In August of 2013 the U.S. State Department launched the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives with the objective to foster and promote religious engagements in foreign diplomacy. The language used by the architects and proponents of the initiative suggests that even though religion can be a source of great conflict, religion is also a powerful force for good capable of mitigating conflict and fostering progress. The present optimistic belief of American foreign diplomats that religious engagement will foster beneficial partnerships capable of advancing U.S. foreign interests has led scholars to pose the question, "what will the U.S. engage when it engages religion?" This thesis argues that the language used in the promotion of faith-based initiatives exhibits a commitment to a humanistic theology of religious pluralism. Further, this thesis explains that a humanistic theology of religious pluralism limits religious engagement. In other words, the OFBCI will engage with religious groups only in so far as they fit their definition of religion.

This study has its starting point in physical touch, and I interviewed three health workers; an osteopath, a nurse, and a midwife, about their sense of touch. The data collection method used is the qualitative research interview, with its main emphasis on Eugene Gendlin‟s Focusing (1981), to capture the informant‟s embodied sense of touch. The Constant Comparative Method from Grounded Theory by Strauss and Corbin (1990) is employed to analyse the data, supplied by the descriptive phenomenological method as developed by Giorgi (2009), and inspired by Gendlin‟s Focusing (1968; 1970; 1981). Two main themes and a core theme emerged from the data: 1) "Touch is everything" – The toucher and the touched, 2) "Touch is an art" – The space between and, 3) "It takes courage to be close" – Touch as a meeting between selves. Philosophical theory and humanistic existential counselling psychology theories are at the base of the discussion. This includes Merleau-Ponty (1945), Gendlin (1962; 1996), Buber (1970/1996), Rogers (1961/2004) and Josselson (1996). Theories on body, space, and touch, also in counselling, are represented by Gendlin (1993; 1992), Montagu (1986), Hall (1966/1990), Hunter and Struve (1998), Tune (2001) among others. The study shows that positive touch is important to the person, how touch is more than physical, that the body is more than a physiological machine, and how touch both happens within different types of space and creates a meeting between the selves that reside inside the bodies. It also shows how through providing certain empathic conditions; warmth, acceptance, listening and caring, a health worker or counsellor can ensure a good meeting that can potentially lead to a dialogical I-You meeting. This meeting, based on the empathic conditions provided by a counsellor who is also in tune with him or herself, may also lead to change in the both the counsellor‟s and the client‟s selves.

The humanistic psychology movement, formally established in 1962, sought to address broad questions of individual identity, expression, meaning and growth that had been largely neglected by post-war American cultural institutions in general and by the discipline of psychology in particular. By proposing a definition of mental health that went beyond the simple absence of illness, and by critiquing the American desire to reductively quantify even the nature of human existence, humanistic psychologists, including founders Abraham Maslow, Gordon Allport, Rollo May and Carl Rogers, offered a holistic, growth-driven theory of the self. They also attempted to formulate scientific methods that would be capable of adequately treating, rather than abstracting away, the complexity and subjectivity of the individual. Humanistic psychologists drew on the work of William James, and on the synthetic approach to the self and psyche that he described as "radical empiricism," in an attempt to build upon dominant American psychological movements, namely psychoanalysis and behaviorism, which they perceived to have provided valuable, though incomplete, insights into human psychology. In crafting humanistic methods, they also incorporated western European philosophies of holism, including phenomenology, existentialism and Gestalt. The movement they established produced enduring change in American psychology and American culture, though, for the most part, not in the ways the founders had envisioned. In the late 1960s and early to mid-1970s, humanistic psychology provided much of the vocabulary, and many of the techniques, of the human potential movement, of women's liberation groups, and of psychedelic users. It also laid the foundation for the person-centered approaches that developed in psychotherapy, social work, pastoral counseling, and academic psychology / text

