The Scholarship of Difference: A Scholarship of Liberation?

Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of new scholarship depicting the diverse experiences of men and women from different classes, races, and ethnicities. This article examines the implications of this new scholarship by comparing and contrasting its core assumptions with those of both Marxism and postmodernism. Particular attention is paid to its potential as a scholarship of liberation. Within this new scholarship of difference, two types of identity politics are critically examined: those that privilege the knowledge of the oppressed and those that focus on multiple realities and polyvocality. Shortcomings of this scholarship are discussed, including the naive pluralism of idealist multiple realities approaches, the underdevelopment of analyses of social class, and the problems that arise from rejecting scientific realism and from ignoring the importance of theory for analyzing structural relations of oppression. Of this new scholarship I ask: Whither social structure? Whither truth? And whither social class?     

A Review of: “Psychology of Orphaned Children”

For many years, intercountry adoption (ICA) in the United Kingdom was an unregulated, “tolerated” practice which was neither scrutinized nor supported to the degree of domestic adoption. Since 1999, legislative changes have sought to place ICA on equal footing with domestic adoption. This article addresses the extent to which this objective has been achieved through an examination of post-placement support practices and parents’ experiences, preferences, and expectations of support services. The findings of this study indicate that a less proactive, inclusive approach, limitations of professional knowledge and experience, the lack of appropriate services, and families’ support preferences contribute to the persistence of a “two-tier service.”     

Birthplace of Fashion Designers: Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology

CLOTHING, as the old Chinese saying goes, is regarded as the most basic human need. In 1988 in Beijing, the first institute of higher learning to focus on the design and manufacture of clothing was established. The Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology (BICT) offers a combined curriculum of art and fashion that has fostered the talent of many outstanding young designers. The college is located near the ruins of the city wall from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and has an enrollment of 2,500 undergraduate and graduate students. Before 1988 the building housed a college of chemical fibre engineering that had many lecturers and professors who where considered accomplished at both theory and application. The school was expanded with the addition of nine subjects and three new departments—Garment,     

Personal Adornments:Keepsakes of Love

LOVE is the most important emotion cherished by people in their adolescence. The whole process from their first love to marriage is like a romantic dream to be remembered forever. The personal adornments exchanged with each other as keepsakes of love add more poetic quality to the romance. Love is a kind of physical and mental excitement. When a personal adornment is presented to a lover     

1997: Year of the Tourist

ON January 1, 1997, a strong wind blew into Beijing just after a heavy snow. But still the Capital Airport was abuzz with activity. A welcoming team was gathered awaiting the arrival of the first batch of guests of the 1997 China International Year of the Tourist. The team was comprised of 200 drummers, dragon dancers, lion dancers and 300 young women, each holding bouquets of fresh flowers and pinwheels spinning in the wind.     

Xiadiya:Daughter of the Pamirs

ON the Pamir Plateau, 3,200 meters above sea level, live the Tajik people. Almost every Tajik knows the name Xiadiya. She is regarded as the pride of Tajik women, for she is the first female Tajik college student, the first female leader of Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County Party Committee and the first female Tajik deputy to come to Beijing to attend the     

Misgivings of medicine?: African Americans' skepticism of psychiatric medication

Research has consistently documented black-white differences in rates of voluntary psychiatric treatment that cannot be reduced entirely to differences in either need or access. A variety of explanations have been offered for the gap that remains, but the empirical testing of alternative propositions has thus far been minimal. Using the 1998 General Social Survey's Pressing Issues in Health and Medical Care module (n = 1,387), I find consistent and substantial black-white differences in a variety of beliefs about psychiatric medications, one of the most common treatments for mental illness, and the predisposition to use them. Specifically, blacks express less willingness to use psychiatric medications themselves or to administer them to a child for whom they are responsible. Neither socioeconomic status, knowledge, religious involvement, nor trust in medicine appears to explain this reluctance. Rather, it stems almost entirely from blacks' beliefs about psychiatric medications' efficacy and side-effects. The results indicate, first, that researchers should not assume that African Americans will use psychiatric medications at rates similar to whites if offered equal access. Second, the results indicate that blacks' skepticism of psychiatric medications may be rooted in specific beliefs about psychiatric medications, rather than general ideologies about medical practice. Health beliefs about psychiatric treatment, therefore, will continue to play an important role in understanding race differences in the use of psychiatric medications.     

