‘The politics of free speech’

The present article addresses the support and supervisional relations of Palestinian Israeli single mothers vis-à-vis their families and communities. It links the theoretical discussion on intersectional analysis with power relations and gender. In this article I focus on the importance of employing analytical models that take into consideration the internal variance within this social category of ‘Palestinian Israeli single mothers' which emerge due to the contradictory social trends typifying Palestinian society in Israel today – models that examine the implications of the complexity of women's lives in discrete locations, the changes society is undergoing, together with processes of discrimination and the strengthening of conservative trends. The article is based on data gathered during in-depth, semi-structured interviews that were conducted and analyzed with a commitment to the principles of feminist research.     

Two Courts of the’Phags-pa Era

1. Preamble An event which is said to have taken place in 1267, just prior to' Phags--pa's leisurely re-turn to the Mongol imperial court in China was his organization of an entourage of attendants andofficials who were responsible for the wide variety of duties and functions that had accrued to him inthe course of his growing prestige and influence. In keeping with his position in Tibet as the spiritual     

Connecting cultures: rethinking Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘ideals of education’

In 1917, Rabindranath Tagore declared, ‘There is only one history – the history of man’ [Tagore, R. (1917/2009). Nationalism. New Delhi: Penguin, p. 65]. This concept of ‘one-history’, and by extension ‘one-world’ is at the heart of his conceptualisation of what I call, education-sans-boundaries and, as I see it, one of the ways to bring a glocal unity. His goal was to establish the dignity of human relationships across boundaries. Thus, for him, local education and global education should not be two ends of a spectrum but overlapping categories instead. Moreover, the education-sans-boundaries should help in restoring the balance and harmony between man and society, knowledge and knowledge, and nation and nation. In this paper, I will explore Tagore’s relevant writings on education, with a focus on his concerted educational efforts to negotiate the boundaries of nation and geography to restore the lost rhythm. In the highly fractured times in which he lived, Tagore saw education in India was in a double-layered crisis under colonialism and growing nationalism. His was a non-dogmatic defence of harmony and principles of unity, and he tried to achieve this in his education models by going beyond the realms of collapsing of cultural differences and without sacrificing local/individual ties and that admits to no artificial boundaries – political, ideological or geographic. The present attempt, therefore, engages with Tagore’s distinct conceptualisation of open-ended education models by looking at his scholarly-and-practical efforts. It suggests that transmission of cultures has provided a ‘broad-basis’ of education in India and can offer healthy conditions for, and directions towards, building transnational/international solidarities.     

The construction of ‘illiterate’ and ‘literate’ youth: the effects of high-stakes standardized literacy testing

High-stakes standardized literacy testing is not neutral and continues to build upon the legacy of dominant power relations in the state in its ability to sort, select and rank students and ultimately produce and name some youth as illiterate in contrast to an ideal white, male, literate citizen. I trace the effects of high-stakes standardized testing by using the voices of 16 youth who failed the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) to illustrate how the ‘illiterate youth’ revealed to students, schools, and communities by this test is culturally and socially constructed. In an age where multiple literacies are more and more valued, standardized literacy testing acts as a form of social control projected upon the ‘adolescent’ body that has historically been deemed ‘other’ or ‘deficient.’ Just as colonized subjects needed to be ‘civilized,’ so youth now need to acquire a state defined literacy in a competitive and fast paced learning environment. This article helps to demonstrate how power operates on marginalized youth through standardized literacy testing that is being used transnationally.     

African American Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being: The Impact of Parents’ Religious Socialization on Adolescents’ Religiosity

The dearth of research literature on the religious beliefs and practices of African American adolescents has led to increased empirical inquiry, yet a lack of research considers African American adolescents’ religious beliefs and practices as an important developmental milestone. This study explored how African American parents’ religious socialization affected youth religious experiences and served as a culturally specific strength-based asset that promotes psychological well-being. Our sample included a socioeconomically diverse sample of 154 African American families. Accounting for demographics, adolescents’ relationship and communication with God were found to be associated with a healthier psychological well-being. Additionally, parents’ religious socialization impacted the relationship between youths religious beliefs and practice and psychological well-being. Overall, results suggest that parents’ and adolescents’ religious beliefs can promote psychological well-being.     

