The Impact of Empathy on Worldwide Religious Conflict: Insight from The Gaza Situation

This article explores how UK women encounter religious dress and behavior codes in religious work contexts. It compares two very different case studies: women working at faith-based organizations in the UK and women working for secular organizations who travel for work to Saudi Arabia. Using 65 semi-structured interviews, participant wardrobe photographs, and observation in regional modest fashion retail, the article analyzes women workers’ experience in religious contexts as a form of aesthetic labor. It investigates the gendered and religious components which structure women’s different responses to workplace modesty codes. Detailing the additional aesthetic and emotional labor demanded of women in crafting modest professional appearances in religious contexts, the research reveals continuities in how workplace modesty requirements impact on women’s occupational performance and sense of self. The conclusion argues that religion-related workplace modesty codes constitute a religiously-inflected form of organizational aesthetics that may operate simultaneously with, but be experienced differently from, secular-driven organizational aesthetics. We find that religious dress codes are arbitrated by the avoidance of shame, an affect accompanying the government of modesty for all involved. We find that organizations benefit from, but do not recognize or recompense, the additional aesthetic labor that modesty demands of women.

Education is weakly related to employment for some groups of U.S. women. As such, it may be less of a resource for reducing gender inequality than commonly believed. Drawing on ethnographic field notes and in-depth interviews with Arab Americans, we recast the motivations and consequences of female education in terms of cultural schemas and resources and then analyze the processes that underlie the education-employment link in ethnic and religious contexts. Arab American women are a particularly useful case study because they have higher educational attainments but lower employment rates than most other groups of U.S. women. Our findings shed light on this paradox. Arab Americans universally support female education as a resource, not for economic mobility, but to ensure the proper socialization of children, solidarity of the family, and ultimately the maintenance of ethnic and religious identity. Contrary to the widely held assumption that female education will equalize gender power dynamics, our results highlight how and when women's education may reproduce patriarchal gender relations. This is the case in religious and ethnic contexts where women forgo market opportunities to fulfill familial responsibilities, and where parents and children view female education as a collective family resource—a resource to be invested in the home rather than in the market.

Interpersonal Religious Struggles within Orthodox Jewish Families in Israel Steven Pirutinsky Religion and spirituality are important to many and can have both positive and negative influences on psychological functioning and interpersonal relationships. While prior empirical studies suggest that religion generally influences relationships positively, differences in values and worldviews can be significant sources of conflict. These interpersonal religious struggles are neglected in current research and may be particularly relevant in religion-centric cultures such as the Orthodox Jewish community, particularly within families with adolescent children. The current research analyzed dyadic data from 789 Orthodox Jewish couples residing throughout Israel, and explores the hypotheses that: 1. Religious conflict between Orthodox Jewish spouses is significantly related to lower family functioning, higher parenting stress, and lower community integration. 2. Among those with insecure attachment, religious conflict is more frequent and more strongly related to lower family functioning, higher parenting stress, and lower community integration. 3. Religious conflict between returnees to Orthodox Judaism (“Baalei Teshuva”) is more frequent and more strongly related to lower family functioning, higher parenting stress, and lower community integration than in other Orthodox families. Variables were measured using several previously validated scales, completed in this study by husband and wife dyads. Data were analyzed using a common factor model and parameters were estimated using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that: 1. Religious conflict was significantly associated with lower family functioning, higher parenting stress, and lower community integration. These effects were significant among husbands and wives, within non-returnee and returnee groups, and across more modern and traditional religious sub-groups. 2. Attachment insecurity was related to higher levels of religious conflict, and the effect of attachment insecurity on family outcomes was partially or fully mediated by higher levels of religious conflict. On the other hand, insecure attachment did not moderate the relationship between religious conflict and outcome variables such as family functioning, parenting stress, and community integration. 3. Returnees reported higher levels of religious conflict, but the relationship of religious conflict to outcome variables was equivalent in the returnee and non-returnee groups. These findings suggest that within the Orthodox community religious conflict is an important correlate of family dysfunction and parenting stress across a variety of religious subgroups and contexts. Thus, assessment and treatment of dysfunction in Orthodox Jewish families should include evaluation of religious conflicts. Religious conflict is also clinically relevant because it appears to mediate the impact of personality factors, such as insecure attachment, on families. Although psychological research increasingly acknowledges the importance of spirituality and religion, much of the research has focused on individual and intra-psychic manifestations, perhaps reflecting an individualistic cultural conception of the meaning and relevance of spirituality and religion. The current study suggests that spirituality and religion can have important interpersonal implications, particularly within the family. Future research exploring causal relationships, specific domains of religious conflict, cross-cultural relevance, and comparability to other forms of interpersonal conflict appears warranted and necessary.

