Canadian Male Street Skinheads: Street Gang or Street Terrorists?

Des recherches menées sur le comportement violent et la conception politique de skinheads canadiens sans domicile fixe ont démontré que ces derniers sont issus de families où règnent la violence et l'oppression. Ces jeunes hommes ont done tendance à reproduire un comportement dont la violence est exacerbée par la vie scolaire, par le fait d'être sans logis et par l'influence néfaste du groupe de la rue qui prône un comportement agressif. La conception politique incohérente des skinheads puise dans la violence: la structure précaire du groupe et l'oppression qu'ont subies les jeunes sont d'autres facteurs qui viennent entraver la volonté de concevoir une activité politique à long terme.
Research examined the violent behaviour and the political consciousness of Canadian male street skinheads. The results reveal that skinheads are drawn from homes characterized by extreme violence and oppression. These experiences leave these youths vulnerable to violent behaviour. These tendencies are exacerbated by their school experiences, their homelessness, and the group and street norms that support and promote aggressive behaviour. The political consciousness of skinheads is rooted in extreme violence and lacks coherence: this, combined with the structure of the groups and their histories of oppression, serves to inhibit long-term organized political activity.     

Evaluating utility conservation programs: The BPA plan

This paper summarizes a detailed plan for evaluation of the residential energy conservation programs offered by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). The major purpose of the evaluation is to determine the energy savings attributable to the programs and to identify differences between program participants and nonparticipants. The focus of this paper is on the sampling issues associated with reliable estimates of energy savings. The methodology attempts to correct for the self-selection bias likely to occur in conservation program evaluation by using intentional nonrandom sampling. In addition, the paper suggests a variety of analytical approaches to analyzing the data with respect to energy savings.The proposed design, using four different groups to estimate program effects, is a comprehensive endeavor. This is appropriate for BPA because of the substantial investment it is making in conservation. However, the design is flexible and allows for use offewer groups to reduce evaluation costs.     

Modern East Asia in World-Systems Analysis*

Applying the large-scale, holistic, and long-time-span heuristic devices of world-systems analysis, this article highlights the crucial role played by regional geopolitics in East Asian development, In regard to large-scale analysis, this article studies interstate dynamics in East Asia and shows how the strategic locations of China, Japan, and Korea greatly influenced one another's development. This article shows, through holistic analysis, that geopolitics often intertwines with emerging cultural constructs and changing regional dynamics and, through long-term analysis, that contemporary East Asia must be understood in terms of its pre-World War II geopolitical development. This study contributes to the existing literature by reintroducing the often neglected geopolitical context into reinterpreting the roles of the market, Confucianism, the state, and dependency in the contours of East Asian development.     

Perceived Risks of Radioactive Waste Transport Through Oregon: Results of a Statewide Survey

Transportation of hazardous materials, and particularly radioactive wastes, on public highways has become an important risk management issue. The unfavorability of public attitudes regarding hazardous and nuclear wastes signals the potential for strong public opposition to programs for transporting these materials. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted to assess public reactions to a long-term nuclear waste transport program planned to follow a route through a portion of rural Oregon. The survey assessed a number of key risk perception issues, including perceived health and safety risks of nuclear waste transport, relative risks of transport vs. storage at an existing site, trust in state officials, and satisfaction with life in communities along the transport route. The survey identified a number of attitudes and concerns that need to be understood and considered by those in charge of designing and implementing the waste-transportation program.     

Counseling issues related to maternal substance abuse and subsequent sudden infant death syndrome in offspring

Recent reports linking maternal prenatal drug use to SIDS in offspring raise six specific issues related to professional intervention: (1) blaming addicted parents compounds the normal guilt experienced after SIDS; (2) low self-esteem often underlies drug usage; (3) punitive intervention by child protective agencies may lead to parental mistrust of health professionals, reducing access to help; (4) society's increasing tendency to criminalize drug use during pregnancy may expose women to prosecution if a SIDS death occurs; (5) the debate over monitoring at risk infants is further complicated if caretakers use drugs; and (6) recent articles have suggested that the majority of SIDS deaths may be the result of homicide, neglect, environmental hazards, etc. For addicted parents, a SIDS death increases the risk of social fragmentation and poses challenges to professional interventions.The destructive effects of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome go far beyond the lost lives of infants. The psychiatric morbidity among surviving family members can be severe and prolonged. Professional counseling seems vital in the prevention and treatment of a disabling guilt that follows the death of a child. (Bergman et al., 1969)     

Person perception effects of computer-simulated male and female head movement

Sixteen male and sixteen female student observers were shown computer-simulated sequences of male and female head movement based on time-series protocols of real-life interactions and were asked to rate their impressions of the computer actors on the screen. While in one experimental condition the sex of the movement origin matched the sex of the computer model, the movement protocols were exchanged in the second condition. Impression formation effects were analyzed in a three-factorial ANOVA design, with the independent factors (1) sex of observer, (2) sex of computer model, and (3) sex of movement origin. The results point to strong main effects of the sex of movement origin. Male behavior was perceived as more active and mobile, whether displayed by a male or female computer model. However, three-way interactions indicate that male and female head movement was evaluated differently by male and female observers depending on the sex of the computer model. Counterintuitively, female computer models scored higher in male observers' judgments of friendliness and attractiveness when displaying male head movement.     

Psychoanalytic Challenges: A Contribution to the New Sexual Agenda

Behind its conservative facade and the rigidityof much of its clinical practice, psychoanalysis retainsa disruptive attitude toward conventional discourses ongender and sexuality. This attitude derives from psychoanalysis capacity to look awry atexperience and consequently to undermine notions offixed identity, including sexual identity. Incontemporary work, much of the debate on psychoanalysisdisruptive consciousness, particularly among feminists,has centered on the contribution of Lacanian thinkingand in particular on the question of whether Lacanoffers a more rigorous alternative to object relational accounts of gender identity and sexualdifference. In this paper, the debate on psychoanalysiscontribution to the new sexual agenda isintroduced and furthered by exploration of the notion ofidentification as used first in some non-Lacanian work byJessica Benjamin, and then in a classic seminar of Lacans. It is suggested that both Benjamin and Lacan offerinsights into the provisional nature ofadoption of specific sexual identities and that acontinuing critical contribution from psychoanalysis canbe found in this work.     

Peach Trees Grow in the Spaces Between People: Counselling Practices in the Territory of Violence

In this paper the authors reflect on how therapeutic practices wove a community of care and concern with a young man in South Africa who was at risk of anger ruling his life. A counselor and outsider witnesses participated in responding to the problems the young man and his family faced. The authors discuss the steps they took in the therapeutic journey and describe how their personal and professional lives were shaped by this collaboration. This work inspires and sustains their enthusiasm in seeking to understand how to best respond when positioned to counsel.     

Mental Health Needs Assessment of a Major Urban University

Abstract

A questionnaire surveying mental health needs was administered in class to 1,412 Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) students, and a service utilization questionnaire was administered to 154 students applying for mental health services at four campus-based agencies. The nature of the specific problems of concern to students tended to remain stable over the course of a semester. Study habits and grades was the most frequently cited problem area on the needs survey, though help was sought most frequently for physically oriented concerns. Students lacking important sources of social support reported the most difficulties. Students who sought help had more problems and higher levels of concern than those not seeking help. A comparison of the two data sources indicated a slight but significant tendency for agencies to deal with the greatest areas of need at the severity levels indicated in the needs survey.