Doing qualitative research: a practical handbook, by David Silverman, Los Angeles, Sage, 2010, 456 pp., AU$65.00, ISBN 978-1-84860-033-1, ISBN 978-1-94960-034-8. Available in Australia and New Zeal...

Doing qualitative research: a practical handbook

Much has been written about theory and practice in the law, and the tension between practitioners and theorists. Judges do not cite theoretical articles often; they rarely "apply" theories to particular cases. These arguments are not revisited. Instead the Essay explores the working and interaction of theory and practice, practitioners and theorists. The Essay starts with a story about solving a legal issue using our intellectual tools - theory, practice, and their progenies: experience and "gut." Next the Essay elaborates on the nature of theory, practice, experience and "gut." The third part of the Essay discusses theories that are helpful to practitioners and those that are less helpful. The Essay concludes that practitioners theorize, and theorists practice. They use these intellectual tools differently because the goals and orientations of theorists and practitioners, and the constraints under which they act, differ. Theory, practice, experience and "gut" help us think, remember, decide and create. They complement each other like the two sides of the same coin: distinct but inseparable.

Of Theory and Practice

In the first two volumes of this work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing, fiction, and theories of literature. This final volume, a comprehensive reexamination and synthesis of the ideas developed in volumes 1 and 2, stands as Ricoeur's most complete and satisfying presentation of his own philosophy.

Time and Narrative

Peter Berger (1929) is an American sociologist best known for his collaboration with Thomas Luckman in writing The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. That book argues that human reality, and knowledge of it, is a social construct, emerging from the individual or group’s interaction with larger social structures (institutions). Social structures, once widely adopted, lose their history as social constructions (objectivation), and come over time, by the people who live within them, to be deemed natural realities independent of human construction (reification). Berger predicted, in his later book, The Sacred Canopy, near-term all-encompassing secularization of religion, which prediction has proved false, especially in the third world (as Berger himself has acknowledged in his later work, Desecularization).

神圣的帷幕 : 宗教社会学理论之要素 = The sacred canopy elements of a sociological theory of religion

Preface (1999) Preface (1990) 1. Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire I. 'Women' as the Subject of Feminism II. The Compulsory Order of Sex/Gender/Desire III. Gender: The Circular Ruins of Contemporary Debate IV. Theorizing the Binary, the Unitary and Beyond V. Identity, Sex and the Metaphysics of Substance VI. Language, Power and the Strategies of Displacement 2. Prohibition, Psychoanalysis, and the Production of the Heterosexual Matrix I. Structuralism's Critical Exchange II. Lacan, Riviere, and the Strategies of Masquerade III. Freud and the Melancholia of Gender IV. Gender Complexity and the Limits of Identification V. Reformulating Prohibition as Power 3. Subversive Bodily Acts I. The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva II. Foucault, Herculine, and the Politics of Sexual Discontinuity III. Monique Wittig - Bodily Disintegration and Fictive Sex IV. Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions Conclusion - From Parody to Politics

Postmodern Subjects, Postmodern BodiesThinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary WestYearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural PoliticsGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

By the year 2002 14 million children had been orphaned globally because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. A great number of these have become the heads of households, are forced to look after themselves and siblings, drop out of school, are vulnerable to many forms of abuse and have found work to take care of themselves and their siblings. Misinformation, ignorance and prejudice concerning HIV/AIDS limit the willingness of a community to provide for the orphans who have been affected by the disease. This article aims to address the question why this is also the case in South Africa and why the African philosophy of “ubuntu” (humaneness), does not seem to make a difference. This study build upon fieldwork undertaken in the Bophelong area among HIV/AIDS orphans who function as heads of households and children who have been orphaned due to circumstances other than HIV/AIDS. The article concludes that religious communities can fill the gap left by the lack of “ubuntu” and can play a major role in nurturing HIV/AIDS orphans who function as heads of households. Churches can build a supportive environment where HIV/AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children can feel accepted.

