What’s disability got to do with it? Changing constructions of Oscar Pistorius before and after the death of Reeva Steenkamp

Traditionally disability has been viewed in the popular imagination as either a highly positive or highly negative phenomenon. Disability and disabled people deserve to be seen in an integrated, holistic way and to have recognised as much diversity as characterises the human condition. The recent case of Oscar Pistorius fatally shooting Reeva Steenkamp has highlighted this tendency. Before this incident, Pistorius’ disability was viewed in a predominantly positive light. He had been described as a ‘supercrip’ who had, despite his physical impairments, ‘overcome’ his mobility limitations and was consequently attributed heroic status by some. However, after this fatal incident, the portrayal of Pistorius’ disability has, perhaps inevitably, shifted. This paper will offer possible psychosocial reasons for this tendency to view disability in a binary way.     

Reflective Supervision for Child Protection Practice – Reaching Beneath the Surface

This paper describes a model of reflective supervision for child protection practice that is informed by psychoanalytic theory. Eileen Munro promotes the idea of depth in practice, referring to the skills and knowledge required to undertake the work. Her reports highlight the importance of supervision to provide a thinking space for practitioners where reflection can take place. This paper will explore the importance of supervision in more depth and describe how psychoanalytic ideas can help us understand the complexities of our work with families, anchoring us to a solid theoretical base and helping to make sense of the maelstrom of feelings that are stirred in us as well as in our colleagues and clients.     

Time Series Models for Count or Qualitative Observations

Time series sometimes consist of count data in which the number of events occurring in a given time interval is recorded. Such data are necessarily nonnegative integers, and an assumption of a Poisson or negative binomial distribution is often appropriate. This article sets ups a model in which the level of the process generating the observations changes over time. A recursion analogous to the Kalman filter is used to construct the likelihood function and to make predictions of future observations. Qualitative variables, based on a binomial or multinomial distribution, may be handled in a similar way. The model for count data may be extended to include explanatory variables. This enables nonstochastic slope and seasonal components to be included in the model, as well as permitting intervention analysis. The techniques are illustrated with a number of applications, and an attempt is made to develop a model-selection strategy along the lines of that used for Gaussian structural time series models. The applications include an analysis of the results of international football matches played between England and Scotland and an assessment of the effect of the British seat-belt law on the drivers of light-goods vehicles.     

The limitations of using school league tables to inform school choice

Summary. In England, so-called 'league tables' based on examination results and test scores are published annually, ostensibly to inform parental choice of secondary schools. A crucial limitation of these tables is that the most recent published information is based on the current performance of a cohort of pupils who entered secondary schools several years earlier, whereas for choosing a school it is the future performance of the current cohort that is of interest. We show that there is substantial uncertainty in predicting such future performance and that incorporating this uncertainty leads to a situation where only a handful of schools' future performances can be separated from both the overall mean and from one another with an acceptable degree of precision. This suggests that school league tables, including value-added tables, have very little to offer as guides to school choice.     

Special Interests and/or New Right Economics? The Ideological Bases of Reform Party Support in Alberta in the 1993 Federal Election*

La faveur croissante que connaît le Parti réformiste auprès du public est d'ordre à transformer la scène politique canadienne. Dans le présent article, les auteurs soutiennent que les conditions du succès du Parti réformiste tiennent à des facteurs globaux, dont on peut égale-ment observer l'existence au cours des années 1980 et 1990 dans d'autres démocraties industrialisées avancées: la crise des dépenses de l'état-providence et la renaissance du conservatisme attenante. Néanmoins, si la crise fiscale a établi les conditions qui ont rendu possible la mise sur pied du Parti réformiste, ce sont surtout les traits populistes du projet qui lui ont attiré les votes. L'analyse des données d'un sondage de 1994 à l'échelle de la province de 1'Alberta met en lumière une différence prépondérante entre les individus qui ont reporté leur voix sur le Parti réformiste et ceux qui sont restés fidèles à leur parti: la conviction que certains groupes (special interests), exercent trop d'influence sur la politique du gouvernement. The recent growth in public support for the Reform Party has the potential to transform the Canadian political landscape. This paper argues that the conditions for Reform's success are broader factors also observed in other advanced industrial democracies in the 1980s and 1990s, namely the crisis of welfare-state expenditures and the attendant resurgence of conservatism. But while the fiscal crisis established the conditions that made Reform possible, it has been the populist elements of its project that have provided the strongest attraction for voters. Analysis of 1994 province-wide survey data from Alberta indicates that the belief that certain “special interests” have too much influence on government policy best differentiates those individuals who switched their allegiance to the Reform Party from those who maintained their previous party loyalties.     

The measurement and analysis of time use

There is a growing interest in, time allocation research. Particularly by government statistical bodies. Papers in this issue, briefly highlighted in this introduction, make a small contribution to fulfilling a need for wider exposure of time use literature. The included papers do two things. First, they identify issues related to the collection and analysis of time use data. Second, they show how time use data can be effectively applied to improve one's understanding of significant issues.     

Symbolic Interaction and Postmodernism: Close Encounter of a Dubious Kind

My aim here is threefold: firstly, to ask those who are attracted to certain aspects of postmodernism to avoid imprudent applications of it to our work; secondly, to assess the accomplishments of Symbolic Interaction as we approach the new millennium and; thirdly, to express the hope that Symbolic Interaction will deliver on it s deepest political and philosophical values by speaking truth to power while remembering whose side it is on.     

TOWARD TEACHING EXCELLENCE IN THE DECISION SCIENCES*

Recently the National Commission on Higher Education Issues found serious problems with college-level teaching and recomended educational reforms. This paper describes one attempt at reform—namely, a course at Georgia State University on university teaching for College of Business doctoral students. The 45-hour seminar, based on a university teaching model, covers setting instructional objectives, lecture and discussion methods, teaching methods for higher-level learning, test construction, course evaluation instruments, and instructional and technological innovations. Previous studies have demonstrated repeatedly that teaching improvement seminars can improve teacher and student performance in the classroom. This paper discusses how the seminar could be implemented at other colleges of business administration, extended to faculty development workshops, and ultimately result in a master teacher or instructional professorship.