Christian Association Research Articles

What makes a successful whole-school mental health intervention? A comparison of stakeholders’ perspectives and implications for schools and the future of English education

ABSTRACT This small-scale study compares stakeholders’ perspectives regarding what makes a successful whole-school Mental Health Intervention. Four study groups were included from an all-ability coeducational secondary school in south-east England: Students (n = 8), Teachers (n = 5), School-Leaders (n = 3), and YMCA Youth Workers (n = 3). Students took part in a focus group whereas the adult groups participated in semi-structured interviews. Subsequently, all participants ranked potential aspects of what might make a successful whole school Mental Health Intervention. No theme was mentioned consistently across the four groups, suggesting a diversity of perspectives regarding the benefits of Mental Health Interventions. All participants, except teachers, valued student involvement, a feature confirmed by the literature. Teachers occasionally adopted misinformed perspectives – arguably a result of insufficient training. Generally, participants’ job roles informed their responses. However, a loose trend existed whereby School-Leaders’ results were more aligned to an external charity association – the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) – than Teachers’ despite the fact that the Teachers and School Leaders worked in the same context. Although the single context and small sample sizes for this research compromise generalisability, there are clear recommendations to inform future studies and for those who are leading and providing whole-school Mental Health Interventions. This study is set within the political and policy contexts of a competitive, market drive English education system and can comment on the wider system within which this intervention nests.

The YWCA of the USA ‘In Service for the Girls of the World’, 1947–1985

Before mid-century, the Young Women's Christian Association of the USA (Y-US) was complicit with global northern imperial projects, as its work with women across national borders was characterised by an ethos of ‘imperial maternalism’. Applying Serene Khader's (2019) analysis of imperialism in global northern feminisms shows that Y-US's approach to ‘overseas’ work was ‘missionary’ in its use and promotion of ‘western’ values and strategies. Although Y-US inevitably worked within ‘asymmetrical power relations’ (Grewal & Kaplan, 2000, para.4), in the 1970s its approach shifted as it began to recognise these imbalances. By the 1980s, Y-US's ‘global’ programmes sought out women's context-specific knowledge to identify and critique structural inequalities and US imperialism, characteristic of ‘transnational feminist’ ethic. The contribution of Y-US to the YWCA movement was more complex, and positive, than a perpetuation of cultural imperialism. In its national policy and project planning and evaluations, Y-US continued until the 1980s to apply mixture of missionary and transnational feminist lenses to understand its role and responsibilities as a member of the worldwide YWCA movement, and to grapple with the implications of US power on the world stage.

Understanding diabetes risk in the Y Community of Greater Brisbane: Findings from a cross-sectional survey.

This cross-sectional study aimed to understand the need and desire for a diabetes prevention program within the Y (formerly YMCA: Young Men's Christian Association) of the Greater Brisbane region, Queensland, Australia. An anonymous online survey was distributed (March-April 2023) by The Y Queensland targeting adults within the Greater Brisbane Y community. Data were collected on Y membership and branch attended, postcode, diabetes risk in the next 5 years (low, medium, or high), and interest in participation in a diabetes prevention program. Data were analysed via descriptives and cross tabulation with statistical significance considered at p < .05. Respondents (n = 575) were primarily female (65%), attending a Y branch located in the outer city (51%), and aged under 55 years (68%). Twenty Y sites were represented, with a mix of inner-city, outer-city, and regional areas. Overall, 46% (n = 241/530) of respondents were at high diabetes risk, with those living in relatively socio-economically disadvantaged areas more likely (p < .001) to be at high-risk (57%) than intermediate (26%) or low-risk (18%). Most (68%) respondents were interested/potentially interested in program participation; those at high risk of developing diabetes in the next 5 years were most interested (55%). The Y in Greater Brisbane may provide a suitable setting to host a community-based diabetes prevention program. Locations outside the inner city should be prioritised to target those who are relatively socio-economically disadvantaged to align with higher need and demand. SO WHAT?: Findings inform the implementation and prioritisation of a community-delivered diabetes prevention program.

