Acceptance Of Others Research Articles

Misconstrued tolerance: issues for multicultural and diversity training

PurposeValuing diversity emphasizes the awareness, recognition, and appreciation of human differences and revolves around creating an inclusive environment in which everyone feels esteemed. This generally takes place through a series of training programs that attempt to improve interpersonal relationships among workers by asking participants to become more tolerant—generally understood today as an approval and acceptance of others' practices and beliefs. Because tolerance is such a highly desirable quality in many Western societies, and seemingly one of its few non‐controversial values, rarely is its significance questioned. Nevertheless, contemporary interpretations of tolerance can be problematic for multicultural programs, and tolerance understood as respect and civility toward others may be a more appropriate tool to easing hostile tensions between individuals and groups and to helping communities move past intractable conflict. The purpose of this paper is to offer a reinterpretation of tolerance.Design/methodology/approachThis literature review suggests that contemporary interpretations of tolerance often used in multicultural workshops as the recognition, appreciation, acceptance, and celebration of differences may be problematic.FindingsAn understanding of tolerance involving civility and respect for others, not their beliefs or conduct, may lead to greater effectiveness of diversity training efforts. This new interpretation of tolerance may also help counter the belief among a number of leaders, particularly in Europe, that multiculturalism has failed.Originality/valueGiven the resistance and backlash that sometimes emerge in response to terms such as “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “discrimination,” it is possible that focusing on civility instead could improve the efficacy of existing multicultural training programs.

“Untold Stories to Tell”: Making Space For The Voices of Youth Songwriters

AbstractThis article shares findings from case studies of two eighteen‐year‐old songwriters, Bradley and James. The study investigated songwriter motivation, writing methods, and school experiences. Data was collected over the course of one year through two in‐depth interviews per songwriter, two teacher interviews, and 101 songwriting artifacts. Grounded theory and constant comparison methods were used during data analysis. This study found that Bradley's and James's music emphasizes acceptance of others and critical engagement with social issues. They see songwriting as a masculine alternative to journaling, and they have strong preferences regarding their writing tools, time, and spaces. Additionally, these songwriters prefer to write one line at a time, to skip pre‐writing, and to have a choice of topic—preferences that sometimes conflicted with their school experiences. This article concludes by offering suggestions for supporting songwriting in school.

Rhetorical Reading as a Gateway to Disciplinary Literacy

AbstractThis article shares findings from case studies of two eighteen‐year‐old songwriters, Bradley and James. The study investigated songwriter motivation, writing methods, and school experiences. Data was collected over the course of one year through two in‐depth interviews per songwriter, two teacher interviews, and 101 songwriting artifacts. Grounded theory and constant comparison methods were used during data analysis. This study found that Bradley's and James's music emphasizes acceptance of others and critical engagement with social issues. They see songwriting as a masculine alternative to journaling, and they have strong preferences regarding their writing tools, time, and spaces. Additionally, these songwriters prefer to write one line at a time, to skip pre‐writing, and to have a choice of topic—preferences that sometimes conflicted with their school experiences. This article concludes by offering suggestions for supporting songwriting in school.

TOLERANCE AS CIVILITY IN CONTEMPORARY WORKPLACE DIVERSITY INITIATIVES

Valuing diversity emphasizes the awareness, recognition, understanding, and appreciation of human differences and revolves around creating an inclusive environment in which everyone feels esteemed. This generally takes place through a series of management education and training programs that attempt to improve interpersonal relationships among workers by asking participants to become more tolerant—generally understood today as an approval and acceptance of others’ practices, opinions, and beliefs. Because tolerance is such a highly desirable quality in U.S. society, and seemingly one of its few non-controversial values, rarely is its significance questioned. Nevertheless, contemporary interpretations of tolerance may be problematic for multicultural programs. Tolerance understood as respect and civility toward others is offered as a more appropriate and effective tool for easing hostile tensions between individuals and groups and for helping communities move past intractable conflict. Keywords: tolerance, intolerance, civility, diversity, forbearance, acceptance

