Foundations of peace and harmony in families and communities: Insights from a TRUST, LEARN and CARE (TLC) framework
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14421/skijic.v2i2.1510Keywords:
Trust, Learn, Care, Peace, Harmony, FamilyAbstract
In a world riven by conflict, violent extremism and sectarian animosities, peace is in short supply. Promoting peace is, however, central to the great traditions of faith, including Islam. Contrary to their core precepts, fear, hatred and envy drive an evil mis-construal of the core tenets of these religions; the antithesis of their fundamental commitment to the promotion of tolerance, care and compassion. Contemporary events defy comprehension and highlight the urgent need to find ways, especially within families and the communities in which they live, to counter radicalisation. Families, after all, ought to be key contexts for promoting dialogue, understanding and peace, consistent with the precepts of the Abrahamic religious traditions, and the Qur’anic focus on families that sees them as the forum for fulfilling the basic Islamic foundations of peace. Strong families build capable, caring and compassionate communities. The present paper briefly outlines a three-element model that might be usefully applied to better understand the processes of development of prosocial attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that are so vital for peaceful, constructive and compassionate co-existence; attributes that are so vitally needed in an increasingly multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-faith world. The elements are encapsulated in three conceptually linked acronyms: TRUST; LEARN; CARE or TLC. The trust, learn, care (TLC) framework has been developed from key principles in the new discipline of family studies. Global changes present many challenges for families and communities. This article concludes that a peaceful and harmonious future will be built on the foundations for dialogue and understanding that start in families and communities. Trust and tolerance, learning and teaching, caring and compassion are at the heart of acceptance of diversity, growth of understanding and promotion of respect for cultures, religions and beliefs.Downloads
References
Aichhorn, N., & Puck, J. (2017). “I just don’t feel comfortable speaking English”: Foreign language anxiety as a catalyst for spoken-language barriers in MNCs. International Business Review, 26, 749 - 763.
Alarcon, G. M., Lyons, J. B., & Christensen, J. C. (2016). The effect of propensity to trust and familiarity on perceptions of trustworthiness over time. Personality and Individual Differences, 94, 309-315.
Aldaz-Carroll, E., & Morán, R. (2001). Escaping the poverty trap in Latin America: the role of family factors. Cuadernos de economía, 38(114), 155-190.
Allemand, M., Steiger, A. E., & Fend, H. A. (2015). Empathy development in adolescence predicts social competencies in adulthood. Journal of Personality, 83(2), 229-241.
Allen, K. (2019). Making sense of belonging. InPsych, the Bulletin of the Australian Psychological Society, 41(3), 8-13.
Amato, P. R., & Cheadle, J. (2005). The long reach of divorce: Divorce and child well‐being across three generations. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67(1), 191-206.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017). Main features - one parent families. Canberra, Australia
Australian Council of Social Services. (2016). Poverty in Australia 2016. Strawberry Hills, Australia: Social Policy Research Centre
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2016). Clients who have experienced domestic and family violence. Canberra, Australia
Bäck, M., & Kestilä, E. (2009). Social capital and political trust in Finland: an individual‐level assessment. Scandinavian Political Studies, 32(2), 171-194.
Bäck, M., Soderlund, P., Sipinen, J., & Kestila-Kekkonen, E. (2018). Political alienation, generalized trust and anti-immigrant perceptions: A multi-level assessment. Paper presented at the ECPR General Conference, Hamburg, Germany.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Baxter, J., Qu, L., Weston, R., Moloney, L., & Hayes, A. (2012). Experiences and effects of life events: Evidence from two Australian longitudinal studies. Family Matters(90), 6.
Beckett, S. (2012). Endgame. Faber & Faber.
Below, B. (2018). Is there still time to save our trust in government? OECD
Bird, K., & Shinyekwa, I. (2005). Even the ‘rich’ are vulnerable: multiple shocks and downward mobility in rural Uganda. Development Policy Review, 23(1), 55-85.
Bligh, M. C. (2017). Leadership and trust. In J. Marques & S. Dhiman (Eds.), Leadership Today. Springer Texts in Business and Economics (pp. 21-42). Springer, Cham.
Bluth, K., & Neff, K. D. (2018). New frontiers in understanding the benefits of self-compassion. Self and Identity, 17(6), 605-608.