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Child-headed households because of the trauma surrounding HIV/AIDS

There is a shortage of clergy, at least in the Roman Catholic Church. Protestant churches in general are experiencing more of a distribution or placement challenge than a shortage. The two greatest hindrances to addressing the Protestant clergy distribution challenge are a lack of adequate compensation for clergy and the undesirable geographical location of a number of churches, as perceived by clergy. Influences such as secularisation, duality of vocation, time management, change in type of ministry, family issues, congregational and denominational conflict, burnout, sexual misconduct, divorce or marital problems, and suicide, affect clergy. Studies on the shortage of clergy have been conducted mostly in the USA and Europe and not in South Africa. This article focuses on the research gap by means of a practical theological grounded theory exploration of the exodus of clergy. Grounded theory methodology is used to identify the reasons why clergy trained at a Bible college of a Protestant charismatic mega church leave full-time pastoral ministry. Findings correspond to previous studies with two reasons appearing more frequently than others: responding to a call and leadership related issues. Firstly, respondents differed in their replies with respect to reconciling their exit from full-time pastoral ministry with their call. The replies included not being called, a dual call, or called but left anyway. Secondly, respondents indicated that leadership influence was mostly negative with regard to affirming their call.

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Exodus of clergy: A practical theological grounded theory exploration of Hatfield Training Centre trained pastors

This article is the introduction to the James Alfred Loader Dedication. It consists of a tribute to Professor Loader’s academic contribution to Old Testament, Middle-Eastern religio-literary studies and the Rabbinical background of the Old- and New Testament. The article is modelled after the tribute published in German in the annual publication of the Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultat Wien (Vienna, Austria) due to the honorary doctorate conferred on Professor Loader by the University of Pretoria (South Africa) in 2009. The tribute is combined with a comprehensive curriculum vitae, in part written in German, Afrikaans and English, and consisting of referencing Professor Loader’s personal data, his role as minister of religion, his academic awards, participation in scholarly societies, professional academic positions, academic reviewing, editorial activity, presentation of academic papers and a list of publications.

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James Alfred Loader: 'n Huldeblyk aan 'n krities- solidêre profeet in die eties-teologiese tradisie/ James Alfred Loader: A tribute to a critical-solidary prophet in the ethical theological tradition

In the postmodern world young people no longer accept the values advocated by the institutionalised church as unquestionably relevant to their lives, one of the reasons for this being that the supremacy of the Christian faith has given way to a secularised society. Public practical theology includes the public as one of its audiences. In this paper the point of departure is a reflection-theory and not the praxis as such. This theory focuses on everyday concerns and issues in order to facilitate a dialogue between theology and the social sciences. The article aims to reflect on the enhancement of the experience of transcendence in the everydayness of the present-day youth. It argues that the agency theories of Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu can provide a theoretical basis and method for public religious education.

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A public practical theological theory for religious education of secularised youth

The aim of the article is to focus on hegemony as it relates to the issue of sexuality and the trauma imposed on sexual minorities. A point of departure is that social identity theories can shed light on homophobia. The article argues that an empathic approach to those traumatised by internalised homophobia calls for a gay-friendly psychotherapy/analysis. The article reflects particularly on how heteronormativity maintains homophobia. It also illustrates the relationship between homophobia and social scientific insights regarding personality types and gender. The concepts homophobia and the internalisation of homophobia are discussed by focusing on aspects such as personality types and violence. The article finds that blind submission to heteronormativity, an outdated social construct, traumatises those who do not conform to the hetero norm, in two ways: hegemony is one consequence, and internalised homophobia is another.

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Yolanda Dreyer

Papers

Child-headed households because of the trauma surrounding HIV/AIDS

Exodus of clergy: A practical theological grounded theory exploration of Hatfield Training Centre trained pastors

James Alfred Loader: 'n Huldeblyk aan 'n krities- solidêre profeet in die eties-teologiese tradisie/ James Alfred Loader: A tribute to a critical-solidary prophet in the ethical theological tradition

A public practical theological theory for religious education of secularised youth

Hegemony and the internalisation of homophobia caused by heteronormativity