The purpose of this article is to clarify the concept of ‘civilizational populism’ and work towards a concise but operational definition. To do this, the article examines how populists across the world, and in a variety of different religious, geographic, and political contexts, incorporate and instrumentalize notions of ‘civilization’ into their discourses. The article observes that although a number of scholars have described a civilization turn among populists, there is currently no concrete definition of civilization populism, a concept which requires greater clarity. The article also observes that, while scholars have often found populists in Europe incorporating notions of civilization and ‘the clash of civilizations’ into the discourses, populists in non-Western environments also appear to have also incorporated notions of civilization into their discourses, yet these are rarely studied. The first part of the article begins by discussing the concept of ‘civilizationism’, a political discourse which emphasizes the civilizational aspect of social and especially national identity. Following this, the article discusses populism and describes how populism itself cannot succeed unless it adheres to a wider political programme or broader set of ideas, and without the engendering or exploiting of a ‘crisis’ which threatens ‘the people’. The article then examines the existing literature on the civilization turn evident among populists. The second part of the article builds on the previous section by discussing the relationship between civilizationism and populism worldwide. To do this, the paper examines civilizational populism in three key nations representing three of the world’s major faiths, and three different geographical regions: Turkey, India, and Myanmar. The paper makes three findings. First, while scholars have generally examined civilizational identity in European and North American right-wing populist rhetoric, we find it occurring in a wider range of geographies and religious contexts. Second, civilizationism when incorporated into populism gives content to the key signifiers: ‘the pure people’, ‘the corrupt elite’, and ‘dangerous ‘others’. In each case studied in this article, populists use a civilization based classification of peoples to draw boundaries around ‘the people’, ‘elites’ and ‘others’, and declare that ‘the people’ are ‘pure’ and ‘good’ because they belong to a civilization which is itself pure and good, and authentic insofar as they belong to the civilization which created the nation and culture which populists claim to be defending. Conversely, civilizational populists describe elites as having betrayed ‘the people’ by abandoning the religion and/or values and culture that shaped and were shaped by their civilization. Equally, civilizational populists describe religious minorities as ‘dangerous’ others who are morally bad insofar as they belong to a foreign civilization, and therefore to a different religion and/or culture with different values which are antithetical to those of ‘our’ civilization. Third, civilizational populist rhetoric is effective insofar as populists’ can, by adding a civilizational element to the vertical and horizontal dimensions of their populism, claim a civilizational crisis is occurring. Finally, based on the case studies, the paper defines civilizational populism as a group of ideas that together considers that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people, and society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’ who collaborate with the dangerous others belonging to other civilizations that are hostile and present a clear and present danger to the civilization and way of life of the pure people.

In the main, the link between religious variables and political choices is wrapped up in a communicative process of exposure and adoption. Specifically, people become exposed to religious teachings and viewpoints within religious contexts, they then must determine whether and to what extent they will adopt those teachings and viewpoints as their own, and then they must adapt them to political ends. Critical to this approach is the acknowledgment that religious social and institutional contexts are rife with diversity, even within religious traditions. This diversity extends to religious adherents, congregations, and elites and means that people receive a variety of religious and political cues from religious sources across time and space. It is this variation that is critical to measure in order to understand religion’s effects on political behavior. That is, documenting the implications of religious diversity is as much a question of research design as it is a theoretical framework. This framework is flexible enough to accommodate the growing literature examining political input effects on religious output. The norms and patterns of exposure and adoption vary by the combination of the communicator and context: political communication in congregations, religious communication effects on politics in congregations, and religious communication by elites in public space. There are very few instances of political elites in religious spaces, at least in the United States. Presidents and other political elites have used religious rhetoric throughout American history in varying proportions, though how they have used it is changing in the Trump era to be much more particularistic and exclusive rather than the traditional broad and inclusive language of past presidents. A central variable moderating the impact of communication is credibility, which can be demonstrated in multiple ways, including political agreement as well as religious office, rhetorical choices, and decision-making processes. Religious elites, especially, battle against the weight of history, inattention, and misperception in their attempts to lead prophetically. As a result, religious elite influence, in the sense of changing hearts and minds, is a fraught enterprise. Naturally, we recommend adopting research designs that are appropriate for incorporating measurement on communication exposure so we can appropriately understand adoption decisions. This demands some creativity on behalf of researchers, which also drives them toward experimental work where exposure questions are built into the design and affords them a great deal of control.

