Development is concerned with the transformation of people to foster their health, wholeness and growth. The link between health and development points to religion as potential social capital for development. There is an ongoing debate about the role of pastoral care as a religious resource in global healthcare contexts. This is unfortunately not the case in Africa, as pastoral care has not received sufficient attention for its role in healthcare and development in development discourses. The (...) limited research on pastoral care in healthcare contexts in Africa has implications for African healthcare systems, pastoral care and the delivery of an effective, holistic and quality healthcare service. Taking as its point of departure a thesis about the potential of religion as a social capital resource for development, the article argues for pastoral care as a viable religious resource for healthcare and development. Osmer’s theological task of good practice is employed as an interdisciplinary engagement in dialogue with selective perspectives in the disciplines of development and health and social sciences for appropriate analysis. (shrink)

The practice of pastoral care (cura animarum) over the ages has been informed and influenced by the need to develop creative ways (interventions) to respond to people’s contextual challenges. These approaches have been well documented. However, the history, developments and emerging pastoral care practices in Africa have not been documented. This article, by way of a survey, considers the pastoral care approaches that emerged in Africa from the period when Christianity was (...) introduced to the continent. It addresses three interlinked questions. Firstly, to what extent has pastoral care approaches and practices in Africa been influenced by the African context and developments? Secondly, to what extent has the context and the emerging pastoral care approaches in Africa been discerned from historical developments and documented? Thirdly, what links can be drawn between pastoral care practices in Africa and its historical as well as cultural context? In answering these questions, the article retrieves pastoral care developments in Africa by discerning pastoral care during the periods of Christianity in Africa. The notion of cura animarum as ‘soul care’, referring to care for the whole person (holistic care, i.e., nephesh care) from a Christian spiritual perspective, will be employed as a framework. The assumption guiding the article is that pastoral care practices and approaches in Africa have arisen as responses to the contextual realities being experienced at the interface of Christianity and the African people. These realities arose and persist to this day as a struggle to relate, apply and live out an authentic African Christian life to cope with life in a meaningful way. It concludes by suggesting ways on how pastoral care in Africa should be practiced in the current period and going forward. (shrink)

African communities face various challenges that require different sectors’ interventions to be effectively addressed. Churches as key community structures in Africa along with people experience these life challenges. The situation prompts churches to continually re-examine their role in communities to develop relevant responses that are deeply rooted in Christian approaches and heritage. Pastoral care as a community frontline ministry is expected to intervene practically to address people’s holistic needs. However, the questions that emerge are the following: how (...) can pastoral care practically be performed in a manner that it performs a public community caring role? How can public pastoral care be practically implemented? What models can be employed in providing public pastoral care? This article considers how pastoral care can be practically performed at the intersection of public theology and community development. Pastoral care performed at this intersection is termed public pastoral care. The article discusses and notes the ‘murky’ terrain and ‘apparent confusion’ on the notion of public pastoral care. Furthermore, it employs a church and community mobilisation process case study to progress beyond theoretical discussion to examine how public pastoral care can be operationalised in real-life situations. In doing so, it discerns the possibilities and challenges of positioning pastoral care to address public issues. (shrink)

The professional training of pastoral therapists has been a topic of controversy for many years in South Africa. Up to date, the training of pastoral workers has been limited to the study of ministry and as such is limited by the primary aims and outcomes of this curriculum. In a post-apartheid, post-colonial South Africa, the need for pastoral workers is intensified by the needs of community- and faith-based organisations for trained and registered therapists to alleviate (...) the counselling needs of their beneficiaries on all social levels. This article discusses the current state of affairs of the training and curriculum related to the profession of pastoral therapy in the context of South Africa, the various sociopolitical and religious needs that are still left unanswered in the field, and makes recommendations for the registration and accreditation of the profession with a specific curriculum focused on multicultural, multi-spiritual and post-modern nuances. The author argues that such a curriculum, accredited by a statutory body, can operate as a national health resource, will be more cost-effective than other related health services and may transform the social justice landscape related to both the providers and beneficiaries of this type of care. (shrink)

This article argues that the challenge and need for relevant ministry models is critical for effective Christian ministry and pastoral ministry as practical life ministry. It establishes an Adamic Christological model as a paradigm that provides a practical effective ministerial approach in Africa, particularly within the context of pastoral care and healing. This framework reveals Christ’s complete identification with African Christians in their contextual sufferings as the New Adam without compromising authentic gospel reality. In employing the (...) Adamic Christological framework as the anchor for African pastoral and healing ministry, a model for African Christians’ daily response to their various contextual sufferings is constructed. This responsive model bridges the gap between the ascension of Christ and the interim period of Christianity by instituting God’s ongoing personal presence in believers’ suffering through the Holy Spirit (pneumatology) as an encouraging and comforting reality that should enable Christians to cope in their suffering. It is argued that this Adamic Christological framework provides a practical theological model that contributes to healing and hope in pastoral care through practical knowing that impacts and imparts meaning in life. (shrink)

Bishop Paul Verryn is a South African Methodist Church liberation theologian known for his concern for human rights and human dignity. In this article, I acknowledge his response to children and youth migrants in practical theology, general mission studies and pastoral care. I conceptualise Bishop Verryn’s response towards Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URMs) and explore how he weaves pastoral care into the mission of the church. The study from which this article draws followed an exploratory design. Data (...) were collected through structured in-depth interviews, informal conversations with Bishop Verryn and observations. Written from a contextual theology perspective, the findings indicate that Bishop Verryn’s pastoral care approach towards URMs is worthy to be developed and recognised as a form of pastoral care and mission work for the broader church’s pastoral ministry towards URMs in Africa and abroad. (shrink)

The situation and challenges of young people with depression in the urban African context of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, are investigated from a pastoral care perspective. Depression is one of the more prevalent mental disorders. In African contexts it is often equated with demon possession. The aim of this article is to investigate the interplay between Western understandings of depression and African perspectives, and to come to a deeper understanding of the way in which support and healing (...) are approached in this context. The article investigates the ways in which young South Africans in Soweto, their families and faith communities cope with and understand ‘depression’ on the one hand, and the culturally related phenomenon of ‘demon possession’ on the other. The article proposes a collaborative method of providing support which requires the cooperation of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, African spiritual healers and pastoral caregivers. Contribution: The article contributes to an understanding of the experience of depression among young people in a context where both Western psychological ideas and African cultural and religious beliefs with regard to demon possession, play a role. Professionals from the various relevant fields should collaborate in order to provide effective support. (shrink)

