832 research outputs found
Vegetarianism in Russia: The Tolstoy(an) Legacy
The collapse of communist rule in Russia at the beginning of the 1990s revived a whole series of social, cultural, and ideological phenomena that had either lain dormant or been almost entirely absent during the Soviet period, phenomena ranging from pornography and prostitution to religion and real estate. Vegetarianism, which had been demonized under Stalin as a pernicious and insidiously anti-scientific doctrine promulgated by the ideologues of the exploitative classes in the capitalist West, experienced a revival that began during the glasnost\u27 years; it has continued to remain popular in post communist Russia as well. The Vegetarian Society of the USSR, which was created in the late 1980s under Gorbachev, helped to bring together-and, more importantly, to bring out of the proverbial closet-Russian vegetarians of various hues, organizing health groups in different cities across the former Soviet Union
Attitudes towards intellectual disabilities across cultures.
Culture appears to be an important influence on attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities (e.g., Fatimilehin & Nadirshaw, 1994). The author aimed to identify and review all relevant studies. This review highlights the complexity of conclusions drawn from cross-cultural attitudinal research and emphasises that social inclusion is a western concept that is not necessarily applicable to non-western cultures. Suggestions for future research are made, including the importance of investigating attitudes in multicultural societies. This is particularly relevant in the UK, which is culturally diverse, whilst employing a western conceptualisation of intellectual disabilities
Interviewing and Counseling Across Cultures: Heuristics and Biases
Increasingly in recent years, critics and commentators have noted the importance of the role of culture within the lawyering process. Lawyers now understand better than they used to that culture matters in their day to day work with clients, and that not all cultures share the same habits, customs, values, traditions and preferences. This article explores how the reality of cultural diversity might affect some fundamental lawyering practices and models, and specifically the models for interviewing and counseling. In their work, lawyers must take cultural background into consideration expressly, but at the same time they must avoid harmful and unfair generalizations and stereotypes. This article proposes the concept of heuristics to capture the idea that lawyers might assume tentatively, but only tentatively, that a member of a recognized non-dominant cultural group will share the values, habits, and preferences of his or her group. It then employs the concept of biases to remind lawyers of the need to be aware of their own cultural preconceptions when working with different clients, if they hope to be effective counselors. Throughout, the article emphasizes a commitment to disciplined naïveté and informed not-knowing -reminding readers that individuals can only begin to appreciate the richness of cultures different from their own
Towards a more-than-human approach to tree health
New ways of working and thinking in relation to tree health and plant biosecurity are required. The climate is changing and the number of pests and diseases is increasing. A review of the social science literature on plant health reveals that scholars are not quite sure what this ânew thinkingâ might entail. In this chapter, we begin the process of re-imagining tree health by starting with the trees and our research engagement with them. Trees are acknowledged in this chapter as never static, but rather fluid, shape-shifters, translated across time and space. Health and disease are revealed as relational, and a fixed approach to tree health management wonât work. In a world of rapid change, this way of working is not just relevant for trees
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Race and Genetics: Attempts to Define the Relationship
Many researchers working in the field of human genetics in the United States have been caught between two seemingly competing messages with regard to racial categories and genetic difference. As the human genome was mapped in 2000, Francis Collins, the head of the publicly funded project, together with his privately funded rival, announced that humans were 99.9 percent the same at the level of their genome. That same year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began a research program on pharmacogenetics that would exploit the .01 percent of human genetic difference, increasingly understood in racial terms, to advance the field of pharmacy. First, this article addresses Collinsâ summary of what he called the âvigorous debateâ on the relationship between race and genetics in the open-access special
