bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Heretical Laments
Authors: Dowdle Michael W.
Published: February 2009

While the general consensus is that there is no real rule of law in China, we actually have a great deal of difficulty explaining why. This article seeks to show that none of the arguments commonly advanced as to why there is no rule of law in China are particularly compelling. Some critiques claim that China’s rule-of-law insufficiencies are due to deficiencies in her conceptualization of law. But these critiques either depend on false conflations of how individual and collective values work, or on very controversial claims about western conceptions of law, or otherwise identify distinctions that have no real bearing on the development of China’s legal system. Other critiques argue that China’s failure to achieve or enjoy rule of law is due to particular deficiencies in her legal system. But the structural features upon which these critiques focus seem inappropriate for a country in China’s present stage of development. One thinks, all in all, that rule-of-law theorists simply expect too much from law. The question we should be asking is not ‘is there rule of law in China?’, but rather ‘ shouldthere be rule of law in China as we currently conceive of that concept?’ At least for the present state of China’s development, the answer is quite possibly no.
Ruling the Country in Accordance with Law
Authors: Peerenboom Randall
Published: February 2009

This article examines rule of law in China. Part 1 distinguishes between (i) substantive or thick theories of rule of law that incorporate elements of political morality, such as particular economic arrangements, forms of government, or conceptions of human rights; and (ii) formal or thin theories of rule of law that focus on features that any legal system must possess to function effectively as a system of laws. Although China does not endorse liberal democracy or a liberal conception of human rights, nevertheless the legal system is intended to serve many of the same general purposes as legal systems elsewhere. Accordingly, thin versions of rule of law are applicable to China. Part 2 then measures the performance of China’s legal system against the benchmark of certain features generally accepted by advocates of a thin theory of rule of law.
Reciprocity, justice and statutory health insurance in Germany
Authors: Ullrich Carsten G.
Published: February 2009

It has often been claimed that modern societies are not only characterized by a growing social differentiation and individualization but also by a corresponding decline of solidarity and moral cohesion. Taking the thesis of a decline of solidaristic attitudes as a starting point and using the social (i.e. solidaristically financed) health insurance in Germany as an example, this article analyses whether `modern' solidaristic attitudes exist and which individual interests and value orientations explain the expressed acceptance of solidarity. Based on qualitative data material, the action orientations of the insured are analysed. It is found that the insured have indeed predominantly solidaristic attitudes and that they refer above all to notions of reciprocity and justice to explain their acceptance of the solidarity principle. This kind of data material does not allow a trend analysis concerning the `solidarity-decline-thesis'. Nevertheless the results are a contribution to a `grounded' explanation of the present `solidarity culture' in Germany.
Contract compliance: subnational and European influences in Northern Ireland
Authors: Fee Ruth
Published: February 2009

This paper focuses on the use of contract compliance in Northern Ireland (NI) — the use of public sector contracts to pursue wider social and economic policy goals. Such goals may include equal opportunities (gender, race, religion, disability), employment rights (part-time workers, transfer of undertakings), development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or employment creation (for example, the long-term unemployed). Public procurement policy in Northern Ireland is undergoing review, including assessing the impact of equality legislation on government procurement. The question that the paper poses is: to what extent do subnational, national, regional (i.e. European Union) and global laws and policies on public procurement hinder or enhance the likelihood of an effective contract compliance regime in Northern Ireland?
Three worlds of welfare capitalism or more? A state-of-the-art report
Authors: Arts WIL , Gelissen John
Published: February 2009

This paper surveys the debate regarding Esping-Andersen's typology of welfare states and reviews the modified or alternative typologies ensuing from this debate. We confine ourselves to the classifications which have been developed by Esping-Andersen's critics in order to cope with the following alleged shortcomings of his typology: (1) the misspecification of the Mediterranean welfare states as immature Continental ones; (2) the labelling of the Antipodean welfare states as belonging to the `liberal' regime type; (3) a neglect of the gender-dimension in social policy. We reconstruct several typologies of welfare states in order to establish, first, whether real welfare states are quite similar to others or whether they are rather unique specimens, and, second, whether there are three ideal-typical worlds of welfare capitalism or more. We conclude that real welfare states are hardly ever pure types and are usually hybrid cases; and that the issue of ideal-typical welfare states cannot be satisfactorily answered given the lack of formal theorizing and the still inconclusive outcomes of comparative research. In spite of this conclusion there is plenty of reason to continue to work on and with the original or modified typologies.
Introduction: EU social (exclusion) policy revisited?
Authors: Begg Iain , Berghman Jos
Published: February 2009

