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The goal of this bibliometric analysis is to summarize publications on the contributions of a higher education university in arts, humanities, and social sciences and evaluate their citation status. Ninety-one publications were indexed in Scopus and WOS databases between 2018 and 2022. All publications appeared in 69 different journals, books, and conferences. About 51.6% of all studies were single-authored. The median number of publications per author was 27.01 6 48.0 and that of citations was 223.0 6 764.0. Positive correlations were observed between the journal's CiteScore and authors' count with citation number (r² = .625 and .207 respectively; p\.005). Publications written by ø3 authors with international collaboration received the maximum number of citations (p\.005). Moreover, the mean number of citations for publications written by associate or assistant professors was significantly higher than those composed by their peers (p = .033). Defining the field of arts and humanities remains a difficult exercise, because of its blurry theoretical background. Thus, a repetitive evaluation of its current status remains essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the impacts of income inequality on life expectancy in African countries. The empirical analysis has been performed on a panel dataset of 52 African nations covering the period of 1995 to 2018. For estimating the inequality-health relationship, I have used Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) technique and a Panel Error Correction Model (PECM). The longrun cointegrating relationship was estimated using a Panel Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (PDOLS) estimator. The outcomes suggest that income inequality has negatively affected life expectancy at birth in the African continent overall. Though income inequality seems to have improved health in the short-run, in the long-run, income inequality had deleterious effects. A series of steps has been followed to check the soundness of the result of the main empirical examination and it is confirmed that the results are robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on changes in religious identity has generally utilized generational status as the temporal measure. This paper examines the feasibility of utilizing migration period instead of generation as the temporal measure. These measures are highly correlated, and similar patterns of change are found with both -- suggesting that they may be interchangeable. To the extent that the amount of variation explained is important, this paper suggests that the research methodology has been correct in most frequently utilizing biological generation. It is noted, however, that the amount of total variation explained by any temporal measure is small. This paper suggests that other factors -- such as the particular group being studied, the length of time the group has been in the geographical area being studied, and the decision of whether a measure of cohort influence or a temporal measure only is appropriate-should also be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the comparison of labour policies in Taiwan and China has an important bearing on the interaction between state and society. The fact that labour policies have changed over time illustrates a process of bargaining between the state and society. The core question of this paper is whether the development of labour policies in Taiwan can provide China a good example to learn from. In order to answer this question more systematically, the first part of this paper provides theoretical reviews of the state-society relationship, while the second part aims to verify whether those labour-favouring policies in Taiwan have changed under a different party's governance. The third part of the paper further investigates labour policy in China; this section mainly focuses on the historical background to the new labour contract law. Based on the preceding two sections' literature review of the changing path of labour policies, the fourth section scrutinises fundamental issues reflected in the development of Taiwan's labour policies, then compares how those issues are reflected in the case of China. The conclusion of this paper is that although Taiwan, like China, formerly had a one-party system, the changes in Taiwan's labour policies are not completely comparable to China, though both societies had some similarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to communicate some of the value commitments that characterize my approach to formal model building in theoretical sociology. It does this through a narrative method, an autobiographical account of shifts in intellectual interests through various phases of my career: from history to philosophy, from philosophy to sociology, from sociology to mathematics and back, followed by several long-term formal theoretical research programs. One of these, pertaining to the formal representation of institutionalized social action systems, is described in terms of its linkage to interpretive sociology, while also noting its limitations from a theoretical science point of view. By interweaving intellectual biography and intellectual history, the paper also provides some contextual background for appreciating the work of the other contributors to this symposium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently writing centers are expanding to Asian higher education contexts. However, there is a scarcity of research from writing centers in Asian settings and from non-native English speaker (NNES) tutor perspectives. