魔兽与母亲——灾难的象征论

1991年10月发生在奥克兰地区的大火灾造成25人丧生,6000多人无家可归。幸存者用各种方式表达自己对这场灾难的认识,其中凸显了有关自然与文化、有序与无序、时间与空间以及传统的男女性别区分与生死等二元结构,尤其是对作为自然象征的母亲与作为灾难象征的魔兽二者之间的对立显示了自然与非自然力量的对比。人们为了解释灾难的去而复来,甚至认定灾难的发生是早已注定的、循环的,从而肯定了上帝对于自然灾害发生的控制权,由此,毁灭者也是创造者。奥克兰大火中隐含着如建筑材料的不当使用和居民区的不合理规划等技术性因素,因此其可部分归结为技术性灾难。而由于技术性灾难产生于一个文化的竞技场,而不是自然自身的,在这种情况下,能满足人们心理需求的合乎情理的灾难意象或隐喻非常少,因此,技术性灾难不会流变为神话,而是作为永远的历史而存在。综观上述过程,灾难被重新界定为＂创造性的毁灭＂,从而被赋予了一种令人敬畏的美。尽管并非所有的文化都会以上述方式去象征地表达灾难,但所有的文化在描述与解释灾难时,象征都将会是他们行动的一部分。这些象征的建立缓解或消解了灾民对于灾难的恐惧,这也可以部分解释为什么灾难多发区的居民大多不愿意搬迁。     

Mother‐to‐Child Transmission of HIV in China and the USA: A Comparative Analysis

This paper analyzes and compares the existing policies and programs for the prevention of mother‐to‐child transmission of HIV existing in China and in the USA. The implementation of these is still imperfect and there needs to be improvements in the education (the spreading of information) and in the general health care system of China. Particular attention will be drawn to the existing barriers to the effective implementation of prevention of mother‐to‐child‐transmission. The recommendations aim to solve similar barriers in both countries and some specifically dealing with problems in China. Since HIV infection in children is caused almost entirely by prenatal transmission, it is important that the governments, in partnership with civic society organizations, make all the necessary efforts to save the lives of their newborn citizens.     

Social capital and innovation dynamics in district-based local systems

The idea behind this paper is that social capital (SC) is interpreted as a component of an investment, which implies entangled private and public benefits. Within a theoretical framework that considers SC as the public component of the impure public good R&D we show that the ‘civic culture’ of the district in which a firm is located is not a sufficient incentive for the firm to increase its investment in SC, because SC/networking dynamics might positively and complementarily evolve only if the opportunity cost of investing in innovation is sufficiently low. Consequently, we focus our attention on a specialised biomedical industrial district characterised by a strong pattern of innovative activity. We observe that R&D and networking/social capital arise as complementary driving forces of innovation outputs. When the empirical evidence confirms that this complementarity plays a key role, policy efforts should be targeted toward both market and non-market characteristics, rather than solely to the production of local public goods or innovation inputs as independent elements of firm performance. This is very important in terms of policy effectiveness. In fact, we argue that SC/networking dynamics might positively evolve only if the private opportunity cost of investing in R&D innovation is sufficiently low. Nevertheless, this exogenous economic incentive works as long as complementarity, as defined here, holds.     

Binge drinking in female college students: the association of physical activity, weight concern, and depressive symptoms

As an initial step in building gender-specific binge drinking intervention programs, the authors investigated the relation of potentially modifiable factors (physical activity level, weight concern, and depressive symptoms) to binge drinking while controlling for the effects of previously established correlates of binge drinking (tobacco and marijuana use, GPA, and perception of peer alcohol use). Four-hundred-twelve college women completed an in-class survey. Multivariate analyses revealed that tobacco and marijuana use, GPA, and physical activity were significantly associated with binge drinking, whereas tobacco use and perception of peers' alcohol use were associated with more frequent binge drinking. The findings suggested that the variables associated with any binge drinking and frequency of binge drinking may differ and that binge drinking can be associated with positive health behaviors (ie, greater physical activity) as well as risky health behaviors (eg, tobacco use).     

