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Theoretical Debates (theoretical + debate)
Selected AbstractsSELF-CONTROL, SOCIAL BONDS, AND DESISTANCE: A TEST OF LIFE-COURSE INTERDEPENDENCECRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2006Article first published online: 11 DEC 200, ELAINE EGGLESTON DOHERTY Theoretical debates and empirical tests on the explanation of stability and change in offending over time have been ongoing for over a decade pitting Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) criminal propensity model against Sampson and Laub's (1993) life-course model of informal social control. In 2001, Wright and his colleagues found evidence of a moderating relationship between criminal propensity, operationalized as self-control, and prosocial ties on crime, a relationship they term life-course interdependence. The current study extends their research by focusing on this moderating relationship and the developmental process of desistance from crime among serious juvenile delinquents. Contrary to the life-course interdependence hypothesis, the results indicate that whereas self-control and social bonds are strongly related to desistance from crime, there is no evidence of a moderating relationship between these two factors on desistance among this sample. The implications of this research for life-course theories of crime, future research, and policies regarding desistance are discussed. [source] Placing Progress: Contextual Inequality and Immigrant Incorporation in the United StatesECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2008Jamie Goodwin-White Abstract This article contributes to the growing body of research on the economic incorporation of immigrants by considering the relative wages of immigrants, the adult children of immigrants, and the U.S.-born children of U.S. parentage. By disaggregating these three groups racially, comparing entire wage distributions, and comparing the immigrant cities of New York and Los Angeles with the United States overall, it presents a perspective on the complicated contexts of the intergenerational progress of immigrants. In addition to comparing the groups' relative positions in 1990 and 2000, the article decomposes relative wages such that differences in the educational composition of groups can be isolated from residual wage inequality. This research is of interest because consideration of the U.S.-born or educated children of immigrants invokes questions of social mobility and the persistence of ethnic inequality more generally. The article also contributes to a theoretical debate over place and immigrants' progress by examining the second generation, for whom residence in immigrant cities is often theorized as detrimental to economic incorporation. Finally, it introduces a substantial analysis of local wage structures to questions of immigrants' intergenerational economic progress to a much greater extent than has previously been the case. The results suggest that prospects for immigrants' economic incorporation are geographically specific and should be assessed across multiple generations as a result of the continuing contexts of racial wage inequality [source] Nature conservation and urban development control in the Portuguese planning system: a new impetus against old praxis?ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 5 2008Teresa Fidelis Abstract Natura 2000 areas bring a new incentive to assess the performance of land-use planning in protecting environmental values from the impacts of development pressures. In the last decades, urban growth and consequent environmental impacts on natural areas have been a major concern for the Portuguese land-use planning system. Sprawl around sensitive areas has been revealed to be a persistent phenomenon in spite of the increasing challenges underlying land-use plans. This article critically analyses the content of three main documents recently adopted by the Portuguese government , the ,National Strategy for Sustainable Development', the ,National Policy Programme for Spatial Planning' and the ,Sector Plan for Natura 2000' , seeking prospects to innovate future plans at lower levels in order to prevent additional pressures on natural areas. First, the article reviews the recent theoretical debate on planning for the protection of natural areas. Results evidenced by recent EU evaluation reports are used to propose a set of guidelines to evaluate planning guidance at national level. Second, it critically analyses the three planning documents, bearing in mind the main features of the planning system and the proposed guidelines. The article is concluded with a discussion of their potential, exploring whether they bring a new impetus to the role of land-use planning against an outdated and persistent praxis, or whether, on the contrary, further efforts to strengthen planning guidance remain to be formulated. