bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Toward a Cultural Theory of Human Rights
Authors: Moghaddam Fathali M.
Published: March 2007

Although the term `human rights' is traditionally taken to refer to fundamental rights enshrined in formal documents, certain basic `normative rights', such as turn-taking, are central to everyday social life. This paper moves toward a cultural theory of rights, proposing that certain fundamental relations, referred to as `primitive social relations', are inherent in human social life and relative to the local political orientation can appear as rights or duties. Second, normative rights/duties are maintained through evolutionary developed social skills that are integral to local cultures. Modernization has been associated with a nullification or `side-stepping' of evolutionary developed defense mechanisms protecting normative rights. Third, legislated rights/duties are a recent arrival in human cultural evolution, and they arose out of the new social relations inherent to large and complex Modern societies.
Social Action and Personal Constructs
Authors: Butt Trevor
Published: March 2007

Personal construct theory (PCT; Kelly, 1955) had its focus of convenience in psychotherapy, and consequently has been developed as an individualistic approach to the person. However, it has its roots in pragmatism, a movement which had a thorough appreciation of both the individual and the social world. The contention in this article is that PCT has potential as a theory of social action, making a significant contribution to the agency/structure debate. With reference to the work both of Kelly and of contemporary constructivists, it is argued that PCT can be drawn on to complement the pragmatic social psychology of Mead (1934). PCT's conceptualization of choice allows us to theorize personal agency and its relationship to the context of social construction within which it is embedded.
Fact Making in Psychology
Authors: Smyth Mary M.
Published: March 2007

Autonomous scientific fact statements, independent of the circumstances in which they were made, are to be found in scientific textbooks, according to Kuhn and Latour. Introductory biology textbooks have few references, little acknowledgement of researchers, and few qualifications of the facts they present. This paper examines introductory psychology textbooks and finds little autonomous fact writing. Instead, when dealing with memory and with social interaction, psychology text-books use experiments to demonstrate generalizations, they qualify claims and refer extensively to the literature. A key feature is that psychology textbooks present experiments and other evidence as the content that the beginner must learn. Psychology presents paradigms of doing, not of knowing. Psychology's struggle to make scientific knowledge is presented in the textbooks, but the knowledge is not autonomous. Psychological knowledge always carries evidence with it, indicating that the possibility of disagreement is ever-present. This raises issues about how psychological knowledge becomes accepted and about the place of academic fact making in the establishment of psychological regimes of truth.
Introduction: A Symposium on Explanatory Pluralism
Authors: de Jong Huib Looren
Published: March 2007

This introduction provides a brief sketch of explanatory pluralism and related issues. It is argued that traditional ideas in the philosophy of science about connections between levels of explanation, autonomy and reduction are too simple to account for the multifaceted explanatory relations between psychology and its neighboring disciplines. Explanatory pluralism holds that theories at different levels can co-evolve and mutually influence each other, without reduction of the higher-level theory to the lower-level one. Establishing bridges between cognitive psychological and neuro-physiological theories may suggest problems and solutions, and thus foster further development, both ways. The ideas put forward in this Symposium provide resources for a pluralistic view on psychological explanation, and militate against the `single-plot story' that physiological reductionism holds up as an ideal to psychology.
Construction of the Mental
Authors: Valsiner Jaan
Published: March 2007

Developmental theorizing in psychology is shown to be based on axiomatic grounds that are antithetical to those of `the cognitive revolution'. Therefore it is not surprising that cognitivism has had a very limited impact upon our knowledge of developmental processes. Instead, it has had curious `side-effects'-it has kept the investigators' attention away from the processes of development, and has fortified the historically strong emphasis on the study of those psychological functions that have already developed. The question of how cognitive processes emerge, develop and reach their fully functional states has been replaced by the question of whether persons (at different age levels) can be shown to 'possess' specific mental functions that are adaptive in specific task settings.
Rhetoric and the Social Construction of Cognitivism
Authors: Shotter John
Published: March 2007

Making use of analytic devices recently introduced into psychology from rhetoric, cognitive psychology is criticized in a number of ways: (i) for reflexively failing to take into account its own rhetorical strategies in its social construction of its research `tradition'; (ii) for failing to guard against the textual creation of a set of problems, said to be real and to do with people's mental activities, but which are in fact imaginary; and (iii) for rendering many other important aspects of people's everyday psychological knowledge rationally-invisible as a result. Central among the invisibilities of cognitivism is people's first-person sense of their own being. Social constructionists feel both (i) that the kind of Self we are depends upon the form of our social relations, and (ii) that our ways of knowing depend upon the kind of Self we are. However, if a way of being is something that is only subjectively sensed or felt, how might different ways of being be characterized? A new non-theoretical, descriptive way of talking, one which provides us with a way of seeing ourselves `in' what is said, would seem to be required.
Reason, Reasons and Reasoning
Authors: Moshman David
Published: March 2007

