《哈里·波特》与新时期儿童文学的特点

近年来 ,英国女作家J.K .罗琳创作的儿童文学小说《哈里·波特》风靡全球 ,这部小说鲜明地体现了作者的后现代主义思想和新时期儿童文学的特点。其主要特点是 :具有时代感和亲和力 ;想像力丰富 ,具有幻想性 ;独特鲜活的儿童文学艺术形象 ;张扬游戏精神 ,重视娱乐性 ;创作手法不拘一格 ,语言夸张幽默 ,追求强烈的艺术效果。笔者认为 ,一个时代有一个时代的作品 ,儿童文学作家只有更新观念 ,与时俱进 ,才能“激活儿童文学的创作生产力” ,创作出脱俗的、新颖的、为广大儿童所喜爱的文学作品。     

手风琴演奏巴赫键盘音乐的问题研究

随着自由低音手风琴的不断普及,巴赫键盘音乐受到愈来愈普遍的重视,并成为手风琴演奏者的必修课程,但由于自由低音手风琴传入我国时间较短,巴赫键盘音乐又是我们以前不曾接触过的,因此在演奏中还存在诸多问题.本文通过对触键法、延留音与连线音、装饰音及风箱运用等演奏技法的研究,探讨了手风琴演奏巴赫键盘音乐应注意的问题.     

中美文化关系研究的一种模式--以赫西的小说《召唤》为个例

当前中美文化关系研究相对滞后.20世纪美国作家赫西的长篇小说<召唤>,表现了文化交融与冲突过程中的复杂现象.中美文化关系的研究,在方法论上应改变沿用已久的单向度的"影响/接受"模式,要以现代文化观念为依据,在宏观把握的前提下注重具体个例的考察,关注双向互动的异质的文化交流,希望以此把我们的文化关系研究提高到一个新的水平.     

The effect of immigration on wages in three european countries

We analyse the impact of immigrants on natives wages from reduced form wage equations for The Netherlands, United Kingdom and Norway. We find very small effects on natives wages and no dominant robust patterns of substitution and complementarity. Effects on earlier immigrants own wages are larger but less reliable. Further work should focus on these own effectsData on the Netherlands have been made available by CEREM, Statistics Netherlands(LSO 1997) and SEO (GPD). The British QLFS have been made available by the Office for National Statistics through the Data Archive, University of Essex. Norwegian KIRUT data have been made available by NSD, Bergen. We are grateful to these organisations. None of these organisations bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of data sets used in this paper.Two anonymous referees and the editor-in-chief, Klaus Zimmermann, provided very valuable inputs for a substantial revision of an earlier draft. Responsible editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann.     

Contributions in heterogeneous communities: Evidence from Indonesia

Using household-level data from Indonesia, we investigate the importance of community characteristics: ethnic diversity and central government transfers, inter alia, in determining monetary and time contributions to community organizations. We present a framework in which ethnic diversity affects contributions through three channels: (1) diversity of preferences (2) transaction costs, and (3) inter-household considerations in the form of altruism towards ones ethnic group. Our empirical findings provide evidence that ethnic diversity has a negative and significant effect on contributions, and the prevalence of community organizations. We find evidence that government spending crowds out private monetary contributions, with a less robust effect on time contributions.All correspondence to Una Okonkwo Osili. The authors would like to thank RAND and Lembaga Demografi of the University of Indonesia for making the data available. We would also like to thank Victoria Beard and Chris Peterson at RAND for their assistance. We have also benefited greatly from discussions with Kathleen Beegle, Partha Deb, Kevin Hasker, Kay Ikranagara, Ifeanyi Osili, Richard Steinberg, Mark Wilhelm, and seminar participants at IUPUI, RAND, and LSU. Dan Du and Yang Wang provided valuable research assistance. Financial support from the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy is grateful acknowledged. Responsible editor: Daniel S. Hamermesh.     

The engagement game

Engagement is a costly social institution for which virtually no economic analysis exists. We explore the information gathering function of engagement in a game with a proposer who offers a long or short engagement, and a respondent, who may reject the proposal at various stages. Whether the proposer is a suitable match is uncertain, but a long engagement yields information with which the respondent can update prior probabilities. We consider pooling, separating and mixed strategy equilibria and relate our findings to the evolving institution of engagement and institutional circumstances that will improve its efficiency in generating successful matches.All correspondence to Amy Farmer. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Changing fertility rates in developed countries. The impact of labor market institutions

During the last two decades fertility rates have decreased and have become positively correlated with female participation rates across OECD countries. I use a panel of 23 OECD nations to study how different labor market arrangements shaped these trends. High unemployment and unstable contracts, common in Southern Europe, depress fertility, particularly of younger women. To increase lifetime income though early skill-acquisition and minimize unemployment risk, young women postpone (or abandon) childbearing. Further, both a large share of public employment, by providing employment stability, and generous maternity benefits linked to previous employment, such as those in Scandinavia, boost fertility of the 25–29 and 30–34 year old women.Financial help from a CRB grant from the University of Illinois is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank Carles Boix, Barry Chiswick, Carmel Chiswick, Evelyn Lehrer, three anonymous referees and seminar participants at ESPE 2000 (Bonn), Illinois Economic Meetings 2000 (Chicago), Simposi dAnalisi Economica 2000 (Barcelona), 2001 Winter meetings of the Econometric Society in New Orleans, ESPE 2001 (Athens), Braga (Portugal), University of Chicago, De Paul University, PAA 2002 (Atlanta) for helpful comments; Gosta Esping-Andersen for providing some data and Cristina Mora for excellent research assistance. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Bayesian selection of log-linear models

A general methodology is presented for finding suitable Poisson log-linear models with applications to multiway contingency tables. Mixtures of multivariate normal distributions are used to model prior opinion when a subset of the regression vector is believed to be nonzero. This prior distribution is studied for two- and three-way contingency tables, in which the regression coefficients are interpretable in terms of odds ratios in the table. Efficient and accurate schemes are proposed for calculating the posterior model probabilities. The methods are illustrated for a large number of two-way simulated tables and for two three-way tables. These methods appear to be useful in selecting the best log-linear model and in estimating parameters of interest that reflect uncertainty in the true model.     

A remedial strategy for data analysis

Professional evaluators are often called upon to analyze data produced by a catastrophically inadequate evaluation design. This problem is occurring more frequently as accountability pressures force program experts into evaluation activities for which they are not trained. A remedial strategy involving diagnosis of error, application of a corrective procedure and sensitization of program personnel of the need for a more sophisticated stance, is proposed as a solution. A case study is described and the contribution of a remedial strategy to improved evaluation is outlined.