Socio-cultural Point Of View Research Articles

An examination of the role oflearning environments in the construction of nursing identity

The interplay between the development of a nurse's identity within the world of nursing, and theconstruction of relevant nursing concepts is by necessity a difficult and complex one. It is in part grounded in the theories of social interaction, concept formation, and relevant peripheral participation in the workplace, all of which can be related to the nursing role. These issues are considered here primarily from the sociocultural viewpoint of Vygotsky, bringing together the important role of significant participants in the nurse's learning experiences, predominantly peers, and examining briefly the effects of such a viewpoint in relation to nursing education. Flow best nursing knowledge may be structured to optimize the learner's educational experiences, and how best the learning environment of the student may be utilized to maximum educational benefit still remain complex questions. With moves towards more competence-based learning such interactions may be crucial to our understanding of the complexities of learning in what are essentially very practical-based environments, and at the same time allow us to acknowledge the important mechanisms involved in concept acquisition and transferability, a notion central to lifelong learning.

Play and (Post)Modern Culture

This essay presupposes that the recent Western scientific interest in play as a phenomenon and as a metaphor is characteristic of the way in which contemporary (post)modern culture sees itself: as a game without an overall aim, as play without a transcendent destination but not without the practical necessity of rules agreed upon and of (inter)subjective imagination; as a complex of games each one having its own framework, its own rules, risks, chances, and charms. The essay tries to demonstrate from a socio-cultural point of view how this recent self-image of (post)modern culture can be interpreted as the outcome of a long development. It does so in order to reconstruct and clarify, against this background, the historically changing scientific interest in, and the gradual formation of, the concept of play as a phenomenon and as a metaphor.

The life situation of a long-term psychiatric patient: some restrictions in, and possibilities of, open care.

This paper describes and analyses, from a sociocultural viewpoint, the ways of life of discharged long-term psychiatric patients in northern Finland. The paper focuses on subjectivity: control of life and fundamental experiences in life. The data consist of interviews with 25 outpatients who have moved to live in residential homes, rehabilitation centres or their own homes after receiving preparatory training in the psychiatric hospital. The findings suggest that the way of life of the outpatients did not significantly differ from that of other people belonging to the same generation of Finns. With respect to control of life, a conspicuous feature was the strong tendency to let themselves be led by others, and to self-sacrifice for the good of others. For the patients, independence was the best aspect of open care. Fear for being branded as a psychiatric case or as a former mental patient threatened the patients' external control of life. The central element of control of life of the Finns is work. The outpatients thought work a matter of honour and they did not find their present, inactive way of life satisfactory.

Music for the masses

Abstract This article focuses on the relationship between electroacoustic music and its audience. Initially, the issue is addressed from a sociocultural point of view. This is followed by a discussion about the role of the composer, the educational environment and the audience in the achievement of successful communication of musical meaning. Finally, the tasks facing potential audiences when attempting to establish meaning and a strategy that may hopefully prove to be useful in achieving this goal are discussed and illustrated by means of actual musical examples from the repertoire. Although this discussion is mainly focused on electroacoustic work, most of its general arguments may also apply to contemporary instrumental and vocal compositions and to music in general.

Japanese Type A behavior pattern is associated with "typus melancholicus": a study from the sociocultural viewpoint.

An examination of the relationship between Type A behavior pattern (TABP) and "Typus Melancholicus" (TM) in 212 coronary heart disease (CHD) patients in Japan revealed that: CHD patients with TABP were significantly more likely to have a depression-prone personality, what Tellenbach calls "Typus Melancholicus"; this tendency was observed not only in CHD patients but also among healthy Type A subjects; and TM is positively correlated with Type A. The results of our studies from a comparative sociocultural viewpoint indicate that TM may be involved in Japanese TABP, suggesting the possibility that driving, self-sacrificing and obsessional traits are related to Type A behavior in a variety of different cultural contexts.

Diversidad cultural y heterogeneidad en el pensamiento

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the topic of heterogeneity of verbal thinking. We assume the vygotskian idea about cultural determination of psyhological processes. Because of that, we reject the universal schema.about thinking. From a sociocultural point of view, when culture changes, mind changes too. In this sense, schooling is one of the most important cultural activity in order to change the cognitive processes. This provides the possibility to work in a different way of thinking. So, literate people is able to work with everyday knowledge, as illiterate people, but also with scientific knowledge.

Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa Perspectives on etiology and cognitive behavior therapy

This article gives a brief historical introduction to the field of eating disorders. Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and Bulimia Nervosa (BN) are seen from a sociocultural point of view, and the current emphasis on slimness is regarded as an important factor in the etiology of eating disorders. A short description of the central features of BN is given, and some important explanatory psychological models are described with the emphasis on the cognitive-behavioral model. Recent controlled treatment studies are cited.

Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa

Støylen IJ, Laberg JC. Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Perspectives on etiology and cognitive behavior therapy. Acta Psychiatr Scand Suppl. 361, Vol. 82. 1990: 52–58.This article gives a brief historical introduction to the field of eating disorders. Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and Bulimia Nervosa (BN) are seen from a sociocultural point of view, and the current emphasis on slimness is regarded as an important factor in the etiology of eating disorders. A short description of the central features of BN is given, and some important explanatory psychological models are described with the emphasis on the cognitive‐behavioral model. Recent controlled treatment studies are cited.

Ideologies in the news: On the measurement of ideological characteristics of news reports

Abstract. In this article, we discuss recent developments within the field of text-analysis from a socio-cultural point of view. In the first part attention is paid to the relation between dominant research traditions in communication studies such as the tradition of content analysis and new approaches which are often labeled as discourse analysis. The main methodological and theoretical problems within the tradition of content analysis are exposed. Perspectives of discourse analysis to overcome these problems are evaluated. Common problem of different approaches seems to be the question whether adequate research tools can be designed to produce not only reliable and valid results but also theoretical relevant analyses of media-discourses. In the second part of this article we consider by way of example a new method of measuring ideological characteristics of news. This method is comparable to jurisdiction in several important respects: Like judges, the task of coders does not simply consist of applying rules of coding in a purely technical way. The coding of news articles, using general rules, is coupled to a further elaboration of the rules themselves. To test the validity of this procedure, we use a method of scaling derived from a theoretical model generally known as "the law of categorical judgement". We also analyze the reliability of the coding process. Finally, the value of the research tool is demonstrated by presenting some results of a content analysis of the news coverage of a renowned Dutch industrial dispute in the seventies.

A New Perspective on Father Charles E. Coughlin

The number of those who remember hearing the voice of Father Charles E. Coughlin on the radio on Sunday afternoons in the 1930s and 1940s is dwindling. Those who do recall generally respond with adulation or disdain. Coughlin, like his contemporary Franklin D. Roosevelt, was either loved and admired or held in a kind of contempt. In the past, writers reflected on Coughlin chiefly from a political or socio-cultural point of view. My goal in researching “the radio priest,” however, has been to explore the theological roots of the anti-Semitism (more properly anti-Judaism), which became a dominant note in his speeches and writings, particularly in the year 1938 and thereafter.

Infantile autism and childhood schizophrenia: Review of the issues from the sociocultural point of view

After presenting an historical overview of the development of the concept of childhood psychosis, this paper discusses the various etiologies which have been offered to explain severe disturbances of childhood. Reference is made to the nature/nurture polemic. In spite of the general belief that the etiology is biologically determined, particularly in infantile autism, the actual evidence tends to be meagre. Furthermore, the literature includes a number of studies which have been found to be methodically weak and which seem to disclaim the intellectual and socioeconomic superiority of the parents of autistic children, contrary to Kanner's original finding that such superiority exists. The link between social class and autism, according to Cantwell's review, does not appear to fit a purely biological causation of autism. This remains an awkward finding which still demands an explanation. The contention of this paper is that contradictory findings could be explained, as stated by Kanner, by the ‘inordinate’ use of the label ‘autism’ to include various types of children's severe disorders, even brain-damaged children. Furthermore this review emphasizes the fact that a total neglect of sociocultural variables in the study of such children has led to confounding results. A careful reading of the literature and correspondence with numerous psychiatrists around the world have led the author to believe that infantile autism is more prevalent in highly technological countries where there is extensive geographical and economic mobility coupled with the nuclearization of the family. This paper offers supportive evidence for this speculation.

A medical definition of disease

Definitions of health and disease have been greatly influenced by sociocultural viewpoints. Medical definitions of the disease state are lacking or insufficient. An attempt is presented to separate core or primal, from conditioned disease. Core disease is defined as a verifiable, self-conscious sensation of dysfunction and/or distress that is felt to be limitless, menacing and aid-requiring. In contrast, conditioned diseases are states labeled as diseases by virture of consensus on prevalent sociocultural and medical values.

Adolescent Rebellion in the Kibbutz

The kind of changes that have appeared in adolescent rebellion phenomena in the kibbutz these past 10 years ate discussed from the sociocultural viewpoint. The frequency and expressions of the rebellion are conceived as connected closely with the interpersonal, family, social, and cultural context in which the adolescent exists. The increase of adolescent rebellion in the kibbutz seems to have occulted concurrently with the changes that have taken place in the surrounding environment making the system of values and norms in the life of the commune less clear and less valid. These changes have turned the adult society into a more ambiguous identification model than it was prior to the early 1960s.