Displaying 1 - 22 of 22
Objectives Whether in metropoles or remote mountain communities, the availability and adoption of contraceptive technologies prompt serious and wide-ranging biological, social, and political-economic questions. The potential shifts in women's capacities to create spaces between pregnancies or to prevent future pregnancies have profound and often positive biological, demographic, and socioeconomic implications. Less acknowledged, however, are the ambivalences that women experience around contraception use-vacillations between moral frameworks, generational difference, and gendered forms of labor that have implications well beyond the boundaries of an individual's reproductive biology. This paper hones in on contraceptive use of culturally Tibetan women in two regions of highland Nepal whose reproductive lives occurred from 1943 to 2012. Methods We describe the experiences of the 296 women (out of a study of more than 1000 women's reproductive histories) who used contraception, and under what circumstances, examining socioeconomic, geographic, and age differences as well as points of access and patterns of use. We also provide a longitudinal perspective on fertility. Results Our results relate contraception usage to fertility decline, as well as to differences in access between the two communities of women. Conclusions We argue that despite seemingly similar social ecologies of these two study sites-including stated reasons for the adoption of contraception and expressed ambivalence around its use, some of which are linked to moral and cosmological understandings that emerge from Buddhism-the dynamics of contraception uptake in these two regions are distinct, as are, therefore, patterns of fertility transition.
Sustainable development is a contested concept, with theories shaped by people's and organizations' different worldviews, which in turn influence how issues are formulated and actions proposed. It is usually presented as the intersection between environment, society and economy, which are conceived of as separate although connected entities. We would argue that these are not unified entities: rather they are fractured and multi-layered and can be considered at different spatial levels. The economy is often given priority in policies and the environment is viewed as apart from humans. They are interconnected, with the economy dependent on society and the environment while human existence and society are dependent on, and within the environment. The separation of environment, society and economy often leads to a narrow techno-scientific approach, while issues to do with society that are most likely to challenge the present socio-economic structure are often marginalized, in particular the sustainability of communities and the maintenance of cultural diversity. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment
Over the past decade, training in mindfulness—the intentional cultivation of moment-by-moment non-judgmental focused attention and awareness—has spread from its initial western applications in medicine to other fields, including education. This paper reviews research and curricula pertaining to the integration of mindfulness training into K-12 education, both indirectly by training teachers and through direct teaching of students. Research on the neurobiology of mindfulness in adults suggests that sustained mindfulness practice can enhance attentional and emotional self-regulation and promote flexibility, pointing toward significant potential benefits for both teachers and students. Early research results on three illustrative mindfulness-based teacher training initiatives suggest that personal training in mindfulness skills can increase teachers’ sense of well-being and teaching self-efficacy, as well as their ability to manage classroom behavior and establish and maintain supportive relationships with students. Since 2005, 14 studies of programs that directly train students in mindfulness have collectively demonstrated a range of cognitive, social, and psychological benefits to both elementary (six studies) and high school (eight studies) students. These include improvements in working memory, attention, academic skills, social skills, emotional regulation, and self-esteem, as well as self-reported improvements in mood and decreases in anxiety, stress, and fatigue. The educational goals, target population, and core features of ten established mindfulness-based curricula are described. Finally, the need for more rigorous scientific evidence of the benefits of mindfulness-based interventions in K-12 education is discussed, along with suggestions of specific process, outcome, and research-design questions remaining to be answered.
Zotero Collections:
Over the past decade, training in mindfulness—the intentional cultivation of moment-by-moment non-judgmental focused attention and awareness—has spread from its initial western applications in medicine to other fields, including education. This paper reviews research and curricula pertaining to the integration of mindfulness training into K-12 education, both indirectly by training teachers and through direct teaching of students. Research on the neurobiology of mindfulness in adults suggests that sustained mindfulness practice can enhance attentional and emotional self-regulation and promote flexibility, pointing toward significant potential benefits for both teachers and students. Early research results on three illustrative mindfulness-based teacher training initiatives suggest that personal training in mindfulness skills can increase teachers’ sense of well-being and teaching self-efficacy, as well as their ability to manage classroom behavior and establish and maintain supportive relationships with students. Since 2005, 14 studies of programs that directly train students in mindfulness have collectively demonstrated a range of cognitive, social, and psychological benefits to both elementary (six studies) and high school (eight studies) students. These include improvements in working memory, attention, academic skills, social skills, emotional regulation, and self-esteem, as well as self-reported improvements in mood and decreases in anxiety, stress, and fatigue. The educational goals, target population, and core features of ten established mindfulness-based curricula are described. Finally, the need for more rigorous scientific evidence of the benefits of mindfulness-based interventions in K-12 education is discussed, along with suggestions of specific process, outcome, and research-design questions remaining to be answered.
