The Leader as Moral Agent: Praise, Blame, and the Artificial Person

The leader as the moral agent can be both a singular and a collective entity. Regardless, that individual or group of individuals must establish and live by a moral paradigm where self-respect and respect for co-workers is paramount. In essence, the moral agent must lead by example. And it is not simply sufficient to choose the correct pathway but to care about choosing the correct pathway, stripping the decision-making process of disingenuous or superficial motives and injecting heart, concern, and passion for doing what is right

Ethical Competence for Teachers: A Possible Model

In Education Sciences, the notion of ‘competence’ is widely used, both as an aim to be reached with students and as performance in teachers’ education. This article advances a type of competence that is highly relevant for teachers’ work, namely the ‘ethical competence.’ Ethical competence enables teachers to responsibly deal with the daily challenges arising from their professional roles. In this study, I put forward a definition of ethical competence and I propose a conceptual structure, both meant to support the illustration, description, and development of ethical competence for teachers

Behavioral Economics and Developmental Science: A New Framework to Support Early Childhood Interventions

Public policies have actively responded to an emergent social and neuroscientific evidence base documenting the benefits of targeting services to children during the earliest period of their development. But problems of low utilization, inconsistent participation, and low retention continue to present themselves as challenges. Although most interventions recognize and address structural and psycho-social barriers to parent’s engagement, few take seriously the decision making roles of parents. Using insights from the behavioral sciences, we revisit assumptions about the presumed behavior of parents in a developmental context. We then describe ways in which this framework informs features of interventions that can be designed to augment the intended impacts of early development, education and care initiatives by improving parent engagement

Which is the More Predictable Gender? Public Good Contribution and Personality

Personality questionnaires have been used and can be used to predict behavior in economic settings. Using two sets of state-of-the-art measures from personality psychology (the Big Six) and social psychology (Social Value Orientation), we find that the behavior of men is predictable in the first half of a public good contribution experiment, whereas that of women is not. This result agrees with the reinterpretation of Carol Gilligan's (1982) view that women are more sensitive to the context in which decisions are made. --gender,context,personality,public goods

Designing behaviourally informed policies for land stewardship: A new paradigm

This paper argues the case for a new approach to the stewardship of land resources that uses behavioural science theory to support the design and application of policies that facilitate changes in behaviour by those who develop policy and the farmers who implement it. Current approaches have: focused on legally-based expert system; and have been devised by national and international bureaucracies with little or no knowledge of how land owners and managers are motivated, and how they think, behave and operate as stewards of their natural resources. A review of current approaches from the social scientific literature is provided, with a particular focus on principles from social psychology. This is followed by an examination of how these principles can be applied to influence behaviour related to land restoration and soil conservation. Examples of the problems with traditional approaches and the evolution of new approaches with full engagement of farmers as the delivery agents are provided from within the European Union, Iceland and Scotland. In the light of these examples and emerging thinking in other parts of the world, the paper sets out the basis for a new approach based on behavioural science theory and application, reinforcing the arguments already made in the literature for a social license for farming

Fostering Student Agency to Build a Whole Child, Whole School, Whole Community Approach

In this practitioner perspective, we explore the concept of student agency through the implementation of a student government association in a laboratory middle school. Interviews with a social studies teacher and her students offer perspectives of the impact of student voice and choice for student experiences. We describe three major lessons learned through this implementation process: students learn to have healthy conflict and cooperative skills; students learn the appropriate processes to enact change in a democratic society; and students learn to conduct service for their peers, school, and community

Ethical dimensions of paediatric nursing: A rapid evidence assessment

© 2016, © The Author(s) 2016. Background: Paediatric nurses often face complex situations requiring decisions that sometimes clash with their own values and beliefs, or with the needs of the children they care for and their families. Paediatric nurses often use new technology that changes the way they provide care, but also reduces their direct interaction with the child. This may generate ethical issues, which nurses should be able to address in the full respect of the child. Research question and objectives: The purpose of this review is to describe the main ethical dimensions of paediatric nursing. Our research question was, ‘What are the most common ethical dimensions and competences related to paediatric nursing?’ Research design: A rapid evidence assessment. Method: According to the principles of the rapid evidence assessment, we searched the PubMed, SCOPUS and CINAHL databases for papers published between January 2001 and March 2015. These papers were then independently read by two researchers and analysed according to the inclusion criteria. Ethical considerations: Since this was a rapid evidence assessment, no approval from the ethics committee was required. Findings: Ten papers met our inclusion criteria. Ethical issues in paediatric nursing were grouped into three areas: (a) ethical issues in paediatric care, (b) social responsibility and (c) decision-making process. Conclusion: Few studies investigate the ethical dimensions and aspects of paediatric nursing, and they are mainly qualitative studies conducted in critical care settings based on nurses’ perceptions and experiences. Paediatric nurses require specific educational interventions to help them resolve ethical issues, contribute to the decision-making process and fulfil their role as advocates of a vulnerable population (i.e. sick children and their families). Further research is needed to investigate how paediatric nurses can improve the involvement of children and their families in decision-making processes related to their care plan

The Evaluation of Public Policies from the Perspective of the Agenda 21 of Culture: a Case Study

This research shows the results of the implementation of a public cultural policy at the municipal level and has as a main objective to evaluate, from the perspective of the agenda 21 of culture, the program "Art for social development" by the Municipal Institute of Art and Culture developed in a secondary-level boarding school located at the Topolobampo community, in the municipality of Ahome, Mexico. A QUAN-QUAL methodology was used with instruments like questionnaires applied to the young participants and interviews with the workshop facilitators and administrative staff. Guitar, painting and theatre workshops were given, through which the development of new artistic expression skills was achieved, as well as contributing to the strengthening of social behaviors such as tolerance, patience and interpersonal communication, among others. It was found the constant need of having permanent programs of integral training, both in the field of artistic training and socio-emotional, giving priority to groups at risk, such as students of the boarding school that mostly come from families of scarce resources, some of the low performance academic and aggressive behavior. The conclusion is that public policies are required to promote greater articulation of education and culture in order to have a stronger impact on the social and cultural inclusion of young people