The concept of rationality has its roots in a historic philosophical conception of human beings as creatures of reason. To act on the basis of reason is to act on the basis of reasons, which in turn implies a process of reasoning. An objectivist conception of rationality sees its essence as lying in the use of reasoning processes that conform to appropriate logical norms. A subjectivist conception of rationality sees its essence in the subjective appeal to reasons. It is argued that neither approach alone is adequate. Rationality is best viewed as metasubjective objectivity. That is, the standards that embody rationality's objective component are not externally imposed rules that circumvent subjectivity. Rather, they are internally constructed via active reflection on one's subjectivity. Psychological evidence on the development of metasubjectivity is interpreted as consistent with the present approach. Implications for theory and research, and for educational and psychotherapeutic practice, are discussed.
Theoretical Psychology in China Today
Authors: Yue Guoan
Published: March 2007

The author describes two aspects of the research on theoretical psychology in China today. First, research on basic theoretical problems of psychology which include the foundational principles of studying psychology, the nature of psychology itself, the methodology of psychology, the relations between mind and body, and the categories of human psychological activities; second, research on certain western schools of psychology-Wundt's psychology, Freudian theory, neo-behaviourism, humanistic psychology and cognitive psychology. The author then addresses the controversy over the importance of and the necessity for theoretical research among Chinese psychologists, stating that theoretical psychology must be strengthened in China if Chinese psychology is to become robust.
A Letter to Michael Billig
Authors: Stringer Peter
Published: March 2007

This article is a referee's report on a manuscript by Billig, subsequently published in this journal. It also represents a limited attempt at a `populated' report (cf. Billig); and, by implication, reflects on the literary practice of reviewing.
Psychopathy One more Time: Comment to Levenson
Authors: Smith Robert J.
Published: March 2007

Levenson (1992) has proposed a subjectivist perspective on psychopathy focused on the choices/assumption made by the individual, and he extrapolates to corporations and other aggregates as perpetrators of `institutional psychopathy'. He examines arguments from biological, sociological and developmental perspectives and finds them wanting. This comment looks again at these dismissed areas, suggesting Levenson recapitulates them at times idiosyncratically, and constructs his own alternative on the questionable foundation of abstract universal (etic) values in the face of concrete marketplace (emic) values with which psychopathy spectrum behavior shows marked congruence.
Social Context and Psychological Testing in South Africa, 1918-1939
Authors: Louw Johann
Published: March 2007

In the period between the two world wars the social and human sciences in South Africa became important contributors to the debates about vital social issues, of which `the Native question' was a particularly pressing one. Psychological knowledge, too, was utilized in the legitimation of a social order based on race, since the perception was that psychological testing produced empirical data which supported certain explanations of this order. Two ideological positions developed in the period under review in South Africa: eugenics and Christian-nationalism. The contribution of psychological testing, eugenics and Christian-nationalism to the construction of `race' in the local context forms the focus of this paper. It is argued that eugenics provided arguments for social inequality in terms of biology, while its counterpart, Christian-nationalism, provided similar arguments based on theology. However, Christian-nationalism also enabled Afrikaner politicians and social scientists to mobilize impoverished Afrikaans speakers, and hence it had more of a policy impact than eugenics. Psychological testing became recognized as a source of authority on social controversies, particularly with reference to educational policies, where race played a significant mediating role.
`Nomothetic' and `Idiographic'
Authors: Lamiell James T.
Published: March 2007

Modem understandings of the terms `idiographic' and `nomothetic' have diverged considerably from the meanings originally assigned to those terms by their inventor, the German philosopher Wilhelm Windelband (1848-1915). Much of this is attributable to the ascendance and eventual hegemony of aggregate statistical thinking within scientific psychology generally and personality psychology in particular. Based on an examination of the relevant portions of Windelband's original 1894 text, the present article seeks to clarify the misunderstandings which have resulted from this development. One objective of this contribution is to provide a more accurate historical perspective on the long-running nomothetic vs idiographic controversy. A second objective is to provide a much needed critical perspective on certain knowledge claims currently issuing from some quarters of mainstream trait psychology.
On the Purposes Served by Psychological Research and its Critics
Authors: Schaller Mark , Crandall Christian S.
Published: March 2007

