Theory at risk: Accounting for the excellence movement

Amidst widespread concern about educational crisis and the need for reform, the current excellence movement places a pronounced emphasis on rigor, standards, and a core curriculum of basic studies. At issue here is whether major macro-the-oretical perspectives can account for the emergence of this movement. Functional and Marxian theories do not meet this challenge well, especially insofar as they posit a tight, rational linkage between school and economy and downplay the institutional autonomy of the educational system. A status conflict approach, emphasizing middle class mobilization, offers greater insight, though it must be complemented with a recognition of constraints imposed by capitalist organization and the institutionalization of educational myths.     

The context of correctness: A comment on rushton

According to Philippe Rushton, the equalitarian fiction, a scientific hoax that races are genetically equal in cognitive ability, underlies the politically correct objections to his research on racial differences. He maintains that there is a taboo against race unequaled by the Inquisition. I show that while Rushton has been publicly harassed, he has had continuous opportunities to present his findings in diverse, widely available, respectable journals, and no general suppression within academic psychology is evident. Similarly, Henry Garrett and his associates in the LAAEE, dedicated to preserving segregation and preventing race suicide, disseminated their ideas widely, although Garrett complained of the equalitarian fiction in 1961. Examination of the intertwined history ofMankind Quarterly, German Rassenhygiene, far right politics, and the work of Roger Pearson suggests that some cries of political correctness must be viewed with great caution.Preparation of this paper was not supported by any grant, foundation, political, or religious organization.specializing in the history of psychology and psychological aesthetics.     

Psychoanalytic perspectives on child abuse

This paper examines the application of selected concepts from classical psychoanalysis, ego psychology, object relations theory, and self psychology to the assessment and treatment of child abuse. Child maltreatment is conceptualized as deriving, in part, from impaired symbiotic and separation-individuation experiences. The role of certain defense mechanisms employed by the formerly abused parent in perpetuating intergenerational cycles of abuse is explored. Disturbances in the development of the nuclear self (as postulated by Kohut) in abusive parents are considered. Fairbairn's model of the inner object world is used to illuminate scapegoating processes. The concept of protectiveness is discussed in relation to the abused child's use of primitive defenses and inhibition of autonomy. Countertransference issues are viewed in relation to the problem of workers' burnout.This paper was written for completion requirement for the degree of M.S.W. at Hunter College School of Social Work. The auther wishes to express her appreciation to Phyllis Caroff, Richard Gaines, Mary Beth Globenfelt, Arthur Green, Wendy Kamaiko, Jeffrey Seinfeld, and Anna Clare van Dalen for their assistance and generous contributions to this paper.     

Muddying the Waters Does Not Have to Entail Erosion: Ecological Feminist Concerns with Purity

Ecofeminists call attention to the associations that have been made between woman and nature, which can operate as a source of both subjugation and resistance, exploitation, and inspiration. This paper expands upon feminist critiques of purity by phrasing these concerns in an ecological feminist perspective. This theoretical exercise of problematizing the ideal of purity sheds light upon the intersections of human and nonhuman oppression. Preservationist work has tended to employ the logic of purity by focusing on protection of the purity of the wild regions of the earth from the polluting forces of humanity. However, such approaches retain the troublesome nature/culture dualism. The author illustrates how attempts to fragment and radically separate people from the environment can prove to be highly dangerous. She connects the theoretical resistance to purity to the important activist work that is being done to expose environmental racism. Finally, she discusses how muddying the waters and resisting the logic of purity can offer a promising approach to pressing problems revolving around the intersections of human and nonhuman oppression.     

The Organization of Nonprofit Activities

This paper investigates the repertoire of organizational forms in Western societies in order to assess the nonprofit sector's distinctiveness. A repertoire of six different ideal type constructs is presented adding to and reformulating existing theories, which have primarily focused on the market and the firm. This new extended theoretical platform builds both on theories discussing market, organization, and governmental failures and on approaches where homo economicus is replaced by homo complexicus and transactions by interactions. This effort aims at making the nonprofit (or voluntary) sector in society both more visible and theoretically substantiated. At the end of this paper, the theoretical framework is applied by analyzing empirical nonprofit organizations.     

