bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Spatialisation of Power/Knowledge/Discourse
Authors: Gür Berin F.
Published: March 2007

This study focuses on the problem of the reconstruction of urban space through discursive representations. Understanding how discourse is spatialised will provide a conceptual ground for the discussion of the problem. The evaluation of knowledge, power, and representation in spatial terms becomes the fundamental premise in the study. Urban space is the space where discursive representations have a social and spatial existence. Here, urban space is approached as an archival space that renders spatial-social-political information visible. The problem is studied in reference to the Sultanahmet district in Istanbul. The Sultanahmet district is an urban palimpset whose archival structure has been made through discursive representations, each constructed on the proceding one.
Acquiring Organizational Learning Norms
Authors: Wijnhoven Fons
Published: March 2007

`The Learning Organization' is a configuration of learning norms (called a learning prototype here), which is seldom related to varying levels of learning needs. This article assumes that organizational environmental complexity and dynamics define four learning needs levels. Consequently, four learning prototypes exist that best treat the learning needs. The extent of match between learning needs (which are increasing in modern organizations) and required learning norms define an organization's learning capabilities. Deutero learning is the acquisition of these learning capabilities. Four case studies describe the accumulations and unlearning processes with regard to the related learning norms. These adjustments of the related policy, responsibility, action and procedural learning norms are enabled and constrained by organizational environmental factors. This article also suggests that Nonaka and Takeuchi's `knowledge creation company' prototype may be effective at all learning needs levels, but inefficient in less than high learning needs situations.
Reflexive Dialogical Practice in Management Learning
Authors: Cunliffe Ann L.
Published: March 2007

Recent criticisms of management education have raised the need for a critical pedagogy in management studies but have rarely evaluated the possible implications for management learning and practice. Drawing from critical and social constructionist perspectives, I propose we need to ground critique by incorporating reflexive dialogical practice in management learning as a way of developing more critical and responsive practitioners. Specifically, I reconstruct learning as reflective/reflexive dialogue in which participants connect tacit knowing and explicit knowledge. From this perspective, both educators and learners need to take a critical view of their dialogical practices and what may constitute `good' learning conversations. I include examples from my attempts to incorporate this approach in my own teaching practices.
Beauty and the Beast: A Participative Fairy Story
Authors: Boydell T.H.
Published: March 2007

The title of this column indicates a means of getting in touch with ideas and people which other media cannot reach! A wide freedom of expression - both in content and in form - is offered to contributors. Please send your contributions to: MIKE PEDLER, Department of Management Studies, Sheffield City Polytechnic, Dyson House, Sheffield 1. Tel: 0742 738621.
Developing Managers without 'Management Development': The Overseas Chinese Solution
Authors: Redding S.G.
Published: March 2007

It is the contention of this paper that management development, in any visible, formal sense, is absent from the majority of Chinese family businesses, but that an alternative set of processes produces a high level of managerial talent geared to this particular kind of organization. Seen at the macro level, the effect can be dramatic, resulting for instance in a sustained annual increase in gross national product per capita of 9% over twenty years in Hong Kong, a result found replicated in other nearby Overseas Chinese economies, or Chinese sectors of national economies in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.
`In Another Country' or the Relativization of Management Learning
Authors: Lawrence Peter
Published: March 2007

While there are powerful reasons for expecting management style and practice to be the same around the world, the weight of evidence of the last 15 or so years suggests that this is not the case, that there are a range of differences. These differences are explored at some length with regard to five major industrial countries. It is also suggested that there has been a tendency to view business relationships between countries/cultures in terms of international encounter, and this paper argues instead for a more sustained approach that emphasizes in-context understanding.
Empowering Students: A Pragmatic Philosophical Approach to Management Education
Authors: Dispenza Vincenzo
Published: March 2007

This paper explores issues concerning the empowerment of students of management. In so doing, analogies are drawn between empowerment in particular educational and managerial contexts. There is a focus on the relationship between the educational implications of empowering students and the post-educational experiences of interacting within, more often than not, hierarchical organizations. The author acknowledges the contradictions he feels exist and the disquiet these contradictions lead to in his purporting to practise student empowerment in what he personally experiences as a disempowering world. Consequently he employs the writing of a wide range of authors to deconstruct his own experiences as a lecturer in a school of management. Reference is made to personal experience, and underlying issues are explored through the thoughts of writers from the following traditions: neo-Lukacsian, determinist-Marxist, existential, radical and postmodern. The aim is not to provide prescriptive answers but to adopt a philosophical approach in the sense of philosophy as a `battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language' (Cooper, 1990: 21). The suggestion is that educationalists have too readily `talked into existence' the concept of empowerment without sufficient investigation into the nature of empowerment as an empirical reality.
The McUniversity: Organization, Management and Academic Subjectivity
Authors: Parker Martin , Jary David
Published: March 2007

