Illuminating urban street (u)topias

ABSTRACT

A utopian vision of the city is often bright, well-lit, and conversely darkness and night are more often associated with dystopia. This paper uses an ethnographic study of night-time in a busy street space in the middle of a south coast UK city in order to demonstrate the application of ‘utopia as method’, or rather utopia as a mobile method in understanding justice and injustice in urban space. In doing so, we suggest the possibilities of urban mobile space, arguing that ‘utopia as method’ originates in Lefebvre’s (1991) work on the possibilities that arise from the seemingly impossible imaginings of urban transformation. We use what are considered to be distinct approaches to photography: ‘ethnographic’ and ‘expressive’ in demonstrating this. Photography tells a story of the lighting of the space in illuminating the street in particular ways and making visible aspects that otherwise may go unnoticed. We draw from the boundaries, of photography (and therefore light), of method, and of urban space, looking to the ‘territorial edges’ for Lefebvre’s possibilities.     

Working with parents of spinal cord injured adolescents: A family systems perspective

Concepts from family systems theory are used to facilitate understanding of the needs of families coping with the spinal cord injury of an adolescent. Five assumptions derived from systemic principles are discussed as related to assessment and family functioning. Related suggestions are given for assisting parents in dealing with this non-normative stressor and its long-range effects on the adolescent and family.     

教育研究中比较的层次问题

本文认为比较教育传统上以国别和世界地区为分析单位容易导致不平衡和不全面的观点，指出有必要建立更加宽泛的比较教育概念范围，提倡并论证了多层次比较分析作为一种研究形式所具备的综合整理各单一层次分析结果的价值所在。     

Insuring equity in compensatory education student selection

Student selection strategies, because they determine who will receive special services, must be evaluated in terms of equity and validity. Yet those responsible for designing compensatory education student selection in the local school district lack methods that allow them to appraise their selection strategies in terms of equity. This paper describes a decision-theory-based procedure that, if followed, will increase the informational value of data often available from program evaluation data collection and district information systems. The information produced by the decision theory approach bears directly on the basic question of who gets served.     

Women on boards of nonprofits: What difference do they make?

In this article, the authors explore the impact of women on nonprofit boards. From a sociological perspective, they look at the actual proportion of women on boards and, from a more psychological perspective, at the sex of the chief executive officers in order to examine the impact of these variables on board effectiveness, structure, and process. The study results, based on data from a cross section of Canadian nonprofits, indicate that as the percentage of women on a board increases, the dynamics of the board are significantly affected.     

Saying ‘No’ to MX: The Electoral Fallout

According to the Morgan Gallup poll the Hawke government's decision, in February 1985, not to help the United States monitor the testing of its MX missile, led to a massive if largely temporary decline in Labor's popular support, undermining support for the party in the States as well. The political importance of this polling was considerable. But an alternative reading of the evidence suggests that the impact of the decision was neither as great nor as widespread as Morgan and the media made out. The way in which the evidence was handled rather than the evidence itself put the government on the spot. In so far as the decision did undermine confidence in the government it was Labor's division more than its decision that did the damage.     

A challenging marketplace for venture capital

This article looks at the contemporary situation facing the U.K. venture capital industry as it enters its second decade of activity. After 10 years of substantial growth, the industry is starting to mature. Accordingly, in an increasingly competitive marketplace, U.K. venture capital firms are having to address seriously strategic issues of product and market choice in order to meet the high investment expectations placed on them by their funders. There is evidence that the industry is already concentrating its finances into a small number of larger firms. It is likely that these better resourceed firms will have material advantages in initiating both product and market innovations. However, this concentration is unlikely to improve the supply of venture capital funds to start-up and other early stage, high risk ventures.