Objectivity and truth: Problems in doing feminist research

This paper examines principles of feminist research and discusses the authors' attempts to use these principles in a systematic way in their own research. Three principles of feminist research are identified: research should contribute to women's liberation through producing knowledge that can be used by women themselves; should use methods of gaining knowledge that are not oppressive; should continually develop a feminist critical perspective that questions dominant intellectual traditions and can reflect on its own development.Consciously applying these principles in a research study of the relation between changes in consciousness and the changes in the structural situation of individuals raised several methodological issues and dilemmas. These include the impossibility of creating a research process that completely erases the contradictions in the relationship between the researcher and the researched; the difficulties in analysing change as a process; the tension between the necessity of organizing the data and producing an analysis which reveals the totality of women's lives; and problems of validity, particularly those raised when the research process becomes part of the process of change.     

Politicized prisoners: From class warriors to faded rhetoric

This article examines the under-researched phenomenon of prisoner politicization in the United States and Canada, surveying a period between the prison turbulence of the 1960s to the current era of administrative control. The theoretical grounds for the concept of prisoner politicization are delineated, and a measure of politicization is constructed based on research undertaken at three British Columbia penitentiaries, involving direct interviews with prisoners. The decline of prisoner politicization over the past decade is related to innovative penal strategies that re-individualize prisoner orientations and discourage potential alliances between prisoners and non-prisoner activist groups.     

The developmentally handicapped witness

This study compared the ability of 30 developmentally handicapped (DH) and 30 nonhandicapped individuals in their ability to report on witnessed events. Participants watched a film clip and were asked to respond to five different types of questions about it. Misleading or leading questions were embedded in three of the question types Results indicated that in response to free recall and very general questions, DH participants did not provide as complete responses as did nonhandicapped participants, although the information provided by both groups tended to be quite accurate. Both groups, and particularly DH individuals, were less accurate in responding to more focused shortanswer recall questions. In response to correct leading specific and statement questions, requiring recognition of the information provided, DH and control participants were comparable in their performance. DH participants had greater difficulty with misleading recall questions and false leading specific and statement questions. Results are discussed in terms of optimizing eyewitness accuracy in DH individuals.     

THE FIRST TWO OIL SHOCKS: POLICY RESPONSE AND EFFECTIVENESS

A simultaneous, comparative review of the attempts by different countries and country groupings to react to the economic problems caused by the two oil shocks. of the 1970s can help us evaluate the relative success of those efforts. In general, the world has yet to recover from those shocks, with various combinations of slow growth, high unemployment, high inflation rates, and substantial governmental andlor international debt still facing countries everywhere. It appears that different combinations of traditional fiscal and monetary policy largely shifted the temporal impact of the shocks or altered the trade-offs among problem categories. It also appears that energy policy may be a more powerful tool with which to approach the possibility of future shocks than any combination of economic policies.