bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The development of attentional orienting during the school‐age years
Authors: Schul Rina , Townsend Jeanne , Stiles Joan
Published: May 2003

This study was designed to assess the development of spatial attentional orienting during the school‐age years. To that end, we used a cost‐benefit attentional cueing task with short (100 ms) and long (800 ms) cue‐to‐target intervals to examine attentional processing independent of motor skills and perceptual processing in 200 7–17‐year‐olds and 40 adults. We found that orienting attention, disengaging attention and visual processing in an unattended location, were all progressively more accurate and faster with increasing age. Our data thus suggest that the efficiency of attentional orienting improves in an age‐related manner throughout the school‐age years.
Are infants in the dark about hidden objects?
Authors: Shinskey Jeanne L. , Munakata Yuko
Published: May 2003

Infants appear to search for objects hidden by darkness earlier in development than they search for objects hidden by an occluder in the light. However, these two types of search tasks have differed in numerous ways that may have contributed to better performance in the dark (e.g. in whether the hidden objects made sound, in the number of familiarization trials with visible objects). The current studies controlled such incidental differences between search tasks, so that they could be directly compared. Six‐and‐a‐half‐month‐olds received four types of test events, in which either a toy or no toy was presented and then hidden in the dark or under a cloth in the light. Infants searched more often on toy than no‐toy trials in the dark than with a cloth. The advantage in searching for hidden objects in the dark thus appears to be genuine. Theoretical implications are discussed.
Respective contributions of inhibition and knowledge levels in class inclusion development: a negative priming study
Authors: Perret Patrick , Paour Jean‐Louis , Blaye Agnès
Published: May 2003

Dempster (Dempster, 1995; Dempster & Corkill, 1999) proposed that developmental changes in performance on Piagetian tasks could be related to changes in inhibitory efficiency more than to logical development. In this study, the negative priming paradigm was adapted to the class inclusion task in order to investigate the role of inhibition and knowledge levels in the development of class inclusion. Participants were pre‐tested on two inclusion tasks, the standard Piagetian task and Markman's modification task, and assigned to different knowledge levels: empirical, and logical necessity. Children were then tested on a priming version of the class inclusion task. Results showed a negative priming effect, indicating that the irrelevant ‘subclass comparison strategy’ was actively inhibited during the processing of the class inclusion task. This effect was found to vary as a function of knowledge levels, indicating that the need for inhibition was reduced when children had attained logical necessity.
The role of perseveration in children's symbolic understanding and skill
Authors: Sharon Tanya , DeLoache Judy S.
Published: May 2003

In the first few years of life, children become increasingly sensitive to the significance of a variety of symbolic artifacts. An extensive body of research has explored very young children's ability to use symbol‐based information as a guide to current reality. In one common task, for example, children watch as a miniature toy is hidden in a scale model, and are then asked to retrieve a larger version of the toy from the corresponding place in the room itself. Two‐and‐a‐half‐year‐old children perform very poorly in most versions of this task. Their most common error is to perseverate; that is, they search again at the location where the toy was last hidden. Two studies examined the degree to which 21/2‐year‐olds’ high rate of perseveration and poor performance stem from problems with inhibitory control. Results showed that problems with inhibitory control contribute very little to 21/2‐year‐old children's difficulty with the task. Instead, the results confirm young children's great difficulty appreciating and exploiting symbol–referent relations.
Infants’ developing understanding of the link between looker and object
Authors: Woodward Amanda L.
Published: May 2003

Three studies investigated infants’ understanding that gaze involves a relation between a person and the object of his or her gaze. Infants were habituated to an event in which an actor turned and looked at one of two toys. Then, infants saw test events in which (1) the actor turned to the same side as during habituation to look at a different toy, or (2) the actor turned to the other side to look at the same toy as during habituation. The first of these involved a change in the relation between actor and object. The second involved a new physical motion on the part of the actor but no change in the relation between actor and object. Seven‐ and 9‐month‐old infants did not respond to the change in relation between actor and object, although infants at both ages followed the actor's gaze to the toys. In contrast, 12‐month‐old infants responded to the change in the actor–object relation. Control conditions verified that the paradigm was a sensitive index of the younger infants’ representations of action: 7‐ and 9‐month‐olds responded to a change in the actor–object relation when the actor's gaze was accompanied by a grasp. Taken together, these findings indicate that gaze‐following does not initially go hand in hand with understanding the relation between a person who looks and the object of his or her gaze, and that infants begin to understand this relation between 9 and 12 months.
Attention affects the recognition of briefly presented visual stimuli in infants: an ERP study
Authors: Richards John E.
Published: May 2003