A quantitative theory of preferences: Some results on transition functions

We investigate a general theory of combining individual preferences into collective choice. The preferences are treated quantitatively, by means of preference functions (a,b), where 0(a,b) expresses the degree of preference of a to b. A transition function is a function (x,y) which computes (a,c) from (a,b) and (b,c), namely (a,c)=((a,b),(b,c)). We prove that given certain (reasonable) conditions on how individual preferences are aggregated, there is only one transition function that satisfies these conditions, namely the function (x,y)=x·y (multiplication of odds). We also formulate a property of transition functions called invariance, and prove that there is no invariant transition function; this impossibility theorem shows limitations of the quantitative method.Research supported in part by the National Science Foundation.     

How epoch making are high technologies? The case of biotechnology

This paper is a commentary on the current tendency among sociologists to embrace the notion that high technologies will be revolutionary or epoch making. The implicit neo-Schumpeterian logic of these claims is detailed, and a preliminary framework for empirical examination is developed for the case of biotechnology. Available evidence suggests that biotechnology, because it will be applied primarily in declining sectors of the economy and is mainly a substitution technology, is unlikely to be an epoch-making technical form. The implications of these observations for sociological reasoning about new technologies and technological change are discussed.     

Compulsive gambling and the medical model

The medical model as a conceptual and operative approach to compulsive gambling is discussed. The terms medical model and disease are defined and the practical implications of their application to compulsive gambling are explored. Special attention is given to the addictive disease concept. Finally, a variety of objections to the medical model are described, but it is concluded that the many individual and social advantages of the medical model make it the preferred conceptualization at our present state of knowledge.     

Habermas and green political thought

Conclusion My principal ecocentric objection to Habermas's social and political theory has been that it is thoroughly human-centered in insisting that the emancipation of human relations need not require or depend upon the emancipation of nature. Although Habermas has moved beyond the pessimism and utopianism of the first generation of Critical Theorists by providing the conceptual foundations of the practical and emancipatory cognitive interests, he has, as Whitebook points out, also markedly altered the spirit of their project. Yet it is precisely the spirit of the early Frankfurt school theorists, namely, its critique of the dominant imperialist orientation toward the world (rather than its critique of a simplistically conceived idea of science) and its desire for the liberation of nature, that is most relevant to - and provides the most enduring Western Marxist link with - the ecocentric perspective of the radical Greens.

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Physiographic gestures as decoding facilitators: Three experiments exploring a neglected facet of communication

There is a dearth of studies exploring the role of gestures in the communication of experience, i.e., events external to the speaker; whereas much research has been concerned with gestures as expressions of attitudes and emotion. This state of affairs has tended to reinforce the premature assumption that gestures serve functions quite different from those of speech. Three experiments reported here were designed to investigate this neglected role examining specifically, physiographic gestures (pgs). A variety of tasks were devised; information pertaining to each being recorded on videotape and presented under varying modal conditions. It was found that pgs do contribute to the communication of events external to the speaker. Possible mechanisms are discussed.This is a more extensive version of a paper entitled A Clarificatory Paper on the Role of Gestures in Communication, presented at the British Psychological Society London Conference, 1977, Imperial College.     

Inclusive Governance and “Minority” Groups: The Role of the Third Sector in Wales

Following the establishment of a national legislature in Wales in 1999 the third sector has entered into a pioneering cross-sectoral partnership with the Welsh government. This paper presents the results of a research project that has studied the new structures of devolved governance through the expectations and participation of voluntary organizations representing three marginalized or minority groupings: women, disabled people, and those from an ethnic minority background. The findings reveal that despite varying levels of expectation expressed by minority voluntary groups, active engagement of minority groups in policy making has been a feature of the Assembly's first months. Nevertheless, formidable challenges face both sectoral partners in the new system of governance, not least in creating organizational structures that facilitate partnership working in the devolved polity.     

Evidence for a common dissociative-like reaction among addicts

A questionnaire was designed to test selected aspects of the author's General Theory of Addictions (Jacobs, 1982). Data were collected from groups of compulsive gamblers, alcoholics, and compulsive overeaters, and compared with the responses to the same questionnaire obtained from normative samples of adolescents and adults. The more inclusive term, compulsive gambler, has been used throughout, since the sample of gamblers in this study included an inpatient subgroup who had been diagnosed as pathological gamblers, as well as a subgroup of Gamblers Anonymous members who had not been clinically evaluated. Findings support the author's theoretical position that, when indulging, different kinds of addicts will tend to share a common set of dissociativelike experiences that differentiate them from nonaddicts. This has been termed a state of altered identity.     