Subtle images of antigypsyism: An analysis of the visual perception of “Roma”

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the powerful stereotypical media discourse that shapes and reproduces a certain racialised and prejudiced perception of people identified as “Roma” in Germany. Using a close analysis of a single picture – appearing as harmless at first glance – and through the reconstruction of its various interpretational contexts and semantics the paper identifies mechanisms used in stereotypical media coverage of “Roma”. This qualitative analysis draws on media analysis of antigypsyism as well as on research of photographic construction of the “gypsy” in order to analyse the contemporary visual regime of “Roma” in Germany. As it portrays “the Roma” as a fundamentally different and socially deviant group, this visual stereotyping is shown to be an integral element of the persistent antigypsyist ideology, deeply embedded in German society.     

Afghanistan: A Change of Course?

The situation in Afghanistan today is not what the international community was planning it to be, 7 years ago when the Bonn Agreement was signed. Deterioration of security, weak governance, corruption, high narcotic production and trade, slow reconstruction process and consequent people’s disappointment are some of the features of that situation. Kabul and its international partners had a very little success in restoring peace and security, and a new phase of strategic re-thinking is in process. This article analyzes the different aspects of Afghan reconstruction and military intervention, their strengths and weaknesses, and outlines some urgent actions to be taken by all concerned actors.

Making Sense of Meta-Analysis: A Critique of “Effectiveness of Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy”

Evidence-based practice depends in part on knowledge derived from relevant research. For any given topic, there are likely to be many, potentially relevant studies; a careful appraisal and synthesis of the results of these studies is needed to understand the state of the empirical evidence. Meta-analysis is widely used to combine results of quantitative studies; yet this method is unfamiliar to many people and, as a result, meta-analyses are often uncritically accepted. In this article, we argue that meta-analysis is only one component of a good research synthesis. We critique a recent metaanalysis on the effectiveness of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy, showing that this metaanalysis failed to meet current standards for the conduct and reporting of systematic research reviews and meta-analyses. We demonstrate the use of AMSTAR, a straightforward tool for assessing the quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.     

Bing Xin:The Teller of Tales

AT 9 p.m. on February 28, 1999,contemporary Chinese masterand famous writer Bing Xinpassed away quietly. As she wrote in herwill, "I quietly came into the world and Iwill leave it the same way." The entireliterary circle as well as other membersof society attended her funeral to mournher passing. Thousands of fire-red rosesencircled her. Several generations of herreaders came from all parts of thecountry to pay tribute to the centenarian     

Liberia 2008:The Reality of War

This Dear Diary entry,in the year's last issue of Women of China,is written by Judy Cheung,a British woman of Chinese descent.Cheung,a business executive who lives and works in China,writes about her humanitarian experiences in Liberia,and she offers her insights into the effects of war.     

Sanya:The Hawaii of the East

"A rare privilege to see. A true paradise." Mr. Enriquez Savignac Antonio. the former Secretary-General of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, excitedly wrote down these words in October, 1994, after visiting the southern coastal city of Sanya. From that point on, Sanya's fame began to grow. The beach city in the south of Hainan     

The emergence of Dutch casinos: A case study of mismarketing?

Ostensibly, the approval of legalized casino type gambling in the Netherlands was intended to combat illegal and uncontrolled gambling. Very early on, however, the plan conceived and implemented by the Netherlands Parliament demonstrated serious mismarketing strategies and tactics. The new legal casinos were appealing to people other than those engaged in illegal gambling, in particular foreign tourists and local high rollers. This paper attempts to analyze the ultimate process of goal displacement, as the state casino industry allowed economic objectives to supplant desires to utilize legal casinos primarily as controls over illegal gambling.     