This pastoral-theology-based reflection on hospital chaplaincy, set within the horizon of the pastoral situation of Germany in the post-secular (!) age, introduces the perspective of a consolation-oriented ministry, as this was developed by Ignatius of Loyola. Such a pastoral care for the sick, as integrated into the basic offices of the church, presents a graded model for action: while human accompaniment is offered to all, spiritual ministry is restricted, but realized in an ecumenically encompassing sense. Spiritual (...) and ritual care for members of other religions, while these members are to be addressed according to the principles laid down by Vatican II, is severely limited for reasons of identity and alterity. In all cases, however, Christianity is presented as “therapeutic religion”. (shrink)

This article explores how ministerial and leadership formation could be enabled to adopt transformational diaconia in addressing poverty in South Africa, engaging in ways in which pastoral care and leadership formation can respond to the addressing of poverty. The fact that transformation aims at changing the worldviews, paradigms and approaches to life and problem solving informs the author’s concept of transformational diaconia, which was proposed as an aspect of spiritual leadership capital (SLC), defined as, ‘The inner virtues (...) afforded individuals by their spirituality in formulating their leadership paradigms which contributes to social capital formation for addressing social problems’. Spiritual leadership capital is hereby argued to be a transformative spirituality that can enable an understanding and sustainable responses to poverty and other social problems. This is needed for Africa and particularly for the present day South Africa, seemingly a country with the best infrastructure in Africa; yet its poverty seems pronounced because the dregs of apartheid still lurk in the social fibre, where poor people blame rich people for their plight and vice versa. Bowers Du Toit’s view that ‘[m]ost congregations respond to poverty by providing relief and not empowerment’, re-echoes here. From a mixed-methods research, SLC is a theory recently advanced as a congregational development paradigm and a theology of poverty, which views public theology as an educative praxis that can respond to transformational needs in poverty-related contexts. The authors suggest that for a Church that is responsive to the plight of society, fresh empowerment approaches to address poverty are needed. (shrink)

Pastoral care is a biblical mandate to the Church to be involved in the lives of God's peop A key metaphor used by Jesus to describe his pastoral role was that of a shepherd. Thi to be God's shepherds and instruments of healing and transformation in God's world is imperative to all people, clergy and laity alike. The brokenness in South African society strikingly apparent, exacerbated by the effects of exceptionally high criminal behaviour statistics show. The demand (...) for pastoral care and assistance with various personal proble is on the increase, with many non-church goers turning to churches for help. Also appare in South Africa is the acute shortage of trained individuals to offer care and counselling. T task of offering care is not the sole responsibility of clergy, as all are called to be shepherds a caregivers. The importance and urgency in training church-based counselling teams cannot overstated. More so in that we are becoming increasingly aware that not only are individu in need of care, but whole communities are struggling with trauma and life's challenges, a often do not know whom to turn to. In pursuance of the realisation that pastoral care is t function and duty of all Christians, this article will delineate in particular an explanation lay counselling, reasons for its importance including biblical foundations, where and ho ordinary South Africans can get involved, and will propose certain models and approach for getting started. These models will not be discussed in depth, but present an opportun for the next. Teams for these models consist of professional counsellors, but ought not to restricted to a select few, as all are called to this special ministry and can be trained for t task, which will include on-going supervision and mentoring. The overall purpose of t article is to highlight the urgency of training lay counsellors and some recommendations w be made how to apply it, in an attempt to be faithful to the biblical mandate and examples by Jesus Christ. (shrink)

Gender-based Violence is a huge concern in many African countries such as Zimbabwe despite the preventative and mitigatory interventions that have been proposed and implemented by various stakeholders. The interventions applied range from policies and programmes that are government initiated as well as those interventions by social actors such as non-government organisations and Faith-based Organisations like churches. Gender-based violence as a social structural issue is sustained and perpetuated by cultural norms, values and beliefs that are fed by patriarchy, among other (...) things. To effectively respond to the situation, interventions should target multiple social levels, including policy, government officials’ attitudes, individual men and women, families, community leaders and structures and social institutions such as churches. Churches are a critical community social institution that could play a pivotal role in addressing GBV. To position churches as players on public issues such as GBV, the questions that emerge are: ‘What is the role of the church in a public problem such as GBV? How could churches conceive and perform a public ministerial role that addresses GBV?’ To respond to these questions, this article employs the idea of public pastoral care as a nexus that churches could utilise in performing a community and public role function in contributing towards addressing GBV. Firstly, the article sketches the context of GBV in Zimbabwe and the various efforts to address it. Secondly, it outlines the ambivalent role of churches in GBV. Thirdly, it conceptualises the notion of public pastoral care as an approach that could be employed by churches to address GBV. Lastly, it proposes some public practical approaches that could be employed in addressing GBV by churches. (shrink)

The African proverb ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ has been compromised and exposed by the migration of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Written from African women’s perspective, this article explores the response and approach of Bishop Paul Verryn to URMs. The article theologises Verryn’s response to URMs in conversation with African values, themes or sayings that relate to childcare, mainly from a Zimbabwean Ndebele context, and through the lens of the African saying ‘It (...) takes a village to raise a child’. In the findings, three crucial socio-ecclesial themes emerge from Verryn’s response which I refer to as the three Cs, namely, collaboration, consultation and contextuality. These are discussed through the lens of African women’s theology in relation to African values of childcare and its implications for pastoral care in a context of displaced children, and accompanied or unaccompanied minors. (shrink)

In the moment of grief, people need consolation coming from the very core of human existence: living communication with one’s source of being. This communication ensues stories of life-sustaining one’s self-identity and spiritual vitality. When a story of life enlightens one’s experience of grief, it becomes a curative force for one’s soul-healing process. Yet if the life story becomes ineffective, it needs an “editing” process—or a revision—to get a meaning reconstruction that is more compatible with the grief situation. Using a (...) postcolonial ethnography, we evaluate the pastoral care done by Nias Christian Church for people experiencing grief. We will describe a theoretical framework to argue that pastoral care is fundamentally an editing process of the story of life-sustaining the well-being of the human soul. We, then, will describe the Nias tradition on grief. Finally, we will discuss how the church should develop pastoral care interculturally. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals often face ethical conflicts and challenges related to decision-making that have necessitated consideration of the use of conscientious objection (CO). No current guidelines exist within Spain’s healthcare system regarding acceptable rationales for CO, the appropriate application of CO, or practical means to support healthcare professionals who wish to become conscientious objectors. As such, a procedural framework is needed that not only assures the appropriate use of CO by healthcare professionals but also demonstrates its ethical validity, legislative compliance through (...) protection of moral freedoms and patients’ rights to receive health care. Our proposal consists of prerequisites of eligibility for CO (individual reference, specific clinical context, ethical justification, assurance of non-discrimination, professional consistency, attitude of mutual respect, assurance of patient rights and safety) and a procedural process (notification and preparation, documentation and confidentiality, evaluation of prerequisites, non-abandonment, transparency, allowance for unforeseen objection, compensatory responsibilities, access to guidance and/or consultative advice, and organizational guarantee of professional substitution). We illustrate the real-world utility of the proposed framework through a case discussion in which our guidelines are applied. (shrink)

