Giving hope back to our young people: creating a new spiritual mythology for Western culture

There is extensive psychological literature which has linked hopelessness with depression and suicide risk for decades. Although there is a strong research and clinical base for targeting depression, there is a gap in the psychological literature when it comes to targeting hopelessness, specifically. In the absence of such a body of psychological literature, this paper draws on the research from the Futures Studies field which also records a rise in hopelessness, negativity and fear of the future among young people in the West. These phenomena (hopelessness, depression and suicide) will be analysed using Causal Layered Analysis, a methodology from the Futures Studies field, pointing to the long-term psycho-social impact on youth of the materialistic worldview that underpins Western culture. The paper will also explore the question: "how can hope for the future be promoted?" by looking beyond the dominance of materialism to spiritually inspired worldviews and the new metaphors and stories that arise from them

Re-Envisioning Contemplative Pedagogy Through Self-Study

Contemplative pedagogy focuses on creating a sense of presence within educators to effectively educate the whole person through mindfulness in teaching. As I engage in a self-study, I develop initial components for the way I employ contemplative pedagogy. I aim to understand myself as an educator in order to teach effectively. One way to enable particular kinds of understandings is through self-study methodology. The foundational framework that develops through my ongoing self-study may interest those who are unfamiliar with the terrain of contemplative pedagogy. For the purposes of this article, I place an emphasis on the philosophy and ethics classes that I taught at Middlesex County College in New Jersey, although I teach several classes on many campuses. My philosophical method requires me to engage in a self-study of my teaching practices. My project involves self-study as a philosophical research methodology that aims to inform educators and rethink the theories and praxis of teaching. As I work towards improvement- aimed pedagogy, I make myself vulnerable as I share my experiences with my Peer Scholar. My Peer Scholar, which some researchers call a “critical friend”, deliberates with me to challenge epistemological assumptions along with suspicions. The self-study dialogue with my Peer Scholar causes me to define initial components of how I engage in an improvement-aimed contemplative pedagogy. My hope is to support those who wish to implement contemplative pedagogy in higher education as I relate my working framework based on the themes that developed from the deliberation. The components in the article that convey how I engage in contemplative pedagogy are not meant to serve as a checklist or stern procedure for classroom activities. I share these components as aspects of my contemplative pedagogy, with suggestive scripts, not as a rigid structure but rather as a work in progress that is always under construction

Imaginative Value Sensitive Design: How Moral Imagination Exceeds Moral Law Theories in Informing Responsible Innovation

Safe-by-Design (SBD) frameworks for the development of emerging technologies have become an ever more popular means by which scholars argue that transformative emerging technologies can safely incorporate human values. One such popular SBD methodology is called Value Sensitive Design (VSD). A central tenet of this design methodology is to investigate stakeholder values and design those values into technologies during early stage research and development (R&D). To accomplish this, the VSD framework mandates that designers consult the philosophical and ethical literature to best determine how to weigh moral trade-offs. However, the VSD framework also concedes the universalism of moral values, particularly the values of freedom, autonomy, equality trust and privacy justice. This paper argues that the VSD methodology, particularly applied to nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) technologies, has an insufficient grounding for the determination of moral values. As such, an exploration of the value-investigations of VSD are deconstructed to illustrate both its strengths and weaknesses. This paper also provides possible modalities for the strengthening of the VSD methodology, particularly through the application of moral imagination and how moral imagination exceed the boundaries of moral intuitions in the development of novel technologies

Strengthening peace: Quest for the transformative energy and prospects for change

Ovaj rad razmatra mogućnosti da postkonfliktna društva napreduju i osiguraju stabilan i trajan mir uprkos različitim psihološkim i strukturalnim preprekama. Stojeći na stanovištu pozitivne psihologije, autor sugeriše da bi ljudska energija i zamišljanje bolje budućnosti za sve mogli biti glavni motor za prevazilaženje postojećih problema. Posebna pažnja poklonjena je problemu kako naći odgovarajuće lidere-vizionare, koje bi bile njihove poželjne osobine, te kako razviti njihove postojeće odlike i pokrenuti razvoj novih. Predložen je kurs čiji bi cilj bio sticanje kako znanja o različitim aspektima postkonfliktnih problema, tako i vrlina kao što su posvećenost i saosećanje. Izgledi za očekivane rezultate i teškoće na tom putu razmatraju se u svetlu pristupa razvijenih u okviru pozitivne psihologije, kao i rastućeg uticaja globalizacije. Predloženo rešenje našlo je potvrdu u rezultatima jednog nedavnog empirijskog istraživanja obavljenog u postkonfliktnom regionu Balkana. Članak se završava optimističnim zaključkom da je pozitivna transformacija moguća.This paper considers possibilities of postconflict societies to move forward and to assure stable and long-standing peace in spite of different psychological and structural obstacles. Author, from the positive psychology standpoint, proposes that human energy and envisioning of a better future for all could be the main engine in overcoming existing problems. Special attention has been addressed to the problem of how to find appropriate visionary leaders, what their desirable characteristics are and how to enhance their existing features as well as initiate the development of others. An educational course aiming at combining the acquisition of both knowledge of different aspects of postconflict problems and virtues like devotion and compassion, has been proposed. Prospects for expected outcomes and challenges on the way have been discussed in light of the approaches developed within positive psychology, as well as of the ever broader influence of globalization. The proposed solution has been confirmed by the results of a recent empirical research from the postconflict region of the Balkans. The paper ends with the optimistic conclusion that positive transformation is possible

