Effects of Class Positions of Parents on Educational Attainment of Daughters and Sons*

Cet article évalue les effets de l'appartenance de la mère et du père à une classe - déterminée selon la théorie marxiste des classes -sur le niveau d'instruction de leurs enfants, garçons et filles, au Canada. Les données sont tirées d'un échantillon représentatif de Canadiens et de Canadiennes. Les analyses multivariables mon-trent que l'appartenance du père et de la mère à une classe influe sur le niveau d'instruction des enfants des deux sexes. Que le père ou la mère soit issu de la bourgeoisie, de la classe des dirigeants ou de la classe des spécialistes, l'enfant aura un niveau d'instruction plus élevé que celui dont les parents appartiennent à une autre classe. On a toutefois observé que seuls certains effets de l'appartenance à une classe étaient directs; les effets liés à l'appartenance à une classe semblent ne se manifester que partiellement dans les differences de niveau d'instruction des parents, qui sont liées à la classe à laquelle ils appartiennent. Les niveaux d'instruction de la mere et du père influent directement sur le niveau d'instruction des enfants des deux sexes, une fois neutralisés les effets de l'appartenance sociale des parents. De plus, les effets du niveau d'instruction du père et de la mère ont tendance à différer selon le sexe de l'enfant (le niveau d'études de la mère influe davantage sur celui de la fille et à l'inverse celui du père influe davantage sur celui du fils). Toutefois, cette tendance ne se vérifie pas en ce qui concerne les effets de l'appartenance des parents à une classe. Les analyses qui comparent les sous-échantillons d'âges indiquent que la double influence de l'appartenance des parents à une classe et de leur niveau d'instruction a diminué après les années soixante compara-tivement aux années précédentes. Les résultats sont interprétés à la lumière de la théorie du capital culturel. This paper assesses the effects of mothers' and fathers' class positions—measured in terms of Marxist class categories—on the educational attainment of male and female offspring in Canada. Our data are from a national representative sample of Canadians. Multivariate analyses show that, for offspring of both genders, the class positions of fathers and mothers influence educational attainment. Where either parent was a member of the bourgeois, managerial or expert class categories, this meant more education for the offspring than other class backgrounds. Only some proportions of the class effects were direct; the effects of class background appear to partially operate through differences in educational attainment of parents that are associated with parents' class positions. Mothers' and fathers' education levels continue to have comparatively strong positive relationships with educational attainment for offspring of both genders after controls for class categories of parents. Further, the effects of paternal and maternal education tend to be “same-sex directed” (mothers' education levels have stronger effects for daughters than for sons and vice versa for fathers' education). However, a similar pattern does not hold for the effects of parental class positions. Analyses comparing age sub-samples indicate that the influences of both parental class positions and parental education levels upon educational attainment of offspring have decreased in the post-1960 period compared with earlier years. The results are interpreted in terms of the theory of cultural capital.     

Transnational Crime and Transnational Policing

This paper reviews the scholarly literature that connects transnational crime and policing through a critical discussion of the terms used to describe them. It is argued that authorized discourses regarding transnational crime are selective and partial. Ultimately, this results in two sorts of failures in contemporary transnational policing. It is a positive failure insofar as the ramping up of policing power in response to a global crime panic has come at the expense of civil liberties and human rights. It is a negative failure insofar as the transnational policing capacity that has been developed is unable to respond to the very real criminological consequences that are part of the downside of globalization. The surveillant assemblage of the emerging global policing security complex is an awesome and unaccountable power legitimitated on the basis of specified folkdevils. However, and despite well-publicized claims to success, due to its own internal organizational pathologies and institutional fragmentation, the policing security complex is capricious. The article concludes by arguing that critical the examination of the concepts that constitute transnational crime and policing is a crucial contribution to theories of global governance.     

Whither Tocqueville in American Sociology?

This essay addresses the declining influence of Alexis de Tocqueville on contemporary American sociology. While Tocqueville was must reading some decades ago, inspiring several classic sociological studies published in the 1950s and 1960s, and while he remains an authoritative source in other social science disciplines, he has virtually disappeared from present-day sociology. Sociologists, it would seem, have left behind works such as Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the French Revolution despite Raymond Aron’s (Main Currents in Sociological Thought, vol. I, Anchor Books, New York, 1968) insistence that Tocqueville be counted among the discipline’s founders. While Meyer (J. Cl. Socio., 3:197–220, 2003) presumed to have addressed this subject, his argument sheds no light on the matter as he ignores the driving concern of Tocqueville’s work, namely, the tensions between the principle of equality and human freedom. I argue that conceptually sociologists today are in no position to reflect critically on equality and its relation to freedom. Since the turbulent 1960s egalitarian commitments have become embedded in the discipline and are thereby shielded from critical inquiry. At the same time, a conceptual fixation on power effectively pushed to the periphery the kinds of questions Tocqueville raised about the problem of authority in democracy and how authority may be encouraging of human freedom. Committed to advancing the principle of equality, however understood, and seeing nothing in authority but power, sociologists espouse faith in egalitarian, mass democracy whereas Tocqueville sought a critical understanding of it. This is much to the detriment of present-day sociologists, so many of whom demonstrate in their own work and professional behavior the democratic dilemmas Tocqueville warned us about.     

Linguistic Markers of Psychological State through Media Interviews: John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, Al Gore in 2000

What can we learn about presidential candidates by examining their speech in natural conversation? In the present study, the television interviews from the 2004 Democratic presidential primary campaign of John Kerry ( N = 29) and John Edwards ( N = 34) were examined using linguistic analyses. Results indicate that Kerry and Edwards were similar in their use of positive emotion words, but that Kerry used significantly higher rates of negative emotion words than did Edwards. Comparisons with televised interviews of Al Gore from the 2000 presidential campaign ( N = 17) revealed striking similarities in the linguistic styles of Gore and Kerry. Gore's linguistic style overlapped considerably with that of Kerry on pronoun usage and many cognitive domains. This study points to how linguistic analyses can give us a clearer picture of how political candidates think, act, and feel.     

Space and the State

Speculation over the imminent demise of the nation-state has recently given way to a more nuanced understanding of its ongoing transformation under globalising conditions. Far from disappearing, argue some, the state is subject to a process of 'rescaling' whereby its spatial dimensions are being radically reordered. What is emerging to replace post-war welfare states is a new and more complex layering of the spaces of governance.     

19世纪英国军事情报与亚洲地缘战略的建构

沿着福柯关于知识考古学的思路,初步检视一种针对亚洲的独特的殖民知识类型英国军事情报的兴起及其展布,包括具体的知识技术比如路线书和军事报告;这种知识的实践对亚洲空间进行独特编码,生产了相应的档案;19世纪英帝国主义根据这些档案重新组织社会,设计地缘战略,以此支配亚洲空间。