Emotional Climate in a European Problem Area: East Berlin and West Berlin Three Years After Reunification

In autumn of 1992, three years after the unification of Germany, during a period of violent attacks against foreigners, 120 students from East Berlin and West Berlin and 20 foreign students living in West Berlin answered the Emotional Climate Questionnaire developed by de Rivera and Fernandez-Dols. Foreign respondents expressed a positive attitude toward their government/state and believed in prosocial behavior to a greater extent than respondents from East Berlin and West Berlin. Whereas East Berlin students disagreed only somewhat with statements in favor of selfishness and egoism, West Berlin students strongly disagreed with them. We attribute the differences that were found in the answers of the foreign students to their national values. In addition, we regard the differences between the emotional climates of East Berlin and West Berlin as reflecting a climate of instability among East Berliners. We interpreted selfishness as a kind of polarized behavior indicating a climate of instability. A factor analysis revealed 5 factors of an emotional climate: Nation's Future, Just World, Reactive Egoism, Scepticism, and Basic Egoism. The concept of emotional climate is discussed on the basis of the current data.     

The discursive origins of Israeli separatism: The case of the Arab village

Conclusions We should note, however, that the achievements of the control system cannot in and of themselves explain the success of the discourse on the Arab village. Indeed, with the benefit of hindsight, one must acknowledge today that what the control system produced was a secondary order reality at best, a representation superimposed over, and obscuring other social realities. It never managed (nor did it try) to stop the proletarianization of peasants. It never managed (though it did try) to put an end to illegal construction and de-facto urbanization. It did not even manage to repress the emergence of grass-roots national political organization in the villages. More often than not, its sole achievement was to obscure official (and academic) perception of these processes. Thus, one often finds nowadays settlements to which the term village is officially applied, while their physical structure already merits urban status. Urbanization took place in the villages regardless of the designs of planners, and this fact alone is enough to demonstrate how discourse detached them from reality. This was also why, in 1976, Orientalists and government experts were completely taken by surprise, when the committee for national direction (composed of village mayors!) organized mass demonstrations to protest government plans to confiscate more Palestinian lands. The events of this day, later known as land day, signaled the emergence of rural Palestinians as a national political force to be reckoned with. Quite contrary to what the notion of hamula struggle led them to believe, experts discovered that the villages were an effective mobilizing ground for national political action.I think it is precisely the dubious character of the achievements of the control system, arising from the systematic blindness inculcated by discourse, which demonstrates that these achievements were indeed of secondary importance in comparison with what was the raison d'etre of the control system and the discourse on the Arab village: their premier achievement was to reproduce the separatist character of Israeli identity. The origins of the control system were diverse indeed: they included divide and conquer practices developed by Arabists; land planning practices; modernization discourse formulated in response to immigration; cooptation strategies developed by the Labor party for electoral purposes; bifurcation of the labor market by Jewish labor unions. There is no one person or group responsible for these. What organized all these diverse practices together was the specific rationality of the control system. This rationality was not an economic one, nor political, nor scientific, nor was it given in any of these practices. It was identical with Israeli identity and the procedures that separate it from its other. This is why Israelis still adhere to the control system and the discourse on the Arab village, even though they fail to predict Palestinian behavior or control it (i.e., it was not their goal to begin with).It is ironic that the discourse on the Arab village would reach the height of its prestige just as the achievements of the control system were evaporating. The conjunction of these two events cannot be explained by the Weberian view of power as the realization of a will, i.e., by focusing on the interest of Jews in maintaining control over Palestinians. Such a view leads to an unavoidable contradiction: If the action of participants in the discourse and the control system is based on their interests, why are they unable to recognize their failure? And if they are not capable of monitoring their own interests, how were they able to create a coherent and effective control system? The answer is that their action is circumscribed by what discourse and the control system permit them to grasp, and this understanding is indeed both limited and enabled by the premier achievement of discourse and the control system: a position of a Western-modern Israeli subject, strictly demarcated from that of the traditional-Oriental rural Palestinian. Power is not so much exercised to realize an Israeli interest, as it is constitutive of the very self-understanding that underlies this interest, a self-understanding predicated on the rejection of the Orient and its exclusion.In this sense, this article merely provides the rough outlines for a future debate on the origins and nature of Israeli separatism. Such a debate has scarcely begun, but implicit understandings of separatism are implicated in the contemporary political debate in Israel. The mainstream of Israeli political thought tends to treat the separation between Jews and Palestinians as a taken-for-granted fact, a direct consequence of Zionism as a nation-building project. Others, on the political left, question this assumption and suggest that separatism should be understood as an institutional system erected in response to certain economic, military, or political interests, a system based on the control and exploitation of Palestinians by Jews.I think both positions limit the debate about separatism. By ignoring the cultural side of separatism, its character as an identity that requires a permanent effort of constitution, they supply an alibi for intellectuals and academics. These can continue using their disciplines and discourses, and even present these as sufficiently detached for a critique of Israeli politics, without examining their role in the reproduction of a separatist identity. Moreover, if separatism is understood merely as control over Palestinians, thus ignoring its side as the subjection of Jews, the consequence is that the distinction usurped by the Israeli upper class is mis-recognized. This class can continue to present its taste, values, and style of life - all those cultural arbitraries that are marked by the double exclusion of the Orient and the diaspora - as the sacred cultural consensus of Israeli society. It was my aim in this article, on the contrary, to demonstrate that separatism informs the core of Israeli culture, and thus the intellectual tools to understand it and fight it can not be taken from among what it consecrates.     

