Law,love and being in relation

ABSTRACT

This article takes up Agozino's call for love. Yet this call is not a straightforward one. In response, I press for an appreciation of love which avoids collapsing love into 'protection', engaging instead with the Aboriginal World View described by Kombumerri and Wakka Wakka woman and scholar, Mary Graham, as a form of conduct, reflection and a practice in listening. Through two quite distinct stories offered by young people in their encounters with Australia's criminal justice system, I explore the ethics of listening and respectful relations in social and institutional settings. While the first story reveals the denial of colonial violence accompanying protectionist policies for the ‘care' of Indigenous communities, the second story shows how such patterns of denial underpin western ‘justice' systems, including for settler peoples. Responding to Agozino’s call requires that we examine the ethical act of listening and reflect on the repercussions of the failure to listen.     

If You Want People to Listen to You,Tell a Story

We hypothesized that (a) when people share a meaningful story, as opposed to when they share information, they make their partner listen well, and (b) that narrative-induced listening is positively associated with speakers’ psychological safety and negatively associated with their social anxiety. In Study 1 (N = 45), we showed that a meaningful story is perceived much more as a narrative and higher in narrative quality than two types of informational-discourses (telling about daily routine and describing buildings). In Study 2 (N = 52), we randomly asked participants to either share a meaningful story or tell about their daily routine. The participants sharing a meaningful story reported that their interlocutor was a better listener, d = 0.61, 95% CI |0.32, 0.92|. In Study 3 (N = 42), we compared the effect of sharing a meaningful story to describing buildings, and replicated the results of Study 2, d = 1.10, 95% CI |0.61, 1.59|. Moreover, we found that the perceived listening, which was induced by the narrative, mediated the manipulation effects on psychological safety, and social anxiety. Thus, we concluded that when speakers share meaningful stories they make their partner listen well and consequently experience higher psychological safety and lower feelings of social anxiety.     

Is the Source of Reinforcement for Naming Multiple Conditioned Reinforcers for Observing Responses?

Naming refers to the incidental acquisition of word-object relations as listener and speaker without explicit reinforcement. To investigate possible sources of reinforcement for naming, we examined the effects of a procedure for conditioning reinforcement for observing responses on the emergence of naming in children who previously lacked it. The participants were three 5- to 7-year-old children with and without diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder. During the intervention, either visual or auditory stimuli were first conditioned as reinforcers for observing responses. Then, neutral visual or auditory stimuli were paired with the conditioned visual or auditory stimuli until both visual and auditory stimuli acquired reinforcing properties for observing. Following this intervention, the participants demonstrated naming of stimuli that had been used in pretests for naming, as well as on a novel set of stimuli. We observed increases in echoic responding in conjunction with the emergence of naming and conditioned reinforcement for both observing responses. We interpret the data as suggesting that listener and speaker repertoires are joined for naming only when both visual and auditory stimuli reinforce the observing responses of looking and listening simultaneously.     

Listening and Referring to Voices: Students' Repertory in Educational Settings

When we construct our knowledge in educational settings we usually listen to many different voices, mediated through teachers, classmates, books, films, and so on. Eight students in teacher training were videotaped for 12 hours of group talks with a tutor over a six-month period. The overall purpose of the study was to describe the polyphonic nature of the discursive field of education and the interplay between various contexts and contextual resources in that social interaction.

The concept of intertextuality is adopted as a method to identify the polyphony of different voices. The explicit reported long-term listening is called the student's voice response, showing the repertory of contextual resources in use. Results from the study indicate that some of the students have a broad and some a narrow listening repertory when it comes to reported listening. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Telling stories for a politics of hope

This paper is about listening to voices from an excluded past. The oral history of disabled people challenges accepted, formal history, the history from dominant voices well established in unequal power relations. The paper draws on an oral history project conducted with over 60 visually impaired people who gave detailed accounts, telling stories of their experiences of education. This oral history research was carried out through the medium of the interview. The analysis covers school life, focusing on the recurring themes of abuse and friendships. The paper then turnd to relationships with family and community, and how participants placed schooling within the broader context of their lives. These stories are a small part of the history of disabled individuals' exclusion within which, as we hope to demonstrate, the chinks of collective light were born.     

Cutting voices. Self-injury in three adolescent girls.

1. Adolescent girls with a trauma history discover that violence, in the form of cutting themselves, heeds a response from others when others do not listen to their speaking voices. 2. Cutting may begin as an effort to communicate psychological distress and a plea for relationship but becomes a developmental pathway to cutting as a form of regulating unbearable affect, indicating the need for early intervention. 3. Adults actively and genuinely listening to girls is a critical component for both prevention and intervention of cutting.     

