A multi-method, multi-informant method was used to collect data from diverse stakeholders about school climate to inform school improvement efforts as part of the Positive Behaviour Intervention Supports framework. Teachers, administrators, school staff and students completed surveys and parents participated in focus groups to gather perspectives about school climate. Respondents identified safety as a strength at the school, staff and student results suggested interpersonal relationships as an area for improvement and staff identified parent involvement as an area for growth. Both (...) positive and negative perceptions of school climate emerged from the parent focus group. While there are limitations to the generalisability of the results, this case study provides a useful approach for schools to assess their school climate and establish goals for improvement. (shrink)

Whether consciousness is unidimensional with states defined along a single scale or it consists of multiple fundamental dimensions has been debated. Clinical assessment of consciousness distinguishes the content of consciousness (awareness) and the level of consciousness (wakefulness or arousal), which conflates firstperson phenomenal properties with third-person observable properties. The state of consciousness is more appropriately defined in terms of subjective level and content which are interdependent. On this account, the state of consciousness is exclusively defined by the experienced mental content, (...) i.e.awareness, whereas behaviour and cognition are overt expressions of the state. Wakefulness and arousal are predisposing factors for specific forms of conscious experience. Nevertheless, a unidimensional representation of consciousness fails to account for the variety of qualitatively different experiences in both normal and altered states of consciousness. To overcome this problem, cognitive and abstract multidimensional models of consciousness have been proposed, but such dimensions are interdependent and lack axiomatic support. A novel multidimensional characterization of consciousness based on the brain's macroscale functional geometry provides an alternative, empirically grounded model whose dimensions are defined by neurofunctional rather than behavioural attributes. The state of consciousness is then represented as a point in this functional multidimensional space. (shrink)

Information processing that subserves conscious cognitive functions is thought to involve recurrent signaling through feedforward and feedback loops among hierarchically arranged functional regions of the cerebral cortex. In the current issue of Consciousness and Cognition, Lee et al. report that loss of consciousness, as produced by a bolus injection of the general anesthetic propofol to human volunteers, was accompanied by a decrease in wide-band EEG feedback connectivity from frontal cortex to parietal cortex, confirming a prediction from previous experimental studies. Interestingly, (...) frontoparietal feedback connectivity did not fully recover after the anesthetic effect wore off and the subjects first opened their eyes in response to a verbal command. Possible interpretations of the results and their implications with respect to the neural correlates of consciousness and unconsciousness are discussed. (shrink)

This article provides a comparative institutional analysis between El Niño/southern Oscillation forecasting systems in the Pacific and southern Africa with a focus on how scientific information is connected to the decision-making process. With billions of dollars in infrastructure and private property and human health and well-being at risk during ENSO events, forecasting systems have begun to be embraced by managers and firms at multiple levels. The study suggests that such systems need to consciously support the coproduction of knowledge. A critical (...) component of such coproduction seems to be managing the boundaries between science and policy and across disciplines, scale, and knowledges to create information that is salient, credible, and legitimate to multiple audiences. This research suggests institutional mechanisms that appear to be useful in managing such boundaries, including mechanisms for structuring convening, translation, collaboration, and mediation functions. (shrink)

This article speaks to existential challenges facing Black people, predominantly of Caribbean descent, to live in what continues to be a White dominated and White entitled society. Working against the backdrop of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement that originated in the United States, this article analyses the socio-political and cultural frameworks that affirm Whiteness whilst concomitantly, denigrating Blackness. The author, a well-known Black liberation theologian, who is a child of the Windrush Generation, argues that Western Mission Christianity has always exemplified (...) a deep-seated form of anti-Blackness that has helped to shape the agency of Black bodies, essentially marking them as ‘less than’. This theological base has created the frameworks that have dictated the sematic belief that Black bodies do not really matter and if they do, then they are invariably second-class ones when compared to White bodies. In the final part of the article, the author outlines the ways in which Black theology in Britain, drawing on postcolonial theological and biblical optics, has sought to critique the ethnocentrism of White Christianity in Britain in order to assert that ‘Black Lives Do Matter’. (shrink)