Securing the Anthropocene? International Policy Experiments in Digital Hacktivism: A Case Study of Jakarta

This article analyses security discourses that are beginning to self-consciously take on board the shift towards the Anthropocene. Firstly, it sets out the developing episteme of the Anthropocene, highlighting the limits of instrumentalist cause-and-effect approaches to security, increasingly becoming displaced by discursive framings of securing as a process, generated through new forms of mediation and agency, capable of grasping inter-relations in a fluid context. This approach is the methodology of hacking: creatively composing and repurposing already existing forms of agency. It elaborates on hacking as a set of experimental practices and imaginaries of securing the Anthropocene, using as a case study the field of digital policy activism with the focus on community empowerment through social-technical assemblages being developed and applied in ‘the City of the Anthropocene’: Jakarta, Indonesia. The article concludes that policy interventions today cannot readily be grasped in modernist frameworks of ‘problem solving’ but should be seen more in terms of evolving and adaptive ‘life hacks’

Threshold concepts: Impacts on teaching and learning at tertiary level

This project explored teaching and learning of hard-to-learn threshold concepts in first-year English, an electrical engineering course, leadership courses, and in doctoral writing. The project was envisioned to produce disciplinary case studies that lecturers could use to reflect on and refine their curriculum and pedagogy, thereby contributing to discussion about the relationship between theory and methodology in higher education research (Shay, Ashwin, & Case, 2009). A team of seven academics investigated lecturers’ awareness and emergent knowledge of threshold concepts and associated pedagogies and how such pedagogies can afford opportunities for learning. As part of this examination the lecturers also explored the role of threshold concept theory in designing curricula and sought to find the commonalities in threshold concepts and their teaching and learning across the four disciplines. The research highlights new ways of teaching threshold concepts to help students learn concepts that are fundamental to the disciplines they are studying and expand their educational experiences. Given that much of the international research in this field focuses on the identification of threshold concepts and debates their characteristics (Barradell, 2013; Flanagan, 2014; Knight, Callaghan, Baldock, & Meyer, 2013), our exploration of what happens when lecturers use threshold concept theory to re-envision their curriculum and teaching helps to address a gap within the field. By addressing an important theoretical and practical approach the project makes a considerable contribution to teaching and learning at the tertiary level in general and to each discipline in particular

Yhteyksien pedagogiikka kohtaa ilmastonmuutoksen viheliäisenä kestävyysongelmana

Climate change is a wicked problem of our time. It is a phenomenon that is difficult to combat with prevailing ways of thinking and behaving related to a modern understanding of humanity and education. In this article, the challenges of sustainability education are explored from the theoretical perspective of modern dichotomies. The article argues that to combat wicked problems of sustainability, awareness of interconnectedness is vital. In order to increase the understanding of what kind of dismantling of thinking in dichotomies and why the awareness of interconnectedness and pedagogical approaches are crucial in promoting sustainability, the literature of environmental philosophy, sociology and education are brought together with the literature of sustainability sciences and sustainability education. The principles of pedagogy of interconnectedness define the critical awareness of interconnectedness vital for sustainability education dealing with the wicked sustainability issues such as climate change. The pedagogy of interconnectedness underlines the essentiality of understanding of the world and humans as relational: recognizing the interdependence of society and nature, the local and global, and seeing the common reality as socially constructed and humanness and learning in a holistic way. A case of university pedagogy, the Climate.now online course material is presented and analysed as an example of interconnecting climate change education, how to implement the principle of pedagogy of interconnectedness in practice.Climate change is a wicked problem of our time. It is a phenomenon that is difficult to combat with prevailing ways of thinking and behaving related to a modern understanding of humanity and education. In this article, the challenges of sustainability education are explored from the theoretical perspective of modern dichotomies. The article argues that to combat wicked problems of sustainability, awareness of interconnectedness is vital. In order to increase the understanding of what kind of dismantling of thinking in dichotomies and why the awareness of interconnectedness and pedagogical approaches are crucial in promoting sustainability, the literature of environmental philosophy, sociology and education are brought together with the literature of sustainability sciences and sustainability education. The principles of pedagogy of interconnectedness define the critical awareness of interconnectedness vital for sustainability education dealing with the wicked sustainability issues such as climate change. The pedagogy of interconnectedness underlines the essentiality of understanding of the world and humans as relational: recognizing the interdependence of society and nature, the local and global, and seeing the common reality as socially constructed and humanness and learning in a holistic way. A case of university pedagogy, the Climate.now online course material is presented and analysed as an example of interconnecting climate change education, how to implement the principle of pedagogy of interconnectedness in practice.Peer reviewe

‘Engage the World’: examining conflicts of engagement in public museums

Public engagement has become a central theme in the mission statements of many cultural institutions, and in scholarly research into museums and heritage. Engagement has emerged as the go-to-it-word for generating, improving or repairing relations between museums and society at large. But engagement is frequently an unexamined term that might embed assumptions and ignore power relationships. This article describes and examines the implications of conflicting and misleading uses of ‘engagement’ in relation to institutional dealings with contested questions about culture and heritage. It considers the development of an exhibition on the Dead Sea Scrolls by the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto in 2009 within the new institutional goal to ‘Engage the World’. The chapter analyses the motivations, processes and decisions deployed by management and staff to ‘Engage the World’, and the degree to which the museum was able to re-think its strategies of public engagement, especially in relation to subjects,issues and publics that were more controversial in nature