The “Our Homes,Not Nursing Homes” Project

ABSTRACT

The voices of non-elderly adults with disabilities who currently-or used to-reside in nursing homes are rarely heard. A grassroots disability advocacy organization conducts participatory action research in the form of a writing workshop in collaboration with a local community-college. Participants with disabilities describe their lives and their experiences in nursing homes with the help of volunteer scribes. The information provided in their accounts will help strengthen community-organizing efforts of the disability advocacy organization. And participants have been empowered by the realization that their life stories are helping others to leave nursing homes and join community settings.     

Listening to Older Women with Dementia: relationships, voices and power

Four older women with dementia were interviewed about their experiences of their services. People with dementia are rarely asked for their opinions or judged to be fully legitimate persons. Gaps in previous research concerning people with dementia is presented, with respect to listening to people with dementia themselves and with respect to gender issues. The present study is described and the methodology for analysis, Brown and Gilligan's Voice Relational Method, is presented. This method was developed to listen to adolescent girls and has been used to listen to the voices of others who are disempowered in society. Its focus on relationships and issues of power was useful in this study. The methodology is presented in the context of debates within feminist and disability research. The results of the interviews are discussed, particularly with respect to power in the women's relationships, and particularly the relationships between the women with dementia and medical staff. Some implications of these power issues are presented and recommendations are made.     

Gender Differences in Stories of Violence and Caring by Preschool Children in Post-Divorce Families: Implications for Social Competence

Themes of violence and caring in the spontaneous play of preschool-aged children in response to a revised version of the Attachment Story Completion Task (Bretherton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy, 1990) were analyzed in relation to their social behavior in child-care settings. All children (n = 66, 39 boys) lived in post-divorce families, primarily in the custody of their mothers. Some story enactments of violence predicted negative social behavior in child-care for both boys and girls. Other story enactments were strongly associated with gender and did not uniformly predict social behavior, suggesting that gender socialization plays a significant role in children's play representations of violence and caring. Implications for children's development and the interpretation of children's play behavior are discussed.     

The Secrets of Scheherazade: Toward a Functional Analysis of Imaginative Literature

A functional analysis of selected aspects of imaginative literature is presented. Reading imaginative literature is described as a process in which the reader makes indirect contact with the contingencies operating on the behavior of story characters. A functional story grammar is proposed in which the reader''s experience with a story is interpreted in terms of escape contingencies in which the author initially introduces an establishing operation consisting of a source of tension, which is resolved in some way by the outcome of the story. Although escape contingencies represent the functional basis for the structure of stories, they are to be understood in a context of many other reinforcers for reading fiction. Other contingencies that maintain reading are discussed. Functional analyses of imaginative literature have much to offer, both in improving literary education and in understanding the behavioral processes that occur on the part of the reader.     

Putting the Logos to Work: A Reply to Meyer

Abstract

Journalist Janet Malcolm recently published several articles and a book in which she accused her own profession of manipulation and deceit in its listening and interviewing practices. Specifically, she focused on the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case, on which Joe McGinniss' book, Fatal Vision, was based. McGinniss, she claimed, fostered a close and seemingly empathic relationship with the accused in order to betray him later—and in this event Malcolm saw the prototypical journalist-interviewee relationship. Her accusations about the role of journalism raised intense professional scrutiny. This essay examines the case from the standpoint of journalistic listening. Are the temptations for deceptive or “slanted” empathy inherent in the journalistic interview? Does the journalist have a responsibility not only to listen to the person being interviewed, but to “listen” equally well to the demands of a developing story—as if it, too, were a living entity? Do ethical standards within journalism demand that an interviewer's listening style, especially as it is seen in empathic behavior, be congruent with his or her unexpressed conclusions?     

The effect of guided relaxation and exercise imagery on self-reported leisure-time exercise behaviors in older adults

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a 6-wk intervention that used guided relaxation and exercise imagery (GREI) to increase self-reported leisure-time exercise behavior among older adults. A total of 93 community-dwelling healthy older adults (age 70.38 ± 8.15 yr, 66 female) were randomly placed in either a placebo control group or an intervention group. The intervention group received instructions to listen to an audio compact disk (CD) containing a GREI program, and the placebo control group received an audio CD that contained 2 relaxation tracks and instructions to listen to music of their choice for 6 wk. Results revealed that listening to a GREI CD for 6 wk significantly increased self-reported leisure-time exercise behaviors (p = .03). Further exploration of GREI and its effects on other psychological variables related to perceived exercise behaviors may substantiate its effectiveness.     

Playing the Recording Once or Twice: Effects on Listening Test Performances

Much debate surrounds the issue of whether allowing candidates to listen to recordings twice is more desirable in language tests than offering just one opportunity. Using regression models, this study investigates, analyses and interconnects both item difficulty and stimulus length in relation to the frequency of stimulus presentation and its effect on test results. The study involved 1,266 eighth-grade learners with perceived A2/B1 level in English as a first foreign language. The final discussion seeks to offer explanations for the results that clearly indicate the advantages of listening once; likewise, potential implications for listening tests and classroom practice are raised.     

