bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Self‐Monitoring at Work: A Motive‐Based Perspective
Authors: Day David V. , Schleicher Deidra J.
Published: March 2006

ABSTRACT
It is argued that the recent study of personality in industrial and organizational (I‐O) psychology is characterized by two limitations: (a) almost complete reliance on the Big Five to the exclusion of other personality variables (most notably, self‐monitoring) and (b) insufficient theoretical attention paid to the criteria in work‐related personality research. In an attempt to overcome both of these limitations, we review theoretical and empirical evidence for the relevance of self‐monitoring in organizational life, with particular attention paid to the criteria grounded in socioanalytic theory of getting along, getting ahead, and making sense. Extant research indicates that high self‐monitors are particularly good at getting along (e.g., meeting others' social expectations) and getting ahead (e.g., job performance and leadership emergence), but the evidence is more mixed with regard to making sense. We conclude with a discussion of practical concerns in considering the use of self‐monitoring for managerial selection and a research agenda for the future to further elaborate a theory of self‐monitoring at work.
Self‐Monitoring and Consumer Psychology
Authors: DeBono Kenneth G.
Published: March 2006

ABSTRACT
Research on the relations between self‐monitoring differences and two important areas of consumer behavior, reactions to specific advertising approaches and product evaluation strategies, is reviewed and evaluated. First, research on the responsiveness of high and low self‐monitors to image‐oriented and product‐quality‐based advertising attempts is addressed. Although findings generally indicate that high self‐monitors are more responsive to image‐oriented ads and that low self‐monitors are more responsive to quality‐based appeals, these results have not been robust. Possible reasons for this inconsistency are explored. Second, research on the means by which high and low self‐monitors evaluate consumer products is examined. Findings suggest that when judging product quality, low self‐monitors tend to rely on product performance and high self‐monitors more likely use the product's image‐enhancing capabilities. Additionally, research indicates that self‐image/product‐image congruency is generally a more important concern for low self‐monitors, but high and low self‐monitors' differential reliance on this congruency might be moderated by the situations in which the product is typically used. Additional possible delimiting conditions of these general findings are discussed.
Virtual Reality Course—A Natural Enrichment of Computer Graphics Classes
Authors: Zara J.
Published: March 2006

This paper shows how the Virtual Reality (VR) course can naturally extend and practice a wide range of Computer Graphics (CG) principles and programming techniques. Thanks to real‐time processing requirements, attention is paid to efficient modeling conventions, time‐saving rendering approaches, and user interfaces allowing a smooth navigation in a virtual environment. All these issues play an important role especially when designing virtual worlds targeted to the web, i.e. utilizing VRML/X3D standards. The paper presents a structure and related information of the VR course that has been taught at various universities during the last 6 years. Our experience clearly demonstrates that students appreciate its contents even if they already completed courses on 3D graphics.
“What did I change and why did I do it?” Young writers' revision practices
Authors: Dix Stephanie
Published: March 2006

The article presents findings from a research project that investigated young, fluent writers' revision practices. The project adopted a qualitative approach, using semi‐structured interviews based on the students' written scripts. This article focuses on a small sample of children and profiles the extent of their ability to reflect on their written text and revise or ‘mess’ with their work purposefully.
Damaging confusions in England's KS2 reading tests: a response to Anne Kispal
Authors: Hilton Mary
Published: March 2006

This article is written in response to the article published in issue 39.3 of this journal, in November 2005, on the nature of the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum reading tests: ‘Examining England's National Curriculum assessments: an analysis of the KS2 reading test questions’ by Anne Kispal of the National Foundation for Educational Research. It argues that, far from providing a valid and rewarding assessment experience for pupils as Kispal suggests, the primary English tests at the end of KS2 are invalid as a measuring instrument and are having a damaging effect on pedagogy. The tests and the information on them provided by the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency are based on a misleading unidimensional conception of reading literacy attainment. Because the test assessment simply adds together marks achieved for very different cognitive skills, it propagates a dysfunctional model of literacy pedagogy that conflates and confuses two separate developmental trajectories – word reading and text comprehension. The article goes on to argue that the unidimensionality of the national tests and their pedagogic apparatus has constricted the primary English curriculum in ways that are damaging for young pupils and for the national need for creativity and enterprise.
“Nice things get said”: corpus evidence and the National Literacy Strategy
Authors: Sealey Alison , Thompson Paul
Published: March 2006

The article compares evidence from an electronic corpus of texts written for a child audience with specifications in the National Literacy Strategy. The concepts and terminology associated with corpus linguistics are introduced and explained, and the research study from which the findings derive is summarised. Results of the analysis are presented in sections on word frequencies, contractions, word forms and synonyms. The article concludes with an indication of the implications of the findings for education policy and classroom practice.
Poverty and Hardship among the Aged in Urban China
Authors: Saunders Peter , Lujun Sun
Published: March 2006

