Sustaining Autonomous Communities in the Modern United States (The United Communities of America)

America has become industrialized and characterized by social anxiety and overconsumption. The inability to be sustainable has led the once plentiful and flourishing nation into an ongoing sustainability crisis. Even if there is a deep connection between them, this essay focuses on social sustainability rather than ecological. It argues for an intentional community-based framework to keep American life sustainable. Pollution, civil unrest, and intense social anxiety create unfulfilling life conditions for many American citizens. Using examples from modern American intentional communities, I will explain the need for self-directing, close-knit communities. Flourishing community members, as it will be considered from sociological and pragmatist theory, are notably more autonomous and environmentally conservative than mainstream American society. Communal societies immensely aid in successfully establishing contextually-based governments that help fulfill their citizens. They are more conscious of their environment (in the broader sense than the ecological one) and thus seek a healthy sustainable consumption rate and social climate. The values and traditions that cultivate environmental care are integral in communities and often combat the instability of American society. Though grassroots communal living can be hard and often forsakes the amenities of capitalist America, it offers alternative values that would still sustain and help to achieve fulfillment by the population

The Exploration Of Self Construction Through Art

This thesis investigates the different outlets of starting a conversation with people about our contemporary dilemmas, while exploring influences from historical and modern views. I do this by elaborating on the importance of discourse in making art and how these conversations can impact and widen our lives and understandings. Within these discourses, topics surrounding controversial issues such as gender disparities, social acceptability, race inequality and body images are brought up. My main arguments explore the importance of self-construction and the limitations and influences that the outside world might bring forth, the impact and results of speaking out and how it can help in the progression of our society, the fabrication of oneself and what that includes, and lastly how to effectively challenge mainstream ideas and beliefs. In all, I explain how these different sectors of my life have strengthened the content of my work and what it means to be able to educate people and myself throughout

Causal links between volunteering and social welfare: worldexperience and Russian practice of recent years

Volunteering (as an activity aimed at self-help and mutual aid, implemented without expectation of monetary reward) brings tangible benefits not only society, but also by volunteers. In OECD countries, the value of the time that people devote to volunteering approaching 2% of GDP. This activity brings volunteers new skills and knowledge that can help in career growth and employment prospects. It turns out "virtuous circle" where people become more successful by making another good one. The aim of the research is to study the cause-and-effect relationship between volunteering and social well-being based on the experience gained in the OECD countries and the modern Russian practice

Eccentric housing finance sources by the urban poor in Zimbabwe: case of Cowdray Park low-income self help housing scheme in Bulawayo

Zimbabwe has a sombre housing crisis in all its urban centres. All attempts by the government to vary housing delivery systems to ameliorate the problem have proved futile as the backlog it inherited from the colonial masters continues to soar. The situation has however been exacerbated by 2005 demolitions and evictions in the country’s major cities that destroyed homes and businesses leaving the majority of the poor and disadvantaged segments of society in deeper poverty, deprivation and destitution. The main challenge to housing the urban poor is housing finance. Public funds are meagre and private funds are not accessible to the poor due to lack of collateral security and inability to service the loans. Fascinatingly, the poor’s income comes from informal sector activities that absorbs a large percentage of the labour force and keeps the economy going while the large modern enterprises continue to reel under the economic downturn. Unfortunately the Zimbabwean informal sector has generally been perceived as a nuisance, a haven for criminals and a menace. Evidence shows that there is a strong relationship between the urban poor’s housing finance, informal sector activities and self-help housing strategies in Zimbabwe. In the pre-2005 Operation Murambatsvina era, the poor were making some construction progress as evidenced by the structures that had developed. This paper calls for active support and facilitation of the poor’s sources of income, and advocates for the involvement of other players such as the private sector and the international community in housing the poor. The Zimbabwe government’s plan to house the homeless and poor on its 250 000 stands countrywide through self-help programmes can only be successful if their sources of income are promoted and facilitated.urban poor, housing finance, informal sector, self-help, projects

Human Responsibility and the Environment: A Hindu Perspective

The World Commission on Environment and Development acknowledged that to reconcile human affairs with natural laws \u27our cultural and spiritual heritages can reinforce our economic interests and survival imperatives\u27. But until very recently, the role of our cultural and spiritual heritages in environmental protection and sustainable development was ignored by international bodies, national governments, policy planners, and even environmentalists. Many fear that bringing religion into the environmental movement will threaten objectivity, scientific investigation, professionalism, or democratic values. But none of these need be displaced in order to include the spiritual dimension in environmental protection. That dimension, if introduced in the process of environmental policy planning, administration, education, and law, could help create a self-consciously moral society which would put conservation and respect for God\u27s creation first, and relegate individualism, materialism, and our modern desire to dominate nature in a subordinate place. Thus my plea for a definite role of religion in conservation and environmental protection

The impact of crises of professional development for professional self-fulfilment teacher

