Stuck inside the federal-Indian funding relationship: a tale of two evaluations

Two case studies are presented to compare and contrast the challenges encountered when attempting to conduct participatory evaluations (P-Es) with tribal programs that represented two extremes of collaboration between the programs and evaluators. In one case, the P-E was successful because the principals were invested in the program, whereas in the second case, the absence of a shared program vision hampered the ability to adequately evaluate the program. The authors contend that governmental funding agencies have responsibilities to ensure that their expectations are appropriate, the proposed program is feasible, and that technical assistance should be provided before the grant is written, not after it has been funded.     

Design of a resilient shock absorber for disrupted supply chain networks: a shock-dampening fortification framework for mitigating excursion events

This article interweaves the widely published empirical frameworks with a new paradigm proposing stochastic dynamic decision-making tools that could be employed for capturing the trade-offs among multiple and conflicting-in-nature criteria so as to provide a design of a resilient shock absorber (RSA) for disrupted supply chain network (SCN). Modern SCNs encounter ‘excursion events’ of different kinds mainly due to uncertain and turbulent markets, catastrophes, accidents, industrial disputes/strikes in organisations, terrorism and asymmetric information. An ‘excursion event’ is an unpredictable event that effectively shuts down or has a relatively large negative impact on the performance of at least one member of a system for a relatively long amount of time. In this article, design of an analytical framework has been conceptualised that allows an SCN to avoid propagating the ill effects of the ‘excursion events’ further and maintains the network at a desired equilibrium level. A broad analytical view of econophysics has been conceptualised using the definition of a ‘system’ from physics. An example derived from the 9/11 case has been delineated in order to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed design. The devised RSA facilitates the assessment of resiliency strategies for SCNs prone to excursion events that are characterised by low probability of occurrence and high impact. The shock-dampening fortification framework also enables practitioners to identify and assess quantitatively the islands of the excursion events in SCN.     

Population Health as a Fundamental Criterion of Social Ecology

This essay elaborates the common insight that “strong” communities respond more successfully to serious threats than “weak” communities and it claims that the successful communities will have better population health rates. It nominates an appropriate measure of population health as the criterion of success, and advances a universally applicable concept of strength, conceptualized as institutionalized problem-solving capacity, based on three components: the application of specialized knowledge, open debate on policy alternatives and mobilization behind reformers and reform movements. The relationship may be compressed into a threat-capacity ratio interaction formula: ph = C/t where ph is a measure of population health, C is problem-solving capacity and t is one or more existential threats. The community is the locus of causality and it is assumed that communities attempt to adapt to threats by problem-solving. The Threat-Capacity dynamic is explained by a combination of neo-Darwinian and neo-Durkheimian theory. Three kinds of applications support its plausibility.     

REPRESENTING GANGS IN THE NEWS: MEDIA CONSTRUCTIONS OF CRIMINAL GANGS

This research, based on a content analysis of 4,445 newspaper articles, examines the images that emerge from stories of criminal gangs and societys responses to them. Eight recurrent themes were identifed. It was discovered that articles devoted to the coverage of gang crimes were outnumbered by stories dealing with various community responses. Articles reporting the results of scientifc research on gangs constituted the smallest category. The results are discussed in light of their importance in the construction of social problems discourse and the maintenance of symbolic power and social control.     

‘Let your indulgence set me free’: reflections on an ‘Africanised’ Tempest and its implications for critical practice

A joint production of The Tempest by Stratford’s Royal Shakespeare Company and Cape Town’s Baxter Theatre raises questions about the possibilities, and difficulties, of the deliberate ‘Africanisation’ of Shakespeare. I argue that the discursive fields within which ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘Africa’ are read carry significations that preclude easy acknowledgement. I consider the interpretative function an unapologetic, celebratory ‘Africa’ performs when it is put in conversation with canonical Shakespeare. Drawing on Terence Hawkes’s notion of ‘presentism’, I argue that in its effects this particular staging gives life both to the partisan discourse of public forgiveness in South Africa and to the powerful figure of ‘Shakespeare’. An African Tempest that engages the discourse of forgiveness allows ‘Shakespeare’ to share in the sociality invoked by ubuntu. Post‐apartheid theatre would do better to resist a post‐Truth and Reconciliation Commission hope of transcendence and an iconic ‘Shakespeare’. However, it may take great boldness to claim the latitude with which to trespass beyond an apparently familiar ‘Africa’ and an uninterrogated ‘Shakespeare’. The cultural legacies of ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘Africa’ need to be treated with the kind of unflinching critique of self and society that Edward Said deems central to the work of the humanities.     