China's record in reducing poverty over the last three decades has been impressive, yet few studies have examined the incidence of poverty among older people despite the rapid ageing of the population. This article uses a unique national data set to examine patterns of poverty, deprivation and exclusion among the urban aged population (60 years and over) in 2000. The results point to the importance of poverty as an issue for older people, particularly for women and those who live alone. A number of indicators of hardship are developed in four areas – economic insecurity, housing, health, and social isolation – and the incidence of these is examined, separately and in combination, by living arrangement and gender. Women are shown to experience greater levels of hardship and isolation than men, and to be more likely to experience multiple deprivation across two or more areas. Finally, the overlap between poverty and hardship is examined as a way of validating the poverty estimates and giving them greater credibility. The results indicate that there are strong overlaps, although these differ across the different dimensions of hardship. Access to pension income and concern over the cost of necessary visits to see a doctor emerge as strong predictors of poverty and point to areas where policy change is needed.
Floating Population or Urban Citizens? Status, Social Provision and Circumstances of Rural–Urban Migrants in China
Authors: Li Bingqin
Published: March 2006

This article uses semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with rural–urban migrants in Tianjin to look at the personal circumstances of such migrants in China. The interviews suggest that, unlike their predecessors in previous years, many rural–urban migrants now come with the intention of settling down. While there have been major policy changes in the last five years, these migrants are still, in many respects, not integrated into urban society. Meeting these challenges would require further changes in urban policies and urban society, taking account of the needs and interests of rural–urban migrants.
What Determines the Extent to which Employers will Comply with their Social Security Obligations? Evidence from Chinese Firm‐level Data
Authors: Nyland Chris , Smyth Russell , Zhu Cherrie Jiuhua
Published: March 2006

This article aims to extend understanding of employer responses to social protection regulations enacted by government to ensure the well‐being and security of employees. By utilizing firm‐specific data collected from Shanghai we explore the relationship between firm characteristics, employer behaviour, and the effectiveness of compliance mechanisms that have been adopted to contain contribution evasion by employers. We offer empirical evidence about the impact of the size of the firm, ownership structure, and incidence of risk on employer evasion behaviour in social protection payments. These results should enable enforcement agencies to improve compliance levels and also contribute to building theory as regards the significance of social policies to employers and the impact of social protection on human resource policy.
Risk and its Management in Post‐Financial Crisis Hong Kong
Authors: Chan Raymond K. H.
Published: March 2006

In the 1970s and up until the financial crisis occurred in the late 1990s, Hong Kong prospered in a relatively stable social, economic and political context. Since the financial crisis, however, its population has been increasingly exposed to risk: there has been job uncertainty and decreasing capacity for self‐reliance, leading to a growing reliance on public welfare and on families at a time when both are under pressure. The old welfare policies, unable to cope with the new risks, have been replaced by neo‐liberal reforms, redistributing the roles and responsibilities of the individual and the state, with a greater burden falling on the former. Individuals are required to be prudent to manage risk. While these reforms have relieved some of the burden on the state, both new social risk groups and ‘net taxpayers’ considered themselves to have borne disproportional costs. Society is facing serious problems resulting from ineffective old welfare policies, new social risks due to new policies, and the political upheavals arising from increased social conflicts and weakened social cohesion and solidarity. A further complication is that there is no acceptable platform or agent to negotiate a compromise between the polarized groups. This article argues that reliance on publicly funded risk coping strategies or on neo‐liberal risk prevention and mitigation strategies is not a desirable and sustainable policy. A commonly accepted political platform is required to negotiate a compromise which emphasizes shared and balanced roles and responsibilities, and a well‐conceived combination of risk prevention, mitigation and coping strategies.
The Effects of Co-Operating or Conflicting over Work Restructuring: Evidence from Employees
Authors: Bacon Nicolas , Blyton Paul
Published: March 2006

This paper examines patterns of worker response to the introduction of teamworking at two similar large work sites. We consider whether the patterns of response are significantly different where change has been introduced through a more cooperative or a more conflictual bargaining process. In the cooperative negotiations that more typified one site, trade unions made concessions, generating both dissatisfaction with the terms under which teams were introduced and a decline in job satisfaction. At the site more characterised by conflictual negotiations, employees were more satisfied with teamworking after unions protected manning in teams, negotiated a pay increase for more workers and the side payment of a desired 12-hours shift pattern. The findings indicate how response to workplace change depended upon the terms under which teams were introduced, in turn shaped in important part by the process of negotiating change.
The Glass Ceiling – Where is it? Women's and Men's Career Prospects in the Private vs. the Public Sector in Sweden 1979–2000
Authors: Bihagen Erik , Ohls Marita
Published: March 2006