This study examined the effect of attention in infants on the ERP changes occurring during the recognition of briefly presented visual stimuli. Infants at ages 4.5, 6 and 7.5 months were presented with a Sesame Street movie that elicited periods of attention and inattention, and computer‐generated stimuli were presented overlaid on the movie for 500 ms. One stimulus was familiar to the infants and was presented frequently, a second stimulus was familiar but presented infrequently, and a set of 14 novel stimuli were presented infrequently. An ERP component labeled the ‘Nc’ (Negative Central, about 450–550 ms after stimulus onset) was larger during attention than inattention and increased in magnitude over the three testing ages during attention. Late slow waves in the ERP (from 1000 to 2000 ms post‐stimulus onset) consisted of a positive slow wave in response to the infrequent familiar stimulus at all three testing ages. The late slow wave in response to the infrequent novel stimulus during attention was a positive slow wave for the 4.5‐month‐old infants, to a positive‐negative slow wave for the 6‐month‐old infants and a negative slow wave for the 7.5‐month‐old infants. These results show attention facilitates the brain response during infant recognition memory and show that developmental changes in recognition memory are closely related to changes in attention.
Teleo‐functional constraints on preschool children's reasoning about living things
Authors: Kelemen Deborah , Widdowson Deborah , Posner Tamar , Brown Ann L. , Casler Krista
Published: May 2003

These studies explore the degree to which preschool children employ teleological‐functional reasoning – reasoning based on the assumption of function and design – when making inferences about animal behavior. Using a triad induction method, Study 1 examined whether a sensitivity to biological function would lead children to overlook overall similarity and instead attend to relevant functional cues (in the presence of overall dissimilarity), as a basis for generalizing behavioral properties to unfamiliar animals. It found that, between 3 and 4 years of age, children, with increasing consistency, attend to functional features rather than overall similarity when drawing inferences about animal behavior. Children's ability to describe the relevance of functional adaptations to animal behavior also increased with age. Study 2 explored whether Study 1 findings might result from stimulus biases in favor of the function‐based choice. It found that children's attention shifted from functional features to overall similarity when generalizing labels rather than behaviors with the same triads. These results are discussed in relation to the development of biological knowledge.
The influence of language on theory of mind: a training study
Authors: Hale Courtney Melinda , Tager‐Flusberg Helen
Published: May 2003

This study investigated the role of language in the development of theory of mind. It was hypothesized that the acquisition of the syntactic and semantic properties of sentential complements would facilitate the development of a representational theory of mind. Sixty preschoolers who failed false belief and sentential complement pretests were randomly assigned to training on false belief, sentential complements or relative clauses (as a control group). All the children were post‐tested on a set of different theory of mind tasks, sentential complements and relative clauses. The main findings were that the group trained on sentential complements not only acquired the linguistic knowledge fostered by the training, but also significantly increased their scores on a range of theory of mind tasks. In contrast, false belief training only led to improved theory of mind scores but had no influence on language. The control group, trained on relative clauses, showed no improvement on theory of mind post‐tests. These findings are taken as evidence that the acquisition of sentential complements contributes to the development of theory of mind in preschoolers.
Identification of objects in 9‐month‐old infants: integrating ‘what’ and ‘where’ information
Authors: Káldy Zsuzsa , Leslie Alan M.
Published: May 2003

Following Leslie, Xu, Tremoulet and Scholl (1998), we distinguish between individuation (the establishment of an object representation) and identification (the use of information stored in the object representation to decide which previously individuated object is being encountered). Although there has been much work on how infants individuate objects, there is relatively little on the question of when and how property information is used to identify objects. Experiment 1 shows that 9‐month‐old infants use shape, but apparently not color, information in identifying objects that are each moved behind spatially separated screens. Infants could not simply have associated a shape with a location or a screen without regard to objecthood, because on alternate trials the objects switched locations/screens. Infants therefore had to bind shape information to the object representation while tracking the objects’ changing location. In Experiment 2, we tested if infants represented both objects rather than ‘sampled’ only one of them. Using the same alternation procedure, infants again succeeded in using shape (but not color) information when only one of the screens was removed – the screen that occluded the first‐hidden object (requiring the longer time in memory). Finally, we relate our behavioral findings both to a cognitive model and to recent neuroscientific studies, concluding that ventral ‘what’ and dorsal ‘where’ pathways may be functionally integrated by 9 months.
Financial Dependence and International Trade
Authors: Beck Thorsten
Published: May 2003

Does financial development translate into a comparative advantage in industries that use more external finance? The author uses industry‐level data on firms’ dependence on external finance for 36 industries and 56 countries to examine this question. It is shown that countries with better‐developed financial systems have higher export shares and trade balances in industries that use more external finance. These results are robust to the use of alternative measures of external dependence and financial development and are not due to reverse causality or simultaneity bias.
Pricing the Cost of Expropriation Risk
Authors: Clark Ephraim
Published: May 2003