This paper uses elements of Weberian and Foucauldian social theory to speculate on the consequences of recent higher education change in the UK. We argue that changes in the political, institutional and funding environment have produced forms of HE organization that increase the power of management and diminish the autonomy of professional academics. These new forms of organization, which are increasingly bureaucratic and utilize sophisticated systems of surveillance, will make academics increasingly instrumental in their attitudes and behaviour. We conclude that the rationalization of HE should be resisted, but that nostalgia for a previous order should not be part of that resistance. `Mass' higher education organizations are not simply good or bad, but their rationale and consequences need to be clearly thought through if their negative aspects are to be addressed.
Stories of Development and Exploitation: Militant Voices in an Enterprise Culture
Authors: Fournier Valerie
Published: March 2007

This article illustrates the disciplinary effects of the `new career' discourse by contrasting the voices of two groups of graduates starting their careers in a large service sector organization. One group bought into the dominant `careering' discourse of the organization and adopted the `authorized' subject position of the entrepreneur; the other group resisted this discourse by drawing on a more militant register. The article explores the disciplinary effects of career in terms of the constitution of subjectivity, and spatial ordering. It is argued that the `new career' discourse enrols graduates as subjects whose desires are intimately implicated with organizational excellence. However, the career discourse does not only constitute subject positions (such as the entrepreneur, or the militant other), it also performs some social ordering by mapping subjects onto a hierarchized space where entrepreneurs occupy a central position and the militant `others' are pushed to the margins. The final sections of the paper draw upon a Foucauldian analysis of power and resistance to suggest that militant voices serve to both reproduce and subvert the dominant enterprise culture they seek to oppose. The notion of consumption deployed in cultural studies is used to argue that, through their `tactics of consumption', `militant' graduates re-appropriate and rearticulate the position created for them in and by enterprise.
Totem and Metaphor: The Concept of Network as a Symbolical Operator
Authors: Wallemacq Anne
Published: March 2007

The word `network' is so fashionable that its use can some-times be seen as more incantative than descriptive. Instead of discussing the concept, we focus here on the word and the way it is used. Our hypothesis is that it can be seen as a kind of totem, in Levi-Strauss' sense, providing a `method of thinking'. To grasp its efficiency, we have to look at it as a part of a homological-rather than causal-way of thinking. Through analysis of the use of the word in two different contexts, we shall try to shed light on this `homological way of thinking', which proceeds via the whole, rather than via the part; by hand rather than by mind; by the concrete rather than by abstraction.
Managers as Androids: Reading Moral Agency in Philip Dick
Authors: Srinivas Nidhi
Published: March 2007

Philip Dick's science fiction (SF) offers a stimulating critique of modernity. One of his important themes was the gradual replacement of the empathy of humans with the cold logic of machines. Using Arendt (1964), Bauman (1991) and Tester (1997), I argue that managers are prone to moral indifference. This tendency was termed androidization by Dick, the transformation of human beings into machines. Through two novels and a film adaptation, I discuss how his characters combat this tendency, exercising moral agency. I point to the importance of identifying avenues for managers to resist their androidization.
The Dynamics of Public Opinion toward European Integration, 1973-93
Authors: ANDERSON CHRISTOPHER J. , KALTENTHALER KARL C.
Published: March 2007

What are the aggregate dynamics of public support for European integration in the 12 EU member states? And how can they be explained? Given that mass support for integration varies both across time and across countries, the article tests the proposition that both types of variation can be explained with the help of national economic conditions, timing of entry into the Union, and length of membership in it. Using aggregate Eurobarometer polls for the period between 1973 and 1993, we find that all three factors have significant impacts on support for a united Europe. However, the results also indicate that length of membership in the EU is somewhat more important than economic performance. The paper spells out some of the possible ramifications of these results.
AmÈdÈe or How to Get Rid of It: Social Representations from a Dialogical Perspective
Authors: Markov· Ivana
Published: March 2007

The theory of social representations and communication belongs to a broadly conceived family of approaches studying interdependencies between socially and individually shared knowledge, which are based on dialogical epistemology. This epistemology, in order to ask questions about stability in knowledge, presupposes its change. The theory of social representations as a theory of social knowledge is characterized by the following concerns. First, it conceives of the dynamics of thought, language and social practices as interdependent socio-cultural and individual phenomena which are co-constructed by means of tension and polarization of antinomies. The construction of knowledge can be represented as a dynamic semiotic triangle and the change of knowledge can be represented in terms of three-step processes. Second, the theory of social representations and communication is based on the set of interrelated and dialogically defined concepts generating hypotheses, for example themata, anchoring, objectification and communicative genres.
The Descendants of a Model: Comments on Jahoda (1995)
Authors: Berry John W.
Published: March 2007