Since the mid-1990s, several steps have been taken towards an integration of social policy in the EU. Yet there is reluctance in many quarters to go further. This article introduces the special issue on integration of EU social policy and explores the case for more comprehensive `Europeanization'. We argue that the norms that underlie the European model provide the rationale for integration, and that the usual focus on the undoubted differences between countries in the approaches to, and delivery mechanisms of, the welfare state are not as great an obstacle as is often assumed. With the advent of EMU and with many common problems to confront, the EU countries have good reasons to adopt a common approach to social policy, even if implementation remains at the national level. The open method of coordination provides the means of reconciling these aims and the article concludes with a discussion of how it might evolve to achieve a more integrated EU policy.
Social Consequences of Unemployment: an East-West Comparison
Authors: Gallie Duncan , Kostova Dobrinka , Kuchar Pavel
Published: February 2009

The paper compares the experience of unemployment in Britain with that in three former state socialist societies - Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, countries with relatively recent welfare systems, providing a low level of coverage for the unemployed. The analysis examines the implications of the different types of welfare regime for financial stress, for social isolation and for psychological wellbeing. While it finds that the implications of welfare arrangments depend considerably on the nature of the labour market, it concludes that the combination of very high unemployment with low welfare coverage - exemplified by the case of Bulgaria - has exceptionally high social and personal costs. There is no evidence that these are offset by the emergence of alternative welfare arrangements based on community solidarities.
On the Political Economy of Recent Public Sector Development
Authors: Castles Francis G.
Published: February 2009

This paper starts from a major contradiction in the literature on recent public sector development. On the one hand, globalization theory is read as implying major tendencies towards the retrenchment of the public sector and a ‘race to the bottom’ in social spending. On the other hand, comparative studies are largely unanimous in arguing that such tendencies have not occurred. To gain greater purchase on the realities of recent public sector trends, we disaggregate data for public expenditure change in 19 OECD countries over the period 1984 to 1997. We then develop a series of models of the factors determining expenditure trends over this period. The findings presented here provide no evidence that exposure to international trade leads governments to down-size their public sectors and suggest that the main influences on contemporary expenditure patterns have been unemployment, economic growth and catch-up from prior expenditure level.
Careful or Lenient: Welfare Reform for Lone Mothers in the Netherlands
Authors: Knijn Trudie , van Wel Frits
Published: February 2009

The 1996 welfare reform that attempted to get lone parents out of social assistance represents a major shift in social policy in the Netherlands. Instead of having the financial right to care for their children, lone mothers are now obliged to earn their living by paid work as soon as their youngest child reaches the age of five. This policy shift is accompanied by additional incentives to support lone mothers in engaging in (part-time) work. Nevertheless, the measure has met considerable resistance among lone mothers as well as the caseworkers and municipalities that have been granted discretionary powers to implement the new law. Several years after its introduction, it can be concluded that the law has not been very successful; only slightly more than one out of ten lone mothers have actually left social assistance. In this article, we explain these meagre results by analysing the assumptions and incentives of the national policies, and by describing the mechanisms of discretion at a local level.
Beyond the Anwerbestopp? The German–Polish Bilateral Labour Treaty
Authors: Menz Georg K.
Published: February 2009

This article analyses the genesis, implementation and effects of the bilateral labour treaties between Germany and Central and Eastern Europe, focussing on the Polish–German Treaty and the construction sector. These treaties represent a significant departure from the restrictive German and European Union immigration policy. First, the political motives of the Polish and German governments are examined. The overall German ambition was to temporarily recruit labour migrants, reminiscent of the 1960s Gastarbeiter policy. Second, the treaty's labour markets effects are analysed using concepts from the migration literature. The formerly unified German labour market is disaggregating into three tiers with substantial wage differences, reinforced by powerful push–pull factors and counter-productive re-regulation. The effects on the Polish labour market are small, if unfavourable. Third, the implications of the Treaty for the German labour market include the possibility that employers can now import labour instead of outsourcing production in the geographically static service sector. Finally, the implications of EU eastward enlargement are examined.
Workfare With Welfare: Recent Reforms of the Danish Welfare State
Authors: Torfing Jacob
Published: February 2009

