The power of positional competition and market mechanism: a case study of recent parental choice development in China

This article draws on data collected during a pilot study conducted in two west London schools exploring young people’s understandings of success. It considers ways in which ‘discourses of success’, as part of New Labour’s project of re‐inventing schooling, may shape young people’s subjectivity. The article examines articulations between New Labour policy and aspects of social difference and how these structure new identifications with success. In particular, the article explores how class, gender and ethnicity shape discourses of success and how they are implicated in their distribution. In conclusion, the article indicates how current education policy (particularly in relation to educational success) articulates the ‘public’ domain with dimensions of the ‘private’ self and suggests that understanding this is vital in the pursuit of social justice.     

Recidivism of child molesters: a study of victim relationship with the perpetrator

OBJECTIVE: To compare the rates among of recidivism or re-offense among convicted child molesters who offend against biological children, stepchildren, and relationships where the child is an extended family member, acquaintance or stranger to the victim. METHOD: Four hundred male subjects 18 years of age or older and at least 5 years older than the victim at the time of the index offense, were convicted of a hands on sexual offense against one or more children under the age of 16. Subjects were grouped into five categories according to the type of relationship the perpetrator had with the victim. The subjects records of criminal arrests and convictions was obtained from the national Royal Canadian Mounted Police data. Subjects were then followed-up for a period of up to 15 years after conviction when they were at risk to re-offend in the community. Survival outcome data after the index sexual offense was collected for all new sexual, violent, and any criminal offenses. RESULTS: A larger proportion of men ( 16.2%) who sexually offended against children who were acquaintances, were charged with a new sexual offense than men who sexually offended against biological (4.8%) or their stepchildren (5.1%). The percentage of men who were subsequently charged with any type of criminal offense and who offended against their biological children (19%) was smaller than men who offended against children where the relationship is an extended family member (40%), acquaintances (35.9%) or strangers (45.2%). CONCLUSIONS: When comparing the different categories of relationship the victim had with the perpetrator, the category of stranger has been highlighted as a group with a higher risk for re-offense. Our results have shown that comparatively, the risk of acquaintance group is a significantly higher risk category than was previously thought. Although professionals are principally concerned with sexual recidivism, general criminality appears to present in relatively large proportions of all child molesters with the stranger group at the highest risk level. While no single factor will predict recidivism in itself, the importance of defining the relationship between the perpetrator and victim is evident from this study.     

Understanding our link to the Great Apes—the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences awarded to Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall is the recipient of the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences for her long-term scientific studies of chimpanzee behavior. Not only were her studies the first of their kind, her meticulous behavioral recordings led to major changes in our understanding of the social links that exist between ourselves and our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. In discussing the importance of Dr. Goodall's work, Stephen Jay Gould (the late Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University) said ... “Science gains enormous power in replications of observations, but Homo sapiens is a single species and we can never know, by studying ourselves alone, whether important aspects of our behaviors and mental capacities reflect an ancestral evolutionary heritage (transmogrified through our uniquely evolved intelligence and its social correlates), or new features evolved or socially acquired only by our lineage. Chimpanzees are the best natural experiment we will ever have for exploring this central question, for chimps are our closest genealogical cousins and therefore hold more of our common evolutionary heritage than any other species can. Chimpanzees are not so much the shadow of man as our mirror, only slightly blurred by the mists of time”.     

Sklar's Maneuver

Sklar ([1974]) claimed that relationalism about ontology—thedoctrine that space and time do not exist—is compatiblewith Newtonian mechanics. To defend this claim he sketched arelationalist interpretation of Newtonian mechanics. In hisinterpretation, absolute acceleration is a fundamental, intrinsicproperty of material bodies; that a body undergoes absoluteacceleration does not entail that space and time exist. ButSklar left his proposal as just a sketch; his defense of relationalismsucceeds only if the sketch can be filled in. I argue that thiscannot be done. There can be no (relationalist) dynamical lawsof motion based on Sklar's proposal that capture the contentof Newton's theory. So relationalists must look elsewhere fora relationalist interpretation of Newtonian mechanics.

1 Introduction

2 The Relationalist Initial Value Problem

3 Sklar's Maneuver

4 Sklar's Initial Value Problem is not Well-posed

5 ConcludingRemarks

     

Ethnicity and image: correlates of crowd affiliation among ethnic minority youth

Because ethnicity is a basis for defining peer crowds in ethnically diverse American high schools, some may question whether crowds foster discrimination and stereotyping or affirm minority youths' positive ties to their ethnic background. Through examination of both self- and peer ratings of crowd affiliation among 2,465 high school youth aged 14–19 years, this study assesses the likelihood that African American, Asian American, Latino, and multiethnic adolescents are associated with ethnically defined crowds. Crowd affiliations are related to friendship patterns among all groups, positive features of ethnic orientation for Asian and Latino youth, but also some aspects of stereotyping and discrimination for Latinos. Results emphasize ethnic diversity in the role that peer crowds play in minority adolescents' social experiences.