History of Incarnations (’Khrung rabs) of Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho

1. Introduction As is generally known, after the 1642' s triumph of the dGe lugs sect, a sect of the TibetanBuddhism, against the opposing, the Karma sect, three important figures appeared upon the sceneof Tibetan history. One of them was, of course, Gusi Khan from the Oyirad tribe of Mongol, whosupported the dGe lugs sect militarily. Another was the Regent who was originally the treasurer of     

A ‘master status’ or the ‘final straw’? Assessing the role of immigration status in Latino undocumented youths’ pathways out of school

Previous research on undocumented youth and young adults in the United States asserts that immigration status is a ‘master status’, wherein undocumented status overshadows the impact of other social locations. Drawing primarily on interviews with 45 Latina/o undocumented immigrant youth who stopped out of school, I assess whether the ‘master status’ explanation accurately characterises how immigration status shapes undocumented youths’ pathways out of school. Using an intersectional lens, I argue that multiple social locations disrupt educational pathways and set the stage for immigration status to emerge as the ‘final straw’ that pushes undocumented youth to leave school. Specifically, I show how race, class, gender, and first-generation college student status heavily shape undocumented youths’ educational journeys. I find that their resistance to these other forms of marginalisation is weakened by the emerging salience of undocumented status as a severe, relatively insurmountable legal barrier. I highlight the process through which these multiple social locations work together to lead undocumented youth to stop out of school. I contend that using an intersectional lens enhances understandings of how multiple social locations intersect and interact over time to marginalise immigrants.     

Educating tomorrow’s reformists: factors affecting the development of undergraduates’ social progressivism

Researchers have unpacked the ways in which students participate in democracy through voting and other forms of civic engagement. However, very little empirical work has delved into how students develop socially progressive values, despite their unprecedented importance to young people during their years in higher education. Rooted in a rich historical context of campus demonstration spanning the past 75 years and current events in the United States, this inspection of college students’ social progressivism was grounded by Pascarella’s model of students’ learning and cognitive development, and uses OLS (ordinary least squares) regression to investigate the phenomenon. Analyzing data collected by the Cooperative and Institutional Research Program from 159 institutions across the United States, this study explored the predictive capacity of students’ interaction with influential agents of socialization and other variables central to undergraduates’ college experiences. Results indicate that socially progressive students tended to interact more with faculty outside of office hours and had a higher cumulative GPA. Additional findings and implications are discussed.     

Revisiting Fiat Regime’s Attainability of Shari’ah Objectives and Possible Futuristic Alternatives

Maqasid of Shari'ah is a millennium old theory on the higher objectives of Islamic divine law. As the discipline of Islamic economics and finance grew in politico-economic importance in the past three decades, a cathartic trend has emerged among Muslim experts to realign economic and financial practices with not merely the minimum legal requirements of religion but also the wisdom and crucial objectives of Shari'ah. An expositive example of this is the monetary economics debate of a Shari'ah consonant currency. Though vast majority of religious clerics have approbated fiat and paper currencies in strict legal terms since the 1980s, a revisionist movement since the mid-1990s seeks to counter it—some going as far as indorsing reversion to gold and silver coinage of medieval Islamic epoch of affluence. Unlike orthodox fiqhi (strict jurisprudentialism) approach that involves legalese with little leeway, Maqasid approach concerns itself with the spirit of the law. This paper operates in the exciting laboratory of Maqasidic framework to appraise the multitudinous role of fiat currency in protecting economic, political, and social public interests, prevention of harm, promotion of egalitarianism, and attainment of ultimate utopic vision of theological and spiritual demands in Shari'ah. The paper contributes, theoretically, by introducing several moral-philosophical arguments against fiat’s compatibility with Shari'ah, and, practically, by prognosticating the future course of discourse in light of advancements in technological innovations—including nascent crypto-currencies.     

Post-communist invocation of Europe: memorial museums’ narratives and the Europeanization of memory

ABSTRACT

How do post-communist memorial museums in East-Central Europe tell stories about double occupation (by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union), collaboration, the Holocaust and victim narratives, and how have these narratives been influenced by accession to the European Union? How do the museums reference trends set by Holocaust memorial museums? The article shows that one group of museums invokes Europe and the Europeanization of the Holocaust. Other museums seek to contain certain aspects of the memory of Nazism so that it cannot compete with stories of Soviet crimes. Both incorporate elements from Holocaust memorial museums, indicating how universalized Holocaust remembrance is.     