Denmark has recently seen a significant drop in unemployment that has not been matched by any corresponding increase in inflation. This article assumes that this remarkable achievement is rooted in the ongoing transition from the Keynesian welfare state (KWS) to a Schumpeterian workfare regime (SWR). The article compares the main features of the KWS with those of the SWR. It analyses the economic and political pressures behind the transition from the KWS to a SWR, and argues that we need to focus on the discursive construction of these pressures in order to avoid the dangers associated with functionalist explanations of societal changes. It then goes on to analyse the introduction of workfare policies in Denmark. The central claim is that Denmark has adopted an offensive workfare strategy. Hence, in Denmark workfare is disarticulated from the neo-liberal context within which it is located in the UK and the US and rearticulated with the social-democratic and universalistic welfare model. This disarticulation and rearticulation has produced significant emphases on activation rather than benefit and minimum wage reductions; on improving the skills and work experience of the unemployed rather than merely increasing their mobility and job-searching efficiency; on training and education rather than work-for-benefit (quid pro quo ); on empowerment rather than control and punishment; and on broad workfare programmes rather than programmes which only target the unemployed. In addition, although it contains strong neocorporatist elements, the Danish workfare strategy can be characterized as a neo-statist strategy. The article concludes with some tentative remarks about the mix of political and institutional factors that contribute to explaining the particular Danish variant of the SWR, and about what we can learn from the Danish case.
Minimum Income in Switzerland
Authors: Obinger Herbert
Published: February 2009

This article gives an overview of the prevailing system of minimum income provision in Switzerland. Minimum income is understood as monetary transfers supplied by social insurance or social assistance which guarantee an income floor covering basic living maintenance. Such benefits can either boost regular benefits from social insurance up to a subsistence level or provide temporary means-tested income support to meet urgent needs in emergency situations. Qualifying conditions, scope and duration of benefits as well as institutions running and funding these programmes are described. It is shown that means testing is quite strict, while benefits are very generous from a comparative perspective. Moreover, the article compares Switzerland's social policy towards poor people with the experience of other OECD countries.
Southern European Welfare Regimes and the Worsening Position of Women
Authors: Trifiletti Rossana
Published: February 2009

The article contributes to the current debate on welfare regimes, bringing together the widespread need for a fourth welfare regime besides Esping-Andersen's well-known typol ogy, and the results of its feminist critique. It is particularly in the case of Southern European countries that a gendered point of view seems crucial, to define the specificities of a different path in developing social protection. On the other hand, comparative analyses on gender and welfare state only seldom consider Mediterranean countries. In these countries the concept of subsidiarity formulated for continental-corporatist welfare regimes has to be modified: the family is still centre stage, but in the sense that only certain social risks are covered largely by the welfare state, those against which the family cannot protect itself. On the contrary, the state does not support families' normal functioning, as usually happens in etatist conservative countries. The only form of help on the part of the state has so far been to tolerate family strategies which bring together many ‘bread-crumbs’ of revenue. Since this relationship between the family and social policies has usually remained invisible, it is highly probable that today's rationalizing interventions on social provisions may have even worse effects on women's condition. Some recent transformations of Italian welfare state are analysed as an example of such a danger.
‘Entrepreneurial Freedom Versus Employee Rights’: the Acquired Rights Directive and EU Social Policy Post-Amsterdam
Authors: Hardy Stephen , Adnett Nick
Published: February 2009

In attempting to reconcile the objectives of both employment security and labour market flexibility, the 1977 Acquired Rights Directive (ARD) represents the type of social legislation championed in the Treaty of Amsterdam. This article discusses the 20-year history of this Directive in order to examine some of the problems which arise when policy is driven by economic and social objectives which may be mutually inconsistent. In particular, we consider whether the continuing legal confusion associated with this Directive can be, in part, attributed to the conflict between these objectives. This examination concentrates particularly upon the impact of the ARD upon the attempts by EU Member States Government, particularly Britain, attempts to impose market-based reforms upon the public provision of services.
Simulation, Rhetoric, and Policy Making
Authors: Thorngate Warren , Tavakoli Mahin
Published: February 2009

Many simulations are undertaken in hopes of forming or changing the beliefs and policies of policy makers. A simulation used for this purpose becomes a rhetorical device, a tool of social influence. The authors review some of the important principles of attitude change incorporated in modern rhetoric and show how they might be employed to increase the influence of simulations in policy-making processes.
Reputation Management in the Salvation Army
Authors: Middleton Stuart
Published: February 2009

Leading theorists of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm have argued that corporate reputation is an intangible resource for organizations. Despite this, there remains precious little research that documents how organizations manage their corporate reputations. This article presents a case study of Australia's most successful charity, The Salvation Army, and asks how it maintained an exemplary reputation despite allegations of sexual, mental, and physical abuse from children in its care during the period from the 1950s to 1970s? A strategy of narrative deconstruction is employed to make the argument that there are powerful underlying themes in The Salvation Army's narrative that protect the organization from reputational attack. It is argued that this narrative approach opens a new avenue for studying and understanding corporate reputations. A model of reputation management in The Salvation Army is developed from this analysis.
Robot Learning Driven by Emotions
Authors: Gadanho Sandra Clara , Hallam John
Published: February 2009

