A town recalls its past: narratives about Jewish craftsmen and handicrafts

There exist two major ways of dealing with the Jewish past in the former Pale of Settlement: to forget this past as something not prestigious and thus not worth remembering, or to use it in the “romantic‐nostalgic” context. Contemporary materials collected among the inhabitants of provincial townships in Ukraine show that the Jewish past has become very “popular” nowadays; it is not only a part of the familial history of Jews, but also a key element of the local history. Jewish age‐old professions (handicraft, trade, etc.) is an important theme in people’s narratives; this article focuses on stories of this type from the point of view of how they “ethnicise” and “exoticise” the local past.     

Discovering parental drug dependence: silence and disclosure1

Children of drug dependent parents form a large and growing population at elevated risk of adverse developmental and social outcomes. In this study 36 children and young people described growing up in such families. Parents tried to shield children from exposure, however the majority of young people demonstrated a detailed awareness of their parents' problem with drugs whilst living with the parentally imposed fiction that drugs were not at the heart of their family dynamic. Children and young people are locked into a silence they find difficult to unburden to anyone. The policy imperative is recognition of the impact on children of living daily with parental drug dependence and means of ameliorating their living circumstances in ways that do not label them further.     

Metabolism and colonization. Modes of production and the physical exchange between societies and nature

Written by a sociologist and a biologist, this paper attempts an interdisciplinary approach to describing the basic exchange relations between human societies and their natural environments. One type of exchange relation is termed ‘metabolism’ and related to the biological metabolism member organisms of societies require. A historical overview (part 1) demonstrates this exchange relation in terms of mass throughput per inhabitant to have grown in the course of human cultural evolution—without necessarily increasing the quality of life of those concerned—to the twentyfold it now amounts to in industrial societies (as is demonstrated empirically for Austria in part 3). A strategy of ‘contraction of physical metabolism’ (reduction of physical growth irrespective of ‘economic’ growth) of industrial societies is proposed as a strategic means of survival and possible ways to this goal are discussed quantitatively. The other exchange relation termed ‘colonization’ refers to treatments of natural environments that purposively change some components to render better exploitability (for the purpose of social metabolism), while still relying upon their basic self‐regenerating qualities. It is sketched how colonization strategies developed historically, and it is demonstrated empirically that industrial societies now use about 50% of the available plant biomass (the energetic basis of all animal life) upon their territories for human purposes (part 4). Part 5 classifies different ‘paradigms’ for judging the ‘harmfulness’ of social interventions into the environment and outlines the logic of an information system that would enable society to generate an awareness of its own interventions into nature. On the whole the paper presents a theoretical as well as an empirical attempt to view societies as physical systems (among other physical systems on this planet) and confront sociology with the paradigmatic task to analyze the social regulation of these physical processes.     

Evaluation der Lehre — Theoretische und Methodische Aspekte

Competition of and within universities brings the question of improving the quality of teaching to the fore. Central to this competition discussion is the idea of evaluating teaching. After an intensive review of the evaluation literature one discovers that there is no general definition of evaluation. The term is so used in such a multifaceted manner that it seems impossible to find or agree on a general definition. This essay therefore seeks to understand how the evaluation of teaching can lead to an improvement in the quality of teaching in two ways: First, terms and functions of evaluation are discussed and secon, the definitions and characteristics of good teaching will be considered. Different dimensions that influence successful learning will be introduced before concluding with the question on how evaluation can become an instrument for improving teaching quality.     

Child‐free and unmarried: Changes in the life planning of young east German women

Using evidence from demographic and survey data, this research examines how one decade of postsocialism has changed the life planning of young East German women. Aggregate data reflect marriage and fertility postponement and increased nonmarital birth rates and cohabitation. The analysis shows East German women's “stubbornness” ( Dölling, 2003 ) in adhering to life perspectives in line with the German Democratic Republic (GDR) standard biography (high nonmarital childbearing, high work orientation, rejection of the homemaker status, desire to combine work and family). The most important findings are that (a) motherhood is postponed to increase child‐free time, (b) cohabitation is increasingly becoming an alternative to marriage, (c) marriage (but not partnership) is increasingly optional for childbearing, and (d) employment is prioritized over family formation.     

Understanding the reputation and image of the Philippine public relations industry

This paper attempts to understand the current state of the Philippine public relations industry by investigating how it obtained its current reputation and image. It traces the evolution of public relations’ image and identifies factors and entities which may have contributed to the further development of Philippine public relations’ current reputation. The study begins with the popular assumption among Philippine pubic relations industry practitioners that the nature, function, and role of public relations in corporations and business in the Philippines has often been questioned.     

Should I stay or should I go?

In 2002, the German system of higher education went through a set of reforms that were—amongothers—intended to make the university career more attractive for young academics, in order not to lose them to alternative careers. Until today, however, there is no theoretical or empirical analysis on the determinants of young academics’ career decisions. In our paper, we analyse the decisions of young academics to leave the university career system on the basis of a self-selection model. Using an original data set on junior scientists in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, we render first empirical evidence on the determinants of young academics’ careers decisions, and find that these are influenced by monetary as well as non-monetary factors.     

The Relationship between Social Defiance,Vindictiveness, Anger,and Brain Morphology in Eight‐year‐old Boys and Girls

The goal of this study is twofold: (1) to assess brain anatomical differences between children meeting diagnostic criteria for oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and healthy controls, and (2) to investigate whether morphological brain characteristics associated with ODD differ in boys and girls. Eight‐year‐old participants (N = 38) were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging. ODD symptoms were assessed using the Dominic‐R interactive. In ODD participants, we observed a significant reduction of gray matter density in the left orbitofrontal cortex—a prefrontal region that plays a pivotal role in emotional self‐regulation and impulse control—and, conversely, an increase in the left temporal area—an area that has been associated with aggressive, impulsive, and antisocial personality. Furthermore, ODD boys showed a reduction of both gray matter density in the left orbitofrontal cortex and of white matter density in the left superior frontal area. The structural abnormalities found in the present study, in particular, the correlation between ODD symptoms and reduction of gray matter density in the left orbitofrontal cortex, may present some evidence for the existence of neuropathology associated with ODD symptoms during childhood. Furthermore, our findings indicate morphometric differences between boys and girls with ODD, which may be associated with gender differences in social behavior in children showing ODD symptoms.