The national politics and politicians of Primitive Methodism

This thesis, which assists our understanding of the interaction between religious belief and political activity, presents a study of the politics of the Primitive Methodist Church and the MPs associated with it between 1886 and 1922. This was the zenith of the Church’s political activism. It traces Primitive Methodism’s evolution from an apolitical body, preaching individual salvation and with a particular mission to the working classes, to one that also promoted social salvation through progressive politics. The Church’s emphasis on individual moral improvement during its early decades receded and it increasingly advocated collectivist solutions to social ills, eventually espousing a balanced and synergetic combination of the two principles. This increasing engagement with progressive national politics manifested itself in the election of December 1885. In the wake of the franchise extension of 1884, 12 working-class MPs were elected, five of whom were closely associated with the Church. Although two working men, including Thomas Burt, the son of a Primitive Methodist local preacher, had preceded them in 1874, this influx of plebeian MPs was an event unprecedented in parliamentary history. The proportion drawn from a minor religious denomination was also notable. All told, my research has identified 44 MPs associated with Primitive Methodism between its foundation in the first decade of the nineteenth century and 1932, when the Church merged with other Methodist denominations. Although it frequently asserted that it was not wedded to any one political party, the reality was different. Initially, the Church and its MPs were firmly Liberal. However, the Liberal allegiance gradually diminished and an increasing number of Primitives supported other political parties, particularly the emergent Labour Party. Historians have often focused on the importance of Primitive Methodists in the foundation and leadership of a number of early trade unions, particularly those for coal miners and agricultural labourers. The historian Eric Hobsbawm deduced from this that the Church experienced a ‘partial transformation … into a labour sect’: mutating from a purely religious organization into one that provided the Labour Movement with leaders. However, he lamented the lack of detailed inquiry into the religious background of the early generation of working-class MPs. This thesis remedies that deficiency in relation to the Primitive MPs, within the context of the Church’s own parliamentary agenda. The core of this study begins in 1886 with the election of the group of Primitive MPs and ends in 1922 as the Church’s leadership began to realise that political activism was no longer a harmonising force for its members. It explores the Church’s official parliamentary aims and priorities as expressed at its Annual Conferences and District Meetings, the spectrum of members’ views articulated in Church publications, and the activities of its MPs in and out of Parliament. These are considered in the context of Primitive Methodism’s social and occupational composition, its geographical distribution, and theological foundations. Although necessary to understanding the Church’s political trajectory, lack of space has restricted discussion of the Church’s political activism from 1923 to 1932 to a brief overview

Paleoenvironmental reconstructions from cave sediments of the Moravian Karst, Czech Republic / by Pavel Sroubek.

This thesis presents a paleoclimatic/paleoenvironmental study conducted on clastic cave sediments of the Moravian Karst, Czech Republic. The study is based on environmental magnetic techniques, yet a wide range of other scientific methods was used to obtain a clearer picture of the Quaternary climate. My thesis also presents an overview of the significance of cave deposits for paleoclimatic reconstructions, explains basic environmental magnetic techniques and offers background information on the study area – a famous karst region in Central Europe with a rich history. In Kulna Cave magnetic susceptibility variations and in particular variations in pedogenic susceptibility yield a detailed record of the palaeoenvironmental conditions during the Last Glacial Stage. The Kulna long-term climatic trends agree with the deep-sea SPECMAP record, while the short-term oscillations correlate with rapid changes in the North Atlantic sea surface temperatures. Kulna Cave sediments reflect the intensity of pedogenesis controlled by short-term warmer events and precipitation over the mid-continent and provide a link between continental European climate and sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic during the Last Glacial Stage. Given the number of independent climate proxies determined from the entrance facies of the cave and their high resolution, Kulna is an extremely important site for studying Late Pleistocene climate. In the interior of Spiralka Cave, a five meter high section of fine grained sediments deposited during floods yields information on the climatic and environmental conditions of the last millenium. In the upper 1.5 meters of this profile, mineral magnetic and other non-magnetic data indicate that susceptibility variations are controlled by the concentration of magnetite and its magnetic grain size. Comparison of our susceptibility record to the instrumental record of winter temperature anomalies shows a remarkable correlation. This correlation is explained by coupling of the flooding events, cultivation of land and pedogenetic processes in the cave catchment area. A combination of mineral magnetic and geochemical proxies yields a detail picture of the rapidly evolving climate of the near past and tracks both natural and human induced environmental changes taking place in the broader region

From lime kilns to art galleries: a historical anthropogeography of the Maine Coast City of Rockland

