Competencies for rural development professionals in the era of HIV/AIDS

The impact of HIV/AIDS on food security and rural livelihoods is still insufficiently understood. It is evident, however, that rural development professionals need to respond to the changes that have taken place in rural areas due to the pandemic. This article explores competencies that they need in order to deal with the complex HIV/AIDS issues related to their work with farming families. Initially 45 rural development professionals from developing countries in the southern hemisphere were interviewed about these competencies, using case stories and questionnaires. Subsequently, 34 individual in‐depth interviews were conducted with rural development professionals from East Africa and Zambian government officials. A focus group discussion with 15 Zambian agricultural extension workers completed the empirical part of the research. The study reveals that there is an urgent need to complement the technical competencies of rural development professionals with more social competencies, such as counselling and communication, lobbying and networking. Recommendations are formulated for competence development of rural development professionals who have to deal with the consequences of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in rural areas.     

Children's Reasoning About the Refusal to Help: The Role of Need,Costs, and Social Perspective Taking

Children (n = 133, aged 8–13) were interviewed about helping situations that systematically varied in recipient's need for help and the costs for the helper. In situations where helping a peer involved low costs, children perceived a moral obligation to help that was independent of peer norms, parental authority, and reciprocity considerations. When helping a peer involved high costs this overpowered the perceived obligation to help, but only in situations involving low need and when in line with reciprocity. When both need and costs were high, younger children expressed stronger moral indignation while older children were less negative and reasoned in terms of other solutions. Furthermore, stronger moral indignation was related to more advanced social perspective taking skills when need and costs were high.     

Multiple identities and religious transmission: a study among moroccan-dutch muslim adolescents and their parents

This study investigates the relation between religious group identification and ethnic and national identity among Moroccan‐Dutch Muslim adolescents (11–18 years) and their parents (n = 369). Compared to their parents, adolescents showed higher national identification and lower religious and ethnic group identification. However, for adolescents and their parents, there were similar positive relations between Muslim and ethnic identifications, and both identifications were negatively related to Dutch identification. For early adolescents, parent’s religious group identification was strongly related to their religious identification and ethnic and national identifications. These associations were not significant for middle adolescents. It is concluded that research on children from immigrant Muslim families should not only focus on ethnicity but on religious identity in particular.     

Konzipierung und Realisierung des Breitband-Wissenschaftsnetzes des DFN-Vereins

Zusammenfassung.   Der st?ndig steigende Bedarf der Einrichtungen aus Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung an Bandbreite zur übertragung multimedialer Daten machte den Aufbau eines Breitband-Wissenschaftsnetzes (B-WiN) erforderlich. Der folgende Bericht erl?utert die Methodik der Konzeptionierung und Realisierung des B-WiN. Das Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF) unterstützt das Projekt im Zeitraum von 1995 bis 1998 mit erheblichen Zuschüssen. Eingegangen am 23. Mai 1996/Angenommen am 13. Juni 1997