South Africa suffers a scourge of domestic violence. Colonial oppression upset the delicate balance between 'discipline' and 'protection' in traditional cultures. The full consequence of a patriarchal mindset of male control is unleashed on girls and women. The aim of this article is to investigate how the cycle of domestic violence can be broken and what role pastoral counsellors can play with regard to both victims and offenders in order to prevent history from repeating itself. The article also (...) investigates the extent to which legislation has succeeded in protecting individuals. Pastoral care and counselling comprise both spiritual and emotional support. The combination of two counselling methods compatible with religious themes such as 'hope' and 'new life', namely logotherapy and narrative pastoral counselling, is presented as an effective response to domestic violence. (shrink)

Universities’ teaching and learning strategies aim to prepare students for life and the workplace by creating a culture of innovation to solve real-life problems, so that they can participate constructively in society and lead fulfilling professional and personal lives. In order to reach this goal, teaching and learning must have at least three paradigms, namely pedagogical, cognitive and pragmatic or instrumentalist. A pragmatic paradigm presupposes practical, experiential teaching and learning. This paper explores interactive means within the pragmatic paradigm that can (...) be included in the pastoral modules of theology education. The epistemology is from a practical theological perspective.Contribution: The contribution of this article is that experiential role-play activities can have a positive impact in the pedagogy of pastoral care and counselling. The insight of this article links with the developmental goals for effective theological education in South Africa. (shrink)

Training for sustainable development is an educational challenge of prime importance. Physical activity and sports in natural environments provide training committed to sustainability and environmental education. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of an undergraduate training program in Physical Activities and Sports in Natural Environments concerned with sustainable development. A total of 113 students from the Autonomous University of Madrid who are studying a Bachelor’s Degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences and a Master’s Degree in (...) Teacher Training for Secondary Education and High School were involved. Specifically, we aimed to assess the impact of this training program on three dimensions related to Environmental Education. Its effect was also examined bearing in mind students’ sex, age and educational profile. Mixed-methods were used: for the quantitative approach, data were collected with the Environmental Attitude in Physical Activities in Natural Environments validated scale; for the qualitative approach individual reflective diaries completed by students that attended the program were analyzed. The results show positive effects on the students regarding the three dimensions of Environmental Education, for both the sportive and educational training profiles. The quantitative results do not present significant differences concerning the gender variable, although the qualitative information shows that female students perceived a greater environmental sensitivity during their practices. Regarding the age variable, significant differences are found in the youngest students with an educational profile. To conclude, the study ratifies that the program carried out generated improvements in terms of knowledge, behaviors and attitudes toward the environment and sustainable development. Future research should use larger samples and consider other variables related to education for sustainability. (shrink)

We live in an era of unprecedented interconnectivity and challenges that require global mindsets and creative approaches. While research on global identification has increased in recent years, the question of whether it can facilitate creativity remains largely unexplored. Moreover, despite the evidence linking multicultural experiences and global identities, migrant populations have been overly underrepresented in this area of research. We examine the association between global culture identification and creativity in the Alternate Uses Test, across two different samples residing in Spain: (...) a host national and majorly student sample and a culturally diverse immigrant sample. Additionally, we test the predictive value of ethnic identification and host culture identification. Regression analyses reveal that global culture identification positively predicts creativity among host national participants, and host culture identification predicts creativity among immigrant participants. Our results suggest that developing a cultural identity that transcends the one acquired through enculturation has the potential of facilitating creative behavior. (shrink)

With the advent of new AIDS treatment initiatives such as the World Health Organization's “3 by 5” program and the United States' “President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief,” the ethical questions about AIDS care in the developing world have changed. No longer are they fundamentally about the conduct of research; now, we must turn our attention to developing treatment programs. In particular, we must think about how to spread limited treatment resources among the vast reservoir of people who need (...) them. (shrink)