Previous research suggests that women have more limited career opportunities than men. Using Swedish longitudinal data, covering the period between 1979 and 2000, more light is shed on the association between hierarchical levels and differences between men's and women's career opportunities in terms of occupational transitions. The analyses indicate that women face the greatest hinderance to advancement at lower hierarchical levels and that these disadvantages attenuate with higher hierarchical levels. These results contradict the common idea of a glass ceiling, ie that problems for women accrue with increasing hierarchical levels. The findings point to the need for focusing more on gender inequalities at low hierarchical positions although the glass ceiling hypothesis cannot be dismissed altogether. Moreover, the results do not support the view that the gender penalty in careers is larger in the private sector as compared to the public sector.
On the Materiality of Service Work
Authors: Pettinger Lynne
Published: March 2006

This article argues that retail service work is characterised by engagement with material products. Retail sales assistants work to create the shop as a site of consumption, and to create the products for sale as desirable objects for consumption. This is more important than the customer service interactions that are often seen as characterising service work. In making the argument for the centrality of the material in retail work, the article takes issue with conceptions of the service sector that emphasise its difference from other economic sectors, and with research into service work that focuses on interaction to the exclusion of other elements of the labour process. It calls for a more nuanced, contextualised understanding of the service sector that acknowledges the difference between sub-sectors.
Part-Time Occupational Mobility in the Service Industries: Regulation, Work Commitment and Occupational Closure
Authors: Tomlinson Jennifer
Published: March 2006

Whether stereotypical perceptions of part-time workers' commitment to work are accurate is a matter of contention. Commentators such as Hakim (1996) suggest that full- and part-time workers have qualitatively different orientations to work, while others (Fagan 2001) argue that, as most women work full- and part-time over the life course, such a view is overly static. This paper investigates firms' structuring of part-time work, focusing specifically upon the processes through which part-time work becomes marginalized. It is argued here that the organisational context and use of part-time work mediate managers' and full-time workers' perceptions of part-time workers' commitment to work and together, these factors structure part-time workers' selection for career development. The paper argues for making conceptual distinctions between legislation, organisational policies and workplace practices in understanding patterns of change and, more importantly, continuity in the use and structuring of part-time work. Furthermore it is argued that the stratification of part-time work can be explained through processes of informal occupational closure.
The Sociological Construction of Gender and Sexuality
Authors: Brickell Chris
Published: March 2006

This essay considers how we might come to understand social constructionism sociologically. It examines a number of related approaches to gender and sexuality that speak to sociological concerns and might be termed social constructionist: historicism, symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology and materialist feminism. By recognising that social constructionism is multifarious rather than unified, we find that each social constructionist approach offers particular strengths for analysing the complexities of gender and sexuality. Through closely analysing these approaches and some of the criticisms of them we can reassert sociology's specific contribution, and embrace social constructionist analyses which address the multilayered characteristics of the social in general and gender and sexuality in particular.
'Absent Fathers' or ‘Reorganized Families’? Variations in Father-Child Contact after Parental Break-Up in Norway
Authors: Skevik Anne
Published: March 2006

Two trends affect modern fatherhood simultaneously: on the one hand, there is an increased emphasis on paternal involvement in the lives of young children. On the other hand, rates of parental break-up have increased, and fathers often live apart from their children. Norway is a country in which both trends are very strong. This article looks at the patterns of contact between non-resident fathers in Norway and their children, focusing on the extreme ends of the distribution: fathers with weekly contact, and fathers who have not seen their children in three months or more. After a brief overview of recent developments in Norwegian family policies, some key dilemmas and tensions in modern family life are identified. One relate to commitment in cohabiting relationships, another to the tension between commitment to children from previous relationships and new partners. A third factor that is taken into consideration, is poverty. In the empirical analysis, we find no difference in the odds for having frequent/ very infrequent contact between formerly married and formerly cohabiting fathers, nor between fathers who live alone and fathers who have repartnered. Poverty is however a strong indicator of loss of contact.
Cultures of Intergenerational Transmission in Four-Generation Families
Authors: Brannen Julia
Published: March 2006