We concur with Wallach and Wallach's (1998) subjective assessment that much psychological research contributes little to our corpus of knowledge, but we dispute their analysis of the causes of this problem. A critical assessment of their analysis reveals it to be (a) logically flawed, (b) irrelevant to hypotheses conceming psychological processes, and (c) potentially injurious to the processes through which creative scientific hypotheses are developed. The Wallachs' article may serve a valuable purpose-but only if read very critically.
Dialogue, Difference and Voice in the Zone of Proximal Development
Authors: Cheyne J. Allan , Tarulli Donato
Published: March 2007

In recent years many similarities, especially centering on the notion of dialogue, have been noted in the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin and Lev Vygotsky. Although both attend to the dialogical character of speech and thought and the role of dialogue in the social constitution and genesis of mind, we argue that their understandings of dialogue are different in important ways. We consider the implications of such differences for a broader cultural-historical view of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) by focusing on three issues: dialogue, otherness and voice. These issues lead us to consider extending the domain of the ZPD to incorporate Magistral, Socratic and Menippean dialogues. These dialogues constitute three regions on a continuum with centripetal Vygotskian and centrifugal Bakhtinian poles, and each emerges at a different point of development of the ZPD. This broader perspective on the ZPD provides a medium for cultural and historical change as well as for individual socialization.
Exporting or Abandoning the `German Model'?: Labour Policies of German Manufacturing Firms in Central Europe
Authors: Bluhm Katharina
Published: March 2007

There are empirical and theoretical reasons to doubt whether German firms wholly transfer their `high-road' employment practices and industrial relations when shifting production to countries in central and eastern Europe. Yet neither are they likely radically to abandon these patterns. This article examines German subsidiaries in Poland and the Czech Republic, highlighting three important labour practices (working-time accounts, vocational training and approaches to industrial relations). The empirical findings reveal that highly internationalized firms, namely the large multinational corporations, appear most inclined to retain the German pattern, since they are still firmly embedded in the German institutional system of industrial relations.
The German Approach to Industrial Relations: A Literature Review
Authors: Keller Berndt
Published: March 2007

This review article begins by discussing some of the distinctive features of industrial relations research in the German context. It then discusses the main general and introductory texts which have been available in the German-speaking literature since the mid-1980s. There is a brief discussion of contributions within both academic and practitioner-orientated journals, and a concluding assessment of the future of German-language industrial relations studies.
Globalization, Labour Flexibility and Insecurity: The Era of Market Regulation
Authors: Standing Guy
Published: March 2007

This article considers the international trends to more flexible labour relations in terms of the erosion of seven forms of labour-related personal security and the evolving forms of labour market regulation. It suggests that growing labour market flexibility has been accompanied by a reconstitution of the social wage and a profound re-regulation of labour relations, not `de-regulation', which is an inappropriate term to describe any labour market. The flexibility and market regulation has influenced the extent and character of labour fragmentation, which is creating new challenges for social and labour policy. The article concludes by sketching three possible routes of reform, one stemming from the former era of social regulation, the second extrapolating from the currently dominant market regulations perspective and the third linked to the desirable extension of democracy and the promotion of redistributive justice.
The `Culture-Free' Organization? Industrial Relations in European Authorities
Authors: Hassel Anke
Published: March 2007

How far can organization-specific industrial relations coexist with national industrial relations systems? This article adopts a novel perspective on this question by looking at organizations which are outside any national framework of industrial relations. Two case studies of employment conditions, labour relations and trade union structures in European authorities reveal industrial relations systems independent of those of the country in which they are based, and primarily dependent on organization-specific factors such as the institutions regulating employment conditions in the organization.
How do Institutional Frameworks Affect Industrial Relations Outcomes? A Micro-Statistical Comparison of France and Britain
Authors: Coutrot Thomas
Published: March 2007

Industrial relations are widely regulated by law in France, while the British system is essentially voluntaristic. More broadly, the structures, strategies and ideologies of social actors in the two countries differ profoundly. Comparative statistical analysis, based on two similar workplace industrial relations surveys (WIRS 90 and REPONSE 92), sheds some light on the internal logic of each system. Our results show that while British unions, in the establishments where they still exist, certainly have more members and more formal involvement in management decisions, their French counterparts are present in a larger proportion of establishments, and have a greater ability to mobilize workers for conflict when they find it necessary.
Review Article: On Founding Choices and Strategic Choice
Authors: Beaupain Therese
Published: March 2007

