Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Social aspects of Consciousness'

In this thesis I argue that the category Near-Death Experience (NDE) emerged in the late-twentieth century, and is structured by the discourses of 'Medicine' and 'Science', and the wider discursive factors of the 'Spiritual Marketplace'. Within NDE literature, the experiences of people coming out of their bodies in Operating Theatres, and then travelling to other realms, are considered to have parallels in the accounts of mystics, shamans, and religious visionaries of other cultures and other times. Against this, I argue that the category of the NDE does not "articulate the same field of discourse" (Foucault, 1969:24-25) as these other religious accounts. NDE researchers sift through these accounts in search of a common thread, but miss the wider social fabric of the religious narratives they seek to excavate, as well as the discursive location that structures their own research. In order to reposition this debate within its own history of ideas, I argue that the category "NDE" is itself dependent on the Operating Theatre for its emergence and initial appeal, and it is the Operating Theatre that makes the discourse of NDEs possible. Within the last 120 years, there have been many attempts to intersect science with anomalous experiences on the fringes of human consciousness: Psychical Research categorised deathbed visions in a wider schemata that was interested in how the fringes of the subconscious mind might yield evidence of another reality; contemporary Parapsychology looked at third-person accounts of deathbed visions recounted to Nurses and Doctors across the globe. Neither of these iscourses had the crossover into the wider 'public sphere' that Raymond Moody's book Life After Life (1975) did, a book that recounts first-person accounts of normal people, caught in extreme medical emergencies, who come out of their bodies, witness the medical teams' attempt to resuscitate them, visit a heavenly realm, and return to tell people about it. What is unique about the NDE is not the vision of a world after death, but the context in which this vision occurs. In Chapter 2 I explore that context by arguing that Psychical Researchers' investigation of mediums, apparitions, and deathbed visions sought to prove that posthumous existence of the Other (that is, one's relatives or friends who had passed on to the other side), and indirectly the Self. (Conversely, NDE research, seeks to prove the existence of the Self, and indirectly, the Other.) In Chapter 3 I examine how Medicine and the Modern Hospice Movement shaped the conditions of emergence of the category 'NDE'. The removal of 'death' from the public sphere into the private sphere of the West meant that death became something exotic. The idea that death was a defeat for modern medicine lead to the emergence of the modern Hospice movement, which opened up a space for the visions of those close to death to be recounted in the public sphere. The recounting of such experiences encapsulates a narrative that includes the Surgeon's intervention, the technology used in the Operating Theatre, and of the everyday man or woman talking about their visions, all of which gives these experiences a cultural currency that sets them apart from other religious and/or New Age accounts. In chapter 4 I recognise that, for these experiences to have an appeal, they must have a market to appeal to. Thus, I examine the 'Spiritual Marketplace', and argue that the NDE researchers fundamentally misread the appeal of their life after death accounts. NDE researchers felt that they had uncovered publicly verifiable evidence for life after death, which they expected to shake the foundations of Western society. Instead, these accounts were read as a curio in the privacy of the spiritual consumer's home, an interesting account that suggested death might not be the end of existence, but little else. When their vision of a spiritual revolution failed to materialise, the founders of the NDE movement fell into a bitter war about the precise signification of the category NDE, thus giving an indication of the fundamental indeterminacy of the category. In chapter 5 I explore how NDE research intersects with the discourse of "Science". I therefore examine the construction of science, the function of science, and the limits of science in NDE literature. I begin by examining how the narratives of science permeate NDE literature, and how all sides implicitly reinforce a binary of Science/Religion that emphasises the former as objective and neutral, and the latter as irrational belief. I then argue that, ultimately, NDEs happen at the very limits of human experience in a realm far outside of what can be answered by direct scientific observation; the debate tells us more about the different metaphysical presumptions present than it does about whether or not science can answer the question 'is there life after death?" In chapter 6 I argue that, in the discourse surrounding NDEs, death and mysticism become entwined as the 'exotic other'. I therefore examine how the categories 'death' and 'mysticism' are themselves both bound up in a particular web of signification. The NDE secures its own identity against an understanding of death born in clinical medicine and, latterly, Freudian psychoanalysis: death becomes a point, after which there is an unknown. Similarly, the NDE inherits an understanding of Mysticism that can be traced back to William James. Nevertheless, the understanding of 'death' throughout history is not fixed but fluid, depending on a myriad of cultural and social discourses. Similarly, the modern psychological definition of 'mysticism' as an ineffable, subjective experience is extremely narrow in comparison to the accounts of mystics in the Middle Ages. When the understanding of these two categories changes, the emphasis upon securing 'evidence' for life after death evaporates. This point is missed in contemporary NDE research that assumes that its own desire to find evidence of life after death is reflective of a universal need for humans to believe in religion: whilst NDE researchers believe that they have finally uncovered a window on to another world, I have argued that this is, in fact, a mirror of their own particular predilections and desires.

This paper is about locating the meaning of a series of games known as the Dark Souls series in relation to contemporary social conditions in Japan. I argue that the game should be thought of as an emblem of the current cultural zeitgeist, in a similar way one might identify something like Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums as an emblem of the counter cultural 60s. I argue that the Dark Souls series expresses in allegorical form an anxiety about living in a time where the meaning of our everyday actions and even society itself has become significantly destabilized. It does this through a fractured approach to story-telling, that is interspersed with Buddhist metaphysics and wrapped up in macabre, gothic aesthetic depicting the last gasping breath of a once great kingdom. This expression of contemporary social anxiety is connected to the discourse of postmodernity in Japan. Through looking at these games as a feedback loop between text, environment and ludic system, I connect the main conceptual motifs that structure the games as a whole with Osawa Masachi's concept of the post-fictional era and Hiroki Azuma's definition of the otaku.

My involvement with mathematics education amongst township educators and learners over the past seven years has highlighted the absence of sustained meaning and meaning making of mathematical concepts. It appears though that this instrumental rather than relational understanding of FET mathematics is not unique to township learners but is encountered amongst learners of all socio-economic classes and is representative of many FET mathematics learners. Given that the language of learning and teaching is a major contributory factor in the South African education system, it appears that the language of mathematics itself is a greater exacerbating factor for many learners of mathematics. The exclusive algorithmic approach to classroom mathematics further seems to alienate many learners from the essence of the meaning of mathematical tasks. This research undertakes to determine whether metateaching and metalearning as forerunners to metacognition facilitates the acquisition of the sustained meaning of mathematical concepts. Metateaching and metalearning refer to the acute and deliberate awareness by educator and learner as to what constitutes concepts. Teaching and learning therefore presupposes the deconstruction of concepts into its subsumed derivative roots. It also assumes an awareness of the tacit degrees of abstraction that characterise tasks and the content of tasks. This in turn has implications for the educator's adopted sequence of topics for instruction. Metacognition implies awareness on the part of the learner (and educator) as to how material is learned and a further awareness as to how that learning can be sustained. Whether we ascribe meaningful learning to radical or social constructivism, or to associationist didactive approaches, or a combination of these, we are making assumptions about how learners acquire and sustain mathematical meaning because mathematics is, by and large a symbolic language often devoid of affective connotation. Furthermore our assessments of learners' tasks amount to clinical corrections of austere formulae wrapped in algorithmic procedures which manifest nothing of a learner's experience of mathematics or the deeper understanding (or misunderstandings) which characterise a learning and/or assessment episode. To this end the research design of this interpretive case study requires learners to expound in textual accounts their thoughts as they describe the evolution of a mathematical process as they approach a solution and eventually interpret it. The textual account exposes the concept definition for what it really is in a learner's understanding of it and it is the expressiveness of language that indicates whether the understanding of a learner is approaching the concept image. The textual accounts vary in richness in terms of mathematical register and this in turn reflects the conceptual depth. The mechanism which seems to promote the conversion from concept definition to concept image is the graphical representation of the mathematical task or procedure, possibly because of its greater concreteness as opposed to the abstraction of its algebraic form.

