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Onbekend en onbelicht

Een onbekend aantal normaal begaafde kinderen in Nederland groeit op bij verstandelijk beperkte ouders. Zij ervaren hun jeugd soms als eenzaam en onveilig. Deze kinderen vallen vaak buiten indicatiestellingen en komen daarom niet altijd in beeld bij hulpverleners. En onder hulpverleners heerst ook vaak handelingsverlegenheid. Er is een groeiende behoefte aan erkenning van en kennis over de situatie van deze kinderen.

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Religie van belang in diplomatie

Jarenlang konden studenten internationale betrekkingen studeren zonder ook maar een woord over religie te horen. Daarin komt langzamerhand verandering. Maar het is niet genoeg, want veel mensen die nu werken bij het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, of andere diplomatieke posten of internationale functies bezetten, hebben nooit systematisch scholing gehad over religie en de rol die het speelt in de internationale politiek. Daarin moet verandering komen.

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Assessment in Action : Assessing and displaying suitability for adoptive parenthood through text and talk

This thesis is on institutional communication, and focuses in particular on interactional processes between social workers and prospective adoptive parents in assessment procedures for adoptive parenthood. These assessments are conducted in the Netherlands by the Child Protection Board (hereafter CPB). In order to make recommendations about the suitability of prospective adoptive parents, the CPB is tasked with assessing ‘possible risk and protection factors that might hinder a stable development of the adoptive child towards adulthood’ (CPB, 2001: 62). The assessment procedure includes a health check, whether or not the candidates have a criminal record, written life stories of the prospective adoptive parents and four interviews conducted by a social worker from the CPB. The procedure concludes with a formal record, including a recommendation, that is sent to the Dutch state agency. This thesis concentrates on institutional assessments of adoptive parenthood procedures through text and talk: on assessment in action. It includes an analysis of the interviews related to the life stories of the prospective adoptive parents and the reproduction of both in the recommendation record.

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Framing Nature

The way people and organisations describe or depict nature betrays their fundamental attitude towards nature. In this PhD thesis views of nature are seen as digestions of meaningful experiences of nature in which a religious depth can be identified. This PhD thesis contains both theoretical and empirical evidence to answer the question whether (implicit) religious elements play a role in the communication regarding nature in the Netherlands. The conclusion shows that the communication regarding nature is religionised to some extent, but there is no mentioning of a personal God or other reference to a supernatural reality.This PhD thesis also shows that the religious depth dimension does not explicitly come to the fore in what visitors are saying. The result is that this thesis, in addition to the question regarding the appropriateness of religious subtexts in the communication regarding nature, also questions whether these subtexts are convincing from the perspective of the visitors.

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Ethnic school composition, school performance and classroom behaviour in Western societies

This thesis focuses on the relationship between ethnic composition and both schooling outcomes and classroom behaviour, making the crucial distinction between the share of migrant-origin students and ethnic diversity. Ethnic school composition is seen as one of the explanations for the inequality of school performance between native- and migrant-origin students in Western societies. Although the use of the concept migrant origin is contested concept, the relationship between ethnic school composition and school performance is of interest to policymakers and social scientists in both the United States and Europe.

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Spiritual Dynamics in Social Innovation

Social innovation and spirituality are often associated with each other. This association is one the main reasons for this study, especially because it has not been studied very much. Therefore the goal of this study is to explore the different levels and aspects of spirituality in the field of social innovation to set them into relation with each other. In doing so this study wants to make a contribution to the area of spirituality in organizations as a sub-discipline of spirituality research and to management science.

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Where Hope Resides

This thesis presents a qualitative research on contextual theory and therapy according to Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy. It encompasses a reconstruction of contextual theory, an analysis of contextual therapy practice and the development of a model for contextual therapy.

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School composition and multiple ethnic identities of migrant-origin adolescents in the Netherlands

Ethnic identity is central to many contemporary discussions of belonging and assimilation of migrant-origin youth. Studies typically focus on a single minority identity. Identity theory implies, however, that individuals may hold multiple ethnic identities, or none, and these may find expression to a greater or less extent depending on context. Using a nationally representative, longitudinal study of Dutch teenagers, we investigate the role of classroom ethnic composition in shaping multiple ethnic identity expression. Framing identity choices as a relational process, we show that the number of ethnic identities that children with a migrant-origin background choose is greater for those students who are exposed to a more ethnically diverse context, while less diverse classrooms foster ethnic identification with no or fewer minority groups. Classification of migrant-origin students with a single (minority) ethnicity may thus be an oversimplification of ethnic identity, even for those from a single country of origin.

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