Teasing Out Clues, Not Kooks

Teasing Out Clues, Not Kooks

Persona y rostro, principios constitutivos de la bioética personalista

The person and the face are at the heart of the ethical reflections in this article. The fact that these two categories are the subject of study allows the authors some impact on the personalist reflection proposed by the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Personalist philosophical anthropology introduces some indispensable characteristics that are constitutive of personalist bioethics and allow us to arrive at the “human care” determinant that leads us to all ethical responsibility. Human life is portrayed as the primary value to be protected, since it underlies the human “selfsameness” that enables us to recognize ourselves and, at the same time, to be accepting of others and “relating” to the anonymous face. The presence of the face of one’s semblance or likeness speaks to the maximum obli­ gation of every Jewish prescription; that is, not to threatening life, which is the justification Levinas uses to introduce us to an ethics of the “other”, specifically one that allows us to be joint stewards, contemplating the whole of humanity in the face of the “other”.

Teaching calm abiding meditation to mental health workers: a descriptive account of valuing subjectivity

Teaching an eight-week calm abiding meditation course to staff in a Child and Youth Mental Health Service located in a regional Australian city presented a curious meeting of Buddhism with Western culture. This meeting highlighted both the potential benefits and challenges of teaching meditation in the workplace and the value of qualitative methods for contributing to the development of meditation research. The thematic analysis of weekly participant responses to emailed reflective questions and follow-up interviews indicated that workplace meditation training can precipitate sustainable changes in attitudes and behaviour beyond the workplace. Participants reported being less reactive and better able to manage emotions, having heightened self-awareness, self-acceptance and acceptance of others and of circumstances; and, in the longer term, were better able to make healthier lifestyle choices. The analysis is contextualized by a rich description of the course and salient concerns and conditions evident in contemporary Buddhist teachings and studies of mindfulness meditation.

Use of force in minority communities is related to police education, age, experience, and ethnicity

Some experts argue that better-educated police may use less force, but research has been equivocal. In three mainly-minority US cities, 511 officers reported their use of force, acceptance of others’ force use, age, experience, ethnicity, and education. Among patrol officers only, education predicted less frequent force and lower levels of force use. Across all duties, including patrol officers, detectives and other, younger officers used more force, but with age controlled, more experienced officers used more force. Those who reported greater use of force were less accepting of use of force in general. These complex relationships may help explain previous contradictory results. Research on excessive force must take officer characteristics into account.

Children's Acceptance of Others with Disability: The Influence of a Disability‐Simulation Program

Elementary school is a transitional and impressionable period for any child. In inclusive classroom settings, children with disabilities may experience the challenges of acceptance and integration into peer relationships. The experience of children with disabilities in such classrooms can be positive if their classmates are accepting and open. One way to encourage these attitudes is by increasing awareness through disability-simulation. This study evaluates an existing school program, whose goal is to increase acceptance of others with disability. We surveyed students to assess the influence of the program. An adapted acceptance scale was distributed to students before and after participation in the program. Our hypothesis was that student acceptance would increase after participating in the program. Additionally, we hypothesized that physical, visual, and auditory disabilities would be easier for students to understand, making acceptance scores for these disabilities higher than those for a learning disability. We report changes in acceptance using group means. Our results reveal that post-survey responses showed higher acceptance than pre-survey responses, especially for auditory disabilities. Other significant findings include differences in attitudes between the two schools and differences based on prior experience with someone with a disability. By evaluating the effectiveness of this type of program (whose efficacy has been controversial in the literature), this study can provide teachers, administrators, genetic counselors, and parents with a better idea of how to address children's attitudes towards peers. In our study, the effectiveness of promoting understanding through disability-simulation has proven its worth to improve children's acceptance.