The paper examines a firm's cost of expropriation risk in a framework that links it to the government's incentive to expropriate. The author develops a pricing model for the firm's cost of expropriation risk that includes the positions of both government and firm. The government's decision to expropriate is modeled as an American‐style call option. The cost of expropriation risk is modeled as the value of an insurance policy that pays off all losses resulting from expropriation. The firm's cost of expropriation risk is determined by the government acting to optimize the value of its option to expropriate. The author identifies the parameters that link the government's option to expropriate to the firm's cost of expropriation risk, and shows how the model can be used in capital budgeting decisions and the ongoing management of expropriation risk.
Developing Early Years Childcare in England, 1997–2002: The Choices for (Working) Mothers
Authors: Lewis Jane
Published: May 2003

The UK has long been near the bottom of the EU “childcare league”. Attitudes of policymakers towards employment for the mothers of young children were ambivalent up to and including the Thatcher years, and the problem of “reconciling” work and family was historically deemed to be a private decision. This changed in 1998, when the Labour government put forward the first ever national childcare strategy. This paper argues that the aims behind the strategy were intimately linked to the attack on poverty and social exclusion in that: (1) efforts to stimulate provision focused on disadvantaged neighbourhoods; (2) subsidy was provided for early yearseducation, rather thancare(in order to give children a better start in life); and (3) stimulating provision was intended to promote women's employment, especially among lone‐mother families, thereby improving the material welfare of poor families. The means of expanding childcare have taken the form of a complicated set of demand‐ and supply‐side subsidies, reflecting the ongoing commitment to a mixed economy of childcare. The paper argues that this has implications for access and quality, and that there are tensions between the social investment approach to childcare on the one hand, and the desire to promote mothers’ employment on the other.
Women and Pensions: Time for a Rethink
Authors: Evason Eileen , Spence Lynda
Published: May 2003

This paper presents the results of a research project conducted in Northern Ireland, which focused on women and pensions. The paper suggests that, in the broader rethink of pensions policy in the UK, which is now clearly needed, central consideration should be given to constructing policies which more clearly relate to the needs and circumstances of women.
Employers and the Management of Retirement
Authors: Vickerstaff Sarah , Cox Jennie , Keen Linda
Published: May 2003

In the UK early withdrawal from the labour market is seen as a risk and a cost, worsening the dependency ratio, raising public and private pension costs and threatening additional welfare expenditure over the longer term. Explanations of the retirement process have focused on the welfare state and the impact of pensions and other social security policies. This paper argues that a missing actor in these accounts is the employing organization. Early retirement in the UK has been predominantly driven by the labour requirements of employers rather than state policies to encourage older workers to take early retirement. There is a case for arguing that significant change in retirement behaviour in the UK will come primarily from the modification of employers’ policies. This research is a case study of three employers: one public‐sector and two commercial. It examines the dynamics of the retirement decision. This paper reports the public‐sector case. The findings indicate that employers, in order to reduce their pensions liabilities and stem the cost of early retirement, are trying to regain control of the retirement process. The employees interviewed felt they experienced little choice concerning their retirement, had limited knowledge of the options open to them and found pensions complicated and confusing.
Conscripts And Christians: Representing Kinship And Affinity In The Carnian Alps
Authors: HEADY PATRICK
Published: May 2003

The theory of exchange marriage has had a rather limited impact on the anthropology of Europe. Its relevance to European ethnography might increase if it were extended to include representations of marriage exchange between generational groups. An analysis of collective celebrations of kinship and courtship suggests that they express the principles of exchange marriage in a way that fits the corporate structure of many European villages. The celebrations draw on ecclesiastical and military symbolism, and the analysis has implications for our understanding of the relationship between popular attitudes to the Church, local community, and state. The results confirm the fruitfulness of combining interpretative and formal approaches to kinship analysis.
On Space As A Capacity
Authors: CORSÍNJIMÉNEZ ALBERTO
Published: May 2003

This article is about space and social relationships. More precisely, it is about the space of and in social relationships. It is also about the efficacy of social relationships in segregating their own contexts of meaning and value. The article also addresses the question of how agency comes about. This ‘coming about’ of agency, its swelling and appearance in a structure of meaning, is what I call ‘capacity’. Social relationships have ‘capacity’. That is, they have both spaciousness and potency. They accomplish things, and accomplish things ‘somewhere’. In this respect, space (or the capacity of social relationships) is something very different from idioms that we have come to think of as forms of space, like landscape or place. This article is also, therefore, a critique of the way in which some anthropologists have recently theorized landscape and place. My argument is based on an ethnographic account of the dimensions through which people construct urban space in the Chilean city of Antofagasta.
Eating With Your Favourite Mother: Time And Sociality In A Brazilian Amerindian Community
Authors: DE MATOS VIEGAS SUSANA
Published: May 2003