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] The diffusion of environmental policy innovations: cornerstones of an analytical frameworkENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 2 2005Kerstin Tews Abstract Comparative policy analysis increasingly faces the challenge of incorporating external forces on national policy developments into its analytical framework. Scholars of international relations have recognized that the behaviour of states , in terms of policy outputs , converges even in the absence of binding international agreements. These two branches of research can be bridged by the concept of policy diffusion. Diffusion analysis asks for those conditions that favour or hinder the spread of policy innovations within the international system. However, the scientific community struggles with different meanings and notions of the term policy diffusion. Thus, the aim of this paper is to offer a general conceptual framework for the study of diffusion processes within the international system. Understanding the process of policy diffusion requires an analysis of the complex interplay between transnational and international forces, national factors and the characteristics of policy innovations. By providing a conceptual framework this paper hopes not only to contribute to the theoretical debate but also to give guidance for empirical research. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] EU Citizenship and Religious Liberty in an Enlarged EuropeEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 4 2010Sonia Morano-Foadi This article intends to contribute to the theoretical debate on how EU citizenship could be regarded as a bundle of common European individual rights (and, to a lesser extent, obligations) and part of a democratic polity in which every citizen counts equally irrespectively of his/her religious belonging and faith. The EU perceives itself as a community based on shared values. Since there is no European people, nor a European polity, common values play a core role in European polity building. The question, however, is whether common values can be experienced by the EU citizens in daily life and to what extent there are common values in the EU Member States. These issues are explored using the non-discrimination principle on grounds of religion, as a litmus-test for the existence of common values within Europe. [source] The Rift: Explaining Europe's Divergent Iraq Policies in the Run-Up of the American-Led War on IraqFOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 3 2006JÜRGEN SCHUSTER America's plan to attack Iraq split Europe down the middle. Why did European countries take such different stances toward the Bush administration's policy? This article examines three different approaches, each rooted in one of international relations (IRs) prominent schools of thought, with regard to their explanatory power in this specific puzzle. Firstly, it shows that public opinion (utilitarian,liberal approach) cannot account for whether a state joined the "coalition of the willing" or not. Secondly, it demonstrates that in Eastern Europe systemic forces of power relations (neorealist approach) are suitable for explaining state behavior, but not in Western Europe. Thirdly, it shows that the ideological orientations of governments (liberal,constructivist approach) were the decisive factor in determining whether a state supported the United States in Western Europe, but not in Eastern Europe. These results offer some interesting insights for the theoretical debate in IRs theory and foreign policy analysis, which are discussed in the final section of the article. In regard to foreign policy analysis, for example, the results of this study propose to "bring political parties in." [source] Visitors' and locals' experiences of Rotorua, New Zealand: an interpretative study using photographs of landscapes and Q methodINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Issue 4 2002John R. Fairweather Abstract This paper reports on an interpretative study of locals' and visitors' experiences in Rotorua, New Zealand and shows how experiences vary among different groups. Photographs were Q sorted by a non-random sample of locals and both overseas and New Zealand visitors, and the data were factor analysed to identify four factors or types of experience. These include experiences of Sublime Nature, Iconic Tourism, New Zealand Family and the Picturesque Landscape. These findings show that Q sort with photographs is a useful research approach which advances our understanding of destination image and provides results that have implications for the contemporary theoretical debate on the nature of tourist experience in New Zealand. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The role of visual imagery in the enhanced cognitive interview: guided questioning techniques and individual differences,,JOURNAL OF INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND OFFENDER PROFILING, Issue 1 2004Michael R. Davis Abstract The cognitive interview utilises mnemonics and other techniques to facilitate obtaining information from victims and witnesses. Research has indicated superior recall to standard police interviews. However, there has been minimal research regarding the role of individual differences. One area that has generated spirited theoretical debate is imagery ability, as guided imagery questioning is an important part of the enhanced cognitive interview. Imagery is also arguably an integral part of several mnemonics employed in the technique. The present study investigated the role of individual differences in imagery ability, as well as the effect of explicit instructions to image, on recall performance. Participants completed the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ), witnessed a film of a simulated crime, and were interviewed using the cognitive interview or a structured interview. While recall in the cognitive interview was superior, VVIQ scores had little relationship with recall of information. Further, recall elicited by guided imagery differed only minimally from that obtained using standard questioning in the structured interview. These results suggested that the relaxation and rapport building common to questioning in both interview conditions may evoke spontaneous imagery that is comparable to explicit instructions to image, regardless of individuals' inherent imagery ability. Future directions are discussed, including research focused on individual differences and a practical emphasis on context reinstatement and social facilitative techniques. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Reflections of an Ethnographic Filmmaker-Maker: An Interview with Paul Henley, Director of the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, University of ManchesterAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2009CARLOS Y. FLORES ABSTRACT, Two decades ago the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology (GCVA) at the University of Manchester, U.K., was created. Since then it has become one of the most acclaimed postgraduate visual anthropology schools in the world, providing a space for theoretical debate and training in ethnographic filmmaking techniques. Conceived originally as a master's program under the sponsorship of Granada Television and the University of Manchester, it has now extended training to the Ph.D. level to students from around the world. In this interview, Professor Paul Henley, GCVA,s director since its inception, reflects on the last 20 years of the Granada Centre, ethnographic filmmaking, the state of the art in theory and practice in visual anthropology, and new possibilities and challenges for the future. [Keywords: visual anthropology, ethnographic filmmaking, documentary, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology] [source] Laterality in hand use across four tool-use behaviors among the wild chimpanzees of Bossou, Guinea, West AfricaAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 1 2009Tatyana Humle Abstract Population-level right handedness is a human universal, whose evolutionary origins are the source of considerable empirical and theoretical debate. Although our closest neighbor, the chimpanzee, shows some evidence for population-level handedness in captivity, there is little evidence from the wild. Tool-use measures of hand use in chimpanzees have yielded a great deal of variation in directionality and strength in hand preference, which still remains largely unexplored and unexplained. Data on five measures of hand use across four tool-use skills,ant-dipping, algae-scooping, pestle-pounding and nut-cracking,among the wild chimpanzees of Bossou, Guinea, West Africa, are presented here. This study aims to explore age- and sex-class effects, as well as the influence of task motor, cognitive and haptic demands, on the strength and directionality of hand preference within and across all five measures of hand use. Although there was no age- or sex-class effect on the directionality of hand preference, immature ,10 years old tended to be less lateralized than adults, especially adult females. Nut-cracking, the most cognitively complex of the four behaviors and the only one requiring complementary coordination of both hands, yielded the greatest strength in hand use with all adults expressing exclusive use of one hand over the other, without overall significant directional preference. The least lateralized behavior was pestle-pounding, which required bimanual coordination, but also imposed constraints owing to fatigue. It emerged that only the most hazardous tool use, i.e. ant-dipping, and the sole haptic task, i.e. the extraction by hand of crushed oil-palm heart, were laterally biased and both to the right. Shared motor or grip patterns in tool-use skills failed to reveal any specialization in hand use at the individual level. Finally, Bossou chimpanzees demonstrated a tendency for a population-level right-hand use. Am. J. Primatol. 71:40,48, 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] The Welfare and Political Economy Dimensions of Private versus State EnterpriseTHE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 2 2002Paul Cook We revisit the theoretical debate concerning the merits of privatization by decomposing the welfare effect of transferring an enterprise from public to private ownership. A range of effects is considered including overproduction, subsidy valuation, redistribution, ownership and regulatory effects. The potential gains/losses from privatization are examined by considering the initial conditions facing enterprises under public ownership (whether technically and/or economically efficient) and a range of post-privatization market structures (whether monopoly, oligopoly or Walrasian). [source] The concept of positive health: a review and commentary on its application in oral health researchCOMMUNITY DENTISTRY AND ORAL EPIDEMIOLOGY, Issue 3 2006David Locker Abstract , Although the concept of positive health has been around for more than 60 years, acceptable measures of this construct have yet to emerge. Potential explanations are that there is no consensus on how it is to be defined and its ambiguous status with respect to medical and socioenvironmental models of health. In this paper we review