bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Why Do Political Parties Survive?
Authors: Yanai Nathan
Published: March 2007

This article examines the reasons for the survival of the political party as an institution despite its constant change - in many cases its decline - as an organization and its loss of social and political roles. Parties have emerged and survived in every political regime that claimed its legitimacy, in full or in part, from the concepts of consent and representation. The party developed its unique and routine institutional role, however, only within the democratic regime. Parties regularly manage - legitimize and partially organize - two regular sources of democratic instability: competitive elections and the factionalization of the legislature (and, possibly, the government). There has been no institutional challenge to this specialized role of the political party, which has proved to be uniquely capable of reconciling the basic conflict between equality and representation. The extent to which the party can survive is thus conditional on its success in making the representative regime not only operative but legitimate. The progressive development of a communicative society may eventually test, though not necessarily put an end to, the viability of the political party and its specialized role under new conditions.
Parties and Economic Policy in the USA
Authors: Royed Terry J. , Borrelli Stephen A.
Published: March 2007

The ability of parties to carry out campaign pledges is a central theme of democratic theory. While many scholars have viewed US parties as weak and ineffective, recent studies have suggested that the US system is surprisingly effective. We suggest that previous studies have not presented a clear picture of the relative success of each party under a variety of circumstances - i.e. `who gets what, when?'. We investigate each party's success in economic policy under united and divided government by analyzing fulfillment of the 384 economic policy pledges in both parties' platforms of 1976, 1980, 1984 and 1988. We conclude that institutional control is fairly predictive of the relative success of the parties, although other factors are also influential. We find that, contrary to the assumption of some studies, the president's party does not have an advantage in overall economic policy unless it has some congressional control as well.
Does Direct Democracy Matter for Political Parties?
Authors: Ladner Andreas , Brändle Michael
Published: March 2007

According to most political scientists and commentators, direct democracy seems to weaken political parties. Our empirical analysis in the 26 Swiss cantons shows that this thesis in its general form cannot be maintained. Political parties in cantons with extensive use of referendums and initiatives are not in all respects weaker than parties in cantons with little use of direct democratic means of participation. On the contrary, direct democracy goes together with more professional and formalized party organizations. Use of direct democracy is associated with more fragmented and volatile party systems, and with greater support for small parties, but causal interpretations of these relationships are difficult.
Sharing Stories about the Dialectics of Self and Structure in Teacher Socialization: Revisiting a Norwegian Physical Educatorís Life History
Authors: NÊss Fiona Dowling
Published: March 2007

Drawing upon data from a life history study of Norwegian physical education (PE) teachers, this paper examines teacher socialization from the perspective of it being problematic, rather than automatic, and reveals the dialectics of individual experience within wider socioeconomic and political structures. Three stories about teacher socialization are reconstructed from in-depth interviews with a 54-year-old female PE teacher, with a view to illustrating how individual agency, though an important feature of teacher socialization, is limited by access to power within structures and experienced very differently as a result of one’s structural position. The reader is invited to enter a process of ‘emancipatory storysharing’ which is facilitated by the momentary suspension of an explicit theoretical analysis of the life history, followed by two contrasting interpretations of the case study, with the aim of kindling critical reflection about her/his own and others’ teacher/teacher educator socialization.
Combining Competitive Sports and Education: How Top-Level Sport Became Part of the School System in the Soviet Union, Sweden and Finland
Authors: Mets‰-Tokila Timo
Published: March 2007

Combining top-level sport and education has turned out to be one way of keeping competitive sports at the international level in several countries. The best-known examples of combining sports training and education are the elite sports boarding schools found in the former Soviet Union. Discussion of educational possibilities for athletes has emerged in many countries since the 1960s. This review analyses from a historical and comparative perspective how top-level training and education leading to a degree were integrated in three countries.
News From the Community
Authors: Shand David , Leeuw Frans L.
Published: March 2007

This section, which will appear in each issue of the journal, is open to contributions from members of the evaluation community worldwide. We particularly welcome news about evaluation societies, the events that they are undertaking and other international evaluation activities. Please send contributions c/o The Editorial Office.
Whose Body Matters? Feminist Sociology and the Corporeal Turn in Sociology and Feminism
Authors: WITZ ANNE
Published: March 2007

