Licensed Partnership: State,Region and Institution in the Regulation of Access Education in England 1987–1992

The paper discusses the evolution and impact of a policy initiative intended to recognise and regulate a new entry route into British higher education: namely, that associated with access courses aimed primarily at adults and provided mainly by colleges of further education. The framework of quality assurance created to achieve this goal is examined from two vantage points. The first comes from within the central body established by the national government to develop and implement the scheme across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The second is that of one of the agencies in England licensed to recognise access courses at a regional and local level. As an early expression of a shift in government policy in the direction of a mass system of higher education, the framework represented on the one hand an exercise in legitimation and, on the other, an element in a larger process of change in post-secondary education. However, the ability of the initiative to shape priorities on the ground, or to embrace other transformations in and around access education, was always limited.     

Characterizing and comparing the friendships of anxious-solitary and unsociable preadolescents

Friendships matter for withdrawn youth because the consequences of peer isolation are severe. From a normative sample of 2,437 fifth graders (1,245 females; M age = 10.25), a subset (n = 1,364; 638 female) was classified into 3 groups (anxious-solitary, unsociable, comparison) and followed across a school year. Findings indicated that it was more common for unsociable than anxious-solitary children to have friends, be stably friended, and participate in multiple friendships. For withdrawn as well as nonwithdrawn children, peer rejection predicted friendlessness, but this relation was strongest for anxious-solitary children. The friends of unsociable youth were more accepted by peers than those of anxious-solitary youth. The premise that friendship inhibits peer victimization was substantiated for withdrawn as well as nonwithdrawn youth.     

Collective memory,political nostalgia,and the rhetorical presidency: Bill Clinton's commemoration of the March on Washington,August 28, 1998

This essay offers a reading of President Bill Clinton's address on August 28, 1998 in which he commemorates the 35th anniversary of the March on Washington. Specifically, Clinton's August 28th address reveals how the presidency has become a hermeneutic site for the formation of collective memory and political nostalgia. This analysis discusses the uses of political nostalgia for the purposes of political image (re)construction as evidenced by Clinton's exploitation of the civil rights movement to explain and excuse his personal failings and his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. We also present a divergent version of Clinton's rhetoric, giving specific attention to how his particular use of nostalgia in this address works to articulate and confront many of the powerful dichotomies (masculine/feminine; war/peace; black/white; private/public) that define his presidency, his public persona, and the larger political culture in postmodern America.