BackgroundThe potential contribution of community engagement to addressing ethical challenges for international biomedical research is well described, but there is relatively little documented experience of community engagement to inform its development in practice. This paper draws on experiences around community engagement and informed consent during a genetic cohort study in Kenya to contribute to understanding the strengths and challenges of community engagement in supporting ethical research practice, focusing on issues of communication, the role of field workers in 'doing ethics' on (...) the ground and the challenges of community consultation.MethodsThe findings are based on action research methods, including analysis of community engagement documentation and the observations of the authors closely involved in their development and implementation. Qualitative and quantitative content analysis has been used for documentation of staff meetings and trainings, a meeting with 24 community leaders, and 40 large public and 70 small community group meetings. Meeting minutes from a purposive sample of six community representative groups have been analysed using a thematic framework approach.ResultsField workers described challenges around misunderstandings about research, perceived pressure for recruitment and challenges in explaining the study. During consultation, leaders expressed support for the study and screening for sickle cell disease. In community meetings, there was a common interpretation of research as medical care. Concerns centred on unfamiliar procedures. After explanations of study procedures to leaders and community members, few questions were asked about export of samples or the archiving of samples for future research.ConclusionsCommunity engagement enabled researchers to take account of staff and community opinions and issues during the study and adapt messages and methods to address emerging ethical challenges. Field workers conducting informed consent faced complex issues and their understanding, attitudes and communication skills were key influences on ethical practice. Community consultation was a challenging concept to put into practice, illustrating the complexity of assessing information needs and levels of deliberation that are appropriate to a given study. (shrink)

В монографии рассматривается соотношение индивидуальных и универсальных начал в праве как эффективное средство решения многих правовых проблем, как руководство в законодательной и судебной деятельности.

The purpose of the article is the analysis of the causes of the systemic crisis that hit modern civilization through the description of its main structures, identifying the relationship between its elements, assessments of their heuristic potential. This will open up opportunities for finding ways to resolve this crisis, new directions of civilizational development. Theoretical basis of the research are the systems analysis, socio-philosophical and philosophical-anthropological approaches as well as the analysis of scientific developments in the field of global studies. (...) Originality lies in the fact that this article is the first to show the connection between the main structural elements of human civilization as a system. Change in one of the parameters leads to a change in all the others, together with a change in civilization as a whole. Conclusions. The reason for the deep crisis that hit modern civilization is its imbalance as a system. The most important elements of this system are population size, resources and technology, and the core is consciousness in its individual and collective forms. The perception, processing, and use of information, which is a defining civilizational resource, as well as the stability of the entire system depend on the state of consciousness. Consciousness, based on old, obsolete principles and stereotypes, is unable to cope with the most acute challenges of time. New consciousness, since it is formed, will mark the transition to a new theoretical picture of the world and a model of human behavior, in which people will act, driven by proven knowledge, and not willfulness and prejudice. The idea of forming a productive information environment where the ideas of constructiveness and creative work will dominate rather than consumerism and destruction, as is the case at present, must become the categorical imperative of the new consciousness. (shrink)

В монографии проводится системный анализ социальной философия одного из самых значительных отечественных социальных мыслителей Б. Н. Чичерина. Для читателей, интересующихся историей отечественной социально-философской мысли.

t. 1. Ėlementnyĭ sostav -- t. 2. Logika pravovogo issledovanii͡a -- t. 3. Sovremennoe pravoponimanie.

In the article, I analyze the current situation in the field of teaching philosophy and also other social sciences and humanities. The point is that in higher school, under various pretexts, many departments and philosophy councils are closed, hours for teaching philosophical courses and seminars are reduced. Teachers of philosophy and other disciplines in higher education, in addition to being overwhelmed, have to spend a lot of time on unnecessary reporting, which for the most part does not reflect the essence (...) of the matter. The policy of education officials and their belief in the need for such reporting and reduction of hours are critically reviewed. I show that in addition to the well-known functions of philosophy, teaching philosophy is of crucial importance today is due to three important circumstances: we live, firstly, in a period of double transition and, secondly, in a period of an anthropological crisis and a crisis of reality, thirdly, due to a crisis of morality and ethics. Only philosophy, based on the methodology, as well as the humanities and social sciences can comprehend modern conditions. The question is about a new start to the practice of teaching philosophy. I propose to introduce a temporary moratorium on the compilation of new teaching programs and start a broad discussion in the philosophical and pedagogical community of the goals and content of the teaching of philosophy. In this regard, I offer my own understanding of the problems and the essence of the teaching of philosophy. I also share my personal experience in teaching philosophy, which includes lecturing and organizing the creative work of small groups of students. (shrink)

Man's relation to culture is not limited simply to knowing it. There are other modalities of this relationship. For one, man in some way lives in culture, he exists in it, even if for some time he does notwardrealize this. Second, he participates in one way or another in the process of forming it, he creates it. Only later does culture become an object of knowledge for him. What makes him study and understand culture if previously he had gotten along (...) without it? Why, in general, does knowledge of culture appear? It is necessary to distinguish between the history of culture, the roots of which are in the distant past, and the history of the knowledge of culture, the source of which is man's discovery of culture. Why and when did this discovery occur? (shrink)

The "mathematization" of knowledge is a historically inevitable process governed by two circumstances. In the first place there is the need for the further extension of knowledge in all areas of human activity, whether it be the study of natural phenomena or the theory of taking decisions in the economic or social sphere. Marx pointed out long ago that a science reaches its highest levels only when it succeeds in making use of mathematics. The second circumstance rendering the process of (...) deepening and broadening the mathematization of knowledge not only necessary but possible lies in the constant development both of mathematics itself and of the technical means broadening the sphere of its application. (shrink)

Ideas of activity are widely used in the contemporary literature on psychology and methodology. It seems that everyone understands well what is being said. Nevertheless, one can claim that there is a methodological problem in connection with the idea of activity. Various researchers not only interpret activity differently but, what is more important, assess of the place of this category in knowledge differently. From the perspective of some researchers, activity is one way of describing and explaining reality. Others believe that (...) the category of activity presents reality itself, that there is nothing but activity. If we adhere to the former point of view, we can raise the question, for example, of studying certain types of activity, as V.V. Davydov does. (shrink)