RESPONSABILIDADE SOCIAL, PREGAÇÃO E EDUCAÇÃO: TENSÕES MISSIOLÓGICAS NO PROJETO MISSIONÁRIO DA IGREJA METODISTA EM TERRAS BRASILEIRAS

Esta pesquisa, Responsabilidade Social, Pregação e Educação: tensões missiológicas no projeto missionário da Igreja Metodista em terras brasileiras, tem como objetivo analisar as ações missionárias da Igreja Metodista do período de sua implantação até o final do período referente ao 18° Concílio Geral (2006-2011). A análise resgatou a tríade Responsabilidade Social, Pregação e Educação como uma marca identitária do movimento wesleyano e que esse princípio missionário nem sempre foi seguido pelo metodismo brasileiro. Notou-se também que a tríade serviu, em momentos decisivos, como elemento norteador do projeto missionário. Isso é percebido no período da implantação, bem como na constituição do Plano para Vida e Missão (PVM). Em que pese que as ações missionárias no metodismo brasileiro nem sempre foram providas de uma reflexão teológica sistemática, a tríade Responsabilidade Social, Pregação e Educação sempre funcionou como eixos essenciais da missão e de forma indissociável. Não foram poucos os momentos em que o projeto missionário metodista enfrentou tensões na sua execução. O ímpeto pelo crescimento numérico e expansão geográfica, muitas vezes, ofuscou a fidelidade à tríade. Nessa trajetória de pesquisa está construída em quatro capítulos, nos quais se busca a superação de uma compreensão histórica equivocada e faz-se necessário que o projeto missionário assuma os elementos essenciais da tríade como marco regulatório da missão metodista. As repetitivas opções equivocadas não colaboram com a nova compreensão de missão. O resultado da pesquisa encoraja futuras análises para que o metodismo assuma o papel de agente de Deus na missio Dei e para que o seu envolvimento missionário mantenha fidelidade à tríade Responsabilidade Social, Pregação e Educação.

Rastros e rostos do protestantismo brasileiro: uma historiografia de mulheres

Esta pesquisa abrange mulheres atuantes no chamado protestantismo histórico, principalmente vinculadas à Igreja Metodista do Brasil. O trabalho pretende visibilizar especialmente mulheres leigas e suas redes, geralmente informais, de articulação e chamar a atenção para seu papel na constituição destas comunidades de fé. Trata-se de um aspecto pouco explorado nas investigações sobre o protestantismo no Brasil que, quando abordado, se restringe a alguns ícones femininos. O foco principal do trabalho se restringe ao período de 1930, ano em que a Igreja Metodista do Brasil se constituiu como instituição autônoma, desvinculando-se formalmente de sua congênere nos EUA, até 1970/71, quando mulheres metodistas passam a ser admitidas no presbiterato, ou seja, podem solicitar a ordenação ao pastorado. Além de discutir a produção bibliográfica principalmente no âmbito da história do protestantismo, a pesquisa se baseia em fontes primárias, como boletins e jornais denominacionais, relatórios de eventos, correspondências e informações dispersas em diferentes materiais. Como referencial teórico a pesquisa se valeu da micro-história, procurando assim dar vida a personagens esquecidos e desvelar enredos ocultados pela história oficial. Portanto, além de demonstrar aspectos da atuação de mulheres no protestantismo brasileiro, silenciados tanto na memória institucional como na historiografia em suas diferentes matizes, a pesquisa pretende contribuir para uma avaliação crítica da mentalidade de mulheres sobre sua atuação no campo religioso, entre a adequação aos padrões culturais dominantes e os indícios de autonomia de pensamento diante de demandas específicas.(AU)