This review article concerns both comparative texts with a focus on national industrial relations systems and works concerned with difficulties faced by unions today. The author considers that one important aspect to be taken into consideration, both in describing the systems and in assessing the present challenges, concerns the `founding choices' which helped establish the modern institutional orders. She also suggests that more attention be given in comparative work to building up knowledge in a cumulative way.
Providing Space for Time
Authors: Mills Melinda
Published: March 2007

The article alerts those in the field of quantitative life course research to the ontological impact of different forms of temporality. The first section reviews the influence of cosmic cycles, human development, historical, cultural, social and institutional forms of temporality on life course behaviour. Two central themes arise. Institutional calendars shape our everyday lives, and seemingly innocent calendars may influence behaviour. Furthermore, behavioural affects from cosmic and biological time are increasingly colonized by social constructions of temporality. The second section outlines how ontological perceptions of time shape the epistemological approach. The discussion separates temporal effects from what is an artefact of data, methods and methodology. Timing and method of data collection, memory, and self-registration influence results. The author suggests reflexivity, new interpretations of memory, and blending of methods and sources to improve research.
The Up-to-Date Periodical
Authors: Beegan Gerry
Published: March 2007

This article uses Georg Simmel's writing on subjectivity and the metropolis to examine a magazine of the 1890s. Simmel's account is of an internally experienced present in the rapidly changing metropolis. The article analyzes an innovative periodical of the 1890s, the Sketch, and its editor. It is located in the `up-to-date'. Its focus is on leisure, the individual and a glamorized femininity. The presentation of this material in new journalistic forms, the photograph, the interview and the sketch are discussed. A flux of modernity is experienced in the magazine as a pleasurable and exciting individual experience.
What's Wrong with Being and Time
Authors: Loy David
Published: March 2007

For Heidegger, as for existential psychology, our primary repression is death-fear. But since Being and Time misses `the return of the repressed' in symbolic form, Heidegger overlooks how future-oriented temporality can become `a schema for the expiation of guilt'. Heidegger's authentic and inauthentic ways of experiencing time are both reactions to the inevitable possibility of death. To see how time might be experienced without the shadow of death, Heidegger's approach is contrasted with the Buddhist deconstruction of time, which denies the commonsense duality between self and time.
Temporal Context and Temporal Patterning
Authors: McGrath Joseph E. , Kelly Janice R.
Published: March 2007

Temporal factors are pervasive in social psychological phenomena, both as features of the temporal context within which social-psychological processes are embedded and as features of the patterning of those behavioral processes themselves. Yet temporal issues have not been given very much attention in current mainstream social psychology. This paper is an attempt to lay out some concepts and terms that may be useful for conceptualizing social psychology within a perspective that gives more attention to such temporal factors. It deals with temporal issues in conceptual substantive and methodological domains.
Present Concern with Future Time
Authors: Powell Christopher
Published: March 2007

Evidence of span of concern with future time is sought in the incidence of permanence in stocks of buildings. Some contrasting attitudes to permanence in four different historical periods are considered. Manifest long-term future concern among providers of buildings appears to have grown from rarity to universality and to have conferred status. Latterly permanence, which was associated with manifest long-term future concern, conflicted with short-term unpredictable change in human activities and processes in buildings. Various design strategies intended to provide building flexibility were a response to the conflict.
The Historian's Time
Authors: Lundmark Lennart
Published: March 2007

The article discusses two dichotomies in the analysis of time-conceptions and their relation to historiography. Regarding the absolute-relational dichotomy it is concluded that historiography has put far too much emphasis on the absolute conception of time when establishing chronological systems. The second dichotomy is the one between time as fundamentally an A- or a B-series in MacTaggart's sense; and regarding that, the conclusion is that the B-series has gained an undeserved hegemony when historiography has attempted to model its conception of science on the natural sciences. Finally the two dichotomies are combined and it is argued that historians should put more emphasis on the relational/A-series combination.
Technological Evolution, Working Time and Remuneration
Authors: Grossin William
Published: March 2007

Every society has its own collective representation of time which is adopted without question by the individuals who constitute that collective. Where does it come from? The hypothesis sustained here is that it is tied to the dominant mode of production. Briefly examined in this paper are economies based on hunting and gathering, cultivation, crafts and commerce, along with contemporaneous mechanized industry. The latter produces a homogeneous and linear time—clock time—on which salaries are based. With the surge of new technologies there appears a new type of salary too, one which foreshadows a new representation of time.
Punctuality and the Everyday Ethics of Time
Authors: Shaw Jenny
Published: March 2007