All contemporary thought, and much empirical work, clearly has historical roots; the eco-cultural model is no exception. However, it is argued that a tree is more than its roots. A brief outline is presented of the current version of the model, along with a description of its links with contemporary ecological anthropology and ecological psychology. The contemporary history (from 1966 to the present) of the evolution and uses of the model is recounted in the domains of perceptual, cognitive, social, developmental, biological and acculturation phenomena. It is concluded that the present conceptual and empirical status of the model, while falling well short of being a general theory, or of being fully operationalized, is clearly more than being an assembly of earlier insights, or having only heuristic value; it is claimed to be a sensible general framework for cross-cultural psychology, one that can serve as the basis for prediction and for empirical research.
Many Deities, One God: Towards Convergence in Cultural and Crosscultural Psychology
Authors: Saraswathi T. S.
Published: March 2007

This paper deals with some of the theoretical and methodological concerns in cross-cultural/cultural psychology. These include the relevance of the search for psychological universals and related measurement problems, the use of a single nmodel of humanity as a template for norms and comparisons, and the observed contradictions between modal cultural characteristics and individual psychological expressions. The link between theory, research and application is another major concern, especially in the context of developing countries wherein resource constraints call for accountability in terms of social relevance and problem-solving orientation. Emphasis is also given to the possible contribution that indigenous psychologies can make by converging in the process of understanding how culture and individuals constitute each other in the course of development.
Developmental Discourse As an Author/Hero Relationship
Authors: Bandlamudi Lakshmi
Published: March 2007

Dialogism views the individual as emerging from, operating within, and transacting witha complex set of social relations in an ever-changing world. Mikhail Bakhtin, in his assessment of the Bildungsroman, provides general schematic frameworks for classifying various types of novelistic genres, and explains how some genres present a static image of the hero and the world around him, while others can account for the emergence of the hero in historical time. In this paper, some novelistic genres are applied to various theoretical models of human development, in order to identify the image of the developmental subject and his relationship to significant others. Bakhtin identifies the nature of spatio-temporal relations (chronotopic motifs) in various types of literary genres, and is persistent in pointing out the limitations of monologic discourses, as they are weak in temporal categories, and as such are incapable of accounting for the hero’s development. Chronotopic motifs are extended to theories of development for a critical examination of cultural and historical processes in our discourses on development. It is concluded that a dialogical approach can offer a novel perspective on how cultural spaces and historical times mediate developmental phenomena and the phenomenon about development.
The Network of Meanings Which Structures and Canalizes Interactions, Interpretations and Comments
Authors: Rossetti-Ferreira Maria Clotilde , Amorim Katia S. , da Silva Ana Paula Soares
Published: March 2007

In our comments on Pontecorvo and Fasulo’s (1999) paper we propose that contact with an object of investigation sets in motion a dynamic network of meanings which structures and canalizes a complex set or repertoire of possible interpretations available to the researcher/commentator. Some of those meanings might be collective, such as those produced over long historical or prospective time. Others derive from personal experiences and expectations obtained throughout life. The main influences come from the roles and counter-roles reciprocally attributed to and assumed by each person in a here-and-now situation. Thus, simultaneously similar and diverse scientific discourses are produced. A more detailed description of the production conditions of the verbal transcripts of the family’s meal, by allowing a finer analysis of the interplay of factors that together constrain and canalize the ‘discourse game’ under investigation, could help to improve the agreement between researcher and commentators.
Political Parties in State and Nation
Authors: Brown Robert D. , Bruce John M.
Published: March 2007

Research on party competition in the United States suffers because existing measures do not allow for an examination of national-level competition in the states. We view this as a significant oversight, and argue that party competition in the United States must be evaluated within a federal context. Toward that end, we develop measures of partisan electoral advantage and competition based on margin of victory in state and national offices for the legislature and executive. These measures allow us to examine, for the first time, patterns of competition for both state and national offices within and across the states. The patterns seen in the data are interesting and preliminary insights promising. We believe the measure developed here will permit a more expansive and theoretically interesting examination of party competition, and that these descriptive analyses point to a wide variety of interesting future pursuits.
Italian Communism in Crisis
Authors: Eubank William Lee , Gangopadahay Arun , Weinberg Leonard B.
Published: March 2007