Droit aux congés et conciliation entre travail et vie familiale dans les pays développés: pourquoi les travailleurs des Etats‐Unis sont perdants

A partir d'un indice synthétique des dispositions réglementaires sur les congés annuels et familiaux en Europe occidentale, aux Etats‐Unis, au Canada, en Australie, au Japon et en Corée, les auteurs classent ces pays quant au soutien à l'équilibre entre travail et famille. Les Etats‐Unis arrivent derniers: les employeurs ne sont pas tenus d'accorder des congés annuels, et les salariés ne peuvent prendre plus de douze semaines de congés par an pour raisons familiales. Ces normes comparativement basses s'expliqueraient par une conception fondée sur le libre marché et un postulat d'égalité de rapport de forces entre employeur et salarié. Vision qui n'est pleinement partagée par aucune des autres démocraties examinées.     

Assessing University Students’ Self-efficacy to Employ Alcohol-Related Harm Reduction Strategies

Abstract

Objective: Develop and evaluate key psychometric properties of a self-report questionnaire specifically designed to assess student drinkers’ self-confidence to employ a variety of strategies intended to reduce unhealthy consequences of high-risk drinking. Methods: Four hundred ninety-eight participants rated their confidence (from “not at all confident” to “completely confident”) to employ 17 harm reduction strategies when drinking. Results: Factor analysis and internal consistency reliability analyses indicated that the 17 items constitute a single scale with good test–retest reliability. Consistent with other research examining previous use of such strategies, women in our sample reported significantly higher harm reduction self-efficacy than did men. Harm reduction self-efficacy was also associated with reported number of high-risk drinking episodes in the previous 2 weeks. Conclusion: This brief and easily administered questionnaire holds promise as a clinical tool to identify individuals with low harm reduction self-efficacy and as an outcome measure for health promotion and educational interventions.     

Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic

David L. Smith, Richard Strier and David Bevington (eds), The Theatrical City: Culture, Theatre and Politics in London, 1576–1649 (1995), xvi + 288 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £35.00/$49.95).

John Smail, The Origins of Middle Class Culture. Halifax, Yorkshire, 1660–1780 (1994), xvi + 241 (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., $39.95).

Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches. Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (1995), xv + 416 (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, $35.00).

Deborah Valenze, The First Industrial Woman (1995), ix + 251 (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, hardback $39.95/£25.00).

Leonore Davidoff, Worlds Between: Historical Perspectives on Gender and Class (1995), x + 276 (Polity Press, Cambridge, £45.00, paperback £12.95).

Mary Poovey, Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation 1830–1864 (1995), x + 255 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, $34.00/£27.25, paperback $12.95/£10.25).

Christopher Parker (ed.), Gender Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Literature (1995), xiii + 194 (Scolar Press, Aldershot and Vermont, £39.95).

David Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922 (1995), xii + 186 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, $49.95/£30.00, paperback $14.95).

Hermann Beck, The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia. Conservatives, Bureaucracy and the Social Question 1815–70 (1995), 285 (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, $47.50).

Vivian Bickford‐Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape Town: Group Identity and Social Practice 1875–1902 (1995), xxiii + 281 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £40.00).

Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake (eds), Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century (1995), viii + 351 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne, $59.95).

Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniel Nugent (eds), Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (1994), xix + 377 (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, $18.95).     

Sexual Transformations and Intimate Behaviors in Romantic Relationships

To understand the association between sexual transformations (i.e., changes in sexual behavior for the partner), intimate behaviors, and relationship quality among couples in romantic relationships, this study used Actor Partner Interdependence Models to examine frequency of sexual transformations, feelings about sexual transformations, and intimate behaviors as predictors of relationship satisfaction among 96 couples (N = 192). Sexual transformations were also examined as a moderator of the association between intimate behavior and relationship satisfaction. Results indicated that relationship satisfaction was positively associated with partners’ frequent sexual transformations, actors’ positive feelings about sexual transformations, and intimate behavior from the partner. Further, in less intimate relationships, relationship satisfaction was greater when partners reported making more sexual transformations.     

Current Sex-Role Attitudes of Male and Female Students

Abstract

Sex-role attitudes of both male and female university students were considered in relation to two current issues: 1) Changing female roles and 2) The Women's Liberation Movement. While uncertainty characterized many responses, the majority of students were accepting of role change. Respondents differed little according to gender, but demonstrated considerable variation upon analysis of age and martial status. Approval of role change was primarily associated with experiential factors, rather than those associated with basic socialization. Women's Liberation was also accepted, although to a lesser degree than was normative change.