Religion, Meaning, and Prejudice

Links between religion and prejudice have been interpreted to suggest that religion can both reduce and exacerbate prejudice. Here, the analysis of religion as a meaning system illuminates how religion can affect intergroup attitudes. Traditional psychological perspectives on religion and prejudice are summarized, followed by a discussion of religion and prejudice in cross-cultural and cross-religious contexts, involving varying target groups. Next, we explore possible explanatory mechanisms by proposing how four levels of meaning associated with religion—cognitive, motivational, societal, and intergroup—may both promote and attenuate prejudice. Finally, additional factors that might facilitate the paradoxical coexistence of religious egalitarian intentions with prejudiced attitudes are considered, and we speculate about the potential for religious groups to reduce prejudice within their adherents.     

Promoting leadership skills in field education:a university-community partnership to bring macro and micro together in gerontological field placements

Social workers are being called upon to utilize a wide range of skills in practice including not only skills of working directly with clients, but also skills related to practice in organizations such as program management, inter-organizational cooperation, research and evaluation. This article describes an innovative geriatric field education program that prepares social workers with leadership skills in both direct service and management, and engages community agencies as both sites for student learning and as beneficiaries of their professional development projects. Case examples are provided and benefits and challenges to the model are discussed.     

The SESS multisite collaborative research initiative: establishing common ground

Multidisciplinary intervention approaches are needed for meeting service needs for families in which substance abuse and mental health disorders may be interfering with child‐rearing. Experiences from the Starting Early Starting Smart (SESS) initiative, a 12‐site national collaborative investigation of integrating behavioural health services in early childhood and primary health care service settings for children aged 0–5 years and their families and caregivers, are described. This 4‐year applied research initiative was co‐funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the US Department of Health and Human Services and Casey Family Programs, a private operating foundation. SESS, which was developed and implemented in 12 geographically and culturally diverse cities in the USA during 1997–2001, encouraged federal, state, and local public/private partnerships. Opportunities and challenges in using an inclusive, consensus‐based, stakeholder model to maximize study relevance and utility for researchers, practitioners, and fiscal sponsors are discussed, and lessons for multidisciplinary, multisite research collaborations are identified.     

A quantification of lobbying benefits with an application to the common agricultural policy

We employ an empirical general equilibrium model of the CAP to determine which factors and countries would be expected to be opposed to or support reform of the CAP. The objective is to determine who are the “friends” and “enemies” of the CAP. The analysis studies the extent to which lobbying activity by these interested parties could be expected to encourage or discourage internal EU reform of the CAP. Several alternative policies to reform the CAP are evaluated in this manner in order to determine if one or another set of policies has a greater chance of being accepted. Specifically, we study the Uruguay Round Agreement, as well as a number of stated negotiating positions presented during the Round. The result will be a summary assessment of the relative politico-economic acceptability of these reform proposals within the EU. Our results lead to a very simple policy conclusion. Given the set of policy packages considered here, there is little doubt that the EU was most inclined to adopt a proposal incorporating compensation payments. Without further disaggregation of the analysis to identify the United States or Japan, we can only note that such a proposal is also the best as far as overall welfare goes for the rest of the world. Our results confirm the importance of sidepayments in the implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreement.     

Developing and delivering new medical technologies: issues beyond access

The articles in this issue illuminate psychosocial issues raised by the development and delivery of new medical technologies. Five kinds of questions surface repeatedly: questions about a technology's purpose(s), the value judgments it presumes, the locus of its control, the external forces that drive it, and its long-term social risks. These questions take the discussion of new technologies beyond the challenge of improving access to their benefits. They also raise issues that will become increasingly important as the capabilities of medical technology expand. For example, they suggest research questions for three other emerging medical technologies: use of biosynthetic growth hormone to treat short stature in hormonally normal children, genetic tests on fetal cells from the circulating maternal blood, and development of clinically reliable biomarkers of the aging process. Part Three of this issue provides a theoretical basis for encouraging psychosocial perspectives in this area, by illustrating the central role that "robust," multifaceted analysis has come to play within the methods of bioethics.     

Australian University Students' Views of the Nuclear Arms Race: Comparative and Qualitative Analyses

Australian university students' views of the nuclear arms race were analysed in two studies. A sample comparison study used Nuclear Arms Race Questionnaire (NARQ) and Position on Nuclear Weapons (PNW) scales to compare university students' views with those of high school students and community groups. University students' views were more strongly anti-nuclear than middle income and Middle European migrant groups, but not more than high school student and church member groups'. Females' attitudes were more strongly anti-nuclear than males. A qualitative analysis of ten university students' formulations of the arms races problem and Australia's involvement revealed the complex dimensions of perceived relationships between global and national interests and personal nuclear issues. Students' solutions were directly related to their formulations of the major aspects of the arms race problem, with six students who represented the nuclear problem in terms of superpower conflict, seeing individuals as powerless to influence solutions. Quantitative trends are interpreted in light of the varied representations of the problem and the association of students' generally anti-nuclear attitudes with lack of involvement in the peace movement.     

Rationality from a computational standpoint

A computationally viable choice function possesses, in addition to other important properties, adaptability - as new alternatives become feasible the set of best alternatives corresponding to the new feasible set can be located without having to reconsider previously rejected alternatives. Adaptability is shown to be closely related to, in fact characteristic of, the standard notions of rationality (expressed in terms of transitivity properties). Adaptability provides a generalization of conventional rationality and in addition leads to the choice function proposed by Schwartz, albeit from an entirely different route, that of computational viability.     

The Financing of the Proposed Australian Health Insurance Programme

The Australian Labor Government has outlined how it intends to finance the proposed Health Insurance Programme in its recent white paper on Health Insurance, whilst the specific details are provided in the earlier Deeble Report. From these documents two important conclusions emerge. Firstly, the Government does not really know how much the scheme will cost. Secondly, the proposed methods of financing has a number of contentious aspects. It is with these two matters that this paper is concerned.     

管理伦理学视野中的“以人为本“

"以人为本"包含着诸多歧义,马克思主义在科学实践观的基础上,运用唯物辩证法和历史辩证法阐明了"以人为本"的科学内涵.从管理伦理学的视角来看,科学理解的"以人为本"是管理伦理学"何以可能"的本体论前提和承诺,是管理伦理学学科建构的基本原则,是管理伦理学的终极价值追求和理论归宿.