Although content related to parenting Autistic children is common in online media, little attention is paid to the experiences of Autistic parents. There is a growing trend of parents receiving autism diagnoses after their children are diagnosed, yet a basic Google search on “parents” and “autism” reveals myriad data on the experiences of parents of Autistic children and little on experiences of Autistic parents. A systematic online search, augmented with a “crowd-sourcing” request to online parent support groups, identified only 15 (...) articles and blogs that discuss Autistic parenting in advocacy, lifestyle, and parenting websites. This article explores the scope and content of Autistic parenting discourse in these online media to consider how the experiences of Autistic parents are conceptualized and situated within broader narratives of neurodiversity, autism and parenting. Media discourse focused on women who had received their autism diagnosis in adulthood, their experiences navigating their diagnoses, minimizing parenting challenges, and pushing back against autism stereotypes, with the majority of content intended for Allistic audiences. Recent increased recognition of autism in women has coincided with a new interest in Autistic parenthood, raising questions about gendered assumptions and disabled mothering. The media narrative includes “defying stereotypes” and “proving” autism is compatible with parenthood, echoing mainstream beliefs. Social justice issues reinscribed in the narrative illustrate how centring the voices of Autistic parents can reconceptualize public perception of autism and bridge the disconnect between parenting Autistic children, and Autistic parenting of children. (shrink)

Description: Ancient Indian logic by itself is a very vast subject. The ancient Sanskrit term nyaya which was first used in a different or in a much more general sense, was later specifically applied to the Nyaya school. The physics and physiology and psychology of the Nyaya doctrine are not specifically its own, being from the first indistinguishable from those of its sister Sastra, the Vaisesika. What characterizes it specifically is the development of the nyaya or five-membered method of demonstration (...) and its insistence on the four sources of knowledge, corresponding to the first four members of its demonstrative formula, or 'Syllogism.' The importance of Nyaya is in its doctrine of the pramanas, or sources of proof, and in its formulation of the nyaya, or method of demonstration. Indian Logic in its Early Schools by H.N. Randle is an interpretation of Indian logical theory in its historical development based on the study of original texts wherever reference to Nyaya as a method of logic has been made, and thus, covers a very wide field of Indian philosophy. An indispensable work for students of Indian philosophy, it is especially important for those who are interested in Nyayadarsana in its relation to the early logic of other schools. (shrink)

The meaning-maintenance model posits that any violation of expectations leads to an affective experience that motivates compensatory affirmation. We explore whether the neural mechanism that responds to meaning threats can be inhibited by acetaminophen, in the same way that acetaminophen inhibits physical pain or the distress caused by social rejection. In two studies, participants received either acetaminophen or a placebo and were provided with either an unsettling experience or a control experience. In Study 1, participants wrote about either their death (...) or a control topic. In Study 2, participants watched either a surrealist film clip or a control film clip. In both studies, participants in the meaning-threat condition who had taken a placebo showed typical compensatory affirmations by becoming more punitive toward lawbreakers, whereas those who had taken acetaminophen, and those in the control conditions, did not. (shrink)

In this special section, Ekman and Cordaro (2011); Izard (2011); Levenson (2011); and Panksepp and Watt (2011) have each outlined the latest instantiation of each lead author’s theoretical model of basic emotions. We identify four themes emerging from these models, and discuss areas of agreement and disagreement. We then briefly evaluate the models’ usefulness by examining how they would account for an emotion that has received considerable empirical attention but does not fit clearly within or outside of the basic emotion (...) category: pride. Finally, we compare the central themes covered by the four models with themes emerging from current emotion research, to conclude that, for the most part, the models are comprehensive; they largely converge with the current state of affective science research. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein gave priority to aesthetics over other disciplines due to its invaluable capacities for revealing certain aspects of the nature of human understanding and for guiding our actions toward an ethical life. Although Wittgenstein did not focus on these issues in a systematic way, these worries were present in his philosophy during his lifetime. That is why I use a very wide range of his writings, from the Tractatus to letters and diaries. Aesthetic inquiries can throw light upon the (...) existence of an intransitive understanding–that is, a kind of knowledge that cannot be expressed by language shared by all competent users of a language. I also discuss Wittgenstein’s conception of ethics in order to explain the close relationship that he proposed between ethics and aesthetics. I hope this will clarify why he believed there was so much to learn from paintings, films, music, poems, or novels. I compare works of art and religious belief and how the former can help us to guide our lives as the latter does. I do this while extending the scope and claiming the importance of aesthetic education, given that it can help us to deal with our nature and with our history. (shrink)

Elementary Buddhist logic and dialectical studies.