“Grandma,Tell Me Another Story”: Family Narratives and Their Impact on Young Adult Development

The transmission of family stories provides insight into the personal and emotional lives of individuals, and sharing stories allows older generations to impart wisdom and family values to developing young adults. The current research explored how gender variation in content and perception of family stories differentially affected identity development in young adults. Young adults from a large northeastern private university shared a written family story about a grandparent and described how that story had impacted their values, behaviors, and identity. Three hundred twenty-five stories, from 238 women and 87 men, were qualitatively analyzed. The stories had much greater impact on young adults' values and attitudes than either their identity development or behaviors. Women shared more relationship stories, whereas men most frequently relayed humorous anecdotes. In addition, women indicated stories most often taught them to be appreciative, loving, or courageous, whereas more men shared stories that emphasized having a strong work ethic or being appreciative of and respectful to others. Although family narratives have been shown to help shape the younger generation's individual identity and character, it is important to differentiate between which stories might impact different genders as they seek to discover their own sense of self.     

State of the Context: Listening in Education

Educational listening research in the last 80 years covers a broad spectrum. Early research investigated the amount of time spent listening. Later studies identified students' comprehension of oral material. Aspects most often researched fall into the following categories: listening elicitation, listening benefits, and listening instruction. Because instructors must meet the needs of a variety of student listening and learning styles, a significant amount of listening research investigates listening and learning preferences. This research emphasizes the need to identify successful teaching strategies to help teachers elicit effective listening. Teachers have long believed that students who listen better are better students, and research seems to corroborate that effective listeners achieve academic success. Few schools offer listening instruction, and even in courses where listening is supposedly emphasized, only 7% of the time is devoted to listening. The impact of listening instruction is ambiguous despite anecdotal evidence suggesting that instruction improves listening. Listening instruction is especially scarce in primary and secondary schools notwithstanding the fact that listening is linked to both literacy and academic success. Further, little research has occurred in K–12 classrooms where there is greater opportunity to learn more about effective listening if researchers take the time to do so.     

Community-based arts research for people with learning disabilities: challenging misconceptions about learning disabilities

This article presents some of the community-based artwork of a group of men with learning disabilities, who aimed to challenge some of the misconceptions associated with learning disabilities. People with learning disabilities regularly face many forms of direct and indirect stigma. The consequences of such negative perceptions may affect individuals’ social relationships and ensure that barriers are strengthened which prevent their full inclusion. The men in this project used a series of visual and creative methods to challenge some of these misconceptions by telling stories through art, demonstrating skill through photography, using poetry to talk about sexual identity and improvising drama and filmmaking to challenge stigma, and through sculpture expressed their voices. Thus, by doing so, they were able to challenge some of the stigma associated with learning disabilities, indicating that community-based arts research is a valuable way in which to promote the voices of people with learning disabilities.     

The transparency of aging

This article is not meant to provide answers but to provoke thinking related to the questions we should be asking about the ethical personhood of aging adults. Are we covering over the rich opportunities to learn from their stories with an invisible cloak of transparency? Health care professionals have a moral obligation to rethink the assumptions that underlie their definitions of quality of life in aging. We cannot know what should be done unless we learn to listen to the life stories of aging people. This may even help us to see what is most real.     

Transgression narratives,dialogic voicing,and cultural change1

The narrative discursively analyzed in this paper is taken from a larger study involving life history interviews with Latina/o immigrants in California. It exemplifies a type of narrative among these interviews in which tellers recount how they or their family members have broken with cultural expectations. In this story, the teller, a Nicaraguan woman, recounts how her uncle violated traditional values in her family by enlisting in the Sandinista army during wartime. Despite discursively distancing herself from this transgression, she ends by evaluating the transgressor and his recent accomplishments positively. Through an analysis of the appraisal strategies and interdiscursivity within this narrative, the paper contends that the narrators of such stories can go beyond managing deviations to dialogically position themselves among competing ‘social and historical voices’( Bakhtin 1981 ). Thus, the paper contends that transgression narratives represent the tellers’ efforts to come to terms with cultural changes in their communities.     

Lessons from the Public Sphere: Listening,Adversity, and Learning

As many scholars have discussed, when addressing divisive social issues many people immediately assume an adversarial posture, thus lessening the chance for productive dialogues about these issues and lessening the likelihood that people will listen to each other. One area that is keenly affected by our “argument culture” is the classroom; after all, students have been well-conditioned in the “adversary method” before reaching college classes. While some conflict is necessary for growth and learning, when that conflict blocks ideas and discussion, that conflict is not productive. Therefore, in order to make classroom interactions productive and to promote listening, practices by a group from the public sphere—The Public Conversations Project (the PCP)—can be used as a model for encouraging productive dialogues in the college classroom.