Situating Daisaku Ikeda’s essential elements of global citizenship within contemporary scholarship: a qualitative meta-synthesis

This article reports on meta-synthesis research that examined contemporary scholarship on global citizenship for the purpose of identifying a possible alignment with Daisaku Ikeda’s views on global citizenship. Thirty relatively contemporary scholarly articles on the subject matter were examined using a qualitative meta-synthesis methodology. Ikeda’s speech entitled ‘Thoughts on education for global citizenship’, delivered over 25 years ago at Columbia University’s Teachers College, USA, contains his most frequently cited ideas on the salient conditions required for global citizenship. As Ikeda is a thoughtful and prolific author on the subject of global citizenship, there is merit in exploring the alignment of his ideas about this concept with those articulated in contemporary scholarship. Conducting a meta-synthesis through the lens of Ikeda’s essential elements of global citizenship has helped to identify potentially useful contributions to the global citizenship discourse. This article highlights salient common themes of global citizenship uncovered through the meta-synthesis research, as well as providing an alternative definition of global citizenship gleaned from the findings

Mother-infant consultation during drug treatment: Research and innovative clinical practice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This paper details a model for consulting with mothers and infants, and drug treatment staff used in a residential drug treatment program and relevant to other treatment settings. The role of parent-infant consultation based on the Neonatal Network Neurobehavioral Scale (NNNS) was evaluated.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A sequential cohort model was used to assign participants to 1. NNNS consultation versus 2. standard care. The effects of NNNS consultation were evaluated using the Parenting Stress Index and NNNS summary scores.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Participants in the NNNS consultation condition had significantly less stress overall, and less stress related to infant behavior than participants in standard care. There were no differences in infant behavior on the NNNS Summary scores.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The implications for NNNS consultation in drug treatment programs is outlined. The importance of prevention/intervention to establish satisfactory mother-infant interaction in recovery programs which include a central parenting component is indicated.</p

Situating Daisaku Ikeda’s essential elements of global citizenship within contemporary scholarship: a qualitative meta-synthesis

This article reports on meta-synthesis research that examined contemporary scholarship on global citizenship for the purpose of identifying a possible alignment with Daisaku Ikeda’s views on global citizenship. Thirty relatively contemporary scholarly articles on the subject matter were examined using a qualitative meta-synthesis methodology. Ikeda’s speech entitled ‘Thoughts on education for global citizenship’, delivered over 25 years ago at Columbia University’s Teachers College, USA, contains his most frequently cited ideas on the salient conditions required for global citizenship. As Ikeda is a thoughtful and prolific author on the subject of global citizenship, there is merit in exploring the alignment of his ideas about this concept with those articulated in contemporary scholarship. Conducting a meta-synthesis through the lens of Ikeda’s essential elements of global citizenship has helped to identify potentially useful contributions to the global citizenship discourse. This article highlights salient common themes of global citizenship uncovered through the meta-synthesis research, as well as providing an alternative definition of global citizenship gleaned from the findings

The acoustic space of pain: cries as indicators of distress recovering dynamics in preverbal infants

Crying is a vital built-in survival mechanism for the Human baby. Yet both the information carried by cries and the factors driving the perception and reaction of adult listeners remain under-investigated. Here, we contrasted the relevance of psychoacoustic vs. acoustic evaluation for the assessment of distress levels in babies' cries recorded during baths and during an immunization event. Parents asked to rate the level of distress experienced by babies from listening to their cries attributed lower pain ratings to mild discomfort (bath) than to distress (vaccination) cries but failed to discriminate between different putative levels of pain experienced during different vaccination sequences. In contrast, vocal "roughness", a composite acoustic factor characterising the level of aperiodicity of the cries, not only differed between mild discomfort and distress cries but also between the levels of pain experienced during the different vaccination sequences. These observations suggest that acoustic analyses are more powerful than psychoacoustic evaluations for discriminating distress levels in babies’ cries, and opens the way for the design of a tool based on the acoustics of cries for assessing and monitoring pain levels in preverbal infants

Clients' reasons for prenatal ultrasonography in Ibadan, South West of Nigeria

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prenatal ultrasonography has remained a universal tool but little is known especially from developing countries on clients' reasons for desiring it. Then aim was to determine the reasons why pregnant women will desire a prenatal ultrasound.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>It was a cross-sectional survey of consecutive 222 women at 2 different ultrasonography facilities in Ibadan, South-west Nigeria.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The mean age of the respondents was 30.1 ± 4.5 years. The commonest reason for requesting for prenatal ultrasound scans was to check for fetal viability in 144 women (64.7%) of the respondents, followed by fetal gender determination in 50 women (22.6%. Other reasons were to check for number of fetuses, fetal age and placental location. Factors such as younger age, artisans profession and low level of education significantly influenced the decision to check for fetal viability on bivariate analysis but all were not significant on multivariate analysis. Concerning fetal gender determination, older age, Christianity, occupation and gravidity were significant on bivariate analysis, however, only gravidity and occupation remained significant independent predictor on logistic regression model. Women with less than 3 previous pregnancies were about 4 times more likely to request for fetal sex determination than women with more than 3 previous pregnancies, (OR 3.8 95%CI 1.52 – 9.44). The professionals were 7 times more likely than the artisans to request to find out about their fetal sex, (OR 7.0 95%CI 1.47 – 333.20).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study shows that Nigerian pregnant women desired prenatal ultrasonography mostly for fetal viability, followed by fetal gender determination. These preferences were influenced by their biosocial variables.</p

SGI Canada Educators' Perspectives on Creating Value in the Teaching and Learning Environment

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the perspectives and experiences of educators who practice Soka (value-creating) pedagogy in their teaching and learning environment. Methodology: The participants were educators who were teaching, or had taught, in a formal public or private education system in Canada and were also affiliated with the Soka Gakkai International Association of Canada Educators Group. An online survey was distributed to the educators describing the study and requesting their participation in a semi-structured interview. Fourteen survey respondents were chosen for an interview. Results: The study’s findings revealed important themes concerning how Soka education positively influenced the educators’ relationships with their students, how teachers structured their teaching and learning environment, how teachers perceived their role as educators, and how the teachers’ Buddhist spiritual practice inspired and guided their application of Soka education. Limitations: The findings are best interpreted within the study’s limitation of selecting participants from a teacher population that would likely perceive Soka education in a largely favorable light. Contribution: Our research poses potential inquiries for further study, given the novelty of the finding that identified how teachers used their Buddhist practice to inspire and advance their teaching. This aspect of teaching practice is not widely represented to date in the Soka education discourse and may have implications for future investigation