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to enrich understandings of the challenges and expectations perceived by NNES tutors during tutoring writing sessions with intermediate level Japanese EFL (English as Foreign Language) students. A qualitative approach was employed utilizing two data collection methods: 16 interviews with writing tutors, and two quasi-focus groups. Thematic analysis of the data revealed five major categories for challenges perceived by NNES tutors: miscommunication, student silence, mismatched expectations, interpretation of teacher feedback and error correction. It is argued that these are the main challenges that EFL writing tutors face and hence indicate the necessity to train tutors how to deal with them. The implications for creating Asian writing centers and tutor training are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deviant workplace behavior violates organizational standards and has the potential to hurt either the entire organization or specific members of the organization. It is a serious and present problem in the workplace. Workplace culture have been linked to deviant workplace behavior however, there has been a scarcity of research and reviews on the impact of workplace culture on deviant workplace behavior. Scopus, Sage, MEDLINE and Web of Science Journals were used to look for terms relating to workplace culture (workplace culture, organizational culture) as well as terms related to deviant workplace behavior (deviant behavior, deviances). Original research, samples, or gendered employee subsamples were considered for this evaluation of workplace culture that have an impact on deviant workplace behavior, and the research must be completed in English. This evaluation has 19 publications that passed the eligibility criteria. This review's results showed that deviant workplace behavior is significantly influenced by workplace culture with different interpretation of culture and measurement used. These findings are explored in light of existing gaps in the literature and fresh research opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on several prototypical policy problems constituting causal inference. Causality is a tool for policy analysis. Different policy problems place different demands on models and data. Using the econometric approach, it defines the problem of interest, it describes the environments, outcomes and choices of the agents being studied and it presents conditions on data and models under which the policy problems can be solved. Understanding the relationship between the unobservables generating choice of treatment and the unobservables generating outcomes is the key to understanding the properties of various evaluation estimators.

This study aims to establish what lexical factors make it more likely for dictionary users to consult specific articles in a dictionary using the English Wiktionary log files, which include records of user visits over the course of 6 years. Recent findings suggest that lexical frequency is a significant factor predicting look-up behavior, with the more frequent words being more likely to be consulted. Three further lexical factors are brought into focus: (1) age of acquisition; (2) lexical prevalence; and (3) degree of polysemy operationalized as the number of dictionary senses. Age of acquisition and lexical prevalence data were obtained from recent published studies and linked to the list of visited Wiktionary lemmas, whereas polysemy status was derived from Wiktionary entries themselves. Regression modeling confirms the significance of corpus frequency in explaining user interest in looking up words in the dictionary. However, the remaining three factors also make a contribution whose nature is discussed and interpreted. Knowing what makes dictionary users look up words is both theoretically interesting and practically useful to lexicographers, telling them which lexical items should be prioritized in lexicographic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on interviews with peer-review panelists from five multidisciplinary fellowship competitions, this paper analyzes one of the main criteria used to evaluate scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences: originality. Whereas the literature in the sociology of science focuses on the natural sciences and defines originality as the production of new findings and new theories, we show that in the context of fellowship competitions, peer reviewers in the social sciences and humanities define originality much more broadly: as using a new approach, theory, method, or data; studying a new topic; doing research in an understudied area; or producing new findings. Whereas the literature has not considered disciplinary variation in the definition of originality, we identified significant differences. Humanists and historians clearly privilege originality in approach, and humanists also emphasize originality in the data used. Social scientists most often mention originality in method, but they also appreciate a more diverse range of types of originality. Whereas the literature tends to equate originality with substantive innovation and to consider the personal attributes of the researcher as irrelevant to the evaluation process, we show that panelists often view the originality of a proposal as an indication of the researcher's moral character especially of his/her authenticity and integrity. These contributions constitute a new approach to the study of peer