title: Counselling and Religious and Spiritual Values: A Malaysian Study

authors: Md. Yusoff, Yusmini Binti

subjects: Counselling

abstract: The developing interest which led to this research project started when I was employed as a counsellor and a counsellor educator in an Islamic faith-based academic institution in Malaysia. Within these positions, I noticed that my encounters with religious and spiritual values in counselling and teaching practice did not match with what I experienced in the counsellor education programme. This is perhaps due to the Malaysian counselling practices that had its history from Euro-American counselling models which emphasise the practice of objective and value-neutral stance. Within these models, counsellors’ conceptual and theoretical understandings of counselling were strongly shaped and developed. Therefore, the study draws on this history and questions the effects of this stance in Malaysian counselling practices. In particular, this study explores how Malaysian Muslim counsellors are positioned when religious and spiritual values intersect with their counselling knowledge. This study employed poststructuralist and social constructionist frameworks as its theoretical and methodological base. Positioning theory, deconstruction, power/knowledge, language, and the making of meaning are some of the approaches used in this study. As a mixed methods project, the study used a survey and interview conversations to generate research data. The survey was to gain general views about participants’ perceptions of the topic researched, and the interviews were to investigate the ways taken by counsellors in working with religious and spiritual values. Both quantitative and qualitative findings show that there are similar understandings among participants about the lack of training on how to address religious and spiritual values in counselling, and the gap that exists between counselling models, and religious practices. In qualitative findings, these participants reported that they have to find their own ways to weave both counselling and religious knowledges together in order to help clients. Hence, through this study, a religiously sensitive counselling approach that uses a value-investigating practice is suggested.

text: Counselling and Religious and Spiritual Values: A Malaysian Study The developing interest which led to this research project started when I was employed as a counsellor and a counsellor educator in an Islamic faith-based academic institution in Malaysia. Within these positions, I noticed that my encounters with religious and spiritual values in counselling and teaching practice did not match with what I experienced in the counsellor education programme. This is perhaps due to the Malaysian counselling practices that had its history from Euro-American counselling models which emphasise the practice of objective and value-neutral stance. Within these models, counsellors’ conceptual and theoretical understandings of counselling were strongly shaped and developed. Therefore, the study draws on this history and questions the effects of this stance in Malaysian counselling practices. In particular, this study explores how Malaysian Muslim counsellors are positioned when religious and spiritual values intersect with their counselling knowledge. This study employed poststructuralist and social constructionist frameworks as its theoretical and methodological base. Positioning theory, deconstruction, power/knowledge, language, and the making of meaning are some of the approaches used in this study. As a mixed methods project, the study used a survey and interview conversations to generate research data. The survey was to gain general views about participants’ perceptions of the topic researched, and the interviews were to investigate the ways taken by counsellors in working with religious and spiritual values. Both quantitative and qualitative findings show that there are similar understandings among participants about the lack of training on how to address religious and spiritual values in counselling, and the gap that exists between counselling models, and religious practices. In qualitative findings, these participants reported that they have to find their own ways to weave both counselling and religious knowledges together in order to help clients. Hence, through this study, a religiously sensitive counselling approach that uses a value-investigating practice is suggested.

year: 2011

title: Authorship patterns in information systems

authors: Cunningham, Sally Jo

subjects: computer science

abstract: This paper examines the patterns of multiple authorship in five information systems journals. Specifically, we determine the distribution of the number of authors per paper in this field, the proportion of male and female authors, gender composition of research teams, and the incidence of collaborative relationships spanning institutional affiliations and across different geographic regions.

text: Authorship patterns in information systems This paper examines the patterns of multiple authorship in five information systems journals. Specifically, we determine the distribution of the number of authors per paper in this field, the proportion of male and female authors, gender composition of research teams, and the incidence of collaborative relationships spanning institutional affiliations and across different geographic regions.

year: 1996-10

title: Culture and collaborative conservation? Inter-cultural difference and the Maungatautari Project

authors: Harms, Matthew

subjects: Inter-cultural navigation

abstract: This thesis situates and examines the role of sociocultural difference and biculturalism in the Maungatautari Sanctuary Mountain project, a multi-stakeholder community-based biodiversity conservation project in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island. In the project, Mana Whenua (local indigenous Māori groups) and Pākehā (New Zealanders of British and European descent) from the area endeavour to interact and partner in the non-profit Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust (MEIT) as its primary stakeholder groups. Utilizing sociocultural anthropology, three years of participant observation, participant interviews, fieldwork data and contextualizing history, the role of culture and issues of biculturalism and partnership are examined in relation to the respective sociocultural backgrounds and identity of project participants. Findings indicate that sociocultural difference in the form of varying beliefs, values, attitudes, practices and protocol, and identity/cultural politics have led to dissonance and strained stakeholder interrelations that negatively affected the project. In some instances, a post-colonial ‘neo-paternalism’ marginalised local Māori cultural input and needs in the project. At other times project participants successfully bridged inter-cultural differences. In these occurrences they created a collaborative, complementary, bicultural partnership which valued, sought to understand, and incorporated differing sociocultural aspects, advancing project goals. Further analysis identified an ongoing risk of future multi-stakeholder dissonance relative to culturally-derived disparate views on such issues as cultural harvesting, species reintroductions and care, ecotourism, development on the mountain, and biodiversity research. Normative solutions are identified which can aid Maungatautari stakeholders and other culturally-heterogeneous multi-stakeholder conservation groups work toward and produce inclusive, inter-cultural partnership.

text: Culture and collaborative conservation? Inter-cultural difference and the Maungatautari Project This thesis situates and examines the role of sociocultural difference and biculturalism in the Maungatautari Sanctuary Mountain project, a multi-stakeholder community-based biodiversity conservation project in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island. In the project, Mana Whenua (local indigenous Māori groups) and Pākehā (New Zealanders of British and European descent) from the area endeavour to interact and partner in the non-profit Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust (MEIT) as its primary stakeholder groups. Utilizing sociocultural anthropology, three years of participant observation, participant interviews, fieldwork data and contextualizing history, the role of culture and issues of biculturalism and partnership are examined in relation to the respective sociocultural backgrounds and identity of project participants. Findings indicate that sociocultural difference in the form of varying beliefs, values, attitudes, practices and protocol, and identity/cultural politics have led to dissonance and strained stakeholder interrelations that negatively affected the project. In some instances, a post-colonial ‘neo-paternalism’ marginalised local Māori cultural input and needs in the project. At other times project participants successfully bridged inter-cultural differences. In these occurrences they created a collaborative, complementary, bicultural partnership which valued, sought to understand, and incorporated differing sociocultural aspects, advancing project goals. Further analysis identified an ongoing risk of future multi-stakeholder dissonance relative to culturally-derived disparate views on such issues as cultural harvesting, species reintroductions and care, ecotourism, development on the mountain, and biodiversity research. Normative solutions are identified which can aid Maungatautari stakeholders and other culturally-heterogeneous multi-stakeholder conservation groups work toward and produce inclusive, inter-cultural partnership.

year: 2018