A Path to be Forged: Enabling peace through human rights in UN peace operations

The United Nations (UN) regularly declares that human rights are an essential part of establishing peace, however the nexus between the two concepts remains unclear. Speaking to this gap, I examine the potential for human rights to contribute to establishing peace within the context of UN peace operations. Asking what it means for something to be capable of establishing peace; how human rights understandings can support the desired objectives of establishing peace; and whether these human rights understandings can, in practice, be implemented— I advance the position that in order for human rights to be capable of contributing to the establishment of peace it must operate as a culture. That is, human rights understandings must lead to cultural change within societies in a manner that prevents the reoccurrence of violence. I propose that human rights can contribute to peace by promoting a collective identity, based in human dignity, which acts to transform peaceful relations. An internalisation of this human rights belief and practice across society allows for the establishment of peace without reliance on a central authority. While human rights have the potential in theory to contribute to peace, the implementation of human rights, in practice, faces a number of barriers in peace operation settings. Ultimately, human rights as a cultural idea cannot lead to peace if those in peace operation settings do not adopt human rights as a cultural practice. I conclude by stating that—while human rights may not offer a clear path towards stability—the path can be carefully and consciously forged through individual social relationships

Attachment and mentalization efforts to promote creative learning in kindergarten through fifth grade elementary school students with broad extension to all grades and some organizations

The model described here – Creating a Peaceful School Learning Environment (CAPSLE) – uniquely applies mentalizing thinking combined with work on power and shame dynamics, to create an institutional climate where the student is better able to deal with bullying aggression and other critical psychodynamic climate factors

A state-of-the-art overview of job-crafting research:Current trends and future research directions

Purpose: In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Career Development International, a state-of-the-art overview of recent trends in job-crafting research was conducted. Since job crafting was introduced twenty years ago as a type of proactive work behavior that employees engage in to adjust their jobs to their needs, skills, and preferences, research has evolved tremendously. Design/methodology/approach: To take stock of recent developments and to unravel the latest trends in the field, this overview encompasses job-crafting research published in the years 2016–2021. The overview portrays that recent contributions have matured the theoretical and empirical advancement of job-crafting research from three perspectives (i.e. individual, team and social). Findings: When looking at the job-crafting literature through these three perspectives, a total of six trends were uncovered that show that job-crafting research has moved to a more in-depth theory-testing approach; broadened its scope; examined team-level job crafting and social relationships; and focused on the impact of job crafting on others in the work environment and their evaluations and reactions to it. Originality/value: The overview of recent trends within the job-crafting literature ends with a set of recommendations for how future research on job crafting could progress and create scientific impact for the coming years

Purposes, Poetics, and Publics: The Shifting Dynamics of Design Criticism in the US and UK, 1955-2007

The history of design criticism in the latter half of the twentieth century in the US and the UK is punctuated with self-reflective interruptions during which design critics were acutely self-conscious about their purpose, role in society, relationship to their publics and use of critical techniques and formats. This thesis examines a selection of such moments and considers the extent to which they disrupted, and even redirected, the ways in which design criticism was practiced, produced, and consumed. The chapter focuses are as follows: a selection of articles published in the design magazines of the mid-late 1950s and early 1960s which forcibly activated a new set of values with which to engage with expendable, mass produced product design; a protest at the International Design Conference at Aspen in 1970 which posed a challenge to the established conference lecture format and to a lack of political engagement on the part of the liberal design establishment; a set of articles by cultural critics that critiqued the prevailing celebratory commentary on style and lifestyle in 1980s London; an independent exhibition that offered an alternative view of contemporary design in contrast to government-endorsed design exhibitions in 1990s London, with an additional focus on an intensification of thought about the designed object as a potentially viable critical format; and, lastly, a debate between the authors of a US design blog and an established British design critic writing in Print magazine that drew attention to a rift between the energetic amateur impulses of blogging culture and the editorial values of traditional print media. Three main problematics are used to provide continuity throughout the discrete time periods of this thesis, as well as points of comparison between the critical works examined: criticism’s contesting conceptions of its instrumentality, purpose and methods; criticism’s idealized perceptions of, and actual engagement with, its publics; and, finally, criticism’s adoption of a literary sensibility and narrative qualities in an attempt to transcend the limitations of design’s promotional and market-based concerns. In identifying five moments of historical discontinuity in the practice of design criticism, therefore, this thesis assembles a time-lapse portrait of the intellectual, stylistic and material constitution of design criticism between the early 1950s and the early 2000s, and in doing so, aims to contribute meaningfully to a growing historiography of design criticism

Reducing violence and prejudice in a Jamaican all age school using attachment and mentalization theory

A study is reported of a psychoanalytic intervention in a very violent and prejudiced Jamaican school with disenfranchised children 7-9 grades who had failed academic streaming examinations. Over the period of 3 years of the intervention using mentalization and power issues approaches grounded in attachment theory, children were assisted to feel connected and valued by their school. There were striking improvements in academic performance, decreased victimization, and increased helpfulness especially in boys including significant trickle down effects to grades 1-6. Overall, the school became a place teachers wanted to join and the Jamaican government recognized their success and built a new school for them in a better location

The prevalence of teachers who bully students in schools with differing levels of behavioral problems

Objective: This study looked for a relationship between the prevalence of teachers who bully students and school behavioral problems reflected in suspensions from school.Method: A convenience sample of 214 teachers answered an anonymous questionnaire about their perceptions of teachers who bully students and their own practices. Teachers were grouped into whether they taught at schools with low, medium, or high rates of suspensions. Analyses of variance were used to analyze continuous variables, and chi-square statistics were used to study categorical variables.Results: Teachers from schools with high rates of suspensions reported that they themselves bullied more students, had experienced more bullying when they were students, had worked with more bullying teachers over the past 3 years, and had seen more bullying teachers over the past year.Conclusions: These findings suggest that teachers who bully students may have some role in the etiology of behavioral problems in schoolchildren