Religious/spiritual well-being, coping styles and personality dimensions in people with substance use disorders

Religiosity and spirituality have been found to be negatively associated with a range of addictions. It has been suggested that religious/spiritual well-being might play an important role in the development, course and the recovery from addictive disorders. A sample of addiction in-patients (n=389) was assessed using the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (MI-RSWB) and compared with a matched group of non-addicted community controls (n=389). RSWB was found to be substantially lower in people with substance use disorders compared to the normal sample. Discriminate functional analysis showed that Experiences of Sense and Meaning, General Religiosity and Forgiveness were the dimensions of RSWB which strongly distinguished the groups. Within the group of people with substance use disorders, RSWB was strongly positively associated with the personality dimensions of Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Openness as well as Sense of Coherence and positive Coping styles. The study suggests that therapeutic intervention programs focusing on building a positive and meaningful personal framework, akin to that of a religious/spiritual orientation, may contribute to positive outcomes in addiction treatment.

Improving the value of the national curriculum through ethics and the religious

Ethics and religion are currently being considered for inclusion into Australia's national curriculum. This paper argues that such a consideration ought to be founded upon an education for democracy, where students are encouraged to become critical inquirers. It is also contended here that an engagement with ethics and the religious has a lot of potential for enhancing the educative value of our national curriculum because currently ACARA lacks any aspirational purposes for education and is merely focused upon the technical concerns regarding teaching and learning.

Ethno-religious tragedy rebuilds in Iraq

In the shadows of Syria's deadly civil war, a new tragedy is building right next door, in Iraq

“Never read anything that can at all unsettle your religious faith”: reading and writing in the monthly packet

The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Younger Members of the English Church (1851–99) reveals the interest that Charlotte Yonge had in promoting and supporting girls as readers and writers. As the editor and as a major contributor, Yonge provided a variety of material for the magazine as part of a strategy for the development of girls' reading and writing habits in ways that were consistent with their High Anglican beliefs and that would never cause them to question their faith.

Deconstructing religious identity, difference, and belonging : implications for anti-racist pedagogy

Increasing numbers of Australians identify with a multiplicity of religion groups or have no religious affiliation. Despite this, the representation of religious groups other than Christian—and the implications of this for anti-racist pedagogy in Australian schools—is seldom explored. This article interrogates the ways in which the most prominent of these minority religious groups (Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish) were spoken about in two Melbourne newspapers and considers the implications of this interrogation for multicultural pedagogy in globally integrated local school contexts, such as those in Australia. Methodologies of social cultural theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA) are used to investigate newspaper discussions from the different viewpoints of their experiential, systemic, and normative focus. I find that notions of religious identity described in the media are stylized in form and an almost-silent normative self-identity is defined against clichéd typologies made within a crucible of race, identity, and belonging.