Achille Occhetto's proposal to transform the Italian Communist Party (PCI) into a postcommunist leftist party provides an opportunity to test Hirschman's theory of organizational loyalty. Party members were given the choices of remaining loyal to a reconstituted party, voicing approval or disapproval over this proposal, or exiting the party. The hypotheses that exit and voice varied together and that a particular kind of loyalty inhibited exist were tested using data from two party congressi di sezioni. The results clearly show exit from the party by `hardline' communists and to a Refounded Communist Party (RC). Additional tests of the relationship between the PCI and RC, as well as Italian election data, corroborate these findings and Hirschman's model.
Party Factionalism and Cabinet Durability
Authors: Druckman James N.
Published: March 2007

Most studies of coalition behavior have treated political parties as unitary actors. Building on extant literature, this paper relaxes the unitary actor assumption in order to develop a theory about the impact of party factionalism on cabinet duration. Specifically, cabinets composed of factionalized parties are expected to exhibit less stability. Cross-national data corroborate the hypothesis, demonstrating the importance of intra-party characteristics in determining coalition behavior.
Parties, Puppets and Paradoxes
Authors: Power Timothy J.
Published: March 2007

Party system development in new democracies is impacted by various legacies of the previous authoritarian regime. This study employs survey research to test for the impact of the authoritarian experience on the orientation of Brazilian politicians toward party building. The manipulation of political parties by the Brazilian authoritarian regime of 1964-85 generated an antipathy towards disciplined parties on the part of civilian politicians who supported the military. This antipathy was strong in the first years of democracy but diminished over time, as the crisis of Brazil's New Republic heightened elite awareness of the necessity of effective parties. The findings generate hypotheses that can be tested in other post-authoritarian party systems.
`Red versus Expert'
Authors: Ishiyama John T.
Published: March 2007

This paper focuses on the political evolution and behavior of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) from 1991 to 1995. In particular, it addresses two questions. What has the KPRF done to adjust to new political circumstances? Was the `strategy' successful and did it explain KPRF electoral gains in the parliamentary elections of 1995? The paper concentrates on one aspect of this adjustment process - comparing the KPRF's candidate recruitment behavior for the State Duma elections of 1993 and 1995. However, rather than describe what the party has done in terms of candidate recruitment, I derive a set of theoretical expectations from both the general literature on party behavior in the West and in Eastern Europe, and analyze the candidate recruitment behavior of the KPRF as an empirical test of these expectations. Second, this paper assesses the extent to which the types of candidates the party recruited for the single-mandate districts in 1995 affected the probability of their winning election.
Testing Party Models in East-Central Europe
Authors: Szczerbiak Aleks
Published: March 2007

This article seeks to relate hypotheses about how party structure and organization will develop in postcommunist East-Central Europe to empirical research conducted at the local level in Poland. The parties' membership bases and degree of local implantation are examined, together with their local organizational infrastructure and the pattern of local-national relations, particularly in the case of local parliamentary candidate selection. The research confirms a pattern of weak grounding in civil society and dependence on the state for financial and material resources (with the partial exceptions of the two `successor' parties with their roots in the communist regime), together with centralized decision-making combined with sectoral local autonomy. Of the `new' parties, only Solidarity Electoral Action has been able to match the `successor' parties' dominance by utilizing the Solidarity trade union's local organizational network.
Evaluating a Community Crime Prevention Program
Authors: Farrington David P.
Published: March 2007

This paper recommends a method of evaluating a community crime prevention program called Communities that Care. The distinctive feature of this program is that it systematically assesses local risk factors for youth crime and implements tried and tested prevention strategies to tackle them. The evaluation design involves comparing experimental and control communities and taking measures of key outcome variables (crime, delinquency, substance abuse and adolescent problem behaviour) before and after the intervention package. The design is justified by reference to internal validity, methods of statistical analysis are discussed, and previous community crime prevention programs in the UK are reviewed.
Semen as Gift, Semen as Goods: Reproductive Workers and the Market in Altruism
Authors: Tober Diane M.
Published: March 2007

This article examines how perceptions of what semen is thought to contain affect its value as a marketable product. I explore how donor altruism, intelligence and ethnicity traits thought to be transmitted in sperm are perceived and transacted among representatives of the sperm banking industry, as well as among women who purchase semen for insemination and show how the linkages between the reproductive industry and the sex industry further heighten the commodity-quality of semen donation. I argue that the emphasis placed on altruism, is an attempt to redefine the commodity quality of semen as gift, in order to imbue it with higher emotional and moral value.
The Immigrating Body and the Body Politic: The ‘Yemenite Children Affair’ and Body Commodification in Israel
Authors: Weiss Meira
Published: March 2007