definitions of positive health, the origins of these definitions, the way the concept of positive outcomes has been used in research on the outcomes of oral and orofacial conditions and assess whether the concept of positive health has any merit in terms of applied oral health research. This literature reveals many competing and imprecise definitions, many of which are similar to other constructs, such as well-being. Most are lacking empirical referents or indicators. In examining the literature on oral health we found five distinct, although overlapping, ways in which the concept of positive health has been framed: (i) positive health as the absence of negative health states; (ii) positive health as positively worded items; (iii) the positive outcomes of oral health; (iv) positive oral health as a set of psychological and social attributes, and (v) the positive outcomes of chronic conditions such as oro- and craniofacial differences. Each of these ways can be challenged on conceptual or methodological grounds. For example, the states that comprise the upper end of the negative,positive health continuum have not been defined and health states and determinants of health are often confused. Moreover, the meaning of responses to health status questionnaires and the interpretation of accounts of the illness experience is often unclear. Nevertheless, the notion of positive health, irrespective of its merits and public policy implications, provides a context for methodological and theoretical debate that can only serve to enrich theory and practice with respect to measures of health and quality of life and therapeutic interventions at the individual and population. [source] THE CONTEXT OF MARRIAGE AND CRIME: GENDER, THE PROPENSITY TO MARRY, AND OFFENDING IN EARLY ADULTHOOD,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 1 2007RYAN D. KING Marriage is central to theoretical debates over stability and change in criminal offending over the life course. Yet, unlike other social ties such as employment, marriage is distinct in that it cannot be randomly assigned in survey research to more definitively assess causal effects of marriage on offending. As a result, key questions remain as to whether different individual propensities toward marriage shape its salience as a deterrent institution. Building on these issues, the current research has three objectives. First, we use a propensity score matching approach to estimate causal effects of marriage on crime in early adulthood. Second, we assess sex differences in the effects of marriage on offending. Although both marriage and offending are highly gendered phenomena, prior work typically focuses on males. Third, we examine whether one's propensity to marry conditions the deterrent capacity of marriage. Results show that marriage suppresses offending for males, even when accounting for their likelihood to marry. Furthermore, males who are least likely to marry seem to benefit most from this institution. The influence of marriage on crime is less robust for females, where marriage reduces crime only for those with moderate propensities to marry. We discuss these findings in the context of recent debates concerning gender, criminal offending, and the life course. [source] Theoretical influences on research on language development and intervention in individuals with mental retardationDEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES RESEARCH REVIEW, Issue 3 2004Leonard Abbeduto Abstract In this article, we consider the theoretical debates and frameworks that have shaped research on language development and intervention in persons with mental retardation over the past four decades. Our starting point is the nativist theory, which has been espoused most forcefully by Chomsky. We also consider more recent alternatives to the nativist approach, including the social-interactionist and emergentist approaches, which have been developed largely within the field of child language research. We also consider the implications for language development and intervention of the genetic syndrome-based approach to behavioral research advocated by Dykens and others. We briefly review the impact and status of the debates spurred by the nativist approach in research on the course of language development in individuals with mental retardation. In addition, we characterize some of the achievements in language intervention that have been made possible by the debates spurred by nativism and the various alternatives to it. The evidence we consider provides support for all three alternatives to the nativist approach. Moreover, successful interventions appear to embody elements of several of these approaches as well as other theoretical approaches (e.g., behaviorism). We conclude that language intervention must be theoretically eclectic in its approach, with different strategies appropriate for teaching different features of language, at different points in development, and for children displaying different characteristics or learning histories. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. MRDD Research Reviews 2004;10:184,192. [source] Broad-scale environmental response and niche conservatism in lacustrine diatom communitiesGLOBAL ECOLOGY, Issue 5 2010Joseph R. Bennett ABSTRACT Aim, (1) To resolve theoretical debates regarding the role of environment versus dispersal limitation, the conservatism of niches across distances and the prevalence of environmental specialists in diatom communities. (2) To provide guidance on the use of diatom communities and other microbial analogues to analyse ecological response to environmental change. Location, Eight hundred and ninety-one lakes in five regional datasets from north-western Europe and four regional datasets from north-eastern North America. Methods, Lacustrine diatom communities were analysed at three scales: inter-continental, intra-continental and regional. Nested partial redundancy analyses (RDAs) were used to determine spatial versus environmental components of community variation. Weighted-averaging (WA) regression and calibration, as well as logistic and quadratic regressions, were used to detect niche conservatism and the prevalence of environmental specialists. Results, Community patterns indicate that dispersal limitation acts predominantly at the inter-continental scale, while at the regional (less than c. 1,000,000 km2) scale, a single environmental variable (pH) explains more than five times the community variation as spatial (dispersal-related) variables. In addition, pH niche components appear to be conserved at the inter-continental scale, and environmental specialization does not impose relative rarity, as specialists apparently readily disperse to suitable environments. Main conclusions, Analysis at multiple scales is clearly important in determining the influences of community variation. For diatom communities, dispersal limitation acts most strongly at the broadest scales, giving way to environment at the scales considered by most analyses. The availability of a wide variety of propagules with consistent niches across regions indicates that diatom communities reflect the succession of taxa according to local environmental conditions, rather than disequilibrium with the environment or adaptation of local populations. While multi-scale analyses must be undertaken for other groups to resolve debates over community drivers and determine appropriate scales for prediction, for diatoms (and probably other microbial communities), responses to environmental change can be inferred using analogue datasets from large geographic areas. [source] Governance Reform in Thailand: Questionable Assumptions, Uncertain OutcomesGOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2000Bidhya Bowornwathana This article examines the nature of governance reform in Thailand. The argument is that Thai citizens are not especially benefiting from the public reform initiatives of Thai governments because government reformers made fourquestionable assumptions about reform which have in turn produced uncertain outcomes and provided the opportunity for government reformers to avoid responsibility for their reform choices. First, the reformers support the belief that a global reform paradigm with ready-made reform packages exists which can be easily transplanted in the Thai public sector. Second, the reformers prefer to define success largely as reform output rather than reform outcomes or long term reform consequences. Third, Thai government reformers have overemphasized the efficiency aspects of the new public management at the expense of other governance goals. Fourth, governance reform in Thailand has been portrayed as a managerial problem instead of a political one. The author supports his arguments by drawing on theoretical debates in the international literature on administrative reform, and relating these debates to the Thai case. Governance reform in Thailand is still at an early stage, but the role of unintended consequences is important to administrative reform. Furthermore, the Thai case may reflect governance reform in other countries as well. [source] Nature, production and regulation in eighteenth-century Britain and France: the case of the leather industry*HISTORICAL RESEARCH, Issue 211 2008Giorgio Riello Leather was, in the pre-industrial economy, a scarce material used in the production of a wide range of goods. The supply of leather was influenced by the national cattle asset and its slaughtering rate. The difficulty in increasing leather production to meet the demands of a ,consumer revolution' was the subject of theoretical debates and practical intervention. The state controlled and organized the leather market through fiscal and commercial policies. This article offers a comparative analysis of the French and the British leather markets in the eighteenth century. In France, the state assumed an organizational function in the creation of a national leather market. In Britain, by contrast, the state simply regulated an existing market. These different political interventions influenced the dynamics of development of leather production and the leather trades in the two countries. While France suffered from an endemic absence of leather, Britain was able to satisfy its increasing demand efficiently. [source] Neither Romance Nor Regulation: Re-evaluating CommunityINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2006JAMES DEFILIPPIS As the realm of the community has grown increasingly important in the contemporary political economy, the theoretical debates surrounding community have also grown in importance and volume. Too often this literature has been either celebratory or dismissive; either romanticizing the concept and thereby elevating it to primary rank as the focal point of