The ‘importance of staying put’: third country nationals’ limited intra-EU mobility rights

The cautious approach of European Legislators towards the integration of non-EU third country nationals (TCNs), mirrored in the provisions of Long-Term Residence Directive 2003/109/EC, has brought about the creation of ‘spatial temporal waiting zones’. Migrants are confined in both place and time before being able to access the (as of yet, very limited) mobility rights conferred upon them by the Directive. Restricted mobility rights for TCNs can seriously impinge on the economic growth of the EU. This paper reveals three ‘faults’ of the current system. First, we show how TCNs already evade ‘temporal borders’ by moving across geographical ones to take up employment before being entitled to do so under the provisions of the Directive. Next, we show how formal integration in one member state (MS), paradoxically, opens the door to another MS and, third, how a second MS fights off these near-EU citizens. Finally, we observe the importance of taking the phenomenon of spatial and temporal waiting zones into account, not only when structuring intra-EU mobility policies for TCNs but also when addressing the issue of the (labour market) integration of recent arrivals: soon they too will become European long-term residents.     

The patterns of ‘care migrantisation’ in South Korea

Over the past couple of decades, researchers have documented a phenomenon called ‘migrantisation of care’, which is patterned by the national regimes of care and migration. By applying the ideas of social reproduction and care–migration intersections to the South Korean case, this paper investigates the interplay of care and migration policies through which migrants get involved for various care roles in different care settings. In the matrix of migration (regime) and care (regime) emerge two intersecting fields in South Korea: co-ethnic labour migrants in paid care work and marriage migrants in unpaid care work. The paper has found a growing demand for migrant care labour to address the care crisis in Korea, but the degree to which care work is migrantised varies significantly between childcare and eldercare as well as between home-based care and institution-based care. The paper not only geographically extends the care–migration intersection frame to an East Asian welfare state but widens its theoretical application to an under-explored pattern of care migrantisation, notably unpaid care provision by family migrants.     

From ‘Russianness’ to ‘Israeliness’ through the landscape of the soul: therapeutic discourse in the practice of immigrant absorption in Israel with ‘Russian’ adolescents

This article explores the increasing incorporation of professional therapeutic knowledge and practices into the state-led apparatus of absorption of new immigrants in Israel. Singling out this phenomenon is the seemingly unexpected alliance between the therapeutic ethos, which leans on individualist, a-national and universal values, and state-led absorption practices, based on a Zionist, collectivist and local ethos. According to the Zionist ethos, the newcomer ‘returning to an historical homeland’ is expected to become part of a territorially bounded collective entity and to adopt a new national identity that will predominate over other identities. The therapeutic ethos undermines moral authorities promoting collective redemption through identification with community goals and challenges a patronizing attitude towards new immigrants. Analysing the rhetoric and practice of Na'aleh – a decade-and-a-half-old project for adolescents immigrating from the former Soviet Union, characterized by a ‘therapeutic absorption policy’, this article examines the meaning of ‘therapeutic’ absorption in shaping a new Israeli citizen within the current social context. In order to clarify the historical uniqueness of this phenomenon, Na'aleh's absorption paradigm is compared to Youth Aliyah – the project that absorbed youngsters in a distinctly different ideological period of Israeli history (early 1940s), particularly with regard to the status of Zionism. A locus of comparison is the perceptions of the absorbing personnel and the absorbed immigrants in both ventures. The main claim of this article is that the psychologizing of the absorption apparatus both challenges and fortifies the traditional role of statist Zionism under global, postmodern conditions, typified by the erosion of the nation-state and questioning the moral status of its constitutive ethos. Therapeutic absorption transforms the newcomer into the object of therapeutic intervention rather than assimilative education. However, it simultaneously enables the ‘Russian’ teenagers from a ‘pre-therapeutic society’ to internalize a ‘therapeutic habitus’, which grants them the skills and competency to become a ‘local’ and to attain symbolic goods significant in their new social environment. Therapeutic personnel, characterized by emotional skills and cultural proximity to the absorbed pupils, rather than ideological identification with Zionist project, serve as a newer version of traditional agents of Israeli socialization, by virtue of their own unique course of absorption in Israel that blends the process of ‘becoming Israeli’ with socialization into a professional/therapeutic culture.     