У статті проаналізовано характер впливу криз професійного розвитку на рівень професійного самоздійснення вчителя. Особлива увага приділяється вивченню професійного самоздійснення вчителя в умовах соціально-економічних перетворень та зміни вимог до особистості. Окреслено залежність рівня професійного самоздійснення вчителя від стратегій подолання ним криз професійного розвитку.The article analyses an influence of professional development crises on professional self-fulfilment of a teacher. The profession of a teacher belongs to these, which consist of many psychological interactions among personalities. It can cause tense psycho-emotional condition and lead to professional crises. In the article special attention is paid to professional self-fulfilment of a teacher under the circumstances of social and economic change. In other hand, the article also reveals the fact that new criteria of social relationships and new demand of society for skills, knowledge and personality of teacher cause a constant need for him or her to change and develop. It is also outlined that teacher’s choice of constructive strategy to overcome professional crisis has a positive impact on a level and development of professional self-fulfilment. Researches on factors affecting professional development crisis give more abilities of both preventing and correction of professional deformation, which in turn will help reveal and enhance personal and professional potential of a modern teacher

Knightly virtues : enhancing virtue literacy through stories : research report

There is a growing consensus in Britain on the importance of character, and on the belief that the virtues that contribute to good character are part of the solution to many of the challenges facing modern society. Parents, teachers and schools understand the need to teach basic moral virtues to pupils, such as honesty, self-control, fairness, and respect, while fostering behaviour associated with such virtues today. However, until recently, the materials required to help deliver this ambition have been missing in Britain. The Knightly Virtues Programme, devised by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, aims to help solve this challenge. The programme, designed for 9 to 11 year olds, draws on selected classic stories to help teach moral character in schools. This approach has proved to be popular with children and teachers, with more than 5,000 pupils from one hundred schools having participated in the programme so far. Fifty-five of these schools (including thirty Catholic and Church of England) and 3,272 pupils (1,517 of which attended a Church school) were directly involved in different stages of the research. Based at the University of Birmingham, the Jubilee Centre houses leading academics dedicated to researching the various ways in which good character, which underpins the building blocks of society, can be developed. Recent research from the Centre has shown that the qualities that make up character can be learnt and taught, and suggests that we need a new emphasis on their importance in schools and in professional education. This report from the Centre into the use of classic literature within schools sets out the ways in which the Knightly Virtues Programme is able to develop the virtue literacy of school pupils, and the extent to which an understanding and awareness of good moral character can make positive changes to behaviour. The impact of the programme has been tested using several rigorous research methods, detailed in this report alongside their findings, which provide substantial empirical evidence for the effectiveness of using stories to develop virtue literacy

Humanisasi Pendidikan dan Pengembangan Keterampilan Mengatasi Konflik

Educational institutions have the responsibility ofdesigning apro­ gramto help individuals become society members ofsufficient intelli­ gence and praiseworthy character. These two criteria make it pos­ sible to bring about an ideal social life colored with a spirit ofdevel­ oping the self-potential to achieve prosperity and happiness in the world and in the hereafter. An educational system suitable for the development of a society ofindividuals with such intelligence and character is one which is humanistic in nature, treating the educational participant as an indi­ vidual as well as a member ofthe community who needs to be helped and encouraged in order to have effective habits based on an inte­ gration ofknowledge, skills, and will. Such an integration makes it possible for an individual or a community to leave a condition ofde­ pendence and move to that ofself-dependence and interdependence. Interdependence is extremely important in modern society because a more complex life can only be handled collaboJ;1ltively. Itmeans that skills ofestablishing hannonious relationships are needed and skills of resolving conflicts are among those which should be mastered well though they are not easy to master. In relation to the Indonesian con­ text, any conflict resolution skill is really important for everybody to have in order to be able to manage various conflicts coming to exist­ ence in society. Such humanization ofeducation should as soon as possible be the mission ofevery level ofeducational institution in Indonesia in order that basic values for achieving success are really put in the foun­ dations ofthe character building ofthe nation. Among those values are integrity, modesty, loyalty, courage, fairness, honesty, patience, industriousness, politeness, and consistency

Landscapes of Helping: Kindliness in Neighbourhoods and Communities

Increasing geographical mobility, economic change and the rise of an individualist culture in the UK have contributed to the loosening of close ties in communities. Communities need to evolve, to reconnect, so that people cultivate the ‘background hum’ of sociability that has been associated with neighbourliness. This ‘background hum’ is characterised by people’s awareness of each other, by a respect for each other’s privacy and by a readiness to take action if help is needed. In this research we define kindliness as ‘neighbourliness enacted’ and describe the process of reconnection within communities as the ‘reinvention of sociality’. Hebden Bridge’s relative success in melding traditional and more contemporary forms of sociality helps to identify some broader lessons about fostering kindliness in neighbourhoods and communities