This dissertation is a historical anthropogeography that focuses on the city of Rockland, Maine from its prehistoric beginnings to the present. Throughout the historic period, a series of single industries have dominated Rockland\u27s economy while its population has remained remarkably stable. Lime production, for mortar and plaster, was first, beginning with the earliest Europeans in the area in the eighteenth century and coming to its end in the 1930s. Shipping and shipbuilding were important outgrowths of the lime industry but shipbuilding ended by the early 1920s with the change from wood to steel as the favored material for shipbuilding. Commercial fishing and fish processing followed lime as the main industry. Dominance by fishing was not nearly as long-lived as lime production; in Rockland, as elsewhere in New England, the collapse of commercial fishing took a great toll beginning in the 1980s; Rockland\u27s fishing industry virtually ended by 1990. After a relatively brief period of decline and depression, residents and outside interests have been able to transform Rockland into a tourist destination and fine arts center. In addition, manufacturing and service (outside of tourist-related service) are important, but smaller, components of the city\u27s economy today. Part of Rockland\u27s transformation from an industrial city to a tourism/service economy depends upon the erasure of much of the past from the cultural landscape as well from Rockland\u27s resident\u27s social/geographical memory. While quarries hundreds of feet deep are permanent evidence of the lime industry, their existence is surprisingly unknown to tourists and visitors, and little acknowledged in current residents\u27 consciousness. In favor of tourism, some of the people of Rockland have made purposeful efforts to dismiss the unsightly, unpleasant remnants and memory of lime manufacturing and commercial fishing. By shaking off the soot and smells of its industrial past, Rockland is being transformed, is experiencing a renaissance, some people claim... no longer the dirty, callused kitchen maid but another bright Princess of Summer on the coast of Maine

An analysis of the relationship between social capital and subjective well-being in four regions of Spain in the mid-1990s

This research offers an analysis of two concepts: subjective well-being and social capital. I examine each concept separately, looking at their underlying determinants and characteristics, and I also look at the links between these two notions, as there is theoretical support for their interdependent relationship. I have conducted data analysis of five samples, all part of the World Values Survey 1995-1996. The WVS 1995-1996 offers vast data for Spain and for four autonomous regions - Basque Country, Andalusia, Galicia and Valencia. For the national sample N= 1211. Regional sampling is as follows: Basque Country (N=2205), Andalusia (N=1803), Galicia (N=1200), and Valencia (N=501). The subjects of all the surveys are citizens of both sexes, aged 18 and older

Rasismi käsitteenä ja rasismin kokemukset Suomen yhteiskunnassa poliitikkojen, kasvatustieteilijöiden sekä tulevien opettajien näkökulmasta : rasismi, ulkomaalaistaustaisuus ja eriarvoistuminen