societal initiatives, or objecting to its regulated limits and contradictions and thereby dismissing its importance and political utility. There are important contributions being made by both those who dismiss community and those who celebrate it. But for those interested in understanding the potential for emancipatory social change in the contemporary political economy of neoliberalism there are also severe limitations imposed by these perspectives. After critiquing these literatures and debates, we put forward an understanding of community that is neither dismissive nor celebratory, but instead argues that communities need to be understood as simultaneously products of both their larger, and largely external, contexts, and the practices, organizations and relations that take place within them. Thus, communities, because of their central place in capitalist political economies, can be vital arenas for social change. But they are also arenas that are constrained in their capacities to host such efforts. [source] Factories, Forests, Fields and Family: Gender and Neoliberalism in Extractive ReservesJOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 3 2007SUSANNA B. HECHT This paper explores the theoretical debates on extraction and development in Amazonia, and the emergence of extractive reserves (ERs) as a tropical development alternative. It reviews the role of women in Amazonian rural economies and then analyzes the (often invisible) tasks of women within the reserves through an analysis of the gender division of labour in the collecting and processing of non-timber forest products and agriculture. It then considers how lack of attention to rural women's labour obligations played out in a development project, Projeto Castanha, that began as an urban factory, but was later recast as a neoliberal decentralized processing and outsourcing programme. The project failed to appreciate the demands on, and the opportunity costs, of women's time and thus had very limited success as women withdrew their labour. The paper argues that there may be many more options for supporting extractive economies (and the women who work in them) in more peri-urban and village projects even though extractive reserves are valuable ecologically and socially in the regional economy. [source] The irreversible cattle-driven transformation of a seasonally flooded Australian savannaJOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY, Issue 5 2003Ben R. Sharp Abstract Aim ,Anecdotal historical and photographic evidence suggests that woody vegetation is increasing dramatically in some northern Australian savanna habitats. Vegetation change in savannas has important implications for pastoral land-use, conservation management, and landscape-scale carbon storage, and informs theoretical debates about ecosystem function. This study seeks to determine the nature, extent and cause(s) of woody vegetation change in a seasonally flooded alluvial savanna habitat. Location ,The study area is located within the seasonally inundated alluvial zone of the tidal portion of the Victoria River, Northern Territory, Australia. The study area has been grazed by domestic stock since c. 1900, prior to which the area was inhabited and more likely regularly burnt by Aboriginal people for thousands of years. Methods ,Digital georeferenced aerial photographic coverages were used to examine and quantify woody vegetation change between 1948 and 1993. Transect surveys of woody and herbaceous vegetation were carried out to ground-truth air-photo results and determine the nature and causes of observed vegetation changes. Results ,There has been a dramatic increase in woody vegetation cover throughout the study area. Vegetation change patterns are roughly uniform across the full range of edaphic habitat variation and are unrelated to the depositional age of fluvial sediments. Two woody species, Eucalyptus microtheca and Excoecaria parvifolia, are predominantly responsible for observed increases. Demographic analyses reveal that woody invasions have been episodic and indicate that in most locations peak woody species establishment occurred in the mid-1970s. Grasses are almost absent in a majority of habitats within the study area. Instead, large areas are covered by scalded soil, dense invasive weed populations, and unpalatable forbs and sedges. What grasses do occur are predominantly of very low value for grazing. The condition of the herbaceous layer renders most of the study area almost completely non-flammable; what fires do burn are small and of low intensity. Main conclusions ,Multiple working hypotheses explaining observed patterns of woody vegetation increase were considered and rejected in turn. The only hypothesis consistent with the evidence is as follows: (1) observed changes are a direct consequence of extreme overgrazing by cattle, most likely when stocking rates peaked in the mid-1970s; (2) prolonged heavy grazing effected the complete transformation of much of the herbaceous vegetation to a new state that is not flammable; and (3) in the absence of regular fire mortality, woody vegetation increased rapidly. The relatively treeless system that existed in 1948 was apparently stable and resilient to moderate grazing levels, and perhaps also to episodic heavy grazing events. However, grazing intensity in excess of a sustainable threshold has forced a transition that is irreversible