The adaptive value of emotions in nature indicates that they might also be useful in artificial creatures. Experiments were carried out to investigate this hypothesis in a simulated learning robot. For this purpose, a non-symbolic emotion model was developed that takes the form of a recurrent artificial neural network where emotions both depend on and influence the perception of the state of the world. This emotion model was integrated in a reinforcement-learning architecture with three different roles: influencing perception, providing reinforcement value, and determining when to reevaluate decisions. Experiments to test and compare this emotion-dependent architecture with a more conventional architecture were done in the context of a solitary learning robot performing a survival task. This research led to the conclusion that artificial emotions are a useful construct to have in the domain of behavior-based autonomous agents with multiple goals and faced with an unstructured environment, because they provide a unifying way to tackle different issues of control, analogous to natural systems' emotions.
Implementation and Evaluation of a Youth Violence Prevention Program for Adolescents
Authors: Regan Mary Elana
Published: February 2009

Youth violence in the city of Philadelphia, PA, has reached epidemic proportions. The majority of homicides related to gun violence is most prevalent among African American males aged 19 to 24 years. Therefore, it is essential to implement youth violence prevention programs to a target population several years younger than this age group to decrease teen violence in the city. A violence prevention program for 9th and 10th graders was developed, implemented, and evaluated at a local urban charter school. Presentations were given on gun and gang violence, dating violence, and anger management/conflict resolution as well as role playing, group activities, and a field trip to a trauma program for youth at a local hospital. Posttest scores showed an increase in knowledge and skills in several areas, such as therapeutically resolving violent disputes and methods to prevent different types of dating violence. This program provides a blueprint for an adolescent violence prevention program that school nurses could adopt in their communities.
Developing a Policy for Delegation of Nursing Care in the School Setting
Authors: Spriggle Melinda
Published: February 2009

School nurses are in a unique position to provide care for students with special health care needs in the school setting. The incidence of chronic conditions and improved technology necessitate care of complex health care needs that had formerly been managed in inpatient settings. Delegation is a tool that may be used by registered nurses to allow unlicensed assistive personnel to perform appropriate nursing tasks and activities while keeping in mind that the registered nurse ultimately retains accountability for the delegation. The legal parameters for nursing delegation are defined by State Nurse Practice Acts, State Board of Nursing guidelines, and Nursing Administrative Rules/Regulations. Delegation becomes more challenging when carried out in a non–health care setting. School administrators may not be aware of legal issues related to delegation of nursing care in the school setting. It is crucial for school nurses to have a working knowledge of the delegation process. Development of a specific delegation policy will ensure that delegation is carried out in a manner providing for safe and appropriate care in the school setting.
Sikh Masculinity, Religion, and Diaspora in Shauna Singh Baldwin’s English Lessons and Other Stories
Authors: Singh Chanda Geetanjali , Ford Staci
Published: February 2009

Shauna Singh Baldwin’s English Lessons and Other Stories (1999) focuses on the previously neglected Sikh male as the subject of its narratives. The construction of Sikh masculinity is mapped onto the wider historical contexts of immigration to North America, and globalization and consumerism in India. In Sikhism, the Khalsa male, because of his turban, is the marked body signaling difference. But in the diaspora, religious markers such as the turban shape the performance of a specific kind of gendered identity and also define the manner in which integration into a religious, cultural, and ethnic identity proceeds. The family, specifically the hetero-normative family, is at the heart of the performance, the pedagogy, and the continuity of specific notions of a religio-cultural masculinity, which speaks sometimes in concert with and sometimes against the feminist grain. Religious identifications such as the turban that bear the moral burden of older value systems and notions of masculinity and femininity collide with changing survival systems, and women and men may have to negotiate different moral compasses.
South Asian Women in East London
Authors: Bhopal Kalwant
Published: February 2009

This article examines the impact of education on South Asian women's participation in traditional practices of `arranged marriages' and dowries. It is based upon research carried out by the author in East London. Sixty in-depth interviews were conducted with South Asian women, as well as participant observation of living with a South Asian community for a period of six months. The article explores which women participate in `arranged marriages' and receive dowries and which do not. The data indicate that women with high levels of education are rejecting certain aspects of their traditions (`arranged marriages' and dowries). However, women who continue the practices of `arranged marriages' and dowries have lower levels of education. They feel the continuation of such practices are part of their own South Asian identity in British society. The research demonstrates that women's level of education affects their participation in traditional South Asian practices. For some British-born South Asian women a process of redefinition is taking place. Their identities are shifting, complex and multifaceted and take on new meanings as they choose whether or not to participate in South Asian traditions.
Domestic Knowledge, Inequalities and Differences
Authors: Rambla Xavier
Published: February 2009

