穆斯林的复兴要求

在一本伊斯兰先知的旧书中写道:“将出现一个和平和稳定的新时期”。但是,在伊斯兰纪元的第十五世纪(就是说穆罕默德于622年从麦加逃亡到麦地那,从此开创了一个新的历史时期和伊斯兰教的光辉纪元),这种在其萌芽时期所做的不够慎重的估计似乎并没有得到证实。今天,整个穆斯林世界都在沸腾。伊朗正在向阿拉伯石油世界宣传它的革命经验;在马来西亚,“安拉的军队”,一个决定恢复“真正的信仰”的传教士组织,希望把所有的异教徒扔进海洋;在菲律宾,政府未能成功地制止南部穆斯林的叛乱;在土耳其,宗派之争在一年之内     

Assessing the relevance of higher education courses

The establishment of the European Higher Education Area has involved specifying lists of professional competencies that programs are expected to develop, and with this the need for procedures to measure how every course within a higher education program is aligned with the program's competencies. We propose an instrument for characterizing this alignment, a process that we call assessing the relevance of a course. Using information from the course syllabus (objectives, contents and assessment scheme), our instrument produces indicators for characterizing the syllabus in terms of a competence list and for assessing its coherence. Because assessment involves quality, the results obtained can also be used to revise and improve the course syllabus. We illustrate this process with an example of a methods course from a mathematics teacher education program at a Spanish university.     

Quality of life among lifetime victimized men

Quality of life was compared for lifetime victimized (n = 353) and nonvictimized men (n = 167) for demographic and quality of life variables by a cross-sectional design. The univariate analyses showed that victims compared to nonvictims had a lower quality of life, were younger, more often had upper secondary school education, and were more often blue-collar/low white-collar workers, on student allowances, on unemployment, financially strained, and smokers. The regressions revealed that unemployment, financial strain, smoking, depression, and home/public abuse were associated with reduced quality of life among victimized men. Being a blue-collar/low/intermediate white-collar worker and social support were related to increased quality of life. This study may have provided new insights into the experiences of quality of life of victimized men.     

College and university compliance with a required meningococcal vaccination law

OBJECTIVE: Maryland became the first state to pass a vaccination law requiring college and university students living on campus to obtain a meningococcal vaccination or to sign a waiver refusing vaccination because college students are at increased risk for disease. The authors sought to identify how Maryland colleges addressed the law and determine whether schools were in full compliance. PARTICIPANTS: The authors surveyed 32 college/university administrators via a self-administered questionnaire. METHODS: The authors calculated vaccination and waiver rates and assessed compliance with the law overall and with specific law components. RESULTS: Among 28 participating schools, annual vaccination rates and waiver rates among students during 2000-2004 ranged from 66%-76% and 12%-17%, respectively. Two (7%) schools were compliant with all components of the law. CONCLUSIONS: Mandatory vaccination laws do not ensure compliance at the college and university level. Mandatory reporting, increased education, and collaboration between colleges and universities and public health agencies are needed.     

Evaluating mission drift in microfinance: lessons for programs with social mission

The article contributes to a better understanding of implications of scaling up on the social mission of microfinance programs. It proposes a methodology to measure the extent, if any, to which a microfinance program with a poverty alleviation mission drifts away from its mission during rapid scaling up and presents findings from a field research using the proposed methodology at Activists for Social Alternatives (ASA), a microfinance organization that serves poor women in rural India. The findings indicate that mission drift is not a result of deliberate decisions by the management or board but rather is a result of the challenges posed by the scaling-up process. At times, changing trends in social outcomes were not obvious, and management was not aware of the changes indicated by the proposed measures of social performance.     

Death by survey: Estimating adult mortality without selection bias from sibling survival data

The widely used methods for estimating adult mortality rates from sample survey responses about the survival of siblings, parents, spouses, and others depend crucially on an assumption that, as we demonstrate, does not hold in real data. We show that when this assumption is violated so that the mortality rate varies with sibship size, mortality estimates can be massively biased. By using insights from work on the statistical analysis of selection bias, survey weighting, and extrapolation problems, we propose a new and relatively simple method of recovering the mortality rate with both greatly reduced potential for bias and increased clarity about the source of necessary assumptions.     

对高等教育机构中与女性、性别研究相关的课程的研究

1 研究背景日本国立女性教育会馆从 1 983年起对高等教育机构中与女性研究相关的课程状况开展研究。这一研究的目的不仅在于扩大女性的学习机会 ,还在于通过调查高等教育机构中的教学和研究趋势 ,为与女性学相关的研究领域提供帮助。这是在日本开展的惟一一个相关的持续性研究 ,此次已经是第 1 0次调查。2 第 1 0次研究的要点 (针对 2 0 0 0财政年度提供的课程 )研究由两部分组成 :其一 ,在“对教学的基础研究”中 ,全日本的大学和高等院校中负责教学部门的人员被要求在课程大纲中挑选与女性、性别研究有关的课程 ,并通报它们的题目和负责…     

历史的重构与史学的转折——一个跨文化的考察

所谓史学中的转折点,指的是那些在某一历史时期、某一文化内产生了深远影响的历史观念和历史意识的根本性变化,这些转折点事实上也无不在史学史上发挥了跨文化的作用,历史文本也因而得以重构。1970年代末以来,我们已经目睹了诸多书写史学史时取用全球视角和比较方法的可贵尝试,历史学的范畴据之大为拓展,非西方史学也受到了越来越广泛的重视。而当今后现代主义对以科学史学和国家历史为典范的现代职业历史学的巨大挑战,极有可能为又一次重大的史学转折点铺下基石。     

美国的科学政策

《美国的科学政策——1939到现在》一书(修订版),1972年由美国麻省理工学院出版,编者是四位历史学家.全书共分六个部分:一、导言:历史的概述,二、准备和战争,三、战后科学的规划(1945-1950),四、本世纪中叶(1950-1957),五、反应的年代(1957-1965),六、衰退中的体系(1965-1970).编者依据大量材料(其中包括许多美国官方文件),对美国自1939到1970年的科学体制和政策作了历史的论述.对我们研究美国的科学政策和体制的演变有一定参考价值.下面是本书主要内容的简要介绍.     

历史学家面对战争

第一次世界大战前,对现代社会和文化发展的忧虑便普遍存在———这一点在德国表现得尤为明显。德国、法国、英国及美国的历史学家都在期望战后的世界不要完全不同于战前的秩序。战前的迹象表明,人们同时也在作一些缓和紧张局势的尝试,在历史学家中,这种情况就更为显著。德国学界的国际交往在继续,并且呈扩大的趋势。然而,随着战争的爆发,友谊变成了仇恨,不仅针对敌对国家,也针对它们的历史学家。战争双方都认为,这是一场两种文化间的战争。一战期间,两大阵营的历史学家立场和行为有着很大的相似性,即不论战前他们在政治问题上分歧多么大,一旦战争爆发,他们都几乎无条件地支持战争,尽管这些分歧只是被暂时搁置在一边,这种情形在德国尤为突出。然而,毫无疑问也有一些不同之处。在支持与反对战争的双方之间,分歧与一致同时存在。值得注意的是,在德国,战争对历史编纂学的影响很小,历史学家都不愿接受战争带来的新的现实。一战后,德国的历史学家很少再与其他国家,特别是法国和美国历史研究的新潮流发生联系;由于抵制变迁,德国历史学变得越来越和国际学术界无关。