This article proposes that the urgent task for feminist sociology is to recuperate those lost or residual `body matters' which lurk, unattended to, on the sidelines of the social. Feminist sociology must carefully negotiate the complex space between sociality and corporeality. The new feminist philosophies of the body tend sometimes to grate against this project by valorizing the body but de-valorizing gender. The new sociology of the body is recuperating the body within sociology, but pays insufficient attention to the ways in which gendered bodies have always enjoyed varying degrees of absence or presence in the sociological imaginary - in the guise of `female corporeality' and `male embodiment'. By revisiting the classical texts of sociology, such as those of Durkheim, Weber and particularly Simmel, I explore the textual strategies whereby `the body' and `the social' were dissociated in the first place and how, simultaneously, woman is saturated with, while man is divested of, corporeality and she is divested while he is invested with sociality. The absent women in sociology were the women in the body excluded from the social. It is male bodies which animate the social - they appear for a fleeting moment, only to disappear immediately, in the space between `corporeality' and `sociality'. Thus, it is not simply a case of recuperating bodies into the social, but of excavating the gendered subtexts whereby gendered bodies were differently inscribed into and out of the social in the first place. The crucial point here is not the more familiar story of her saturation with corporeality but the less familiar one of what happened to his body - how, that is, did male sociologists effect the disappearance of their own bodies in the textual strategies of sociology?
The Traffic in Cyberanatomies: Sex/Gender/Sexualities in Local and Global Formations
Authors: MOORE LISA JEAN , CLARKE ADELE E.
Published: March 2007

Medical anatomy is one of the key sites of the scientific production, reproduction and maintenance of sex and gender. Our Human Anatomies Project explores the construction, reconstruction and maintenance of difference in genital anatomies, focusing especially on the clitoris. This article focuses on representations of human genitalia in the form of cyberanatomies - video, CD-ROM and internetbased renderings of human bodies. In cyberspace as elsewhere, the biomedical expert remains the proper and dominant mediator between humans and their own bodies, despite the democratization of knowledges supposedly possible through the Internet. Special attention is given to the specific sites of production and distribution of these different cyberanatomies. Through our review of the globalization of cyberanatomies, we have come to witness the very sedimentation of sex/gender/sexuality in new arenas of representations of human bodies. Western biomedical imperialism and globalization of a standardized (American) body are taken up as core theoretical concerns.
The Alienation of Body Tissue and the Biopolitics of Immortalized Cell Lines
Authors: Lock Margaret
Published: March 2007

The alienation of body parts and their transformation into commodities raises questions about ownership, property rights, and about possible violation of the moral order. This article focuses on the `social life' of objects, including body parts, and the multiple meanings attached to them that are made visible in systems of exchange. The transformation of DNA obtained in blood samples into immortalized cell lines for use in the Human Genome Diversity Project is introduced as an illustration of contested commodification. The meanings attached to the blood samples by those from whom they are procured and their worth to the scientists who create the cell lines are of an entirely different order. Disputes about the HGDP that have erupted since it was first planned are presented in detail, followed by a discussion of the ethics of gene prospecting and the associated politics of biocapitalism currently proliferating in the private sector.
Performance as Guerrilla Ontology: The Case of Stelarc
Authors: FLEMING CHRIS
Published: March 2007

This article examines the work of the Australian performance artist, Stelarc, in terms of philosophies of mind and body. It argues that Stelarc's work can profitably be seen as a kind of performative `research' into the body; Stelarc's actions take the form of a hypothetical or speculative ontology which does not operate in order to represent possibility but to enact possibilities in real time and space. His work is compared with and shown to have some resonances with recent cybernetic and systems theories of cognition, in which cognition is figured as a form of `enaction'. This being so, Stelarc's performances suggest an exemplary mode in which `hypotheses' about alternative corporeal existences may be creatively entertained.
Embodiment and Civility in Early Modernity: Aspects of Relations between Dance, the Body and Sociocultural Change
Authors: FILMER PAUL
Published: March 2007

Dance is addressed as making significance for what Elias terms the civilizing process of early modernity through its contribution to the ennoblement of warriors and the pacification of merchants. The grounds for this are drawn from McNeill's contention that expenditure of muscular energy rhythmically in dance, as in military drill, but with different sociocultural consequences, is a fundamental human device for consolidating community feeling by facilitating cooperation by arousing a warm sense of togetherness. The significance of dance as a sociocultural practice in early modernity is discussed critically through contemporary writings from the 16th and 17th centuries, with particular consideration given to the description of dance as an allegory for moral order in Elyot's manual on the education of the ruler.
The Sacrificial Body of Orlan
Authors: CLARKE JULIE
Published: March 2007