A taken-for-granted aspect of everyday life is that people are usually punctual. This norm is so well established that a common sense understanding of unpunctuality as a personality defect prevails in the social science literature. Drawing on qualitative and experiential data from the Mass Observation Archive, this paper argues that punctuality is less a matter of individual virtue and more one of age, gender and work situation. It proposes that a close study of these differentiating `surface' conditions leads back to more fundamental questions of social structure and solidarity. The sentiments underlying the norm demanding unconditional punctuality correspond to, and may be a legacy of, the `mechanical solidarity' that Durkheim stressed underpinned even the most complex and advanced societies.
`History Balancing the Scales'
Authors: Malpas Simon
Published: March 2007

Postmodernism has challenged previous philosophical ideas about time and subjectivity by questioning the possibility of direct access to a present that had, hitherto, grounded notions of knowledge and experience. This article, through an investigation of the work of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, explores the ways in which postmodern accounts of time provide the possibility of a radically different conception of the subject's experience of the world.
Time Creation in Travelling
Authors: Elsrud Torun
Published: March 2007

This paper deals with long-term budget travelling from different time perspectives. Narratives of travel, given by women backpackers and interpreted through `time lenses', lead to an analysis of the journey as an individualized time-space in which the traveller regains control of her own time and movement. It is argued that this control, sensed as `freedom', opens up both mind and body to a complexity of different time experiences. These vary depending on context and speed of movement. Thus, the long-term journey into different and diversified cultures is discussed as a move away from clock-time and other structuring devices into a space and time where the traveller is, to a certain extent, left alone to do her own structuring. The backpacker is both living and creating her own time.
The Politics of City-Region Planning and Governance
Authors: Tewdwr-Jones Mark , McNeill Donald
Published: March 2007

Issues relating to the governance of urban areas and regions have become of increasing interest to academics and policy analysts. In the global economy, urban and economic development matters are being interpreted within the governance framework. As a consequence of the lack of a formal statutory metropolitan political focus within the UK over the last 30 years, much of this debate has invariably focused on one scale: the city or the local. But the New Labour Government’s political and administrative restructuring of the institutions and regions of governance is reconfiguring the city development issue onto another level. In future, it will be possible to view the urban governance issue from the perspective of a much broader framework, involving issues relating to urban policies within institutions operating at the regional level. This article is intended to chart the development of a push towards city-region planning and governance in the UK. It focuses specifically on political and institutional restructuring as a catalyst to a reconceptualization of the urban problem, and assesses four key components that have engendered this sense of strategic policy making over the last few years: central government funding opportunities through partnerships; the emergence of regional planning; the creation of regional development agencies with an urban remit; and opportunities provided by European Union funding mechanisms. The article concludes by outlining possible future directions for city regions and identifies where future research is required.
Institutional Identities and the Shifting Scales of State Governance in the United Kingdom
Authors: Jones Rhys
Published: March 2007

In recent years, organizations of state governance within the United Kingdom have undergone a fundamental change in scale. The creation of a Scottish Parliament, and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies, along with the devolution of power to Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in England, has signalled a substantial territorial refocusing of the scales of political and economic power within the UK state. In this paper, I argue that Storper’s (1997: 268) distinction between institutions - in other words, customary, and sometimes informal rules of practice between groups and individuals - and more formal organizations - which relate to far more programmed and prescriptive political and administrative forms - is useful to study such processes. I suggest that it is imperative for these new bureaucracies of governance, along with their representatives, to undergo an institutional, as well as an organizational, change if they are to become key elements within the British political economy. I contextualize the processes occurring within the contemporary British state by exploring some of the crucial changes which happened during another important period of state restructuring in the United Kingdom, namely the early modern period. In this context, Braddick (1991) has forcefully argued that the centralization of state power which occurred during this earlier period was successful precisely because it also involved a change in informal institutions, as the identities and loyalties of the key bureaucratic officers in the localities gradually became more aligned with the English state. Using some brief vignettes from the contemporary UK state, I suggest that the loyalties and institutional identities of the key officers of state within the new regional bodies - politicians and civil servants, for instance - also need to change if these new organizations are to become truly effective means of governance.
Perceived Crowding in Indian Classrooms: The Effects of Age, Gender and Household Density
Authors: Pandey Janak , Verma Meera , Ruback R. Barry
Published: March 2007

Ninety primary school students in a city in northern India, an equal number of boys and girls, participated in a simulation task in which they placed small figures in a model classroom that they were told to make, in counterbalanced order, crowded or non-crowded. The students, 30 from each of three age groups (6-7, 9-10 and 12-13), also rated conditions in their classroom and their home. Analyses revealed consistent age effects, such as that younger children were more likely to place the figure representing them farther from the front of the simulated classroom, and, with regard to their actual classroom, to think there were too many children. In terms of gender, boys, compared to girls, generally placed the figure representing them more centrally in the simulated classroom, although this difference disappeared when the simulated classroom was crowded.
Importance of Supervisory Social Support and its Implications for HRD in Thailand
Authors: Bhanthumnavin Duchduen
Published: March 2007