After its establishment in 1948 many Jews emmigrated to Israel from Arab countries, Yemen included. In 1995, a governmental committee was established to investigate the alleged disappearance of about 1000 Yemenite children from hospitals within transit camps where the new immigrants were kept in the 1950s. Interviews with Yemenites present how the bodies of new immigrants were medicalized and commodified in the transit camps during the mass-immigration period of the 1950s, and how people have come to resist it. I conclude with the role of the Israeli medical profession and biomedical technologies in promoting national goals and as mediators of collective, group and individual identities.
Bodies and Border Practices: The Search for American MIAs in Vietnam
Authors: HAWLEY THOMAS M.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the United States' search for the remains of its servicemen missing in action (MIA) from the Vietnam War. I argue that the fragmentary and imprecise nature of the MIA body metonymically indicates the fluid borders of the American body politic. The complexity of the MIA body means that it must be reconstituted, achieved in this context through a massive effort at remains identification. This process not only reinscribes the borders of the MIA body but also fill the gaps in the borders of the body politic by ensuring that none of `us' are left `over there.' Fortifying the borders in turn serves to rejuvenate American domestic and international sovereignty eroded by the Vietnam War. So reinforced, the American body politic can begin to move beyond the ambiguities occasioned by the war and its aftermath. The essay concludes with a critique of this typically Hobbesian understanding and suggests that we remain skeptical of the notion of an unambiguously rejuvenated body politic.
Anchoring the (Postmodern) Self? Body Modification, Fashion and Identity
Authors: SWEETMAN PAUL
Published: March 2007

Recent years have seen a considerable resurgence in the popularity of tattooing and piercing, a development that some have dismissed as a fashionable trend. Others have argued that the relative permanence of such forms of body modification militates against their full absorption into the fashion system. Drawing on interviews with a variety of body modifiers, the article examines this debate, and notes that certain tattooees and piercees appear, in some respects, to regard their tattoos and piercings as decorative accessories. At the same time, however, such corporeal artifacts are approached and experienced as distinct from other, more free-floating products in the `supermarket of style'. Whether or not their meaning is fixed in these terms, tattoos and piercings are employed by some as a form of anti-fashion and as a way of fixing or anchoring the reflexively constructed self. In this sense they share both affinities and differences with other forms of contemporary body project.
Joking with Disability: What's the Difference between the Comic and the Tragic in Disability Discourses?
Authors: STRONACH IAN , ALLAN JULIE
Published: March 2007

This article discusses the discourses of disability through a parallel `disabling' of its own text. It draws on literary as well as sociological sources in order to interrogate the nature and relations of the `tragic', the `heroic' and the `comic'. The authors offer the conclusion that the comic is never quite absent from the discourse of tragedy (after Kundera), and turn that insight back on their own text, in an attempt to refuse the solemnities and closures of their own narrative.
Children and Domestic Violence: A Review
Authors: Black Dora , Newman Martin
Published: March 2007

The authors review the literature on the effects on children of witnessing and being caught up in violence between their parents, including treatment and prevention aspects.
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy: A Narrative Approach to Explanation
Authors: Loader Peter , Kelly Ciaran
Published: March 2007

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) is generally categorized as an unusual variant of child abuse, and one where the mother is the usual perpetrator. Explanations of this extraordinary condition focus on characteristic features of the mother and the family. This article attempts to complement these findings with a narrative approach, viewing MSBP as the outcome of a particular human story. A detailed case history is presented and linked to clinical and research findings in an attempt to track the evolution of the behaviour we categorize as MSBP. This view suggests that MSBP is best seen as a process, and one in which the key relationship is between the mother and the child's doctor. Such a view has important implications for the detection and management of this increasingly recognized problem.
The Therapeutic Alliance in Child Inpatient Treatment: Development and Initial Validation of a Family Engagement Questionnaire
Authors: Kroll Leo , Green Jonathan
Published: March 2007

This article presents the development and initial validation of an instrument to measure therapeutic engagement in the context of child and adolescent inpatient treatment - the Family Engagement Questionnaire. Despite considerable adult literature on therapeutic alliance and patient engagement, there has been relatively little work done in this area in child and adolescent psychiatry. The general literature on therapeutic alliance is reviewed and the clinical and scientific issues particular to this work in child psychiatry are highlighted, including the need to measure both parent and child engagement with the ward team. The successful development of a clinician questionnaire rating is described along with initial validity studies. The measure we describe is practicable and has the potential to be used both clinically and in further studies of therapeutic alliance within the inpatient context.
'I'm Not a Doctor'
Authors: Yardley Lucy , Beech Sandra
Published: March 2007