issue of Nature Genetics entitled âGenetics for the Human Raceâ in 2004. Second, it examines the most vexed (if not always openly stated) issue at stake in the debate: that many geneticists today work with the assumption that human biology differs by race as it is conceived through American census categories. It then presents interviews with researchers in two collaborating US laboratories who collect and organize DNA by American notions of ârace/ethnicityâ and assume that US race categories of classification largely traduce human biogenetic difference. It concludes that race is a practical and conceptual tool whose utility and function is often taken for granted rather than rigorously assessed and that ârational medicineâ cannot precede a rational approach to addressing the nature of racial disparities, difference and inequality in health and society more broadly.African and African American StudiesAnthropolog
The Transformative Potential of Attorney Bilingualism
In contemporary U.S. law practice, attorney bilingualism is increasingly valued, primarily because it allows lawyers to work more efficiently and to pursue a broader range of professional opportunities. This purely functionalist conceptualization of attorney bilingualism, however, ignores the surprising ways in which multilingualism can enhance a lawyer\u27s professional work and can strengthen and reshape relationships among actors in the U.S. legal milieu. Drawing upon research from psychology, linguistics, and other disciplines, this Article advances a theory of the transformative potential of attorney bilingualism. Looking first to the development of lawyers themselves, the Article posits that attorneys who operate bilingually may, over time, enjoy cognitive advantages such as enhanced creative thinking and problem-solving abilities, a more analytical orientation to language, and greater communicative sensitivity. Moreover, the existence of lawyers who are fully immersed in the bilingual practice of law will transform and invigorate interactions between attorneys and limited English proficient (LEP) clients and, more broadly, among attorneys, the parties to a proceeding, and legal decision makers. Although many U.S. lawyers possess non-English language ability, few are equipped with the complement of knowledge, skills, and values needed to utilize that language ability effectively in a professional setting. Therefore, the Article also calls upon the legal profession to adopt a more rigorous approach to bilingual training and instruction and outlines a set of competencies that underlie effective bilingual lawyering. These competencies relate broadly to cross-cultural interactions, knowledge of foreign legal systems, specialized and versatile language ability, and verbal and nonverbal communication skills
The Transformative Potential of Attorney Bilingualism
In contemporary U.S. law practice, attorney bilingualism is increasingly valued, primarily because it allows lawyers to work more efficiently and to pursue a broader range of professional opportunities. This purely functionalist conceptualization of attorney bilingualism, however, ignores the surprising ways in which multilingualism can enhance a lawyerâs professional work and can strengthen and reshape relationships among actors in the U.S. legal milieu. Drawing upon research from psychology, linguistics, and other disciplines, this Article advances a theory of the transformative potential of attorney bilingualism. Looking first to the development of lawyers themselves, the Article posits that attorneys who operate bilingually may, over time, enjoy cognitive advantages such as enhanced creative thinking and problem-solving abilities, a more analytical orientation to language, and greater communicative sensitivity. Moreover, the existence of lawyers who are fully immersed in the bilingual practice of law will transform and invigorate interactions between attorneys and limited English proficient (LEP) clients and, more broadly, among attorneys, the parties to a proceeding, and legal decision makers.