Traces of “I”: Concepts of Subjectivity in Polish Literature of the Last Century

This study investigates the police reports on the peasants during the early years of the New Economic Policy as the new Soviet state attempted to establish a working relationship with rural Russia through a variety of organizations, chief among these the police. As the government sought to determine the meaning of the NEP, the police in rural Russia attempted to provide the central authorities with accurate information on economic, social, and political conditions in the countryside and to establish a positive relationship with the peasantry. In the process, the police came to understand the peasantry well and demonstrated a complex appreciation of the realities of rural Russia rather than a simple proto-Stalinist worldview. Utilizing the data from the police, the Bolshevik regime in the period to Lenin’s death also demonstrated some willingness to accept a deal with the peasantry and moderate its approach—a flexibility reflected in its change from confiscation to razverstka, and again from razverstka to a single tax, and then even to modify the tax levy to reflect peasant constructs of what was “right” to pay. This flexibility emerged in large measure because the police were returning to an earlier view of the peasants as rational beings, rather than incorrigible irrational enemies.     

Neighborhood Residents’ Fear of Crime: A Tale of Three Cities

Neighborhood characteristics impact residents’ fear of crime. Empirical research supports these ideas, but the majority of these studies are based on residents of a single city. The relationship between social control, disorder, perceptions of crime, and residents’ fear of crime has not been fully explored across multiple cities. The current study examines the relationship between residents’ perceptions of neighborhood safety, disorder, and social control using survey data from residents across three cities in the United States. The findings suggest that shared expectations lead to decreased fear, while increased levels of social disorder lead to a greater fear of crime across each of the three cities. Other factors, including perceptions of crime, exposure to victimization, and demographic characteristics are not consistently related to the fear of crime. This suggests the structural impact of city factors, or increases in disorder and crime, might be influencing the perceptions of risk and constrained behaviors of residents.     

Resolution of depression among victims of intimate partner violence: is cessation of violence enough?

The objective of this article is to assess the effect of abuse cessation on depressive symptoms among women abused by a male intimate partner. This prospective cohort study of Seattle women with a history of intimate partner violence (IPV) who were classified by history of abuse and abuse status at 3 month, 9 month, and 2 year follow-up interviews. Relative risks (RR) were calculated using generalized estimating equations. Among subjects with a history of psychological abuse only, cessation of abuse was associated with a nonsignificant reduction in the likelihood of depression compared to subjects whose abuse continued (aRR = 0.88; 95%CI: 0.75,1.03). Among subjects with a history of physical/sexual abuse and psychological abuse, cessation of physical/sexual abuse only was associated with a 27% decline, and cessation of both types of abuse was associated with a 35% decline in the likelihood of depression (aRR = 0.73, 95%CI: 0.63,0.86; and aRR = 0.65; 95%CI: 0.55,0.76; respectively). Cessation of abuse among victims of IPV is associated with a decreased prevalence of depression.     

The determinants of organizations’ usage of employee dismissal: Evidence from Australia

Substantial variation exists across organizations in their use of dismissal. While it has been suggested that this variation reflects organizational-level factors relating to disciplinary issues, little evidence exists regarding the effect of these factors. Using data from 1,596 workplaces in the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, we examine how organizational-level factors that reflect the incidence of disciplinary problems as well as the expected costs and benefits of dismissal are related to dismissal usage. For each organization, data were collected on organizational characteristics and practices in interviews with the employee relations manager and the senior line manager. Data were also collected on whether or not dismissal was used by the firm and on the number of employees dismissed. Using both logistic regression and tobit analysis, our results suggest that dismissal is affected by procedural and institutional restrictions on the use of discipline, interactions among those restrictions, compensation level, labor market factors, workforce human capital, operating capacity, work group influence, the use of incentive pay, workforce size, and industry classification. Copies of the AWIRS Data set are available for purchase from the Australian Government Publishing Service, Commonwealth Department of Industrial Relations, Canaberra, Australia. The authors thank Alan Morris and Lindsay Turner for their assistance in managing the AWIRS data set. Michelle Brown is now at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, WI 53201.     

Program of Happiness: Changing Poor Mothers' Lives

THE Program of Happiness is a nationalaction plan aiming to help poormothers in poverty-stricken areas.Itwas jointly launched in February 1995 by theChina Population Welfare Foundation,ChinaFamily Planning Association and thenewspaper,China Population. In China,there are three groups whoneed the most help—women,children and thes