Suchergebnisse

'From Watergate to Whitewater: The Public Integrity War' by Robert N. Roberts and Marion T. Doss Jr is reviewed.

AbstractThis work explores how the I Ching (易經), or Book of Change, as an ancient wisdom text can aid in the development of peaceful equanimity, an important skill given modernity's rapidly accelerating pace of change where processes of globalization have exacerbated a sense of loss of control and climate change demands a more holistic and ecological understanding of well‐being. The I Ching is a layered text that both predates and informs Confucianism, Daoism, and Chan Buddhism. Its relational focus contributes to the philosophic syncretism of these three teachings that constitute traditional Chinese worldviews. Its consistent advice focuses on understanding how to deal with change by exercising patience, respect, equanimity, and emotional intelligence. Given China's enormous role today, this work promotes a deeper appreciation and understanding for traditional Chinese values that can strengthen international relations wherein ecological and social justice form the foundation for well‐being.

This paper describes a unique service-learning based environmental and humanitarian program for youth, The Jane Goodall Institute's Roots and Shoots program (R&S). R&S aims to foster learning, personal growth and civic engagement among youth members through service activities and environmental education. Despite its promise as a youth development program and its rapid expansion into 100 countries, little is known about R&S's impact on youth development. In this study, we explore R&S programs in China and Tanzania, two countries that are maximally different from the U.S. in important cultural and contextual factors. Through qualitative and quantitative methods we describe the programs, their practices, and perceptions of their impact on youths' personal and social development (cognitive and social competence, leadership, self-efficacy, citizenship and social responsibility). Additionally, we highlight the importance of sociocultural and ecological factors when developing and evaluating youth programs.

AbstractIs a concept of either reversibility or of hierarchical forms of combination necessary for skilled seriation? We examined this question by presenting seriating cups to adult capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees and to 11‐, 16‐ and 21‐month‐old children. Capuchins and chimpanzees consistently created seriated sets with five cups, and placed a sixth cup into a previously seriated set. Children of all three ages created seriated five‐cup sets less consistently than the capuchins and chimpanzees, and were rarely able to place a sixth cup into a seriated set. Twenty‐one‐month‐olds produced more structures containing three or more cups than did the younger age groups, and these children also achieved seriated sets more frequently. Within all participant groups, success at seriating five cups was associated with the frequency of combining three or more cups, regardless of form. The ability to integrate multiple elements in persistent combinatorial activity is sufficient for the emergence of seriation in young children, monkeys and apes. Reliance on particular methods of combination and a concept of reversibility are later refinements that can enhance skilled seriation.

Ugandan youth face a number of threats to their healthy development including poverty, high rates of disease, civil conflict, and environmental degradation. Cultivating developmental competencies is critical, not only for youth, but also for the future of Ugandan communities and civil society. In this article, we highlight contextual challenges facing Ugandan youth, report exploratory results on "standard" measures of developmental assets, and discuss the utility of a positive youth development (PYD) framework in Uganda. Despite difficult circumstances, our results indicated high levels of internal and external assets as assessed with the Developmental Assets Profile (DAP). The DAP demonstrated acceptable internal consistencies and was correlated with two other measures of youth assets, self-efficacy, and civic action. Although researchers should proceed with caution when using psychometric measures in new cultural contexts, our results provide preliminary support for the use of the DAP and a PYD framework for advancing adolescent research and programming in Uganda.

Self-efficacy has been examined around the world, with research indicating its importance for personal and civic development. The General Self-Efficacy Scale has been translated into 33 languages; however, no African language version has been well established, and research on self-efficacy in the region is rare. A measure of self-efficacy in Swahili, a language widely used in East Africa, could spur research. We describe the development of the Swahili General Self-Efficacy Scale and its psychometric properties with a large, diverse group of Tanzanian youth and emerging adults ( N = 1,409, ages 13–26). We report psychometrics including internal consistency, factor structure, convergent reliability, and the ability of the measure to predict civic competencies. Our results establish the Swahili General Self-Efficacy Scale as a credible measure with implications for personal and civic development. We suggest areas for investigation and provide the Swahili scale as an impetus for research in the region.