This article is based on an ethnographic account of parent‐child relations in a Caboclo‐Indian community of south Bahia, Brazil. Raising a child by providing care and food is valued to such an extent that a child's mother may be the woman the child has chosen to be its mother. Choice is not understood as an act of free will, but as a time‐frame in the sense that choosing one's mother is a way of emphasizing the possibility of the unmaking or reversibility of parent‐child links. The article suggests a ‘sociality of becoming a being‐in‐the‐world’ as an alternative not only to the notion of socialization but also to the theoretical link between kinship and society.

The Kid has changed the world and myself.  Not in the beginning  But bit by bit,  As I became attached to him  Andrei Tarkovskij,The sacrifice
Interpreting Images: Diagnostic Skill In The Genetics Clinic
Authors: SHAW ALISON
Published: May 2003

The diagnosis of rare genetic disorders involves classifying patients on the basis of clinical understandings of the relationship between visible, measurable characteristics (the phenotype) and an underlying genetic characterization (the genotype). Diagnosis is performed through the routine ritual observation and interpretation of images of patients in relation to their clinical features and test results. In this process, which is mediated by senior clinicians, the experience of the effect of a patient's image is integral to the skilful elicitation of a diagnosis. Such skill develops over time, through regular participation in diagnostic performances. I suggest that, from this perspective, genetic diagnosis is a clinical process rather than a form of genetic reductionism and that assumptions about ‘geneticization’ require further exploration. The article also shows that participant observation and a cross‐cultural mode of analysis can contribute to documenting and interpreting these processes.
The Virtual Moment
Authors: MILLER DANIEL
Published: May 2003

Following the traditions of ethnographic analysis, an account is given here of Best Value, the United Kingdom government's inspection of the services provided by municipalities and other local units of administration. My analysis is based largely upon the categories and terms used by the inspectorate itself. It is argued that in each of the main areas of inspection the results appear to contradict the intentions set out for the inspection. This appears to be the result of processes of abstraction which arise during the inspection. Such abstraction was located in the rise of jargon and bureaucracy as a result of the sheer scale of this audit, in the externalization of critical factors during market testing, in the emphasis on the representation of consulting over the results of consultation, and through the privileging of quantitative over qualitative information. Finally, the phrase ‘owning the process’ is analysed to show how the central ethos of serving the public is negated by these same forces. All these forms of abstraction are shown to occur despite, rather than because of, the intentions of the inspectorate. In the conclusion, they are analysed as contradictions which arise as a result of forces that are described by a theory of Virtualism.
Custom In The Courtroom, Law In The Village: Legal Transformations In Papua New Guinea
Authors: DEMIAN MELISSA
Published: May 2003

After more than twenty‐five years on the legal landscape of Papua New Guinea, ‘customary law’ is ripe for reassessment, particularly as it appears to be an ideal mechanism with which the Papua New Guinean state can meet some of its obligations to a burgeoning body of international law. This article addresses the need to understand customary law in the context of its varying usage across different legal domains in an archetypally pluralistic state. In contrast to older approaches focusing on the problematic interface between an exogenous legal system and indigenous methods of dispute settlement, my concern is with the ways in which these distinct legal forms have fared in each other's company since independence in 1975. Case‐studies from a village court and an urban national court demonstrate that village court magistrates and high court judges alike use custom and law as strategic sources of authority. While village courts take custom for granted and therefore must ‘discover’ law, high courts take law for granted and must ‘discover’ custom. These processes indicate that, rather than being hybridized as ‘customary law’, the distinctiveness of custom and law are often maintained in order for one to appear as a resource upon which the other can draw.
Name Rituals And Acts Of Feeling Among The KayapÓ (Mebengokre)
Authors: FISHER WILLIAM H.
Published: May 2003

This article analyses great name rituals among the Gê‐speaking Kayapó (Mebengokre) of central Brazil. Ritual organization compels a temporal and spatial co‐ordination of exchanges between diverse categories of relations so that nuclear family ties are differentiated. As the fundamental site of this process of differentiation, the House undergoes various transformations in its organization during the ceremonial period and its centrality in Kayapó social thought derives from this, rather than from the attribution of an enduring corporate identity. Analysis of Kayapó ritual allows us to extend Rappaport's ideas about the relation between the invariant and variant messages in ritual, since the production of sentiment is a central task of ritual activity and such sentiments are necessary for the reproduction of formal order in ritual.
Places Of Transformation: Building Monuments From Water And Stone In The Neolithic Of The Irish Sea
Authors: FOWLER CHRIS , CUMMINGS VICKI
Published: May 2003