Higher Education Marketization: a Case of Language and Colliding Interests

Public Organization Review - This article examines how market interests and state regulations come into play as policy makers engage in establishing language primacy within higher education (HE)....     

Education,reputation or network? Evidence on migrant workers employability

The strong adverse selection that immigrants face in hosting labour markets may induce them to adopt some behaviours or signals to modify employers’ beliefs. Relevant mechanisms for reaching this purpose are personal reputation; exploiting ethnic networks deeply rooted in the hosting country; and high educational levels used as an indirect signal of productivity. On this last point, the immigrant status needs a stronger signal compared to that necessary for a native worker, and this may lead the immigrant to accept job qualifications which are lower than those achievable through the embodied educational level.The aim of the paper is to investigate whether the above mentioned mechanisms are adopted by immigrants in Italy, a crucial country for EU immigration flows, and if they are useful in increasing immigrants’ likelihood of employment. The empirical analysis has been conducted using the dataset from a national Labour Force Survey which provides information on thousands of documented immigrants. We estimate a logit model for immigrants’ likelihood of being employed, focusing on the above mentioned mechanisms: reputation, ethnic networks and educational level. Moreover we concentrate on the interaction effects of the mechanisms and investigate whether one of them wins on the others. Results show that each of the three mechanisms is statistically and economically significant and exerts positive influence: all factors contribute to increase the immigrant's probability of being employed. Anyway, a high level of education increases the probability of being employed more than the belonging to ethnic networks deeply rooted in Italy. The specific embodied capital of workers matter relatively more. This is relevant for labour public policies in this specific realm since the human capital lever is a possible direct target in various public policies and private human capital investments.     

The documented layer of children's rights in care order decision‐making

The recognition of children as rights holders is a true challenge for any policy and practice that involves children, but it is even more so for making decisions about taking children into care. This article departs from the view that when children are perceived as bearers of rights, this should also be reflected in the institutional documents of decision‐making. That is why the documented layer of decisions about taking a child into care is examined here. The empirical data consist of documents of hearings (prehearing and hearing reports) in which children (33) are asked to give their view about a proposed care order and placement in Finland. The documented layers of involving children as rights holders are divided into two types: a minimalist type and a more individualised, thorough and detailed type. The former type represents children as rights holders in a routinised manner, whereas the latter one treats them in a particularised manner: how this particular child in this particular hearing received and gave information and on what grounds her/his view rested. As the documents may have some controversial implications, the recording of children as rights holders should not be treated as an isolated and technical issue.     

Attachment Representations and Time Perspective in Adolescence

This study examines the relationship between attachment to parents and peers, time perspective and psychological adjustment in adolescence. 2,665 adolescents (M age = 17.03 years, SD = 1.48) completed self-report measures about parent and peer attachment, time perspective, sympathy and self-determination. Subjects were divided into four groups based on their parent and peer attachment scores: high parent and high peer attachment, low peer and low parent, high parent and low peer, low parent and high peer. Higher levels of negative past of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory were revealed, by post hoc analyses, in the group with low attachment to parent and peer. Unlike adolescents with low attachment to parents, adolescents who reported a secure attachment to parents had higher scores on positive past, hedonistic present, and future. Adolescents with high attachment to parent and peer and adolescents with high parent but low peer attachment had the highest scores on competence and authonomy.     

由卡特琳娜和丽塔飓风引发的灾难人类学思考

新奥尔良市在2005年所遭受的卡特琳娜和丽塔飓风和水灾袭击,为美国数十年来最大的自然灾害之一。这两次飓风也唤醒了学者对灾难研究的注意力。灾难不仅冲击了社会结构,造成了不同群体聚合或边缘化,也作为一种显示器,昭示在灾难过程中最为脆弱的是穷人群体。人类学家不仅要研究灾难的影响与结果,也应该联合起来,参与救灾活动,直接为受害群体提供援助。