Gender,Culture and Intervention: Exploring Differences between Aboriginal and Non‐Aboriginal Children’s Responses to an Early Intervention Programme

Evaluation of a group parenting programme in the Northern Territory of Australia showed significant differences in benefits for Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal boys and girls. The analysis considers whether boys and girls from different cultural backgrounds present with different problems; whether parental expectations for boys and girls differ and whether the intervention activates different responses in different settings. Conclusions suggest that there is a need to closely examine the ‘cultural logic’ of interventions, the appropriateness of their assumptions about child development and hypothesised mechanisms of change in different settings.     

Darren: Erotic Interludes in Political Transference

The dilemmas and opportunities of interpellation and intelligibility play out also in the sexual domain. In “Darren: Erotic Interludes in Political Transference,” Stephen Hartman shows how interpellation makes both him and Darren intelligible and therefore anxious: The power of discourse to legitimate desire means that you can lose your legitimacy and fall into abjection if you ever refuse your interpellation. Here Hartman, interpellated by The New York Times announcement of his marriage to another man, desexualizes and abjects his patient by interpellating his desire as a desire to be a married gay guy, a “good gay” too.     

Prevalence of clinical autistic traits within a homeless population: barriers to accessing homeless services

ABSTRACT

Recent research suggests a high prevalence rate of Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) amongst the homeless population. Although, it is well-documented that autistic people experienced many barriers to accessing health services, little is known about their challenges in accessing homeless services. Thus, the present study aimed to measure prevalence of high levels of autistic traits, and to identify barriers that prevent autistic people accessing homeless services. Participants recruited from homeless services (n?=?65) completed the Autism Quotient-10 (AQ-10) alongside a questionnaire regarding perceived accessibility of homeless services. Results revealed that 18.5% of participants scored Above the Clinical Threshold of the AQ-10 (ACT-AQ). Moreover, the ACT-AQ group reported that encountering big groups in shared accommodation represent a significant barrier to engaging with homeless services. Further research is needed to identify the full degree of ASC representation and the factors that might prevent autistic homeless people accessing homeless services, and thus overcoming homelessness.     

A Short Form of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children

A short form of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children was derived from the original 90 items. An exploratory factor analysis of each factor identified the four items from each of the original factors with the highest eigenvalues. These items were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis. The best fit was obtained for an 8-factor, 32-item model. The short form evidenced good convergent validity with parent ratings obtained from the Child Behavior Checklist, the Child Sexual Behavior Inventory, and the University of California at Los Angeles Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index (UCLA PTSD RI). Norms (t-scores and percentiles based on raw scores) were calculated by age and by gender. The short form has promise as a screening measure with parents in settings like a child advocacy center.     

Impacts of agricultural to urban land-use change on floristic quality assessment indicators in Northeastern Illinois wetlands

Northeastern Illinois is under heavy urban sprawl pressure leading to changes in land-use and negative impacts on existing wetlands directly adjacent to these new developments. Determining the impact of land-use changes on wetlands is important as it can have management and preservation implications within this region. One tool to evaluate these changes is the Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA), a method based on plant species composition at a site and the individual species habitat affinity and disturbance tolerance. The objectives of this study were to: 1) determine how wetland size, impervious surface, and distance from development influence FQA indicators and 2) determine if period (before/after development) and buffer size affect FQA indicators. Fourteen wetlands located in Northeastern Illinois were surveyed during 2004 through 2006 (prior development) and revisited in 2008 (post development). Positive correlations between wetland size and FQA indicators and between impervious surface and percent native species were found. In addition, species richness increased after development occurred and wetlands with larger buffers had higher percentages of native species. This study has demonstrated that larger wetlands are more diverse and land-use changes may not decrease wetland plant diversity in the short term in an urban setting.     

Comparing results from different styles of cognitive interviewing: ‘verbal probing’ vs. ‘thinking aloud’

Two styles of cognitive interviewing exist, thinking aloud (TA) and verbal probing (VP), but there have been few studies undertaken which compare the two. This paper reports on such a comparison, which was undertaken in order to understand the merits and drawbacks of each approach. VP finds more problems than TA. TA appears to be better at examining respondents’ understandings of the underlying concepts behind each question; VP is better for exploring specific terms in each question. TA interviews appeared to generate more information about how respondents used information from their past experiences to select codes in closed‐ended questions. However, in terms of the eventual redrafting of the questions respondents were asked about, there was very little difference between the VP and TA interviews.     