review and originality that focuses on the meaning of criteria of evaluation and their distribution across clusters of disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of a lifetime, virtually everyone experiences change in their level of religious belief and activity. Some of these changes are modest in scope; others are more dramatic, as in the case of religious conversion or loss of faith. This paper examines the effect of a variety of life events on changes in religious belief and behavior Since not all people attribute religious meaning to different life events, their impact on personal religiosity varies from individual to individual, Nevertheless, it is found that on the aggregate level both the importance of one's religious beliefs and the importance of one's church increases as a result of positive life events, while the opposite occurs following negative life events. This pattern holds for events that are overtly religious in nature as well as for events that may or may not have religious significance, such as illness or injury, divorce, and death of a loved one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the basic tenets of Parsons' functional theory and Marx's conflict theory as the author believes Parsons and Marx meant their theories to be used. Each theory is out- lined and critiqued, paying particular attention to their implications for religious decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies several conditions in society and in the churches which limit church involvement in social concerns. It, then, briefly describes the origins of a group attempting to address these conditions: the Lafayette Urban Ministry (LUM). Finally, on the basis of their experience with LUM, the authors propose a general model for urban ministries which they feel also might assist in increasing church involvement in other communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes some empirical studies of absorptive experiences in everyday life, of hypnotic trance, and of religious trance and possession. Each of these experiences is found more frequently within groups that give primacy to their member' immersion in collective currents and interests and that make less legitimate a detached style of participation or the definition and pursuit of personal or special interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are the words in out natural language which we use to speak about natural and social phenomena actually laden with preexisting (and hence corrigible) theoretical commitments, full-blown "ontologies," or even metaphysics? Or can we appeal to rules for their use in adjudicating the sense (or otherwise; of any scientific or philosophical innovation? These questions arise most commonly in the context of claims about scientific "transformations." especially "scientific revolutions." Cognitive science, for example, announces such a "revolution" in its conceptualizations of the true nature of the "mind," "thought," "intelligence," "understanding," and so on in this paper I shall orgue that Wittgenstein's reflections on "grammar' enable us to dissolve many of the perplexities that confront us when we invoke Kuhman "incommensurability" in distinguishing between genume scientific revolutions and pseudo-revolutions Indeed, the Kuhnian thesis itself is seen to depend on a range of contestable claims about "words" and "meanings." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on analytic techniques from the humanities and social sciences, I propose a framework for research in the sociology of culture that is both scientific and sensitive to the particular characteristics of cultural data. In this paper, I maintain that to be complete and persuasive, cultural analysis must include (1) the intentions of creative agents, (2) the reception of cultural objects over tame and space, (3) the comprehension of cultural objects in terms of intrinsic and heuristic genres, and (4) the explanation of the characteristics of objects with reference to the social and cultural experiences of social groups and categories. After developing a framework based on these four key elements, I suggest that the validity criteria of parsimony, plenitude, and amplitude should be applied to competing explanations of cultural phenomena. The usefulness of the framework and validity criteria is demonstrated through their application to a puzzle regarding the changes a Western popular fiction genre underwent when it was reproduced in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The psychiatrists, have had a great deal to say in recent years about the importance of "facing reality" and "accepting reality-situations," as of February 1, 1942. Just what this "reality" may be they never quite explain. Sometimes it appears that nothing is real unless it is unpleasant, and that anyone who is happy must be employing some escape mechanism. At other times, "reality" seems to mean environment, anything outside oneself, or any situation as defined by an observer. The term acceptance is similarly vague and ambiguous. Sometimes it seems to resemble stoical resignation to pain and deprivation; at other times, it appears merely as abstention from "kidding oneself." Perhaps the psychiatrists are wise in not going beyond their depth into the metaphysics of reality. Perhaps sociologists, too, will do well if they simply observe that some people dodge things they do not like while others seek to modify or remove disagreeable conditions; that some people alternately evade and fight, some fight on almost any occasion.

