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Experiencing ‘continuity’: A qualitative investigation of waking life in dreams.
No full textContinuity between waking life and dreaming has typically been studied via the quantitative analysis of dream reports, which has illustrated that dreaming reflects waking-life experiences, thoughts, and emotions. However, there are currently no reliable methods of analyzing dreams for the more subjective aspects of dreams, such as those dreams that are metaphorically related to the dreamer’s waking life, which require dreamer input. We conducted a qualitative study involving in-depth semistructured interviews with 4 participants. The interview schedules were based on Schredl’s (2010) dream group technique. Using thematic analysis we developed 3 themes that describe continuity between waking life and dreams: “experiential continuity” (between waking-life experiences/thoughts and dreams), “emotional continuity” (between waking-life emotions and dreams), and “representative continuity” (metaphorical and generic representations of waking life in dreams). Rather than being dichotomous, participants experienced continuity in gradations. A fourth theme (“attitudes toward continuity”) explored how attitudes toward continuity influenced continuity experiences
Defining and measuring the contribution of Anglican secondary schools to students' religious, personal and social values
No full textThe involvement of the Christian Churches within a state-maintained system of schools, as in the case of England and Wales, raises interesting and important questions regarding the concept of religion employed in this context and regarding defining and measuring the influence exerted by schools with a religious character on the students who attend such schools. Since the foundation of the National Society in 1811, Anglican schools have provided a significant contribution to the state-maintained sector of education in England and Wales and by the end of the twentieth century were providing about 25% of primary school places and nearly 5% of secondary school places. From the early 1970s, Francis and his colleagues have offered a series of studies profiling the attitudes and values of students attending Anglican schools as a way of defining and measuring the influence exerted by schools with a religious character. The present study extends previous research in three ways. It offers a comparative study by examining the responses of 1,097 year-nine and year-ten students from 4 Anglican schools with 20,348 students from 93 schools without a religious foundation. It examines a range of religious, social and personal values. It employs multilevel linear models to identify the contribution made by Anglican schools after taking into account differences within the students themselves. Of the 11 dependent variables tested, only one, self-esteem, showed any significant difference between Anglican schools and schools without a religious foundation. Students attending Anglican schools recorded a significantly lower level of self-esteem. On the other hand, there were no significant school effects identified in terms of rejection of drug use, endorsing illegal behaviours, racism, attitude toward school, conservative Christian belief or views on sexual morality (abortion, contraception, divorce, homosexuality, and sex outside marriage)
What is a child? Children’s perceptions, the Cambridge Primary Review and implications for education
No full textDebate about the definition of a ‘child’ occurs in multi-disciplinary contexts, most recently located in the new sociology of childhood where social constructionism is the dominant discourse. Given that the child’s voice has become an increasingly valued component of research, this paper reports on one aspect of a study which explored how 7–11-year-olds (N = 56) defined and understood the concept of ‘a child’. Data were categorised into four types: physical, behavioural, lifestyle and criteria-referenced descriptors. Dominant theoretical elements such as agency, social construction, relational understanding and notions of themselves as beings were evident in the children’s responses. However, the importance of the biological and developmental bases of childhood and their sense of becoming adults were stronger than is sometimes acknowledged in the literature. The implications for education of these two digressions from contemporary theoretical discourse are considered in light of the Cambridge Primary Review which calls for a reshaping of primary education and initial teacher training in England to include childhood as a central concept
Alternative Ulster: punk rock as a means of overcoming the religious divide in Northern Ireland
No full textBy setting the Irish religious conflict in a wide comparative perspective, this book offers fresh insights into the causes of religious conflicts, and potential means of resolving them. The collection mounts a challenge to views of 'Irish exceptionalism' and points to significant historical and contemporary commonalities across the Western world
Evidence for the preferential incorporation of emotional waking-life experiences into dreams.
