‘Ch'us mon propre Bescherelle’: Challenges from the Hip‐Hop nation to the Quebec nation1

We examine the uses of and attitudes towards language of members of the Montreal Hip‐Hop community in relation to Quebec language‐in‐education policies. These policies, implemented in the 1970s, have ensured that French has become the common public language of an ethnically diverse young adult population in Montreal. We argue, using Blommaert's (2005) model of orders of indexicality, that the dominant language hierarchy orders established by government policy have been both flattened and reordered by members of the Montreal Hip‐Hop community, whose multilingual lyrics insist: (1) that while French is the lingua franca, it is a much more inclusive category which includes ‘Bad French,’ regional and class dialects, and European French; and (2) that all languages spoken by community members are valuable as linguistic resources for creativity and communication with multiple audiences. We draw from a database which includes interviews with and lyrics from rappers of Haitian, Latin‐American, African‐American and Québécois origin.     

Attributions of Blame among Victims of Child Sexual Abuse: Findings from a Community Sample

ABSTRACT

According to the attribution theory, negative outcomes of child sexual abuse (CSA) are thought to vary depending on whether CSA victims attribute the abuse to internal or external factors, respectively, self-blame and perpetrator-blame. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify abuse characteristics and attitudes that influence blame attributions among CSA victims from a community sample. Data from respondents with a history of CSA (N = 1,496) have been used in predicting blame attributions; perpetrator-blame, self-blame, or both. Results from a multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that attitudes toward gender roles had a significant effect on blame: victims were more likely to blame themselves when they endorsed more conservative gender attitudes than victims with more liberal attitudes. Implications for this finding are discussed.     

Not Ethnic Enough: The Cultural Identity Imperative in International Adoptions from China to Canada

Based on a qualitative research of adoptions from China to Canada, this article analyses changing attitudes and approaches to racial and ethnic differences in adoptive kinship in the last few decades. I argue that culture celebration labour over children adopted from China is shaped by the contemporary Canadian culturalist ethos, the Orientalist imagination, and the Asian model minority stereotype. The cultural identity imperative, a core component of multicultural governmentality, perceives culture as an object, demands non‐white Canadian subjects with rooted belongings, and operates in ways that sanctions and incorporates, as it depoliticises and subordinates.     

Community Reactions to Young People Who Have Sexually Abused and Their Families: A Shotgun Blast,Not a Rifle Shot

Data on 117 young sexual abusers were examined to investigate the nature of community responses to young people's abusive behaviour. A wide range of community responses were found, with stigmatisation, social isolation and collateral damage being common. A contagion effect was noted, with community responses extending over time and across contexts. Some young offenders and their families were attacked and forced out of their homes. In some cases, community responses heightened risk factors. The policy and practice implications of the findings are discussed, including the need for caution about the inclusion of children in policies on community notification of sex offenders.     

‘You tell all the stories’: Using narrative to explore hierarchy within a Community of Practice1

Recent discussion of the Community of Practice (CofP) ( Davies 2005 ) has suggested that there are certain limitations to the approach with regard to how it accounts for internal hierarchy and community membership. Eckert and Wenger (2005: 588) have suggested that the only way to evaluate such criticism (and avoid building an inappropriately rigid conception of power into CofP theory) is to explore how hierarchies operate within CofPs. This paper offers such an exploration. Using data from a long‐term ethnographic study of a high school in the north‐west of England, this paper will use narrative analysis (drawing upon the work of Labov and Waletsky [1967] 1997 amongst others) to explore the interactional space in which speakers actively negotiate their personal and community behaviour. The analysis focuses upon the role individuals play as narrators of community practice and illustrates that status inequalities between individual CofP members do not necessarily result in inequitable allocation of control within the CofP.