Ethics review processes are frequently perceived as extending from codes and protocols rooted in biomedical disciplines. As a result, many researchers in the humanities and social sciences (HASS) find these processes to be misaligned, if not outrightly obstructive to their research. This leads some scholars to advocate against HASS participation in institutional review processes as they currently stand, or in their entirety. While ethics review processes can present a challenge to HASS researchers, these are not insurmountable and, in fact, present opportunities for ethics review boards (ERBs) to mediate their practices to better attend to the concerns of the HASS disciplines. By highlighting the potential value of the ethics review process in recognising the nuances and specificity across different forms of research, this article explores the generative possibilities of greater collaboration between HASS researchers and ERBs. Remaining cognisant of the epistemic and methodological differences that mark different disciplinary formations in turn will benefit the ethical conduct of all researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translation of scientific texts has been regarded as having the least freedom and variety in rendition; however, inconsistencies occur when translators work with two language systems that differ in reference to time, such as between Chinese and English. Tense is one of the core components of English grammar, but such information is not apparent in Chinese because the Chinese language tends to express time with lexical items in context instead of adding morphological changes to the verbs. The present study collected Chinese-English translated texts from graduate students on topics in the popular science domain. Analyses were conducted by comparing the tense information in the source text and the tense rendered in the target text on a sentence-by-sentence basis. The results showed that while the source text in Chinese stayed in the present tense, the students tended to switch from the present tense to the future or past tense during translation. In particular, the Chinese word "hui" has a habitual meaning that usually describes facts instead of presenting a future tense in scientific texts, but the students tended to interpret it as a future tense word, thus producing inappropriate tense shifts during translation. The pedagogical implication of such findings on inconsistent tenses between the source and target texts suggests that in the teaching of translation, analysis of the tense structure of the Chinese text and the consistency of tense information rendered in English should be emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The personality trait of openness has been shown to contribute to a person's ability to function effectively. Additionally, scholars have suggested that openness to experience and foreign language experience were related to music preference. Extending from earlier scholarship, this study examined the relationship between openness to experience and the various types of musical and language experiences reported by undergraduate music majors in Turkey and the United States. Participants (N = 380) were surveyed using the Openness to Experience domain of the NEO-PI-R and an author-designed survey with questions about participants' musical backgrounds and interests, foreign language abilities, age, and sex. Results showed that U.S. students rated significantly higher in four of the five dimensions of the Openness domain than their Turkish counterparts (Wilks'λ =.57; F (5, 374) = 55.37, p <.001). Factor analysis results showed that (a) experiences in foreign languages, (b) listening to Turkish traditional, pop, and folk music, and (c) listening to American (pop and folk) and Western classical music cumulatively explained 68.49% of the variance in openness. Correlation analyses suggested that listening to Western classical, American folk, and American pop music was associated with higher openness scores, and listening to Turkish traditional, folk, and pop music was associated with lower openness scores. Additionally, the number of foreign languages participants studied correlated with four of the dimensions. Results suggest that both groups could benefit from increased, broader, and deeper exposure to different musical genres from diverse cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Netherlands, the challenges of the multicultural society are high on the political agenda. At present 24.4% of the Dutch population has an immigration background of which 13.9% has a non-western migration background and almost 50% of all the people with a migration background are second-generation migrants born in the Netherlands. However, today's Dutch multicultural society is associated with a complex range of challenges linked with cultural and religious diversity. This article investigates how news media in the Netherlands facilitated the making of the licitness of xenophobic rhetoric of the two main Dutch populist right-wing parties Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) and Forum voor Democratie (FvD) during the Provincial Elections in March 2019. I conclude that these rising political extremist movements dominate the immigration debate and are accountable for the making of the licit social resentment against particularly non-western immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a report of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). The annual meeting this year was marked by a very interesting innovation of four round- table discussions. The topics were the nature of the Humanities, their function in the society, and plans for furthering the work of the ACLS. A background paper entitled "The Humanities in the Next Decade" had been prepared in advance by the Executive Offices and circulated before the annual meeting. This paper served the admirable function of stimulating discussion without controlling it. This delegate was in the round table chaired by scholar Henri Peyre and found the discussion highly stimulating. There was a feeling of real participation, an exciting exchange of ideas, and a sense of the seriousness of problems concerning the humanities. The same attitudes were expressed at the final session when the rapporteurs reported on their respective sessions. There was a general attempt to define the Humanities and there was agreement that a precise definition was not possible since all intellectual activities had humanistic aspects at times. It was also considered important to stress the coalescent quality of the humanities.