Basketball Returns Home: The Diffusion and Translocation of Basketball to Scotland

The early history of basketball and its diffusion to Scotland is yet to be fully acknowledged and recorded. Two themes are addressed in this article: the spread of basketball worldwide and the process of its translocation to a new country; and whether it was voluntarily accepted or culturally imposed or both upon its new host. Some of the preliminary contributions to knowledge about the global diffusion of basketball during its infancy are added to and reimagined, with a specific focus regarding the arrival and infancy of basketball in Scotland. Based on a body of empirical evidence from the British Newspaper Archive alongside the Archive and Special Collection at Springfield College in conjunction with secondary sources which document the inception of basketball in Britain and Scotland, four potential entry points and groups who were responsible for translocating basketball to Scotland are examined. The four: Hampstead College graduates; Scottish-based Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) workers; Scottish sojourners; and Mormon Missionaries. In the process, other possibilities including Springfield graduates and James Naismith are disregarded. To start, the origins of basketball in the United States and its Scottish connections are outlined, before denoting the inception of basketball in the United Kingdom and Scotland.

On the Origins of the Young Men’s Catholic Association as a Response to the Protestant Recreation Ethic in the United States, 1854–1909

In 1854 Reverend Bernard J. McQuaid set forth the outline behind his ideals for a young men’s Catholic association. Similar to the existing Protestant-rooted Young Men’s Christian Association which had arrived in the United States three years prior, McQuaid’s ambitions could be seen as one of many concurrent attempts to embrace the idea of Muscular Christianity and general reform movements of the late nineteenth century. However, to do so, would do an injustice to the ground-breaking, innovative, and controversial, methods embraced by McQuaid. He was one of the first in the Unted States to propose that sports and games of chance were not ‘evil’. Though his association eventually faltered under the weight of his lofty ambitions, he remains an underappreciated figure in the world of sport history. The Young Men’s Catholic Association offered a legitimate challenge to the often unwelcome Protestant morality of the YMCA in urban immigrant communities in the late nineteenth century United States. This paper argues that McQuaid’s recreation aims in Rochester developed as a reaction against the YMCA. McQuaid’s association, the Young Men’s Catholic Association, presented itself to the city’s immigrant, Catholic, working-class population as an alternative to the Protestant-inspired, ‘cult of strenuosity’.

Coming back for more: factors linked to higher participation among Veterans with chronic pain in an innovative VA-YMCA wellness clinic

In 2019, the Indianapolis VA developed a Wellness Clinic in partnership with the Young Men’s Christian Associations (YMCA) to comprehensively address Veterans’ chronic pain. Our specific aims were twofold: (1)...

From Frozen Ponds to Organized Competitions: The Growth of Skating and Ice Hockey in Korea, 1886–1938

The encounter of American Protestant evangelicalism and Japanese imperialism formed in Korean society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries became a steppingstone for the acceptance of modern winter sports in Korea. In particular, skates introduced by American Protestant missionaries and the Young Men’s Christian Association formed an imaginary space to counter Japanese imperialism in Korea during Japanese colonial era. Ice hockey introduced along with skating is a representative product that evolved in this process. The history of the introduction of American ice hockey to Korea also had a dual imperial influence between the United States and Japan, and in another direction, there was a voluntary acceptance process by Koreans who recognized ice hockey as a modern product.

Christian motives in Soviet cinema

The paper highlights the history of emergence and development of Christian motives in Soviet cinema, from the times of persecution against the Church in 1920–1930 up to the era of Perestroika. There is a difference in the perception of Christianity as the basis of traditional ethno-cultural identity and as the basis of universal moral values, which in both cases contributed to the gradual legitimization of Christian subjects in Soviet culture in spite of the multilevel system of ideological censorship. This paper analyzes the deep ideological trends in the evolution of Soviet culture, which allowed, on the one hand, the atheistic authorities themselves and, on the other hand, the experimenting filmmakers to address the topic of religion in general, Christianity in particular and specifically the Russian Orthodox Church in different ways in different periods of Soviet history. The illustrative examples of using various Christian symbols, Biblical quotations, events of religious history, the representation of the image of a Christian priest and a believer as such in Soviet films, as well as the increasingly noticeable appeal of Soviet filmmakers to Christian associations and allusions are also shown here. The author pays special attention to contradictory ideological trends during the three basic periods of Soviet history in the second half of the twentieth century: The Khrushchev Thaw, the Era of Stagnation and Perestroika. All three contributed to the legitimization of religious themes in Soviet cinema and determined the specifics of the attitude to religion in the late Soviet period. The films by such directors as Mikhail Romm, Marlen Khutsiev, Andrei Tarkovsky, Michael Kalik, Andrei Konchalovsky, Nikita Mikhalkov, Gleb Panfilov and others are considered in the paper as the most significant precedents. Hypotheses are put forward about further ideological strategies of the Soviet state regarding Orthodox Christianity, if the Communist Party had been able to retain its power.