This article proposes that the French performance artist Orlan, has, by undertaking a series of surgical interventions on her face and body, radically challenged current standards of beauty. By engaging with Judeo-Christian iconography, Greek mythology and French literature in her operations/performances, she has established an oeuvre that aligns her not only with corporeality and the abject body through images of the sacrificial, but also with aberrant body forms associated with the carnival. Although seduced by the rhetoric that surrounds the body in technology, she has turned to excess as a strategy against the benign and controlled nature of the screen, and the media's homogenization of body images. Her new identity, although not extreme, is a site of resistance in a society bent on eliminating forms that threaten the status quo.
Demonstration of Cross-Cultural Invariance of the California Psychological Inventory in America and Israel by the Guttman-Lingoes Smallest Space Analysis
Authors: Levin Joseph , Karni Eliezer S.
Published: March 2007

The smallest space analysis of proximities (SSA-1) developed by Guttman and Lingoes was applied to the intercorrelation matrix of the CPI scales for males given in the manual, and to a matrix for male medical school applicants in Israel. Each of the matrices could be represented in a two dimensional space. A correlation of .92 between the SSA interpoint distances of the American and the Israeli data was obtained proving cross-cultural invariance of the pattern of the scale intercorrelations. Similarity of order relations among variables is also illustrated by gradients showing invariant simplex patterns of the corresponding submatrices.
Dropping Out of Child Psychotherapy: Issues for Research and Implications for Practice
Authors: Kazdin Alan E.
Published: March 2007

Dropping out of psychotherapy among children and adolescents is a significant problem affecting 40-60 percent of the cases receiving outpatient care. I review research on premature termination from treatment and current issues raised by that work. Our research work on dropping out of treatment among children referred for conduct disorder is highlighted to convey a risk factor and burden-of-treatment model to identify and explain who drops out of treatment and why. Factors that predict dropping out of treatment, the clinical outcomes of children who drop out and influences that moderate the impact of risk factors are discussed. A risk-factor model can aid clinical practice. Those in practice can readily test a variety of factors to determine whether such factors predict premature termination. Once at-risk cases are identified, interventions can be used early in treatment to retain cases. Efforts to establish a therapeutic alliance at the earliest points of contact within families is one such strategy. Some factors that place families at risk (e.g. high stress) may guide foci of treatment or initial clinic contacts. Clinical practice is an excellent venue for testing hypotheses about factors that place families at risk for premature termination and for intervening to improve participation in treatment.
Working in a War Zone: A Child Psychiatrist's Experiences
Authors: Stein Bradley D.
Published: March 2007

Humanitarian aid organizations have increasingly emphasized providing mental-health services to war victims in recent conflicts, creating a situation in which mental-health professionals are working ever nearer active combat regions. This article identifies key challenges faced by psychiatrists working in a war zone, and underlines specific strategies employed successfully in central Bosnia in overcoming these challenges. Not only relevant to mental-health professionals treating war victims, many of these strategies are applicable for clinicians involved with cross-cultural populations in regions with limited resources. Examples from the Bosnian conflict illuminate the specific challenges and strategies discussed.
Addressing the Element of Deficit in Children with Autism: Psychotherapy which is Both Psychoanalytically and Developmentally Informed
Authors: Alvarez Anne
Published: March 2007

The paper discusses a new approach to the psychotherapy of the child with autism: the developmentally informed use of the psychotherapist's counter-transference to repair the deficits in a particular subgroup of severely autistic children marked more by indifference than by avoidance. The deficits concern social, communicative, play and self-regulation functions. Infant development research has illuminated certain precursors of social/cognitive development, and it is important that therapists tune responses to the appropriate, possibly very early, developmental level at which the child is functioning. Technical problems involved in dealing with the addictive elements in autistic repetitive behaviours are also discussed. Modem developments in psychoanalytic technique have helped, but even these may need supplementing in the treatment of severely impaired children.
How to Approach Neuropsychiatric Problems when You are not a Neuropsychiatrist: An Hierarchical Formulation
Authors: Nunn Kenneth Patrick
Published: March 2007

Organizing clinical findings and psychiatric features surrounding young people with suspected brain disorder can be confusing and daunting. Putting the pieces together so that particular symptoms and behaviours fit into the child's experience as a whole requires a systematic way of conceptualizing that experience. One way of doing this is to consider the structure of what the child is experiencing as a hierarchy of organizational levels, each of which depends upon the integrity of the system below. Further, it is helpful for most clinicians to consider the child's functioning; first, in relation to environment and context and, second, intrinsically. That is to say what are the capabilities of a particular child viewed in isolation. The conceptual lynchpin of adaptation ties together the contextual dependency of the child and the intrinsic capabilities of the child. In examining the intrinsic experiences of the child the traditional mental status examination is also presented in an hierarchical form in which global abilities are dealt with first before specific skills. The subtle high-order integrative functions of sensorimotor integration, judgement and insight are presented last because they are the most readily disrupted by all that goes before in intrinsic function. Each level is presented as answering a fundamental question of connectedness to the whole of the child's experience. Finally, the capacity to transform the principal difficulty in examining a child into the central rationale for understanding impairments is explicated.
The Hit and Miss of Magic Bullets: A Guide to Psychotropic Medication for Young People with Intellectual Handicap
Authors: Dossetor David
Published: March 2007