Intergenerational transfers in families are increasingly a topic of interest in the context of reductions in the welfare state and increased longevity. This paper draws upon data from a study of four-generation families which afforded an opportunity to examine the transfer of material and care resources across family generations. It explores ways in which family members from different generations talked about family obligations and the relevance of the concept ‘cultures of transmission’ in classifying these discourses. It addresses the questions: How far are cultures of transmission familial in the sense of typifying particular families? And how far are they shaped by life course phase and by historical context?
Children's Narratives of Post-Divorce Family Life: From Individual Experience to an Ethical Disposition
Authors: Smart Carol
Published: March 2006

This article draws on interviews with 60 children and young people to explore how they construct narrative accounts of post-divorce family life. Rather than seeking to describe children's experiences as if their accounts are simple factual recollections, the focus of the article is on how young people position themselves in their narratives and the ways in which they construct their past experiences. It is argued that these narratives are multi-layered, often revealing ambivalence and contradictions. The conclusion turns to the question of whether these individual accounts can give rise to what might be referred to as an ethical disposition in which children's experiences can inform a broader social ethos on how to divorce ‘in the proper manner'.
Material Culture and Embodied Action: Sociological Notes on the Examination of Musical Instruments in Jazz Improvisation
Authors: Gibson Will
Published: March 2006

This paper argues that the examination of technologies and their social contexts, which form the basis of the material culture perspective, can be strengthened through an increased awareness of the intersubjective and embodied features of social action. With reference to the ways in which jazz musicians improvise with instruments through embodied praxological skills ( Sudnow, 1978 ) and intersubjective art world knowledge ( Becker, 1982 ), the paper demonstrates the empirical value of these basic sociological concepts. It shows that the ‘affordances’ of usage ( Gibson, 1979 ) that result from social actors' application of objects through orientation to normative procedure become visible through an understanding of embodied habituated social practice, and it is exactly such affordances that constitute the contextual relevance of materiality for social action.
Public Export Credit Guarantees and Foreign Trade Structure: Evidence from Austria
Authors: Egger Peter , Url Thomas
Published: March 2006

Foreign trade is usually not based on cash transactions, but rather sales on credit are the rule. The resulting monitoring costs for lenders and the risk of default on accounts receivable are part of the costs associated with cross‐border goods transactions. Relative to domestic trade credit, cross‐border credit creates trade barriers due to differences in language, business practice, jurisdiction and payment enforceability between trading partners. Export credit insurance has long been a domain of public export credit agencies. Only since the early 1980s private insurance is gaining ground. Using disaggregated panel data for goods exports from Austria over the period 1996 to 2002, we show that public export credit guarantees have a less than proportional positive effect on international trade volume. They predominantly affect the country structure of foreign trade but leave the industry specialisation almost unchanged.
Trade Barriers as Bargaining Outcomes
Authors: Gawande Kishore , Li Hui
Published: March 2006

Whether bilateral trade barrier data conform with the Grossman‐Helpman (1995) model's predictions about ‘trade talks’ is examined in this article. A simple form of the prediction from the model is tested. Bilateral US‐Japan and US‐EU data from the 1990s are employed. The results are the first in the literature.
Anti‐dumping's Happy Birthday?
Authors: Drope Jeffrey M. , Hansen Wendy L.
Published: March 2006

The purpose of this paper is to highlight and discuss recent developments in the worldwide use of anti‐dumping (AD) policy as a possible strategic counterpoint to trade liberalisation. First, we review briefly the original intended purpose of AD policy, and reflect on its secondary position on the agenda of current international trade negotiations. Second, we discuss the escalating – and perhaps strategic – use of AD policy, particularly in the developing world, and highlight the roles of both interest groups and the state in determining policy outcomes. Next, we review the state of affairs of AD policy with the world's most active user, the US. In particular, we introduce and discuss the latest important development, the implementation of the ‘Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000’, which incorporates monetary compensation for petitioners, potentially offering more opportunities for strategic policy behaviour by firms, industries and the state. We conclude the article with a short discussion of directions for future research and some general concerns about the use of AD policy.
Trade Disputes and Non‐state Actors: New Institutional Arrangements and the Privatisation of Commercial Diplomacy
Authors: Sherman Richard , Eliasson Johan
Published: March 2006

Critical aspects of commercial diplomacy in the United States and the European Union are undergoing a process of gradual privatisation. We examine institutional arrangements that permit private groups (predominantly industry associations and firms) to petition for the initiation of trade disputes, propose agenda items for multilateral negotiations in the World Trade Organisation, and conduct negotiations on proposals for regulatory reform outside state‐to‐state channels. These include the United States’ Section 301, the European Union's Trade Barriers Regulation, formal consultation processes surrounding WTO negotiations, and the Transatlantic Business Dialogue. We explore the reasons why governments have opened up these new access points for industry, draw comparisons among the institutions and between the US and EU experience of them, and outline patterns of industry use of the petition mechanisms by broad industrial classification. Along with building theory on comparative private‐sector policy substitutability, we consider some of the normative issues raised by institutions for privatised commercial diplomacy.
How Does Free Trade Become Institutionalised? An Expected Utility Model of the Chrétien Era
Authors: Lusztig Michael , James Patrick
Published: March 2006