Bohns, V. K., & Newark, D. A. (2019). Power and perceived influence: I caused your behavior, but I'm not responsible for it. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 13(1), e12427.
Bowes, J., Grace, R., & Hodge, K. (2012). Children, families and communities: Contexts and consequences: Oxford University Press.
Bretherton, I. (1992). The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Developmental psychology, 28(5).
Bretherton, I., Golby, B., & Cho, E. (1997). Attachment and the transmission of values. In J. E. Grusec & L. Kuczynski (Eds.), Parenting and children's internalization of values: A handbook of contemporary theory (pp. 103-134). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Brion, S., Mo, R., & Lount Jr, R. B. (2019). Dynamic influences of power on trust: Changes in power affect trust in others. Journal of Trust Research, 9(1), 6-27.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Crouter, A. C. (1983). Evolution of environmental models in developmental research. In P. H. Mussen (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: formerly Carmichael's Manual of child psychology. New York: Wiley, c1983.
Campani, G. (2019). 7 Theory, language and socio-political perspectives. Intercultural education: theories, policies, and practice, 77.
Campbell, S., Maria, T., & Quaiattini, A. (2018). Canadian Children's Books Through the Lens of Truth and Reconciliation. doi:https://doi.org/10.7939/R3BG2HR70
Chung, A., & Rimal, R. N. (2016). Social norms: A review. Review of Communication Research, 4, 1-28.
Colley, H., Hodkinson, P., & Malcolm, J. (2002). Non-formal learning: mapping the conceptual terrain, a consultation report [Monograph]. University of Leeds, Leeds.
Connell, R. W. (2013). Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics: John Wiley & Sons.
Corcoran, M. E., & Chaudry, A. (1997). The dynamics of childhood poverty. The future of children, 40-54.
Council of Australian Governments. (2009). Protecting children is everyone’s business: National framework for protecting Australia’s children 2009–2020. Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra
Council of Australian Governments. (2010). National plan to reduce violence against women and their children 2010-2022. Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra
D’Onofrio, B. M., Turkheimer, E., Emery, R. E., Harden, K. P., Slutske, W. S., Heath, A. C., . . . Martin, N. G. (2007). A genetically informed study of the intergenerational transmission of marital instability. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69(3), 793-809.
Davidson, R. J., & McEwen, B. S. (2012). Social influences on neuroplasticity: stress and interventions to promote well-being. Nature Neuroscience, 15(5), 689 - 695.
de Leeuw, S., & Greenwood, M. (2017). Turning a new page: cultural safety, critical creative literary interventions, truth and reconciliation, and the crisis of child welfare. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 13(3), 142-151.
Decety, J. (2015). The neural pathways, development and functions of empathy. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 3, 1-6.
Doerr, N. (2017). Bridging language barriers, bonding against immigrants: A visual case study of transnational network publics created by far-right activists in Europe. Discourse & Society, 28(1), 3-23.
Duncan, A. (2017). Reconciliation action plans: Including children's voices. Every Child, 23(3), 6.
Eberth, J., & Sedlmeier, P. (2012). The effects of mindfulness meditation: a meta-analysis. Mindfulness, 3(3), 174-189.
Eisenberg, A. (2018). The challenges of structural injustice to reconciliation: truth and reconciliation in Canada. Ethics & Global Politics, 11(1), 22-30.
Elias, G., Broerse, J., Hayes, A., & Jackson, K. (1984). Comments on the use of conversational features in studies of the vocalization behaviours of mothers and infants. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 7(2), 177-191.
Engle, P. L., Menon, P., & Haddad, L. (1999). Care and nutrition: concepts and measurement. World Development, 27(8), 1309-1337.
Eraut, M. (2000). Non-formal learning, implicit learning and tacit knowledge in professional work. In F. Coffield (Ed.), The necessity of informal learning (Vol. 4, pp. 12 - 31). Bristol UK: The Policy Press.
Erdelez, S. (2004). Investigation of information encountering in the controlled research environment. Information Processing and Management, 40, 1013 - 1025.
Espinosa, A., Páez, D., Velázquez, T., Cueto, R. M., Seminario, E., Sandoval, S., . . . Jave, I. (2017). Between remembering and forgetting the years of political violence: Psychosocial impact of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Peru. Political psychology, 38(5), 849-866.
