Silence,Death, and D/discourse: Critical Literary Practices With Lesbian Seniors

This article reports on a federally funded research project in which old lesbians were invited to separate out and examine the complicated strands of lives lived through times of great social change—times in which notions of “woman,” “sexuality,” and “subjectivity” have been both over- and under-determined by dominant discourse (Stein, 1997). We argue, with Haug (1992), that close attention to the personal is central to critical feminist perspectives and that writers can become more aware of normalizing cultural influences when they pay close attention to language. In this article, we support our position with a case study of one participant in our “language school” (Haug, 1992). As we analyzed her written life narratives and oral testimony, we conclude that she was able to reconsider comfortable “coming out” narratives in order to construct new meaning and to challenge her understandings of the past.     

In search of the intercultural

Books reviewed in this article:
Fred E. Jandt, Intercultural Communication: An Introduction
Young Yun Kim, Becoming Intercultural: An Integrative Theory of Communication and Cross-Cultural Adaptation
Tony Schirato and Susan Yell, Communication and Culture: An Introduction
Ron Scollon and Suzanne Wong Scollon, Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach     

Analysis of Irish third-level college applications data

Summary.  The Irish college admissions system involves prospective students listing up to 10 courses in order of preference on their application. Places in third-level educational institutions are subsequently offered to the applicants on the basis of both their preferences and their final second-level examination results. The college applications system is a large area of public debate in Ireland. Detractors suggest that the process creates artificial demand for 'high profile' courses, causing applicants to ignore their vocational callings. Supporters argue that the system is impartial and transparent. The Irish college degree applications data from the year 2000 are analysed by using mixture models based on ranked data models to investigate the types of application behaviour that are exhibited by college applicants. The results of this analysis show that applicants form groups according to both the discipline and the geographical location of their course choices. In addition, there is evidence of the suggested 'points race' for high profile courses. Finally, gender emerges as an influential factor when studying course choice behaviour.     

Systems thinking

Evaluation is one of many fields where “systems thinking” is popular and is said to hold great promise. However, there is disagreement about what constitutes systems thinking. Its meaning is ambiguous, and systems scholars have made diverse and divergent attempts to describe it. Alternative origins include: von Bertalanffy, Aristotle, Lao Tsu or multiple aperiodic “waves.” Some scholars describe it as synonymous with systems sciences (i.e., nonlinear dynamics, complexity, chaos). Others view it as taxonomy—a laundry list of systems approaches. Within so much noise, it is often difficult for evaluators to find the systems thinking signal. Recent work in systems thinking describes it as an emergent property of four simple conceptual patterns (rules). For an evaluator to become a “systems thinker”, he or she need not spend years learning many methods or nonlinear sciences. Instead, with some practice, one can learn to apply these four simple rules to existing evaluation knowledge with transformative results.     

Rising Economic Prosperity and Social Quality the Case of New Member States of the European Union

This paper considers whether rising economic prosperity in the New Member States of the European Union since joining the EU is also reflected in better a quality of life and what constitutes a better quality of society for the citizens of these countries. The paper contributes to the debate about the relationship between economic conditions and subjective well-being by showing that the factors that contribute to the latter have not only changed with economic growth but that subjective life satisfaction has also improved. Here we consider how this relationship can be explained by using the Social Quality model to measure the quality of society. We look specifically at the New Member States of the European Union (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) using the European Quality of Life Surveys for 2003 and 2007. This covers a period during which the economic conditions of these societies improved and they modernised. The social quality model explains a great deal of the variance in life satisfaction and helps us to show that as well as economic factors, other aspects of the quality of society, such as social integration and empowerment, are also important. We argue that economic and social factors have to be understood as interacting with other aspects of society if we seek to understand the quality of society.     

The effectiveness of selected interventions for previous maltreatment: enhancing the well-being of children who live at home

The authors critically assessed reviews of the literature published between 1984 and 2002 to describe the state‐of‐knowledge about the effectiveness of interventions aimed at protecting or improving the welfare of child victims of maltreatment and who remain in the family home. The interventions studied target children, parents or families. They chiefly involve cases of sexual abuse, physical abuse or neglect; very few concern psychological abuse or exposure to violence. For the most part, the intervention effectiveness indicators measure changes in parents’ and children's knowledge (e.g. better knowledge of child development), attitude (e.g. gains in enthusiasm), emotion (e.g. decreased anxiety) and behaviour (e.g. decreased rates of aversive behaviours). Few assessments follow up on participants to determine whether the changes are lasting. The small number of evaluative studies, methodological limitations and disparities in the content and the carrying out of interventions make it difficult to draw sound conclusions about the effectiveness of interventions, even for interventions most often and most favourably assessed, such as behavioural and cognitive‐behavioural interventions with maltreating parents. Implications for practice, research and policy are underlined.