This paper seeks to go beyond the question of ‘why free trade?’ and pursues issues related to the tendency for controversial free trade agreements to become institutionalised. In other words, why do opponents of free trade not mobilise to overturn it? Even more puzzling, why do opposition parties, which had opposed passage of free trade in the first place, not undo liberalisation undertaken by their predecessors upon coming to power? Rather than seek reversal, it is not uncommon for free trade opponents, upon assuming control of the government, to deepen liberalisation initiatives, hence serving to institutionalise the very policies they had decried vigorously. Seven sections make up this study. It begins with a statement of the basic puzzle and an illustration in the recent Canadian context. The second section is a theoretical discussion of opposition parties and free trade. An expected utility model, based on the limits of rent‐seeking, is introduced in the third and fourth sections, to explain institutionalised free trade. The fifth section provides the background to the case at hand, that is, the evolution of free trade as a politico‐economic issue in Canada. The sixth section applies the expected utility model to the superficially puzzling case of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's dramatic about‐face on the issue of trade liberalisation after coming to power. In the final section, the contributions of the model are reviewed, along with directions for future research.
Strategic Interaction and Trade Policymaking: Formal Analysis and Simulation
Authors: Clark William Roberts , Duchesne Erick , Reed William L.
Published: March 2006

This paper introduces a simple game‐theoretic model and a Monte Carlo simulation of trade negotiations with the aim of identifying the nature of the selection bias that may threaten valid inference from empirical tests relying on data from trade disputes. Insights from the formal model are used to critically engage recent empirical analyses. This model is applied more specifically to the American use of Section 301 as an instrument to prise open foreign markets. The results of the game‐theoretical model and the Monte Carlo simulation demonstrate that, despite significant statistical results, models of trade negotiations might potentially suffer from misspecification due to non‐random selection effects.
Simulating the Reform of Means‐tested Benefits with Endogenous Take‐up and Claim Costs*
Authors: Pudney Stephen , Hancock Ruth , Sutherland Holly
Published: March 2006

Microsimulation models are commonly used to examine the distributional impact of reforms of the means‐tested benefit system. Take‐up behaviour is related to the level of entitlement, so reform may induce changes in take‐up. We develop a stochastic simulation method and apply it to a probit model of ‘income support’ take‐up by the UK pensioners. The method allows us to adjust net income for the welfare losses because of tangible or intangible claim costs. Endogenous take‐up and claim costs both have an important impact on the simulated outcomes of the policy reform.
Testing for Hysteresis in Unemployment in OECD Countries: New Evidence using Stationarity Panel Tests with Breaks*
Authors: Camarero Mariam , Carrion‐i‐Silvestre Josep Lluís , Tamarit Cecilio
Published: March 2006

This paper tests hysteresis effects in unemployment using panel data for 19 Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries covering the period 1956–2001. The tests exploit the cross‐sectional variations of the series, and additionally, allow for a different number of endogenous breakpoints in the unemployment series. The critical values are simulated based on our specific panel sizes and time periods. The findings stress the importance of accounting for exogenous shocks in the series and support the natural‐rate hypothesis of unemployment for the majority of the countries analysed.
A Recursive Thick Frontier Approach to Estimating Production Efficiency*
Authors: Wagenvoort Rien J. L. M. , Schure Paul H.
Published: March 2006

We introduce a new panel data estimation technique for production and cost functions, the recursive thick frontier approach (RTFA). RTFA has two advantages over existing econometric frontier methods. First, technical inefficiency is allowed to be dependent on the explanatory variables of the frontier model. Secondly, RTFA does not hinge on distributional assumptions on the inefficiency component of the error term. We show by means of simulation experiments that RTFA outperforms the popular stochastic frontier approach and the ‘within’ ordinary least squares estimator for realistic parameterizations of a productivity model. Although RTFAs formal statistical properties are unknown, we argue, based on these simulation experiments, that RTFA is a useful complement to existing methods.
An Analysis of the Value Added by Secondary Schools in England: Is the Value Added Indicator of Any Value?*
Authors: Taylor Jim , Nguyen Anh Ngoc
Published: March 2006

