Punishing coaching: bukatsudō and the normalisation of coach violence

At the beginning of 2013 two independent cases made the headlines of Japanese newspapers. The first case involved the suicide of a high school student that was allegedly triggered after he received several beatings from his basketball coach for failing to perform well enough. The second case involved fifteen female judoka, including competitors in the London Olympics, who filed a letter with the Japanese Olympic Committee complaining of violence by two coaches, including the head coach of the women's team. Both these cases caused a national debate about the practice of taibatsu (corporal punishment) in sport in Japan. This article is based on the outcomes of focus groups that were conducted with students at ten universities from across Japan in 2013. In particular, we examine the ways in which students’ normalised acts of violence from coaches, accepting them as necessary forms of discipline and, in many cases interpreting such acts as indicative of caring coaching and kindness. Further, we consider the responses of students, which suggest that these forms of corporal punishment are necessary in producing a uniquely Japanese form of identity. The complex relationship between sport and education in Japan suggests that attempts to change the ways in which bukatsudō operate, including coach/athlete relationships, is problematic and may require major reconsideration of the role of sport in education.     

The Purse Strings of Peace

This article examines how commerce promotes peace between states. It diverges from the commercial peace literature and its predominant focus on international trade by looking inside the domestic economy to see how its structure influences conflict. Drawing on selectorate theory, I argue that substantial quantities of public property generate fiscal autonomy for governments, strengthen their hold on the domestic reigns of power, and create opportunities to pursue more aggressive foreign policies. A series of statistical tests shows that greater quantities of publicly held assets increase the likelihood that a state will participate in military conflict. Given that the predominance of privately held property is one of the defining institutions of capitalism, these results support the claim that capitalism promotes peace.     

Identity orientation and stakeholder engagement—the corporatisation of elite schools

Identity orientation provides a means to understand the social motivations of organisational relationships and organisational policy and practices. This study uses identity orientation to understand the highly marketised context of independent ‘elite’ schools in Australia and how they relate to stakeholders to straddle their roles as social institutions that are increasingly required to operate in a corporate manner. Interviews with managers in quite new school roles such as marketing communication and business management were conducted in non‐government schools to understand the schools' external orientations, coveted internal member traits, and frames of reference. The study shows that, in contrast to existing literature on the rhetoric of schools as focusing on ‘the child’, there was a strong emphasis on individualistic orientations in schools that saw stakeholders in instrumental terms of resources and connections, saw teachers as providing an innovative and leading edge, and used other prestigious schools as their frame of reference. To a lesser extent, schools would also be interested in the relationships with families, teachers, and the community for their own means. There were very few instances where the identity orientation was contributing to society, instead, focusing on university and network outcomes for pupils. Using identity orientation provides a theoretical lens to connect organisational governance to stakeholder engagement by providing insights into an organisation's identity including practices and behaviours, in relation to others. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preferential Treatment, Social Justice, and the Part-time Law Student – The Case for the Value-added Part-time Law Degree

There has been growing pressure to increase diversity in legal education and the legal profession in England and Wales. While this has focused upon the absence of certain groups such as women, ethnic minorities, and the disabled, there has been no specific discussion of part-time law students. Drawing on questionnaires and focus groups with part-time law students across England and Wales, this article examines how their background and experiences may hamper their ability to participate and succeed in higher education and legal practice. In response to the consistent omission of part-time students' needs from attempts to enhance social diversity in universities and the legal profession, it also argues that affirmative action is now necessary and justified in respect of these students. Pragmatic suggestions are made for a contextual approach to affirmative action for part-time law students which adds value to their degree. Finally, the potential effects of affirmative action on part-time law students themselves and upon the gatekeepers to the legal profession are explored.     

Dental Age Estimation: A Test of the Reliability of Correctly Identifying a Subject Over 18 Years of Age Using the Gold Standard of Chronological Age as the Comparator

This study was designed to test the reliability of using the third molars to demarcate between child and adult status. A total of 2000 dental panoramic tomographs were used for assessment of the calculated age using the 8‐stage system of tooth development and applied to all four third molars. The LL8 was also assessed using this 8‐stage system. For each tooth development stage, the Normal distribution and percentile summary data were estimated. The calculated dental age compared with the chronological age was statistically significantly different (p < 0.001) for both females and males giving underestimates of the true age. Comparison of single tooth dental age and chronological age was only slightly different. The most important finding is that the assignment to above or below the 18‐year threshold, in the age range 17 years to 19 years, could be wrong on up to 50% of occasions.     

The history of urban fiscal politics in America, 1830-1930: what was supposed to be versus what was and the difference it makes

Across the social sciences in America analysts routinely employ the so-called “functional“ model of the urban political machine in their explanations of the development of American urban government. They do so, however, with little knowledge of the intellectual history of this model or the actual history of American urban politics. This essay reviews the development and spread of the functional model through the social sciences and argues that it is an historical construct developed in the nineteen fifties by analysts who were admittedly more interested in creating a “usable past” for liberal political economy than in understanding urban political history. Having done this the essay then reviews recent work by urban historians and sociologists which have put the propositions of this model to the test in its ideological, political, and fiscal contexts for the years from 1830-1930. This work reveals that the image of the “all-powerful” political machines is demonstrably false. On this basis the essay argues that the persistence of this image has led to a unrealistic historical standard against which contemporary urban public administration has been unfairly judged.     

Jettisoning Illusions About the Median Mandate

We endorse G. Bingham Powell's cautionary corrective to challenge Paul Warwick's conclusions that the median mandate thesis needs to be jettisoned because there is not a close match between median voter and government left‐right positions. More to the point, however, we go beyond Powell's mild caution to challenge Warwick's rejection more assertively and thoroughly. We show his rejection mistakes responsiveness for congruence, misapprehends how and why the median mandate thesis distinguishes between those two concepts, and fails to take account of a measurement artifact associated with his survey data.