Social support is one of the important characteristics needed for supervisors in Thailand. This article has two purposes. The first is to explore the definition of supervisory social support and important research findings in Thailand, and second, to provide recommendations for human resource development (HRD) study and practice in Thailand.
The Cultural Framing of Conceptions of Development
Authors: Kanner Bonnie G.
Published: March 2007

The notion of development as an objective phenomenon views it as if it occurs "out there". Thus conceptions of development entail endpoints or idealised goals to be achieved. The developmental trajectories and endpoints may be quite diverse both within and across cultures. By becoming aware of, and separating cultural values from conceptions of devel opment, the phenomena viewed as developmental is broadened and the scope of its description and explanation expanded. Such concepts which originated in developmental theories have become everyday notions in many cultures, and, therefore, have significant implications for a wide range of socio-cultural and political discourses.
Normative Theory in Intergroup Relations: Explaining Bo th Harmony an d Conflict
Authors: Pettigrew Thomas F.
Published: March 2007

This paper outlines the normative approach to intergroup harmony and intergroup conflict. It illustrates the power of racial norms in research conducted in the United States. It also indicates potential weaknesses of normative theory in this and other social scientific areas of inquiry. The normative approach is illustrated with research conducted by the author over the past 35 years in such conflict-ridden interracial situations as the southern United States and the Republic of South Africa as well as in the more harmonious intergroup context of The Netherlands. The paper advances a speculative application of normative theory to ethnic tensions currently arising in many develcping countries. It also discusses social psychological processes underlying change in intergroup norms.
Changing Methodologies: A Co-constructivist Study of Goal Orientations in Social Interactions
Authors: Uchoa Branco Angela , Valsiner Jaan
Published: March 2007

In psychology the need for methodological innovation along the lines of the co-constructionist paradigm is emphasised. The model of methodology outlined is a cyclical research process in which goal-oriented thinking and interven tional procedures are used by the investigator in interaction with investigated phenomena. Traditional psychology's concern with variables has led to a sepa ration of the different facets of the target phenomena and has not proved useful in studying developmental processes. Co-constructionist methods involve the re-interpretation of existing methods, for example, interview and it is sug gested that these methods are akin to the hermeneutic process of knowledge construction whereby the emergence of relevant and novel psychological phe nomena is possible. The microgenetic research strategies that are used help to retain the individual sequence of the phenomena in the constructed data. The co-constructionist methodological approach is used to study cooperative and competitive behaviours in pre-school children. This process involves a uni fication of inductive and deductive inferences and a re-conceptualisation of the phenomena in terms of goal orientation convergence and divergence. An analysis of interactions between children and the adult experimenter is provided.
Psychology and National Development
Authors: Moghaddam Fathali M. , Bianchi Cynthia , Daniels Katherine , Apter Michael J. , Harré Rom
Published: March 2007

Psychologists have important contributions to make to the debate on national development, particularly because human development is now viewed as central to national development. A major shortcoming of the psychological literature on national development is the lack of an adequate explanation of change. We address this gap through an account of national development based on social reducton theory and reversal theory, two recent theories that focus on change and stability.
Gender and Stratification in Science
Authors: Kumar Neelam
Published: March 2007

The study offers empirical evidence of gender inequities in the academic hierarchy as an import ant aspect of the social organisation of Indian science. While there are no statistically significant differences in terms of writing books, articles and presenting papers at conferences, the two groups (men and women scientists) differ in terms of academic rank. Discrimination is one obvious explanation, and gender stratification can be proposed as a perspective to explain this phenomenon. Research performance appears to be unrelated to the differential ranking of men and women scientists—it points towards a lack of universalistic factors in promotion. Another finding is that there is no difference between men and women scientists in terms of recognition measures, such as awards and membership of professional organisations. The results reveal: (a) the role of gender, an ascriptive factor, as a reference point from which differentiation does take place within Indian scientific institutions; and (b) the association between scientific careers for women and the class structure.
The Moral Mother Syndrome
Authors: De Alwis Malathi
Published: March 2007

