bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Nations, National Identities and Human Agency: Putting People Back into Nations
Authors: Thompson Andrew
Published: March 2003

This article stresses the necessity of more detailed considerations of social action and human agency in sociological theorising on national identity. It argues that, as much as other sociological categories such as ‘class’, ‘gender’, ‘race’, categories of ‘nation’ and ‘national identity’ are of important practical use in giving order to the social world. The article is primarily intended as a critique of a good deal of the sociological work in this area, and suggests the need to more systematically consider how individuals actively organise and account for ideas of nation and national identity. There is now a growing corpus of qualitative studies of national identity; what is needed now is to begin to work towards a general sociological theory of national identity.
‘the Downright Torture of Women’: Moral Lobby Women, Feminists and Pornography
Authors: Luff Donna
Published: March 2003

Apparent alliances between moral campaigners and certain feminists in opposition to pornography have been the subject of discussion both in the United States and in Britain. Drawing on a wider study of the views of women in British moral and pro-family organisations, this article examines the attitudes of such women to pornography. It then compares these views with those of anti-pornography feminists, commenting in particular on the moral reasoning underlining different perspectives. Attention to moral reasoning, it is argued, helps to further explicate the charges of ‘alliance’ between the moral lobby and anti-pornography feminists, even where such alliance is neither sought or desired. The potential difficulties and uses of an assessment of pornography as ‘moral’ concern for the development of feminist ethics are then considered. Finally, the apparent willingness of moral lobby women to express support for anti-pornography feminists is examined. The article concludes by suggesting that this support reflects both complexities of gender identification amongst moral lobby women, and, crucially, power imbalances between anti-pornography feminists and the moral lobby rooted in the institutionalisation of heterosexuality. The implications of these findings for sociologists and for feminist theory and activism are outlined.
In the Right Place at the Right Time: Electronic Tagging and Problems of Social Order/Disorder
Authors: Bloomfield Brian
Published: March 2003

This paper explores the relationship between technology and problems of social order/disorder in the context of discussions of surveillance and ‘virtuality'. The emphasis is on understanding the connections between technology and social relations in areas where issues of social order/disorder are a prominent feature of concern and where one can identify the emergence of new regimes of virtual control which are directed at solving the (supposed) deficits in order or the threats posed to it. Rather than constituting a ‘technical fix’ for the problems of social order/disorder, it is argued that forms of virtual control both presuppose a reconstruction of social order and at the same time aim to effect a suppression of disorder. Focusing in particular on various manifestations of electronic tagging – from prisoners to babies, from retail goods to works of art, from television programmes to Personal Identification Numbers – the paper argues that these share a problematic which interrelates technology, order/disorder, subjects/objects, time, and space. It thus seeks to generalize the concept of electronic tagging, to regard it as a practice rather than a specific set of artefacts. Moreover, in contrast to the negative, panoptic reading of tagging technologies, the paper considers the active public participation in systems of surveillance and thereby the more positive or productive exercises of power which they may be taken to constitute.
Urban Order and the Preventive Restructuring of Space: The Operation of Border Controls in Micro Space
Authors: Franzén Mats
Published: March 2003

This paper is about a specific aspect of the present restructuring of space: the cumulative, but unintended, effects on the public urban order, by a growing, and more intense, deployment of border controls. Border controls are recognized to operate both in public space, and at the entrances to those organized activities that directly face public space. Their working is understood as actuarial practices. Two preventive impetuses are identified, one specific, police-related, one general, related to the on-going socio-economic changes.

To try to follow the aggregate effects of such a preventive spatial restructuring, an analytic thought experiment is made. Its focus is the public order in a square, or a segment of a street, located centrally in a relatively large Western European city and the effects of the following variations. To begin with, the targets of border controls: the volume and the composition of, first, the passers by, and second, the direct visitors of this public space, and third, different visitors to the organized activities adjoining this space. Then, of course, the variations in the deployment of border controls by both public and private police. Thus, it is possible to delineate how the preventive restructuring of space works upon the urban order. Perhaps surprisingly, there is a certain robustness in the urban order since many agents of the preventive restructuring do not work in concert.
Language and Power in Japanese Transplants in Scotland
Authors: Wright Christopher , Kumagai Fumie , Bonney Norman
Published: March 2003