An ethic of the fitting: a conceptual framework for nursing practiceNurses are expected to act within an ethos of care cognisant of duty, the right, and the good. Concepts of virtue theory, utilitarianism and deontology are used to outline a conceptual ethical framework for nurses in practice. This ‘Moebius’ framework aims to locate the virtues in a symbiotic relationship with the principles of utilitarianism and deontology. Under this framework, fitting ethical responses are sought. Within an ethic of the fitting, rules (...) and principles do not guarantee the most ethically justifiable outcomes. Within the Moebius approach, the nurse ought to respond with a sense of compassion that befits the moment rather than adhere to a rule at all costs. (shrink)

Researchers display confirmation bias when they persevere by revising procedures until obtaining a theory-predicted result. This strategy produces findings that are overgeneralized in avoidable ways, and this in turn binders successful applications. (The 40-year history of an attitude-change phenomenon.

This article documents two facts that are provocative in juxtaposition. First: There is multidecade durability of theory controversies in psychology, demonstrated here in the subdisciplines of cognitive and social psychology. Second: There is a much greater frequency of Nobel science awards for contributions to method than for contributions to theory, shown here in an analysis of the last two decades of Nobel awards in physics, chemistry, and medicine. The available documentation of Nobel awards reveals two forms of method–theory synergy: (a) (...) existing theories were often essential in enabling development of awarded methods, and (b) award-receiving methods often generated previously inconceivable data, which in turn inspired previously inconceivable theories. It is easy to find illustrations of these same synergies also in psychology. Perhaps greater recognition of the value of method in advancing theory can help to achieve resolutions of psychology’s persistent theory controversies. (shrink)

This analysis examines the practice of care providers in residential aged care lying to residents with dementia. Qualitative data were collected through multiple methods. Data here represents perceptions from registered and enrolled nurses, personal care assistants, and allied health professionals from five residential aged care facilities located in Queensland, Australia. Care providers in residential aged care facilities lie to residents with dementia. Lying is conceptualized as therapeutic whereby the care provider’s intent is to eliminate harm and also control behaviour. Care (...) providers of residents with dementia in RACFs need guidance around lying. An ethical framework cognisant of an ethical theory of good and ethical theory of right supplemented by a theory of virtue is proposed. A complimentary four stage communication strategy that promotes truth telling as a first option while also recommending the lie as a suitable strategy is also promoted. (shrink)

In general, most, but not necessarily all, patients want truthfulness about their health. Available evidence indicates that truth-telling practices and preferences are, to an extent, a cultural artefact. It is the case that practices among nurses and doctors have moved towards more honest and truthful disclosure to their patients. It is interesting that arguments both for and against truth-telling are established in terms of autonomy and physical and psychological harm. In the literature reviewed here, there is also the view that (...) truth-telling is essential because it is an intrinsic good, while it is argued against on the grounds of the uncertainty principle. Based on this review, it is recommended that practitioners ought to ask patients and patients' families what informational requirements are preferred, and research should continue into truth-telling in clinical practice, particularly to discover its very nature as a cultural artefact, and the other conditions and contexts in which truth-telling may not be preferred. (shrink)

The paper outlines a model-theoretic framework for investigating and comparing a variety of mereotopological theories. In the first part we consider different ways of characterizing a mereotopology with respect to (i) the intended interpretation of the connection primitive, and (ii) the composition of the admissible domains of quantification (e.g., whether or not they include boundary elements). The second part extends this study by considering two further dimensions along which different patterns of topological connection can be classified - the strength of (...) the connection and its multiplicity. (shrink)

Socratic method and intuition are two ways of knowing commonly thought as opposed. The author shows how both ways of knowing can be linked in an education that has philosophy as its armature.

This article is written by a descendant of enslaved Africans and explores the theological significance of Black bodies. Black bodies have been commodified, controlled and coerced by White hegemony, often lacking agency and self-determination. Using personal experience and contextual analysis, this article, drawing on Black theology inspired reflections, argues that we need to rethink how we conceive of Black bodies ethically, if Black lives are to really matter. The rehabilitation of Black bodies is achieved through a theological reappraisal of holiness (...) and sacraments, underpinned by an embodied pneumatology, in which Black bodies are shown to be sacramental and worthy of mattering in a world underpinned by White supremacy. (shrink)