Three little movements in modern “mission”

René Padilla’s invitation to evangelicals worldwide, to take up integral mission, in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, and the South African invitation to embrace “transforming mission” in cross-cultural ministries closely associated with the work of David Bosch and Klippies Kritzinger, were clarion calls to the global church, to turn back to the source of “mission,” which is Jesus, forming in his followers a new eschatological identity that empowers us to be witnesses who embody Christ’s good news of reconciliation. Among all who took up this invitation to realize an incarnational and contextual gospel, were evangelists in South Africa’s Students’ Christian Association, who created the SCA Cross-Cultural Missions’ Programme, or SCAMP, in 1979. This article is the first of three, which draw on a repository of memories catalogued through the discipline of oral history research; the writer’s own experience of training and teaching in the SCAMP programme; long-time friendships with many SCAMP people of the 1980s; a wide range of gathered archival primary sources; and published missiology and historiography, to construct a preliminary history of SCAMP during the 1980s at the zenith of the apartheid era. The narrative will be periodized into three distinct historical sequences, each of which may offer learnings for the contemporary church in its current understandings of “mission,” for a more incarnational, prophetic, and deeply empathic embodiment of Christian witness.

Haematological Profiles of Plasmodium-Induced Changes in Serum Amyloid-A levels among the Internally Displaced Persons in Maiduguri

The menace of malaria has constituted a health challenge in Nigeria. Internally Displaced Persons’ Camps are available temporary accommodation provided for victims of war in war torn zones around the world. A study was undertaken to investigate relationship between Serum Amyloid A (SAA), haematological profiles and malaria infection among internally displaced person in three (3) different camps (GGC: Government Girls’ College Camp, GSS: Girls’ Secondary School Camp, CAN-: Christian Association of Nigeria) within Maiduguri, Borno state capital between March and September, 2017. A total of 400 sample subjects were recruited for the study, malaria parasite test was done using the Giemsa thick and thin peripheral blood film, SAA was analysed using the Enzyme linked immune-sobent assay (ELISA) kit while Haematological parameters were analyse using the automatic full blood count analyser. The result of the study shows a positive correlation between malaria infection and these parameters. A mean SAA of 32.76mg/l, PCV of 28.2%, haemoglobin of 8.88g/dl, platelets of 116.54×103 /µl, leucocyte of 6.02×103 /mm3 and neutrophils of 3.34×103 /mm3 was recorded in the positive subjects compared to the 14.11mg/l, 41%, 14.81g/dl, 261.46×103/µl, 8.23×103 /mm3 , 4.11×103 /mm3 reported in the negative patients group, this results shows that there are abnormal haematological alterations in malaria subjects compared to the negative control group, hence SAA and haematological parameters can be used as markers of plasmodium infection.

Nordic Connections: Norwegian and Swedish Missionaries in Changsha in the 1920s

ABSTRACT This article explores the interconnections and relations of Nordic missionaries in early-twentieth-century China. Focusing on encounters in the Hunanese province capital of Changsha in and around the 1920s, it discusses ways in which Norwegian and Swedish missionary workers from four Christian associations made sense of their position as Nordic Lutherans within the international community in Changsha. Using both unpublished and published sources it explores the arrival of the Church of Sweden Mission to China in 1920 and plans to establish a Swedish Lutheran university in China. In conjunction it examines the Nordics as part of the international networks in the city, the evacuation of foreigners in 1927, and the ways in which they were affected by national and imperial ambitions and relations. The exploration of Nordic missionaries as ambivalent actors in a semi-imperial arena contributes to our understandings of the connections, co-operations and power dynamics of the transimperial world of the early twentieth century.