Many of the academic and popular treatments of hip-hop overlook the complexity of the phenomenon. Hip-hop is often portrayed solely as a source of corruption and regressive tendencies or, alternatively, as a sort of savior for otherwise marginalized individuals and source of revolutionary power. This thesis situates hip-hop between these poles and draws out its progressive and regressive aspects for analysis. Considering its vast global influence and a growing body of academic literature, hip-hop has been notably understudied in the field of psychology. Alternatively, educational theorists and practitioners have realized the power of hip-hop in revisualizing an emancipatory education that fosters critical consciousness. This project goes beyond other hip-hop education projects in that it attends more directly to the psychological phenomenon of identity. As youth develop a strong connection to social and political identity and increase their level of critical consciousness (an additional goal of this and most other hip-hop based curriculums) they are more likely to participate and have the tools to be successful at actions aimed at progressive social change. This thesis grew out of a larger project titled Moving to the Beat, a community-based multi-media endeavor that includes both the Moving to the Beat documentary film and curriculum guide. The Moving to the Beat curriculum guide strives toward the goals of emancipatory education. The film and the curriculum guide stay near the experience of hip-hop identified youth while attempting to avoid generalizations and stereotypes. Further, the developments of the film, curriculum guide, and this thesis have been guided by academic literature from a wide range of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and education. The thesis focuses on two primary questions: (1) How do youth engage the Moving to the Beat curriculum guide and documentary film? (2) Do the Moving to the Beat materials facilitate the development of critical consciousness and/or social identity in youth? Two primary waves of data collection were conducted to answer these questions. At each location, Moving to the Beat was shown and an outside facilitator guided youth through the curriculum discussions and activities that centered on identity. During these workshops, multiple sources of qualitative data were collected, including participant observations, interviews, student produced lyrics, and feedback forms. These sources of data pointed to six primary themes across locations and sources of data: traditional gender roles, "everyone is all equal", "you doing you", the new hip-hop generation, development and maturity, and youth resistance. This thesis represents the first assessment of the Moving to the Beat documentary and curriculum, the results of which will be used to alter the curriculum guide and prepare it for publication.

This dissertation examines learning as part of social transformation in a semi-rural town in New Mexico, United States. It incorporates a focus on young people through direct work with children and observations in school and argues that each person's understanding is historically emergent from what sense they make of the events of their personal history as this unfolds over time in intersubjective relations with others. This has implications for the ways in which Hispano/a and Latino/a people living in “Bosque Verde” make sense of concepts like respect, hard work and obligation, as well as how they think about family and children's wellbeing. The ways in which people experience and understand getting older and their movements from child to adult/parent and from parent to grandparent/elder are central to this process of making sense. As people age, what they know to be true transforms, as does how they perceive the effects of social change. For people living in Bosque Verde, this includes both the experience of contemporary social and economic shifts in New Mexico and the United States, as well as how people there have made sense of social marginalisation over the past century and back into the more distant past. Parents and elders manifest historical consciousness of these transformations in part through their concerns for children and their vulnerability in an insecure and unequal world. Children, however, constitute their own ideas about family, hard work, care and respect in ways that potentially transform their meaning, as well as the possibilities of their own futures. This thesis therefore describes ‘keeping it tight' in Bosque Verde as a microhistorical process that shapes how people understand and experience social relationships over the lifetime. This process, in turn, influences how people living there make sense of the past and imagine the future for themselves and others.

The wind band provides an outlet for composers to use their platform to reach performers, enlighten audiences, and heal communities. This document is an analysis of three composers' approach to incorporate social consciousness in their wind band music. Adam Schoenberg, Omar Thomas, and Frank Ticheli work with specific social justice issues to respond to specific events, allowing them to reach and empower performers and audiences, to heal, thrive and build past these events. The chapters contain each composer's biographical information, then provide detailed information of the three works; background and cursory information, the composer's use and understanding of the social justice issue and an extensive analysis of each work. The composers use compositional design techniques to convey their intent to share a specific message. This document provides insight through each composer's techniques and thought processes, providing a better understanding of the works. The knowledge gained will help conductors and performers understand social consciousness in wind band music.

The presence of human destitution, impoverishment and degradation in the midst of plenty has puzzled social thinkers for millennia. One of the oldest and grandest of theories: the theory of ideology attempts to provide an answer to the puzzle of domination in society. Michael Rosen, in his book On Voluntary Servitude (1996), argues that the solution provided by the theory of ideology is problematic. Furthermore, on the basis of his critique, Rosen argues that we should abandon the theory of ideology and consider alternatives to it. Even though many contemporary academics have turned away from the theory of ideology, because they view it as an imprisoning meta-theory, this study explores the possibility of there being a meta-theory that could help us to make sense of the world. Through an examination of Rosen's critique this thesis shows that Rosen is too quick in his dismissal of the theory of ideology because he fails to consider that a revised functionalist theory of ideology can be expanded to account for the mechanism(s) that ensure that, over time, the society in question acquires ideological consciousness to further its welfare. This thesis shows that Rosen is correct in his criticism of the theory of ideology's explanation of domination because the content, history and social effects of ideological consciousness cannot be fully explained in terms of their role in promoting or stabilising relations of domination. In light of Rosen's criticism the thesis shows that if one provides both an explanation of the psychological motivations of individuals and of the nature of the oppressive society in which they find themselves then what I call an integrated theory of ideology can be developed. In order to illustrate the importance of an integrated theory of ideology the study moves away from high-level theoretical abstraction to concrete social analyses, focusing on the work of Frantz Fanon and Steve Biko and their explanations of domination. The reason this study focuses on their work is because in their role as social scientists, Fanon and Biko provided a powerful critique of colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial society. It will be argued that Fanon and Biko were able to provide a lasting critique of colonial reality because they offered their critique within the framework of such an integrated theory. Consequently, this study argues that, as Fanon and Biko's work illustrate, an integrated theory of ideology qua critical theory ought not to be abandoned because it is crucial for understanding and resisting forms of oppression that exist in the world today.