Chapter 1 First Person Access to Mental States. Mind Science and Subjective Qualities -/- Abstract. The philosophy of mind as we know it today starts with Ryle. What defines and at the same time differentiates it from the previous tradition of study on mind is the persuasion that any rigorous approach to mental phenomena must conform to the criteria of scientificity applied by the natural sciences, i.e. its investigations and results must be intersubjectively and publicly controllable. In Ryle’s view, philosophy (...) of mind needs to adopt an antimentalist stance to achieve this aim. Antimentalism not only definitively rejects the idea that mind is a substance separated from the body, it also denies that mental phenomena radically differ from physical phenomena by virtue of several unique features. Most problematically, mental phenomena have a conscious character (mental states are related to specific qualitative feelings) and are accessible only to the first-person (only the subject knows directly what s/he is experiencing inside his/her mind). Ryle takes a strong stance on antimentalism going so far as to maintain that an approach to mind which aims to meet the criteria of scientificity set by the natural sciences must avoid any reference to internal, unobservable mental states. In his view (which is considered a specifically philosophical version of psychological behaviorism and also addresses questions put forward in psychological research), mental states can be redescribed in terms of behavioral dispositions. In this chapter, we address the historical roots of the antimentalist view and analyze its relation to the later tradition of research on mind. We show that, compared to the antimentalist stance, functionalism and cognitivism take a step back when they maintain that direct reference to mental states is necessary since mental states cause and therefore explain human behavior. This step backwards is often interpreted as a return to mentalism. However, this is only partially true. Indeed, we suggest that these later traditions retain one important element of Ryle’s antimentalism, i.e. the idea that mental states must be uniquely identified using external and publicly observable criteria, while excluding any reference to introspection and those qualitative dimensions of a mental state, which are accessible only to the first-person. According to the perspective we put forward, this epistemological stance has continued to influence contemporary research on mind and current philosophical and psychological theories which both tend to exclude the subjective qualities of human experience from their accounts of how the mind works. The issue we raise here is whether this is legitimate or whether subjective qualities do play a role with respect to the way our mind works. The conclusion of this chapter anticipates the argument the book makes in in favor of this latter position, starting from a particular angle, i.e. the problem of how we categorize concepts related to our internal states. -/- Chapter 2 The Misleading Aspects of the Mind/Computer Analogy. The Grounding Problem and the Thorny Issue of Propriosensitive Information -/- Abstract. After the crisis of behaviorism, cognitivism and functionalism became the predominant models in the field of psychology and of philosophy, respectively. Their success is mainly due to the new key they use for interpreting mental processes: the mind/computer analogy. On the basis of this analogy, mental operations are seen as cognitive processes based on computations, i.e. on manipulations of abstract symbols which are in turn understood as informational unities (representations). This chapter identifies two main problems with this model. The first is how these symbols can relate to and communicate with perception and thus allow us to identify and classify what we perceive through the senses. Here we limit ourselves to presenting this issue in relation to the classical symbol grounding problem originally put forward by Harnad on the basis of Searle’s Chinese room argument. An attempt to address the problem raised here will be made in chap. 3. The second point we discuss in relation to the mind/computer analogy concerns the idea of information it fosters. Indeed, following this analogy, information is something available in the external world which can be captured by the senses and transmitted to the central system without being influenced or modified by the procedures of transmission. This perspective does not take into account that – unlike computers – in living beings information is acquired by means of the body. As Ulric Neisser has already pointed out, the body is itself an informational source that provides us with additional sensory experience that influences (modifies or complements) the information extracted from the external world by the senses. To develop this line of analysis and to determine exactly what information is provided by the body and how this might influence cognition, we examine Sherrington’s and Gibson’s positions. Moving on from their views, we qualify bodily information in terms of ‘proprioception’. We use ‘proprioception’ in a broad sense to describe any kind of experience we have of our internal states (including postural information as well as sensations related to the general state of the body and its parts). Following Damasio’s and Craig’s studies, we further elaborate this position, arguing that living beings are equipped with an internal propriosensitive monitoring system which maps all the changes that constantly occur in our body and that give us perceptual (‘proprioceptive’ or propriosensitive) information about what happens inside us. Moreover, relying on Goldie’s and Ratcliffe’s view, we show that emotional information can also be considered as a form of ‘proprioception’ which contributes to determining everything we perceive. This analysis leads us to the second main thesis of this book: ‘proprioception’ is a form of internal perception and it is an essential component of the sensory information we can access and use for all cognitive purposes. -/- Chapter 3 Semantic Competence from the Inside: Conceptual Architecture and Composition -/- Abstract. Concepts are essential constituents of thought: they are the instruments we use to categorize our experience, i.e. to classify things and group them together in homogeneous sets. Here we define concepts as the internal mental information (representations) that allows us, among other things, to master words in natural language. By analyzing the way in which individuals master word meanings we explore a number of hypotheses regarding the nature of concepts. Following Diego Marconi’s research, we differentiate between two kind of abilities that underpin lexical competence – so-called ‘referential’ and ‘inferential competence’ – and we suggest that, in order to support these abilities, concepts must also include two corresponding kinds of information, i.e. inferential and referential information. We point out that the most widely used and acknowledged theories of concepts do not make this distinction, instead broadly characterizing the information used for categorization in terms of propositionally described feature lists. However, we show that while feature lists can explain inferential competence, they do not account for referential competence. To address the issue of referential competence we examine Ray Jackendoff’s hypothesis that to account for the possibility of linking perceptual and conceptual information we need to assume the existence of a (visual) representation that encodes the geometric and topological properties of objects and bridges the gap between the percept and the concept. Furthermore, we analyze the extension of this work by Jesse Prinz who introduced the notion of a proxytype, a perceptual representation of a class of objects that incorporates structural and parametric information related to their appearance. However, as we point out, proxytypes can only explain the relationship between perception and concepts with respect to instances that can be perceived through the senses and that belong to the same class by virtue of their physical similarity. We suggest that this notion be extended to include larger conceptual classes. To accomplish this, we further develop Mark Johnson, George Lakoff and Jean Mandler’s idea of a schematic image and argue that conceptual representations include a perceptual schema. Perceptual schemata are non-linguistic, structured experiential gestalts (patterns or maps) that make use of information taken from all sensory modalities, including body perception. They accomplish a quasi-conceptual function: they allow us to recognize and to classify different instances. In this work, we hypothesize that perceptual schemata are an essential component of concepts, but not identical to them. Instead, we suggest that concepts include both perceptual and propositional information with perceptual schemata providing the ‘perceptual core concept’ that grounds related propositional information. -/- Chapter 4 In the Beginning There Were Categories. The Bodily Origin of Prelinguistic Categorical Organization: The Example of Folkbiological Taxonomies -/- Abstract. Studies of categorization in psychology and the cognitive sciences have made use of the notions of ‘category’ and ‘concept’ without precisely defining what is meant by either; in fact, often these terms have been used as synonyms, making it difficult to address specific issues related to conceptual development. This chapter begins by discussing the definitions of, as well as the distinctions between, ‘categories’ and ‘concepts’ in the classical philosophical tradition (Aristotle, Kant and Husserl). We introduce our view of categories with reference to Husserl. Categorization is defined as the way in which our experience is originally (pre-linguistically) organized in a passive and fully unconscious manner on the basis of universal structuring principles. Conceptualization is explained as a later process in which the earlier categorical macro-classes are further subdivided into more specific and detailed sets; this later process also relies on linguistic learning and exposure to culture. On the basis of Ray Jackendoff, Jean Mandler, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s work, we hypothesize that categorization is a two-step process that begins with the formation of homogeneous sets of entities partitioned into regions that describe the ontological boundaries of the objects that humans perceive (categories) and continues at a later stage with the development of more specific classifications (concepts). In this chapter, we mainly address three related issues: Why should we assume that there is categorical organization which precedes the development of a conceptual system? How do categories and concepts relate to each other? Shall we hypothesize that categories are innate or that they are formed before concepts on the basis of information and organizational structure available at a very early developmental stage? We show that categorical partitions are necessary for categorization and, following Mandler, that the general categories we form at an early age do not match our adult superordinate concepts. As for the third issue, we argue that there might be no need to assume that categories are innately present in the human mind, since their formation can be explained – at least in certain cases – by basic mechanisms that work on body (propriosensitive) information. This hypothesis will not be discussed in general, but in relation to a particularly relevant example of categorical partition, i.e. the folk-biological dichotomy between ANIMATE/INANIMATE. This is compared with other dichotomies that derive from it, but are not directly categorical such as LIVING/NON-LIVING and BIOLOGICAL/NON-BIOLOGICAL. -/- Chapter 5 Internal States: From Headache to Anger. Conceptualization and Semantic Mastery -/- Abstract. Here we ask if we can also apply the distinction between referential and inferential competence we introduced in Chapter 3 to words that do not refer to things that are perceived using the external senses, especially to words/concepts that denote bodily experiences (such as pain, thirst, hunger, etc.) or emotions. We introduce and discuss the hypothesis that – even though such words/concepts do not refer to intersubjectively identifiable entities in the external world – they do have a kind of referent that can be accessed via direct perception, more specifically ‘proprioception’, as we have defined it in terms of all propriosensitive information we can consciously access. In the first part of the chapter, we specifically consider terms denoting bodily experiences such as ‘pain’ or ‘hunger’ and argue that their referents are identified and classified from a first-personal point of view on the basis of four main characteristics: their specific intensity, their localization in the body, their co-occurrence with other signals and above all their specific qualitative sensations. Emotions are addressed in the second part of the chapter. We suggest that there is a continuity between bodily experiences and emotions. In particular, we argue for a perceptual theory of emotions in line with that proposed by James and Lange at the end of the 19th century and developed more recently by authors such as Damasio (see also chap. 2§5, §6). The hypothesis we put forward is that the referential information that supports the categorization of emotions and therefore also our mastery of terms referring to emotions consists in the perception (i.e. the ‘proprioception’) of those bodily states and changes in bodily states which constitute our emotional experience. In the context of this discussion we examine some objections to this line of reasoning that arise from a cognitivist perspective and following authors such as Oatley, Johnson-Laird and Frijda, we distinguish between basic emotions that can be identified and classified solely on the basis on how they feel and complex emotions whose identification and classification additionally depends on cognitive factors. To describe how emotions are identified and classified on the basis of how they feel, we rely on Marcel and Lambie’s distinction between an ‘emotion state’ and an ‘emotion experience’. Both notions indicate kinds of feelings that we consciously experience. However, they describe first-order and second order emotion awareness respectively. The emotion state is the feeling we have of the bodily states and changes that occur when we are experiencing an emotion, while the emotion experience is the fully developed and integrated emotion we both experience and are, with reflection, aware of experiencing. On the basis of this differentiation, we also show that the same characteristics that aid in the identification and classification of bodily experiences (specific qualitative sensations; somatic localization; specific intensity; presence/absence of specific concomitant sensations) can also be used for the identification and classification of emotions – at least basic emotions. In the last two sections of the chapter we present some clinical evidence on the semantic competence of people who suffer from Alexithymia and Autism Spectrum Disorder which supports the conclusions of our preceding analyses. -/- Chapter 6 The ‘Proprioceptive’ Component of Abstract Concepts -/- Abstract. In this chapter, we address the issue of whether the mastery of abstract words requires only inferential knowledge and thus, if the concepts that support the mastery of abstract words include only linguistic information. We start by differentiating the notions of ‘abstract’ and ‘general’ which are often erroneously confused. We then identify a strict definition of abstract, as contrasted with ‘concrete’, that applies to words or concepts whose referent cannot be experienced by the senses. We argue that abstract words/concepts would be better described as theoretical, because they are usually conceived as structured sets of inferential knowledge expressed linguistically; that is, as small theories. Pointing out parallels with Carnap’s analysis of this issue in philosophy of science, we hypothesize that words/concepts denoting non-observable entities are not all ‘equally theoretical’, because their link to sensory experience can be stronger or weaker. We revive the distinction, inspired by Quine, between theoretical and intertheoretical concepts/words. This distinction relies on the fact that the former – unlike the latter – retains a strong, although indirect, connection with perception. In Quine’s discussion, perception is understood uniquely in terms of observability, i.e. of external sensory experience. Here we argue, however, that bodily, ‘proprioceptive’ (i.e. propriosensitive) experience can also serve to referentially ground theoretical (i.e. abstract) concepts/words. We frame this issue using the example of the theoretical concept ‘freedom’ and Lakoff’s hypothesis that this concept is developed on the basis of bodily information. We contrast this with the example of ‘democracy’ which more closely resembles an intertheoretical concept/word. Furthermore, we show that one of the classical views put forward in psycholinguistic research to explain how abstract concepts are mentally represented – i.e. Paivio’s Dual Coding Theory – points in the same direction as our analysis. The same is true of Barsalou’s work suggesting that we use internal information to understand at least some abstract words. To sustain this position, we put forward two lines of evidence: the first comes from psycholinguistic studies while the second examines deficits of semantic competence exhibited by people with Autism Spectrum Disorder. On the basis of our analysis, we put forward a classification that distinguishes between different kinds of concreteness and different degrees of abstraction: concepts/words referring to body experiences and basic emotions are described as analogous to concrete concepts/words because they are grounded in perceptual (i.e. propriosensitive) experience, while abstract concepts/words are considered more or less abstract depending on whether they are intratheoretical (and rely entirely on inferential information) or theoretical (and are partially grounded in perceptual – or more often in propriosensitive perceptual – information). In the last section of the chapter we consider two scales that have been used in psycholinguistic research to measure the degree of concreteness vs. abstractness of words and we show that – used conjointly – they can provide a measure of the internal vs. external grounding of specific words. (shrink)

