The Positive Psychology of Interested Adolescents

Using the experience sampling method (ESM) and a diverse national sample of young people, this study identifies two groups of adolescents: those who experience chronic interest in everyday life experiences and another who experience widespread boredom. These groups are compared against several measures of psychological well-being: global self-esteem, locus of control, and emotions regarding one's future prospects. It is hypothesized that a generalized chronic experience of interest, an innate physiological function, can be used as a signal for a larger measure of psychological health, while chronic boredom is a sign of psychic dysfunction. A strong association between the experience of interest and well-being was found.     

The Effects of Capital Mobility, Trade Openness, and Democracy on Social Spending in Latin America, 1980–1999

Empirical studies measuring the impact of globalization on social spending have appeared recently in leading journals. This study seeks to improve upon previous work by (1) employing a more sophisticated and comprehensive measure of financial openness; (2) using a more accurate measure of trade openness based on purchasing power parities; and (3) relying on social spending data that are more complete than those used by previous studies on Latin America. Our estimates suggest that several empirical patterns reported in previous work deserve a second look. We find that trade openness has a positive association with education and social security expenditures, that financial openness does not constrain government outlays for social programs, and that democracy has a strong positive association with social spending, particularly on items that bolster human capital formation.     

Making the Newest Citizens: Achieving Universal Birth Registration in Contemporary Brazil

Identity documentation is essential to secure the rights, benefits, and services that modern states provide. Historically, significant numbers of poor Brazilians lacked core documents, beginning with a birth certificate. In recent years the government has conducted a campaign to rectify this situation. We explore why the state left so many Brazilians without a birth certificate previously and why it became intent on registering all births, as reflected in recent efforts to facilitate the process. Key in this regard is the movement from a social policy orientation that excluded poor Brazilians in the informal sector to one aimed at including them.     

Law, Gender and Sexuality: The Making of a Field

The papers in the following section arose from a roundtable discussion organised by the AHRC Research Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality, titled ‘Law, Gender and Sexuality: The Making of a Field’. Participants in the roundtable were asked to reflect on the challenges confronting law, gender and sexuality (LGS) as an area of research and scholarship, and to ask what benefits, possibilities, risks and dangers accompany the establishment of a research terrain. The papers address such questions as ‘what is a field and how is it made?’; ‘has LGS attained the status of a field?’; ‘what does it mean to locate oneself within the field of LGS?’; and ‘what is the relationship between feminism and LGS?’. They also consider possible future directions for the field of LGS. Together, the papers provide a variety of differing, and sometimes conflicting, perspectives on the developing body of intellectual and political activity that might be labelled ‘law, gender and sexuality’.