Ewing, L., Caulfield, F., Read, A., & Rhodes, G. (2015). Appearance-based trust behaviour is reduced in children with autism spectrum disorder. Autism, 19(8), 1002-1009.
Ferdman, B. M. (2017). Paradoxes of inclusion: Understanding and managing the tensions of diversity and multiculturalism. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 53(2), 235-263.
Gebhard, S. (2008). Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development. In Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration (pp. 948-950). IGI Global.
Geisler, C. (2012). New Terra Nullius Narratives and the Gentrification of Africa's" Empty Lands". Journal of World-Systems Research, 18(1), 15-29.
Gilbert, P. (2014). The origins and nature of compassion focused therapy. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53(1), 6-41.
Gilbert, P., Bhundia, R., Mitra, R., McEwan, K., Irons, C., & Sanghera, J. (2007). Cultural differences in shame-focused attitudes towards mental health problems in Asian and non-Asian student women. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 10(2), 127-141.
Gismondi, M. (Writer). (2019). America's Other Civil War [Radio]. In M. Gismondi & G. Kelly (Producer), Ideas. Canada: CBC.
Goetz, J. L., Keltner, D., & Simon-Thomas, E. (2010). Compassion: an evolutionary analysis and empirical review. Psychological bulletin, 136(3), 351.
Grace, R., Cashmore, J., Scott, D., & Hayes, A. (2017). Effective policy to support children, families and communities. In Children, families and communities (pp. 358-382). Sydney: Oxford University Press.
Grace, R., Hayes, A., & Wise, S. (2017). Child development in context. In R. Grace, K. Hodge, & C. McMahon (Eds.), Children, Families and Communities (5 ed., pp. 3-25). Sydney, Australia: Oxford University Press.
Gross, J. T., Stern, J. A., Brett, B. E., & Cassidy, J. (2017). The multifaceted nature of prosocial behavior in children: Links with attachment theory and research. Social Development, 26(4), 661-678.
Grusec, J. E. (2019). Principles of Effective Parenting: How Socialization Works. Guilford Press.
Guterres, A. (2018). Address to the General Assembly. United Nations Secretary General, 25.
Hancock, K., Edwards, B., & Zubrick, S. (2013). Echoes of disadvantage across generations? The influence of unemployment and separation of grandparents on their grandchildren. In Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) (pp. 43-58). Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Harper, C. (2004). Breaking poverty cycles: the importance of action in childhood: Chronic Poverty Research Centre.
Hayes, A. (1984). Interaction, engagement and the origins and growth of communication: Some constructive concerns. In L. Feagan, C. Garvey, & R. Golinkoff (Eds.), The origins and growth of communication (pp. 136-161). Norwood NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp.
Hayes, A. (2007). Why early in life is not enough: Timing and sustainability in prevention and early intervention. In A. France & R. Homel (Eds.), Pathways and crime prevention: Theory, policy and practice (pp. 202-225). Uffculme, UK: Willan Publishing.
Hayes, A. (2014). Social science and family law: From fallacies and fads to the facts of the matter. In A. Hayes & D. J. Higgins (Eds.), Families, policy and the law: Selected essays on contemporary issues for Australia. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Hayes, A., & Hacker, A. (2017). Persistent disadvantage in Australia: Extent, complexity and some key implications. Australia's Welfare 2017.
Hayes, A., & Jean, C. (2012). A Two-edged sword? The place of the media in a child friendly society. Macquarie University, Institute of Early Childhood
Heyns, M., & Rothmann, S. (2018). Volitional trust, autonomy satisfaction, and engagement at work. Psychological reports, 121(1), 112-134.
Hilal, W., Raihanah, A., & Lee, C. (2015). An Islamic perspective in managing religious diversity. Religions, 6(2), 642-656.
Jarvis, P., Holford, J., & Griffin, C. (1998). The Theory and Practice of Learning. London: Kogan Page.
Jewkes, R., Flood, M., & Lang, J. (2015). From work with men and boys to changes of social norms and reduction of inequities in gender relations: a conceptual shift in prevention of violence against women and girls. The Lancet, 385(9977), 1580-1589.
Jivani, J. (2018). Why young men: Rage, race and the crisis of identity. Toronto, Canada: Harper Collins.