Previous research into Japanese owned and managed enterprises in western countries has been alert to problems in cross-cultural communication but there has been little research into the linguistic patterns accompanying these activities. This study of seven such plants in Scotland illustrates key features of the linguistic patterns evident in them. Forms of pidgin develop in co-operative working environments but unusually they are based on the language of the formal subordinates, local English speaking managers and workers. In contrast, and more in line with expectations from socio-linguistic theory, the local dialect is used as a device to promote local workforce solidarity against expatriate management. The former discrepancy between material and cultural power, which is not expected on the basis of Bourdieu's and related theories of cultural behaviour, is explained in terms of the differing career paths of Japanese and non-Japanese personnel, the marginal involvement of Japanese management in the local society and their reticence in asserting cultural power commensurate with their economic power. However, these lingusitic developments were local phenomena that did not challenge Japanese managerial control, both local and corporate, of decisions on development and investment. Hence, the opposition between cultural and material power may be permitted to persist because of these limited effects.
Embodiment, Experience and Theory: In Defence of the Sociological Tradition
Authors: Shilling Chris
Published: March 2003

This paper examines whether the theoretical analyses and ambitions of sociologists of the body are increasingly making obstructive and irrelevant the subject boundaries and methodological conventions associated with their parent discipline. Concerns about the utility of the discipline have been expressed by a number of body studies emanating from within and outside of sociology. These imply that it is necessary to reject the dominant problematic of sociology and utilise non disciplinary resources if we are to understand issues surrounding the ‘lived experience’ of embodiment. In opposing this rejection of sociology, if not the use of other intellectual resources, I argue that the discipline contains much valuable theorising about experience which has yet to be developed by body theorists. Many of sociology's central concepts, indeed, evoke dimensions of human experience that remain highly pertinent to an understanding of the individual and societal significance of the body in the contemporary era. In order to illustrate this argument, I focus on the writings of Durkheim and Simmel. Their work is rarely central to writings on the body, but provides good examples of the diversity of theoretical approaches within sociology that remain relevant to body theorists. Specifically, I want to use it to develop the outlines of a theory of embodiment as a medium for the constitution of society which has at its centre a concern with human experience. I conclude by reassessing the strategic options sociologists of the body confront in developing their analyses.
Approaches to the Risk of Riding Motorcycles: Reflections on the Problem of Reconciling Statistical Risk Assessment and Motorcyclists' Own Reasons for Riding
Authors: Bellaby Paul , Lawrenson David
Published: March 2003

The manners in which motorcyclists and road safety experts assess motorcycling diverge widely. Experts view it as an extremely risky venture and imply that only the foolhardy would engage in it. Our own survey research appears to support this view. And yet, motorcyclists disagree with this assessment and construct their own theory of risk. One in which blame is laid at the door of the car culture and accidents something that can be overcome by road skills. The view of the experts concern with their risk taking becomes redefined as the attempted imposition of social regulation. We attempt to show how these different approaches to risk can be theoretically reconciled. We argue that motorcycling accidents need to be seen as real physical events, the understanding of which is socially contested.
Managing Money, Managing Coupledom: A Critical Examination of Cohabitants' Money Management Practices
Authors: Elizabeth Vivienne
Published: March 2003

This article focuses on the use of independent money management by a small number of cohabitants living in New Zealand. This style of money management seems to be popular with cohabitants and is likely to become increasingly significant as the number of couples who cohabit continues to grow in Western countries such as New Zealand. Yet it has received sparse attention within the literature on domestic monies. This literature has noted that money management practices operate either to diminish or to exacerbate inequalities between women and men, most noticeably in the realm of decision-making and personal spending money. Independent money management is pursued in order to achieve equality and autonomy, thereby overcoming some of the difficulties identified in other forms of money management. However, it is argued that equality and autonomy exist in tension with each other. In certain relational settings, adherence to the goal of autonomy leads to the emergence of inequalities and the continued exercise of power within heterosexual relationships.
Violent Pasts: Collective Memory and Football Hooliganism
Authors: King Anthony
Published: March 2003

Since the 1970s, the sociological analysis of football hooliganism has focused on the processes which lead to violence between fans. This has been a reasonable research strategy since the incidence of violence is a striking phenomenon and violent fans themselves look upon violence as the objective. However, this focus on the causes of violence has cast other important aspects of football violence into the shade. In particular, there has been a lack of consideration of the way in which violence has been used as a resource by violent fans for the creation and re-creation of their hooligan gangs. In particular, there has been no discussion of the way in which the collective memory of violence, established in discussions between group members, affirms the solidarity of these groups. In exploring the way that shared memory is employed by violent fans to sustain their relations with each other, this article widens the focus of the sociological study of hooliganism but also makes a contribution to the understanding of how social groups are constituted more generally through the empirical example of hooliganism.
The Restructuring of Career Paths in Large Service Sector Organizations: ‘Delayering’, Upskilling and Polarisation
Authors: Grimshaw Damian , Beynon Huw , Rubery Jill , Ward Kevin
Published: March 2003

