Assumptions,conjectures, and other miracles: The application of evaluative thinking to theory of change models in community development

Unexamined and unjustified assumptions are the Achilles’ heel of development programs. In this paper, we describe an evaluation capacity building (ECB) approach designed to help community development practitioners work more effectively with assumptions through the intentional infusion of evaluative thinking (ET) into the program planning, monitoring, and evaluation process. We focus specifically on one component of our ET promotion approach involving the creation and analysis of theory of change (ToC) models. We describe our recent efforts to pilot this ET ECB approach with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Ethiopia and Zambia. The use of ToC models, plus the addition of ET, is a way to encourage individual and organizational learning and adaptive management that supports more reflective and responsive programming.     

Participation for children exposed to domestic violence? Social workers' approaches and children's strategies

This article explores social workers' approaches to children exposed to domestic violence and children's strategies in encounters with these professionals in the context of family law proceedings. Investigator approaches as well as child strategies are reconstructed from children's narratives. Furthermore, possible links between the social worker's approach described by a particular child, and the child's own strategies are outlined. Participation can offer children validation of their experiences and support their recovery after exposure to violence. However, it is suggested that it seems to be a challenging task for social workers to both validate children's experiences of violence and simultaneously offer them participation in the investigation process.     

Relational rurals: Some thoughts on relating things and theory in rural studies

This paper considers how shifts within the social sciences towards conceptualising spatiality in relational terms have unfolded in rural studies in particular ways over the past decade or so. A period in which networks, connections, flows and mobility have all established themselves as compelling conceptual frames for research, the rural has increasingly been recast in relational terms as a multi-authored and multi-faceted space, constituted through local-global interconnections and their place specific, sometimes contested, manifestations. In this way, the multiple meanings of the rural continues to be a focus of critical concern, as are the implications ‘of’ and ‘in’ rural spaces for some of the major issues currently being faced by governments and citizens around the world; including climate change and food security. Apprehending the complexity of the rural in these terms, we argue, requires not only thinking space relationally, but at the same time being epistemologically relational or theoretically pluralist. That is, recognising the co-constituent production of rural space through material and discursive phenomenon, processes and practices, and thus the value of existing theoretical resources (social constructionism, political and economic materialism) in relation with the critical and rigorous appraisal of ‘new’ concepts and ideas to better comprehend rural space in its multidimensional complexity and particularity. To this end, we identify Cindi Katz's notion of ‘countertopography’ as a promising conceptual and methodological addition to the rural scholar's toolkit insofar as it attends to a politics of location and differentation in relation to global processes. We conclude our discussion by sketching out possible objects of countertopographical analysis for understanding ongoing processes of change in rural space(s).     

戴维森意义理论的主要思想导源

戴维森意义理论具有明显的思想继承性,主要表现在:弗雷格的真值条件论是其基本立足点,塔尔斯基真之语义论的约定-T模式充当其形式表征基础,蒯因的彻底翻译理论成为其经验解释的理论基础。正是由于戴维森善于借鉴这些影响深远的思想成果,使其意义理论呈现出一种解释性的真理论而潜在地具有非凡的理论优势和影响力。     

孔子传播思想研究

孔子的传播理念是"和而不同",即"仁"与"礼"的统一。就人际传播而言,"仁"这一概念的提出为平等传播关系的建立提出了理论依据。孔子的传播思想博大精深,包罗万象,涉及传播符号、传播目的、受众思想、舆论思想、传播环境等诸多方面。其对传播符号的论述涉及传播符号的划分、语言的遮蔽性、语言的工具性、传播符号的规范、语言表达的有限性和无限性、形式与内容等方面;其传播目的论带有很强的实践理性色彩,认为传播的目的在于由"学"而"习",在于"言"和"行"的统一;风草论是孔子受众思想的重要方面,他一方面认为君子对民众的教化恰如风过草偃,效果明显,另一方面又认为传播威力虽然巨大,但也有一定限度,取得理想的传播效果非一日之功,这比"魔弹论"更加客观;历史传播方面,他认识到"载之空言"和"见之于行事"两种传播方式迥异的传播效果,发明了"托古立言"的传播方式;他还强调在舆论与独立思考之间加以平衡,既重视舆论又不盲从。     

Performing India in America through Pragma-Cultural Markers

Intercultural Communication is marked in literary discourse in numerous ways. Diasporic literary discourse representing intercultural communication uses pragma-cultural markers such as food and music as tools of intercultural communication. This paper attempts to examine intercultural communication foregrounding these pragma-cultural markers as represented in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Queen of Dreams within the framework provided by Relevance Theory (:249). This paper foregrounds the manner in which writers like Divakaruni deploy pragma-cultural markers to express multiple linguistic and cultural perspectives in their literary narratives, thereby portraying an amalgamation of America and India and facilitating intercultural communication which is a dialectical process, as on the one hand the “America” that is in the hearts, minds, and words of these writers shapes their expressions and on the other, their growing presence in terms of their literary output is changing the definition of American art and culture.     

Theory of mind: are there wider implications from working with d/Deaf people?

An exploratory teaching approach was inspired by the communicative experiences of d/Deaf students in tertiary education. ‘Theory of Mind’ has been used by some to describe the capacity to appreciate that views of others may be different from our own, a concept that could provide a different way for students and educators to understand the barriers identified. An adapted assessment highlighted challenges faced and a communication group provided opportunities for extending personal understandings of social settings. Emerging ideas to inform practice and potential implications for inclusion have relevance for other contexts.     

Feeling disability: theories of affect and critical disability studies

This paper explores connections between affect studies and critical disability studies. Our interest in affect is sparked by the beginnings of a new research project that seeks to illuminate the lives, hopes and desires of young people with ‘life-limiting’ or ‘life-threatening’ impairments. Cultural responses to these young people are shaped by dominant discourses associated with lives lived well and long. Before commencing our empirical work with young people we use this paper to think through how we might conceptualise affect and disability. We present three themes; ontological invalidation in neoliberal-able times; affect aliens and crip killjoys; disability and resistant assemblages.     

社会角色理论视域下高校问题学生行为失范

高校"问题学生"行为失范已得到社会的普遍关注,基于前人研究的基础,立足客观实际,开辟新视角,将社会角色理论引入对这一问题的研究,不仅对"问题学生"和"行为失范"进行了重新界定,从角色转换、角色冲突、角色错位、角色失败四个方面分析了高校"问题学生"行为失范产生的缘由,并提出了相应的对策。     

落下闳的族属之源暨浑天说、浑天仪所起源的族属

落下闳为巴人之源出赤狄支系皋落氏者,汉代浑天仪由落下闳始造,浑天仪所本理论为浑天说,而由落下闳的族属及其郡望学统、战国测星和西汉改历的史实、浑天思想的神话来源等观之,浑天说、浑天仪或非先秦华夏之族的旧学古器,而极可能起源于四夷中的狄、巴之族。