The research explores the concept of human consciousness and its being experienced in a particular social context, focusing on consciousness’s ‘highest potential’ as described in both ancient Buddhist Philosophy and more recent spiritual teachings. The main attention is on the individual’s emotional and mental experience of ‘conventional’ and ‘ultimate’ reality as taught by these traditions and the possible transformation of consciousness they might initiate. Two years of fieldwork was carried out at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, which is a spiritual educational institution, offering a four-year training to become a healer. The School emphasis is on the human individual and his or her inherent existential power to transform and transcend limitations or delusions, focusing on the process of self- transformation. Being human in the eyes of the School is seen as an endless potential for growth, creativity, the capacity to love, and about learning to become fully responsible for one’s own life and happiness. The thesis explores the effect that this particular understanding of human potential has in the quotidian existence of the trainee and her or his social relations. Methodologically the study is based in phenomenological anthropology. This approach here implies that life cannot be understood through the conceptual or systematic study of its outward forms. Therefore it places conscious experience at the centre of its investigation, rather than disengaged objectivity. By employing the first-person perspective and undertaking part of the training myself, I hope to do justice to the inherently subjective dimension of consciousness and to gain as deep an understanding as possible of the processes of its transformation. The thesis thus includes subjective personal experience as primary data, and understands being objective in the sense of being open and without bias to both internal and external experience, giving the ‘perennial wisdom’ of spiritual traditions the same status as approved scientific laws.

This study explores how young people's engagement with history outside of the classroom shapes the development of their historical consciousness. Drawing on public discourses around the First World War (WW1), I address the implications of this engagement for history teachers and young peoples' learning. Recognising the active and dynamic construction of memory and meaning by young people, I develop the concept of social remembering. Building on socio-cultural perspectives, I examine the 'lived experience' of young people's memory work. Using WW1 as a context, and adopting an innovative mixed methods approach, the research was conducted over two stages. The first stage of the research used a quiz and survey to explore the extent and nature of young people's social remembering. In the second stage of the study I examined young people's memory work outside the classroom. I worked with several small groups of students to construct their own ethnographic accounts of societal and familial remembering and their emerging historical consciousness, fashioning these into ethnographic portraits. The research highlights the role that social remembering plays in young people's identities, including the ways in which they value and use history, attribute historical significance to events and orientate themselves in time. It shows how different forms of social remembering can both include or exclude young people and impact positively or negatively on young people's historical consciousness. An understanding of social remembering outside the classroom can support history teachers in the development of pedagogies that build on students' meaning making associated with public events such as commemorations. I argue that teachers can use the intersections between social remembering and disciplinary history to engage and support students in their study of history. Although the study originated within the context of history education, it has wider value, offering a ground breaking methodological approach to exploring young people's understandings of the past and in contributing to the historiography of historical memory.

The validity of the Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS) for use with adolescents was investigated. Also, a path model of blood pressure based on the cognitive social learning theory was tested using sets of biological (i.e., family history of hypertension and age), psychological (i.e., public self-consciousness, private self-consciousness, suppressed anger and outwardly expressed anger), and lifestyle (i.e., relative weight and smoking) variables.Subjects were 169 female and 124 male adolescents from the southeastern United States. Parents provided information about the subjects' family history of hypertension and health. Subjects completed the SCS and Anger Expression Scale and a health questionnaire. Subjects' blood pressures, weights, and heights were assessed. Data from all subjects were used for the SCS analyses. Data from 36 subjects who reportedly had health problems or used drugs with cardiovascular effects were excluded from the path model analyses.The SCS data were factor analyzed. Based on the initial analysis, four items were excluded from the data. The subsequent factor analysis suggested that the SCS is a valid measure of the dimensions of self-consciousness in adolescents. Test-retest reliabilities and internal consistencies of the SCS showed reasonable reliability. Comparisons of the SCS scores between college students and adolescents and between female and male adolescents were made.The path model was tested separately for males and females on both systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), using hierarchical multiple regression analyses of sets. Although the variables collectively explained a significant amount of variance in DBP and SBP for both sexes, few had significant direct and total effects on DBP and SBP, and none had indirect effects on DBP or SBP. Sex differences emerged in the variables' effects on DBP and SBP and the variables' effects on other variables. DBP and SBP increased as relative weight increased for both sexes. No other variables influenced SBP or DBP for males or SBP for females. Females with a positive family history of hypertension had higher DBPs. Females' DBPs decreased as private self-consciousness increased. The implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