The study of video game effects has been marked by two very different approaches. The first approach is represented by social scientists, who, with some exceptions, seek to understand the effects of games on users. The second approach is favored by humanists, who seek to understand the meaning and context of games. To date, these two groups have largely talked past one another due to their different goals and their different methodologies. Yet, for the advancement of science and understanding, both sets of scholarship are important and relevant Each has contributions to make. However unless these two groups come to possess at least a cursory understanding of the other's methodology, there will be little synthesis. This is a missed opportunity for scholars of every stripe, and ways are suggested to bridge these gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the value-added character of sociology? In an era of change and unease in higher education, can a case be made for sociology in terms of intellectual and scholarly substance rather than in terms of bureaucratic and political considerations? As a scholarly and instructional activity, what is the value of sociology beyond what other disciplines have to offer? I address these questions affirmatively in this paper by identifying and elaborating four distinctive foci of the sociological eye that together frame the window onto the world that sociology provides. These distinctive features are a focus on the relational connections among the constituent elements of the objects of sociological analysis; a focus on the socially contextual embeddedness of those objects of analysis; a focus on vexing social conditions and processes construed as social problems; and an ironic perspective, that is, a penchant for discerning and illuminating the incongruous, unexpected, discrepant aspects of social life. I argue that these foci are more pronounced in sociology than in other social sciences and that together they congeal into a window onto the social world that is unique among the social sciences and humanities, thus accounting for the value-added character of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper attempts to link theoretical ideas concerning the relation of agency and structure with empirical research on the transition from school to work. In particular, some of the propositions of structuration theory are assessed in terms of their applicability to empirical research which investigates the impact of individual and structural variables on movement into the labour market, and the way the variables combine to determine entry into labour market segments. The data suggests that structural and individual factors are influential at all levels of the occupational hierarchy, but that the strength of influence varies at different points in the hierarchy. This supports the axiom of structuration theory which asserts that structure and activity are deeply implicated in each other in the process of social reproduction. However, the data further suggests the `duality of structure' principle has to be considerably modified in order to apprehend phenomena such as labour market processes. In this respect we believe that structure and action variables have to be viewed as loci of powers rooted in partly independent ontological domains but which interpenetrate each other in specific empirical areas at particular points in time and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The task of communicating basic sociological perspectives to today's introductory students can be greatly facilitated by integrating experiential methods with the traditional lecture and discussion format. Toward this end, we can use simple learning games which anticipate and/or reinforce themes and concepts discussed in texts and lectures. Instructors are urged to develop their own teaching games, which can be structured or improvisational, utilize either a role-playing or small groups approach. Instructions, design considerations and evaluation of student responses to four games devised and piloted by the author for use within the one-hour class period are presented as examples: the Humor Game, the Gender Change Game, the Stratification Game and the World System Game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent national data on unemployment and college enrollments have pointed to emerging difficulties for liberal arts education in sociology. Data from a survey of sociology and other graduates of one university were examined. Graduates had moderately high .satisfaction with their entry-level occupations although expectations for job mobility into positions of higher prestige, greater income and better nothing conditions appeared. A liberal arts education was not leading to an unemployment crisis, but evidence for underemployment problems was indicated. The findings suggest the need for an examination of liberal arts education to make it truly preparatory for occupational mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The core problems of sociological and philosophical theories of knowledge remain insoluble and unrelated as long as both theories start from static models. The problems can be solved, and the respective theories related to each other, without undue difficulties if the acquisition of knowledge is conceptualized as a long-term process which takes place within societies also considered as long-term processes. This approach has the added advantage of being in closer agreement with the evidence. The paper indicates what needs to be unlearned and what to be learned in order to prepare the way for such a unified theoretical framework which can serve as a guide to, and which can be in turn corrected by, empirical sociological studies of all types of knowledge, scientific and practical as well as non-scientific or ideological. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a rapidly advancing scientific discipline, new contributions will supersede older ones. This selection in favor of recent literature should be observable in the distribution of footnote citations in a given discipline, by age of article cited. However, the age distribution of citations also depends on the rate of growth of the disciplinary literature. The effects of growth of the literature and of selection favoring recent articles can be separated, if certain assumptions hold, by use of `in exponential model that expands and clarifies earlier findings by Price. This model provides a reasonably good fit to age-distributions of footnotes in several disciplines, and its application suggests that citations in sociology tend to refer to older articles than those in the natural sciences. A parameter in the model, measuring the degree of selectivity its favor of recent articles, can be estimated and may be useful in comparative studies of the communication systems of various disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about several current happening related to sociology in the U.S. According to information the American Council of Learned Societies is prepared to extend assistance in publishing a limited number of meritorious works in the field of the humanities written by American scholars. It invites its constituent societies to propose books they deem suitable for assistance, but reserves the right to consider works submitted by others if the executive committee has accepted them for consideration. Works proposed for publication must be complete in themselves, preferably the results of constructive research presented in the form of volumes of conventional size. The other information is that the seventh annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Conference was held in from April 18-19, with over a hundred persons in attendance. The central topic of the Conference was social theory, and social order. The majority of sessions centered around a discussion of capitalism, fascism, socialism, and communism as divergent social orders.