This paper briefly explores a crucial component of Sinhala nationalism that is articu lated through the reiteration of a moral and maternalised historical role model, namely, the legendary queen Vihara Maha Devi, within particular cultural and political spaces in Sri Lanka. Describing this phenomenon as the 'Moral Mother Syndrome', the author extends its original delineation by Micaela di Leonardo—as providing the framework for an ideology that primarily 'speaks for peace'—to one that speaks for peace through a call to violence that is nevertheless formulated as being moral and just due to it being prentised upon an argument about the vulner ability and victimisation of the majority community, the Sinhalese.
Reason, Individualism and Cultureless Society: Relevance of the Past
Authors: Feldman Steven P.
Published: March 2007

The central irony of the Reformation—the effort to deepen religious experience resulted in a secular and exaggerated egoism—is the origin of the modern attitude towards the past. The purpose of this article is to understand this attitude in historical and sociological contexts, and to develop a concep tual framework that points beyond it. I will begin with a review of Christian social and economic ethics, focusing on the change in moral commitments following the Reformation. This will include a discussion of the rise of the secular individual during the Enlightenment and his/her development into the ruthless competitor characteristic of the nineteenth century, finally culminating in what Philip Rieff has called the 'cultureless' society of the twentieth century.1 The relation between the breakdown of culture in Western society and totalitarianism is considered in this context. Finally, a discussion of the role of culture and tradition in society is presented to suggest ways to re-establish an enduring moral order.
Spirituality in a Changing World: Issues for Education
Authors: Kimber David
Published: March 2007

Spirituality is a word that is regaining use as people are questioning the economic materialist frame work of society. This article suggests that influences such as materialism, secularization, individualism and globalization are impacting the fabric of society in Australia. Alongside these influences, the article identifies three emerging forms of spirituality. The implications for educators are considered. Themes such as ethics, values and spirituality may re-emerge in new ways in education. Our vocational educational focus may change. The importance of credentialism may diminish. Education may become part of one's life-quest for meaning rather than an episodic initiation rite oriented towards work. The article concludes by suggesting that Australia could lead the way in this movement.
Ethics in Public Administration: Classical Insights and Current Practices
Authors: Vittal N.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines in some detail the chief reasons for the low ethical standards in public administration today. References have been made to the concept of dharma and the principles for ethics in public adminis tration as reflected in our tradition in the Vedanta, Upanishads, Manu and the Bhagwad Gita. Several radi cal, legal and systemic remedies are suggested and defended at length. The leitmotif of all this is an earnest call to return to and practise the ancient principles of dharma to manage the polity on the basis of enduring verities. The suggestions offered by the author are all anchored in such permanent principles.
Routes to Reality: Scientific and Rishi Approaches
Authors: Sharma Subhash
Published: March 2007

Scientific routes to understanding the nature of reality have led to the development of science and technology, which in turn has led to improvement in material conditions of humanity. In contrast, the rishi route to real ity enhanced our understanding of human beings from the perspective of higher levels of consciousness. The rishi route has given us insights and ideas for improvement in the spiritual conditions of humanity. There is a need for an 'integral embrace' of the two routes. This paper presents a discussion on these two routes to reality and suggests that their integration would lead us a step further in the direction of creating sacro-civic societies by preventing alienation of human beings from their real nature.
Eleven Necessary Conditions for Sustainability: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
Authors: Klessig Lowell L. , Hagengruber John G.
Published: March 2007

Eleven primary social needs are defined, which if attained, fulfil the generic needs of all societies. Balanced attention to all these needs is the key to sustainability. Based on an analysis of constitutions, media content, citizen surveys, and participant observation, such balance is compared in 28 countries. The dangers of prioritization in China (economic opportunity), Japan (economic opportunity), the former Soviet Union (collective security), and the United States (individual freedom/individual security) are explored in great detail. Finally, homeostatic social mechanisms designed to allocate attention to the full range of needs are discussed.
Barriers to Innovation in Small-scale Industries: Case Study from the Briquetting Industry in India
Authors: Clancy Joy
Published: March 2007

This paper focuses on the innovation process in small- and medium-scale industries in developing countries, raking the briquetting (densification of biomass) as a case study. The technical efficiency was found to vary significantly between firms, which can be attributed to the lack of technological capabilities within firms and weaknesses in the external envir onment. Management skills were found to be weak, which has been identified as the major factor inhibiting innovation within briquetting firms.

