Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Dissolution: An Examination of Recent Marriages

An ongoing question remains for family researchers: Why does a positive association between cohabitation and marital dissolution exist when one of the primary reasons to cohabit is to test relationship compatibility? Drawing on recently collected data from the 2006–2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the authors examined whether premarital cohabitation experiences were associated with marital instability among a recent contemporary (married since 1996) marriage cohort of men (N = 1,483) and women (N = 2,003). They found that a dichotomous indicator of premarital cohabitation was in fact not associated with marital instability among women and men. Furthermore, among cohabitors, marital commitment prior to cohabitation (engagement or definite plans for marriage) was tied to lower hazards of marital instability among women, but not men. This research contributes to our understanding of cohabitation, marital instability, and broader family change.     

We Are the Corporation: Dispersive CSR

We contend that the current trend of emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) serves to divert the public's attention from the real ethical issues facing business and society. We extend the scope of social responsibility beyond business corporations to include a range of institutions. We also propose that CSRs be reconceptualized in terms of the ways that managers enable stakeholders to hold themselves and each other responsible for the ways their actions affect each other as they conduct business through the firm. In this article, we propose a new view of corporations and responsibility that reconstrues behavior currently referred to as CSR. Starting with an overview of theories of the firm, we show that the way in which a firm is conceived yields different views on CSR. A shortcoming of the theory of the firm approach to CSR is that it leads us to focus excessively on business corporations at the expense of a broader analysis of other institutional players. These theories also tend to emphasize the obligations of corporations to people rather than of people to each other. We propose that social responsibility be viewed through a systems theory paradigm instead. We then argue that corporations should be construed in terms of the people who impact them. We advance a different conception of business responsibility that is more comprehensive, inclusive, and systemic.     

Vague Quantifiers

The responses to many survey questions are often made in termsof vague quantifiers such as "very," "pretty," or "not too."We know little about the characteristics of such quantifyingterms. This article reviews several theoretical approaches tothe problem of quantifying meaning based on studies from experimentalpsychology. It also reports data from a pilot study that triesto make more precise quantitative estimates for three commonvague quantifiers.     

Southern African social movements at the 2007 Nairobi World Social Forum

How relevant is the anti‐globalization movement to the ideas and activities of social movements seeking to achieve economic justice and greater democratic accountability in southern Africa? Case study research in four southern African countries (Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Swaziland) indicates that, while aspects of the anti‐globalization approach resonate with civil society and social movement actors (for example, an emphasis on mass participation and the internationalization of campaigning), the global social justice movement frequently displays the characteristics of globalization. These include: unaccountable decision‐making; profound (yet largely unacknowledged) inequality of access to resources; and an imposed and uniform organizational form that fails to consider local conditions. The World Social Forum (WSF) held in Nairobi in January 2007 provided many southern African social movement actors with their first opportunity to participate in the global manifestation of the anti‐globalization movement. The authors interviewed social movement activists across southern Africa before and during the Nairobi WSF about their experiences of the anti‐globalization movement and the Social Forum. An assessment of the effectiveness of this participation leads to the conclusion that the WSF is severely limited in its capacity to provide an effective forum for these actors to express their grievances and aspirations. However, hosting national social forums, their precise form adapted to reflect widely varied conditions in southern African states that are affected by globalization in diverse ways, appears to provide an important new form of mobilization that draws on particular elements of anti‐globalization praxis.     

Law and Discipline in Nineteenth Century English State Formation: The Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869

Abstract It is argued that a consideration of the relationship between 'discipline'(discourses and practices of normalisation) and 'law'(discourses of abstract, universal rights and duties and their application in concrete situations) is necessary to an understanding of nineteenth century state formation. A discussion of this relationship in relation to the public health movement concludes that it is a fundamentally ambiguous one: their articulation is productive of interventionist programmes but it also introduces irreducible and irresolvable tensions. This understanding of the relationship is then used to consider the Contagious Diseases Acts (1864, 1866 and 1869), showing how it shaped the construction of an arena for intervention, the Acts' apparatus, and the conflicts to which the Acts were subject.     

From IRCA to Orca: Apprehending the Other in 'Your San Antonio Experience'

Abstract From the Alamo to Sea World, the San Antonio tourist experience reiterates an historical and ethnic narrative that positions the Anglo-American subject in relation to the Mexican as 'other'. Like the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, this strategy of definition and containment is inseparable from profound ambivalences about the possibility of effectively 'naturalizing' difference. In 'remembering the Alamo', the tourist is faced with the possibility of dis-integration and an inversion of the colonizer/colonized relationship.     

Unrealistic Expectations? Zambia's Mineworkers from Independence to the One‐Party State, 1964–1972

Abstract  Political scientists have neglected the extent of opposition and resistance to the policies of African states amongst civil society organisations in the immediate post-colonial period. Unionised Zambian mineworkers expected Independence to bring about a transformation in their work and living conditions, a demand that brought them into conflict with the new Zambian Government and its dependency on mine revenue. Government attempts to control the behaviour of mineworkers through legislation and the union bureaucracy proved unsuccessful, and popular grassroots challenges to the union leadership, and the Government itself, were only ended by state suppression, and the establishment of a one-party state.     

Shared Learning for Doctors and Social Workers: Evaluation of a Programme

Correspondence to John Carpenter, Tizard Centre, Institute of Social and Applied Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7LZ Summary This paper reports a shared learning programme for final yearsocial work and medical students which was designed in the lightof social psychological studies of intergroup behaviour (theContact Hypothesis). Key features included institutional supportfor the programme and opportunities to work as equals in pairsand small groups on shared tasks in a cooperative atmosphere.Topics included alcohol abuse, dealing with psychiatric emergencies,deliberate self-harm and community senices for people with learningdisabilities. A comprehensive evaluation of the effects of the programme onone cohort of 85 participants revealed that overall attitudestowards the other profession had improved and that each sawthe other as more professionally competent at the end of theprogramme. Participants reported increased knowledge of theattitudes, skills, roles and duties of the other professionand of how to work together more effectively.