Psychotropic medication has a discrete but valuable role in the treatment of psychiatric problems of young people with intellectual handicap. This review argues in favour of the responsible use of psychotropic medication in the management of these problems and describes some of the complexities of psychiatric assessment in this population. Two clinical cases are presented. The first illustrates how helpful psychotropic medication can be. The second illustrates some of the difficulties in diagnosis. This review considers the complexity of biopsychosocial assessment, the limitations of diagnoses and some guidelines for treatment and prescribing. A brief overview of drug groups is provided. The result is a guide to a contentious subject which addresses issues of uncertainty in assessment, diagnosis, causal mechanisms, pharmacology, consent and evaluation in the context of alternative approaches.
The `Clinician's Illusion': More Evidence?
Authors: Mordock John B.
Published: March 2007

The utilization rates reported in communities that offer mental-health services to children were compared. In one community, the demonstration site of the Fort Bragg Demonstration Project, a full continuum of services were made available free of charge to residents with maximal availability of services. In the other communities, one of which offered a full continuum of services, Dutchess County, New York, services were provided for a fee and access was restricted. A much larger number of children were admitted to treatment and placed in out-of-home programs in the Fort Bragg Demonstration site, where no substantial difference in outcomes for continuum-treated as opposed to traditionally-treated children was observed. The argument is made that the utilization rates reflect that clinicians who work in communities who rapidly introduce a full continuum of care at no cost to the client are subject to the `Clinician's Illusion', the belief that all troubled children need mental-health treatment and will make no substantial improvements unless treated.
Refusal to Eat or Drink in Young Children with Anxiety Disorders
Authors: Fitzpatrick Carol
Published: March 2007

Case histories are presented of three young children with anxiety disorders whose symptoms involved refusal to eat or drink. These symptoms were severe enough to need inpatient treatment in order to ensure adequate hydration and to reduce family distress. Management involved anxiety reduction in the child and in the system around the child. This was achieved by admission to a paediatric ward, the use of a behavioural approach combined with individual and family therapy, and medication. Differential diagnosis included adjustment reactions, obsessive-compulsive disorders and eating disorders.
Thinking about the Future when Death is Inevitable: Consultations in Terminal Care
Authors: Pettle Sharon
Published: March 2007

Much of the literature about children and death has emphasized the importance of preparation; these consultations arose out of requests from the family practitioners because the parents were seeking specialist advice in helping their children cope with the imminent death of their mother. Two examples are given where a single session explored, with the parents, the children's understanding of what was happening and of death, and the parents were helped to discuss their concerns and dilemmas, and express their wishes and feelings. The framework of systemic consultation was used alongside a psycho-educational model, drawing on, and sharing the findings of relevant research. Guidelines for such work are elicited from the examples.
Denial of Depression as an Independent Correlate of Coronary Artery Disease
Authors: Ketterer Mark W. , Kenyon Lori , Foley Barbara A. , Brymer James , Rhoads Ken , Kraft Phillip , Lovallo William R.
Published: March 2007

A number of psychosocial measures were tested as correlates of coronary artery disease (CAD) in 122 males with positive coronary angiograms and 56 males with no manifest history of atherosclerotic disease who were selected to approximate the patients' age and socio economic status. Only denial of depression as indexed by spouse/friend-minus-self scores on the Ketterer Stress Symptom Frequency Checklist and number of unprovoked nocturnal awakenings were independently and positively related to CAD severity in multivariate regression analyses which controlled for jointly associated cardiac risk factors and commonly used cardiovascular medications. Denial of depression and unprovoked nocturnal awakening appear to be independent correlates of coronary artery disease.
Are You Experienced?
Authors: Borzekowski Dina L.G.
Published: March 2007

This article examines how teenagers perceive a show that is both educational and entertaining. In classrooms, 970 students viewed and evaluated one of two videos of a commercial television program featuring an anti-alcohol message. Overall, the sample assessed the programs favorably, finding the messages interesting, credible and understandable. Firsthand experience with alcohol predicted variations in the perception of an anti-alcohol message, while contact with others who use alcohol did not. Regression analysis showed personal experience with alcohol had a strong relationship to interest, a modest relationship to credibility, but no significant relationship to knowledge. In contrast, social contact with those who use alcohol often (i.e. knowing friends and family members who drink) was not significantly associated with the perceptions of an alcohol message on television. Such results suggest that those creating and using mass-media health messages effectively must be aware of the actual firsthand experiences of their audiences.
Predicting Pain and Adjustment in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Authors: Lumley Mark A. , Kelley Jane E. , Leisen James C.C.
Published: March 2007

