Re‐invigorating democracy?: White middle class identities and comprehensive schooling

Recent research on social class and whiteness points to disquieting and exclusive aspects of white middle class identities. This paper focuses on whether ‘alternative’ middle class identities might work against, and disrupt, normative views of what it means to be ‘middle class’ at the beginning of the 21^st Century. Drawing on data from those middle classes who choose to send their children to urban comprehensives, we examine processes of ‘thinking and acting otherwise’ in order to uncover some of the commitments and investments that might make for a renewed and reinvigorated democratic citizenry. The difficulties of turning these commitments and investments into more equitable ways of interacting with class and ethnic others which emerge as real challenges for this left leaning, pro‐welfare segment of the middle classes. Within a contemporary era of neo‐liberalism that valorises competition, individualism and the market even these white middle classes who express a strong commitment to community and social mixing struggle to convert inclinations into actions.     

Family matters: a discussion of the Bangladeshi and Pakistani extended family and community in supporting the children's education

This paper looks beyond an individualised type of parental involvement and discusses the role of the extended family in relation to school. We draw on the different social capital theories to explain its implications and also to discuss its efficacy. Our focus is on the Bangladeshi community and the Pakistani community in two towns in the North East of England. British South Asian parents are variously accused of having too high educational expectations of their children or not being interested at all and that Pakistani and Bangladeshi parents in particular have no or limited relationships with their children's schools. In this paper we demonstrate that parental involvement in these two communities resides not simply in the hands of the parents but within the wider family. We challenge the deficit model of British South Asian families as indifferent to the education of their children and we identify the potential resource of the extended family.     

On quantum statistical inference

Summary. Interest in problems of statistical inference connected to measurements of quantum systems has recently increased substantially, in step with dramatic new developments in experimental techniques for studying small quantum systems. Furthermore, developments in the theory of quantum measurements have brought the basic mathematical framework for the probability calculations much closer to that of classical probability theory. The present paper reviews this field and proposes and interrelates some new concepts for an extension of classical statistical inference to the quantum context.     

Countersystem Analysis and the Construction of Alternative Futures

This essay explicates the role of countersystem analysis as an essential mode of social inquiry. In the process, particular attention is given to the place of negation and the future. One underlying theme is the asymmetry between the negative and the positive features of social activities, the negative being more readily identifiable empirically than the positive. A corollary theme, building on the observations of George Herbert Mead, is: one engages the present through experience; one engages the future through ideas. Furthermore, as Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck, and Niklas Luhmann suggest, we in late modernity seem to be facing a future that is more contingent than it was in early modernity. After articulating the foundations of the mode of inquiry we term "countersystem analysis," we employ Karl Mannheim as a point of departure for critically surveying a constellation of scholars—conservatives as well as reformers—who have relied upon some version of countersystem analysis in addressing the future. Such an orientation serves to advance not only theoretical inquiry but empirical investigation as well.     

Sexual Revictimization: Double Betrayal and the Risk Associated with Dissociative Amnesia

This study aimed to identify new treatment targets in order to develop more empirically informed initiatives to prevent sexual revictimization. A retrospective Web-based survey employing a mixed-methods design attracted a self-selecting sample of 481 community respondents, 183 of whom indicated a history of childhood sexual abuse. Seventy-four percent were females whose ages ranged from 16 to 69 years (mean = 31.2 years). Betrayal trauma referred to CSA committed by a trusted perpetrator (often caregivers). Disclosure experiences in childhood were reported though open-dialogue boxes. Double betrayal referred to high-betrayal trauma being combined with a negative response to a disclosure. This was associated with both higher incidences of prior psychogenic amnesia for CSA and sexual revictimization in later life. The findings have implications for educating the guardians of children about the prevalence and implications of CSA as well as the importance of early recognition and appropriate responding.     

A Comparative Framework for the Analysis of International Student Movements

Recent theory and research on revolution indicate that leadership and ideology play crucial roles. Much of the leadership and ideology for contemporary revolutions developed within the context of student movements. But previous research on student movements has often been limited to developed Western societies and has yielded typologies of student activism that have little application to revolutionary movements worldwide. Based on an analysis of student movements in many societies during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a new typology of student movements is formulated. The typology, which allows differentiation among reform student movements, identity radicalism student movements, structural revolutionary student movements, and social revolutionary student movements, appears capable of identifying the essential contrasts as well as key similarities among a wide range of student movements in many societies. Conditions fostering each type of movement are described. The paper concludes with a discussion of case studies in several countries and how these student movements are categorized in the new typology.