Importance Of Personal Responsibility Research Articles

Working-class wisdom: how relationality and responsibility shape working-class youth’s meaning-making on social media

ABSTRACT Young people spend prodigious time online cultivating identities, relationships, and values, however, most research about young people's experiences online fails to consider how socioeconomic status shapes young people's engagement online. Drawing on communication theory about meaning-making, impression management, and trends toward prosumption, we examine how social class, informs young peoples' engagement online. Interviews and focus groups with culturally and geographically diverse teens from working-class families reveal that working-class youth articulate their engagement online in terms of (1) rule following, (2) impression management to become intelligible to peers, (3) cultivating relationships, and (4) occasionally by intentionally keeping meaningful things offline. We argue that their energies reflect efforts at (1) controlling the meaning of posts and (2) relational work, evidencing a ‘responsibility-orientation’ to online engagement. Implications extend previous research identifying the importance of personal responsibility for working-class users online and consider how education systems and online platforms might better serve working-class youth.

Assessing Jordan B. Peterson’s contribution to the psychology of wellbeing: A book review of 12 Rules for Life

This article first critically examines the Jordan B. Peterson phenomenon and the popular appeal of his book, 12 Rules for Life . It then evaluates this book’s contribution to the psychology of wellbeing in four areas: (a) the psychology of religious values, (b) the importance of personal responsibility, (c) accepting suffering as the foundation for wellbeing, and (d) the process of finding one’s meaning based on personal sacrifice and negotiating a balance between chaos and order. Finally, it examines empirical support for his ideas, as well as his contribution to the emerging domain of existential positive psychology. Finally, implications for the future of positive psychology research and interventions are discussed.

STEM High School Communities

Using observations and interviews, the researchers explore the experiences and perspectives of students, teachers, and administrators at six specialized high schools with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as they pertain to the practices and structures affecting student outcomes. Four themes were found to be common across schools: a culture of intellectualism and inclusion, a valuation on research, the role of inquiry, and the importance of personal responsibility and independent learning for students. Nuanced differences were noted across sites, notably the difference in student-reported levels of stress; however, substantial differences in student experiences based on STEM school model type were not observed.

The Many Faces of Jesus in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath

Many modern American literary works deal with individual responsibility in tumultuous times; in fact, a considerable number even elevate this accountability to such a level that characters are portrayed as altruistic figures in their choice to care for those suffering around them during times of extreme adversity. Focus on altruistic figures can be found in the works of many quintessential modern authors, such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and John Steinbeck. (1) But Steinbeck's work, as I will argue in this essay by considering The Grapes of Wrath, takes altruistic characters a step further by aligning them with Jesus. Moreover, in The Grapes of Wrath, the various Christ-like characters seem also to incorporate features of the American romantic movement known as transcendentalism in order to locate them within the distinctively modern, American context of the Great Depression. A principle tenet in nineteenth-century American transcendental philosophy is that anyone can attain spiritual enlightenment akin to that of Christ. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the father of transcendentalism, created much controversy when he stated in his Divinity School Address that was not divine but mortal, and that he believed that all individuals were capable of transcending their humanity to achieve a Christ-like state: Jesus Christ belonged to a true race of prophets.... One man was true to what is in you and me.... He said ... 'I am divine. Through me, God acts; through me speaks. Would you see God, see me; or see thee?' (1037). Such a perspective directly contends that was not the only son of God. Transcendentalist philosophers oppose traditional Christianity by proclaiming that everyone has the potential to gain the heightened spirituality that Christ did. For them, Christ is merely an example, albeit a very important one, of a historical figure whose mortal self did not prevent him from becoming spirituality elevated. This idea of an individual spiritual transcendence, which is equaled to the spirituality of Christ, directly challenges Christianity's core principle that Christ is the only person who, in human form, is also divine. This view has remained controversial even into the twentieth century, but modernist writers such as Steinbeck readily applied this philosophical enterprise to their writings in order to formulate a more accessible representation of Christ through their characters for contemporary readers. (2) The Grapes of Wrath reveals a connection between the traditional Christ figure and the novel's principle characters, but complicates it with a position that eschews the traditional Christian doctrine of Christ's divine humanity. However, the narrative does not merely offer copies of characters that directly fit into transcendentalism's tenet of the divine mortal, for even this position is repudiated when the narrative insists that is attained not as a result of spiritual pursuit, but of moral obligations to others. In other words, the characters are Christ-like because they deliberately assume an existentialist-inflected personal responsibility toward others. For this, they are also often defaulted from their own existence in the end. These modern transcendentalist characters resemble Christ because they fully identify with and embrace the hardships that others are undergoing, but unlike Christ, they do not have recourse to transcending beyond these hardships. Steinbeck's characters remain tied to their struggles and face countless challenges in order to stay true to their existential belief in the importance of personal responsibility. If spiritual transcendence is defined as breaking through one's human limits in order to identify with the divine, then the characters in The Grapes of Wrath, in a sense, cannot be said to have transcended anything at all; they simply carry on the best they can in encountering the bleak reality of their modern lives but remain, paradoxically, still Christ-like. …

Teaching Law in Public Affairs Education: Synthesizing Political Theory, Decision Making, and Responsibility

Consideration of the law and the legal process is essential for students of public affairs who are preparing for responsibilities as leaders, managers, and policy makers. In their foundational courses, public affairs students are likely to encounter political theories about the constitutional law framework on which administrative authority is based. They may also have an option to study discrete aspects of the law deemed especially relevant to public administration, such as agency rulemaking or basic federal employment law. This article argues that public affairs students should have the opportunity to study law in a course designed to integrate consideration of legal foundations, a range of basic law subjects that public officials commonly encounter, and practical concerns such as complying with public ethics laws, managing litigation, and hiring lawyers. With the benefit of such an integrated approach, students will more clearly see the interrelationship of policy and law, further develop analytical and decision-making skills, and better understand the importance of personal responsibility for promoting the rule of law from which their authority will be derived.

“Strike not from Law’s firm hand that awful rod”: Wordsworth’s Salisbury Plain and the Penalty of Death

This essay argues that Wordsworth’s attitude toward the death penalty is more consistent than is usually recognized. Both the early and late versions of the Salisbury Plain poems, for instance, identify the importance of personal responsibility and accept that execution is sometimes, as the oft‐derided Sonnets Upon the Punishment of Death put it, the only “fit retribution.” This perspective was, however, complicated by Wordsworth’s awareness of the excesses of the Bloody Code, his antipathy to the authoritarian policies of Pitt’s government, and by his allegiance, during the mid‐1790s, to the philosophy of Godwin’s Political Justice. A close analysis of the Salisbury Plain poems in the context of popular calls for penal reform reveals not only Wordsworth’s long‐standing interest in the issue of capital punishment and his determination to participate in the contemporary debates about the matter, but also the extent of his growing estrangement from Godwin’s necessarian principles during the composition of Adventures on Salisbury Plain.