Counterfactual definiteness is supposed to underlie the Bell theorem. An old controversy exists among those who reject the theorem implications by rejecting counterfactual definiteness and those who claim that, since it is a direct consequence of locality, it cannot be independently rejected. We propose a different approach for solving this contentious issue by realizing that counterfactual definiteness is an unnecessary and inconsistent assumption. Counterfactual definiteness is not equivalent to realism or determinism neither it follows from locality. It merely reduces to (...) an incongruent application of counterfactual reasoning. Being incompatible with falsifiability, it constitutes an unjustified assumption that goes against the scientific method rigor. Correct formulations of the Bell theorem’s bases show it is absent either as a fundamental hypothesis or as a consequence of something else. Most importantly, we present a coherent Bell inequality derivation carefully devised to show explicitly and convincingly the absence of incompatible experiments or counterfactual reasoning. Thus, even admitting that counterfactual definiteness could be a consistent assumption, the necessary conclusion is that it is irrelevant for the inequality formulation and can be safely ignored when discussing Bell’s inequality philosophical and physical implications. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in investigating science communication. Some studies that address this issue attempt to develop a model to determine the level of confidence that an author or a scientific community has at a given time towards a theory or a group of theories. A well-established approach suggests that, in order to determine the level of certainty authors have with regard to the statements they make, one can identify specific lexical and morphosyntactical markers which indicate (...) their epistemic attitudes. This method is considered particularly appealing because it permits the development of an algorithmic model based on the quantitative analysis of the occurrence of these markers to assess automatically and objectively the opinion of an author or the predominant opinion of a scientific community on a topic at a given time. In this contribution we show that this line of research presents many kinds of problems especially when it is applied to research articles. To this aim, we propose two main lines of reasoning. The first one relies generally on the argumentative structure of scientific articles and shows that certainty/uncertainty markers are used differently in different argument forms and that therefore their number/frequency of use does not offer reliable indications for determining whether the topic at issue is considered by the authors to be more or less factual/speculative. The second one is based on the analysis of a sample of psychiatric research articles on homosexuality written over a long time span and taken from The British Journal of Psychiatry. Since the psychiatric perspective on homosexuality changed radically during the decades in which these articles were published, they offer an inventory of various kinds of argumentative strategies directed both at defending and confuting dominant as well as marginal positions. We focus especially on uncertainty markers and show that frequently the positions stated using expressions indicating uncertainty are actually not considered as conjectural or speculative by their authors, but that the use of uncertainty markers is motivated by a number of different and often incongruent rhetorical strategies. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper examines the American sojourn of the Enlightenment philosopher and theologian George Berkeley. While living in coastal Rhode Island between 1729 and 1731, Berkeley penned his longest philosophical tract, Alciphron: Or, the Minute Philosopher (1732), which criticized “freethinking,” mechanical conceptions of nature in favor of those that emphasized God's providence. To illustrate these two ways of knowing nature, Berkeley, a careful prose stylist, evoked nearby coastal landscapes for contrast. Accordingly, his work broke down dichotomies between ideas and matter and, (...) by extension, culture and nature, which could, this paper argues, inform an environmental ethic for a “hybrid” world. (shrink)