Migrants’ class and parenting: the role of cultural capital in Migrants’ inequalities in education

Although scholars consistently show that class-specific parenting, influenced by the resources parents have due to their socio-economic position, is one of the most important factors for children’s different life chances and outcomes as adults, migrants’ parenting is usually analysed with a focus on their ethnicity or country of origin. Building on cultural perspectives on class, this study demonstrates that migrant parents are differently endowed with institutionalised and embodied cultural capital, which shapes their parenting and therewith their children’s educational opportunities. Specifically, parents differ in their trust in school authorities, the way they define their own role in shaping their children’s education, and their self-esteem and confidence in assessing their children’s abilities and performance. This study is based on the accounts of parents who migrated from Poland to Germany and shows that due to their class position, middle-class parents possess robust forms of cultural capital that they can transfer to their children in the context of migration. This finding makes a case for the relevance of class in the context of migration and thereby adds an important perspective to the study of migrants’ inequalities in education, which tends to focus on ‘ethnic’ differences between migrants and ‘natives’.     

Vastu compliance: the gentrification of India’s sacred spaces and the mobilities of ideas

ABSTRACT

This article examines the mobilities of ideas in the context of sacred spaces in India and transnational flows of trends and services. Mobile subjects on the global stage are still bound by immobile concerns, such as their homes. In this article I examine the anxieties of India’s globally mobile middle and elite classes through their efforts to make their gated multi-storey residences compliant with an ancient form of spatial spirituality: vastu shastra. Now common in advertisements for luxury apartments, I argue that vastu compliance is a form of liquid spirituality that is part and parcel of the privatisation of the urban landscape and the replacement of fixed or local sacred spaces and those that dwell around them: homeless or ‘occupying’ mendicants. In between these two polar opposite mobile subjects of the elite and the mendicant are vastu consultants who derive a living from their knowledge and practice of a form of liquid spirituality growing in popularity around the world.     

Perceptions of diversity and attitudes of tolerance in the ‘fragmented’ U.K.

ABSTRACT

Relying on a quantitative survey (n = 1497) and semi-structured interviews (n = 30) conducted in the U.K., we explore British nationals’, Romanian and Turkish migrants’ attitudes of tolerance and the factors influencing them in the current socio-political context in the U.K. The quantitative data reveal the role of younger age, diverse networks, higher education, attachment to city/region and supranational identifications in more open attitudes towards diversity. The qualitative findings illustrate how diverse these three groups’ attitudes of tolerance can be and how they are affected by their position and status in the U.K. The British’ attitudes show their tolerance can reflect diverse forms of acceptance of ethnic and cultural differences but can also draw lines in terms of civic values opposing ‘those who contribute to society’ versus those who ‘live as parasites’. The Turks are in favour of diversity with the expectation of receiving more civic rights and facing less prejudice. The Romanians tend to have a more ambiguous relation to diversity given their position of stigmatised migrants in the U.K. Our analysis reveal how inclusive or exclusive people’s (sub- and supra-)national identities can be and how these frame their attitudes of tolerance.     

Changing perceptions? Effects of multiple social categorisation on German population’s perception of Muslims

Multiple social categorisation is one option for influencing people’s perception such that negative social opinions based on ethnicity, race, or religion decrease or disappear entirely. This study aims to examine German population’s perception of Muslims when multiple categorisation is applied. Based on data of 7341 respondents stemming from a factorial survey experiment used in a national, random-digit-dial telephone survey, we tested the effect of multiple social categorisation using the hypothetical situation of a Muslim marrying into the own family. Multiple categorisation works only when the Muslim in question is a woman. But perception differences between the Muslim woman and the Christian woman do not totally disappear. When the Muslim person in the same scenario is a man, multiple social categorisation has no effect on the perception of respondents. We discuss the implications of these results with regard to the Muslim as category of analysis.