Using the Irish Sea area as a case‐study, we argue that both sites and landscapes can be understood as containing a series of components procured from the landscape and from human, animal, and object bodies. These components were organized in a way that commented on and related to specific cultural relationships between these different locations and through the substances found within them. This idea is explored by examining Neolithic monuments, material culture, and natural materials in southwest Wales, northwest Wales, the Isle of Man, and southwest Scotland. We trace some metaphorical schemes which were integral to Neolithic activity in this part of the Irish Sea. In particular, we highlight the metaphorical connections between water and stone in places associated with transformation, particularly the repeated transformation of human bodies. We suggest that the series of associations present in the Neolithic were not invested with a uniform meaning but, instead, were polyvalent, subject to conflicting interpretations, contextually specific and variable through both space and time. The relationship between these elements was therefore dependent on the contexts of their association. Nevertheless, the association of water and stone can be found repeatedly throughout the Neolithic world and may have been the medium of a powerful trope within broader conceptions of the world. This article is intended as a preliminary consideration of these issues (particularly the links between stone, mountains, water, quartz, shell, and human remains) and is offered as a thinking‐point for ongoing research in this area.
Colouring the City: ‘Black‐On‐Black Violence’ and Liberal Discourse
Authors: Wilson David
Published: May 2003

A new social ill was placed before America in the early 1980s: ‘black‐on‐black violence’. Like so many urban social issues in recent times, this process was dramatically simplified for easy public consumption. Editorials, features and commentaries profoundly racialised this violence, proclaiming this was at its core black assailants in black cultural worlds. In this context, these implicated (often in grizzly and theatrical detail) isolated and destructive subcultures that propelled kids into worlds of violence. This paper examines the content of one prominent contribution to this discourse, the cultural liberal rendition. It uses spatiality theory to reveal this discourse as complex, spatially saturated and internally fractured. It reveals its complex process of racialising reality that lay behind seemingly simple, straightforward and objective renditions of this violence. The author conducted a content analysis of prominent magazines, city newspapers and local interviews with political leaders between 1980 and 1998. The results suggest that racial codes and signifiers dramatically punctuated the discourse. Beneath the seemingly simple and straightforward rendition of this violence was an elaborate contextual setting‐up that normalised this racialising.
Representations of Islam in the politics of mosque development in Sydney
Authors: Dunn Kevin M.
Published: May 2003

The negative constructions of Islam which circulate at (inter)national levels include Muslims as fanatical, intolerant, militant, fundamentalist, misogynist and alien. The various constructions of Islam had varying utility for mosque opponents in Sydney, Australia, during the 1980s and 1990s. Fanaticism and intolerance are constructions of Islam which have now had centuries of articulation in the West. These constructions have attained great potency as a result of their reiterative deployment. In Sydney, they were used to influence planning determinations and political decisions within local authorities. The charges of militancy and misogyny did not easily convert into a planning ground for opposing a mosque, but they were used to heighten public unease and widen opposition. Local authorities also refused development consent for mosques on the grounds that the proposals were ‘out of character’ with surrounding development, drawing on the construction of Muslims as alien and ultimately out of place. The discourses of opposition to mosques did not simply rely on the stereotypes of Islam, but also drew heavily on cultural constructions of what constituted a local citizen and the local community. Mosque supporters attempted to deploy counter‐constructions, of Muslims as moderate, tolerant, peaceful, clean living, family‐orientated, ordinary local citizens. A social construction approach is used to examine the politics surrounding mosque development in Sydney. This reveals both the socio‐spatial impacts of identity constructions (of a minority group and the imagined dominant community) as well as the important role of space and locale.
What’s in a Frisian business name? Regional identity in the Netherlands
Authors: Van Langevelde Ab , Pellenbarg Piet
Published: May 2003

In this paper data is presented that gives indications that Fryslân, being the only minority language region in the Netherlands, can be considered to have a distinct regional economy in the Dutch context. Therefore, information is given about the extent of regional identification in business names all over the Netherlands. Reference is made to the theoretical work of Rose and the empirical investigations of Zelinsky and Pellenbarg. Interviews in business firms in Fryslân are described. Fryslân appears to have a special position in the Netherlands in that there is a relatively strong identification by entrepreneurs with the province using the name of that region in business names but particularly by using the regional language, Frisian, for that purpose. There are strong indications that Fryslân also has a distinct regional economic development in the Dutch context because of the bilingual situation. The paper ends with an evaluation and with policy recommendations for the Provincial Government of Fryslân.
Leisure trips of senior citizens: determinants of modal choice
Authors: Schwanen Tim , Dijst Martin , Dieleman Frans M.
Published: May 2003