This article deconstructs accounts of coping with dizziness and causes of dizziness, using content analysis of interviews with 37 sufferers. Interviewees claimed that they were determined to cope, but were unable to master their illness. They reported attempting to conceal their problem and cope independently, but also admitted to relying on help from others. Most interviewees denied having any idea of what might cause dizziness, but nevertheless suggested several causes. These partly contradictory discourses arise in a context where people with chronic illness must simultaneously demonstrate that they are physically ill but socially responsible. Hence they are prompted to adopt the sanctioned role of a passive patient, rather than engaging actively in the interpretation and management of their symptoms.
A Small Company of Actors
Authors: Boast Robin
Published: March 2007

The concept of style has been central to material culture studies for the past 50 years. During this time, the main problem of style has been one of defi nition. Whether cultural evolutionist, processualist or constructivist, the problem of 'what is style' has remained problematic. This paper attempts to go beyond the quest for a definition of style to question the foundations of the categorization of the world into style and utility, and, through the work of others, challenge the dualist doctrine that constitutes our view of the material world and our relation to it.
Monumental Colonialism
Authors: Russell Lynette , McNiven Ian J.
Published: March 2007

Colonizers often subjugate the colonized Other as an inferior form of humanity. In the Euro-Australian settler-colonial context such ethnocentric views legitimated the acquisition of indigenous lands. An important element of this process of dispossession was the appropriation of indigenous heritage and the (re)presentation of indigenous archaeological sites as dimensions of European prehistory. In America and Africa last century, interpretations of indigenous sites frequently invoked the prior occupation of an advanced race who had close affinity with the European colonizers. Nineteenth- century representations of stone circles in Australia reveal similar attempts to dissociate Aboriginal people from their past. The stone circles near Mt Elephant in Victoria provide an extreme example of this process wherein a fallacious depiction of indigenous sites as European megalithic structures ensured Aboriginal dispossession and subsequent European (re)possession. The Mt Elephant representations subsequently gave rise to hyper-diffusion ist claims early this century that Aboriginal stone circles reflected cultural influences from Egypt. Within the Australian context the processes of dispossession and (re)possession were part of a more encompassing paradigm which held Aborigines to be the living Stone Age ancestors of modern Europeans.
Diagnosis in Autism
Authors: Howlin Patricia , Moore Anna
Published: March 2007

The results of a survey of almost I300 parent members of autistic societies in the UK are described. The ages of their children ranged from 2 to 49 years. The survey focused on parents' views of the diagnostic process and data were collected on the age at which diagnosis was made, the time taken to obtain a diagnosis and the professionals involved. Differences in geographical area were also assessed. Overall, the results indicate that children are now being diagnosed earlier than in previous decades, but the average age of diagnosis is still around 6 years. There are also wide regional variations in diagnosis. The survey indicates that many parents continue to experience lengthy and often frustrating delays before they finally receive a diagnosis. Moreover, even when this process is completed, the amount of practical help subsequently provided is generally very limited. Factors related to parental satisfaction with the diagnostic process are discussed in detail.
Fragile X Syndrome, Autism and Autistic Features
Authors: Turk Jeremy , Graham Philip
Published: March 2007

The relationship between fragile X syndrome and autism is reviewed. Results from a semi-structured questionnaire survey of development and behaviour in boys with fragile X syndrome, Down's syndrome and learning disability of unknown aetiology are presented. A behavioural profile characteristic of many boys with fragile X syndrome was identified which distinguished them from both other groups. Fragile X boys did not show more autism than boys with idiopathic learning disability but they did have a common autistic-like profile of communicatory and stereotypic disturbances, most notably delayed echolalia, repetitive speech and hand flapping. Boys with idiopathic learning disability showed difficulties more in areas of social functioning. Boys with Down's syndrome were characterized by fewer difficulties in social functioning and ritualistic/stereotypic tendencies but this might have been explained by subject ascertainment bias. Behavioural items distinguishing boys with fragile X significantly from both other groups retained their significance even when individuals with autism were excluded from statistical analysis. The findings provide further support for the notion of a behavioural phenotype in boys with fragile X syndrome.
Invasion of the `Body Snatchers':
Authors: KEARON TONY , LEACH REBECCA
Published: March 2007

The victim of crime has become the focus of increasing concern in recent years, particularly in the context of the impact crime has on its victims. This article takes a novel approach within this debate contending that the conceptualization of victimization remains underdeveloped with respect to the experience of crime for victims. In particular, this article explores elements of threat to or loss of property and physical safety that impinge on personal and communal well-being. Further, we draw together perspectives on `well-being' that focus on the boundaries of body, home and personal space as key constituents of a sense of both identity and safety. We argue for a richer conceptualization of victimization developing existing approaches with discussions of fear, embodiment and personal/spatial `privacy'.
The Viewer Society
Authors: MATHIESEN THOMAS
Published: March 2007