Medals, Rings, and Olympic Dreams: A Review Essay of Antonio Sotomayor and Cesar R. Torres, eds., Olimpismo

Medals, Rings, and Olympic Dreams: A Review Essay of Antonio Sotomayor and Cesar R. Torres, eds., <i>Olimpismo</i>

AihuaZhang: The Beijing Young Women's Christian Association, 1927–1937: Materializing a Gendered Modernity. Lanham, Boulder, New York and London: Lexington Books, 2021; pp. xxvi + 165.

Journal of Religious HistoryEarly View BOOK REVIEW Aihua Zhang: The Beijing Young Women's Christian Association, 1927–1937: Materializing a Gendered Modernity. Lanham, Boulder, New York and London: Lexington Books, 2021; pp. xxvi + 165. David W. Kim, Corresponding Author David W. Kim [email protected] Australian National University/Kookmin University, SeoulDavid W. Kim ([email protected]).Search for more papers by this author David W. Kim, Corresponding Author David W. Kim [email protected] Australian National University/Kookmin University, SeoulDavid W. Kim ([email protected]).Search for more papers by this author First published: 23 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.12966Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue RelatedInformation

‘Correct provision can be made for their wants’: the reading rooms of the Santa Fe Railroad

Private libraries for the use of the working man were established throughout the United States in the nineteenth century, beginning in 1820 in large Eastern cities. These libraries were often part of institutes which included museums, schools, and exhibits of mechanical inventions, and were intended to ‘promote orderly and virtuous habits, diffuse knowledge and the desire for knowledge, improve the scientific skills of mechanics and manufacturers’. With the rise of organised labor movements in the 1870s, the purpose of such libraries shifted to serve as ‘antidotes of strikes and communism’. At this time, the work of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) with railroad and industrial workers began to focus on promoting loyalty to the corporation and rejection of unionisation and political unrest through the Railroad YMCA and Industrial YMCA divisions. Multiple railroads both partnered with the YMCA and opened their own libraries and reading rooms to achieve similar goals. One of these was the Santa Fe Railroad, which established reading rooms throughout the Southwestern United States in large part to serve as a ‘civilising’ influence on railroad employees and towns. Initially restricted to Santa Fe Railroad employees and their families, these reading rooms soon became the social and intellectual centres of the communities in which they were established. The vast majority of reading rooms closed between 1929 and 1940, owing in part to the Great Depression, but also as victims of their own success, as the communities in which they were located grew and expanded and provided alternatives such as churches, schools, and public libraries. Their history mirrors the history of the establishment of public libraries during the same period – they were even being called ‘quasi-universities’ – and reveals much about the greater social and cultural climate in which both institutions developed. Like those of public libraries, the users of these reading rooms utilised them for their own purposes, regardless of the intentions of the founders, and turned them into public places and spaces.

Inculcating a Gendered Christian Internationalism: The Chinese Student YWCA

Taking the little-studied Student Young Women’s Christian Associations of China as a case study, this article dissects how gendered Christian international identities were inculcated in Chinese girls at a variety of scales—local, national, and international—in the interwar years. This article highlights how Christianity, for Chinese Student YWCA members in the 1920s, provided a key tool for constructing internationalism. The Christian, patriotic, and gendered rhetoric of “duty,” “service,” and “sacrifice” enabled Chinese girls to salve tensions between their national and international identities in an era of mounting antiforeign hostility. YWCA members also drew on women’s peacemaking roles to step into the international public sphere. The YWCA provided students with training in leadership, organizational skills, and, in some cases, international diplomacy. While they drew on the rhetorical devices, skills, tactics, and training provided by entry into international women’s networks, YWCA members adapted the message to suit their own needs and objectives.

