Thriving With Social Purpose: An Integrative Approach to the Development of Optimal Human Functioning

This article responds to the need to synthesize theory and research in educational psychology by introducing the Thriving with Social Purpose (TSP) conceptual framework. TSP results when the four components of human motivation—goals, capability beliefs, context beliefs, and emotions—are amplified in dynamic, mutually reinforcing patterns. The centerpiece of the TSP motivational pattern is an active approach goal orientation informed by a fundamental concern for others (social purpose). This orientation is supported and strengthened by a firm belief in one's ability to make progress toward meaningful goals (personal optimism), a persistent tendency to imagine alternative pathways when progress is challenged (mindful tenacity), and intentional efforts to align emotions and circumstances in ways that will best facilitate goal progress (emotional wisdom). The TSP framework also emphasizes positive (discrepancy increasing) feedback cycles that accelerate learning and competence development, facilitate meaningful change, and promote personal and social well-being.     

Françoise Dolto (1908–88)

Conclusion Her brief experience of paediatrics and her subsequent discovery of psychoanalysis gave Fran?oise Dolto access to a therapeutic practice enabling her to apply ethical principles that were in conformity with her view of the human person. This path led her to develop a prophylaxis, put to the test in various institutional projects, with a ‘socializing’ or ‘educational’ value. Psychoanalysis thus not only enabled her to bring the light of ethics stemming from it to bear on the therapeutic process, but also stimulated her in her educational and spiritual activity. It was, no doubt, that feature of her thinking that prompted Dolto, in her relations with others, always to use speech for the benefit of the person by calling or recalling each person to his or her archaic desire. This is perhaps the origin of what prompted in her readers and listeners that jubilant enthusiasm so decried thereafter. There is a paradox here between the rejection of any claim to set standards and any imitation, and the power to attract an extensive readership or audience that ‘imitated’ and ‘set standards’, and, above all, was not steeped in the ethical convictions that she alone knew to be essential to any application of her ‘advice’. The very inner distinctiveness of her therapeutic, educational and spiritual action no doubt explains the absence, as Dolto saw it, of pupils to whom she might have taught the essence of her practice, since her subjectivity—the sense of her genius, her faith—is not something that can be taught. Original language: French éric Binet (France) Clinical psychologist in the public child welfare department of the département of Hauts-de-Seine, Paris, and mother and child welfare service for the City of Paris. He is also an instructor at the National Childhood and Family Institute, Centre d'Innovation et de Recherche dans le Champ Social, Paris. He is at present working for a doctorate in the educational sciences at the Université Lyon II, under Professor Guy Avanzini, and completing a thesis on the educational thinking of Fran?oise Dolto. I wish to thank Colette Parcheminier, who is in charge of the association ‘Archives et documentation Fran?oise Dolto’ [Fran?oise Dolto: records and documents], for her invaluable assistance in this work.     

THE CONTRIBUTION OF ACADEMIC INTEREST MEASURES TO THE DIFFERENTIAL PREDICTION OF MARKS

In a study of differential predictions of course marks in grades 12 and 13 interest measures were found to add appreciably to differential validities, particularly at the high school level. Differential validities remained quite low; however–typically in the .20's and .30's-probably because of high intercorrelations among the criteria. The relationship between intercorrelations of actual criteria and intercorrelations of predicted criteria was examined, and the implications of this relationship for differential validities were discussed.     

Dual-Focus Supervision: A Nonapprenticeship Approach

This article provides a professional model for practicum supervision using supervisors with equal responsibility and status. The authors discuss the influence of preprofessional guilds on practicum supervision and cite the major tenets that distinguish a profession from a guild. A model that attempts to meet some of the deficiencies identified in the literature on practicum supervision is proposed. With this model we stress the use of professional knowledge in both the content and process of practicum supervision. Dual-focus supervision is seen as the integration and application of two approaches to practicum supervision. Theory congruency is defined as the ability to translate espoused theory into practice. Interpersonal dynamics refers to the ability to recognize and attend to the impact of the counselor's and the client's behavior on each other. The application of the model is described, and examples from the use of the model are given. Student comments tended to support their satisfaction with the dual-supervision model. The model was seen to produce changes in trainee behavior and in supervisor behavior.     

Current Use of the DSM-III-R in Counselor Education

A survey of 146 counselor education programs revealed that most teach the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edition, revised) as part of practicum or internship; few offer a separate course.     

Is Christian Education Compatible With Science Education?

Science education and Christian education are not compatible if byChristian education one means teaching someone to be a Christian. Onegoal of science education is to give students factual knowledge. Even whenthere is no actual conflict of this knowledge with the dogmas ofChristianity, there exists the potential for conflict. Another goal ofscience education is to teach students to have the propensity to be sensitiveto evidence: to hold beliefs tentatively in light of evidence and to rejectthese beliefs in the light of new evidence if rejection is warranted by thisevidence. This propensity conflicts with one way in which beliefs are oftentaught in Christian education: namely as fundamental dogmas, rather than assubject to revision in the light of the evidence.