Intercultural Competency of University Teachers as a Demand of Education in 21st Century

Once with accession to the European Union, new requirements related to education at university level must be respected and promovated. Emphasis should be put on values such as tolerance, mutual respect, acceptance of otherness so on. These things imply that university teachers and, not only, to possess multiple skills enabling to promote among undergraduates students cultural values, intercultural communication with leads to performance and progress for everyone involves in educational system. But it is extremely difficult to achieve these goals if the intercultural competency is not correct defined , described. In this article we will try to discover the structure of intercultural competency in order to promote it among university teachers, undergraduates students to achieve it and to apply it in educational context.

A Tale of Two SOUQS: The Paradox of Gulf Urban Diversity

The paper discusses current trends and future developments in the study of people-urban environment relations, with an emphasis on the concept of diversity within the Gulf cities. This is explored in relation to: theoretical approaches, urban public spaces, people's lifestyles, social groups and inclusive urban environments. Contemporary Gulf cities are providing unique examples for research on urban diversity. Its demographic structure is distinctive for a minimum of 50% expatriates in overall population. Gulf cities are obliged to cope with such a compelling fact. The challenge is to move away from indifference and bring about better acceptance of others. On the relationship; city spaces and culture, the paper argues that traditional markets must be envisioned as spaces for cultural expressions. Traditional markets are a rich display of products and talents and a great opportunity to share and meet with people from same culture and others. Using comparative analysis approach juxtapositioning the selected cases, the paper confronts questions like what does Gulf urban diversity mean in the present. In addition, is diversity in urban spaces only a challenge to be dealt with or is there also economic potential that can be taken advantage of? How do we ensure that Gulf cities are indeed spaces of tolerance? How to give visibility to the spaces of marginalized groups, as these spaces are often ignored or worse, eliminated? How to preserve or regain spaces in the city for the expression of traditional cultures of those migrating from other regions or countries? The paper explores the socioeconomic and cultural mechanisms that can encourage inclusive pluralism in the Gulf cities' open spaces.

Acceptance of Others, Feeling of Being Accepted and Striving for Being Accepted Among the Representatives of Different Kinds of Occupations

This paper deal with an important issue related to the human attitudes and needs in interpersonal and professional aspects. The theoretical part deals with several psychological components of the self-esteem and esteem of the others – acceptance of the others, feeling of being accepted, need for approval. Some gender differences in manifestations of acceptance and feeling of being accepted at the workplace are discussed. This article presents some empirical data for the degree of acceptance of others, feeling of being accepted, and the strive for being accepted among the representatives of helping, pedagogical, administrative and economic occupations, as well as non-qualified workers. The goals of the study were to reveal the interdependency between these constructs and to be found some significant differences between the representatives of the four groups of occupations. The methods of the first study were W. Fey’s scales “Acceptance of others”, and “How do I feel accepted by others”. The method of the second study was Crown and Marlowe Scale for Social Desirability. The results indicated some significant differences in acceptance of others and feeling of being accepted between the non-qualified workers and the representatives of helping, administrative and economic occupations. There were not any significant difference in strive for being accepted between the four occupational groups. Language: Bulgarian

Following in the Footsteps of Sisyphus:

Following in the Footsteps of Sisyphus:

On Becoming Human: Jean Vanier, Carl Rogers and James Alison on Disabilities, Acceptance, and a Noncompetitive Theological Anthropology