Suomen yhteiskunnassa tavoitellaan tasa-arvoisuutta ja yhdenvertaisuutta. Tutkimuksen tarkoitus on tutkia suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa tapahtuvaa rasismia poliitikkojen sekä kasvatustieteilijöiden ja tulevien opettajien näkökulmasta. Tutkimus on monimenetelmällinen, jossa on käytetty sekä laadullisen että määrällisen tutkimuksien menetelmiä. Ensin haastateltiin poliitikkoja teemahaastattelulla ja seuraavaksi lähetettiin opiskelijakysely Webropol-kyselylomakkeella Turun, Helsingin, Tampereen ja Jyväskylän yliopistojen kasvatustieteiden tiedekuntiin sekä opettajankoulutuslaitoksiin. Laadullisen tutkimusmenetelmän tutkimusmetodina käytettiin fenomenografiaa, joka auttaa tutkimaan tutkittavaa asiaa syvemmin tarkastellen ilmiön sisällön merkitystä ja niiden muodostumista erilaisten käsitysten valossa. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan informanttien käsityksiä ja kokemuksia rasismista ja syrjinnästä. Laadullisessa tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan poliitikkojen taustatietoja, arvoja ja näkökulmia maahanmuuttokriittisyydestä, vastapoliitikkojen vihapuheista, n-sanan käyttämisestä sekä sen kriminalisoimisesta. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan myös poliitikkojen roolia rasismin vähentämisessä kouluissa. Määrällisessä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan opiskelijavastaajien taustatietoja, opettajasijaisuuksia, työkokemuksia ja niiden kautta maahanmuuttokriittisyyttä, n-sanan käyttöä sen kriminalisoimista ja politiikkojen vaikutusta kasvatustieteilijöihin ja tuleviin opettajiin. Opiskelijavastaajat esittävät näkemyksiään ja kokemuksiaan rasismista ja syrjinnästä ja lähettävät tämän tutkimuksen kautta viestejä poliitikoille. Tutkimuksessa yllättävän moni opiskelijavastaaja kertoi olevansa maahanmuuttokriittinen, vaikka suurin osa heistä näki monikulttuurisuuskasvatuksen tärkeänä. Politiikkojen mielestä opettajilla tulisi olla lisää koulutusta monikulttuurisuudesta. Opiskelijavastaajat ja poliitikot eivät ole innoissaan n-sanan käyttämisestä, mutta opiskelijavastaajista pieni osa oli n-sanan kriminalisointia vastaan, kun huomioidaan, että yli 60 %:lla opiskelijavastaajista on ollut opetuskokemusta maahanmuuttajaoppijoista. Osa opiskelijavastaajista halusi huomioida muitakin rumia sanoja, joita käytetään venäläisistä tai romaneista. Vastaajapoliitikoiden mukaan poliitikot vaikuttavat rasismin vähentämiseen kouluissa olemalla yhteydessä kouluihin ja opettajiin. Poliitikkovastaajat kannustavat vapaaseen keskusteluyhteyteen heidän ja rasismia kokeneiden uhrien välillä ja tekevät selväksi sen, että poliitikkoihin saa olla yhteydessä, ja heille saa jakaa omia ikäviä kokemuksiaan. Tutkimus auttaa tulevia opettajia ja kasvatustieteilijöitä sekä poliitikkoja ymmärtämään toisiaan ja työtään sekä toimimaan yhteiskunnallisina vaikuttajina ajatellen omien arvojensa lisäksi monikulttuurisuutta. Tutkimus antaa jonkinlaisen käsityksen tulevien opettajien sekä kasvatustieteilijöiden ennakkoasenteista ja käyttäytymismalleista, joiden mukaan opettajan ei kuuluisi näyttää omia asenteitaan opetuksessa, sen sijaan hän voisi keskustella omista arvoistaan luokkahuoneessa. Tutkimuksen informanttien mukaan rasistiset asenteet ovat opittuja eivätkä synnynnäisiä. Poliitikot ajattelevat, että monikulttuurisuuden ymmärtämättömyys tai väheksyminen saattavat johtaa opettajan turhautumiseen ja väsymiseen. Tämän vuoksi tutkimuksen informantit painottivat monikulttuurisuuskurssien lisäämistä korkeakouluissa.Finnish society strives for equality and non-discrimination. The study's goal is to look at racism in Finnish society through the eyes of politicians, educators, and future teachers. The study is multidisciplinary, employing both qualitative and quantitative research methods. First, politicians were interviewed using a thematic interview, and then a student questionnaire was sent to the faculties of education at the universities of Turku, Helsinki, Tampere, and Jyväskylä, as well as teaching institutions, along with a Webropol questionnaire. The qualitative research method used was phenomenography, which allows for a more in-depth examination of the phenomenon's content and formation in the light of various perceptions. The informants' perceptions and experiences with racism and discrimination were researched. The qualitative study investigates politicians' background knowledge, values, and perspectives on the importance of immigration, counter-politicians' hate speech, and the use of the n-word and its criminalization. The role of politicians in reducing racism in schools is also discussed. Quantitative research examines the background data of student respondents, substitute teacher, work experience, and, through them, the importance of immigration, the criminalization of the use of the n-word, and the impact of policies on educators and future teachers. Through this survey, student respondents present their views and experiences with racism and discrimination and send messages to politicians. In the study, a surprising number of student respondents said they were anti-immigrant, despite the fact that the majority of them thought multicultural was important. Politicians believe that teachers should receive more multicultural education. Although student respondents and politicians are not enthusiastic about using the n-word, a small proportion of student respondents are opposed to criminalizing the n-word, given that more than 60% of student respondents have taught immigrant learners. Some of the student respondents wanted to take into account other ugly words used from Russians or Roma. Politicians, according to respondents, help to reduce racism in schools by working with schools and teachers. Political defenders encourage open dialogue between themselves and victims of racism, and they make it clear that politicians can be contacted to share their own unpleasant experiences. The research will assist future teachers and educators, as well as politicians, in understanding each other and their work, and in acting as social influencers in terms of multiculturalism in addition to their own values. The research provides some insight into the preconceived notions and behaviors of future teachers as well as educators that a teacher should not display their own attitudes in teaching, instead discussing their own values in the classroom. Racist attitudes, according to study informants, are learned rather than innate. Politicians believe that a lack of understanding or underestimation of multiculturalism can lead to teacher frustration and fatigue. As a result, the informants in the study emphasized the importance of expanding multicultural courses in colleges

Video Games and Teen Violence: Is It Related?