The article is a critical discussion of "contractualism" in moral and political philosophy as developed by john rawls and applied by w. G. Runciman. It attempts to clarify the sense in which contractualism is a moral theory and to assess its powers as a normative account of moral criticism. It argues that the structure of contractualism suggests an attractive way of formulating rival moral theories but not a way of arguing for any moral theory, That this reduces the force of (...) a contractualist critique of utilitarianism, And that contractualism is incomplete as a normative account of moral criticism. (shrink)

Based on the analysis of primary documentation from interrogation manuals from both the United States and the countries of the South American cone -Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile-, as well as reports issued by the different countries, the aim of the article is to analyse the common patterns in the detention and torture process suffered by guerrillas and insurgents belonging to violent organisations. We also seek to highlight the importance of the US model and the mutual influences between the dictatorships (...) that developed in these Latin American countries in the 1960s and 1970s, and to draw a comparative line in the methodology used by the police and military forces. (shrink)

A rational approach to the Fermi-Walker transport equation is proposed by deriving it from a condition of “non-rotation”. First, the condition is applied to a tetrad basis and then generalized to an arbitrary space-time four-vector. The method is conceptually simple and apart from the use of tetrad bases in four-dimensional space-time, does not require the effort of visualizing abstract geometrical constructs in spaces of more than three dimensions. The argument develops in the context of the flat space-time of special relativity (...) theory but the final result can be immediately extended to curved space-time. (shrink)

This volume delves into the question of how, in an Iberian world apparently far removed from the battlegrounds of modernity and secularisation, doubt and unbelief found fertile soil, stimulated by social and religious developments. Adopting a multidisciplinary perspective, the contributors show how the crisis of identity produced by forced mass conversion touched off inner crises about the nature of Truth. By tracing the path from medieval Spain to the Spanish Inquisition, and from the great literary and artistic works of (...) the Spanish Baroque to Sephardic Marranism, this volume fills a historiographical gap in European social and intellectual history, demonstrating the importance of the Iberian world in the evolution of European scepticism. Mercedes García-Arenal is Research Professor at CSIC, Madrid, and Stefania Pastore is Associate Professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. They work on tolerance and dissent in Early Modern Iberia: on forced conversion, on the violent world of the Inquisition and the debates and protests that it sparked, and on the complex interplay of minorities. They have recently collaborated on After Conversion. Iberia and the Emergence of Modernity (Brill, 2016) and, as editors, Visiones imperiales y profecía. Roma, España, Nuevo Mundo (Abada, 2018). (shrink)

The Cold War, extended from the popularization of its name in 1947 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, functioned a bipolar order in which the White House and the Kremlin set the pace of events. In accordance with the decentralization of the axis of the shock [1], both superpowers chose to avoid direct confrontation and based their strategy on a kind of tactical movements carried out by third parties. The direct consequence was the creation of a breeding (...) ground in developing countries, victims of the competitiveness of both executives and in the specific case of Latin America, in a succession of political disorders that alternated the birth of revolutionary movements and the imposition of military dictatorships. (shrink)

This paper will address Foucault’s analysis of the Hebrew and Christian pastor and argue that Foucault’s analysis of pastoral power in Security, Territory, Population neglects an important characteristic of the shepherd/pastor figure: violence. Despite Foucault’s close analysis of the early development of the Hebrew pastor, he overlooks the role of violence and instead focuses on sacrifice. However the sacrificial pastor does not figure in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Hebrew pastor is called to lead, feed and protect the flock, not (...) sacrifice for them. This is not to suggest that the theme of sacrifice is absent in the Hebrew Scriptures but that sacrifice is not a role attributed to the pastor until Jesus’ reinterpretation of the “good shepherd” in Chapter 10 of The Gospel of John.4 In distinguishing the Hebrew and Christian formulations of the pastor, the roles of violence and sacrifice in each can be understood more clearly. Beginning with the Hebrew Scriptures I will demonstrate the importance of violence in the figure of David as the first “shepherd of men”. I will argue that violence and the ability to protect the flock was a significant and determining characteristic of the Hebrew pastor. Contrary to Foucault’s assertion I will demonstrate that sacrifice was not a role attributed to the Hebrew pastor. While the words and life of Jesus provide a new sacrificial paradigm for understanding the “shepherd of men,” it is Paul who provides the foundation on which the practice of the Christian pastor is established in the Church. Therefore I will examine the writing of Paul to demonstrate the way violence operates in the Christian pastorate. I will argue that sacrifice does not replace violence but violence is subsumed in the sacrificial pastor and continues to operate. Finally I will suggest that the introduction of violence into Foucault’s analysis establishes a deeper connection between pastoral power and biopower. Thus, this connection engenders a richer understanding of the tension in Foucault’s work between care and violence in the poles of biopower: to make live and let die. (shrink)

We examined how children’s strategy choices in solving complex subtraction problems are related to grade and to variations in problem complexity. In two studies, third- and fifth-grade children (N≈160 each study) solved multi-digit subtraction problems (e.g., 34 - 18) and described their solution strategies. In the first experiment, strategy selection was investigated by means of a free-choice paradigm, whereas in the second study a discrete-choice approach was implemented. In both experiments, analyses of strategy repertoire indicated that third-grade children were more (...) likely to report less-efficient strategies (i.e., counting) and relied more on the right-to-left solution algorithm compared to fifth-grade children who more often used efficient memory-based retrieval and conceptually-based left-to-right (i.e., decomposition) strategies. Nevertheless, all strategies were reported or selected by both older and younger children and strategy use varied with problem complexity and presentation format for both age groups. These results supported the overlapping waves model of strategy development and provide detailed information about patterns of strategy choice on complex subtraction problems. (shrink)