The role of disclosure and emotional processing of stressful life events has not been studied in chronically ill populations. We attempted to predict the pain, physical dysfunction, and affective disturbance of 82 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from their life stress and from various measures of emotional processing: disclosure to others and thought frequency about stressful events, positive and negative emotional expression, ambivalence about emotional expression and secrecy. After controlling for demographics (gender, race, education, disability status), disease measures (duration of diagnosis, objective disease activity), and life stress, we found that pain was related to an increased expression of negative emotion; physical dysfunction was related to an increased frequency of thinking about stressful events; and affective disturbance was related to both increased ambivalence about emotional expression and increased thought frequency. We conclude that RA pain and adjustment are better predicted by emotional processing of stressful life events—including disclosure to others and emotional expression—than by the experience of stressful events, per se.
Women's Perspectives on their Experiences of Chronic Pelvic Pain and Medical Care
Authors: Savidge C.J. , Slade P. , Stewart P. , Li T.C.
Published: March 2007

This study aimed to explore women's experiences of chronic pelvic pain (CPP). Twenty-one interviews with women 12 to 18 months after a negative laparoscopy were conducted. A predominantly qualitative methodology was adopted. The majority of women were still experiencing pain at this time, yet few were in receipt of continuing medical care. Women's accounts suggested that their pain continued to affect many areas of their lives, and issues including uncertainty, anxiety, and a sense of not being believed emerged. In provision of care, ways in which health professionals related to women were viewed as important, and had an impact in terms of whether or not they felt their pain had been validated. Dissatisfaction with the quality and quantity of information offered by professionals was a common finding. Based on women's accounts, implications for improving the quality of care for women with CPP are provided.
The Effect Size Statistic
Authors: Hevey David , McGee Hannah M.
Published: March 2007

An increasing array of health status instruments provides challenges to the researcher in selecting the most appropriate measure in health outcomes studies. The responsiveness of a measure is its ability to identify small but important changes over time or following interventions. For health outcomes studies, responsiveness is an important psychometric requirement to guide instrument selection and it can be evaluated using the effect size statistic. The calculation and meaning of effect sizes are described here. Effect size considerations can also contribute to other topics of importance to health researchers. Issues of power and statistical and clinical significance are discussed.
Psychological Factors Associated with the Uptake of Measles Immunization
Authors: Weitkunat Rolf , Markuzzi Andreas , Vogel Susanne , Schlipköter Ursula , Koch Hans-Joachim , Meyer Gaby , Ferring Dieter
Published: March 2007

A cross-sectional study of 8204 children was performed to investigate the prevalence of immunization against measles, mumps and rubella and possible determinants of immunization uptake. The study was approached from a Lewinian perspective on preventive behaviour. Seventy-one questions referring to the guardian of the child, his or her partner, the household and the child, as well as to immunization-related experiences and situational topics were asked. Two psychological variables were studied: health locus of control and subjective relevance concerning measles. The immunization rate was 77.7 percent [95 percent confidence interval 76.8-78.6]. Multiple logistic regression yielded the following odds ratios for non- uptake of measles immunization: natural health orientation 8.74 [6.72-11.37]; advice of paediatrician 6.02 [4.67-7.75]; dangerousness of measles 2.00 [1.53-2.60]; marital status 1.87 [1.31-2.51]; assessed reliability of vaccination 1.57 [1.23-2.01]; smoking 1.55 [1.21-1.98]; and number of siblings 1.55 [1.21- 1.98]. Parents or guardians of immunized children were more internal and assessed measles as more relevant than those of non- immunized children.
Conversational Abilities Among Children with Autism and Children with Developmental Delays
Authors: Capps Lisa , Kehres Jennifer , Sigman Marian
Published: March 2007

While it is widely recognized that autism undercuts conversational ability, there has been little systematic examination of the involvement of children with autism in informal conversational interaction. This study compares the behaviour of 15 children with autism and 15 children with developmental delays matched on language ability within the context of a semi-structured conversation. Children with autism more often failed to respond to questions and comments, less often offered new, relevant contributions, and produced fewer narratives of personal experience. In contrast to prior research findings, groups did not differ with respect to use of gesture: several children with autism enhanced their communication through dramatization and pointing. Discussion focuses on the nature of pragmatic impairment in autism; factors underlying the development of conversational ability, including theory of mind; and practices that may promote communicative competence.
Risking Saturday Night:
Authors: MOORE DAWN
Published: March 2007