Drawing on detailed case studies of four large service sector organizations this paper finds little evidence of training provision that links skills development with incremental career progression. Past policies of ‘delayering’ have opened up a ‘gap’ in the job ladder and this has both increased the organizational costs of formal training and reduced the likelihood of informal on-the-job training being seen as the basis for promotion to the next level. Managers are thus faced with the challenge of how to establish a new set of premises upon which to strengthen the workforce's loyalty and commitment to the organization, in the context of problems of high staff turnover and low job satisfaction. What we find is a greater emphasis on certificated training provision. However, in the absence of a transparent career path employers rely on more intensive techniques of appraisal and selection of workers for a ‘winner-takes-all’ career path. Given the importance of skills acquisition as an important building block of the ‘learning society’, our findings suggest that policymakers in Britain cannot rely solely upon the employer to bridge the skill gap evident in large service sector organizations.
Globalisation and Local Experience: Encounters with Difference in a UK School
Authors: Smith Matt
Published: March 2003

This paper explores issues of identity, difference and globalisation in the micro-political context of a UK school. Drawing on ethnographic data and theoretical perspectives from the sociology of education, development and globalisation, the paper takes the communication of the ‘Third World’ in the curriculum as a case study of the ways in which UK schools engage with difference. Thus, the paper goes beyond the traditional focus on ‘race’ and ethnicity, emphasising the importance of distant difference in the context of globalisation. It is suggested that whilst teachers may identify local and global factors as underpinning the need to engender critical engagements with difference, the realisation of this is complex; the communication of the ‘Third World’ in the school is characterised by contradiction, reinforcing as well as unsettling ethnocentrism. To understand this situation, we need to locate these contradictions in terms of the complex interplay of restructuring processes, policy frameworks and the micro-politics of the school. The paper highlights the impacts of increased assessment and measurement in education alongside policy contradictions around curriculum authority. Teacher empowerment in the articulation of an appropriate curriculum is identified as a priority.
Cohabitation and Commitment: Partnership Plans of Young Men and Women
Authors: Jamieson Lynn , Anderson Michael , McCrone David , Bechhofer Frank , Stewart Robert , Li Yaojun
Published: March 2003

Popular commentators on marriage and the family often interpret the increase in heterosexual couples living together without marrying as reduced willingness to create and honour life-long partnerships. Survey and in-depth interviews with samples of 20–29 year olds living in an urban area of Scotland finds little support for the postulated link between growing cohabitation and a weakened sense of commitment to long-term arrangements. Most of the cohabiting couples strongly stressed their ‘commitment’. Socially acceptable vocabularies of motive undoubtedly influenced answers but interviews helped to explore deeper meanings. Many respondents' views were consistent with previous research predictions of a weakening sense of any added value of marriage. At the same time, some respondents continued to stress the social significance of the distinction between marriage and cohabitation, consistent with research interpreting cohabitation as a ‘try and see’ strategy part-way to the perceived full commitment of marriage. The notion that ‘marriage is better for children’ continued to have support among respondents. While, on average, cohabiting couples had lower incomes and poorer employment situations than married couples, only very extreme adverse circumstances were presented as making marriage ‘too risky’. Pregnancy-provoked cohabitation was not always in this category. Cohabitation was maintained because marriage would ‘make no difference’ or because they ‘had not yet got round to’ marriage. Most respondents were more wary of attempting to schedule or plan in their personal life than in other domains and cohabitees' attitudes to partnership, including their generally ‘committed’ approach, do not explain the known greater vulnerability of this group to dissolution.
Commensal Careers at Entry into Marriage: Establishing Commensal Units and Managing Commensal Circles
Authors: Sobal Jeffery , Bove Caron F. , Rauschenbach Barbara S.
Published: March 2003

Commensality is eating with others, and marriages are among the most significant commensal relationships. We collected qualitative data about commensality and entry into marriage from twenty couples using two in-depth interviews, the first at about the time couples entered marriage and the second about one year later. Commensal eating was an important component of the courtship process. Entry into marriage marked a transformation in people's commensal careers in which their marital relationship became their primary commensal unit. Meal commensality varied across the daily cycle: Many spouses skipped breakfast or ate breakfast separately, most ate lunch at work, and dinner was the main commensal meal. Greater marital commensality occurred on weekends than weekdays. Partners managed involvement in extra-marital commensal circles by combining their former eating networks. Kin were major participants in commensal circles, with friends, co-workers, and neighbors also included as eating partners. Overall, commensality was an important component of the way people ‘do marriage’.
Reflexive Modernization and Reconstructing the Third Way: A Response to Mouzelis
Authors: Leggett Will
Published: March 2003

