From spoils to weapons: framing wartime sexual violence

The way an issue is ‘framed’ (viewed and understood) has a profound effect on whether it is viewed as a priority for action by international organisations, states, and civil society. Wartime sexual violence used to be framed as a ‘women's issue’, but since the issue gained widespread notoriety in the mid-1990s, it has shifted to being understood as a ‘security issue’. Activists and campaigners have used this as an opportunity to press for more attention at international and national levels, and policymakers have given higher priority to the issue of ending wartime sexual violence. Yet framing wartime sexual violence in terms of security – and in particular, a focus on ‘rape as a weapon’ – comes at a cost. First, it isolates this violence conceptually from the wider context of gender-based violence before, during, and after active armed conflict, and other types of violence may receive little attention. In addition, the specific emphasis on ‘rape as a weapon’ affects the types of wartime sexual violence recognised and condemned by the international community, the kinds of ‘victims’ granted assistance, and the extent to which women and men are perceived as victims, empowered agents, or perpetrators.     

Homelessness and Substance Abuse: Which Comes First?

Abstract

The present paper uses a social selection and social adaptation framework to investigate whether problematic substance use normally precedes or follows homelessness. Clarifying temporal order is important for policy and program design. The paper uses information from a large dataset (n=4,291) gathered at two services in Melbourne, supplemented by 65 indepth interviews. We found that 43% of the sample had substance abuse problems. Of these people, one-third had substance abuse problems before they became homeless and two-thirds developed these problems after they became homeless. We also found that young people were more at risk of developing substance abuse problems after becoming homeless than older people and that most people with substance abuse issues remain homeless for 12 months or longer. The paper concludes with three policy recommendations.     

Effects of a Differential Observing Response on Intraverbal Performance of Preschool Children: A Preliminary Investigation

Axe (2008) speculated that some instances of intraverbal responding might be associated with limited or delayed acquisition because they require discrimination of multiple components of verbal stimuli. Past studies suggest that acquisition of responses under control of complex, multicomponent antecedent stimuli (e.g., conditional or compound stimulus control) can be facilitated with the introduction of a differential observing response (DOR; Dube & McIlvane, 1999; Gutowski, Geren, Stromer, & Mackay, 1995). The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of a DOR (i.e., repeating the question) on intraverbal responding with six neurotypical preschool children. Findings included that (a) accuracy of intraverbal performance increased when the experimenter prompted a DOR; (b) 1 of 6 participants overtly emitted the DOR for a second relation in the absence of prompts, which was correlated with increased accuracy; and (c) following mastery, response accuracy was variable for 3 participants. Based on these findings, prompted DORs may offer an effective, if temporary, aid to intraverbal instruction for neurotypical preschool children.     

A systematic review of interventions to support looked‐after children in school

A systematic review of interventions to support looked‐after children in school included interventions that aimed to improve attainment, or prevent drop‐out or exclusions, and those that aimed to reduce absenteeism in the care population. Studies were critically appraised and their results were considered. No study was found robust enough to provide evidence on effectiveness, but promising interventions were identified. The review highlights the lack of evidence in an area that has received a lot of policy attention in the past few years. Future evaluations need to be underpinned by lessons learned from existing evaluations, clearly defined theories and definitions, and by the views of professionals, researchers, policy‐makers and young people in care.     

Urbanization does not affect green space bird species richness in a mid-sized city

Urban Ecosystems - Urbanization is one of the most intensive forms of landscape and habitat transformation, resulting in species loss, and taxonomic and functional homogenization of different...     

Population ecology and niche seeking in the development of gay and lesbian rights groups

This paper explores the formation of groups within the framework of the population ecology literature. Specifically, I argue that newly formed groups’ target membership bases and policy agendas will become more focused as the density of interest groups in a population increases, though groups will not necessarily continue this focused trend once the density of the population has reached its upper limits. To test this theory, I utilize Nownes’ [Nownes, A. J. (2004). The population ecology of interest group formation: Mobilizing for gay and lesbian rights in the United States, 1950–1998. British Journal of Political Science, 34, 49–67] dataset on the population ecology of gay and lesbian rights groups and a typology of groups that Bosso [Bosso, C. J. (2005). Environment, Inc.: From Grassroots to Beltway. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas] used in explaining the focus of environmental rights groups. I find that as the population of gay and lesbian groups became more dense, the groups that formed tended to narrow down their potential membership populations. However, the results were different for a newly formed group's policy agenda. While niche seeking occurred during the rapid growth of groups in the 1970s and the early 1980s, groups that formed after growth leveled off in the mid-1980s balanced their agendas between being too broad and too narrow. This important finding indicates that niche seeking does not always occur in very dense interest populations.     

Growing up at centrepoint: retrospective accounts of childhood spent at an intentional community

A qualitative analysis of the accounts of 29 adults who grew up in a controversial New Zealand community identified positive and negative experiences and their psychological implications. In addition to highly publicized child sexual abuse that occurred at Centrepoint, children also experienced parental neglect, psychological manipulation, illegal drug use and stigma from the broader society. These factors created an adverse matrix that facilitated sexual abuse. Positive experiences included support for vulnerable families and children, recreational activities, and the opportunity to develop communication skills. While there may be positive experiences for children living in intentional communities such as this one, it is important to be aware of the potential for psychological harm to children in communities with powerful, shared systems of belief, skepticism about the broader society, and strong dynamics of dependence. These findings may have implications for other similar communities operating elsewhere in the world.