Through an examination of the ways in which universities regulate student drinking on campus, this article questions the claim that governing through techniques of risk is exclusive to actuarialism and scientific knowledge. It is argued that risk is not articulated solely through actuarial knowledge. Rather, risk can be expressed through many different forms of knowledge, including `common sense' knowledges that are completely removed from the actuarial. It is also suggested that university student substance use governing initiatives incorporate discourses of risk, reform, responsibility and self-care into their operationalization without privileging one over others.
Biographical Lessons for Criminology
Authors: GOODEY JO
Published: March 2007

Returning to criminology's old themes of the life story (Shaw, 1930), this article examines the importance of biography for the discipline's interpretation of people's (essentially men's) `criminal' lives. The article proposes that criminological research can be usefully developed from the single `life story' account or `biography' with criminological inferences. Particular attention is paid to Denzin's (1989: 70) ideas on `epiphany', or significant turning point moments in life, which are introduced in the article as useful for interpreting an individual's relationship to `crime' within broad socio-structural contexts. The `hegemonic masculine biography' is forwarded towards the end of the article as a means by which the individual biography and social structural forces can be interpreted anew in criminology that, as a discipline, continues to focus on the actions and outcomes of anti-social male behaviour.
Race, Science and the Construction of Native Criminality in Colonial India
Authors: BROWN MARK
Published: March 2007

For most of the 19th century, race theory and its scientific study—known as ethnology—were regarded as key tools for unlocking the secrets of human history and explaining social and biological differences among human beings. In this article the influence of race and ethnology in the development of ideas about native criminals in colonial British India is examined. The article situates discourses about crime and criminality within a wider set of deliberations that sought to know and categorize the peoples and cultures of India. The production of heuristic tools—like the concept of caste—allowed this `primitive' and `backward' society to be ordered for both scholarly and administrative inquiry. It was out of such ideas that the notion of hereditary criminal tribes was born and special legislative measures to categorize and control `suspect' native communities were justified. The nexus between criminalization and mercantilist priorities to encourage settled agricultural production and suppress traditional economic activities finds expression in Act XXVII of 1871, the Criminal Tribes Act.
Reclaiming Critical Criminology:
Authors: VAN SWAANINGEN RENÉ
Published: March 2007

This article seeks to examine the relevance of the continental European tradition in critical criminology for the theoretical elaboration of criminological theory today. The first step towards an answer is a rather descriptive one: how did critical criminology develop historically on the European continent? That is the theme of the first section. In the second section, the social and cultural developments which accompanied the heyday of critical criminology in the 1970s will be analysed, and an exposé will be given of the spectrum of the different critical perspectives on the continent. The same cultural sociological line of thought will be followed in the explanation of the rather abrupt decline of critical criminology shortly after in the third section. The need for a normative counter-weight to present-day, managerial political discourse which follows from these analyses also forms the prelude to a reaffirmation of critical criminology in section four. Because many of its original concepts and presumptions no longer fit very well to the changed political and socio-cultural reality of the late 1990s, a reconstruction of critical criminology is proposed in section five.
Social Inequalities in Mental Health: A Review of Concepts and Underlying Assumptions
Authors: Muntaner Carles , Eaton William W. , Diala Chamberlain C.
Published: March 2007

We provide an overview of two major theoretical subjects in the study of the relation between social inequalities and mental health in the last 50 years: the conceptualization of social inequalities, and assumptions about their causes. The two conceptual approaches to the conceptualization of social inequalities are: 1) ‘social stratification’ or the ordering of individuals according to economic, political, or cultural rankings; and 2) ‘social class’ relations that yield a set of class positions for individuals according to their control over different types of assets (economic, political, cultural). The two major assumptions underlying these conceptual choices in studies of social inequalities and mental health are: 1) whether effects on mental health originate at the individual or at the group level (i.e. the ‘levels-of-analysis’ issue); and 2) whether mental health is the consequence of environmental determination or the individual’s capacity for making independent decisions (the ‘agency’ issue). We propose a typology of models of social inequalities in mental health that relates these levels-of-analysis and agency issues. The typology provides an efficient conceptual reorganization that uncovers the assumptions and policy implications of research on social inequalities in mental health.
Perception of HIV Risk and Preventive Strategies: A Dynamic Analysis
Authors: Paicheler Geneviève
Published: March 2007

Since knowledge about HIV transmission seems very good, many observers are surprised that more people do not practise behaviour, like safer sex, designed to minimise risk of contracting the disease. Yet, previous studies have not shown that there is a direct link between knowledge and behaviour. New models, based on people’s concrete experiences, are therefore needed. The goal of this qualitative research, based on 61 in-depth interviews conducted in France, is to describe how people understand the threat of AIDS and how they face the risk of transmission in their sex lives.