Over the past century, theologians and ethicists have expressed unease with the growing problem of competition in human relationships. While most agree that competition dissolves relationships of fidelity and trust between people, many have argued on the basis of the political mythology of social contract theory that competition is a natural, albeit sad, fact of being human. This article examines and aligns three responses to the problem of competition in human relationships from Jean Vanier, Carl Rogers, and James Alison. In contrast to the view that human beings are naturally competitive, Vanier, Rogers, and Alison have each reinterpreted human being as depending on the cultivation of noncompetitive relationships that require interdependence in vulnerability, acceptance of others, and a vision of fully human life compatible with and modeled in the experience of disability. Vanier and Rogers developed their anthropologies in relation to the L’Arche communities and psychotherapy respectively, and did not concentrate specifically on traditional systematic theological topics. Alison, however, has focused on traditional theological topics, particularly redemption. This essay suggests that the noncompetitive anthropology developed in Vanier and Rogers helpfully complements the doctrine of redemption developed by Alison and so assists in changing the focus of Christian discussions of salvation from adversarial, forensic and competitive accounts of the Atonement to practice-oriented and social views of becoming human in belonging with others.

Cultural Context and Children’s Perceptions of Conflict and Peace

This is a cross cultural comparison of children’s perceptions of conflict and peace. Thirty children, age 6-10 living in the United States and 33 children, of the same age living in the United Arab Emirates were interviewed and asked to respond to 18 questions concerning war, enemy, and peace. Analysis of responses included assessment of sex, culture, and age similarities and differences. Findings indicate that culture plays a prominent role in the way children experience their world and world events. The findings of this study support taking a cultural context focus towards understanding children’s perceptions and using such insight in helping children learn cooperation and acceptance of others knowing that children see the world from the context in which they live.

The spectre of neoliberalism: pedagogy, gender and the construction of learner identities

In this paper I draw on ethnographic observation data taken from a school-based study of two groups of 12–13-year-old pupils identified as high achieving and popular to explore how relations between teachers and pupils are mediated and constituted through the spectre of neoliberal values and sensibilities – zero-sum thinking, individualism and competition. Specifically, I demonstrate how certain high-achieving male and female pupils respond to and negotiate competing challenges summoned through the classroom – pushes to be competitive, autonomous and achieve academically, and pulls to court the acceptance of others and become or remain popular. This highlights the deep interconnections between neoliberalism and pedagogy and school-based orientations to learning. At the same time, it draws attention to resistance and the efficacy of the interpellating demands of neoliberal discourses in the context of intersecting dynamics of gender, friendship and popularity. I conclude the paper by considering how neoliberal styles, rhetoric and cultural forms impact on ideas of social justice and possibilities for a ‘critical’ or ‘transformative’ pedagogy that takes seriously the positive contribution of learners to education discourses and practices.

The Role of Practice in the Development of Military Masculinities

This article seeks to explore the extent to which the military rebuilds or reframes masculinities as a means of meeting the aims of the process of militarization. It focuses on the dimensions of military masculinities that can be distinguished as distinctive in practice. Drawing on Etienne Wenger's notion of communities of practice, this research asks how military men orient themselves in their social and material world, considering the role of practice in the development of military masculinities. A total of 71 semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 53 male and 18 female personnel of various ranks working in the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force. Six focus groups were also carried out (with a total of 10 male and six female participants). Thematic analyses of the narratives indicated that one outcome of militarization is the construction of military masculinities. The military reframes masculinities as a means of meeting the aims of the process of militarization. Dimensions of military masculinities can be distinguished as attributes and qualities and masculinities that are distinctive to the military are constructed through military practice. A strong sense of belonging to the military community of practice is fundamental to the development of military masculinities. In order to feel that one belongs, the recognition and acceptance of others is needed. Those who share the attributes and comply with the practices peculiar to the military achieve this recognition.

