Toward a ‘paideia of the soul’: education to enrich America’s multicultural democracy

What role might education play in the reinvigoration of a robust American democracy? We argue that common understandings of democracy, citizenship, and democratic education are too anemic to right the political inequalities and stagnancies that have deadened American democracy. Instead, we look to notions of paideia and an educated, enlightened citizenry to shape a multicultural democratic education. Multicultural democratic education cultivates the full and flourishing lives and minds of all citizens in American democracy rather than focusing on narrow preparation for voting. It does this through the practice of critical and authentic caring, the cultivation of community across difference, the connection to a global context, and the opportunity for social action. Most importantly, multicultural democratic education takes as its starting point equity and justice in a pluralistic society by committing to the cultivation of the minds and intellects of all students – in stark contrast to the unequal and mind-numbing education that most marginalized and minority students receive.     

Forging a Multicultural Education Ethos in Cyprus: Reflections on policy and practice

Contemporary Cypriotic society is no longer homogeneous. Increasingly, Cypriots are coming into contact with people from different cultures. We also see this in Cypriotic schools. In this paper, we investigate educational reality as it effects foreign and repatriated pupils in Cyprus. We do this by means of an ethnographic study in which we focus on one particular primary school classroom. It is hoped that this research will serve as a stimulus for possible changes and reforms in the Cypriotic educational system. In this manner, the Cypriot system will be able to keep pace with international developments in this area of education.     

An evaluation in the choice of inputs and outputs in the efficiency measurement of police forces

The new Labour government has recently instigated an initiative to establish whether English and Welsh police forces should be ranked into groups based on an efficiency measure. A particular problem, however, is that policing includes many inputs and outputs (outcomes) that could potentially be utilised in efficiency models. This paper considers the problems associated with measuring relative police force efficiency given that a vast number of potential indicators (inputs and outputs) must be reduced to a handful to allow feasible estimation. In addition, it discusses the input and output variables utilised in the first ‘official’ analysis of English and Welsh police force efficiency [Demonstration Project, Home Office, London, UK, 2001].     

A Fair Trade approach to community forest certification? A framework for discussion

Forest certification has gained growing attention as a market-based instrument to make globalizing markets a force for mitigating rather than fostering environmental degradation. Yet in practice, market mechanisms currently appear to encourage concentration of forest certification in Northern temperate and boreal forests, rather than in the tropical forests certification originally aimed to protect. At the same time, the share of tropical and other Southern forests under community management is increasing dramatically. Utilizing a comparative analysis of coffee and wood products commodity chains, a preliminary framework is proposed for exploring the obstacles and the possibilities of a “Fair Trade” approach to community forest certification. Obstacles include the structure of conventional wood products commodity chains, common wood product characteristics, certification's current commitment to conventional market logics and practices, and informal governance influences favoring powerful economic actors. The paper argues, however, that other features of forest certification, especially in the FSC scheme, are potentially supportive of a Fair Trade community forestry approach.     

The effects of union membership on absence from work due to illness

A simple model of the effects of unionization on absenteeism due to illness is developed and tested. It is argued that unions lower absenteeism through providing a monopoly wage, but raise it by providing liberal sick-leave benefits. Data from the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics are used to test the model. In regressions which control for human capital and demographic characteristics as well as working conditions, it is found that the net effect of unionization is to encourage absence.     

DIFFERENT LENSES: VARIATIONS IN CLIENTS' PERCEPTION OF FAMILY THERAPY BY RACE AND GENDER

Race and gender have been given extensive theoretical and clinical attention in family therapy in the last decade. However, little empirical work has focused on their effect on therapy. The present study examines the effect of clients' race and therapists' race and gender on male and female partners' assessments of an initial and subsequent family/marital therapy session. One hundred twenty-six individuals, comprising 63 heterosexual adult couples, evaluated both the first and the fourth therapy session using the Session Evaluation Questionnaire (Stiles, 1980). Results indicated a strong effect for race, with black females rating initial sessions more negatively than white females when seeing a white therapist. Black men, however, had a more positive response than white men to the initial session, regardless of the race of the therapist. Over time, these differences decreased. The results suggest not only that race and gender may contribute to differences in partners' perceptions of the same session, but also that these differences are not static.