The article presents comments of the author on a paper by James J. Dowd, titled "Revising the Canon: Graduate Training in the Two Sociologies," published in the July 1991 issue of the journal "Teaching Sociology." In that paper Dowd wrote that mainstream sociology in the U.S. has long been dominated by positivistic tradition. The result has been an increased isolation of sociology within academe and a growing irrelevance of sociology to the larger intellectual trends within humanities and social sciences. The author states that having seen first hand what those "intellectual trends" have done to many humanities and some social sciences in recent years, he can only say, that he hopes to god that Dowd is right. The intellectual bag of snakes unleashed by postmodern, deconstructionist, idealist nonsense makes even the most naive positivist realism look good by comparison. As the author surveyed ruins of once mighty humanities disciplines, he prayed that sociology remain "isolated." The joy of the author at Dowd's assessment might have been unalloyed if he had not, only moments before reading Dowd's article, spoken with a sociology graduate student at a large, well-known university.

The article discusses the relevance of psychoanalysis to psychiatry. It highlights the revision of the psychoanalysis concept and presents the Attachment theory with regard to the concept. Topics discussed include psychoanalytic treatment being evidence-based and the concept of neuropsychoanalysis. The concept of "critical theory" present in humanities is also discussed.

Much of what we know about public service motivation comes from self-report measures. However, self-report questionnaires are vulnerable to social desirability bias due to respondents’ tendencies to answer in a more socially acceptable way. This is a problem as social desirability bias threatens the validity of the measure. This study investigates whether characteristics of national culture influence social desirability bias during surveys on public service motivation. In particular, the impact of social desirability bias is analyzed with two concerns in mind: construct validity and inference validity of public service motivation measures. Experimental survey research (list experiment) is conducted to examine the magnitude of social desirability bias and its associations with national cultures in four countries: Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and the United States. The results show that respondents in both collectivistic countries (Japan and Korea) and individualistic countries (the Netherlands and the United States) are likely to over-report answers on items of public service motivation, although the magnitude and pattern of this bias is stronger and more consistent in collectivistic countries. This study also finds a strong possibility of a moderator effect in correlational analyses in collectivistic countries, but it is doubtful this effect is present in individualistic countries. Overall, we suggest that the effects of social desirability bias should be investigated in public service motivation research, and social desirability bias should be controlled for in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the Reform Era in 1979, there has been a rapid growth and development of religious belief and practice in China. A substantial new scholarly literature has been generated in the attempt to document and understand this. This essay identifies the most important contributions to that literature and discusses areas of agreement and controversy across the literature. Along with new data, new paradigms have developed to frame research on Chinese religions. The paradigm derived from C. K. Yang’s classic work in the 1960s came from structural functionalism, which served to unite research in the humanities and social sciences. However, structural functionalism has been abandoned by the new generation of scholars. In the humanities, the most popular paradigm derives from Michel Foucault, but there are also scholars who use neo-Durkheimian and neo-Weberian paradigms. In the social sciences, the dominant paradigms tend to focus on state-society relations. None of these paradigms fully captures the complexity of the transformations happening in China. We recommend greater dialogue between the humanities and social sciences in search of more adequate theoretical frameworks for understanding Chinese religions today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black Studies as Human Studies, a contemporary literary work identified as an African American Studies text, is the focus of this article. That drive to humanize suggested in the title of Joyce's book is maneuvered not by the "particular cultural voice of the composite African" but rather is guided conceptually by Eurocentric constructs. Joyce indicates awareness of the deepseated ethnocentric European structure of human studies in the academy, where the formal bodies of academic knowledge attribute European knowledge as universal, but she works primarily within the confines of a European episteme. Joyce approaches literary criticism from a multitude of currents; her plan, however, is not approached Afrocentrically. Nor is her language along the lines of Afrocentric thought. Because of Joyce's training in the Western tradition and because there are elements of cultural dislocation in this work, Joyce appears to be bipositional, with tendencies toward a multipositional place or location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is philosophy an appropriate means for inducing the 'moral point of view' with respect to nature? The moral point of view involves a feeling for the inner reality of others, a feeling which, it is argued, is induced more by processes of synergistic interaction than by the kind of rational deliberation that classically constituted philosophy. But how are we to engage synergistically with other-than-human life forms and systems? While synergy with animals presents no in-principle difficulty, synergy with larger life systems takes us into epistemological realms explored only in the margins of the Western tradition, such as in Goethe's Romantic alternative to science. These 'alternative' epistemological realms are however the very province of the Daoist arts of China, and these arts accordingly furnish us with practices conducive to a moral consciousness of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the scientific model of causality. Modeling the causes of effects is certainly an important scientific activity. But it should also be understood that many scientific questions are not causal. regularity theories are one attempt to explicate the nature of causation. The cause if usually though of as some set necessary and sufficient antecedents for the effect. Contemporary regularity theories usually require that a causal statement sustain a counterfactual conditional. But there are problems relating to the value of the scientific approach for policy evaluation and forecasting such as, evaluating policies that have been implemented and extrapolation of these to new environments.