<p>This is the fourth issue of the <em>Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies</em>, edited by Ken Bauer, Geoff Childs, Andrew Fischer, and Daniel Winkler and released in December, 2008 (Bill McGrath 2009-03-31).</p>
<p>This paper outlines a methodology that makes possible a nuanced understanding of past Tibetan societies by exploring the tensions between structure and agency. Ethnographic data from a recent project on the historical demography of Skyid grong District is used to demonstrate how one can move beyond normative descriptions of a past society by using interviewees as both informants (who impart normative views) and respondents (who reflect on their own individual circumstances). In this way one can gain a perspective on the widely accepted rules of a society, while also using case studies to illustrate how individuals negotiated these rules in practice. This paper details the process by which one particular anthropologist came to know what he claims to know, and as such is a commentary on the reliability and validity of ethnographic data. (Than Garson 2005-09-22)</p>
<i>In this paper the authors analyze images from publications, produced by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile during the 1990s, that were used to educate Tibetan exiles living in India about health issues. The purpose is to show how the images promote pronatalism and ethnic endogamy-objectives that Tibetan exiles view as essential steps toward stemming a perceived threat, perpetrated by China, to their existence as a distinct ethnic group. The authors argue that the storybook aesthetics used in these images efface the ideological controversy of their encoded messages by evoking the style and authority of remedial health education.</i>
<p><strong>Creator's Description</strong>: This article reports on an ongoing sociological study of the first Tibetan refugee settlement established in India, Lugs zung bsam grub gling located in Bylakuppe near Mysore. Data from camp registers and the old files of the settlement office have been digitalized and subjected to an exploratory analysis that focuses on two interconnected issues: resource competition between the Tibetan refugees and the local Indian community, and high population growth during the first decade of the settlement's existence. The demographic analysis demonstrates that women in the settlement experienced a high fertility rate from 1962 to 1976. Population growth was further intensified by in-migration resulting from the creation of more camps, and from the in-migration of unregistered Tibetans including deserters from the army. The article discusses how these and other factors created friction between the camp's administrators and Indian government officials, conflicts between camp residents and the surrounding Indian communities, and may have countered some of the positive effects on local development resulting from the creation of the settlements.</p>
Although a great deal of attention has been paid to the role of people's own investment in promoting relationship commitment, less research has considered the possible role of the partner's investments. An experiment (Study 1) and two combined daily experience and longitudinal studies (Studies 2 and 3) documented that perceived investments from one partner motivate the other partner to further commit to the relationship. All three studies provided support for gratitude as a mechanism of this effect. These effects held even for individuals who were relatively less satisfied with their relationships. Together, these results suggest that people feel particularly grateful for partners who they perceive to have invested into the relationship, which, in turn, motivates them to further commit to the relationship. Implications for research and theory on gratitude and relationship commitment are discussed.
Zotero Collections:
<p><strong>Creator's Description</strong>: This paper focuses on fertility transitions that have recently occurred in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and among Tibetan exiles living in South Asia. The Tibetan cases are compared with fertility transitions in China, India, and historical Europe with respect to (1) the social and demographic forces that shaped pre-transitional levels of fertility, (2) frequencies of marriage and non-marital fertility, (3) the timing, duration, and magnitude of the fertility transitions, and (4) the impact that fertility transitions have had on sex ratios. The analysis shows that fertility in pre-transitional Tibetan societies was more similar to Europe than China or India, due to factors related to the family system and the limitations it imposed on marriage; that although Tibetan fertility transitions started comparatively late in time, they proceeded at an extraordinarily rapid pace; and that unlike in China and India, fertility transitions among Tibetans have not been accompanied by increasingly skewed sex ratios that favor males.</p>