The analysis of social networks has remained a crucial and yet understudied aspect of the efforts to measure Triple Helix linkages. The Triple Helix model aims to explain, among other aspects of knowledge-based societies, “the current research system in its social context” (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000:109). This paper develops a novel approach to study the research system from the perspective of the individual, through the analysis of the relationships among researchers, and between them and other social actors. We develop a (...) new set of techniques and show how they can be applied to the study of a specific case (a group of academics within a university department). We analyse their informal social networks and show how a relationship exists between the characteristics of an individual’s network of social links and his or her research output. (shrink)

With a global commitment to scaling up AIDS care and treatment in resource-poor settings for some of the most HIV-affected countries in Africa, availability of antiretroviral treatment is no longer the principal obstacle to expanding access to treatment. A shortage of trained healthcare personnel to initiate treatment and manage patients represents a more challenging barrier to offering life-saving treatment to all patients in need. Physician-centered treatment policies accentuate this challenge. Despite evidence that task shifting for nurse-centered AIDS patient (...) care is effective and can alleviate severe physician shortages that currently obstruct treatment scale-up, political commitment and policy action to support task shifting models of care has been slow to absent. In this paper we review the evidence in support of task shifting for AIDS treatment in Africa and argue that continued policy inaction amounts to unwarranted healthcare rationing and as such is ethically untenable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction:Developing Health Care in Severely Resource-Constrained SettingsPaul Farmer and Sadath SayeedThis symposium of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics catalogues the experiences of health care providers working in resource-poor settings, with stories written by those on the frontlines of global health. Two commentaries by esteemed scholars Renee Fox and Byron and Mary-Jo Good accompany the narratives, helping situate the lived experiences of global health practitioners within the frameworks of (...) sociology and medical anthropology respectively.The burgeoning interest in global health among students, health science trainees, clinical practitioners, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and government officials is often linked with substantial moral claims. People working in global health often start with the rhetorical premise that each and every human being, regardless of economic, social, or political circumstances that lie beyond his or her control, deserves equal access to quality health care services. This is a bold position at risk of trivialization, in part because the sentiment is so commonplace among global health equity activists.Despite this relatively recent global outpouring of solidarity and concern, billions of poor people still lack access to basic health services. All too often, interventions that perpetuate existing trade practices and market economics are promoted, usually to the detriment of the poor. As our good friend and colleague Arthur Kleinman warns:The irrelevance of ethics can be seen when considering universal ethical formulations of justice and equity that do not begin with the local moral conditions of poor people, those experiencing the systematic injustice of higher disease rates and fewer health-care resources because of their positioning at the bottom of local social structures of power.(1999, p.72)If we are serious about reducing health disparities globally, we must be prepared to mobilize resources in Africa just as we would in the United States or in Europe. If we fetishize cost-effective (read: low-cost) interventions for the poor, we must ask whether we use the same metrics in other situations. In other words, we must always strive to address the fundamental structural and social causes of health inequity.We believe that global health must avoid the "iron cage of rationality," to use sociologist Max Weber's words. One unanticipated consequence of the growth of global health as a field is that the "audit culture"—which encourages accountability and effectiveness—can at times reinforce power differentials between donors (whether government agencies or multilateral foundations) and their intended beneficiaries. Agendas are often set not by community members but by global health leaders who rarely demonstrate sustained commitments to a local community. [End Page 73]As the guest editors of this issue, we hope to recapture the soul of global health work through the art of storytelling. Narratives, even when presented as raw and unrefined as many within this issue, remind us of the immense challenges—both programmatic and moral—involved in this work. The profound scarcity of resources available to health providers in poor countries forces ethical questions on doctors, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and other health care workers, who make difficult choices every day about what to do with the few resources they have. These are the ethical dilemmas of mortal dramas at their most dire. Global health work demands of its practitioners an alternate mode of audit than academic methodologies can provide. Narratives return us to the basic human commitments that led many of us to this work, and they remind us to use words like equality and justice meaningfully.The narratives that follow offer unmitigated perspectives on the working lives of global health practitioners. They highlight the translation of the moral and programmatic challenges of health care delivery into real choices: for example, between a visiting surgeon's desire to treat a patient and his capacity (or really incapacity) to provide follow-up care. They acknowledge the necessity of interdisciplinary cooperation in resource-constrained settings, as well as the difficulties in collaborating across cultures and continents. Most importantly, they make the claim that a newborn in distress in a tent in Port-au-Prince merits the same resources and attention as one in Boston, and that his or her death merits the same indignation. They demonstrate the radical solidarity inherent in the... (shrink)

Driven by population pressures on natural resources, peri-urban pastoralists in the Far North Province of Cameroon have recently intensified livestock production in their traditional pastoral system by feeding their cattle cottonseed cakes and other agricultural byproducts to cope with the disappearance of rangelands typically available through the dry season. Although the crop–livestock interactions in this altered intensive pastoral system seem similar to alterations recently named in mixed-farming systems in West Africa, they are distinctly different and would require (...) a different type of agricultural development support. I use Bourdieu’s theoretical constructs of “habitus” and “capital” to explain those differences. (shrink)

Adults (more than 18 years old) are likely to reproduce the habits that they acquired during childhood and adolescence (from 6 to 16 years old). For that reason, teachers and parents have the responsibility to promote an active and healthy lifestyle in children and adolescents. Even though every school subject should promote healthy activities, Physical Education (PE) is the most important subject to foster well-being habits associated to healthy lifestyle during sport practice and other kinds of active tasks. Indeed, there (...) are many factors that influence the acquisition of healthy habits that should be taken into account when programs and activities are implemented in both educational and extracurricular context. In this sense, psychological and social factors are of utmost importance to achieve optimal experiences for an active and healthy lifestyle. However, due to the myriad of studies analyzing different factors in different contexts, there could be confusion when programs and pedagogical strategies are applied in educational or extracurricular contexts. The objective of this investigation is to analyze the state of art of the psychosocial factors which influence the engagement in physical activities and sport practice. The keywords used in this review were mainly: ‘Self-Determination Theory’, ‘motivation’, ‘Psychological need satisfaction, ‘physical activity and sport engagement’, ‘Elementary Education’, ‘Secondary Education’, ‘Physical Education’. The articles were selected according to the following criteria: (a) peer-reviewed original research published in international journals indexed in JCR or SJR, (b) published in English or Spanish, (c) about psychosocial factors which influence the physical activity and sport engagement, (b) in educational or extracurricular context. Research articles selected were found through nine databases. It was observed that physical activities and sport practice engagement are closely related to psychological factors. In particularly, intrinsic motivation was able to determine the active participation in any activity, including physical activity and sport practice during the implementation of Small-Sided Games and other kinds of pedagogical strategies (e.g., Pedagogical Models). Motivation was also closely related to flow state. Finally, these variables should be considered in order to organize effective programs to promote an active and healthy lifestyle in Physical Education classes. (shrink)