No full textThe continuity hypothesis of dreaming states that waking life is continuous with dreams, but many of the factors that have been postulated to influence wake–dream continuity have rarely been studied. The present study investigated whether certain factors—emotional and stressfulness intensity, and certain types of experiences—influence the likelihood of a waking-life experience being incorporated into a dream. Participants (N = 32) kept dream diaries and waking-life experience logs for 14 consecutive days, and waking-life experiences were matched to dream reports. Waking-life experiences that were incorporated into dreams were significantly more emotional, but no more stressful, than those that were not incorporated into dreams. Major daily activities were incorporated significantly less than the combination of personally significant experiences, major concerns, and novel experiences. Results are discussed in terms of dream functionality, particularly in relation to a postulated emotional memory assimilation theory of dream function
Preliminary evaluation of the use of pharmacological treatment with convicted sexual offenders experiencing high levels of sexual preoccupation, hypersexuality and/or sexual compulsivity
No full textThe current study presents the preliminary evaluation of the impact of pharmacological treatment (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and anti-androgens) on hypersexuality, sexual preoccupation and sexual compulsivity. The participant pool comprised 64 convicted UK sexual offenders who had been voluntarily referred for pharmacological treatment to reduce their hypersexual arousal, 51 of whom agreed to take the medication (with a further five individuals on hold or under assessment at the time of data extraction). The preliminary findings were very encouraging; analysis on measures assessing sexual preoccupation, hypersexuality and sexual compulsivity indicated a significant reduction between pre- and post-medication, across both types of medication. Limitations of the current research are discussed
Ethnomethodological methods for identity and culture
No full textThis chapter sets out an ethnomethological approach to the study of topics like ‘identity’ and ‘culture’. Drawing on examples from previous studies of domestic, workplace and other settings, we show that and how an ethnomethodological approach eschews any kind of analyst-driven (and predetermined) theory of what ‘identity’ and ‘culture’ are, in favour of a search for how speakers and writers come to develop, invoke and orient to their own, participant-driven (and contextually dependent) theories of what ‘identity’ and ‘culture’ are whilst interacting with other speakers and writers (see Attenborough, 2011; Attenborough & Stokoe, 2012; Stokoe, 2009; Stokoe, Benwell & Attenborough, 2013). In order to explain this approach, we have divided the chapter into two sections. In the fi rst, we look at how the empirical investigation of these topics takes place from the perspective of two ethnomethodologically informed methods: conversation analysis (CA) and membership categorisation analysis (MCA). Working with these methods, we foreground the importance of identity categories to and for co-interactants in a particular sequence of data where someone’s identity is at stake (see Extract 1). In so doing, we point to the way in which the cultural meanings carried by categories are never innately given, but rather moulded and shaped around the social and cultural action(s) being attempted in that particular sequence of interaction (for a different approach, see Baynham, this volume). The take-away ethnomethodological message here, we go on to suggest, is that culture is never just ‘culture’, but is always ‘culture-in-action’, where much of that action is performed in and through the various identity categories that people invoke during local, and contextually specifi c, forms of social interaction (also see Kadianaki, O-Sullivan & Gillespie, this volume). In the chapter’s second section, we build on this observation by looking in detail at two particular ways in which identity categories can be deployed systematically so as to accomplish social action(s): fi rst, we show how certain kinds of identity may be made relevant to actions such as ‘complaining’ and ‘denial’ (Extracts 2-5); second, we illustrate the ways that identity categories produce culture in affiliative
accounts of various kinds, as component features of ‘categorial practices’ (Extracts 6-9). Overall, we hope to give readers a clear sense of how to use conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis in order to catch phenomena such as culture and identity ‘in flight’, as it were, in the categories that people develop, invoke and orient to whilst pursuing social actions of various kinds
Straight edge punk – religious mutation or over-reaching?
No full textA mutation is often thought of in negative terms, that is, as a damaged or altered gene that can no longer fulfil its purpose as intended. However if we reverse our view and consider the whole as the vehicle that is incapable of fulfilling its purpose then the mutation becomes a new possibility. For the purposes of this paper, religion in its traditional sense will be considered as the „faulty whole‟ and Straight Edge punk rock as the mutation that creates new pathways for religious and spiritual experiences and understanding. This paper will demonstrate, through interview extracts, lyrics, music and visual images created by interviewees during field work in both the UK and the US,that such religious mutations create a spiritual identity located firmly within a secular (indeed one could argue profane) subculture. Yet they develop an approach to religion and spirituality that seeks a return of a sense of immanence without a necessity for transcendence. Their wilfully syncretic approach to spirituality is co-mingled with secular practices and ideas as they refuse a lack of distinctions. The paper aims to explore and locate this phenomenon of post-secular approaches to religion and spirituality, both as it is found and practiced within Straight Edge punk and within the wider theoretical concerns of religious migration and mutation
Integrating climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction at local level: How to combine modern science and local knowledge to reduce communities’ vulnerability
No full textA regional joint action plan aimed at integrating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation incorporating discussions among the different stakeholders is under development. At a national level, these efforts are complemented by the implementation (Tonga) or the preparation (Cook Islands) of joint action plans combining disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation measures. The optimization of the deployment of human, financial and technical resources is a developing trend in the Pacific region, leading to the organisation of the joint Pacific climate change round table and Pacific disaster management platform in 2013 and the launch of a Pacific joint action plan in 2016. Despite the relatively straightforward process of preparing the joint policies, implementation at national and local level raises several issues. At local level, disaster risk committees often exist, but they are not equipped to deal with long term adaptation to climate change. Moreover, in some cases, the local knowledge used during disaster response could lose its relevance because of climate change and the impact on marine and terrestrial ecosystems. In order to reduce the vulnerability of communities to both natural hazards and climate change, the local governance will need to overcome long held biases to integrate local knowledge with information provided by modern science and technology