Although many U.S. lawyers possess non-English language ability, few are equipped with the complement of knowledge, skills, and values needed to utilize that language ability effectively in a professional setting. Therefore, the Article also calls upon the legal profession to adopt a more rigorous approach to bilingual training and instruction and outlines a set of competencies that underlie effective bilingual lawyering. These competencies relate broadly to cross-cultural interactions, knowledge of foreign legal systems, specialized and versatile language ability, and verbal and nonverbal communication skills
How Applying Instrumental Stakeholder Theory Can Provide Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Instrumental stakeholder theory considers the performance consequences for firms of highly ethical relationships with stakeholders, characterized by high levels of trust, cooperation, and information sharing. While research suggests performance benefits, an obvious question remains: If instrumental stakeholder theory-based stakeholder treatment is so valuable, why isn\u27t it the dominant mode of relating to stakeholders? We argue that the existing instrumental stakeholder theory literature has three shortcomings that limit its ability to explain variance in performance. (1) Little theory exists around how instrumental stakeholder theory-based stakeholder management could provide sustainable competitive advantage. (2) The literature has largely neglected the potential downsides (i.e., costs) associated with pursuing these sorts of stakeholder relationships. (3) There is a paucity of theory on the contexts in which the incremental benefits of instrumental stakeholder theory-based stakeholder relationships are most likely to exceed the costs. As our primary contribution, we develop a theoretical path from a communal sharing relational ethics strategy--characterized by an intention to rely on relational contracts, joint wealth creation, high levels of mutual trust and cooperation, and communal sharing of property--to a close relationship capability, which we argue is valuable, rare, and difficult to imitate and, thus, a potential source of sustainable competitive advantage. We also consider the potential costs of achieving this capability and identify contexts in which the resulting relationships are likely to have the greatest net value
Issues Around Aligning Theory, Research and Practice in Social Work Education
Issues Around Aligning Theory, Research and Practice in Social Work Education provides a reflection on social work education with a slant towards an Afrocentric approach, aiming to facilitate strong reflective thinking and to address local realities about social work education on the African continent as well as in broader global contexts. This volume focuses on issues around aligning theory, research and practice in social work education.
A significant contribution is made here to the scholarly understanding of opportunities to sustain the academic discourse on social work education. Social work as a profession and a social science discipline is dynamic, and it ought to meet the challenges of the realities of the societies in which it serves, given the history of the changing society of South Africa from apartheid to democracy. Over the years, social work education and training has undergone tremendous curricular changes with the enactment of the White Paper for Social Welfare and the national review, respectively, by the South African Council for Social Services Professions (SACSSP) and the Council on Higher Education (CHE) for the re-accreditation of all Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) programmes in South Africa fulfilling the prescripts of the Higher Education Act (No. 101 of 1997, as amended) and Social Service Professions Act (No. 110 of 1978). It is worth mentioning that the curricular changes will also continue with the current reviewing of Social Service Professions Act (No. 110 of 1978), as amended, which is underway in South Africa.
This book is really ground-breaking! The Afrocentric perspective on social work practice contributes to the current discourse on decolonisation of social work teaching and practice. From a methodological perspective, the book is premised on multi-, inter- and trans-disciplining in social sciences. It covers aspects of social work education and practice through research (narrative, qualitative, African methodology, secondary data analysis, etc.), engendering values and ethics, report writing, supervision in fieldwork as well as exchange programmes and international service-learning, addressing a number of concepts such as cultural competency, cultural awareness and sensitivity are addressed
Gamete donationâA review of ethical and legal issues
Sperm and oocytes are building blocks in assisted reproduction. Sperm and ovum donation permit separation of the biological act of producing a child from the psychological process of nurturing and raising the child. However, the art of obtaining and use of these gametes are fraught with ethical and legal challenges. Relevant aspects concerning anonymity, genetic screening, consanguinity, informed consent and risk disclosure, compensation for donors, and child welfare are discussed. Though the issue of anonymity remains controversial, the importance of the welfare of the offspring has come to the fore as a result of the debate. Calls for more rigorous genetic testing for donated gametes to avoid genetic disease transmission, though supported by the principle of beneficence, has to be balanced by its possible deleterious effects on the donors and their relatives especially if findings reveal a serious genetic risk that has no medical treatment as yet. Reimbursement for direct and indirect costs, as well as fair compensation for time lost, inconveniences and risks suffered during treatment is recommended for oocyte donors. The risk of consanguinity remains a problem across the world even though the different guidelines limiting the number of pregnancies by a single gamete may be helpful, if enforceable. It is important that egg donors be clearly made to understand in simple language during the informed consent process of the yet unknown health risks involved so that the consent can be truly voluntary. This will protect donors from the backlash of the doctrine of âVolenti Non Fit Injuriaâ. It is also suggested that specific legislation with regards to gamete donation, parenthood, and ART should be passed in countries where these are absent, to avoid controversies that may arise due to current gaps in the law
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