Isomorphism,Institutional Parochialism,and the Study of Social Movements

This study investigates whether the field of social movements is occupied by parochial concerns. Using a content analysis of two prominent journals that study social movements – Mobilization: An International Journal and Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social and Political Protest – it was found that the field is dominated by the study of Western movements, but is also relatively ‘worldly’ when compared to other academic sub-disciplines. Much work on the ‘global south’ is conducted by scholars who maintain personal associations and connections to regions of the world outside of the West. In addition, it was found that social movement scholars focus predominantly on the study of liberal movements as compared to conservative movements. The types of movements most commonly studied are also examined.     

Alter-Globalism as Counter-Hegemony: Evaluating the ‘postmodern Prince’

This article seeks to provide a critical analysis of the alter-globalisation movement as a potential ‘postmodern Prince’ as advanced by Stephen Gill. The article proposes that the social forces aligned under the rubric of alter-globalism have always had intractable difficulties articulating a postmodern Prince, and that in contrast to Gill's appropriation of Gramsci, these difficulties can be usefully understood through a reading of Gramsci which is attentive to the problems of collective political action. Recent debate among key participants at the World Social Forum (WSF) is used as a case study for analysing the possibility of formulating a common master-frame or strategy for social transformation. It is at the WSF that the problems of articulating a postmodern Prince have been most clearly confronted. It is shown that the weaknesses of alter-globalism can be understood, pace Gill, through Gramsci's own theory of social transformation as evinced in the modern Prince. This underlines the need for further investigation of the agents of progressive politics in an era of global social transformation.

Este artículo busca proveer un análisis crítico a la propuesta de Stephen Gill, sobre el movimiento alter-globalización como un potencial ‘Príncipe posmoderno’. El artículo propone que las fuerzas sociales alineadas bajo la rúbrica del alter-globalismo han tenido siempre dificultades intratables en plantear a un Príncipe posmoderno y que en contraste con Gil y su apropiación de Gramsci, estas dificultades pueden entenderse útilmente a través de una lectura de Gramsci, quien está atento a los problemas de acción colectiva política. Un debate reciente entre los participantes principales al Foro Social Mundial, (FSM) se ha usado como un estudio de caso para analizar la posibilidad de formular un marco maestro o estrategia para una transformación social. En el FSM, es donde más claramente se han confrontado los problemas de plantear a un Príncipe posmoderno. Se ha indicado que las debilidades del alter-globalismo se pueden entender, con el respeto a la opinión de Gill, a través de la propia teoría de Gramsci sobre la transformación social como se evidencia en el Príncipe moderno. Esto enfatiza la necesidad de una mayor investigación de los agentes de una política progresiva en una era de transformación social global.

     

Organization as a theatre of performance

In this paper we introduce Bergson's philosophy of "action, process and movement" and its relevance for social science and the study of organizational culture. Bergson's philosophy of change argues against the spatialisation of thought in which phenomena are broken down into discrete components to be numbered, sequenced and manipulated: rather he argues for a view of time as qualitative; intuition as situated within experience rather than about it; the importance of the body in social experience and the importance of morality and religion in social life - in short and embodied conception of culture. Bergson's culture is socialised time actualised in experienced duration or durée - culture is always in motion, and does not need culture clash to drive change, but cultural expression and formulations are not, which runs counter to functionalist and psychoanalytic views of culture. Creativity, or the élan vital , is the human impulse to organise, but to improvise rather than to locate, divide and control. Culture grounded in experienced time and driven by the élan vital is in ceaseless motion - it is duration because its is en-dured as a multiplicity rather than as a unity. Where heroic leaders in treatments of organizational culture invite us the change our place in the world, in Bergson's thought they invite us to change out time - our qualitative experience of duration. We examine these arguments through a review of Bergson's work, concluding that Bergson's resonates with postmodern approaches to culture which shift our attention from signification to implication.