The use of the passenger car is a major cause of environmental degradation and increasing congestion on traffic arteries. Policy‐makers therefore seek ways to curtail this form of private transport. Scientific research can help them attain this goal by identifying factors that influence travel behaviour. This paper examines the mobility of senior citizens with respect to various leisure activities, an area that has remained under‐exposed. The analysis shows that older people prefer to take the car for trips in their leisure time. If they own a vehicle, they tend to use it frequently, irrespective of where they live. Characteristics of the residential environment mainly influence the modal choice of seniors who do not have a car of their own. Public transport is primarily used as a substitute for walking and cycling; public transport does not offer seniors a real alternative to the car.
Structural Change, Economic Crisis and International Labour Migration in East Asia
Authors: Manning Chris
Published: May 2003

Increased international labour migration was one important dimension of structural change and globalisation in East Asia from the mid 1980s. Large international movements of mainly unskilled contract labour occurred in response to widening wage gaps between more and less developed countries in the region as the former experienced rapid structural change. Labour importing countries increasingly relied on unskilled migrant workers in less preferred jobs, in both export‐oriented and non‐tradable goods industries. The Asian economic crisis dramatically influenced the context in which international labour mobility had occurred in the pre‐crisis period. Important issues included a possible reversal in role of international migration in structural change, both among unskilled contract workers and more skilled migrants, and replacement of migrants by unemployed local workers. The paper argues that the Asian economic crisis did not reverse the fundamental trend toward greater reliance on unskilled migrant workers in agriculture, manufacturing and service industries. Business and professional migration remained significant and even rose in some countries during the crisis. However, several countries were forced to develop a more coherent policy towards migrant workers, in light of the social impact of the crisis.
Financial Sector Reforms in Developing Countries: The Indian Experience
Authors: Arun T. G. , Turner J. D.
Published: May 2003

This study is based on the premise that the success/failure of financial sector reforms depends heavily on country specific factors and makes an attempt to examine these factors in the Indian context. The financial sector reforms analysed in this paper include the deregulation of interest rates, increasing competition and foreign ownership, and the introduction of financial supervision. We argue that an economic rationale for a gradualist approach to financial reform is that it is stability enhancing. Furthermore, we suggest that India’s complex political economy has resulted in a gradual approach to reform, and this approach has been successful along the dimension of banking stability.
‘In the shadow of hierarchy’: meta‐governance, policy reform and urban regeneration in the West Midlands
Authors: Whitehead Mark
Published: May 2003

This paper explores the relationship between political hierarchy and the complex webs of political organization associated with urban governance. Deploying the concept of meta‐governance and a study of urban policy reform in the West Midlands region of England, this paper claims that state and governmental hierarchies continue to have a crucial role in coordinating the activities of governance regimes in the UK. This paper concludes by considering the effects of hierarchical power on the systems of political participation and representation that are associated with urban governance.
Relocating resource peripheries to the core of economic geography's theorizing: rationale and agenda
Authors: Hayter Roger , Barnes Trevor J , Bradshaw Michael J
Published: May 2003

Theorizing in economic geography has focused on core regions, industrial and non‐industrial, old and new. Indeed, contemplation of the idea of globalization has reinforced this quest. This paper disputes this blinkered thinking that peripheralizes resource peripheries, and seeks to re‐position and emphasize resource peripheries within economic geography's theoretical agenda, specifically that associated with the new ‘institutional’ approach. A truly ‘global’ economic geography cannot afford to ignore resource peripheries. In particular, we argue that characterizing resource peripheries, and making them distinct from cores, is the intersection of four sets of institutional values or dimensions which we summarize in terms of industrialism (economic dimension), environmentalism (environmental dimension), aboriginalism (cultural dimension) and imperialism (geopolitical dimension). This admittedly preliminary framework underlies our hypothesis that resource peripheries around the world have become deeply contested spaces, much more so than those found in cores.
Steppin’ in it: postcoloniality in northern Pakistan
Authors: Besio Kathryn
Published: May 2003

This paper examines the transcultural relations between researchers and research subjects in a postcolonial research setting. I draw from my experience doing dissertation research in northern Pakistan to discuss how my research subjects’ effectively constructed me as a sahib, or what I saw as a colonial subject position. I examine the ways that my research subjects and I co‐constructed, although unequally, my position and location as a researcher. The asymmetries of power relations in research are exacerbated by postcolonial relations in this contact zone. The contribution of those I researched is significant towards understanding our locations as postcolonial subjects in this research setting, and the location from which I produced the research. While it was difficult to do research as anyone other than a sahib during my research, the stories I tell and metaphors I employ in this paper attempt to destabilize my location as a colonial sahib, an authority. The scatological references that run throughout this paper are an attempt to write against the inherently colonial epistemologies that underpin geographic research more generally.
Modelling Access with GIS in Urban Systems (MAGUS): capturing the experiences of wheelchair users
Authors: Matthews Hugh , Beale Linda , Picton Phil , Briggs David
Published: May 2003