Social Defenses Against Organizational Learning

It is argued that for organizational learning to occur maladaptive social defenses within the organization have to be altered. The origins of the concept of social defenses are traced through the work of Jaques and Menzies. A new concept of system domain, and related concepts of system domain fabric, and system domain defenses, are proposed in order to account for the difficulties in sustaining organizational change in organizations that share a similar primary task. Organizational learning is defined as occurring when there is co-evolution of organizational container and contained. The article distills variables from three successful consultancy/action research projects which are characteristic of organizations that are learning, and it is hypothesized that the creation of organizational awareness is necessary for organizational learning to occur.     

First Contact: Queer Theory, Sexual Identity, and “Mainstream” Film

This paper begins by raising questions about the role of queer theory in media critique, centering on a discussion of four recent mainstream mass-circulation films with significant lesbian and/or gay content. It is asserted that these films operate within accepted discourses on sexuality that require both the notions of public self-disclosure and of the truth of the hetero/homo binary. The methods used by media productions to disseminate that discourse from a lesbian/gay point of view are discussed in terms of the implications of such mass-circulation films being for many persons a first contact point with that discourse.     

Social differentiation and organic solidarity: Thedivision of labor revisited

This paper argues for the classicity of Durkheim's first book: the innovative way viewing the compatibility of social order and individual autonomy; his sensitive perception of uneasiness with regards to the crisis of anomie; the lucid sociological account, especially the tripartite explanation of the division of labor in terms of its functioning, emergence, and consequences; and the conceptualization of the problem of order—i.e., the relationship of differentiation and integration. In all of these respects, Durkheim's book is a classic. Yet classical neither means original nor flawless. This is shown with respect to the relationship of division of labor and organic solidarity by looking at the historical debate on the division of labor, by elucidating mechanical and organic solidarity, and by carving out some of the problems inside organic solidarity.     

“Lost Childhood”—Lessons from the Holocaust: Implications for Adult Adjustment

This paper was written in memoriam to the one and a half million children murdered during the Holocaust; in celebration of the tiny percentage who survived; in honor of their rescuers, the Righteous Christians and in meeting our own responsibility as survivors to bear witness.     

Paradigm Warriors: Regress and Progress in the Study of Contentious Politics

Paradigm warfare is a well-worn way of engaging in the polemics of research, but it frequently reduces paradigms to caricatures and turns complex reports of empirical research into cartoons. This is illustrated by two one-sided accounts of the Chiapas rebellion: one based on a simplistic political opportunity cartoon and the other on a foreshortened culturalist one. Reducing the many-sided (and in some ways ambiguous) approaches of the political process model to a supposedly hegemonic paradigm neglects many substantive contributions and cuts with too broad a stroke at social movements while ignoring the many-branched contributions of research and theory on contentious politics.     

This is my ...: How Cohabitants introduce their partners

Cohabitors were asked by questionnaire to indicate how they introduced their partners to parents, friends, acquaintances and employers. Findings from 76 male and 79 female subjects suggest that, when introducing a partner in social interactions, the relationship between a cohabitor and the person to whom the introduction is made has an effect upon the title used to describe her or his partner. The most common mode of introduction was boyfriend or girlfriend, the term lover being reserved generally for close friends. Over 10% of the remaining responses conveyed varying degrees of information concerning the emotional and physical nature of the relationship and/or the cohabitor's household.The authors wish to express their thanks to Jim Kerr, morning announcer of WPLJ-FM, for his cooperation in this study.