Philosophical analysis of the knowledge we hold of China, rather than philosophically informed disciplinary research on China, is a rare commodity. Area studies are, by definition, interdisciplinary. There is therefore no reason why philosophy cannot be a productive part of that interdiscipline. It would be an additional resource rather than a privileged perspective--an applied philosophy of area studies functioning rather like the philosophy of economics or politics. To exemplify what this might look like, the author considers some issues relating to images and beliefs about China in the West that generate particular philosophical problems relating to knowledge, truth, belief and Otherness. These questions are important because there is a tendency today to conflate them. The author argues that the first three concepts are distinct, though not independent, and that it is worthwhile maintaining the distinction because it supports scholarship as a self-reflective critical process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perceived inconsequence of the arts has threatened their place in the curriculum. To show why the arts belong in schools, one must first consider why they belong in one's lives. Under pressure from high-stakes tests in mathematics and English, the arts are being marginalized in the K-12 curricula or excluded altogether. In the U.S., the legacy of Puritan theodicy has interwoven a religious strand with this philosophical animosity. In state after state, the current pressure for demonstrated performance in the skills of writing, reading, mathematics, and to some degree science, has come at the expense of funding for, and academic attention to, the arts.

The article examines philosophy in relation to medicine. It discusses how philosophy can answer fundamental questions about people's everyday lives, and that doctors are in the unique position of grappling with such issues. The article highlights a small number of the philosophers whose writings might usefully be studied by both doctors and medical students.

Democratic educational reform should promote full-bodied democratic life. To help address the limited vision of bumanity prevailing in the current wave of educational reforms—reforms that are being undertaken in the name of democracy while they promote undemocratic and pusillanimous forms of human life—this essay examines a nineteenth-century recommendation for democratic educational reform calling for a broadly accessible liberal education to cultivate a magnanimous and civic-minded democratic populace. This old vision might begin to provide us with a new road map for the reforms being undertaken in our own time, encouraging us to seek—far beyond mechanical measurements of mechanical performances—the standards of cultural, civic, and spiritual enlargement that we must collectively understand and strive toward if we wish to use democratic educational reform to help constitute a bona fide democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers both the common ground and the diversity between the aesthetic approach to the study of organizational life and conceptual art photography. Based on a personal account, it emphasizes the empathic-aesthetic understanding of action in interactive organizational contexts. The issues addressed are the social construction of organizational memory, the importance of time in organizational life, the interweaving between the reality and non reality of organizational artefacts, the pervasiveness of organizational reproduction, the relation between the 'I' and the 'eye' in the investigation of organizational processes, the improper use of organizational production, and the relationships between the collective and social construction of creativity niches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the examination of desegregation literature. The article examines the impact of the critique model on the desegregation. The review is divided into two main areas: (a) discussions of the problems in planning and implementing a desegregation program and (b) research on the expected educational outcomes. The review of the examination of desegregation literature indicates that the basic premises underlying it are of questionable and it does not adequately address the critical problems of schooling. The article suggest that other premises should be explored with the idea of redressing unequal schooling.

