported little difference in tolerance levels for groups that are not a recognized part of the Romanian cultural landscape, such as people of Hispanic origin, and Native Americans. (shrink)