En aquesta tesi es tracta un cas concret i significatiu d'interacció entre anàlisi conceptual i investigació científica en psicologia cognitiva: l'aspecte demostratiu de la percepció, un tret central que ha estat estudiat recentment per filòsofs com ara Peter Strawson, Gareth Evans, Christopher Peacocke, John McDowell, John Campbell i Bill Brewer (encara que ja fou objecte d'atenció per part de Hegel a les primeres seccions de la Fenomenologia de l'espirit). La gran majoria dels filòsofs esmentats postulen un mode de presentació demostratiu perceptual distintiu, i tracten d'explicar en què consisteix. Per aquest propòsit, i en consonància amb una utilització heurística de desenvolupaments recents en l'anàlisi dels modes de presentació de les expresions indèxiques, es proposa que el mode de presentació demostratiu en els judicis de percepció és reflexiu del exemplar (token-reflexive). Aquest enfocament està d'acord amb el de Searle d'una manera general, però en el seu desenvolupament concret s'incorpora l'aspecte atencional enfasitzat per John Campbell i Naomi Eilan. La proposta es modela inicialment mitjançant una descripció ('l'objecte atès en aquest acte d'atenció) que s'interpreta referencialment per explicar el tret de particularitat de la percepció.
A la segona part de la tesi s'analitza l'accés conscient a (adonar-se de) aquest mode de presentació (assenyalat per l'expressió demostratiu a la descripció anterior). El problema s'enfoca partint de l'examen d'algunes motivacions per postular que la percepció es dóna normalment en virtut de l'exemplificació de qualitats sensorials o qualia en el subjecte. S'adopta en aquest punt la hipòtesi auxiliar que una concepció dels qualia parcialment funcional i externista defensada en escrits recents per autors com ara Shoemaker i García-Carpintero permet superar amb èxit els coneguts problemes de les teories representacionistes de la percepció si se li afegeix la idea que els qualia dels subjectes de percepció formen part com defensen els autors esmentats de coneixement implícit o "no-tematitzat". Sobre aquesta base, s'argumenta que l'atenció perceptual a l'objecte s'ha d'entendre com "unió" de qualia, dels quals el subjecte de percepció s'adona com a pertanyents a objectes materials.
Després d'examinar les principals aproximacions a una teoria empírica general de l'atenció (com ara les de Broadbent, Kahneman, Allport i Posner) en relació, per una banda, als nivells d'explicació en ciència cognitiva (nivells de Marr) i, per l'altra, les anàlisi conceptuals i basades en la psicologia de sentit comú (William James), la investigació es centra especialment en la teoria de l'atenció selectiva deguda a Anne Treisman. S'argumenta que els trets (features) que com a entitats teòriques es postulen en aquesta teoria són qualitats sensorials semblants als qualia, amb la diferència important que els criteris d'individuació dels trets en qüestió responen a les exigències específiques dels mecanismes funcionals postulats a la teoria empírica en qüestió. Aquest parentiu implica que, encara que la proposta formulada en la investigació sobre el mode de presentació perceptual és sostinguda principalment per arguments a priori, es podria veure afectada pel desenvolupament de la investigació empírica, si bé només en el cas que aquesta resultés ser incompatible amb la postulació de qualia. La posició defensada a la tesi es situa així en una perspectiva defensada d'una manera general per Martin Davies segons la qual les anàlisi conceptuals sobre allò mental tenen conseqüències en els nivells dels mecanismes subpersonals, de manera que són revisables si no s'acompleixen les expectatives corresponents en aquests nivells. Tanmateix, aquesta relació de dependència és menys directa que la postulada a la teoria de Campbell, la qual tracta de caracteritzar directament el mode demostratiu perceptual en termes de mecanismes subpersonals. En les pàgines finals de la tesi s'argumenta que aquest enfocament no és capaç d'explicar els aspectes racionals de la utilització de modes de presentació demostratius.
This dissertation is about a specific and significant case of interaction between conceptual analysis and scientific research in cognitive psychology, namely, the demonstrative aspect of perception, a central feature which has been recently discussed by philosophers such as Peter Strawson, Gareth Evans, Christopher Peacocke, John McDowell, John Campbell and Bill Brewer (although it was already treated by Hegel in the first sections of The Phenomenology of Mind). A great majority among the philosophers mentioned postulate a distinctive perceptual mode of presentation, and try to give an account of it. Making an heuristic use of recent developments in the anaylsis of modes of presentation of indexical expressions to this purpose, the contention is made that the mode of presentation in perceptual judgements is token-reflexive. This approach is in agreement with Searle's in a general way, but the present development integrates into it the key attentional aspect emphasized by John Campbell and Naomi Eilan. The proposal is initially modeled by means of a description ('The object attended in this act of attention) referentially conceived on account of the particularity of perception.
In the second part of the dissertation the notion of conscious access (awareness) to this mode of presentation is analyzed. (The need for an account of this is obvious from the use of the linguistic demonstrative in the above description.) This problem is approached from the discussion of motivations to postulate that perception occurs normally in virtue of the instantiation of sensorial qualities or qualia in a subject. At this point an appeal is made to the auxiliary hypothesis that a partially functional and externalist view of qualia advocated in recent writtings due to Shoemaker and García-Carpintero allows to overcome successfully the well-known problems that plague representative theories of perception in conjuntion with the view that awareness of qualia is to be understood as implicit or unthematized, also defended by the mentioned authors. On this basis, it is argued that perceptual attention to the object is to be understood by a "binding" of qualia of which the subject is aware as belonging to material objects.
After examining the main approaches to a general empirical theory of attention (such as those of Broadbent, Kahneman, Allport i Posner) in connection, on the one hand, to levels of explanation in cognitive science (Marr's levels) and, on the other, to conceptual and folk-psychology analysis (William James), inquiry focuses specially in the theory of selective attention due to Anne Treisman. It is argued that the features postulated as theoretical entities in such a theory are sensorial qualities similar to qualia, the only significant difference between the two being the fact that the individuation criteria of features are responsive to the specific requirements of the functional mechanisms postulate in the empirical theory at issue. This kinship implies that developments in empirical research have a bearing on the proposal on the perceptual mode of presentation advanced in the dissertation, which might be affected by them even if it is supported mainly by a priori arguments. This, however, could happen only if such developments are incompatible with the postulation of qualia. Thus, the position argued for in the dissertation belongs in a perspective (advocated in a general way by Martin Davies) according to which conceptual analysis in the field of the mental have implications for the subpersonal levels of the mechanisms, so that those analysis are to be revised if the expectatives at those levels which such analysis imply turn out not to be fulfiled. Nevertheless, this dependency relation is less direct than the one involved by Campbell's theory, according to which perceptual modes of presentation are to be characterized directly by appeal to subpersonal mechanisms. In the concluding pages of the dissertation it is argued that this approach is not able to account for the rational aspects of the occurence of perceptual modes of presentation.

This study is an attempt to highlight a few aspects of the Islamic revival and reawakening in Bangladesh in the period between 1905 to 1975. Being once part of the British Empire, Bangladesh was bequeathed secular education and secular government. In pre-colonial period Islam commanded great respect in as much as Islamic education and Islamic law are concerned. With the coming of the British, the role of the Sharf'ah and 'Ulama diminished. Our main concentration in this study is devoted to the role of traditional 'Ulama who as true disciples of Shah Wali Ullah Al Dehlawi, pioneered his revival mission in the twentieth century. Particular attention has been devoted to the activities of four major daw'ah movements (Islamic missionary), namely, the 'Ulama of Deoband Seminary; Jama'at Tabligh (an off-shoot of Deoband); Jami'yyat-i-'Ulama and Nizam-i-Islam party; and Jama'at-i-Islami of Abul 'ala Mawdudi; which have the support of general muslims in the country. Responses to these movements, which have come from various quarters within the Bangali milieu, are also discussed. In this context, the United struggles of 'Ulama' for establishment of Islamic rule and Islamization of the constitution were highlighted. Further, some discussion is given to the problems arises out of the differences of opinion between different sections of 'Ulama which have in a way hampered the smooth progress of Islamic daw'ah. In the light of the problems, we advance some modest suggestions deemed practicable for consideration of all groups. We also consider briefly the rise of Bengali nationalism. The nature of Islamic movements in the pre-independence and the position of Islamic movements in the post-independent Bangledesh until the late 70s.

The primary objective of this thesis project is to investigate Woolf's narrative construction of consciousness and its enactment of resistance against the clinical model of cognitive normativity, using Mrs. Dalloway. This objective is part of an effort to identify the ways in which Woolf's writing can be used, foundationally, to challenge the contemporary language of clinical diagnosis, as it functions to maintain power imbalances and serves as a mechanism of the rigid policing of normativity. It is also intended to support the suggestion that Woolf's novels and essays make a valuable contribution, when advanced by theory—including disability theory, to scientific conversations on the mind. One major benefit is that doing so encourages border-crossing between disciplines and views. More specifically, this project examines the ways in which Mrs. Dalloway resists the compulsory practice of categorizing and dividing the mind. The novel, I assert, supports an alternative narrative treatment, not of the mind but, of the normative social forces that police it. It allows and encourages readers to reframe stigmatizing, divisive, and power-based categories of cognitive difference and to resist the scientific tendency to dismiss pertinent philosophical and theoretical treatments of consciousness that are viable in literature. The critical portion of the project is concerned with the way in which Mrs. Dalloway addresses consciousness and challenges medical authority. Its implications urge the formation of an investigative alliance between Woolf's work and psychology that will undermine the power differential, call attention to and dismantle the stigma of "mental illness," and propel clinical treatment into new diagnostic practices.