There is nothing comedic or funny about religion per se, nor is it supposed to be laughable or entertaining. Often, however, the opposite is demonstrated. The nature of this paradox is addressed through an analysis of syndicated comic strips containing religious content. The comics studied were published in the Los Angeles Times between 1979 and 1987. They were classified according to religious themes which produced seven major categories i.e., Ministering Religion, Death and the Afterlife, Religion and the World of Adults, Religion and the World of Children, Prayer, Deity and Biblical Texts and Contexts. Within the framework of communications theory these categories were analyzed for their meaning and significance for religion in modern society. Conclusions are drawn suggesting that newspaper comics reflect idealized religious traditions that seem to have continuing importance today but they also mirror the "modern" circumstances facing religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary goal of the study was to describe the role of religion in the problem-solving efforts of college students. Toward this end, a general descriptive model of religion in problem solving was devised and examined. Results indicated that subjects tended to use religion most extensively for emotional support and for redefining their difficulties. The secondary goal of the study was to investigate two hypotheses. The first hypothesis was that persons who are more intrinsically religious would use religion in their problem-solving efforts more extensively than persons who are less intrinsically religious. This hypothesis was supported. The second hypothesis was that persons facing more challenging life events would be more likely to use religion in their problem- solving efforts than persons who are less challenged in this way. This hypothesis was not supported. Various explanations for this finding were discussed. Generally, the results underscore the value of a problem-solving framework for the study of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of social science as public philosophy has applicability for a new and different kind of religious research underlying local church planning. Since theory, research and planning interact, critical analysis of their connectedness is called for. The literature differs on whether or not they are essentially connected, whether social science research is even compatible with church planning, and whether or not adequate rationales for planning already exist. A review of this literature concludes that sources are not available which critically blend a theory of research with applications to church planning. Criteria useful for doing such an analysis are drawn from both theoretical and practical sources and social science as public philosophy is demonstrated to meet those criteria and to employ epistemological underpinnings that ground moral inquiry as properly scientific and germane to church planning. Pertinent features of the epistemology of Michael Polanyi are the sense of indwelling and commitment, the role of judgment and the role of enacted growth in hermeneutical understanding, a growth which transforms a congregation thus constituting a new state of affairs. Discussion draws out some implications that this position has for application to church planning and suggests strategies that a planning model could build upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Belief in God, Feuerbach has argued, contributes to self-alienation. In this research we tested the thesis proposed by Feuerbach that religion disunites man from himself He proposes that when people give God a reality they do so by endowing the deity with human attributes. The consequence of this act is self-alienation; that is, they perceive people to possess qualities which are diametrically opposite to God. The data show that contrary to Feuerbach's claim, people by and large endow both man and God with similar qualities. There are some exceptions. Man, unlike God, is also seen to be egocentric and not quite as powerful as God. Our findings, however, overwhelmingly refute Feuerbach's claim that God is a source of self-alienation. Feuerbach's assumption that the inevitability of attribute divestiture associated with the act of giving the deity a reality is not substantiated. These findings also hold true regardless of the ubiquity and salience of the attributes we endow the deity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between religiosity and loyalty to the President. Data were gathered by means of questionnaires from college students at six different universities in different states. The analysis of the data reveals that the various elements in religiosity are dichotomous in their impact on loyalty to the President. Church related activities and rituals have a positive impact while prayer has a negative impact. The interactive affect of social class with religion on loyalty is minimal The reason for this, we propose, is that the sample, consisting of college students, has hale if any class variation. Our findings suggest the religious duality of church-priest as opposed to private-prophetic religion stand in a dialectical relationship and exert a diametric effect on the political institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rodney Stark proposed a taxonomy of religion experiences based on the degree of Intimacy between the human actor and the divine. Those who report higher order experiences on the dimension of intimacy should also report lower order experiences. A logical extension of the taxonomy would suggest that the higher order, more Intimate experiences should also be more salient to the individuals. A test of these two hypotheses was conducted on a city-wide random sample of young adults, 15 to 24 years of age. There is support for the taxonomy, although not all experiences fit the model. The saliency of the experiences follows a different pattern. It Is not determined by the higher order of the experience hut rather by the cumulative effect of having more experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]