In the steady-state 1970's institutional reactions to downturns in enrollment and financial growth were theoretically expected to have damaged the humanities in public two-year colleges. But, at the same time, the humanities were expected to respond, counteracting detrimental consequences. A nationwide sample of public two-year colleges, comprising about fourteen percent of the total was selected for study. Three sets of variables were used. Institutional conditions were measured by four financial and enrollment change variables. Humanities conditions were measured by six financial, enrollment, and staffing variables. Humanities responsiveness was measured by constructing an indicator from seventeen variables representing adaptive responses. Descriptive statistics and canonical correlation analysis results were produced to test the research questions. Insititutional conditions changed substantially, revealing markedly reduced instructional and per student expenditures while overall enrollments and expenditures increased dramatically. Three circumstances appeared to explain these discrepant changes. Institutions probably realized economies of scale through enrollment growth. While expenditures did increase dramatically over inflation, inflation contributed to widening the gap between proportional enrollment and income growth. Increased costs may have resulted from the support service demands of the greatly expanded number of students, and from cost increases due to increased organizational complexity. Probably, as a result of these three influences, per student expenditures declined so markedly. Possibly the impact of inflation, increased support service costs, and complexity costs, reduced severely the potential for cost savings through economies of scale and as a result the growth of the 1970's brought financial strain, which would be expected to heighten pressures on the humanities. Humanities conditions, however, appeared suprisingly strong. Enrollments and FTE faculty increases were observed. The enrollment share declined while the FTE faculty proportion remained stable. On institutional comparative measure the humanities full-time to part-time faculty ratio increased while the humanities student to faculty ratio decreased. Thus, compared to changes in conditions outside the humanities, the humanities had enrollment growth coupled with increased full-time faculty that resulted in favorable, from the standpoint of quality, instructional conditions. However, from the standpoint of relative costs, humanities conditions may be unfavorable. The humanities FTE faculty share was stable while they served proportionally fewer students. Also, the relatively increasing proportion of full-time faculty is relatively more costly to support than the relatively decreasing proportion outside the humanities. Finally, the relatively decreasing class size is relatively more costly than the relatively increasing class size outside the humanities. Paradoxically the humanities appeared strong at the same time unfavorable cost comparisons and possibly strained institutional conditions were emerging. This paradox may be explained by the principle that incrementally earned support shares are maintained by strong inertial forces and that humanities courses are an integral, and historically central, part of the two-year college curriculum. Possibly the degree of humanities responsiveness, which appeared low, was partially responsible for the strong showing of the humanities. The hypothesis that institutional reactions to changing financial and enrollment conditions would be clearly damaging to the humanities was not supported. However, given the eroding enrollment share base in the humanities and the relatively increasing costs in the humanities, detrimental consequences may not be too far over the horizon. With the apparently strong inertial forces promoting the maintenance of the humanities and rededicated efforts to respond to the threatening forces, the humanities in public two-year colleges can probably be maintained and enhanced.

Much has been written over recent years questioning the value of exporting systems of VET from developed countries and expecting them to meet the needs and demands of developing countries. Most recently, the main recipients of development aid, particularly from the EU, have been the countries of the former 'eastern bloc'. As a consultant working on an EU project to upgrade VET in Bulgaria, the author was involved in delivering staff development seminars concentrating on 'new' teaching and learning strategies to teachers within the secondary vocational sector. Although the staff development was well received at the time, questions were raised about whether such fundamental changes in approach, from a very authoritarian and didactic approach, to an approach that is student-centred, could be sustained on the basis of a series of seminars. This thesis examines what impact these seminars have had in promoting the use of the 'new' strategies. In particular, the author examines to what extent cultural and / or contextual factors have played a role in the effectiveness of implementation of the 'new' student-centred teaching and learning strategies.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 285-300) Also available in print.

Thesis (M.I.T.)--The Evergreen State College, 2009. / Title from title screen (viewed 7/30/2009). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-85).

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 99-103). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2003. / Title from title page screen, viewed October 17, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Ronald Strickland (chair), Janice Neuleib, Cecil S. Giscombe, Karen Coats. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-211) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-186).