in the foreseeable future. Stable-state transitions such as this one inform debates at the heart of ecological theory, such as the nature of stability, resilience, equilibrium and carrying capacity in dynamic savanna ecosystems. [source] Institutionally based health care workers' exposure to traumatogenic events: Systematic review of PTSD presentationJOURNAL OF TRAUMATIC STRESS, Issue 3 2010Noelle Robertson This review sought to identify published evidence for the presentation of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in institutionally based health care workers. The databases Medline, Psycinfo, PILOTS, CINAHL (R), EMBASE, and ISI Web of Science were searched in a systematic manner eliciting 9 quantitative studies. Presentation of PTSD among such workers appears comparable to data reported for emergency services staff. The authors discuss some of the theoretical debates underpinning the research as well as methodological weaknesses that temper the strength of conclusions drawn. [source] Issues in Salish Syntax and SemanticsLINGUISTICS & LANGUAGE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 4 2009Henry Davis The Salish language family is of special interest for syntactic and semantic theory because it has been argued to differ radically from Indo-European languages in both structure and interpretation (see, e.g., Kinkade 1983; Jelinek and Demers 1994; Jelinek 1995; Ritter and Wiltschko 2005, forthcoming; Davis 2006, 2009; Matthewson 2006a, forthcoming). In this article, we survey four theoretical debates in the syntactic and semantic literature on Salish, one from each of the areas of lexical semantics, super-lexical syntax, semantics and pragmatics, with an eye to pinning down the principal loci of variation between Salish and Indo-European. In the domain of lexical semantics, we argue for the hypothesis that all Salish verb roots are intransitive and unaccusative. In the area of syntax, we outline the predictions of the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis, and provide counterarguments which show that at least some and probably all Salish languages have a fully configurational syntax. Turning to tense, we argue that Salish languages are tensed, despite superficial evidence to the contrary. Finally, we present arguments that at least one Salish language differs radically from English in its pragmatics: it lacks any familiarity presuppositions. Our conclusion is that major parametric differences between Salish and Indo-European languages are not to be found in the syntax or sentence-level semantics, but in the pragmatics, and possibly the lexical semantics. [source] A New Angelology: Mapping the Angel through Twentieth-Century LiteratureLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 2 2007Suzanne Hobson In ,Professions for Women', Virginia Woolf memorably calls on female writers to kill the ,Angel in the House'. She implies that the angel, traditionally connoting feminine virtue and chastity, has no place in twentieth-century literature. The literary texts and theoretical debates surveyed in this article suggest rather the opposite. They reveal that instead of being left behind at the end of the nineteenth century by a cultural imaginary which had outgrown religious orthodoxy and Victorian moral codes, the angel was reinvented, in a sense, modernised for the twentieth century. This article looks first at the importance of Walter Benjamin in carving out a politically charged space for this figure in contemporary literary criticism. It then turns to the angels in texts by Djuna Barnes, H.D., Carolyn Forché, Tony Kushner, D. H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis, Salman Rushdie and W. G. Sebald among others to show how the angel comes to figure the ,new', both the technologically advanced and the unexpectedly ,avant-garde' as regards moral values and sexual propriety. [source] Writing the West: Critical Approaches to ShaneLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2007Ruth Griffin Representations of the American West have perhaps resonated most strongly in the western film genre, yet at the same time, the literary western is a highly developed and sophisticated genre in its own right. Meanwhile, critical approaches to the West have become increasingly wide-ranging, spanning historical/literary studies; film/cultural studies; genre; gender studies; philosophy, structuralism and, most recently, post-modernism. In light of such critical diversity, this article places a literary text alongside a western film in order to illustrate and demonstrate potential critical approaches to the western. To this end it takes Jack Schaefer's novel Shane as its case study with two main organising principles in mind. Firstly, analysis of the text demonstrates the ways in which critical methods and theoretical debates can be applied to the literary western. As a result, I assess, for example, the convention which applies historical co-ordinates to fictional representations, as well as the challenges posed by alternative modes of critique. Secondly, the novel is placed alongside the filmic adaptation in order to demonstrate the fluid nature of western forms and the critical approaches which can be used to analyse them. Finally, I offer my own perspective, suggesting that the methodologies and textual forms explored in the article signal the need for trans-disciplinary critical approaches