Previous research shows that women are more likely to vote Democrat than men. Using the 2000 Middletown Area Survey this paper tests the Feminist Consciousness Theory as a possible explanation for the gender gap in voting. Results indicate that women in the study voted more Democrat than men. Those who scored higher on the NonTraditional Gender Role Ideology scale, the Support for Gender Equality Scale and who said that they were a feminist were more likely to vote Democrat. Women were more likely to support gender equality and identify as being a feminist than were men. This means that because women are more likely to have a feminist conscious they are more likely to vote Democrat.
Department of Sociology

Parmi les maladies neurologiques, celles qui atteignent la conscience constituent la pire des épreuves infligée à la puissance de notre esprit, socle de notre autonomie. C'est bien à un défi éthique que se mesurent les soignants et les accompagnants, confrontés à la complexité de la rencontre avec cette personne blessée dans ses possibilités mêmes d'être présente au monde, d'affirmer son identité et sa liberté : comment proposer une attitude juste et aidante de la relation de soins répondant à cette tragédie humaine ? Comment préserver l'autonomie de ce sujet sans méconnaître son extrême vulnérabilité ? Comment affirmer la permanence de la personne alors que sa conscience s'en va ? Comment, dans les situations extrêmes, savoir éviter une obstination que la loi qualifie de déraisonnable ? Nous proposons dans ce travail les réponses nuancées qu'impose la déclinaison de la conscience en degrés, dans son état ou ses contenus, s'opposant ainsi aux réponses obligatoirement binaires de la loi ou d'une éthique exagérément principliste. Mais manier la complexité n'empêche pas l'audace des paris ni la sagesse des limites. Parier sur les capacités plus que sur les déficits ne guérit pas le malade, mais modifie totalement la relation soignante dans le sens de la préservation de l'autonomie, dût-elle être accompagnée. En même temps, ces situations qui touchent parfois à l'extrême vulnérabilité, aux limites de l'humain comme de la médecine, interpellent notre responsabilité ainsi que notre souci de bienfaisance, nous invitant à éviter la pente de l'abandon, la tentation de la violence comme la déraison de l'obstination. L'éthique n'est-elle pas par essence la recherche d'une sagesse pratique visant à atténuer le tragique des situations ?

Thesis advisor: Thanh V. Tran
Suicide is an escalating public health crisis for Black people in the United States, yet the majority of the suicide research in the United States is based on the European American population. The psychological impact of the centuries of persistent stress and pain Black Americans have endured in the U.S., fueled by racism since the tragic period of slavery, is well-documented. However, despite the unrelenting historical and contemporary manifestations of racism and other systems of oppression in U.S. society, Black Americans have chosen death by suicide at rates lower than White Americans. Previous research has established the complexity of suicide and revealed that there are multiple personal and societal stress factors that contribute to creating risk factors for Black suicide. Research has also established that Black Americans historically have cultivated a resistance to the desire to take their own lives, seemingly linked to religious/spiritual and cultural coping resources that have served as a protective factor against suicidal behavior. Yet, there is a lack of scholarship that explores the impact of these resources on suicide in this population. Suicidologists are calling for suicide to be examined within a multidimensional contextual framework and for there to be a shift from a deficit approach to a strengths-based approach. There is a need for greater research focus on the factors that influence suicidal behavior in Black Americans, as well as the factors that are associated with creating a shield of protection against this self-destructive behavior. Through a convergent mixed-method approach, and guided by a robust cluster of theories, with Critical Race Theory and the Afrocentric Worldview as the overarching theoretical and philosophical approaches, this dissertation aims to address the gaps in the literature by examining several research questions. The following questions are examined through quantitative research: (1) Do racial discrimination and personal stress influence suicide attempts among Black people in the U.S., and does religion/spirituality serve as a protective factor and moderate the relationship between attempted suicide and racial discrimination and personal stress?; (2) Do post-incarceration status and personal stress influence suicide attempts among Black people in the U.S., and does religion/spirituality serve as a protective factor and moderate the relationship between attempted suicide and post-incarceration and personal stress?; (3) Do veteran status and personal stress influence suicide attempts among Black people in the U.S., and does religion/spirituality serve as a protective factor and moderate the relationship between attempted suicide and veteran status and personal stress? The data for this study were drawn from the cross-sectional National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) III which covers April 2012-June 2013. Logistic regression was employed to analyze the data. The quantitative research explores the impact of personal and societal stressors on the mental health of Black people and the role of religion/spirituality in cultivating a healthy emotional and mental environment that insulates them from suicide. The qualitative data include interviews with three adult Black men from the researcher’s family across three generations. Through three generations of Black men from one family, this dissertation further aims to examine whether religion/spirituality is a protective factor insulating Black people in the U.S. from developing suicidal behavior as they navigate societal stress factors including racial discrimination, post-incarceration status, and veteran status and whether religion/spirituality as a protective factor is passed down intergenerationally. If so, it aims to explore whether there are any intergenerational patterns and/or differences in the utilization of religion/spirituality as a source of protection against developing suicidal behavior. Assessed together, the findings from the quantitative and the qualitative research underscore the potential impact of stress and societal stress factors on suicidal behavior among Black people. Specifically, the quantitative research shows an association between personal stress and societal stress factors including racial discrimination, post-incarceration status, veteran status, and suicide attempts. The quantitative research also underscores the complexity of the role of religion/spirituality as a protective factor, as the findings from the quantitative research show that religion/spirituality was not a buffer against suicide attempts for the participants in that study. The findings from the qualitative research reveal that religion/spirituality can serve as a buffer and illustrates religion/spirituality functioning as an extension of Afrocentric culture and serving as a protective shield enabling some Black people to resist the full psychological impact of personal and societal stressors. This dissertation provides the foundation for the broader work highlighted through this study encapsulated in the Ubuntu Relational Framework for the Study of Black Suicide, an Afrocentric framework I developed that emerged as a guide for exploring the risks and protective factors of Black suicide. The constructs of death consciousness and Divine consciousness emerged during the analysis of the qualitative research as a way of conceptualizing the influence of societal stressors and protective factors on suicidal behavior, and they are an expression of Afrocentric culture. This framework highlights the need to equally prioritize the concern of what animates Black people’s desire to live, which was illuminated through the qualitative research, along with the question of what factors make them at risk for cultivating a desire to die. It further attends to the need for social workers to address the conditions of the racist U.S. environment these factors are assessed within. This dissertation also includes my autoethnography which serves as an analytic review and critical analysis of key concepts related to the study of Black suicide. It is a resource for further grounding in the historical and contemporary context of the Black experience and the Afrocentric worldview incorporated in this work. Autoethnography is an epistemological site for exploring Divine consciousness and the role of religion/spirituality and culture passed down intergenerationally as a protective factor against suicidal behavior. It further outlines a methodology for employing spiritual and cultural resources and operationalizing spiritual resistance. Finally, this dissertation goes beyond identifying risk and protective factors for suicidal behavior in Black people. It outlines a structure for training social work clinicians and researchers in this Afrocentric framework that would expand social workers’ knowledge of African-centered social work, and a method appropriate for responding to this multidimensional mental health problem that requires a creative, culturally rich approach. The training includes a methodology for employing religious/spiritual and cultural resources that operationalizes spiritual resistance that will equip social workers for supporting Black people in developing a healthy holistic mental and social environment within an oppressive racist environment
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work
Discipline: Social work