DIN ISTORIA ASOCIAȚIEI CREȘTINE A FEMEILOR DIN ROMÂNIA ȘI LIDERELE EI

The Women Christian Association was founded in 1919, under the patronage of Queen Mary, with the help and guidance of some foreign secretaries, who arrived in the country after the Great War. According to its Statutes, the aim of the Association was to provide young girls with physical, intellectual and moral education. The headquarters of the Association was in Bucharest, and other branches were opened in Iași, Sibiu, Constanța, Craiova, Arad, Timișoara and Cernăuți. The Association organized dormitories for schoolgirls, tailoring workshops, restaurants, canteens, educational circles, schools, courses, libraries, and summer camps. In its headquarters in Bucharest, Popa Rusu street no. 13, it organized constantly courses, conferences, concerts and even cinema. The Association continued to be active during the Second World War, when it carried out an extensive program of assistance to war refugees from Poland, Bessarabia, Northern Bucovina and Northwest Transylvania. The Association had a Christian flag and the members wore a white uniform with blue ties. Its members, belonging to different social and professional categories, were active and devoted. Among its devoted and dedicated leaders, one has to mention Queen Maria – honorary president – and Princess Ileana - president of the Blue Triangle circles. Maria Filipescu, Natalia Slivici, Ioana Burileanu and Elena Orghidan were active presidents, and Alice Grunau Dimăncescu, Alice Voiculescu, Bucura Dumbravă were special members of the Association.

‘For Men Only:’ Sexual Health Education, Neurasthenia and the Modern YMCA in the Gilded Age

Summary In the late-nineteenth century, Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) presented medical lectures designated ‘For Men Only’. This article argues that YMCA lectures about sexual health relied on the discourse of neurasthenia to address sexual health and morality in medical terms. By demonstrating that sexual licentiousness could be both a cause and consequence of this common nervous disease, lecturers at the YMCA invited young men to understand themselves as victims of circumstance, corrupted by modern society. While this period in YMCA history is often considered part of the social hygiene movement of the early twentieth century, this article shows that the efforts of health reform in the 1880s and 1890s mobilised an approach unique to Gilded-Age America, one which served the to bolster the legitimacy of physicians and to attract men into YMCA Halls.

Ideal girls for Christian internationalism: the YWCA in early twentieth-century South Asia

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in constructing the terms of political engagement for young Christian women in South Asia. It focuses on a periodical called The Young Women of India and Ceylon, published between 1908 and 1916, which typically carried didactic essays and short aphoristic pieces of writing by Western educators and social workers, addressing a predominantly South Asian readership. Through this magazine, as well as through its Bible-study groups, social events, sporting gatherings and social work activities, the YWCA sought both to create opportunities for women’s participation in public life in South Asia and to articulate the boundaries of proper Christian womanhood in this practice. In particular, I argue that the writing in this magazine emphasised ideals of enterprise, positivity and professionalism. The article also examines the effects of this discourse, considering how South Asian Christian women inhabited an ethic of religious womanhood and showing that they engaged in a balancing act that both reiterated and contested the missionary ideal of ‘good’ womanhood.

Humanitarian Initiatives on the Territory of the German Empire during the First World War (on the Examples of Treatment of the Russian Civilians)

The article presents the variety of the humanitarian aid to the Russian enemy aliens in Germany during the First World War. Compositional the author distinguishes three categories of enemy aliens: Russian subjects detained at the beginning of the war, who returned to Russia after some months; confined persons, which means detained, deported and restricted male, who stayed in Germany until the end of the war; internees, who were kept in German camps. Officially, the interests of all Russian enemy aliens were represented by the Spanish Embassy. In addition to the support of the Embassy of Spain, three areas of humanitarian assistance to Russian enemy aliens could be specificated: support from the local population and professional communities, humanitarian initiatives of the International and National Committees of the Red Cross and also actions of other philanthropic institutions. The author describes special aspects of the humanitarian aid to each category of enemy aliens. So the first category receive help from the German professional associations, international and national committees of the Red Cross. It was noted that the support of confined persons is some of the most unknown part: they received help mostly from the professional communities and the local population. The help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), national Red Cross committees from the neutral states, Young Men&amp;apos;s Christian Association (YMCA) is applicable to the interned captive civilians. Initiatives by prince Max von Baden also took their part in supporting the internees. The article also shows the support by the English and American internees, who shared their parcels with Russian captive civilians, discovers the humanitarian actions of the Relief Committees in the internment camps. The author highlights that the perception of humanitarian aid by citizens and governments were often in conflict.

Registered Trustees of Christian Association of Nigeria V. Corporate Affairs Commission and Minister of Trade and Industry (Fhc/abj/cs/84/2022): the Power of the Court to Alter Provisions of the Law

Registered Trustees of Christian Association of Nigeria V. Corporate Affairs Commission and Minister of Trade and Industry (Fhc/abj/cs/84/2022): the Power of the Court to Alter Provisions of the Law