This paper argues that the value added score published for all publicly funded secondary schools in England is an unreliable indicator of school performance. A substantial proportion of the between‐school variation in the value added score is accounted for by factors outside the school's control. These factors include several pupil‐related variables such as the proportion of pupils on free school meals, the authorized absence rate of pupils and the proportion of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds. The value added score is also related to several school characteristics such as the school's admission policy and its subject specialism. The main policy recommendation of this paper is that the value added score should not be used as a performance indicator, but should be used to gain a better understanding of why the value added score varies between schools.
Further Analysis of the Returns to Academic and Vocational Qualifications*
Authors: Mcintosh Steven
Published: March 2006

This paper uses data from the Labour Force Survey over the period 1996–2002 to investigate the returns to a detailed list of academic and vocational qualifications. In particular, the analysis focuses on how these returns have varied over the time period considered, how the returns vary over an individual's lifetime using a pseudo cohort analysis, and how the returns vary according to the highest level of qualification obtained at school.
A Note on Some Properties of STUR Processes*
Authors: Yoon Gawon
Published: March 2006

This note presents some properties of the stochastic unit‐root processes developed in Granger and Swanson [Journal of Econometrics (1997) Vol. 80, pp. 35–62] and Leybourne, McCabe and Tremayne [Journal of Business & Economic Statistics (1996) Vol. 14, pp. 435–446] that have not been or only implicitly discussed in the literature.
Confronting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub‐Saharan Africa: policy versus practice
Authors: Hardon Anita
Published: March 2006

The paper shows how policies aimed at confronting HIV/AIDS in sub‐Saharan Africa have shifted over the past 10 years. Initially, the focus was on prevention. Anti‐retroviral treatments (ARVs), which could prolong the lives of people living with HIV and AIDS, were considered too expensive for the African poor. In 2000, following global campaigns to lower the prices of ARVs, and concern about the political instability caused by AIDS in Africa, policies started focusing on access to treatment. Cost‐effectiveness arguments played a key role in the formulation and implementation of the prevention policies, while human rights and equity considerations drive the current treatment programmes. Though different in policy content, the prevention and treatment policies have in common that they pay little attention to the socio‐cultural realities in sub‐Saharan Africa that ultimately determine their success. Based on illustrative case material from Uganda, the paper calls for more research on and understanding of the successes and failures of prevention and treatment programmes. Such understanding can help adapt global policies to local realities.
“Government lead, social support, and mutual help among patients”.
Authors: Tan Xiaodong , He Weihua , Liu Dongru , Gao Zhongming , Sun Changsong , Peng Zhao , Shan Guan
Published: March 2006

This paper presents a successful social model in China for HIV/AIDS care. Shuizhou, a medium‐sized city in China, has developed a “Government lead, social support and mutual help among patients” social model, which has achieved valuable results. The model comprises four networks focusing respectively on management, health promotion, funding, and care centre and home care. The model brings together a wide range of organizations, government entities, and (some) enterprises, contributing to a variety of tasks, from leadership to finance. Meanwhile, neighbourhood support for HIV/AIDS patients ensures personal care, family support, and health promotion. Over its four‐year operation, the model has achieved improving social and financial results. It deserves interest beyond China.
A human rights approach to protecting people living with HIV/AIDS in Angola
Authors: Flechner David
Published: March 2006

The official end of Angola's decades‐long civil war in 2002 presented the government with an opportunity to channel its attention and resources into confronting the nation's profound social challenges. Principal among these is the need to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS while also supporting those already living with the virus. While the civil conflict hampered national and cross‐border mobility, and consequently slowed the rate of HIV/AIDS transmission, the post‐war situation could now lead to a rapid increase in infections, rising to the devastating proportions already decimating the populations in its neighbouring countries. A key strategy for mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS that has already yielded some positive results is the use of human rights mechanisms to protect those living with the virus. This article first analyses the context in which the epidemic has begun to spread at an increased rate since the end of Angola's civil war. It then explores how the existing international, regional, and domestic human rights instruments to which Angola has adhered guarantee to protect people living with HIV/AIDS and, if enforced more consistently and comprehensively, will prove to be powerful tools in confronting the epidemic.
HIV/AIDS interventions in low prevalence countries: a case study of Albania
Authors: Roura Maria
Published: March 2006

The present article analyses the current situation of HIV trends in a low‐prevalence transition country (Albania) and proposes six complementary areas of intervention aiming at keeping prevalence low in the country.

Through the analysis of a specific case study, it will be argued that in low‐prevalence/high stigma areas characterized by rapid social changes, interventions should not be limited to especially vulnerable groups such as those who are victims of trafficking or who practise anal sex.