This thesis examines the respective poiesis of two elemental aspects of our quotidian condition as they have come to be assembled in our present modernity. The two aspects under consider-ation are drawn out from two primary pieces of literature. The first piece of literature to be put to use is Georges Perec’s novel Life – a user’s manual from which the presence of the present and related flow of Time and its relation to our quotidian condition is discussed, whilst the second piece of literature put to use is James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man from which the poiesis of life forces on our quotidian condition, as derivative of the formative life of the main protagonist of this novel, is discussed. The two novels in question aim to serve as a ‘mirror’ in the Benjaminian mode of an Erfahrung, through which two elemental aspects of our quotidian condition might be grasped. The thesis aims to analyse how these two aspects of our quotidian condition have come to be assembled and constructed historically, culturally, socially and personally, and to examine how our quotidian condition actually is as such in reference to their poiesis. In doing so a poetics of two elemental conditions of our ordinary life is hope to be drawn, and that for the purpose of bringing each aspect’s respective constitutive mechanics to a horizonal level of consciousness. The aimed for purpose of the thesis is for each reader to begin to think through their quotidian condition again for themselves, and that any resultant understanding be put to a political use through a particular ‘art of living’.

The influence of a primarily Public form of self-awareness and of Private and Public Self-Consciousness on drunken physical aggression and complex reaction-time were examined. Two forms of the balanced-placebo design were employed. Results indicated that each form of self-focus played a significant role in the determination of various aspects of drunken comportment. Consumption of alcohol did not eliminate self-aware behavior on the measures employed. Public Self-Consciousness acted to increase drunken impairment. A modified form of the balanced-placebo design proved superior to the standard version for use with moderately high doses (1.32 ml/kg) of alcohol on a measure of subjective intoxication. The implications for the literature on self-focus and drunken comportment are discussed.

Social phobia is a disabling, lifelong disorder characterised by fear in social settings.

The aim of the present study was to gain more knowledge about diagnostic, neurobiologic and epidemiologic aspects of social phobia.

Thirty-two individuals were assessed by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I and II psychiatric disorders, the Karolinska Scales of Personality and the Temperament and Character Inventory. Social phobia was accompanied by concurrent axis I disorders in about 28% of individuals, lifetime axis I disorders in 54%, personality disorders in 60%, and avoidant personality disorder (APD) in 47%. This suggests that there is a high comorbidity between social phobia and APD according to the DSM-IV criteria. The personality profiles associated with social phobia were dominated by anxiety-related traits that were primarily related to social phobia itself and not to the presence of concurrent personality disorders.

Eighteen subjects with social phobia and eighteen controls were investigated with positron emission tomography and the radiolabeled serotonin precursor, [3 -11C]–5-HTP (5-HTP). Individuals with social phobia demonstrated proportionally lower regional relative whole brain accumulation of 5-HTP in areas of the frontal and temporal cortices as well as the striatum, but higher accumulation in the cerebellum. This suggests that there are imbalances in presynaptic serotonin function in individuals with social phobia, although this could only be confirmed in men, and not in women.

By means of a postal survey, distributed to 2000 randomly selected individuals, social phobia in Sweden was found to be common, with a point prevalence of 15.6%.

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between height and self-esteem, and to examine the mediating effects of self-consciousness. Four hundred and seventy-nine college students, 143 males and 336 females, 75% under the age of 21, were administered The Personal Opinion Survey which consisted of demographic information, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Elkind and Bowen's Imaginary Audience Scale. Findings revealed a nonlinear relationship between height and self-esteem. Further, self-consciousness emerged as a significant mediator of the relationship between height and self-esteem, accounting for the difference in male and female self-esteem scores. Moreover, the influence of self-consciousness on the height and self-esteem relationship was revealed greatest for females.

The purpose of this research was to investigate how knowledge of biological ecosystems affects individual recognition of humanity as part of and subject to the laws of nature. This dissertation interrogated the question of how awareness of the impact of human overpopulation on the environment was perceived by research participants. That expanding human population growth, and its inherent consumption patterns, is a root cause of virtually every human-related environmental threat is documented in the existing literature but awareness and accountability for this remain limited. Using ecopsychology and analytical psychology as a theoretical framework, this multiple case study investigated how and whether environmental awareness might be impacted by personal knowledge of how ecosystems function in nature.

A multiple case study design was used to interview 10 adults on their perspectives of the environmental impact of human population growth. The participants were purposefully selected creating two five-person groups. Group S had life-science academic training and work experience; Group NS had none. A researcher-generated instrument of 30 open-ended questions, with recorded interviews were used to ascertain participant understanding of ecological laws and population biology concepts and how they might relate to personal worldviews on the cause(s) of environmental issues.

Thematic analysis was used to code data and identify response patterns. Findings suggested participants with working knowledge of ecosystems demonstrated more extensive understanding of the impact of human actions, including population growth, on the environment. Although widespread awareness existed in both groups that human alienation from nature is prevalent and is having environmental consequences, Group S subjects more often recognized the systemic environmental effects of human activity. They were inclined to advocate for individual responsibility and consciousness-raising.

Support for core concepts of ecopsychology is suggested by the findings. Strengthening the human-nature bond to one of inclusiveness using experiential education is a viable option to promote greater ecological awareness and personal accountability. Additional data-driven research is needed to investigate the effects of life science literacy and holistic systems thinking on pro-environmental awareness.

Even though there are many views on consciousness theory in the pertinent literature, there remains a need for a unifying framework for specifying the features of specific states of consciousness. In order to know what kinds of experiences conscious states have in common, researchers need to elicit testimony that is more direct and finer-grained than has been previously available. This dissertation endeavors to fill a gap in current research by addressing concepts and methods for making requisite distinctions. This research illuminates the question of whether specific states of consciousness can be reliably and validly distinguished from each other. In order to do this, 41 individuals, who had experienced significant peak or ecstatic states from a variety of induction methods (most prominently by ingestion of psychedelic substances), were invited to be interviewed. The interview was designed as a conversational-type synthesis of 5 well-known questionnaires pertinent to states of consciousness, but without their explicit and implicit assumptions; that is, the volunteers' responses would not conform to predetermined questions. Encoding their responses allowed me to develop a model that helped to answer the research question ("Are there identifiable features that can reliably and validly distinguish among states of consciousness thought to be distinct from each other?") by formulating a model in which any given conscious state can be catalogued in terms of its component factors (background, resistances, setting, induction, tradition, energies, and breakthrough events). The results of this study provide much-needed insights into people's internal experiences of their various states, thus forming a basis for improved treatments and analyses. Better understanding of these states can be an impetus for social change by allowing for more incisive analyses and treatments, and also enabling more understanding of other people's inner perspectives.