Las habilidades sociales como recursos para el desarrollo de fortalezas en la infancia

A strong relationship between social competence during childhood and the subsequent psychological functioning has been found. Therefore, learning and practising social skills contribute to the development of psychological strengths in children. The aims of this paper were a) to describe a series of social skills in pre-school children from San Miguel de Tucuman (Argentina) who live under poverty conditions, and b) to identify if the presence of social skills reduces the frequency of occurrence of disruptive behaviour. We worked with a sample of 120 5- year olds from outskirts of San Miguel de Tucuman who attend public schools kindergartens. In the research their parents were administered the Scale of Social Skills (Lacunza, 2005), the Guide for Behaviour Observation (Ison & Fachinelli, 1993) and a sociodemographic survey. The results showed significant statistical differences in the social skills according to the gender and in the dimensions of physical and/or verbal aggression and transgression in the behavioural scale. Children with disruptive behaviour showed fewer social skills, according to their parents’ perception. These results show that social skills in children prevent the occurrence of dysfunctional behaviour, particularly aggressiveness and negativism. These data show that the practice of social behaviour contributes to adaptation, acceptance of others, positive reinforcement, well-being, among other salugenic resources.

The autistic dialogic style: a case of Asperger's syndrome

In a former study (Fonseca and Bussab, 2006, ‘Self, other and dialogical space in autistic states’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 87:1–16), the author hypothesised that in autistic disorders there is a distortion in the construction of what she defined as dialogic space. Such a space, in which self and other define each other mutually, is the final result of early dyadic transactions. These are characterised by opposing experiences of ongoing regulation, disruption and repair. This sets the basis for both the sense of predictability, the so-called ‘me experiences’, in Winnicottian terminology, and novelty, the ‘not-me experiences’. The balance of these transactions provides the preconditions for the acceptance of otherness, a crucial difficulty in autistic disorders, whose hallmark is considered by some authors to be the inability to accept and deal with otherness. This paper aims to illustrate the peculiar way in which such difficulties are made clear in less severe cases on the autistic spectrum, such as in Asperger's syndrome. The clinical material of a 12-year-old-boy with an uncanny ability to induce drowsiness in the analyst will be presented. My hypothesis is that such a state is the consequence of a dialogic style of forcing agreement inside the dyad, searching exclusively for the already known, as a possible way of avoiding the encounter with otherness.

Franco-Arab Dialogues in/between French, Maghrebi-French, and Maghrebi Cinema(s)

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Notes 1. I am using the term “Maghrebi-French” as opposed to either “beur,” which has become problematic, or “Franco-Maghrebi,” which is fundamentally ambiguous. Although I am drawing on Maghrebi cinemas as examples of Arab cinemas, I recognize that the term Maghrebi includes other populations—Kabyl, Berber, Jewish, pied noir, etc. 2. Other films of the 2000s differ in tone and in outcome: in La Faute à Voltaire, the Arab migrant is eventually deported, while in Chouchou, a Utopian multicultural France is shown ready to welcome a cross-dressing, gay male Arab. But both engage audiences in a dialogue regarding the need for tolerance and acceptance of others, emphasising the conviviality that can arise from intercultural relationships (but ignoring the possibility of the main protagonist being a practising Muslim). 3. They include: L’Autre monde, La Fille de Keltoum, Un aller simple, Les Chemins de l’oued, Exils, Tenja, and Il était une fois dans l’oued. 4. In L’Autre monde and Les Chemins de l’oued, the Maghrebi-French traveler is eventually killed by Islamic fundamentalists; in La Fille de Keltoum, she cannot accept the way women are treated in the Arab/Berber sex/gender system. In Exils, however, the pied noir traveler and his Maghrebi-French girlfriend are literally entranced by Sufi mysticism, and appear to find some sort of reconciliation with their past. 5. Various 1990s films denounce the wearing of the veil (Douce France) and Islamic fundamentalism (100% Arabica); Abdelkrim Bahloul's La Nuit du destin provides a sympathetic portrayal of Islamic faith in France. 6. Bensalah's other feature films are Le Ciel, les oiseaux … et ta mère, Le Raïd, and Big City. 7. Other such films include Le Soleil assassiné, an account of the encounter between Algerian youths and the poet Jean Sénac, set in the 1960s; and Bab El Web, which centers on the relationship between a French woman traveler and her young Algerian hosts (see Higbee); in André Téchiné's Loin, set in Tangiers, the Moroccan character has a secondary role.