‘A second wife is not really a wife’: polygyny,gender relations and economic realities in Tajikistan

While polygyny in Tajikistan existed before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has been a phenomenon of growing importance since Independence, it is still forbidden by law. To understand this renewal, I do not look at polygyny as a sign of religiousness, but as a form of patriarchal bargain in which women (who often experienced former matrimonial disjuncture) may have a greater power of decision in the spousal relations. I will explore women's points of view, from which polygyny is a strategy to accessing the symbolic and material resources they lack. I then explore the conditions to which becoming a second wife is possible: women's own resources, be they material, symbolic, familial, appear as of crucial importance in this accession to the status of being married anew.     

Comparing social,emotional, and behavioral health risks among youth attending public versus parochial schools

Parochial schools are assumed to provide better social and academic experiences; however, few studies account for selection bias when comparing with public schools. This study contrasted public versus parochial schools using propensity score matching across a range of outcomes (e.g., perceptions of school, emotional symptoms, substance use, bullying). Using a sample of 58 public and 5 parochial high schools, the nonmatched analyses suggested a significant advantage for parochial schools students (e.g., better on 23 of 32 indicators). However, the propensity score matched analyses revealed nine differences (e.g., weapon carrying, smoking), two of which (i.e., stress and cyberbullying) favored public schools. While at first glance parochial schools generally appear to be healthier and safer learning environments, accounting for selection bias, the gap was narrowed. Students in parochial schools may struggle with issues related to social, emotional, and behavioral health risk, and thus prevention programs should also be implemented in these settings.     

How to construct your sexuality according to French magazines

Gendered magazines are a major contemporary form of mediation, (re)production and organization of (hetero)sexuality. They illustrate how sexual activity and performance become the concern and responsibility of individuals who are able to invest time and resources in the construction of a sexually-skilled self. Drawing on contemporary research, the article seeks to promote a dialogue between media and communications research, analysing French media narratives on sexuality through the reading of a selection of articles from the best-selling summer magazines aimed at 18- to 25-year-old readers. The article uses a semiodiscursive analysis to understand how didactic models are made to (re)produce specific knowledge on sexuality and to ascertain that this knowledge is coded in an expertise discourse. Through the hypothesis of a didactic ambition, three didactic models are identified, and attention is here focused on the short-coming/reparative model, that simultaneously creates a dysfunction and a fix. The analysis eventually reveals that didactic models are made to organize social life by strictly dividing sexual and therefore social roles between “men” and “women”. The moral criteria called upon regulate the ideal treatment of those didactic modalities and the discourse in magazines ends up shaping sexuality as a contemporary moral economy, a problem that should be pragmatically treated through the use of a certain type of knowledge.     

Dangerous Liaisons? State-Chaebol Co-operation and the Global Privatisation of Development

This article analyses the relationships between private and public sectors in shaping the South Korean development assistance agenda. Since 2008, subsequent Korean administrations have made development assistance a keystone of their foreign policy. Fast growing middle-income countries seem to be favourite development partners for these administrations and the parallel increase in the overseas expansion of Korean chaebol in these developing partner markets suggests that interactions between private economic interests and development assistance exigencies have been numerous. Based upon fieldwork on Korean development assistance, this article shows that Korean conglomerates are both informally and structurally included in decision-making processes as a result of the specific governance architecture inherited from the developmental state era. But recently, since its accession to the Development Assistance Committee in 2010, Korea has also been institutionalising private actors’ inclusion in official development assistance delivery mechanisms. This should be understood as part of a global agenda that has increasingly privatised development formulation and delivery. The inclusion of chaebol in official development assistance through institutional mechanisms might actually be more aligned with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development norms than the existing literature suggests.     

Churches,mosques, and condoms: understanding successful HIV and AIDS interventions by faith-based organisations

There are an estimated 33 million people living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) worldwide. While national education campaigns have been successful in providing a broad platform of awareness of HIV and AIDS, within some countries faith-based organisations (FBOs) have assumed an important role in educating and supporting local communities to reduce HIV transmission. This article conceptualises the successful characteristics of a Christian organisation in West Papua and a Muslim organisation in Thailand. The ability of both these FBOs to engage successfully with their communities on issues of sexual practice provides important lessons for other FBOs seeking to reduce HIV transmission.     

Asymmetries in prior conviction reasoning: truth suppression effects in child protection contexts

Abstract

In three empirical studies we examined how people reason about prior convictions in child abuse cases. We tested whether the disclosure of similar prior convictions prompts a mental representation or an additive probative value (Criminal Justice Act, 2003). Asymmetrical use of similar priors were observed in three studies. A pilot study showed that disclosure of a second prior did not contribute a weight equivalent to that of the first disclosure. Study 1 showed jurors did not see left-handed evidence (i.e. matching victim bruising) as more indicative of guilt than right-handedness unless a prior conviction was present, and the presence of priors suppressed the generation of alternative possibilities indicative of innocence. Study 2 showed that disclosure did not decrease community ratings of re-offending propensity and dangerousness as much as a similar prior conviction increased them. We consider the results in the context of a new psychological theory of prior conviction bias and the consequences for the implementation of Section 100 of the Criminal Justice Act (2003).