Johnson, G., Gronda, H., & Coutts, S. (2008). On the outside: Pathways in and out of homelessness. Melbourne, Vic: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Jones, S. M., Bailey, R., Barnes, S., & Partee, A. (2016). Executive function mapping project: Untangling the terms and skills related to executive function and self-regulation in early childhood. OPRE Report 2016-88, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Judis, J. B. (2016). Rethinking populism. Dissent, 63(4), 116-122.
Kaur, S. (2015). Moral values in education. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 20(3), 21-26.
Kirby, J. N., Sampson, H., Day, J., Hayes, A., & Gilbert, P. (2019). Human evolution and culture in relationship to shame in the parenting role: Implications for psychology and psychotherapy. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 92(2), 238-260.
Komorosky, D., & O’Neal, K. K. (2015). The development of empathy and prosocial behavior through humane education, restorative justice, and animal-assisted programs. Contemporary Justice Review, 18(4), 395-406.
Küng, H. (1995). Christianity: essence, history and future. Continuum Intl Pub Group.
Lindstrom, G., & Choate, P. W. (2016). Nistawatsiman: Rethinking assessment of Aboriginal parents for child welfare following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. First Peoples Child & Family Review, 11(2), 45-59.
Livingstone, A. (2019). A multi-experiment, meta-analytic test of the effect of felt understanding in intergroup relations [Preprint]. doi:10.31234/osf.io/uhqnd
Livingstone, D. W. (2006). Informal learning: Conceptual distinctions and preliminary findings. In Z. Bekerman, N. Burbules, C, & D. Silberman-Keller (Eds.), Learning in places; The informal education reader (pp. 203 - 228). New York Peter Lang Publishing Inc.
Lomas, T. (2015). Positive cross-cultural psychology: Exploring similarity and difference in constructions and experiences of wellbeing. International Journal of Wellbeing, 5(4).
Mallory, S. B. (2014). Factors Associated with Peer Aggression and Peer Victimization Among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, Children with Other Disabilities, and Children Without a Disability [Doctoral dissertation]. Columbia University.
Marsick, V. J., & Watkins, K. E. (2001). Informal and incidental learning. New directions for adult and continuing education, 2001(89), 25-34.
Miller, J. G., Kahle, S., Lopez, M., & Hastings, P. D. (2015). Compassionate love buffers stress-reactive mothers from fight-or-flight parenting. Developmental psychology, 51(1), 36.
Mittal, S. (2018). Barriers to communication. International Journal of Advanced Research and Development, 3(1), 243 - 245.
Moreira, H., Gouveia, M. J., Carona, C., Silva, N., & Canavarro, M. C. (2015). Maternal attachment and children’s quality of life: The mediating role of self-compassion and parenting stress. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(8), 2332-2344.
Muldoon, O. T., O'Donnell, A. T., & Minescu, A. (2017). Parents' and children's understanding of their own and others' national identity: The importance of including the family in the national group. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 27(5), 347-357.
Murray, H. A., & Kluckhohn, C. (1948). Outline of a conception of personality. In C. Kluckhohn & H. A. Murray (Eds.), Personality in nature, society, and culture. Oxford, England: Alfred A. Knopf.
Neff, K. D., Long, P., Knox, M. C., Davidson, O., Kuchar, A., Costigan, A., . . . Breines, J. G. (2018). The forest and the trees: Examining the association of self-compassion and its positive and negative components with psychological functioning. Self and Identity, 17(6), 627-645.
Niezen, R. (2016). Templates and exclusions: victim centrism in Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian residential schools. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 22(4), 920-938.
Pascoe, B. (2014). Dark emu black seeds: Agriculture or accident? Magabala Books.
Reis, H. T., Lemay Jr, E. P., & Finkenauer, C. (2017). Toward understanding understanding: The importance of feeling understood in relationships. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(3), e12308.
Richards, K., & Wilson, R. A. (2018). Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. The international encyclopedia of anthropology, 1-8.
Root, S. (2019). The Relationship Between Language, Emotional Intelligence, and Cultural Sensitivity [Honors Thesis]. Dominican University of California.
Scarnier, M., Schmader, T., & Lickel, B. (2009). Parental shame and guilt: Distinguishing emotional responses to a child's wrongdoings. Personal Relationships, 16(2), 205-220.