It is a belief widely held that hospital chaplains have a role to play in supporting bereaved relatives of patients, but research on the subject is sparse. The aim of this study was to examine factors that apparently influenced the decision to accept or refuse the offer of chaplaincy support through a case series study of ten bereaved family members who accessed an in-hospital “supported viewing service” following the sudden or unexpected death from natural causes of an adult relative. Data gathered at a UK hospital between October 2022 and April 2023 were subjected to qualitative content analysis. Analysis of the interview data yielded four categories that governed the decision: (1) Who decides? (2) Who benefits? (3) Role of religious preference and context. (4) Positive reasons for rejection. These indicate that the response to the offer of prayer is contingent on details of the biographical, temporal, social and religious context which need to be considered when the offer is made.

This article looks at three early cases dealing with the equitable doctrine of undue influence, arising out of donations to religious groups and institutions. It will explore each of the three cases in turn, by placing them in their appropriate historical, social, religious and political context. By better understanding the cases we also get a better insight into the modern law of undue influence and the societal context in which it operates, and what are today the right questions for lawyers and judges to ask when dealing with undue influence, particularly undue influence within a religious context.

The coming out (CO) process is fundamental for identity integration among LGBQ+ people, and its impact can vary greatly depending on personal and contextual factors. The historical, cultural, and social contexts in which LGBQ+ people develop their sexual identity can mediate the relationship between CO and health outcomes. The present study aimed at clarifying the CO process in three generations of Italian LGBQ+ people (young adults: aged 20–40 years; middle adults: aged 41–60 years; older adults: aged 61–80 years) by providing data on: (a) sexual orientation milestones, such as age of first awareness, age of first self-label, and age of first CO, as well as the rate of disclosure during different life stages; (b) the rate and average age of CO to significant others; and (c) CO within the religious context and its effect on participants’ minority stress experiences. A total of 266 Italian LGBQ+ people participated in the study, with ages ranging from 20 to 80 years (M = 41.15, SD = 16.13). Findings indicated that, on average, the older adult group became self-aware, self-labeled, and disclosed their sexual identity at a significantly older age than the other groups. Older adults were also more Catholic and had CO more frequently to their Catholic community, relative to young and middle adults. CO within the Catholic context was associated with distal and proximal minority stressors, such as discrimination, vigilance, and internalized sexual stigma. Catholic community reactions to participants’ CO were distinguished through thematic analysis in three main types: unconditional acceptance, invitation to change, and open rejection. The present research extended current knowledge on CO and minority stress experiences in different generations of LGBQ+ people. Several differences emerged between generational groups on sexual orientation milestones, highlighting the potential impact of historical and cultural contexts in determining sexual minorities’ experiences related to sexual identity. It is recommended that mental health professionals working with LGBQ+ clients implement targeted interventions based on their clients’ multiple salient aspects, including age and religious background. Clinicians should also be aware of the potentially detrimental effects of CO within an unsupportive context, rather than encouraging CO tout court.

This article applies Comparative Interpreting Studies to research on interpreting in religious contexts and the relevance of this literature to interpreting studies more broadly. Comparative Interpreting Studies is an approach that looks to plot the commonalities of all interpreting practice. It is argued that actual observed interpreter behaviors, rather than assumed professional standards, provide a justifiable unit of comparison. The behavior of interpreters in religious contexts is discussed, alongside the split between prescriptive and descriptive approaches to analyzing this behavior and the importance of spiritual and emotional aspects. Differences in research approaches on interpreting in religious contexts are shown to shadow debates within interpreting studies and thus offer insights that may be cautiously generalized. Such generalizations align with recent research in a variety of interpreting contexts and lead to a call for interpreting researchers to give more attention to the wider social, organizational, and personal contexts of interpreting.