Nicos Mouzelis has made a welcome intervention into the debate over Third Way theory and politics. The strengths of Mouzelis' account are identified as being his incorporation of asymmetrical power relations and institutional imbalances into the theory of reflexive modernization, and his defence of the Left/Right dichotomy. Three interrelated criticisms are then made. The first is of a sociological reductionism which neglects the importance of ideology and politics in bringing about the processes of reflexive modernization underpinning the Third Way. Conversely, the second criticism is that Mouzelis drifts into voluntarism in the form of a conspiracy theory in his account of ‘cultural engineering from the top’ amidst the conditions of reflexive modernity. Further, it is suggested that it is not with regard to achieving ‘cultural rights’ against such top-down engineering that the Left/Right distinction endures, but rather in relation to how the role of the market is analyzed. Thirdly, at the level of institutional differentiation and power relations, Mouzelis underestimates the extent to which market logic is able to ‘colonize’ other spheres of social life, and his regulatory proposals are insufficient to address this.
Everyday Incivility: Towards a Benchmark
Authors: Phillips Tim , Smith Philip
Published: March 2003

Commonplace incivility is a topic of longstanding interest within social theory, perhaps best exemplified by Goffman's studies of the interaction order. Nevertheless we know very little about its distribution and expression in everyday life. Current empirical work is dominated by criminological agendas. These tend to focus on more serious and illegal activities rather than minor deviant acts that are simply inconsiderate or rude. The paper reports findings from a focus group study conducted in Melbourne, Australia that set out to benchmark everyday incivilities. The results suggest that perpetrators of incivility have a surprisingly broad social distribution as does the range of locales that might be characterised as ‘high risk’. Turning to the work of Putnam and Wolfe, we call for a research focus on low-level incivilities as key symptoms of the state of civic virtue and the strength of moral ties within civil society. Drawing on Virilio, Bauman and Durkheim, it is suggested that the experience of incivility is underpinned by the growth of freedom and movement in contemporary urban settings, and has ambivalent implications that not only invoke boundary maintenance and retreatism, but also offer the possibility for boundary expansion and tolerance of difference.
Revisiting thematisation in the narrative study of epilepsy
Authors: Faircloth Chris A.
Published: March 2003

Taking as its point of departure the set of categorised themes developed by Schneider and Conrad in Having Epilepsy: The Experience and Control of Illness, the article focuses analytic attention on the individual theorising that produces these themes‐in‐action. Utilising ‘illness narratives’ of individuals with an epilepsy, I suggest that in qualitative sociological investigations into the illness experience there has been a narrative detachment from the very artfulness that articulates these themes. While there certainly is an appreciation of the experiential categorisation that individuals do within their storytelling in this genre of research, it has nevertheless been underappreciated in a tendency to consolidate what is told into workable thematic categories. In essence, the difference of experience has been placed aside, in many ways dictating what is looked for in the analysis itself.
Health professionals’ attitudes to the deregulation of emergency contraception (or the problem of female sexuality)
Authors: Barrett Geraldine , Harper Rosalyn
Published: March 2003

Emergency contraception can be used to prevent pregnancy up to 72 hours after unprotected sexual intercourse. Currently, this form of emergency contraception is only available on prescription, but there is a possibility that emergency contraception may be deregulated (i.e. sold ‘over the counter’ by community pharmacists) in the future. This study used depth interviews to examine the views of 18 community pharmacists and six general practitioners towards the possible deregulation of emergency contraception. Most interviewees held overwhelmingly negative attitudes to such deregulation, in contrast to their professional bodies. Opposition to deregulation resulted from a clearly articulated set of assumptions about female sexuality, particularly that women are sexually irresponsible, chaotic and devious. We argue that these assumptions about female sexuality have a long and tenacious history. Health professionals’ attitudes towards emergency contraception (and their concomitant assumptions about women’s sexuality) are likely to undermine the provision of deregulated emergency contraception.
‘They’ll still get the bodily care’. Discourses of care and relationships between nurses and health care assistants in the NHS
Authors: Daykin Norma , Clarke Brenda
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the impact of recent changes in work organisation in the NHS, drawing on research undertaken in two English hospital wards. Nurses’ and health care assistants’ responses to the introduction of a new skill mix are explored through qualitative interview data. The nurses’ perceptions are explored in relation to theories of occupational closure. These suggest that claims to distinct knowledge and ownership of the process of care may be undermined by the reproduction of hierarchical models of work organisation. The data suggest that the nurses’ ambivalence, recognised by managers, seems to limit their effectiveness in resisting fordist practices of routinisation and deskilling. It also impacts upon health care assistants, who seem to be excluded from nursing’s occupational project and whose contribution to care may, as a consequence, be devalued.
Changing faces: nurses as emotional jugglers
Authors: Bolton Sharon
Published: March 2003

