A World ofDifference

正One of the great foreign misconceptions about China is its homogeneity.The idea that China’s vast lands are populated by nearly 1.4 billion members of an identical culture,that there is somehow an archetypal Chinese landscape,a Chinese person,or that spoken Chinese is a singular language,rather than a family of languages at least comparable to that of the entire European continent,are all at times prevalent concepts in the West.Despite     

The terrorist mind: II. Typologies, psychopathologies, and practical guidelines for investigation

Part I of this two-part article presents a psychological and political analysis of the terrorist mind. Part II describes the major current psychological classifications and typologies of domestic and foreign terrorism. Explanations are offered in terms of our current understanding of the personality and psychopathology of terroristic violence. A heuristic model of classifying terrorism in terms of personality and psychopathology is presented. In addition to guiding further research and theory on the psychology of terrorism, this model has immediate practical application to the investigation and interrogation of terrorist suspects.     

The terrorist mind: I. A psychological and political analysis

Part I of this two-part article describes the major forms of domestic and foreign terrorism, the motivations of the perpetrators, and the psychological, social, and political forces that contribute to this most particular expression of violence. The article addresses the question of whether all terrorists are sick or evil and considers the possibility that some forms of terrorism, however odious their result, can be a rational response to a situation of perceived intolerable injustice. The article examines what motivates people to join terrorist groups and what may later move them to leave the terrorist lifestyle. Special consideration is given to the psychological and religious dynamics of suicide terrorism and what might motivate some people to give their lives for their cause. Finally, the article offers recommendations for a multipronged approach to dealing with this modern yet ageless scourge.     

Adaptations of Aboriginal justice in the United States

Aboriginal justice in the United States is unique for two reasons. First, Aboriginal Natives subscribed to the Harmony Ethos, a system whereby Natives did not detach themselves from nature. Unlike Western cultures, they lived cooperatively with ‘Mother Earth’, ‘Father Sky’ and everything these two entities represented. Secondly, no other group in US history has been subjected to the magnitude of deliberate policies aimed at their destruction. Manifest physical genocide towards Native peoples was exercised and sanctioned by the US government until the 1890s while the more subtle practice of ‘cultural genocide’ continues to the present. Yet, in spite of these assaults on Native culture, attributes of their Aboriginal ways have not only survived but have experienced a resurgence within the past decade. Unfortunately, it appears that the more Native traditions survive, the more adamant are local, state, and federal efforts towards destroying any remnants of traditional values and customs including tribal autonomy.     

Age estimation from teeth in children and adolescents

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate the dental formulas according to age because of possible changes during the last decades. From these dental formulas, the median age of emergence for the permanent teeth was deduced. The study population corresponded to the 1 to 15 year-old children who had consulted either a pediatric dentist or orthodontist in the city of Nice (France). Data were collected from the 5,848 patients' charts that included an orthopantomography. This permitted the observation of emerged teeth and agenesis. Bar charts were used to indicate the dental formula according to age. There was no significant difference in the emergence pattern of both controlateral maxillary and mandibular teeth. Only the anterior tooth emergence significantly differed according to the maxillary. The lower central incisor was the lone tooth with a median age earlier than others; the remaining teeth had an age equivalent to those of previously estimates.     

POLICY RESEARCH AS SOCIAL SCIENCE: OUTFLANKING THE VALUE DILEMMA

Social scientists fear that policy research compromises their objectivity. As a result, policy science is becoming a separate discipline which is accorded lower status that other fields of social inquiry. However, the history, sociology and psychology of science show that the elaboration of robust social theory would be aided by a more intimate relation between policy research and academic social science than currently obtains. The traditional canons of value freedom, which have been invoked to justify the independence of social science from policy, misrepresent the relation between facts and values in science. Objective knowledge is consequent on dispute and triangulation by a many-valued community of fallible social scientists; but it does not eventuate from consensual value neutralism. Social knowledge interacts with social values to change phenomena our theories represent. This self-restructuring characteristic of social events warrants singular attention by social scientists. Policy researchers are in a particularly opportune position to provide that attention.