How ought psychologists to respond to adolescents who experience sexual identity confusion? Does it make a difference if teens report religious conflicts or strain with respect to their experiences of same-sex attraction,behavior, or identity? This article considers adolescents who experience same-sex attraction and religious conflicts and offers recommendations to psychologists who provide services to these adolescents. The 3 primary goals of this article are to (a) clarify the religious and sexual-identity developmental contexts in which some adolescents find themselves experiencing same-sex attraction, (b) identify some of the religious conflicts that may occur for adolescents, and (c) offer suggestions for addressing religious conflicts faced by adolescents who experience same-sex attraction.

Despite all theadvances in healthcare technology and all thecare services in the field of neonates, many infants die in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). This qualitative study investigated socio-cultural factors influencing the care for bereaved parents in three main NICUs of northwest Iran between March 2018 and April 2019. The purposeful sampling method with the maximum variation was used, and data collection was continued until obtaining rich data to answer the research question. Twenty-eight interviews were conducted with 26 healthcare providers. The thematic analysis method was applied to analyze the data, and two main themes, including "Religious context as a restriction on the parental involvement in the infant's end-of-life care" and the "Socio-cultural challenges of the grieving process among parents", were generated accordingly. The religious and socio-cultural contexts in the NICUs of Iran are a restriction to the presence of parents at their infants' end-of-life phase, and health care providers are less inclined to have parents in the NICU at the time of infant death.

This book addresses the questions of what and why particular stories are told in films around the world, both in terms of the forms of storytelling used, and of the political, religious, historical, and social contexts informing cinematic storytelling. Drawing on films from all five continents, the book approaches storytelling from a cultural/historical multidisciplinary perspective, focusing on the influence of cultural politics, postcolonialism, women's social and cultural positions, and religious contexts on film stories. Like its sister volume, Storytelling in World Cinemas, Vol. 1: Forms, this book is an innovative addition to the academic study of world cinemas.

Storytelling in World Cinemas, Vol. 2: Contexts addresses the questions of what and why particular stories are told in films around the world, both in terms of the forms of storytelling used, and of the political, religious, historical, and social contexts informing cinematic storytelling. Drawing on films from all five continents, the book approaches storytelling from a cultural/historical multidisciplinary perspective, focusing on the influence of cultural politics, postcolonialism, women's social and cultural positions, and religious contexts on film stories. Like its sister volume, Storytelling in World Cinemas, Vol. 1: Forms, this book is an innovative addition to the academic study of world cinemas.

This case study illustrates how religious conflict can define a couple’s therapy. The couple therapist’s understanding of religious background can enable deeper discussion. For example, the therapist’s knowledge of observance creates a therapeutic space to explore broader themes of grief, longing, anger, religious commitment, God, and ultimately, commitment to marriage. Religious themes emblematic in Orthodox Judaism are highlighted in this case study. Changes in one’s religious practice can generate a shift in the marital relationship; how to address religious changes and conflicts in therapy is explored using a framework of emotionally focused therapy. Practice implications are offered, which focus on confronting religious conflict when working with similar couples.

The purpose of this cross-sectional study (n = 43764 in four cohorts/groups) is to uncover the values when learning mathematics that students at Religious Vocational Middle Schools (in Turkish: Imam-Hatip Middle Schools) where religious contexts and contents are taught intensively in Turkey. In this regard, the study investigates the mathematics educational values of students in Grades 5 through 8 at Imam-Hatip Middle Schools using a standardised questionnaire. MANOVA and post-hoc analyses have been performed to determine group differences. The results indicate the importance students give to the values of relevance, learning approach, consolidating, and practice to decrease as grade level increases; each grade of students emphasised the value of practice the most and the value of information and communications technology (ICT) the least. In this sense, it can be said that there is no clear connection between cultural context and mathematics educational values (for example, the order of importance given to practice and ICT values) in a school where religious content and context are intense when compared with value studies in different school cultures.