Nursing has long been distinguished as an occupation requiring extensive amounts of ‘emotion work’. Various studies highlight the importance of a nurse’s ability to manage emotion and present the desired demeanour in a number of health care settings. This paper adds to the existing understanding of the emotional elements of nursing work and proposes that Goffman’s (1959, 1961, 1967) insights into the ‘presentation of self’ may be a useful approach to recognising a nurse’s ability to present many ‘faces’. Set against the backdrop of structural changes affecting the British public sector services, and using qualitative data collected from a group of nurses working in a National Health Service trust hospital, it will be shown how nurses are able to juggle the emotional demands made of them whilst still presenting an acceptable face.
Genetic screening in maternity care: preventive aims and voluntary choices
Authors: Jallinoja Piia
Published: March 2003

This paper analyses a prenatal genetic screening programme for three gene defects, conducted at maternity care centres in Eastern Finland in 1995 and 1996. What is special in this case is that the screening ended sooner than was planned. This paper investigates how the genetic screening programme was launched, the problems it encountered and the circumstances of its closure. The present analysis focuses on the co‐existence of, and tensions between, the two major objectives of the project: preventing disability and increasing mothers’ choices. The tensions between these two objectives were highlighted at maternity care centres. The public health nurses working at these centres were confused about whether or not they should offer autonomous consumer choice or guidance to mothers to behave in responsible and health‐conscious ways. The nurses’ confusion was intensified because the goal of prevention was identified with financial savings for the municipality, which the nurses thought was an inappropriate reason for abortions.
Making health services management research critical: a review and a suggestion
Authors: Learmonth Mark
Published: March 2003

This piece reviews the qualitative research literature on NHS management published since 1990. It suggests that much of the established work in this field takes for granted managerial assumptions that are consequently not subjected to sustained critical examination. It is argued therefore that this research has tended to create a version of the world that supports elite interests whilst appearing to be disinterested. A framework for seeing management in a radically different manner is also proposed – Critical Management Studies. Its approaches to analysing management and organisation are offered in the belief that they articulate the kind of challenges to orthodox views that many with an interest in health care are likely to find attractive and perhaps emancipatory.
A Note on Dynamic Modelling from Short and Heterogeneous Pseudo Panels
Authors: Girma Sourafel
Published: March 2003

In this paper we note the pitfall of cohort‐aggregated dynamic modelling from short pseudo panels when the slope parameters vary across cohorts, and this is not allowed for in estimation. By contrast, quasi‐differencing across pairs of individuals that belong to the same cohort is shown to help circumvent this problem. Some Monte Carlo simulations are then conducted to assess the relative merits of the two types of estimators under alternative data generating mechanisms.
Remarks on Holmberg’s Generalization
Authors: Holmberg Anders
Published: March 2003

It is argued that the dependence of Scandinavian Object Shift on verb movement, called Holmberg’s Generalization, is a special case of a more general condition preventing Object Shift across any phologically visible category within VP: a verb, a preposition, a verb particle or another argument. Overt movement of the blocking category will always pave the way for Object Shift. The interplay between Object Shift and Verb Topicalization (verb movement to specCP) shows (a) that it makes no difference to Object Shift how the verb moves, as long as it moves, (b) that Holmberg’s Generalization is a matter of derivation, not representation, and (c) that Object Shift does not observe the strict cycle. It is proposed that Object Shift applies after insertion of pholological features in a component of stylistic rules, containing rules dependent on focus structure.
Pseudoclefts and ellipsis
Authors: Dikken Marcel den , Meinunger André , Wilder Chris
Published: March 2003

This paper argues that specificational pseudoclefts (SPCs) come in two types. In SPCs with the order wh‐clause < be < XP (Type A), the wh‐clause is a question and XP is a full finite IP, usually reduced (leaving a DP, VP, AP, PP or CP remnant) by ellipsis of the type also operative in Question‐Answer pairs (QAPs). In SPCs with the order XP < be < wh‐clause (Type B), XP (=DP, VP, AP, PP or CP) is not reduced from IP by ellipsis, but forms the subject of a copular sentence whose predicate is the wh‐clause. The analysis explains an asymmetry in ‘connectivity’ with respect to Negative Polarity Items (found in Type A SPCs and QAPs but not in Type B SPCs), along with other similarities between QAPs and Type A SPCs and differences between the two types of SPC, which competing approaches fail to capture.
Anaphoric One and NP‐Ellipsis
Authors: Llombart‐Huesca Amàlia
Published: March 2003

