Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology∗

Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology, by Maurice Godelier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Pp. v+243; £9.20, £3.00 paper. (Translated by Robert Brain.)     

Changing attitudes toward cultural interchange in postwar Japan

During the period from 1868 until the outbreak of World War II, Japanese attitudes toward cultural interchange evolved from the early Meiji Era focus on absorbing ideas from the West to a vigorous projection abroad of Japanese culture during the 1930s in an effort to win friendship and justify Japan's military actions abroad. The major initiative for cultural interchange, however, always came from the Japanese government. B. Winston Kahn of Arizona State University examines the background of major cultural interchange initiatives in the postwar years in the light of Japan's prewar experiences, and assesses the degree of continuity and change in Japanese attitudes toward cultural interchange.     

B: THE NORMATIVE/IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF POLICY FORMATION FAMILY POLICY: HAS THE UNITED STATES LEARNED FROM EUROPE?

"Family Policy" is a term that is used increasingly in the U.S. to describe policies affecting children and their families. In this article, the authors focus on whether societal learning has occurred across the Atlantic with regard to family policy and what, if anything, the U.S. has learned or borrowed from Europe. The authors conclude that there has been some borrowing, albeit modest; currently, some of that learning is reflected in an expanding child policy debate.     

Characteristics of married and unmarried adolescent mothers and their partners

In a middle-class, urban-clinic sample of 275, mostly Caucasian, adolescent mothers and their partners living in Utah, three groups were identified and their psychosocial characteristics were compared. Couples married at the time of conception (N=22) enjoyed more positive responses from prospective grandparents and earned more than couples not married at the time of conception. On the other hand, these initially married youths were much more likely to be high-school dropouts, which suggests limits in their lifetime earning capacities, and they were not more likely to identify one another as sources of emotional support. Couples who married between conception and delivery (N=110) reported that prospective grandparents responded less favorably to news of the pregnancy than did relatives of the initially married couples, but while their current salaries were lower, they were much more likely to be continuing with their education. Those who married after conception also had fewer antisocial and conduct disorders than young men and women who chose to continue in a dating relationship (N=29). Overall, the couples who married after conception appeared to face less severe problems than either the initially-married couples or the steady daters.This research was supported by grant number APR 000922-02-0 from the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs to Drs. Elster and Lamb.where he and Dr. Lamb conduct research on pregnant teens, teenaged parents, and their children. Ms. Peters and Mr. Kahn are graduate students in School of Education at the University of Utah, while Ms. Tavare is a biostatistician at the University of Utah Medical Center.