which reflect both the simplicity and the diversity of the western as a whole. [source] A test for geographers: the geography of educational achievement in Toronto and Hamilton, 1997THE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 3 2000RICHARD HARRIS The recent introduction of standardised achievement tests in several provinces has created an opportunity for Canadian geographers to contribute to public and theoretical debates. Geographers are well-equipped to comprehend and analyse the effects that neighbourhoods have upon pupil achievement. Independent of family background and school funding, such effects may be stronger in education than in other fields, such as voting behaviour and health research, but they have been ignored in recent public debates. They should be considered if informed judgements are to be made about whether specific teachers, schools, and boards are doing an adequate job. Analysis of the Ontario Grade 3 test results for 1997 in public schools in the City of Toronto and in Hamilton-Wentworth indicate that social class had a greater effect on pupil achievement than language background. Differences in the determinants of achievement between these two urban centres may be attributable to local variations in occupational structure and residential patterns. L'introduction récente en éducation des tests de compêtences standardisés, dans plusieurs provinces, offre aux géographes canadiens l'occasion de contribuer aux débats publics et théoriques. Les géographes sont bien placés pour comprendre et analyser les effets de quartier sur le rendement scolaire des élèves. Indépendamment du milieu socioculturel et du financement scolaire, ces effets ont peut être plus d'impact en éducation que dans les domaines tels que le comportement électoral et la recherche dans le milieu de la santé, cependant, ils demeurent à l'écart des débats publics. Ces éléments doivent être considérés si l'on prétend juger en connaissance de cause l'efficacité et le rendement des écoles, le corps enseignant et les conseils scolaires. L'analyse des résultats d'examens de l'Ontario en 1997, pour les élèves des écoles publiques de la troisième année des villes de Toronto et Hamilton-Wentworth, démontre que la réussite scolaire est plus liée au niveau socio-économique qu'à l'origine linguistique. La divergence des facteurs de réussites des deux centres urbains est peut-être attribuable aux variations des structures d'occupation locales et résidentielles. [source] Biosecurity and the international response to HIV/AIDS: governmentality, globalisation and securityAREA, Issue 3 2010Alan Ingram A growing critical literature examines the rise of biosecurity. HIV/AIDS has been mentioned in this literature as a biosecurity issue, but despite its importance as a major global health problem, the ways in which HIV/AIDS might be considered a matter of biosecurity have not been explored in depth. This article addresses this issue, particularly in relation to the international response to HIV/AIDS, through the conceptual prism of governmentality and in relation to concerns about globalisation and security. Following a discussion of the relevance of governmentality to research on the intersections between globalisation and security, the article considers biosecurity and the international response to HIV/AIDS in terms of modes of problematisation and institutionalisation. In terms of problematisation, it argues that while some biosecurity issues and HIV/AIDS have been addressed as emergencies, the characteristics of anticipation, preparedness, emergence and pre-emption, which are central to the dominant formation of biosecurity, are less relevant to HIV/AIDS. As the article shows, the two fields have also been institutionalised in rather distinct ways. It therefore cautions against regarding the international response to HIV/AIDS as a biosecurity intervention. In conclusion, the article identifies three broad avenues for further research: unpacking the politics of global health and security during recession; engaging with theoretical debates around governmentality; and engaging with problems of space. [source] Exclusive Greenery: new gated communities in CairoCITY & SOCIETY, Issue 2 2004PETRA KUPPINGER This paper examines the construction and marketing of recent upscale gated communities on the Egyptian capital's desert outskirts. Discussing questions of design and their use in promotional materials, I show how global inventories of architecture and social lifestyles are inserted in concrete local marketing contexts. While some of this marketing and subsequently some communities are successful, I argue that many aspects of projects are flawed in their neglect of local social forms and material demands. Differentiating between projects that imply a certain globalization of the local versus those that represent the localization of the abstractly global, I argue that the latter are more likely to fail. Reviewing a number or recent projects I illustrate how they all address upscale material demands, social sentiments and fear, and centrally promise safe and healthy homes and like-minded neighbors. Drawing on recent western theoretical debates about the increasing segregation of urban spaces, and the disappearance of public spaces, this paper explores the use and limits of such theorizations for the context of a post-colonial Middle Eastern metropolis. [source] |