Access and mobility are important dimensions of quality of life. For wheelchair users, everyday trips are often fraught with problems, with many barriers imperceptible to the able‐bodied, hindering or totally restricting movement. This paper describes a project undertaken with wheelchair users, which has developed, tested and applied a Geographic Information System model. This model acts both as a navigational device for wheelchairs users – enabling them to make informed route choices through urban places – and as a decision support and planning tool for urban planners – making visible the ways in which built environments are often distorted and hostile spaces for wheelchair users.
Reflections on participatory research
Authors: Pain Rachel , Francis Peter
Published: May 2003

Participatory research approaches are increasingly popular with geographers in developed as well as developing countries, as critical qualitative methodologies which at their best work with participants to effect change. This paper adds to recent debates over the methodologies, practices, philosophical and political issues involved. Drawing on a project on young people, exclusion and crime victimization in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, we discuss the limitations of participatory diagramming and illustrate some of the social and political barriers to meaningful participation in, and action from, this type of research.
Geography as the world discipline: connecting popular and academic geographical imaginations
Authors: Bonnett Alastair
Published: May 2003

This article addresses and connects two areas of controversy within contemporary geography: the parochialism of contemporary human geography and the gulf between university and non‐university geography. It is argued that we can find the cause of the latter phenomenon in the origin of the former, namely in academic geography's unwillingness to re‐imagine the ‘global claim’ that it has inherited from its imperial past. This difficulty has created the conditions for the representation of popular geography as intrinsically dated, as politically suspect and/or as mere ‘traveller's tales’. It is suggested that geography cannot escape the burden of its global claim. Rather it needs to critically engage this formerly imperial paradigm and, in so doing, re‐ignite geography's role in public debate and as public knowledge.
Digital effects in the spatial economy of film: towards a research agenda
Authors: Currah Andrew
Published: May 2003

A new assemblage of digital technologies, organized around compressed software formats and broadband Internet infrastructures, is reconfiguring the motion picture industry. In this paper, I review the impacts of digitization upon the spatial economy of film in the United States via a commodity chain framework. The discussion raises some important themes for conceptual debate in economic geography.
(Re)surveying the uses of Geographical Information Systems in Health Authorities 1991–2001
Authors: Smith Darren P , Gould Myles I , Higgs Gary
Published: May 2003

This paper provides a comparative analysis of two separate national surveys of the uptake and use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) by Health Authorities (HAs) in England and Wales. The surveys were undertaken at two different time points (1991 and 2001), and the intervening period has been characterized by major (and continuing) health sector restructuring. The substantial number of HA mergers between 1991 and 2001 provide a methodological challenge in attempting to make comparisons. A pragmatic approach is adopted and the presentation of results has to be restricted solely to English and Welsh HA data. Our findings show that there has been a considerable increase in the use of GIS since the early 1990s, and there is some evidence of more sophisticated uses for a wider range of policy‐related and application tasks. However, we conclude that there is still considerable scope for the wider uptake and use of GIS within the NHS. In addition, our findings provide a baseline with which to monitor the impacts of future organizational restructuring on the uses of GIS within the NHS. We suggest that this is important given the replacement of 95 English HAs with 28 new Strategic HAs (StHAs) from April 2002, and the repercussions of the anticipated shift in GIS responsibility to Primary Care Trusts.
Fourierism, colonization and discourses of associative emigration
Authors: Jenkins Lloyd
Published: May 2003

Drawing upon recent discussions in geography, this paper examines the discourses of emigration and colonization put forward by members of the British Fourierist movement. Through a close reading of the Fourierist newspaper, The London Phalanx, this paper explores how a set of ideas that are at face value a failure, when placed in context allow an understanding of nineteenth‐century colonial projects.
‘Contracted out’: some implications of the casualization of academic labour in geography
Authors: Laoire Caitríona Ní , Shelton Nicola Jane
Published: May 2003

This paper presents the initial findings of a survey of geographers working on fixed‐term or other temporary contracts (FTCs), with particular reference to their characteristics, achievements and employment conditions. The results suggest that job satisfaction among contract geographers is related to career stage, and that structural features of the academic labour market combine to restrict many highly qualified academic staff to FTCs for longer than may be appropriate. This phenomenon is highly gendered, with women over‐represented among the more junior ranks of contract staff and men dominating the senior ranks. Prolonged employment on FTCs can result in negative effects on the health, welfare and personal finances of many contract staff, and also on staff morale and productivity. The paper concludes that underlying structural inequalities in the academic labour market need to be addressed.
Welfare Caseload Change: An Alternative Approach
Authors: Mead Lawrence M.
Published: May 2003