Institutional support was found to be weak too. The policy issues that had the most influence on the innovation process were identified as import restrictions and financial incentives. Technology is still interpreted as hardware. Consequently, measures tend to focus on these aspects, whereas attention needs to be given to upgrading and modernising entrepreneurs management skills.
Agri-food Biotechnology Discourse in India
Authors: Yamaguchi Tomiko , Harris Craig K. , Busch Lawrence
Published: March 2007

Introduction of biotechnologies, particularly genetically modified (GM) technologies, have led to varying public responses from the government, general public and concerned farmers who use the technological products at the field level. Introduction of Bt cotton in India over the last five years generated considerable debate from the time open field testing of Bt cotton commenced towards the late 1990s. This paper is a modest attempt to map the contours of this debate and analyse it from a sociological perspective of the actors. Most significantly, actors in government and industries express trust in the ar rangements governing biotechnology, while actors in civil society point out problems with the functioning of the relevant governing bodies. We first present a brief overview of the events of the controversy, and then proceed with the body of our study.
Tunisian Science in Search of Legitimacy
Authors: Sno Francois
Published: March 2007

Tunisia's scientific system can be seen as the contradictory confluence of a state discourse prescribing the constitution of a national science to serve socio-economic development and the successful transplantation of the most academic elements of the French system of the 1960s and 1970s. These streams of influences provide a ground of both strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths lie in the fact that this process has generated representations held by the researchers constructed around certain values imbued from public sector research, inter national collaboration and excellence. The scientific community in Tunisia in a large measure sees itself as being invested with a mission: the reliable production and trans mission ofknowledge, whose continuity in the long term must be ensured. These represen tations have no doubt helped Tunisian research overcome the many trials and tribulations of its short history. However, on the other hand, the state policies from the mid-1990s have set to reorganise the research system to make it more responsive to the economic and practical demands of the society. The combination of these influences. which have historically shaped Tunisian science, will be explored in this paper.
S&T Reform in Mongolia: A Challenge in Transition
Authors: Turpin Tim , Bulgaa Ganbat
Published: March 2007

Mongolia has undergone rapid and extensive political and economic reform over the past decade. An impressive science and technology system inherited from over sixty years of being embedded in the former Soviet economy has been placed under con siderable financial pressure during the reform process. As market reforms deepen, a major challenge for government planners is to maintain the inherent strengths of their science system and turn its potential technology development capabilities towards national priorities for socio-economic development. While the Mongolian government has recently introduced an array of new legislation to underpin S&T policy for the twenty-first century, the task of setting out a plan of action still remains. In order to assist the Mongolian government to meet these challenges, UNESCO has funded a project to prepare a National Master Plan for Science and Technology Policy. This article describes work in progress and identifies some of the current organisational challenges.
Diamond Mining and Trade in South India in the Seventeenth Century
Authors: Alam Ishrat
Published: March 2007

India was one of the leading sources of diamonds known to Europeans in the early modern world, and as such it occupied an important position in the networks of trade in the Indian Ocean. However, despite this importance, not much is known about the organisation of its production and the networks of its distribution, or of its overall economic importance. This essay attempts to study the production and trade of diamonds in south India in the seventeenth century on the basis of English and Dutch commercial records. The diamond industry attracted both European and Asian traders during the course of this century, making it an important sphere of employment generation in the non-agricultural sector, and for the development of specialised labour skills in this period.
Vicissitudes of Commercial Trading: Castile and Flanders at the End of the Fifteenth Century (1474-94)
Authors: Flórez Gloria Cristina
Published: March 2007

Since the thirteenth century, the kingdom of Castile has brought into being an important commercial development relating to wool (thanks to the well-known sea route Carrera a Flandes), connected the Cantab rian, Atlantic and the North Seas, and established a close link between Burgos and Bruges. By the end of the fifteenth century, even as the Castilian maritime traffic was favoured by the the Castilian mercantile associations and the creation of the consulate of Burgos, it yet showed the vicissitudes induced by political and economic conjunctures. This implied the decay of wool trade and the above-mentioned cities. Medieval precedents nevertheless exercised a strong presence in the Spanish colonial trade in America or Carrera de Indias.
Diplomacy and Diplomatic Procedure under the Mughals
Authors: Farooqi N.R.
Published: March 2007

Like all early modern Asian states, the Mughal Empire did not have a regular diplomatic corps with members permanently stationed abroad. Special ambassadors were accredited to states on specific occasions to carry out diplomatic missions. Only learned and experienced senior man sabdars were appointed ambassadors. The envoys coming to the Mughal court were well received with amenities provided corresponding to the status of the monarch they represented. They were required to observe an elaborate protocol in keeping with contemporary diplomatic norms while presenting their credentials at the court. Interest of the state and geopol itical realities of the time rather than religious and sectarian considerations determined the dynamics of Mughal diplomacy. It therefore had all the trappings of a modern diplomatic apparatus.