A IGREJA METODISTA E SUA AÇÃO PASTORAL FRENTE AO FENÔMENO DO ENVELHECIMENTO POPULACIONAL BRASILEIRO

O envelhecimento populacional é uma realidade mundial. No caso do Brasil pode-se afirmar que este fenômeno tem trazido novos desafios para o governo e para a sociedade como um todo. A Igreja Metodista, como parte dessa sociedade, é uma comunidade de fé que apresenta em seus documentos uma proposta pastoral de forte engajamento nas questões sociais. Diante disso, esta pesquisa se propõe a analisar a Ação Pastoral da Igreja Metodista frente ao fenômeno do envelhecimento populacional brasileiro. Para elaboração da mesma utiliza-se de dois métodos de procedimento: o método histórico, para o primeiro e o segundo capítulos, e o método estatístico para o terceiro. No primeiro capítulo são abordados os conceitos e os preconceitos relativos à velhice e ao envelhecimento; é apresentada uma análise demográfica do envelhecimento populacional brasileiro; e por fim são, tecido breves comentários sobre a velhice frente o neoliberalismo. No segundo capítulo são apresentados um breve histórico e a conceituação de termos relevantes para a pesquisa: Teologia Prática, Pastoral, Práxis e Igreja Metodista. Por fim, no terceiro capítulo, apresenta-se a análise e discussão dos resultados da pesquisa de campo realizada em três igrejas, cujo objetivo é aferir em seu cotidiano qual tem sido, efetivamente, a Ação Pastoral da Igreja Metodista frente ao fenômeno do envelhecimento populacional. Nas considerações finais do trabalho, de posse dos resultados da pesquisa apresenta-se algumas pistas pastorais para uma ação com e para os idosos.(AU)

Migration and transfer from Germany to Britain, 1660 to 1914:historical relations and comparisons

From the seventeenth until the twentieth century, Germans formed a prominent immigrant group in Great Britain. Their number included many occupations, and many occupied positions of significance. This volume brings together the most recent research on the subject, and places it firmly in the context of migration and transnational studies. It focuses on the significance of migration to cultural transfer, and highlights the contribution of Germans to the course of British history.

A study in Britain and France of the development of cross-cultural in-house sales training using distance learning.

The thesis is concerned with cross-cultural distance learning in two countries: Great Britain and France. Taking the example of in-house sales training, it argues that it is possible to develop courses for use in two or more countries of differing culture and language. Two courses were developed by the researcher. Both were essentially print-based distance-learning courses designed to help salespeople achieve a better understanding of their customers. One used a quantitative, the other qualitative approach. One considered the concept of the return on investment and the other, for which a video support was also developed, considered the analysis of a customer's needs. Part 1 of the thesis considers differences in the training context between France and Britain followed by a review of the learning process with reference to distance learning. Part 2 looks at the choice of training medium course design and evaluation and sets out the methodology adopted, including problems encountered in this type of fieldwork. Part 3 analyses the data and draws conclusions from the findings, before offering a series of guidelines for those concerned with the development of cross-cultural in-house training courses. The results of the field tests on the two courses were analysed in relation to the socio-cultural, educational and experiential background of the learners as well as their preferred learning styles. The thesis argues that it is possible to develop effective in-house sales training courses to be used in two cultures and identifies key considerations which need to be taken into account when carrying out this type of work.

ImageLearn - Decoding Britain's Landscape

Abstract Ordnance Survey, our national mapping organisation, collects vast amounts of high-resolution aerial imagery covering the entirety of the country. Currently, photogrammetrists and surveyors use this to manually capture real-world objects and characteristics for a relatively small number of features. Arguably, the vast archive of imagery that we have obtained portraying the whole of Great Britain is highly underutilised and could be ‘mined’ for much more information. Over the last year the ImageLearn project has investigated the potential of "representation learning" to automatically extract relevant features from aerial imagery. Representation learning is a form of data-mining in which the feature-extractors are learned using machine-learning techniques, rather than being manually defined. At the beginning of the project we conjectured that representations learned could help with processes such as object detection and identification, change detection and social landscape regionalisation of Britain. This seminar will give an overview of the project and highlight some of our research results.