Traditional accounts take anaphoric one to be a pro‐form appearing instead of a full noun (Jackendoff 1977, Ross 1967, and Hornstein & Lightfoot 1981, among others). I propose that one is a phonological support for the number morpheme in the DP, which is inserted in cases of NP‐ellipsis in the head of the Number projection when the conditions that would enable to license an empty Num° are not available. I also argue that the conditions currently assumed to license non‐referential empty categories in the NP‐ellipsis construction can be reduced to conditions licensing empty functional heads in the DP system.
Solitary and Periodic Solutions of Nonlinear Nonintegrable Equations
Authors: Berloff Natalia G. , Howard Louis N.
Published: March 2003

The singular manifold method and partial fraction decomposition allow one to find some special solutions of nonintegrable partial differential equations (PDE) in the form of solitary waves, traveling wave fronts, and periodic pulse trains. The truncated Painlevé expansion is used to reduce a nonlinear PDE to a multilinear form. Some special solutions of the latter equation represent solitary waves and traveling wave fronts of the original PDE. The partial fraction decomposition is used to obtain a periodic wave train solution as an infinite superposition of the “corrected” solitary waves.
A Formulation for Water Waves over Topography
Authors: Milewski Paul A.
Published: March 2003

Many interesting free‐surface flow problems involve a varying bottom. Examples of such flows include ocean waves propagating over topography, the breaking of waves on a beach, and the free surface of a uniform flow over a localized bump. We present here a formulation for such flows that is general and, from the outset, demonstrates the wave character of the free‐surface evolution. The evolution of the free surface is governed by a system of equations consisting of a nonlinear wave‐like partial differential equation coupled to a time‐independent linear integral equation. We assume that the free‐surface deformation is weakly nonlinear, but make no a priori assumption about the scale or amplitude of the topography. We also extend the formulation to include the effect of mean flows and surface tension. We show how this formulation gives some of the well‐known limits for such problems once assumptions about the amplitude and scale of the topography are made.
Are Solitary Internal Waves Solitons?
Authors: Lamb Kevin G.
Published: March 2003

Results of fully nonlinear numerical simulations of the interaction of two mode‐1 solitary internal waves, both propagating in the same direction, are presented. After the interaction, two solitary internal waves emerge. The large wave is slightly larger than the initial large solitary wave, while the small one is slightly smaller than the initial small solitary wave. Some small‐amplitude trailing mode‐1 and mode‐3 waves are generated by the interaction.
The Borel Transform and Its Use in the Summation of Asymptotic Expansions
Authors: Byatt‐Smith J. G.
Published: March 2003

The solution of connection problems on the real line (the x axis) often give asymptotic expansions which are either even or odd. This gives rise to “identically zero” expansions, that is, an asymptotic expansion in which all terms are identically zero at the origin. We show that the Borel transform of these problems have solutions that provide integral representations of the solution. The evaluation of these integrals, as x→0, allows us to compute the exponentially small term that these “identically zero” expansions represent.
Two‐Point Taylor Expansions of Analytic Functions
Authors: López José L. , Temme Nico M.
Published: March 2003

Taylor expansions of analytic functions are considered with respect to two points. Cauchy‐type formulas are given for coefficients and remainders in the expansions, and the regions of convergence are indicated. It is explained how these expansions can be used in deriving uniform asymptotic expansions of integrals. The method is also used for obtaining Laurent expansions in two points.
Asymptotic Expansions of Generalized Stieltjes Transforms of Algebraically Decaying Functions
Authors: López José L. , Ferreira Chelo
Published: March 2003

Asymptotic expansions of Stieltjes and generalized Stieltjes transforms of functions having an asymptotic expansion in negative integer powers of their variable have been exhaustively investigated by R. Wong. In this article, we extend this analysis to Stieltjes and generalized Stieltjes transforms of functions having an asymptotic expansion in negative rational powers of their variable. Distributional approach is used to derive asymptotic expansions of the Stieltjes and generalized Stieltjes transforms of this kind of functions for large values of the parameter(s) of the transformation. Error bounds are obtained at any order of the approximation for a large family of integrands. The asymptotic approximation of an integral involved in the calculation of the mass renormalization of the quantum scalar field and of the third symmetric elliptic integral are given as illustrations.
A Proof of the Stokes Conjecture in the Theory of Surface Waves*
Authors: Plotnikov P. I.
Published: March 2003

This article gives a proof of the famous Stokes conjecture that a gravity wave of greatest height on water has a corner with contained angle 2π/3 at its singular point.
Hamiltonian Equations for Scale‐Invariant Waves
Authors: Alì G. , Hunter J. K. , Parker D. F.
Published: March 2003

We use a Hamiltonian formalism to derive equations for weakly nonlinear scale‐invariant waves. We apply the results to nonlinear surface waves in elasticity and magnetohydrodynamics that satisfy nonlocal generalizations of the inviscid Burgers' equation.
A Renormalization Group Method for Nonlinear Oscillators
Authors: Mudavanhu B. , O'Malley, Jr. R. E.
Published: March 2003