In a context of dramatic social and cultural change, it cannot be assumed that traditional behavioural codes will prevail, particularly among the youngest generations. The lack of accurate information and the low level of condom use, as well as the difficulties in reaching the most vulnerable individuals, point to the need to launch culturally sensitive media interventions which should be accompanied by more targeted Information‐Education‐Communication (IEC) activities aiming at reaching specific groups. Targeting specific sites – such as the main city centres, the roads and towns near the borders, the student neighbourhoods, hotels, motels, clubs, armed forces settings, airports and ports – might be more effective than trying to reach specific groups who might be inaccessible as a consequence of the stigma and illegality associated with certain kinds of behaviour.
Sexual violence and women's vulnerability to HIV transmission in Malawi: a rights issue
Authors: Kathewera‐Banda Maggie , Gomile‐Chidyaonga Flossie , Hendriks Sarah , Kachika Tinyade , Mitole Zunzo , White Seodi
Published: March 2006

This article explores the connections between sexual violence, gender inequality, and HIV transmission. Beginning with the premise that HIV/AIDS is a gendered pandemic, the article demonstrates the ways that patterns of HIV transmission are structured by gender and social inequalities. This is due in part to the ways in which women's sexual and reproductive health choices are dominated by socio‐cultural expectations and impacted by women's subordinate status in society. Using a country case study from Malawi, Africa, this research demonstrates how the nature and scale of sexual violence impacts both on women's vulnerability to HIV infection and on women's sexual and reproductive health rights. In particular, the article focuses on the conceptualization of sexual violence, the transaction of sex within the local economy and fish industry, and the construction of sex and sexuality as this influences cultural practices and women's vulnerability to HIV transmission. This research finds that Malawian women are situated in a social, legal, and political‐economic environment that sustains unequal gender power relations that tolerate the perpetuation of violence against women and leave them more vulnerable to HIV infection and the infringement of their sexual and reproductive health rights.
Myths about condoms and HIV/AIDS in rural northern Namibia
Authors: Mufune Pempelani
Published: March 2006

The Namibian government has sought to combat HIV/AIDS by promoting the use of condoms. Although condoms are a necessity and are being distributed free‐of‐charge in many places, their correct use is not widespread. The objective of this field research was to investigate the connotations men and women in northern Namibia attach to condoms and HIV/AIDS in general, and investigate the myths around condoms in particular. What socio‐cultural factors make the use of condoms difficult to achieve? If condoms denote safer sex, what else do they connote among users? What implied meanings do condoms carry in relationships involving men and women? Key informant interviews, participant observations and about 24 focus group discussions were held with Owambo males and females in rural northern Namibia to assess condom use in the prevention of HIV/AIDS transmission. The study found that awareness of the disease is high and condoms are known in rural northern Namibia as a method of protection against HIV/AIDS. There are several gender differences in that women are more willing to use condoms than men. Although both men and women worry about condom use, they do so differently. Women worry about the intentions of men in condom use. The findings are interpreted using Barthes' ideas on myth.
Family background, sexual behaviour, and HIV/AIDS vulnerability of female street hawkers in Lagos metropolis, Nigeria
Authors: Oyefara John Lekan
Published: March 2006

This article examines the sexual behaviour and the HIV/AIDS knowledge and vulnerability of female street hawkers in Lagos metropolis, Nigeria. A total of 126 female street hawkers under 18 were sampled in a cross‐sectional survey and six Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were conducted to generate data from respondents. Data on sexual behaviour reveal that 79.4% of respondents are sexually active, while 62.6% of them initiated sexual intercourse at 11 years old or below. Data on knowledge about HIV/AIDS show that all the respondents have heard about the pandemic. Specifically, 64.3% and 35.7% of respondents mentioned sexual intercourse and blood contact as major routes for HIV transmission, respectively. Only 7.1% of the respondents use condoms during sexual intercourse. FGD data show significant relationships between sexual behaviour and condom use and the poverty level of the families, parental neglect, and poor parent – child communication. Since female street hawkers in Nigeria are highly vulnerable to HIV infection, the government and NGOs working on the prevention of HIV/AIDS should pay special attention to children, especially urban street hawkers.
Law against morality? Access to anti‐AIDS drugs in Africa*
Authors: Eboko Fred
Published: March 2006