Research suggests that domestic knowledge is an expression of gender differences, which is constructed and deployed through unequal social relations and is able to empower women if it gains collective spaces of expression. The article presents an analysis of parental involvement at school in Spain so as to underpin the former thesis and highlight its connection with the political theory about the ‘sexual contract’.
A Perceptive and Reflective State?
Authors: Dahl Hanne Marlene
Published: February 2009

A perceptive and reflective state? Such a state might not exist yet, but it refers to an ideal for state-provided care which can protect both the caregiver and recipient of care from emotional overload and indifference. Such an ideal introduces new lines of enquiry to contemporary theories of care and their sociological orientation. It is argued that theories of care need to be combined with insights from political science concerning power and dilemmas within care. Dilemmas within state-provided care which might temporarily be overcome through an application of an interactive universalism such as more generally advocated by the Turkish-American feminist philosopher Seyla Benhabib. Interactive universalism implies a shift of perspective, a kind of hypothetical moral dialogue, which would bring a stronger element of reflection into caring practices in the welfare state. However, interactive universalism presupposes empathy understood as a kind of emotional attention to the other. If implemented this ideal will introduce a new form of authority: more compassionate and bodily oriented.
Author(iz)ing the Body
Authors: Martindale Kym
Published: February 2009

Monique Wittig's The Lesbian Body subverts the authority of the anatomy teaching text, and challenges its claim to objectivity, by writing to the texts of Andreas Vesalius. Vesalius, working in the late 15th century, is recognized as having set the precedent for how the anatomy of the human body is taught even today. By writing a ‘lesbian body’ in disarray, Wittig metaphorically topples the authority and order of the standard Vesalian (male) anatomy. By writing that body as a desiring subject, she also invites us to question the desire for knowledge and ownership of that knowledge, and the illusion of scientific objectivity. Indeed, she offers us a celebration of the subjectivity of the production of texts and identities. But in her rewriting, she must also adopt a particular subject position and guard that position from the ‘wrong’ interpretations. The Lesbian Body is then, despite its literary and political force, a text which fears the interpretive role of its reader.
II. Lesbian Visibility in Slovenia
Authors: Tratnik Suzana
Published: February 2009

The article surveys lesbian culture and movement in Slovenia. Both are coinciding with media representations of lesbianism and lesbian visual arts, the latter beginning with the shocking exhibition ‘Obscene Women’ by Austrian photographer Krista Beinstein in 1986. The international lesbian exhibition ‘Lesbian Conne Xions’, which visited the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana in October 2000, represented images of lesbians in a very broad and realistic spectrum, in contrast with the asexual lesbian photographs by unknown authors in the Slovenian main-stream press and in accordance with the depictions of lesbians in Slovenian lesbian press. The photographs from ‘Lesbian Conne Xions’ were, like Beinstein's exhibition, not very well accepted; even some lesbians argued that some of the photos, especially those of gender-benders, did not represent real and everyday lesbian life but rarities and odd exceptions. But lesbian life in general, far from being an ‘ordinary’ Slovenian lifestyle, may easily become unrecognizable to lesbians themselves and obscured by the dominant culture.
A Fair Share of the Research Pie or Re-Engendering Scientific and Technological Europe?
Authors: Rose Hilary
Published: February 2009

This article is a preliminary attempt to map EU research policy from a feminist perspective hitherto absent. The framing and management of national and international research policy have reflected the priorities of an entrenched masculinist scientific elite. Despite the critical role of quantified data in policy analysis and formation, international research labour force statistics remain ungendered. Feminist approaches have been integral to the third wave of epistemological criticism of science this century, claiming that systematic knowledge of the natural, as well as the social world, is socially shaped and thus could be reshaped in ways friendlier to the diversity of women. Such criticism has generated opposition on the part of the scientific elite. The state funding of research is shrinking, while industrial research expands. Women's place within this restructuring research labour market may even be deteriorating, yet feminism still addresses its demands to a retreating science/state relation. Sustained pressure from women's studies researchers and women natural scientists and engineers for a fairer share of the research pie has, in the light of the Amsterdam Treaty, led to Europe introducing gender into research policy. The policy dimension of 'Quality of Life' to enhance 'trust', offers possibilities for feminist intervention. Changing the gender and ethnic composition of the research labour force so that it more adequately reflects the diversity of Europeans enhances Quality of Life. Trust requires that we build on the diverse experiences of European countries in strengthening democratic participation in socially shaping science and technology.
Swedish Women's Partner Relationship and Contraceptive Methods
Authors: Lindell Marianne , Engberg Ingegerd Bergbom
Published: February 2009