In order to understand preventive actions, we must study how information is interpreted and how knowledge is integrated, so that people perceive general or personal risk. We must also specify the way in which people distinguish between aspects of risk perception and vulnerability; feelings of personal control, constructed on the basis of social experiences; characteristics of situations; and finally, the dynamics of action. The proposed risk management model accounts for these diverse factors in elucidating the great diversity of actions reported. This dynamic, non-linear model is designed to capture both the impact of perceptive and cognitive elements on action and vice versa.
Bearing Responsibility: How Caregivers to the Mentally Ill Assess Their Obligations
Authors: Karp David A. , Watts-Roy Diane
Published: March 2007

Based on 50 in-depth interviews, this article describes how family caregivers to a spouse, parent, child, or sibling suffering from depression, manic-depression, or schizophrenia negotiate their involvement with the ill person. The central research question asks: ‘what features of the situation do family members take into account as they try to operationalize boundaries of obligation between themselves and the mentally ill person in their lives?’ Data analysis of the joint experience of caregivers and family members reveals four interpretive junctures that mark transitions in the way caregivers assess their obligations. They are: hoping and learning, revising expectations, assessing responsibility, and preserving oneself. These categories capture clear regularities in the way respondents re-interpret their obligations to care over time. Our analysis suggests the need for a research agenda that looks more closely at how negotiations between caregivers and sick family members are mediated by their gender and status within the family.
Growing Up with a Lesbian Mother: A Theoretically-based Analysis of Personal Experience
Authors: Paechter Carrie
Published: March 2007

This article is an attempt to analyse my experiences during the 1970s as the adolescent daughter of a lesbian, setting these against some of the theoretical writing in this area. It starts from the premise that personal experience, if treated theoretically, can provide illumination beyond the scope of an individual's life. In the article I draw parallels between my experience of `coming out' as the daughter of a lesbian and the more commonly understood process of `coming out' about one's own sexual orientation. I also attempt to come to some understanding of the extent to which my experiences of 25 years ago are reflected in the experiences of the children of lesbians today and suggest how support and recognition may be given to those young people and their parents.
The Resources of Gaiety: A Professor's Retrospective
Authors: Friedenberg Edgar Z.
Published: March 2007

In September 1934, Edgar Z. Friedenberg entered Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana, USA, as a 13-year-old freshman: the first formal school he had ever attended. This article analyzes the ways in which his lifelong attraction and affection for young men determined his decision to become a university professor and his progress through an academic career ending, as Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University in Canada, where he taught for 16 years until his retirement in 1986. This is not a memoir and therefore not a coming-out story, but a discussion of the way his feelings for his students affected his perception of the society in which he was obliged to prepare them to function. Such antagonism as he aroused in administrators stemmed, apparently, not from the fear that he might create a scandal but rather that his nurturance was softening the guys up, spoiling them as potential competitors; and marring their prospects of individual competitive success.
Psychological Distress among the Cree of James Bay
Authors: Kirmayer Laurence J. , Boothroyd Lucy J. , Tanner Adrian , Adelson Naomi , Robinson Elizabeth
Published: March 2007

The object of this study was to identify potential risk and protective factors associated with psychological distress among the Cree of James Bay, through a secondary analysis of data on 1136 Cree (aged 15–85) from a random general population health survey in 1991. In multiple linear distress in the past week included: younger age, female gender, early loss of a parent or close relative, more life events in the year before the survey, a serious illness or drinking problem in the past year, ever having used cannabis, having more than elementary education, having fewer than five close friends/relatives and residing in an isolated or inland region. Having a good relationship with others in the community and spending more time in the bush were both associated with less distress. The relative importance of these factors varied across age/gender cohorts. We conclude that gender and generational differences should be considered when planning mental health promotion strategies for this population. In addition to more conventional approaches to reduce alcohol abuse, improve coping with loss and increase social support, targeted programs should be developed addressing the impact of education and role strain for women.
The Esh kodesh of Rabbi Kalonimus Kalmish Shapiro: A Hasidic Treatise on Communal Trauma from the Holocaust
Authors: Abramson Henry
Published: March 2007

Rabbi Kalonimus Kalmish Shapiro (1889–1943) was a spiritual leader of Hasidic Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation, where he continued to preach weekly sermons to his dwindling group of followers living in increasingly difficult circumstances. Discovered after the war by a construction worker clearing rubble from the destroyed ghetto and eventually published in Israel under the title Esh Kodesh(‘Holy Fire’), these weekly sermons lend insight into the strategies used by a faith community in dealing with extended trauma.
Cacophony of Voices: A K’iche’ Mayan Narrative of Remembrance and Forgetting
Authors: Foxen Patricia
Published: March 2007

