Former NAACP director for values and attitude symposium
DR Benjamin F Chavis Muhammad, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Hip Hop Summit Action Network and a former director of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), will be the keynote speaker at a values and attitude symposium slated for March 20 and 21 at the Mona School of Business (MSB).
The two-day symposium is dubbed Transforming Values and Attitudes: Policy Challenges for Jamaican Society.
Dr Muhammad is expected to address the topic, “Redefinition of Values, Reshaping Attitudes and Reformation of Behaviour toward the Revitalisation of Family, Community and Business: The Case for Jamaica, America and the World.” He is scheduled to speak on the 21st in the MSB executive lecture room at 9:00 am.
“The Research and Policy Group in the MSB has arranged a series of forums and conferences aimed at making a practical contribution to the search for answers to Jamaica’s present policy crisis,” said Claude Robinson, research fellow at MSB and organiser of the symposium.
He said the series began last December with a forum on economic growth. The ongoing series will also cover issues such as debt and the prospects for economic growth and development; crime and violence; values and attitudes; and governance.
Robinson said that the values and attitudes symposium was intended to give a policy focus to the discussion around the government’s renewed effort against anti-social attitudes and behaviour.
“It is widely agreed among experts that behaviour change is a long and complex process and so any campaign to change values and modify behaviour should be informed by a clearly developed public policy — itself rooted in research, rigorous inquiry and analysis,” he remarked.
Participants will be drawn from persons engaged in media and entertainment, education, the church, social work and community development. Topics to be discussed on the first day will include:
* Historical, Social and Cultural Roots of Traditional Values in Jamaican Society;
*Challenges for Socialisation Institutions such as the church, family and community; and
* The Political Culture and the Justice System.
On the morning of day two, the areas to be covered include: Developing a Policy Agenda for Values and Attitudes and Case Studies of Successful Change Interventions.
In the afternoon, the symposium will examine the role of the media and entertainment industries in behaviour change and socialisation, particularly as they affect youth.
The Research and policy Group was established in 2002 by the principal of the UWI Mona Campus, Professor Kenneth Hall, to carry out “research and analysis in priority areas relevant to the needs” of governments, the private sector and regional institutions.
The initial priority areas of research are governance systems and structures, electoral systems, public reform, tertiary education, media and communication policy, and globalisation and economic liberalisation.