The aim of the study was to describe and compare whether women who used the pill or condoms discussed the choice of contraceptive method with their partner, and their sexual activity and interaction with their partner. It also studied women's thoughts about the attitudes of their partner and close others concerning unplanned pregnancy and abortion. A total of 134 women, aged 23-29, who had a stable partner relationship, answered three questionnaires. The contraceptive pill was used by 94 of the women and 40 used condoms. The results show that most women discussed and planned choice and use of contraceptive method with their partner. However, more women whose partner used the condom discussed and talked about the use of the contraceptive method than women who used the pill. Independent of the contraceptive method, the women stated that non-agreement with the partner about the method resulted in no intercourse. More women who used the pill reported that they sometimes forgot to use it compared to women who used the condom. This latter group also stated to a higher degree that unplanned pregnancy would result in positive attitudes on the part of their partner and close others.
`In the Belly of the Beast'
Authors: Kvande Elin
Published: February 2009

This article explores how female graduate engineers construct femininities in male-dominated organizations. By applying a dynamic relational understanding of gender it is argued that different versions of femininities are constructed through associations to sameness and difference. The graduate engineering profession is closely connected to hegemonic masculinity, not least by the strong representation of technology and a management system itself heavily connected to current hegemonic masculinity. The female engineers stand in a position which can be described as `the dilemma of difference' that arises when women choose to construct themselves as more or less different from men, or more or less visible as women. They negotiate whether the meaning of gender should mean sameness or difference from men, and they negotiate how to relate to hegemonic masculinity. This inuences the different strategies they choose.
Between the Social and the Political
Authors: Jalusic Vlasta
Published: February 2009

In this article, I try to explore some of the elements of the potential for active citizenship, as conceptualized by Hannah Arendt. Inspired by, but not limited to her work, I attempt to find some important common points of the Arendtian reconceptualization of politics and the prospects for a feminist analysis of the conditions for active citizenship and gender equality within a post-socialist context. On the other hand, I would like to show how, within an East European context, the feminist approach that wants to be useful for a concrete analysis and inspire substantial actions cannot avoid the questions of the relationship between the social and political as argued by Hannah Arendt.
From Russia with Love?
Authors: Stenvoll DAG
Published: February 2009

The article examines national news reports on prostitution of Russian women in northern Norway between 1990 and 2001. Applying critical discourse analysis, the author shows how this particular type of cross-border, rural prostitution is represented as sexual transaction, as a sociopolitical problem (of public order, public health, social/moral breakdown and stigma), and as a symbolic issue used to legitimize stricter border controls. Images of prostitutes, pimps and customers are also discussed. The different thematizations are in turn connected to various historical practices of state regulation of sexuality, to constructions of group identities based on moral categories, and to social definitions of what is normal and what is deviant.
Gender Gap in Earnings at the Industry Level
Authors: Allen Jim , Sanders Karin
Published: February 2009

In this article the authors seek an answer to the question: does the percentage of women working in an industry have an effect on earnings distinct from the effect of sex at the individual level? On the basis of the `comparable worth' approach, the authors hypothesized that, controlling for education, experience and sex, the percentage of women working in an industry would have a negative effect on earnings. This hypothesis was tested by performing multi-level analyses using data from 12 countries. The hypothesis was confirmed: the multi-level analyses showed a significant negative effect of the percentage of women in an industry on individual earnings, when individual characteristics were controlled for. This effect applied equally for men and women working in an industry. Part, though not all, of the effect could be accounted for by the fact that female-dominated industries are less unionized and more characterized by small firms than male-dominated industries.
Pictures of the past
Authors: Dant Tim , Gilloch Graeme
Published: February 2009

This article explores the key moments in Benjamin's and Barthes's analyses of the cultural significance of the photograph. For Benjamin these are: the optical unconscious, the transmission of aura, the representation of cultural and political decay and proto-surrealist political commentary. For Barthes they are: the techniques of the photographer, the studium, the punctum and the ecstasy of the image. These rather different approaches to photography reveal a common concern with history. Both authors have written about the nature of historical understanding, and photography has provided both with a powerful metaphor. What emerges from their analyses of photographs is that each evokes a double moment of historical awareness; of being both in the present and in the past. For Benjamin this is the `spark of contingency' with which the aura of past existence shines in the present. For Barthes it is the `ça-a-été', the emotional stab of awareness that what is present and visible in the photograph is irretrievably lost in the past.
Hierarchies of difference
Authors: Suurpää Leena
Published: February 2009

