The writing on the wall: Beginning or end of a girl's career?

This article draws upon the results of five years annual surveying of language performance of children aged 11 and 15 in the United Kingdom. The theme of the article concerns anomalies in the way literacy values are communicated to pupils in schools. Strong sex-typing is evident in the preferences which pupils express for certain types of writing, with girls appearing to choose the most prestigious forms of reading and writing in school terms. Girls' success in fulfilling school criteria for literary excellence does less than might be expected to advance their career prospects: on the contrary, it is suggested that the process of becoming a good writer at school is part of the general sorting process whereby girls cease to compete in other fields of work and study.     

Distinguishing between the effects of swing ratio and bias on outcomes in the US Electoral College, 1900–1992

We review a number of different statistical techniques for creating seats-votes curves and apply the most reliable of these to estimate seats-votes relationships in the US electoral college 1900–1992. We consider the now rejected claim, once firmly established as part of the common journalistic and even academic wisdom, that the US Electoral College has recently been strongly biased in favor of Republicans, and show that this claim was based largely on a confusion between bias (asymmetry in the electoral college gains earned by the votes received by different parties or candidates) and swing ratio (responsiveness of change in electoral college seat share to change in popular vote). Although there has been substantial bias during this century in the way the electoral college translates Democratic and Republican votes into electoral college seats, and for the earlier party of this century (from 1900 to 1940) that bias has been in favor of Republicans, to explain why many recent electoral college majorities have been so lopsided we must look not at bias but at swing ratio.We show that the swing ratio in the electoral college has generally been increasing since 1900, rising from an average value (1900–1924) around three to an average value (1976–1992) ranging from about five to about eight, depending upon which of the various statistical estimation techniques we use. Thus, for every one point vote share gain above 50 per cent, a winning presidential candidate in a two-candidate competition can now expect to pick up somewhere between a 5 percentage point and an 8 percentage point increase in electoral college seats—giving the illusion of mandate even for relatively close contests and frequently creating apparent landslides. We show that this historical rise in swing ratio in presidential elections is due almost entirely to changes in the responsiveness of outcomes in the US South as the influence of the Civil War slowly (very slowly) erodes. Drawing on the analysis of the determinants of bias and of swing ratio in the House of Representatives in Brady and Grofman (1991b), we show that the increases in electoral college swing can be accounted for by the nationalization of presidential competition as signaled by the decrease over time in the standard deviation of Democratic share of the two-party vote across states, and that changes in bias can be linked to changes in the magnitude of differences between the mean and the median of that distribution.     

Parallel informal negotiation: A new kind of international dialogue

Bargaining in the international arena is intrinsically positional. Negotiators are often instructed by their governments not to improvise or explore new options when they meet with their counterparts — even though the invention of additional tradeoffs or packages might well produce better results for all sides. This article describes an approach that we call parallel informal negotiation which encourages a collaborative effort between contending groups that were officially not even allowed to interact: international trade and environment policy makers.     

C. Reviews and notes bibliographies and works of reference

GRAMMAIRE ARABE A L'USAGE DES ELEVES DE L'ECOLE SPECIALE DES LANGUES ORIENTALES VIVANTES. By A. SILVESTRE de SACY. Paris 1831, reprinted Paris, Institut du Monde Arabe, [ca. 1987]. 2 vols. xxx, 608; 697pp. FF. 350.‐.

LERNWORTSCHATZ ARABISCH. By INGELORE GOLDMANN‐MUTLAK. (Modernes Arabisch, eds. Wolfgang Reuschel and Günther Krahl.) Leipzig, Verlag Enzyklopädie, 1990. 315pp. DM40.‐.

DICTIONARY OF POST‐CLASSICAL YEMENI ARABIC. By MOSHE PIAMENTA. Leiden, Brill, 1990. 2 vols. xxiv, 541 pp. Hfl 165.‐.

IRAN AND THE ARABIAN PENINSULA: ECONOMIC STRUCTURE AND ANALYSIS. London, Economist Intelligence Unit, 1991. 245pp. £145.

THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 1992. London, Europa Publications, 1991. xxii, 1024pp. £115.

KURZBIBLIOGRAPHIE: PROBLEME UND PERSPEKTIVEN EINER VOLLMITGLIEDSCHAFT DER TÜRKEI IN DER EUROPÄISCHEN GEMEINSCHAFT. Compiled by G. HANSEN. Hamburg, Deutsches Übersee‐Institut, 1989. 26pp. DM8.‐

ALBANIA. Edited by WILLIAM B. BLAND. (World Bibliographical Series, 94.) Oxford, Clio Press, 1988. xxxvi, 290pp. 1 map. £39.50.

THE TIMURID ARCHITECTURE OF IRAN AND TURAN. By L. GOLOMBEK and D. WILBER. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1988. 2 vols. 510pp., 16 colour plates, 481 black‐and‐white plates, 8 maps, 162 plans and sections, 45 text figs. US$130.‐     

The first life of Mary Wollstonecraft: Godwin’s perplexing Memoirs

ABSTRACT

The following paper was given at the MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: LIFE WORK AND LEGACY conference held on 8 March 2017 to celebrate International Women’s Day. It was hosted by the Centre for Gender Studies of the University of Hull as part of the Hull City of Culture 2017 programme.     

Pathways to cooperation among public agencies

This study explores forces that push public agencies to overcome barriers to cooperation. Case studies of nine groups of local school districts examined the pressures that shaped local participation in cooperative programs. The literature on relationships among organizations suggests six possible reasons to bear the costs of cooperation: to get more resources, to satisfy norms and values, to obtain political advantage, to solve problems, to reduce uncertainty, and to obey legal mandates. Data from the cases illustrate strengths and weaknesses of these six theoretical lines of argument as they apply to the decisions of public managers coping with complex realities. A process model of cooperation integrates the lessons of the data into a perspective that highlights the role of demands for improved performance. The model offers realistic guidance for the design of workable cooperative relationships.     

More, Less, or More of the Same? Trends in State Social Welfare Policy in the 1990s

Major reforms to cash assistance and other welfare programsin the 1990s raise questions about whether states gained newflexibility in setting social policies, and, if so, how theyexercised this flexibility. We extend prior research on statesocial policy by examining trends during the middle to late1990s in five areas of cash or near-cash policy affecting theeconomic security of low-income families. We find evidence ofsubstantial change in the generosity and the availability ofthese benefits between 1994 and 1999, along with evidence ofgreater divergence or cross-state variation in policy choices.By considering several forms of assistance simultaneously, wealso find evidence that states constricted traditional welfare-basedassistance while expanding some forms of non-welfare supportfor the working poor.     

Between subordination and she-tiger: Social constructions of white femininity in the lives of single, Protestant missionaries in China, 1905–1930

In this paper I focus on the social constructions of gender in the lives of single Protestant missionary women, exploring how they were able to expand notions of White femininity by utilising both ideologies of devotional domesticity and the personal support and professional validation of women-identified communities. I suggest that these freedoms were directly related to certain framings of indigenous Chinese men and women — specifically, the emasculated Chinese male who was seen as little threat to Western women's safety, and the victimised Chinese woman who required advocacy and rescue. To illustrate these issues, I use the writings of two White Methodist missionary women from the United States and England who served in China between 1905 and 1930, suggesting that such stretching of the parameters of femininity questioned the particularly androcentric nature of Western imperialist authority at the same time that it perpetuated the racial dynamic of a colonial social order.