Financial stocks and political bonds: stock market participation and political behavior in the United States and Britain

This dissertation investigates the effect of stock market participation on political behavior. Some observers claim that financial assets—stocks and mutual funds—have a causal effect on political behavior. The “investor class theory” asserts that as people invest in the stock market their partisan attachments shift rightward. The “asset effect theory” claims that financial investments increase political interest and participation. I examine these claims with longitudinal data from the United States and Great Britain covering a twenty-year period from the early 1980s through the mid-2000’s. I also examine the effect of financial asset ownership on political attitudes in the United States during the 2008 stock market crash. I find no evidence to support the argument that stock market participation has any causal effect on partisanship, participation, or political attitudes.

Women, workplace militancy and political subjectivity in Britain, 1968-1985

This thesis examines the experiences and political subjectivity of women who engaged in workplace protest in Britain between 1968 and 1985. The study covers a period that has been identified with the ‘zenith’ of trade-union militancy in British labour history. The women’s liberation movement also emerged in this period, which produced a shift in public debates about gender roles and relations in the home and the workplace. Women’s trade union membership increased dramatically and trade unions increasingly committed themselves to supporting ‘women’s issues’. Industrial disputes involving working-class women have frequently been cited as evidence of women’s growing participation in the labour movement. However, the voices and experiences of female workers who engaged in workplace protest remain largely unexplored. This thesis addresses this space through an original analysis of the 1968 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford, Dagenham; the 1976 equal pay strike at Trico, Brentford; the 1972 Sexton shoe factory occupation in Fakenham, Norfolk; the 1981 Lee Jeans factory occupation in Greenock, Inverclyde and the 1984-1985 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford Dagenham. Drawing upon a combination of oral history and written sources, this study contributes a fresh understanding of the relationship between feminism, workplace activism and trade unionism during the years 1968-1985. In every dispute considered in this thesis, women’s behaviour was perceived by observers as novel, ‘historic’ or extraordinary. But the women did not think of themselves as extraordinary, and rather understood their behaviour as a legitimate and justified response to their everyday experiences of gender and class antagonism. The industrial disputes analysed in this thesis show that women’s workplace militancy was not simply a direct response to women’s heightened presence in trade unions. The women involved in these disputes were more likely to understand their experiences of workplace activism as an expression of the economic, social and subjective value of their work. Whilst they did not adopt a feminist identity or associate their action with the WLM, they spoke about themselves and their motivations in a manner that emphasised feminist values of equality, autonomy and self-worth.

The influence of Britain's Margaret Thatcher on Australian politics and Australia's influence on her, 1972-1983

This thesis examines the relationship between leading British conservative politician, Margaret Thatcher and Australia, from her first visit in 1972 to the defeat of the Liberal Party or ‘Conservative’ government led by Malcolm Fraser in the 1983 Australian elections and shows that Australia played a significant role in Thatcher’s career.

Mental illness and gun violence: lessons for the United States from Australia and Britain

In the United States, the nexus between mental illness and shootings has been the subject of heated argument. An extreme expression of one point of view is that “guns don't kill people, the mentally ill do.” This article seeks to demonstrate the falsehood of this argument, by examining the real-world experience of two comparable societies. Australia and Great Britain are both Anglophone nations with numerous points of commonality with the United States, including high rates of mental illness and significant exposure to popular culture that perpetuates the stigma of the mentally ill as a violent threat. However, in Australia, it is difficult to obtain firearms, and a mentally ill person behaving aggressively is unlikely to be able to harm others. On the contrary, police are almost the only people routinely armed in Australian communities and are often too ready to use firearms against the mentally ill. In Britain, guns are even more difficult to obtain, and operational police are not usually armed. The authors examine statistical data on mental illness, homicide, and civilian deaths caused by police in all three nations. They also consider media and popular opinion environments. They conclude that mental illness is prevalent in all three societies, as is the damaging stigma of “the dangerous madman.” However, the fewer people (including police officers) who have access to firearms, the safer that community is.