This article aims to give a full definition of servant leadership and shepherd leadership by comparing and contrasting the two texts of Jeremiah 23 and John 10. The notion of 'shepherd' or 'shepherding' is analysed and brought into the current debate on servant leadership. The shepherd metaphor used in the two passages is contextualised to the South African pastoral leadership situation, especially with regard to pastoral integrity. The status of pastoral leadership in the South African church community (...) is highlighted as a challenge to be considered from the perspective of servant leadership proposed in Matthew 20:16. The presenter would like to conscientise the Christian community that integrity in the areas of caring, feeding and protecting the flock should be a driving force towards pastoral integrity. The exegetical findings of the shepherd model are applied to the pastoral leadership integrity. An appeal is made to the ecclesiastical community to return to the fundamentals of leadership by embracing servant leadership as an ensuing model for pastoral leadership integrity. The article contributes towards the knowledge of the definition, role and understanding of pastoral leadership defined through servant and shepherd leadership concepts. Its academic value lies in the fields of church leaderships, ethics and biblical teachings. (shrink)

In March 2021, the Spanish Congress approved the law regulating euthanasia, that regulates both euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). In this article, we analyse the Spanish law regulating euthanasia and PAS, comparing it with the rest of the European laws on euthanasia and PAS (Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg). Identified strengths of the Spanish law, with respect to other norms, are that it is a law with many safeguards, which broadly recognises professionals’ right to conscientious objection and the specification that it (...) makes on the prior comprehensive care of the patient, including the approach to care dependency. Regarding its shortcomings, the law does not differentiate well between euthanasia and PAS; it barely assigns a role to the healthcare team as a whole (similar to other regulations); it does not clarify the functions of the different professionals involved; it does not detail the specific composition and duration of theevaluation commission; it has not been accompanied by a prior or simultaneous regulation of palliative care; and, lastly, the period of time to implement the law is too short. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the data collected about 5,388 videos from the 15 leading channels from Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States focusing on toys and in which the protagonists are children under 14 years of age. It aims to determine whether there are common patterns of use, production, and activity in videos by kid YouTubers. Specific software was developed to enable information to be gathered from the YouTube platform through the YouTube Data API by analyzing the date on (...) which the video was published, length, number of visits, likes, dislikes, and visits/vote. The main conclusions drawn are that a channel’s success is not dependent on a pattern or specific characteristics, although an impulse pattern has been detected; participation by children who consume content in the United States differs significantly from participation by those in Europe; and certain similarities based on video length and production frequency can be observed between channels. (shrink)

In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals set out targets aimed at creating a safer, more prosperous, and more equitable world. If these goals were to be achieved, children’s lives would indeed be transformed. In this collection, achievements against these targets are identified, with each contributor examining the progress made in early years provision in Australia, China, England, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, and Sweden. They highlight the priorities and agendas of their respective governments, and focus on the trends (...) and issues which are particularly relevant to each situation, thereby revealing the social and educational inequalities that persist across countries. A common theme running through this volume concerns the political tensions that arise when governments and educators hold fundamentally different views about the nature and purpose of early years education and the needs of children and families. It is clear that although the past two decades have seen many changes in attitude towards the importance of the early years of life; politically, economically, and environmentally, much still remains to be done if the Millennium Development Goals for young children and their families are to be fully met. Despite this, this volume demonstrates that those who work in this area continue to experience a deep concern for the well-being of young children, which transcends cultures, frontiers, and political and sectarian divides. This book was originally published as a special issue of the _International Journal of Early Years Education. _. (shrink)

Illness is a reality that affects all people, and healing is the main reason why people attend worship services in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the Ritual Studies scholar Ronald Grimes, illness is a social reality; it is socially imagined and constructed. Healing in the church is something that many believers experience, also in the context of worship and liturgy. In order to explore such healing as it occurs in liturgy a research project was undertaken making use of both empirical (...) work and a literature study. The aim of this research was to take the light off of direct pastoral care and investigate how the liturgy affects individuals within the congregation with regard to healing. A praxis-theory cycle was followed in the research, and a preliminary liturgical theory for praxis was developed based on the insight from the empirical study and ritual theory that healing through worship entails either transformation or reconciliation. (shrink)

Development law is an ethos-driven law reform paradigm that examines conditions from within the country and provides a frame of reference in which to evaluate the legal regime in the political, economic, social and cultural context. Moreover, development law provides a fresh approach to assessing existing national laws effectiveness generally; it assesses whether modifications are required to promote economic, political, and social progress, including protecting the rights of minority ethnic groups and disenfranchised peoples. By protecting rights, law can be an (...) instrument of social development and will not be alien to large segments of the population. Development law as a paradigm is the result of decision making within the country after careful examination by trained professionals whose sole interest is political, economical, social, cultural and national development. The enactment of laws and integration of customary norms that are embraced by the ruling authority, political elites, and other stake holders will best advance human rights. (shrink)

This case study illustrates the dilemmas facing multinational companies in meeting social challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa. It also discusses the purpose, responsibilities and limitations of business involvement in social development. From a business standpoint, social challenges in developing countries differ greatly from those in nations where governments or markets effectively provide for the population’s health needs. The case illustrates what led a multinational to set up a corporate foundation and focuses on three strategic and operational dilemmas it ran up (...) against. The case discussion shows that the ethical issues intertwined with these dilemmas are best understood using a variety of ethical approaches. We also show that Ethics of Care are just as relevant to analysing corporate social responsibility and corporate philanthropy as the Deontological and Utilitarianism theories commonly used in business ethics. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has led teachers to an unpredictable scenario where the lockdown situation has accelerated the shift from traditional to online educational methods, and relationships have been altered by the avoidance of direct contact with the others, with implications for their mental health. Physical activity seemed to be a factor that could prevent from mental disorders such as anxiety or depression in this peculiar situation. Therefore, the aims of this study were to explore how teachers have been affected by (...) the lockdown in respect to their mental health and their relationships in three main fields, work, family and social relationships; and to know which is the role of physical activity in the mentioned variables. For that purpose, an online survey was designed to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Results showed that indoor physical activity acts as preventive in lockdown situations, while the level of activity does not affect mental health. Also, teachers have experienced higher levels of depression and distress due to the workload generated during the lockdown. In conclusion, to prevent health problems among teachers in future similar situations it would be important to facilitate the practice of physical activity at home. Furthermore, teacher training in blended or online educational methods would be crucial for their favorable work development. (shrink)