Cultural studies regarding contemporary group formation have often been developed in abstraction from concrete social and material circumstances. This article suggests that discussions concerning the increased flexibility of contemporary group formation need further theoretical elaboration and closer empirical consideration. The article focuses on the role of difference in the creation of group memberships within the particular social circumstances of young people living in Finland. A certain `hierarchy of difference' is elaborated in order to analyse the ways in which Finnish young people outline the interplay between sameness and difference in terms of two group-related contexts: first of all, in the way they define the formation of their own group, and, second, in the way they talk about the less familiar interactions of foreigners. What kind of difference is perceived as `making the difference', as being significant?
Social theory, documentary film and distant others
Authors: Stones Rob
Published: February 2009

Framed by the ethical considerations of Martha Nussbaum on `the lives of distant others' and Zygmunt Bauman on `being-for' the Other, this article critically analyses Australian director Denis O'Rourke's `documentary fiction film' The Good Woman of Bangkok, the story of Aoi, a woman from a rural village in Udon in the northeast of Thailand who works in the Bangkok sex trade. The analysis attempts to give specificity and critical precision to what is too often a more intuitive and generalized critique of the contribution of current affairs programmes to the quality of understanding in the public sphere. The article combines textual analysis and social theory — two forms of analysis too often kept apart — to analyse the relationship between the text of the documentary per se and the conceptualization of social reality within that text. I argue that The Good Woman of Bangkok contains two tales or narratives, a simple one with a simple moral, and a more sophisticated, subversive one that is more attuned — albeit imperfectly — to the requirements of a mature public sphere. The more subversive thread undermines the simple tale by disrupting our belief in the overly naïve picture of social reality that the latter depends upon. The article incorporates an argument for more dialogue between social theorists and documentary film makers.
When two become one: Creating a composite grammar in creole formation
Authors: Gross Steven
Published: February 2009

This paper examines the structural consequences of the contact between Dutch overseers and Eastern Ij slaves during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on the formation of Berbice Dutch, an unusual creole because of its remarkably homogeneous substrate. Based on the assumption that the structure-building operations in language contact situations are governed by the relative accessibility of morphemes in production, various surface configurations in Berbice Dutch are explained in terms of the 4-M model. Although the 4-M model classifies morphemes as falling into four types, content morphemes and three types of system morphemes, its focus is on how morphemes are differentially elected in production. A second model, the Abstract Level model, views the structure of the abstract lemmas that support morphemes as internally complex. Considering how morphemes are elected and how abstract lexical structure is complex opens the door to an explanation for the surface configurations found in Berbice Dutch. Data from Berbice Dutch demonstrate that abstract lexical structure can be “split” and “recombined” in such a way that surface structure is projected by an underlying grammatical frame that is a composite of the abstract lexical structure of the linguistic varieties in contact. Perceptual saliency of morphological structure and the degree of homogeneity in the substrate play a crucial role in predicting what is and what is not possible in creole formation.
“Elective affinities”: Language contact in the abstract lexicon and its structural consequences
Authors: Bolonyai Agnes
Published: February 2009

This paper investigates how and what properties of abstract lexical entries in the mental lexicon interact with the distribution of surface morphemes in language contact and/or L1 attrition. Data from Hungarian/English bilingual children provide evidence that asymmetries in the production of Hungarian preverbs and case suffixes may be explained by considering how these morphemes are elected in language production. Effects of differential election and status of “early” versus "late” system morphemes interact with effects of cross-linguistic incongruence and result in different patterns of error types in the use of preverbs and case suffixes. The results of the study support the predictions of the 4-M model and the Abstract Level model (Myers-Scotton & Jake, 2000). Working within the framework of the 4-M model and the Abstract Level model provides a principled explanation for interrelations between language production and the morphemic organization of the bilingual mental lexicon.
Discourse cohesion in sign and speech
Authors: Morgan Gary
Published: February 2009

This paper describes the development of discourse cohesion in bilingual children, through an analysis of narrative discourses produced by hearing children of deaf parents(HCDP) in both British Sign Language(BSL) and spoken English. Reference mechanisms in both languages are described in the context of recent work on narrative and discourse organization development in spoken and sign language. Discourse cohesion is achieved in each language through different surface mechanisms, while following a similar underlying organization. The differences in use of referring expressions observed between two children reflect development across both languages in the ability to control and manipulate reference within discourse. Describing acquisition of cohesion mechanisms by bilingual hearing children of deaf families provides a unique opportunity to ask questions about developing two languages with cross-modality differences. An early development of language appropriate narrative devices is reported while apparent differences between languages, in the relative phase of discourse organization development within the same child is suggested. A second question is addressed concerning the impact of bilinguality through an examination of language mixing across modalities.
The acquisition of the Rhotic Consonants by Welsh-English bilingual children
Authors: Ball Martin J. , Müller Nicole , Munro Siân
Published: February 2009

