The development and implementation of the Art of Happiness intervention for community-dwelling older adults

Research has shown that positive psychology interventions can enhance subjective well-being and reduce depression, however, efficacy on older adult populations has not been widely examined. Specifically, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, optimism, and positive emotions have been shown to improve health and longevity. The present study soughts to develop and evaluate an intervention with the goals of enhancing positive mental health among older adults. The Art of Happiness is a theory-based, eight-week intervention that was conducted at three senior centers in the state of Delaware. Each 90-min class examined a different topic including: (1) defining happiness, (2) stress management, (3) reflecting on happiness, (4) compassion and human connection, (5) forgiveness, (6) transforming suffering, (7) mindfulness, and (8) humor. Pre and post questionnaires assessed participant subjective happiness, stress, gratitude, life satisfaction, depression, mindfulness, arousal states, and general demographic and health information. This paper outlines the formative and process evaluation methodology related to the Art of Happiness project.     

Adolescents,Egocentrism, and Mortality

Adolescents are often described as egocentric, but a major source of this external behavior is the internal fear of adolescents have about feeling invisible, being different, and even their own mortality. Facing this fear through a curricular focus on death can help to combat this behavior. This can be accomplished through novel studies of books that include an honest discussion of death as a part of life and writing activities like composing self-obituaries. When used correctly, the subject of death can help students to develop goal-setting habits, better understand themselves and learn how to focus on the life that lies before them.     

‘I just treat them all the same,really’: teachers,whiteness and (anti) racism in physical education

This paper explores physical educators’ perspectives on race and racism as a first step towards disrupting whiteness and supporting the development of antiracist practice. With close links to sport, a practice centrally implicated in the creation and maintenance of racialised bodies and hierarchies, Physical Education (PE) offers an important context for a study of whiteness and racism in education. Using collective biography we examine physical educators’ narrative stories for what they reveal about the operation of whiteness and racism in PE. Teachers draw on narratives from curricula texts which uphold and reinforce notions of the racialised other, thereby reasserting normative, universal white knowledge. Their pedagogy is underpinned by a colour blind approach where race is ‘not seen’, yet essentialist and cultural discourses of race are nevertheless deployed to position particular racialised and gendered bodies as ‘problems’ in PE. Engagement with antiracism is limited to professional rhetoric within pedagogical practice.     

Social Understanding in Young Israeli-Jewish,Israeli-Palestinian,Palestinian, and Jordanian Children: Moral Judgments and Stereotypes

Research Findings: An empirical investigation was conducted to test young Palestinian, Jordanian, Israeli-Palestinian, and Israeli-Jewish children's (N = 433; M = 5.7 years of age) cultural stereotypes and their evaluations of peer intergroup exclusion based upon a number of different factors, including being from a different country and speaking a different language. Children in this study lived in a geographical region that has a history of cultural and religious tension, violence, and extreme intergroup conflict. Our findings reveal that the negative consequences of living with intergroup tension are related to the use of stereotypes. At the same time, the results for moral judgments and evaluations about excluding peers provide positive results about the young children's inclusive views regarding peer interactions. Practice: These findings indicate that practitioners working with young children should focus on inclusion in peer contexts. Curricula, media, and social intervention programs must begin in early childhood before children begin to use stereotypes in peer situations, particularly when children from other cultural and ethnic backgrounds play together.     

Control as Care: How Teachers in “No Excuses” Charter Schools Position Their Students and Themselves

Abstract

This qualitative study focuses on how early career charter school teachers (n?=?20) in schools utilizing a “no excuses” discipline approach describe their interactions with students. Using positioning theory as an analytic tool, we explore how teachers engage the language of no excuses discipline and associated behaviors to position their students as passive beings unaware of “what is best for them” and potential deviants needing oversight. In this way, relationships were largely described as focused on control and compliance. The findings raise questions about how no excuses systems shape teachers’ understandings of care for their students as well as how teacher-student relationships develop.