We present a new approach for finding the asymptotic solution of certain weakly nonlinear oscillator equations. In particular, we develop a simplified version of the renormalization group method of Chen, et al. to obtain higher‐order approximations on longer time intervals than are typically provided by averaging and two‐timing. The technique, which has much greater potential, is illustrated on three challenging examples from the literature for which better than usual asymptotic solutions are obtained.
Interactive Group Work with Young Children Needing Additional Help in Learning to Read
Authors: Moss Helen , Reason Rea
Published: March 2003

This article outlines and evaluates a programme of small group teaching of year 1 pupils making slow progress in acquiring literacy skills. A cornerstone of the programme is the interactive group work which aims to keep children actively involved throughout a session. The authors note not only encouraging progress in reading but enhanced personal and social development. There are numerous implications here for the Code of Practice and National Literacy Project.
Local Theories of Teacher Change: The Pedagogy of District Policies and Programs
Authors: Spillane James P.
Published: March 2003

This paper examines district officials’ theories about teacher learning and change, identifying and elaborating three perspectives—behaviorist, situated, and cognitive— based on a study of 9 school districts. The behaviorist perspective on teacher learning dominated among the district officials in the study. The author also considers whether the prominence of the behaviorist perspective on teacher learning among district officials may be cause for concern when it comes to the classroom implementation of the fundamental changes in instruction pressed by state and national standards.
Empowerment and Education: Civil Rights, Expert-Advocates, and Parent Politics in Head Start, 1964–1980
Authors: Kagan Josh
Published: March 2003

Much has been written about Head Start in the form of evaluations of the program's effectiveness, but little unbiased work about the program's politics has emerged. This essay asks how Head Start has survived and even thrived over thirty-five years when other Great Society programs have died. To answer this question, it explores the coalition that emerged between civil rights activists, intellectuals studying child development and social programs for children, and community action embodied in Great Society legislation. The essay traces the development of Head Start out of the emerging academic interest in “compensatory education for cultural depravation” and the New Left's desire to build a movement focused on civil rights and community action. These two groups, united in their support for Head Start and for broader reform of public education, fought over its treatment of parents of children enrolled in the program. However, neither side could correctly predict how parents actually experienced Head Start or how parents helped to ensure Head Start's political survival.
Historical Context, Professional Authority, and Discourses of Risk: Child Guidance and Special Education
Authors: Richardson John G.
Published: March 2003

This paper compares the problem of social maladjustment addressed during the child guidance movement of the 1920s and 1930s with the issue of minority overrepresentation revealed in the late 1960s and persisting to the present. Both exhibit similarities as discourses of educational risk that shaped the conception of problems facing youth and influenced the mode of professional intervention. The specific focus of the paper, however, is the contrast in the directional fate of each: Although child guidance became increasingly narrowed to a portion of the middle-class, school-age population, special education broadened its jurisdiction and has helped to shape a view of full inclusion in public education. The contrast in response to challenges that threatened professional authority is identified as the critical difference that accounts for the divergent paths taken.
Demystifying Reflection: A Study of Pedagogical Strategies that Encourage Reflective Journal Writing
Authors: Spalding Elizabeth , Wilson Angene
Published: March 2003

Reflection is a mysterious concept to many of the students who enter our graduate-level, secondary teacher education program at a large, Southeastern university. Although all already hold degrees in their subject areas and many have extensive life and work experience, few have written—or perhaps even thought—reflectively during their academic careers (King & Kitchener, 1994). The purpose of this study was to identify pedagogical strategies that helped preservice secondary teachers improve their reflective thinking via journal writing during the 1st semester of a yearlong professional program. A secondary purpose was to study the effectiveness of our own practices as teacher educators. We present brief case studies of four preservice teachers who met our criteria for growth in reflection and report their views of how and why they became more reflective over the course of the semester. We found that no single pedagogical strategy was best and that students responded differently to different strategies. These preservice teachers benefited from spending class time on defining, discussing, and viewing models of reflection. Overall, personalized feedback on their journals and their relationships with their instructors were most important in helping them grow. We must actively teach and model reflective skills in a variety of ways if we are to demystify reflection.
Making up People in Papua
Authors: Hirsch Eric
Published: March 2003