A research study was conducted involving parents feedback on whether they felt video games were related to teen violence. Despite technologies efforts to promote computer and video games in a positive mode by focusing on forms such as developing important skills as concentration and problem-solving in children , the violent acts contained in these games are downplayed and basically defended by the makers of the games. Teen violence has escalated in the past several years with the school shootings being in the forefront. The mention of video games and lack of parental supervision has become the focus of this violent behavior, especially among male teenagers. The parents of four public middle schools were surveyed through the assistance of principals and PTA presidents completing a questionnaire pertaining to their thoughts on whether video games were considered violent and if there is an effect on teenagers, both male and female. Data collected supported the thought-process of video games containing violent behavior and this behavior being learned and acted out by those participating in these games. Lack of parental supervision was acknowledged despite parents recognizing the violent content of games. With the government now addressing the possibility of a connection between video games and teen violence, a much needed wake up-call for parents attention has emerged. Through more active parental involvement with children and the supervision of their activities, future problems of violence can possibly be recognized and addressed before the focus of attention is on the negative consequences of the youth of tomorrow

Correlates and outcomes of emotional intelligence in organisations

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership are two very important constructs to organizations. Likewise concepts like OCB, conflict handling and intention to quit of employees are equally important constructs to organizations. The primary aim of the present study was to determine how well Organisational Citizenship Behaviour and intention to quit as well as the conflict handling style of subordinates could be predicted by means of leadership style, and the emotional intelligence of leaders. A secondary aim was to determine whether a causal model could be built to represent the relationships among the variables included in the study. Relationships among these constructs were investigated in a South African sample of employees (N=470) working for various organisations. The construct validity and internal consistency of the measuring instruments were investigated. The finally accepted factor structure of not one of the measuring instruments matched the original structure as found by the authors/developers of the measuring instruments. It was therefore decided that in all cases the factor pattern as determined on the responses of the present sample would be used in further analyses of the data. Emotional intelligence of leaders as seen by subordinates and the self - perceived conflict handling styles of subordinates seem to be related in the case of Integrating and Obliging conflict handling styles and both the emotional intelligence sub-scales, i.e. Motivation and Vigilance. The Multiple Regression analysis indicated that the emotional intelligence sub-scales scores played a minor role in the prediction of Organizational Citizenship Behaviour. Models of the relationships among the variables were built by studying the results of v previous as well as the present study. The model, in which emotional intelligence is depicted as a causal variable influencing - through leadership behaviour – organizational citizenship behaviour and the integrating style of handling interpersonal conflict represented a good fit with the data. These results seem to provide some structure for thinking about the relationships among the variables and can possibly serve as frames of reference in future studies

The Macedonian army as a vehicle for change? Military presence in western Asia Minor during the early Hellenistic period: topography, agency and identity

Alexander the Great’s expedition and the Wars of the Successors after his death saw a great number of armies deployed in Asia Minor, many of which were key to the development of the political powers that emerged during the Hellenistic period. The territorial establishment of these armies, first as garrisons and later as settlements, has led to questions about the social, political, cultural and economic impact that they had on the communities with which they came into contact. The aim of this thesis is to understand the extent of this impact and analyse the role that specifically the Macedonian components of the army had in their relationship with their surroundings in western Asia Minor during the Hellenistic period, with a special focus on the third and second centuries BC. To this aim, I will analyse several characteristics which can be considered unequivocally Macedonian and upon which the Macedonian character of the soldiers and settlers was built; I will next discuss the military presence in western Asia Minor through topography and the physicality of the settlements; land tenure and other activities in the settlements; and the relationship between the dynasts and kings and their men. For this I will employ mainly epigraphic sources and will reassess the context and relationship between many inscriptions, aiming to provide a more holistic view of the military presence in Hellenistic western Asia Minor

City of Caesar, City of God

This volume explores the entangled history of Constantinople and Jerusalem in Late Antiquity. The two cities were powerful symbols of Empire and Church, interconnected and interdependent in multiple ways. Covering the transition between Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Middle Ages, distinguished international scholars investigate art, ceremony, religion, ideology, and imperial rule in these vibrant, inspiring and fascinating urban hubs

Mythic structures in the works of C.S. Lewis

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