Social factors have long been included in theories that aim at explaining educational inequality, for example social integration or social influence from significant others. Using social network data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU), I am investigating to what extent social aspects can contribute to our understanding of ethnic and gendered patterns in educational inequality. The first two empirical chapters focus on explaining ethnic patterns in school grades and in the aspirations to attend university. In these, I find a positive relationship between low school grades and extent of social exclusion, measured through the absence of friendships and the existence of social rejection from classmates. This helps explaining ethnic grade disadvantages of recently arrived migrants, since they are more likely to be socially excluded. Further, I use friendship network data to detect social clusters within school classes, and find that changes in cluster members' aspirations are relatively more important for changes in individual aspirations than the corresponding changes of classmates outside of the social cluster. These chapters use an ego-centric network approach, i.e. they utilise social network data to capture characteristics of the social dimension around individuals and analyse them in regression models on the individual level. The latter two empirical chapters investigate how social influence can stabilise gendered patterns of favourite subjects and competence beliefs. Examining why girls get discouraged from subjects in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM), I find evidence for influence from friends on favourite subjects, as well as for the tendency of girls to be affected by the preferences of other girls in the classroom specifically when it comes to preferences for STEM subjects. Moreover, I show that there is a social influence from friends on maths competence beliefs, especially for boys, while girls tend to be more influenced by maths grades. These two chapters take a socio-centric approach, i.e. they deploy complete network analysis to detect patterns of social influence, while accounting for network structures and processes. This thesis shows that social aspects can contribute valuable insights into the study of educational choice and attainment. In identifying concrete social mechanisms surrounding and affecting individuals, this approach can thus help us understand how differences in educational outcomes come about.

Since WWII, the United States has experienced unprecedented economic growth and global expansion through the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Today, STEM technological innovations permeate many aspects of the social experience, from education to career to home-life, contributing to a pervasive technocratic ideology emphasizing global U.S. economic and political superiority. Many sectors of American society now tout STEM initiatives as a premium for U.S. education, contributing to the neoliberal model of producing effective, efficient, and skilled laborers. But, does STEM necessarily contribute to those social forces that routinely devalue the principles of a liberal, democratic educational ideal?

In 2014, I investigated new forms of collaboration between the commercial sector and education system in Flagstaff, AZ. The STEM City Center is a non-profit organization that seeks to bridge the gap between community and schools by identifying local assets and sponsoring integrated STEM experiences for students. Using STEM as a conceptual tool to support interdisciplinary approaches to education, participants of this project revealed the core values that motivate social transformation in a town that borders multiple ethnic and cultural realities recognized as under assault by increasingly globalized markets. STEM City's model emphasizes increased critical thinking, collaborative learning, creativity, and effective communication and supports an implicit goal of encouraging a critically engaged, politically aware, and socially conscious society.

It is essential for individuals’ well-being and relationships that they have the ability to consciously experience, express and respond to their own and others’ affects. The validity of a new conception of affect consciousness (AC), incorporating consciousness of both own and others’ affects, was investigated in this thesis. The clinical usefulness of the new conception was explored and an interview (affect consciousness interview – self/other; ACI-S/O) intended to capture this new definition was validated. In study I the interrater reliability and the concurrent validity of the ACI-S/O were assessed and found to be acceptable. There were significant differences in all variables of ACI-S/O between the four groups that participated in the study. Joy and interest had the highest ratings in all groups and guilt and shame had the lowest. By means of a factor analysis, two factors, labeled “general affect consciousness” and “consciousness about shame and guilt,” were obtained. General affect consciousness was related to different aspects of relational and emotional problems and possibly protection against them. In study II the clinical implications of AC were further explored in relation to eating disorders (ED). The level of AC in the ED group was compared with a comparable non-clinical group. The relation between AC and aspects of ED pathology were explored, as well as whether AC should be seen as a state or trait in patients diagnosed with ED. ACI-S/O was not significantly related to ED pathology or general psychological distress. There were no significant differences in AC between the different sub-diagnoses of ED but there were between the ED group and the non-clinical group. Significant pre-post correlations for both factors of ACI-S/O were found, indicating that AC could be seen as a stable dimension that might be important for ED pathology but is unrelated to ED symptoms. In study III the relationship between AC and self-reported attachment style (ASQ) was explored in a non-clinical group and three patient groups. There were significant correlations between all scores on ACI- S/O and the ASQ, with the exception of consciousness about guilt. Multiple regression analyses showed that AC, and especially others’ affects, contributed significantly to the ASQ subscales. AC and in particular own joy and others’ guilt and anger seem to be of importance for attachment style. In study IV the importance of AC for the treatment process was explored. Patients’ AC before therapy was significantly correlated with patients’ positive feelings towards their therapists but not with their alliance ratings. Patients’ warm and positive feelings were related to pre-therapy AC, whereas negative feelings were related to low alliance ratings in the previous sessions.
Det är viktigt för människans relationer och välbefinnande att ha en förmåga att medvetet uppleva, uttrycka egna samt svara på andras affekter. I denna avhandling studerades användbarheten av en ny definition av Affektmedvetenhet (AM), omfattande medvetande om egna och andras affekter samt validiteten i en intervju (affektmedvetenhetsintervjun-själv/andra; AMI-S/A) som avser att fånga den nya definitionen. I studie I undersöktes interbedömarreliabilitet och den samtidiga validiteten hos AMI-S/A. De befanns vara godtagbara. Det fanns signifikanta skillnader på alla delsskalor i AMI-S/A mellan de fyra grupper som deltog i studien. Affekterna glädje och intresse hade de högsta skattningarna i alla grupper och skuld och skam hade de lägsta. En faktoranalys genomfördes där två faktorer föll ut. De beskrevs som "Generell affektmedvetenhet" och "Medvetenhet om skam och skuld". Generell affektmedvetenhet visade sig vara relaterad till olika aspekter av relationella och känslomässiga problem och antogs skydda mot dessa. I studie II genomfördes vidare undersökning av den kliniska betydelsen av AM för ätstörningar. Nivån av AM hos patienter med ätstörningar jämfördes med en demografiskt jämförbar icke-klinisk grupp. Förhållandet mellan AM och ätstörningspatologi undersöktes. Någon signifikant relation mellan AMI-S/A och ätstörningssymtom eller allmän psykisk ohälsa hos ätstörningspatienterna hittades inte. Det fanns heller inga signifikanta skillnader i AM mellan olika undergrupper av ätstörning men däremot mellan hela ätstörningsgruppen och den icke-kliniska gruppen. Frågan om AM kan betraktas mer som ett drag eller tillstånd hos patienter med ätstörning utforskades. Det fanns signifikanta korrelationer mellan före och eftermätning på båda faktorerna på AMI-S/A. Resultaten tyder på att AM kan ses som en stabil dimension i sig själv som tycks vara viktig för ätstörningar, men som inte har samband med ätstörningssymtom. I studie III undersöktes förhållandet mellan AM och självrapporterad anknytningsstil (ASQ) i en icke-klinisk grupp och tre patientgrupper. Det fanns signifikanta korrelationer mellan alla skattningar på AMI-S/A och ASQ, med undantag av medvetenhet om skuld. Regressionsanalyser visade att AM, och speciellt medvetenhet om andras affekter, bidrog signifikant till anknytningsstilen. AM och i synnerhet egen glädje och andras skuld och ilska verkar vara av betydelse för anknytningsstil. I studie IV undersöktes betydelse av AM för behandlingsprocessen i olika former av samtalsbehandling. Patienternas AM före behandlingen var signifikant korrelerad med deras positiva känslor gentemot sina terapeuter vid det tredje samtalet, men inte med deras alliansskattning vid detta samtal. Patienternas negativa känslor var inte relaterade till deras AM före behandlingen men däremot till låg alliansskattning vid de tidigare samtalen.