This article reports on a study into the acquisition of Welsh and English phonology in Welsh-English bilingual children. It concentrates on the acquisition of the rhotic consonants, that is the trilled-r of Welsh and the approximant- r of English. The trilled-r shows differential patterns of acquisition depending on the age and language dominance of the subjects. It also demonstrates a wide range of substitutions, and it is argued that some of these may be due to influence from English, while others seem to be used because of their acoustic similarity to the target. Much less variation is found with the substitutions used for approximant-r, and it is shown that, again, there is an acoustic reason for the choice of the commonest of them. While the two sounds clearly are different, neither the trill nor the approximant demonstrate 100% accurate usage even in the oldest age group of subjects (4;6—5;0) (although the approximant does approach 90%). Therefore, they belong to the group of consonants acquired last in their respective languages.
Psycholinguistic complexity in codeswitching
Authors: Dussias Paola E.
Published: February 2009

The functional element effect (Muysken, 1997) refers to the systematic favoritism of certain grammatical categories to appear in one language versus the other during codeswitched speech. The current paper explores whether this effect, often observed in production, is replicated in on-line comprehension results. As a preliminary test, we compared the results of published frequency counts involving Spanish-English codeswitches with comprehension-timed experimental results. Two syntactic sites were analyzed: switches between a noun and its determiner and switches between a complementizer and its IP. Production frequencies for these sites were taken from Milian (1996, cited in Myers - Scotton & Jake, 1997) and Sankoff and Poplack (1981). Comprehension data were taken from Dussias (1997). Comparisons of the two sets of data show that corpus frequency and comprehension complexity are inversely related to each other in that the more frequent a codeswitch is in corpora, the less difficult it is to process.
Naturalization language testing and its basis in ideologies of national identity and citizenship
Authors: Piller Ingrid
Published: February 2009

National belonging is a central facet of modern social identities. In Europe, nation-building often went hand in hand with linguistic nationalism. While the monarchial empires that preceded the modern nation had been multilingual polities (e.g., the Habsburg Empire), nations were founded on the ideology of “One Language, One Nation.” Nations are not only “Imagined Communities,” that is, systems of cultural representation whereby people come to imagine a shared experience of identification with an extended community, but also exclusionary historical and institutional practices to which access is restricted via citizenship. Linguistic restrictions to such access can be found in naturalization language testing, which usually takes place during the naturalization interview and tests the applicant's proficiency in a country's official and/or majority language. In this paper I examine the interrelationship of ideologies of national and linguistic identity and the ways in which they impact upon ideologies of citizenship. I describe current naturalization legislationina number of countries and the ways in which it is based on these ideologies. The paper has a special focus on Germany where naturalization legislation changed on January 1st, 2000. I describe the linguistic tests as they are stipulated by law and as they are conducted in actual practice. Finally, I turn away from the national ideologies behind these language tests to the linguistic ideologies that (mis)inform them. The data for this analysis come mainly from legal texts pertaining to naturalization, but also from newspaper accounts and interviews with naturalization candidates. I will show that the relationship between naturalization and language requirements depends on the different national ideologies that the various countries hold. The paper ends with the conclusion that most of the practices I report on are compatible neither with a contemporary understanding of citizenship nor with recent advances in linguistic research and the study of multilingualism.
Hyphenated identities: Italian-Canadian youth and the negotiation of ethnic identities in Toronto
Authors: Giampapa Frances
Published: February 2009

This paper examines the way Italian-Canadian youth negotiate their identities through their language practices. Language and culture are the paths through which identity performance can be observed and interpreted. In fact, Ibrahim (1998,p.13) states that "not only identities are reflected in languages but also constructed in, through and within them. Language can be or is a political statement and is or can be a medium of identity performance. ”By viewing identity as multiple and shifting, I will show how eight Italian-Canadian youths in Toronto lean on different aspects of their identities through their daily linguistic and cultural practices across and within multiple “worlds” (i.e., Canadian, Italian-Canadian and Italian) and discourse sites. I examine the discourse around language, the linguistic interplay of codes and the discourse of representation within worlds and discourse sites in order to understand how participants negotiate their identities and positions.