Secondary school dropout and work outcomes in ten developing countries

This paper analyzes the impact of secondary school dropout on the work outcomes of young people in ten developing countries. Understanding such a phenomenon is important because it may affect work prospects, exacerbate income inequality and determine macroeconomic lasting effects given that the formation of a skilled workforce is a key element of economic development and growth.When accounting for endogeneity, we find that secondary school dropout decreases the probability of being employed in non-elementary occupations, suggesting that unskilled workers fail to meet the increasing demand for a skilled workforce. Secondary school dropout, indeed, hinders the accumulation of adequate levels of human capital and anticipates entry into the unskilled labor market.Thus, policy-makers should aim at the extension and efficacy of compulsory education to the secondary level to avoid future under-education problems to promote a skilled workforce and encourage economic development and growth in the long run.     

Colonized Silence: Confronting the Colonial Link in Rural Alaska Native Survivors’ Non-Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse

Though there is evidence linking the history of colonialism and oppression of Indigenous people to the high rates of rape and child sexual abuse experienced by this population today, it is less understood how colonial processes, past and present, condition the decision to disclose or report victimization. Drawing on a survivorship storytelling study of rural Alaska Native survivors of child sexual abuse, this paper underscores the importance of centering colonialism in understanding the culture of silence surrounding sexual victimization among Indigenous people. Results show that reasons for non-disclosure are quite embedded within larger social, historical and political themes of colonialism, oppression, and marginalization. Implications for policy and praxes are discussed, as well as a broader mandate of social change to remove barriers to disclosure.     

‘The Tortoise under the couch’: an African woman’s reflections on negotiating insider- outsider positionalities and issues of serendipity on conducting a qualitative research project in Cape Town,South Africa§

Issues of positionality of Black African researchers researching African issues is seldom discussed in methodological literature. In this article, I reflect from an African perspective on issues of insider/outsider positionalities and of serendipity and unexpectedness during my fieldwork which are areas often dominated by writing from the global north and by writers and researchers who do not identify as African people of color and hope that my article will contribute to fill this gap. I share my background, identity, gender and age, and how these might have influenced my approach and interpretation during the process. My qualitative study explored perspectives and subjective experiences of Xhosa speaking adults with epilepsy and their carers in an urban Black township in Cape Town, South Africa. I conclude with the tortoise metaphor to show the cultural relevance thereof, the importance of curiosity and of embracing events of unexpectedness in fieldwork.     

Gender Roles and Internalized Sexual Stigma in Gay and Lesbian Persons: A Quadratic Relation

Purpose: No previous research has deeply investigated the association between gay men and lesbians’ adherence to gender roles and their internalized sexual stigma. This study suggests a potential non-linear correlation between these factors. Methods: Seventy-five gay men and 70 lesbians responded to self-report questionnaires. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to investigate linear, quadratic, and exponential models and to determine which model best explained the correlation. Results: The quadratic model best explained the correlation, showing no gender differences. Conclusion: Adherence to gender roles constitutes a relevant factor in predicting internalized sexual stigma.     

“Gone to work to America”: Irish step-migration through south Wales in the 1860s and 1870s

Why did the Irish-born population of Wales decline so sharply in the decade 1861–1870? This paper argues that during the 1850s and 1860s, large numbers of Irish men and women travelled to south Wales in order to finance emigration to the USA. Using the US Federal Census, this paper shows how Irish step-migration through Wales led principally to the Pennsylvania coalfields. This type of migration is termed the Knight’s-move: a sideways move from agriculture into heavy industry, in order to advance forward across the Atlantic. The Knight’s-move challenges previous assumptions about immigration into the south Wales coalfield during the nineteenth century.     

Lena Finkle’s magic arc: hybrid influences in the Russian American graphic novel

ABSTRACT

The article examines Anya Ulinich’s graphic narrative Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel and the novel’s use of visual culture from both the author’s Russian and US American backgrounds. The article interrogates the use of history and timelines, Russian art history and Russian art education in Ulinich’s text. It also analyzes other literary constructs that influenced Ulinich’s novel: US American comics/graphic novels and their use of stereotype, and novels by Russian-speaking Jewish American writers, with their thematized Jewishness.     

Fighting words? Joning as conflict talk and identity performance among African American preadolescents

This study examines how preadolescent African American students in Washington, D.C., used a linguistic practice called ‘joning,’ a style of verbal play similar to ritual insults, in peer interactions. Sociolinguists have focused on how children socialize each other into vernacular styles appropriate for peer group use but often assume that they disalign with social and linguistic norms for classroom behavior. Drawing from a nine‐month ethnographic study that the author conducted in an after‐school program, this article analyzes the structure and function of joning as a vernacular style of African American Vernacular English and its uses in constructing classroom identities. Joning often facilitated student learning, but it was perceived as a socially and physically risky linguistic practice because of its uses as conflict talk in the local community. Focusing on preadolescence as a key stage of language socialization, this article shows how minority students modify peer‐learned linguistic practices to pursue academic success on their own terms.     

The politics of gender in the UN Security Council resolutions on women,peace and security

Women’s groups have worked diligently to place gender and women’s vulnerability on the transnational security agenda. This article departs from the idea that negotiating and codifying gender and women’s vulnerability in terms of security represent a challenge to mainstream security contexts. By contrasting the UN Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security with feminist theory, this article aims to analyze what is considered to be threatened when women’s vulnerability is negotiated. The article identifies two approaches to the gender/security nexus: gendering security, which involves introducing ideas regarding gender-sensitive policies and equal representation, and securitizing gender, which proceeds by locating rape and sexual violence in the context of war regulations. We demonstrate that, although these measures are encouraged with reference to women’s vulnerability, they serve to legitimize war and the male soldier and both approaches depoliticize gender relations.     

The identity of memory and the memory of identity in the age of commodification and democratization

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between secularization and commodification of culture on one hand, and national identity always represented as Christian mystery on the other. Focusing on three case studies, Poland, Quebec and Zaire, the author analyses the place of an ordinary object (commodity) as a vehicle of representation of people's affirmation of belonging to a ‘nation’. He stresses the disposable nature of such an affirmation of belonging which allows everyone to alter or cast off the symbols of belonging while changing their social or political contexts.     

本杰明·富兰克林对中华文明的汲取——纪念富兰克林诞辰300周年

富兰克林以他的远见卓识认识到,向其他文化学习,对于美洲的人民来说,在把美洲建设成世界其他各地方仿效的样板的过程是十分重要的。在向其他文明学习的过程中,富兰克林努力从中国文明中汲取营养,用孔子的道德哲学来提升自己的道德修养,用中国的技术来提高美洲人民生活质量。他的这一努力为美洲文明的形成做出了巨大贡献。