The article takes its point of departure in one limited and consciously selected aspect of Michel Foucault's use of Jeremy Bentham's concept of `Panopticon': in his book Discipline and Punish, the aspect of surveillance, and the emphasis on a fundamental change and break which presumably occurred in the 1800s from social and theatrical arrangements, where the many saw the few, to modern surveillance activities where the few see the many. It is maintained that Foucault contributes in an important way to our understanding of and sensitivity regarding modern surveillance systems and practices, which are expanding at an accelerating rate, but that he overlooks an opposite process of great significance which has occurred simultaneously and at an equally accelerated rate: the mass media, and especially television, which today bring the many — literally hundreds of millions of people at the same time — with great force to see and admire the few. In contrast to Foucault's panoptical process, the latter process is referred to as synoptical. Together, the processes situate us in a viewer society in a two-way and double sense. This article explores the developmental parallels and relationships between Panopticon and Synopticon, as well as their reciprocal functions. It is maintained that the control and discipline of the `soul', that is, the creation of human beings who control themselves through self-control and who thus fit neatly into a so-called democratic capitalist society, is a task which is actually fulfilled by modern Synopticon, whereas Foucault saw it as a function of Panopticon.
Out/Performing Our Selves: Sex, Gender and Cartesian Dualism
Authors: Wilton Tamsin
Published: March 2007

Elements of feminist and queer theories and of phenomenology are used to engage with Cartesian dualism, in order to clarify the political implications of medicalized male-to-female (MTF) discourses. Particular attention is paid to descriptions of MTF as being in the `wrong' body. The author argues that this idea depends on a `shallow' model of corporeality, and suggests that a chronotopic model, by which the body is conceptualized as a process existing in both time and space, is more useful in counter-hegemonic theory.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Theorizing Femme Narrative
Authors: Hemmings Clare
Published: March 2007

This article addresses the issue of femme subjectivity in relation to a range of theoretical and cultural texts. It considers the lasting legacy of Havelock Ellis's construction of the feminine invert, particularly in terms of the importance of the gendered gaze in producing sexual location. The article traces dominant and resistant femme narrative, and asks how we might begin to think through femme subjectivity and identity differently. It is argued that, unlike the contemporary butch, the femme cannot be positioned as the lesbian flâneur. Instead, possibilities are suggested that might be opened up by considering the femme as `passante', particularly insofar as she eludes her biographer's gaze.
The Khmer ‘Weak Heart’ Syndrome: Fear of Death from Palpitations
Authors: Hinton Devon , Hinton Susan , Um Khin , Chea Audria , Sak Sophia
Published: March 2007

According to the Khmer conception, a person suffering ‘weak heart’ ( khsaoy beh daung) has episodes of palpitations on slight provocation (e.g. triggered by orthostasis, anger, a noise, worry, an odor or exercise) and runs the risk of dying of heart arrest during these periods of palpitations; too, the sufferer typically has other symptoms attributed to the purported cardiac dysfunction: fatigue, shortness of breath, and orthostatic dizziness. Many Khmer refugees suffer this cultural syndrome, an anxious–dysphoria ontology, most probably of French colonial provenance. The syndrome demonstrates considerable overlap with those Western illness categories that feature panic attacks, in particular post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and panic disorder. In a psychiatric clinic survey, 60 percent (60/100) of those assessed believed themselves to currently suffer ‘weak heart’; 90 percent (54/60) of those considering themselves to suffer from ‘weak heart’ thought that palpitations (e.g., those resulting from a loud noise or orthostasis) might result in death. The article illustrates the profoundly culturally constructed nature of ‘cardiac sensations,’ located in a specific historical trajectory and episteme; too, the article suggests that trauma may result more in panic disorder than ‘PTSD’ when autonomic arousal symptoms (in the present case, palpitations) are considered potentially life-threatening.
The Glossary of 'Culture-Bound Syndromes' in DSM-IV: A Critique
Authors: Hughes Charles C.
Published: March 2007

This paper presents an appraisal and critique of the attempt to include the culture-bound syndromes (CBS) in DSM-IV. DSM-IV's assumptions about the ontologic status of the CBSs are unacceptably fuzzy. The claim that the CBSs are'unique' or'specific to given a culture' is frivolous and should be relegated to an account of the developmental history of the concept of the CBS rather than included in the armamentarium of the diagnostician. Once cultural considerations are accepted as part of all diagnostic categories, it will no longer be necessary to group specific culturally determined behavior patterns into the disjunctive category'CBSs'. The CBSs are important not as a museum of exotic, static, bounded entities, but as illustrations of a generic way of thinking about relationships between psychopathology and cultural context.
Depressive Symptoms in Koreans, Korean-Chinese and Chinese: A Transcultural Study
Authors: Kim Kwang-Iel , Li Dongen , Kim Dae-Ho
Published: March 2007