Cabala is a small, rural village of mestizo and indigena people in the Ecuadorian Andes. Since the local haciendas were disbanded in 1962 the economy and population of the village have both declined and the remaining villagers have increased their engagement in the money economy. Nevertheless most contemporary villagers were suspicious of urban Ecuador which they perceived as being organised exclusively according to trade transactions and saw themselves as belonging to a distinct moral community characterised by participation in exchange relations. Cabalano society was largely ordered according to the logic of a 'good faith economy' and any breach of the obligations inherent in exchange relations threatened not just the relationships between participants but the social order of the whole village. Transgressions of the social order were minimised by the stress most villagers placed on the correct performance of social roles and the maintenance of personal reputations. Thus the social and political order of the village was weighted towards conservatism and I describe how awareness of public scrutiny of their behaviour influenced how most villagers behaved towards members of their own household, managed their responses to the world and treated illness. At the same time, however, many villagers were able to manipulate public opinion, at least sometimes, and were able to both initiate, and adapt to, changes in the social order. Furthermore increased engagement in the money economy suggests that villagers were aware they could choose to order their social relations according to a different logic but chose not to. In the conclusion to the work, therefore, I argue that most villagers made an active choice to stress the importance of exchange relations in order to resist the perceived anomie of the modern, Ecuadorian state.

This dissertation explores how the heroines in Hayao Miyazaki animations subvert the antiquated, patriarchal models of the conquering hero that predominate Western literature and cinema. As unifying agents of change, such heroines use communal solutions to conflict by rejecting militarism, refuting stereotypical gender roles and reversing environmental destruction. Five Miyazaki animations are reviewed: My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. The protagonists in these films undertake a voyage of balance inspired by Shinto animism and Japanese mythological traditions that reflect the heroine's journey schema and the individuation process that is the zenith of depth psychology. I argue that Miyazaki heroines are not solely aligned with Jungian theories of the anima as a contrasexual projection of a male, but rather as the spark of life that ignites the storyline.

The intention of this work is to examine the role of the anima rich heroine by drawing upon the depth psychological theories of James Hillman, Hayao Kawai, Marie- Louise von Franz, Ginette Paris and Christine Downing. At the same time, Miyazaki heroines are contrasted with the Disney princesses that reinforce traditional heterosexual norms and other pop culture protagonists that support androcentric order.

To attain a holistic vision of the world, the Miyazaki heroine must overcome the patriarchal constructs of her society that would otherwise disempower her. Such heroines exert their strength of character through compassionate understanding of the oppositional characters within the film story rather than viewing them as foes to be destroyed. Miyazaki heroines discover equilibrium of self by meeting their unconscious shadow aspects and positively integrating them instead of projecting them negatively onto others.

The anima rich, complex heroine in Miyazaki animations is a transformative protagonist that represents an emerging heroic and mythic model for a global community in transition. Drawing from soul more than ego, she contributes to an evolving collective psyche that bears the potential to heal and reshape this nascent post-patriarchal world.

This study, Relational Aggression, Middle School Girls, and the Development of Critical Consciousness, engaged both feminist theory and critical pedagogy as a means to deconstruct the issue of relational aggression among adolescent girls. The objective of this research was to contribute to the growing body of literature pertaining to relational aggression and fill some gaps in the literature surrounding preventative programming. This study investigated the experiences of middle school girls engaged in a solution-oriented approach in order to postulate possible program approaches and educational initiatives to decrease the prevalence of relational aggression in middle school girls. The collection and analysis of the data sought to describe a connection between girls’ participation in the program and developing critical consciousness about relational aggression, as well as strategies to address it in their lives. The qualitative data collected in this participatory action research show that relational aggression is much more than a mere “right of passage” or indicate that “mean girls” are a just a normal part of growing up. Relational aggression is harmful, has intense, negative short- and long-term effects, and—in the lives of the girls I have worked closely with—is very real, incredibly painful, and deeply personal. The findings of this study confirmed that girls benefit from the creation of educative environments, or “safe spaces,” where they can dialogue critically with one another about issues that are important to them; this is integral to their socioemotional development in middle school.

The field of industrial ecology aims to transform industry into cyclical systems so that the “waste of one process can be used as resource for another process” (Frosch and Galloupoulos, 1989). Within this field, Industrial Symbiosis (IS) has emerged as a set of exchange structures to advance to a more eco-efficient industrial system, by establishing inter-organisational networks of waste material and energy exchanges. Even though the area has attracted much academic attention and has been reported to lead to economic and environmental benefits (Chertow and Lombardi, 2005), initially, most of the contributions focused on the engineering and technical feasibility of the exchanges, whereas social elements remained mostly unaddressed. Although relevant literature has partly addressed this gap and recognized the role played by social aspects, there is still little understanding of how social mechanisms work; how they affect the emergence and operation of IS networks and, most importantly, there is a lack of comprehensive frameworks for the analysis of the soft elements of IS. This research has been designed to contribute to these areas, by exploring the social aspects surrounding IS networks and providing a framework for their analysis. The framework provided covers the material, social and discursive dimensions of IS networks and focus on the dynamic analysis of the interaction between them. The research design relies on the cross-comparison of a number of IS networks: Kalundborg (Denmark), Sagunto (Spain) and NISP (UK). Social Network Analysis and Discourse Analysis have been used as main methodological approaches. Findings of the research cover two key areas: 1) the formulation of a comprehensive analytical framework that addresses the social dimension of IS initiatives in a systematic and integrative way and 2) empirical learning on the main social processes affecting the operation of IS networks.

This thesis investigates the functional neuroanatomy of SAD [Social Anxiety Disorder] using an activation likelihood-estimate meta-analysis (ALE meta-analysis), and explores the structural basis of SAD using a cortical thickness and subcortical gray matter volume analysis.

The objective of this study was to elucidate the possible importance of factors from the social environment for the development of depression. As a theoretical framework, Engel's biopsychosocial model (Engel, 1980), based on systems theory, has been applied. Proceeding from the single individual (characterized by experience, personality, behaviour) as the highest level of the organismic hierarchy the following system levels have been taken into account: dyads, family, community, culture-subculture. The depressive patients (n=lll) showed to be living in a narrowed social network and to lack confiding relationships compared with a non-psychiatric control sample (n=98). The personality characteristics (e.g. anxiety, detachment, suspicion) of the patients were related to experienced loneliness, contact difficulties, social network features and leisure activities. By means of a discriminant analysis 83% of the subjects could be correctly classified. In a study of perceived parental rearing, depressives showed to have experienced lack of emotional warmth. As regards social class an overrepresentation of social class III in the subgroups of unipolar, bipolar and unspecified depression was observed. Finally, implications for treatment are discussed in favour of a combination of drug and cognitive psychotherapy. Future research strategies are also suggested.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 1985, härtill 8 uppsatser.

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