This article focuses on a frequently reported but poorly analysed aspect of colonial and post‐colonial relations in Melanesia, the episodic jettisoning of social practices. Under what conditions does this occur and what forms does it take? It is argued here that such changes are part of the process of ‘making up people’. Making up people in Melanesia is where ‘human kinds’ are created through the ‘looping effects’ of government, mission and capitalist, and local, discourses and coercions. These processes are analysed among the Fuyuge of highland Papua, where since the 1940s there has emerged a transformed relation between homicide and head‐dress adornments. The Fuyuge actively changed aspects of their appearance as part of the means of becoming people who know the ‘law’, becoming people of a specific kind. The article draws comparisons with analogous Melanesian materials, including the well‐known examples of ‘cargo cults’.
Legal and Binding: Time, Change and Long‐Term Transactions
Authors: Alexander Catherine
Published: March 2003

This article explores the question of how long‐term transactional agreements endure when the environment in which they exist is necessarily subject to change. Different models of connection are examined, including the classical model of freedom of contract. It appears that contracts in practice do not substantiate ideas of free choice and equal bargaining power. Instead, the symbolic power of contracts, as a means of conjoining parties and opening an arena of negotiation, inheres in many supporting structures (trust, the ritualization of legal language) but particularly in the materiality of the document itself.
Changing Worlds: the Microgeographies of Young Teenagers
Authors: Matthews Hugh , Limb Melanie , Percy‐Smith Barry
Published: March 2003

Few geographical studies have explicitly examined the place use and place behaviour of young teenagers, especially within the UK. In this article we report on a survey of a group of 13 year olds, living in a socially and economically deprived neighbourhood in Midland England. Attention focuses on the ‘fourth environment’ that is how these teenagers come into contact with a range of everyday places beyond their home, school and playground. For each individual, the sum of this relationship constitutes a microgeography, which when grouped together provides a spatio‐temporal map of experience. The results suggest four recurrent themes, which we present as important aspects of the microgeography of this group of teenagers. We label these as: worlds apart; emblems of difference; special places; and landscapes of powerlessness. The environments of teenagers are not just appendages of the adult world, but are special places, created by themselves and invested with their own values. We argue that teenagers are not adults in waiting but are active cultural producers in their own right. When discussing the results we draw upon research and concepts in cognate disciplines to provide additional insights into teenagers' microgeographies.
Dynamic Externalities and Regional Manufacturing Development In Poland
Authors: Bivand Roger S.
Published: March 2003

The impact of localisation and urbanisation economies on regional manufacturing development in Poland 1976–96 is assessed in terms of employment and the regional convergence or divergence of the economy. Current research on the role of dynamic production externalities in regional manufacturing development is examined, starting with a review of recent literature on the nature of such externalities in manufacturing location, and how positive externalities may influence the spatial clustering of manufacturing industries. The paper shows that radical changes have occurred in patterns of Polish regional manufacturing employment, both with regard to sectors and regions. Transition is refocusing the regional economy on strong regional centres, and on sectors regarded with little favour in the planned economy.
Are We Having Fun Yet? Leisure and Consumption in the Post‐apartheid City
Authors: Dodson Belinda
Published: March 2003

Recent international literature across a range of disciplines describes how leisure and consumption have become major forces in contemporary society. Such developments have social, economic and geographical implications. At a time when these global changes are combining with dramatic local transformation, there is an urgent need for South African scholars to engage with international debates on leisure and consumption. The end of apartheid has allowed people to avail themselves of leisure and consumption opportunities from which they were previously excluded, yet the shift from public‐ to private‐sector provision is imposing new geographies of deprivation and exclusion. The situation is further complicated by the country’s increasing incorporation into global patterns of consumption. This paper seeks to initiate debate and set out an agenda for research on the role of leisure and consumption in shaping South African society and geography.
Organisational Restructuring, Knowledge and Spatial Scale: The Case of the US Department Store Industry
Authors: Wood Steve
Published: March 2003

Recent economic geography literature has underlined the role of tacit/local knowledge in embedding firms within their locales, characterised by the work on ‘learning regions’, ‘territorial embeddedness’, ‘institutional thickness’ and ‘new industrial spaces’. This paper contributes to this theoretical debate, using evidence from organisational restructuring of the US department store industry to argue that, in contrast, retailers are using codified/universal knowledge, supported by tacit/local knowledge to successfully operate their retail operations across a range of spatial scales. As such, no one form of knowledge is exclusively relied upon but rather a blend of knowledges reduces costs and increases responsiveness across space.
Modelling the Real World: Conceptual Modelling in Spatiotemporal Information System Design
Authors: Renolen Agnar
Published: March 2003

Throughout the relatively young history of research on spatiotemporal modelling, a substantial number of models have been presented. However, since a spatiotemporal model represents a closer approximation to the real world than is the case for traditional models, such models must be based on a thorough understanding of how objects ‘behave’ in reality. One way to acquire such knowledge is using conceptual modelling methodologies. In this paper, an overview of different modelling principles and a selection of conceptual modelling languages are presented together with examples related to a selection of spatiotemporal problems.