Regulating IVF and pre-implantation tissue-typing for the creation of "saviour siblings" : a harm analysis

Scientific discoveries, developments in medicine and health issues are the constant focus of media attention and the principles surrounding the creation of so called ‘saviour siblings’ are of no exception. The development in the field of reproductive techniques has provided the ability to genetically analyse embryos created in the laboratory to enable parents to implant selected embryos to create a tissue-matched child who may be able to cure an existing sick child. The research undertaken in this thesis examines the regulatory frameworks overseeing the delivery of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in Australia and the United Kingdom and considers how those frameworks impact on the accessibility of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures for the creation of ‘saviour siblings’. In some jurisdictions, the accessibility of such techniques is limited by statutory requirements. The limitations and restrictions imposed by the state in relation to the technology are analysed in order to establish whether such restrictions are justified. The analysis is conducted on the basis of a harm framework. The framework seeks to establish whether those affected by the use of the technology (including the child who will be created) are harmed. In order to undertake such evaluation, the concept of harm is considered under the scope of John Stuart Mill’s liberal theory and the Harm Principle is used as a normative tool to judge whether the level of harm that may result, justifies state intervention or restriction with the reproductive decision-making of parents in this context. The harm analysis conducted in this thesis seeks to determine an appropriate regulatory response in relation to the use of pre-implantation tissue-typing for the creation of ‘saviour siblings’. The proposals outlined in the last part of this thesis seek to address the concern that harm may result from the practice of pre-implantation tissue-typing. The current regulatory frameworks in place are also analysed on the basis of the harm framework established in this thesis. The material referred to in this thesis reflects the law and policy in place in Australia and the UK at the time the thesis was submitted for examination (December 2009).

Network

Network has emerged from a contempory worldwide phenomenon, culturally manifested as a consequence of globalization and the knowledge economy. It is in this context that the internet revolution has prompted a radical re-ordering of social and institutional relations and the associated structures, processes and places which support them. Within the duality of virtual space and the augmentation of traditional notions of physical place, the organizational structures pose new challenges for the design professions. Technological developments increasingly permit communication anytime and anywhere, and provide the opportunity for both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. The resultant ecology formed through the network enterprise has resulted in an often convolted and complex world wherein designers are forced to consider the relevance and meaning of this new context. The role of technology and that of space are thus interwined in the relation between the network and the individual workplace. This paper explores a way to inform the interior desgn process for contemporary workplace environments. It reports on both theoretical and practical outcomes through an Australia-wide case study of three collaborating, yet independent business entities. It further suggests the link between workplace design and successful business innovation being realized between partnering organizations in Great Britain. Evidence presented indicates that, for architects and interior designers, the scope of the problem has widened, the depth of knowledge required to provide solutions has increased, and the rules of engagement are required to change. The ontological and epistemological positions adopted in the study enabled the spatial dimensions to be examined from both within and beyond the confines of a traditional design only viewpoint. Importantly it highlights the significance of a trans-disiplinary collaboration in dealing with the multiple layers and complexity of the contemporary social and business world, from both a research and practice perspective.

The politics of media policy [Review]

"The Politics of Media Policy opens with a highly insightful analysis of how to do media policy studies in original and significant ways. Unfortunately, by anchoring its empirical analysis closely to a desire to expose the hidden machinations of neo-liberal ideology, it loses focus the more that it moves out of the dominant terrain of political economy in the study of media ownership. Des Freedman has pointed to important new directions in media policy studies, but has unfortunately only got half way to developing a new synthesis for understanding the relationship between policy institutions and broader ideas." -- from author's personal website

By the day nurses bank up in a casual pool!

We suspect that the array of silly names used to refer to temporary staff worldwide may be indicative of the extent to which these nurses have been relegated to, and we would argue, remain in, a type of underclass – relatively unsupported by employers in terms of professional practice and ipso facto excluded from contributing professionally to team work, practice development, clinical governance and evidence based practice. This may be acceptable to some but in a climate of risk averseness and in the interests of strategic planning we would suggest it is an accident waiting to happen. The recent UK Royal College of Nursing (RCN) (Ball & Pike, 2006) survey of bank and agency nurses brings a welcome focus on a group of nurses that make a significant contribution to the smooth running of health services in many countries.