We compared symptoms among three groups of depressed patients: 60 Koreans residing in Seoul, Korea; 42 Korean-Chinese in Yanbien, China; and 31 Chinese in Yanbien, China, using Hamilton’s Rating Scale for Depression and Beck’s Depression Inventory. Korean depressives manifested the highest scores in depressive mood, dissatisfaction, feelings of guilt, and loss of work and interest, whereas the Chinese scored highest in loss of work and interest, loss of libido, insomnia, delayed insomnia and agitation. The Korean-Chinese had prominent symptoms of agitation, retardation and hypochondriasis. The findings suggest that Korean depressives are characterized by psychological symptoms, Chinese depressives are characterized by somatic symptoms and Korean-Chinese depressives lie between the other two groups on a somatic–psychological continuum. The results are discussed in the context of cultural differences between Korea and China and the cultural pluralism of the Korean-Chinese.
Clinical assessment of student nurses
Authors: Whiting Lisa
Published: March 2007

■ The value of the clinical assessment of student nurses is recognised by practitioners

■ The role of clinical assessor needs total commitment

■ The rigour of the clinical assessment of student nurses is critical to the future of children's nursing

■ Appropriate preparation for the role of clinical assessor is an essential pre-requisite to effective assessment in practice

■ The responsibilities of the clinical assessor may impinge upon the care of the child and family
Right before Our Eyes: The Failure to Recognize Non-Prototypical Forms of Prejudice
Authors: Marti Mollie W. , Bobier Deborah M. , Baron Robert S.
Published: March 2007

Two studies examined accessibility as the key construct in explaining people’s tendency to recognize prototypical forms of prejudice more than non-prototypical forms. Pilot studies suggested that for the present population, race and sex were highly accessible and age and weight were less accessible forms of prejudice. Both studies established that for the more accessible forms of prejudice, participants were more likely to label discriminatory actions as prejudice and were more likely to rate such prejudice as more severe than in cases of less accessible forms of prejudice. Study 1 indicated that explicitly priming participants to look for prejudice increased detection for less accessible forms of prejudice only. Increasing cognitive processing requirements in Study 2 significantly decreased participants’ ability to detect prejudice and this was most noticeable in cases of non-prototypical discrimination. The data support the notions that prototypical prejudice is more likely to be detected than non-prototypical prejudice and that accessibility is an important mediator of prejudice perception. The data are more equivocal regarding whether the perception of prototypical prejudice is an automatic process.
In-Group Favoritism and Self-Esteem: The Role of Identity Level and Trait Valence
Authors: Verkuyten Maykel , Hagendoorn Louk
Published: March 2007

The self-esteem hypothesis in intergroup relations is a continuing source of controversy. The present study aims to clarify some of the divergence in findings by means of self-categorization theory and by looking at the positive-negative asymmetry in social discrimination. The focus is on the level of identity (personal as well as national) and in-group favoritism in the positive and negative domain. In an experimental questionnaire study among Dutch participants, personal self-esteem was found to predict in-group favoritism when personal identity was salient, whereas national self-esteem was found to be a predictor when national identity was salient. These effects were found for the negative trait dimension, but not for the positive one. In addition, in-group favoritism on positive traits was seen to lead to a momentary increase of self-esteem, whereas in-group favoritism on negative traits led to decreased momentary self-esteem. These outcomes for self-esteem were found under the condition of national identity salience.
WTO and the Textile and Garment Sector: Implications for Sri Lanka
Authors: Weerakoon Dushni , Wijayasiri Janaka
Published: March 2007

The garment industry in Sri Lanka remains the largest gross export earner, accounting for a significant share of total manufacturing employment in the country. With the expected phase out of quotas under the Multi Fibre Agreement in 2005, the industry will face significant challenges from an increasingly competitive international market. The paper evaluates the performance of the Sri Lankan garment industry to identify the threats and opportunities that lie ahead as the MFA is progressively phased out over the coming years.
The Old and the New
Authors: RANTANEN TERHI
Published: March 2007

In post-Communist Russia, when talking about new communications technology, one has to ask what is `new' and what is `old'. Already in the Communist era increasing availability of new communications technology (for example fax machines and email) amplified cheap `small' technology as an alternative to `big' and expensive technology controlled by the state. New communications technology, at the crossroads of mass and interpersonal communication, was harder for authorities to control and intensified the process whereby communication has escaped from political control. The introduction of new communications technology has been slow in post-Communist Russia in comparison to western countries because it is constrained by established state structures. The article concludes that although new communications technology provides new opportunities for individuals, old technology and structures set boundaries to the growth of the new.