Schugurensky, D. (2006). “This is our school of citizenship”: Informal learning in local democracy. In Z. Bekerman, N. Burbules, C, & D. Silberman-Keller (Eds.), Learning in places: The informal education reader (pp. 163 - 182). New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.
Shore, M. (2008). Christianity and justice in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission: A case study in religious conflict resolution. Political Theology, 9(2), 161-178.
Skynner, A. R., & Cleese, J. (1993). Families and how to survive them. In. Random House.
Smith, M. K. (1999, 2008). 'Informal learning', the encyclopaedia of informal education. Retrieved from www.infed.org/biblio/inf-lrn.htm
Spinney, A. (2012). Home and Safe?: Policy and Practice Innovations to Prevent Women and Children who Have Experienced Domestic and Family Violence from Becoming Homeless. Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.
Stel, M. (2016). The role of mimicry in understanding the emotions of others. In U. Hess & A. Fischer (Eds.), Emotional mimicry in social context (pp. 27 - 43). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stringer, M. D. (2016). Discourses on religious diversity: explorations in an urban ecology. Routledge.
Swick, K. J. (2006). Families and educators together: Raising caring and peaceable children. Early Childhood Education Journal, 33(4), 279-287.
Todorović, D. (2019). Tolerance, Multiculturalism and Interculturalism in the Balkans. Facta Universitatis, Series: Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology and History, 001-014.
Tremblay, R. E. (2004). The development of human physical aggression: How important is early childhood? In L. Leavitt & D. Hall (Eds.), Social and moral development: Emerging evidence on the toddler years (pp. 221 - 238). New Brunswick, NJ: Johnson and Johnson Pediatric Institute.
Tremblay, R. E., & Nagin, D. S. (2005). The developmental origins of physical aggression in humans. In RE Hartup, WW Hartup, & J. Archer (Eds.), Developmental origins of aggression (pp. 83 - 106). New York: The Guilford Press.
Tremblay, R. E., Nagin, D. S., Séguin, J. R., Zoccolillo, M., Zelazo, P. D., Boivin, M., . . . Japel, C. (2004). Physical aggression during early childhood: Trajectories and predictors. Pediatrics, 114(1), e43-e50.
Vachon, D. D., & Lynam, D. R. (2016). Fixing the problem with empathy: Development and validation of the affective and cognitive measure of empathy. Assessment, 23(2), 135-149.
Van der Graaff, J., Carlo, G., Crocetti, E., Koot, H. M., & Branje, S. (2018). Prosocial behavior in adolescence: gender differences in development and links with empathy. Journal of youth and adolescence, 47(5), 1086-1099.
Vartuli, S., & Winter, M. (1989). Parents as first teachers. In The second handbook on parent education (pp. 99-117). Elsevier.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: the development of higher mental processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wagers, K. B., & Kiel, E. J. (2019). The influence of parenting and temperament on empathy development in toddlers. Journal of Family Psychology, 33(4), 391.
Wahhyudi, J. (2015). Ahlul-Kitab: A Qur’anic Approach to Religious Pluralism. Paper presented at the Paper presented to the Joint International Conference and Short Course on Islam, Plural Societies, and Legal Pluralism, Gottingen.
Waller, R., & Hyde, L. W. (2018). Callous-unemotional behaviors in early childhood: the development of empathy and prosociality gone awry. Current opinion in psychology, 20, 11-16.
Wijayanti, K. D., & Sulaksono, D. (2019). Character Building for Early Childhood Learners Through the Shadow Puppet-Based Javanese Language Manners. Paper presented at the Third International Conference of Arts, Language and Culture (ICALC 2018).
Wolfinger, N. H. (2005). Understanding the divorce cycle: The children of divorce in their own marriages. Cambridge University Press.
Wolfinger, N. H. (2011). More evidence for trends in the intergenerational transmission of divorce: A completed cohort approach using data from the general social survey. Demography, 48(2), 581-592.
Zebregs, S., van den Putte, B., Neijens, P., & de Graaf, A. (2015). The differential impact of statistical and narrative evidence on beliefs, attitude, and intention: A meta-analysis. Health communication, 30(3), 282-289.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
.png)
.png){kind=logo}