The issue of access to antiretrovirals (ARVs), the compounds used in combination therapies to treat AIDS, has given rise to an international debate of economic, political, and philosophical significance. This essay proposes to deconstruct the moral issues raised by the international NGOs against the economic and legal arguments of the pharmaceutical laboratories. The African continent, which, with 70% of cases, is paying the heaviest price for the AIDS pandemic, will provide the prism through which these issues will be approached. After a brief chronology of the process by which ARVs have shifted from being the commercial monopoly of the pharmaceutical companies to the “public good” advocated by the NGOs, we are led to consider the African state. In a domain in which many different dynamics are at work, the sub‐Saharan countries play with international norms (or evade them) according to circumstances influenced less by epidemiology than by power relations and manifestations of political weakness in this multipolar context. Between economics and politics, morality and law, the “biopolitics” embodied in the AIDS pandemic reveals an Africa under great strain. Once described, the “moral” responsibilities of the one side, like the vigorous collective mobilisations of the other, also impel us to highlight the responsibilities of the African states in the face of the most sudden drama Africa has ever experienced in so short a space of time.
Social construction of male homosexualities in Vietnam. Some keys to understanding discrimination and implications for HIV prevention strategy
Authors: Blanc Marie‐Eve
Published: March 2006

This article deals with the social construction of male homosexualities and discrimination against homosexuals in the context of the AIDS epidemic in Vietnam. The main objective is to shed light on the Vietnamese homosexual culture between traditions and globalization, given that our Western ethnocentric terminology to describe “homosexuals” in Vietnam lacks precision. Contacts between Vietnamese society and Western cultures have changed not only the patterns of homosexualities, but also the social status of homosexuals. Homosexuals lost their high social status, and faced stigmatization and discrimination all through the twentieth century; this situation was accentuated with the AIDS epidemic. A better understanding of sexual culture in Vietnam and in South‐East Asia will help in reducing stigma and discrimination against homosexuals in the region. In addition, a better understanding of homosexual culture will have implications for further HIV prevention strategies and advocacy of sexual minorities' rights. The article offers some explanations and responses to discrimination processes while exploring the role of “sexual culture” as defined by Herdt.
Knowledge and networks
Authors: Holiday Anthony
Published: March 2006

This paper is a conceptual investigation into the notion of a network as a form of social organization for the production of excellent research. This metaphor has been particularly attractive to social scientists and managers of cooperative research, because it seems to connote what is organic, flexible and libratory in communication and in the philosophy of language. The paper criticizes this preconception. In particular, it shows that, while Wittgenstein's philosophy may indeed encapsulate the virtues that partisans for the networking trope admire, they are mistaken in thinking that they can claim his authority for the use they make of this figure. The thought that they can do so results from inattention to features of the development of his ideas about language, particularly his fervent anti‐scientism. I conclude that an over‐stretched use of the metaphor obscures its constraining signification.
Building dynamic democratic governance and HIV‐resilient societies
Authors: Hsu Lee‐Nah
Published: March 2006

HIV epidemics continue to spread around the world. Although most responses have emphasized medical approaches, the HIV and AIDS situation could be further improved by applying good governance principles. In analyzing national responses to HIV and AIDS from Brazil, Thailand, and Uganda, common factors consistent with democratic governance principles can be found. These factors are the strategic vision of political leaders, timely responses, strong and effective civil society participation, multisectoral mobilization, balancing prevention and treatment approaches, respecting human rights, and transparency. By building knowledge‐bases, advocating policy improvement and taking strategic actions for programmatic responses, countries in South‐East Asia have developed an Early Warning Rapid Response System which applies good governance principles for multisectoral actions in building HIV resilience. Engaging the construction sector to prevent HIV can ensure sustainable returns on economic investments. In mobilizing non‐health sectors such as agriculture and construction, broader strategic action programmes can be devised to complement the efforts of the health sector in mitigating socio‐economic crises aggravated by HIV and AIDS. The article concludes that the democratic governance approach is an essential option worth pursuing because it makes a critical contribution to reversing the relentlessly expanding trend of the HIV and AIDS pandemic.
Habitat use and preference by polecats (Mustela putorius L.) in a Mediterranean agricultural landscape
Authors: Rondinini C. , Ercoli V. , Boitani L.
Published: March 2006

An investigation is reported on the use of and preference for riparian vegetation, road verges, ponds and farms by polecats Mustela putorius L. living in a fragmented cultivated area. Eighteen polecats of both sexes were marked with radio‐collars and monitored for 2–18 months each. Individuals were monitored with single nightly radio‐locations, and during 12‐ and 24‐h continuous sessions. Sex and seasonal variations in the density of key habitat features within home ranges were analysed. In order to measure the seasonal strength of attraction to key habitat features, the average distance to these features of observed trajectories, and of corresponding Monte‐Carlo simulations, was compared. Polecats positively selected riparian vegetation within their home range throughout the year. Female home ranges contained more farms and ponds than those of adult males in the breeding season. Males expanded their home ranges in the breeding season, and the strength of attraction to riparian vegetation and ponds increased accordingly. The remnants of riparian vegetation apparently acted as a key habitat feature providing food and cover. Furthermore, these linear and interconnected landscape elements can facilitate the long‐range movements involved in the search for mates.