In the last decade, caseloads in AFDC/TANF have shifted dramatically up, then down. Of existing studies based on time series or state panel data, some tend to underplay the role of welfare reform. All say little about what policies drove the decline or about the role of governmental quality. An approach using cross‐sectional models explains interstate differences in caseload change rather than the national trend but allows more discussion about the role of policy and government. Results suggest that grant levels, work and child support requirements, and sanctions are important explainers of change, along with some demographic terms and unemployment. These policies in turn are tied to states’ political opinion, political culture, and institutional capacity. Moralistic states seem the most capable of transforming welfare in the manner the public wants.
The Effect of Intensive Bail Supervision on Repeat Domestic Violence Offenders
Authors: Lasley James
Published: May 2003

This study investigates the relationship between bail supervision and repeat domestic violence. Specifically, a fully randomized experimental design is used to determine if domestic violence suspects who are “intensively supervised” by bailbond agents during pretrial release are less likely than “regularly supervised” suspects to commit a subsequent domestic violence offense. Study results involving nearly 500 subjects over a 3‐year period suggest that the random effects of bail supervision provide a statistically significant reduction in rearrest for domestic violence among suspects assigned to the experimental supervision condition. This finding lends support to Dunford's Sword of Damocles Hypothesis, which suggests that random risk is a more effective deterrent to domestic violence than formal arrest. In addition, subjects assigned to intensive supervision who were either employed or of a Mexican National race/ethnic background were less likely than any other class of subjects to be rearrested for a domestic violence offense. The latter finding lends support to Sherman, Smith, Schmidt, & Rogan (1992) “stakes‐in‐conformity” hypothesis, suggesting that community ties plays an additional deterrent role in reducing repeat domestic violence.
Economic Policy and Decision Making at the Intersection of Domestic and International Politics: The Advocacy Coalition Framework and the National Economic Council
Authors: Dolan Chris J.
Published: May 2003

This article advances a theoretical model of the National Economic Council (NEC) based on a policy network approach and group decision‐making theory to explain why the U.S. president's NEC represents a significant development in the rise of the intermestic policymaking and decision‐making processes. It develops theoretical conceptions of interests and manipulation based on a Policy Network Approach and the Advocacy Coalition Framework in policy studies research to illustrate the complexity of NEC group dynamics. Hopefully, such a contribution can further existing theoretical frameworks in the field of policy studies and analysis and can add to assessments of the NEC in policymaking and decision‐making. Unlike much of the prevailing research, this article perceives the NEC as a political instrument used by policymakers and decision makers to protect their policy interests and engage in forms of political manipulation to increase their power over economic policy.
Hispanic Pregnancy Outcomes: Differentials Over Time and Current Risk Factor Effects
Authors: Frisbie W. Parker , Song Seung‐eun
Published: May 2003

In light of major changes over the past decade or two in the structure of infant mortality in the United States, the primary objectives of this article are to document recent variation in pregnancy outcomes in specific Hispanic populations compared with non‐Hispanic Whites and to estimate the contemporaneous association of ethnicity with risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, and infant mortality. The primary data employed are the 1995–1997 NCHS Linked Birth/Infant Death Files. Changes over time are examined through comparisons with the 1989–1991 counterpart files. Logistic regression models provide estimates of ethnic disparities in birth weight, gestational age, and infant mortality. Every ethnic population followed the national pattern of increasing rates of adverse birth outcomes coupled with declining rates of infant mortality. Net of the effects of a wide range of risk factors, every Hispanic group was at greater risk of short gestation and low‐weight births, but at lower risk of infant death. The findings are consistent with the view that Hispanics, as well as the White, non‐Hispanic majority, have benefited from advances in neonatal health services and technology at the time of delivery and postpartum. The epidemiologic paradox appears to be applicable to some, but not all, Hispanic groups.
Explaining Supreme Court Policymaking in Civil Rights: The Influence of the Solicitor General, 1953–2002
Authors: Graham Barbara L.
Published: May 2003

What factors explain Supreme Court policymaking in civil rights cases? Despite the importance of this question of law and policy, few empirical studies have explored the problem on the area of racial and ethnic discrimination. This study seeks to fill this gap by assessing the importance of the solicitor general, the federal government's representative before the Supreme Court, as a litigant and in the filings of amicus curiae briefs. The findings confirm that the solicitor general's presence in civil rights cases does matter when explaining whether the Supreme Court reaches a liberal or conservative outcome. This research demonstrates the significance of executive‐judicial interaction in explaining Supreme Court policymaking in civil rights cases.