In this article I attempt to redefine the role of a music teacher as being more than a director. To begin, I quote Michael Mark, who writes about how the legendary band director William Revelli was remembered in the small town of Hobart, Indiana, where he started the first band program in that town: [E]ach student was at least as motivated by a fear that the band might lose. The band had established a reputation—Hobart was expected to win, and winning (...) became a tradition which had to be upheld at each subsequent contest. . . . After 1930, any other rating would have been considered a failure—a personal failure for every band member, a failure to maintain the tradition of the Hobart band.1 Revelli .. (shrink)

Drawing on theories of masculinities, I analyze how a U.S. government funded “responsible fatherhood” program utilized a political discourse of hybrid masculinity to shape disadvantaged men’s ideas of successful fathering. Using data from three sources that uniquely traces how this discourse traveled from policy to program implementation—including analysis of the curriculum, in-depth interviews with 10 staff, and in-depth interviews and focus groups with 64 participating fathers—I theorize hybrid fatherhood. As a discourse of paternal involvement that incorporates stereotypically feminine styles such (...) as emotional expressiveness, hybrid fatherhood discursively reconfigures patriarchy by drawing distinctions between mothering and fathering and dominant and subordinate forms of masculinity as they relate to men’s parenting. I analyze how the promotion of hybrid fatherhood for poor men of color legitimates and sustains gender, race, and class inequalities through U.S. welfare policy. (shrink)

In 2002, the United States federal government created the Healthy Marriage Initiative, a policy that has distributed almost $1 billion in welfare money to marriage education programs. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in classes for a purposive sample of 20 government-approved marriage education programs and textual analysis of more than 3,000 pages of curricular materials, I analyze how U.S. healthy marriage policy addresses issues of gendered communication and power. This case reveals the limitations of what I call ‘‘interpersonal gender interventions,’’ which (...) obscure how gendered ideologies and inequalities are often maintained through institutionalized practices and state action. Specifically, I argue that by focusing on negotiation, communication, and conflict-resolution strategies—or what marriage educators call “relationship skills”—at the interactional level, state-sponsored marriage education masks persistent institutionalized gender inequalities, namely, latent and hidden forms of marital power. More broadly, I use this case to reveal how interpersonal gender interventions will likely have limited utility if individuals learn to develop more gender-egalitarian beliefs in the absence of institutional changes that enable them to act on these values. (shrink)

In the 1996 overhaul of federal welfare legislation, Congress included provisions to promote employment, marriage, and responsible fatherhood to prevent poverty among low-income families. Little previous research has focused on how marriage promotion policies construct paternal identity. Drawing on data from an 18-month study of a federally funded relationship skills program for low-income, unmarried parents, I analyze how responsible fatherhood policies attempt to shape ideas of successful fatherhood and masculinity in the service of the government’s pro-marriage, antipoverty agenda. The program (...) promoted a class-specific version of what I call marital masculinity, one that seeks to redefine marriageability for low-income men by claiming that marriage comes before financial success and encourages fathers to earn more. It did this by targeting fathers’ masculine identities in two ways: first, by emasculating fathers who only provide financially for their children, and second, by promoting a highly gendered conception of paternal caregiving. By analyzing how this strategy can be understood as both empowering and controlling for low-income men, this research adds to the sociological literature on how welfare policies shape paternal identity and gendered family practices. (shrink)

Drawing on feminist theories of parenting and the welfare state, I analyze experiences of diaper need as a case of how gender, class, and race inequalities shape the social organization of caregiving and limited policy responses. Data from in-depth interviews with 70 mothers who experienced diaper need and 40 diaper bank staff revealed obstacles low-income mothers face in managing lack of access to children’s basic needs and how gendered assumptions of parental responsibility thwart public diaper support efforts. I use this (...) case to theorize gender policy vacuums: These occur when gender disparities and ideologies prevent systematic responses to structural problems. Empirically this study contributes to understandings of diaper need as a problem of the gender structure that cannot be solved with alternative diapering methods that assume middle-class, white, androcentric privileges. Theoretically it illuminates key mechanisms by which feminized care labor is devalued and rendered invisible and how this erasure rationalizes lack of redress for gendered inequalities and creates policy gaps around caregiving. (shrink)

On Buddhist logic and dialectical studies.

Elementary Buddhist logic and dialectical studies.