This article analyzes the links and cleavages between collective and individual memory processes following a situation of war and terror. Nearly two decades after the most brutal period of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, the notions of ‘memory’ and ‘truth’ have become critical socio-political issues; institutional memory projects have taken an important place in the peace process and in Mayanist political struggles. For many Mayan Indians, however, experiences of, and explanations for, past violence are not accommodated or represented by a unified narrative of ‘social memory.’ The postwar memory work of many Mayan Indians vacillates between a multitude of discourses and strategies (subjective, local, national and transnational) used to ‘make sense’ out of a chaotic past and unstable present. By examining the story of a single transnational K’iche’ Mayan man and placing it within its particular cultural, historical and communal context, the article problematizes the notion of ‘social memory’ and ‘truth’ as used conventionally in institutional political discourse. It also engages the scientific (psychiatric) literature on trauma and violence, which tends to frame memory within distinctly Western assumptions regarding individualism, morality and narrative coherence. It argues that, for Mayans whose memory work falls outside the boundaries of such authoritative institutions and discourses, the ability to balance a variety of world views and explanations for past brutality becomes a crucial coping mechanism in the fragmented post-war era, as it has historically.
Mind beyond the Net: Implications of Cognitive Neuroscience for Cultural Psychiatry
Authors: Henningsen Peter , Kirmayer Laurence J.
Published: March 2007

Contemporary cognitive neuroscience underscores the importance of a non-reductionist analysis of the interactions of person and environment. Recent advances hold the prospect of integrating analyses of social, psychological, and neural determinants of mental disorders in one coherent scientific framework based on an action-and agent-centered view of mind, brain, and behavior. This review describes the conceptual basis of research in cognitive neuroscience paying special attention to the value of different levels of explanation. It then discusses consequences for methods and frameworks of scientific explanation in cultural psychiatry and psychological medicine.
The Relationship between Post-Natal Depression, Somatization and Behaviour in Malaysian Women
Authors: Grace Janet , Lee K. K. , Ballard Clive , Herbert Michael
Published: March 2007

This study evaluated the rate of post-natal depression (PND) in a Malaysian population, investigated the relationship between belief systems and PND, and examined the relationship between PND and somatization. The sample included 154 consecutive attendees for a 6-week post-natal check at a general hospital well-baby clinic in Kuala Lumpur. Patients were assessed using the Edinburgh Post-Natal Depression Score (EPNDS), the Bradford Somatisation Inventory (BSI), and a questionnaire to assess beliefs about pregnancy and childbirth. The rate of PND was 3.9%. EPNDS and BSI were moderately correlated. Women who practised specific post-natal practices had a higher EPNDS and BSI than those who did not. The rate of PND is lower than in Western studies but similar to that seen in other Asian countries. The correlation between BSI and EPNDS suggest that the BSI will not detect cases missed by the EPNDS.
Ethnicity and Suicidal Behaviour in Malaysia: A Review of the Literature
Authors: Morris Patrick , Maniam T.
Published: March 2007

Clinical experience, public perceptions, and research have indicated that the Indian community has been over-represented in attempted suicide and suicide rates in Malaysia. A computerized search of the literature back to 1966 on suicidal behaviour and ethnicity in Malaysia was performed supplemented by other relevant published and research material. There was a consistent pattern of higher rates of attempted suicide and suicide for the Indian population compared with other ethnocultural groups. Patterns of migration experiences, religious and cultural beliefs, higher suicide risk in rural areas, the use of toxic biocides as a method of suicide, and relatively high suicide rates in young women were identified.
Feelings of Sadness: Migration and Subjective Assessment of Mental Health among Thai Women in Brisbane, Australia
Authors: Jirojwong Sansnee , Manderson Lenore
Published: March 2007

This article reports the results of a descriptive study conducted in Brisbane, the administrative capital of Queensland, Australia. Between December 1996 and July 1997, 139 Thai women completed a structured questionnaire to collect information on their general physical and psychological health, current diseases, the impact of these on daily activities, their use of health services, changes in social, reproductive and physical health, and social and demographic characteristics. Of these women, 17 also participated in in-depth interviews with the first author, which provided further information regarding women’s own opinions and experiences of immigration and health. Mental health emerged as an important issue. Women described the feeling of sadness ( mai sa bai jai) when being interviewed. Inability to communicate effectively in English and inability to gain employment were identified as important factors influencing psychological wellbeing. Lack of support and limitations in their relationships with families and friends, and limited options for information through informal social networks, affected their ability to address psychological problems.