Afterword: turning and twisting histories of women’s education: reading reflexively and diffractively

ABSTRACT

The Afterword discusses continuities and differences in how researchers are positioned in feminist themes and emerging feminist perspectives as they play out in debates around researcher reflexivity and diffraction as methodological strategies. The first section of the Afterword highlights the ongoing commitment to reflexivity when generating knowledge in women’s and gender history. The second part focuses on the challenge to reflexivity posed by diffractive methodologies that argue that knowledge is created from being entangled in the world, rather than reflecting on or during the production of historical work. This section discusses two examples of diffractive practice in archival research taken from the special issue. The third section outlines diffractive reading in more detail and provides two examples of diffractive reading of texts. Finally, the Afterword invites readers to undertake a diffractive reading of the articles in the special issue and provides some questions about diffraction for consideration.     

How the Sublime Comes to Matter in Eighteenth Century Legal Discourse – an Irigarayan Critique of Hobbes, Locke and Burke

This article examines the way in which the sublime comes to matter within various eighteenth century legal discourses, particularly in the work of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Edmund Burke. The essay seeks also to relate the theoretical works of these philosophers and lawyers to practical legislative developments of the period, in particular, the passage of the Black Act in1726 and the Marriage Act in 1753. The sublime comes to matter to the law in this period in the sense that philosophical conceptualizations of the sublime in terms of power and transcendence become increasingly significant to representations of the nature and function of English law. Such theoretical accounts of the law as are found in the work of Hobbes, Locke, and Burke, moreover, translate into juridical practices designed to affirm the status of the law as a transcendentally sublime source of political authority in the eighteenth century. This article subjects that understanding of the law to a feminist critique that draws upon the work of the French philosopher, Luce Irigaray. It will be shown that the sublime within Western thought is generally associated with a sense of dread as to the possibility of the annihilation of consciousness. This ontological dread entails, in Jean Francois Lyotard’s terms, a recognition of the possibility of “nothing further happening” to the subject. Within Western discourse, this dread is projected onto, or made material in the form of, some ‘other’ that is, in Irigaray’s estimation, most usually feminine. Thus, the sublime comes to matter in this second, ontological sense and it is within this context that the transcendental sublime emerges as a response to a sense of dread that is projected on to some material, feminine, or feminised, ‘other’. In eighteenth century legal discourse, this ‘other’ take the form of the ‘state of nature’, or the revolutionary mob, or the revolutionary female who signifies more than anything a return to animality and chaos –an ontological and political fall from grace. The Black Act and the Marriage Act, with their shared emphasis upon the preservation of political stability and patriarchal property rights, may in this context be regarded as manifestations in the legal domain of the metaphysical principles of the transcendental sublime – with its emphasis upon an escape from, and a control of, the dreadful, feminine ‘other’. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Mental Health Services for ‘Difficult’ women: Reflections on Some Recent Developments

The provision of mental health services to women has come sharply into focus for providers of secure psychiatric services in the UK. Women's services are being developed in response to the known risks of mixed-sex provision, and a growing appreciation of the ways that women in secure services can be further disadvantaged by their minority status. Our intention here is to present evidence and reflections to help inform this development. The evidence is drawn from our recent work in this field, which includes carrying out a review of local mental health services for ‘difficult’ women, and developing and piloting a national training programme for staff working with women in secure services. The reflections we offer are informed by the conviction that taking social inequalities into account is central to making sense of women's mental health difficulties, and improving service responses to women's needs. While there are signs that many mental health workers in secure services are beginning to share these convictions, the challenge now is to provide the necessary authorization, training and support that will enable them to translate these understandings into empowerment practice with women.     

The effect of school district and municipal government financial health information on local tax election outcomes: evidence from fiscal stress labels in Ohio

A key informational asymmetry in local public finance is the lack of information available to local residents regarding the financial status of the school districts and local governments in which they reside. Given that voters in many states must approve property and income tax increases for these local entities, the lack of full information on the financial status of these local entities may lead to sub-optimal voting decisions. State financial intervention systems have begun to make financial problems more salient to residents, potentially alleviating these informational asymmetries. This paper examines the effect of the Ohio fiscal stress labeling program on voting outcomes and the tax-setting behavior of local officials for school district and municipal government tax referendums. We use a difference-in-differences approach to examine data from over 3000 school district and 2300 municipality property tax elections from 2004 to 2012. While we find minimal evidence that the yes vote share changed for school district referendums following fiscal stress label receipt, we find very large increases (15 to 23 percentage points) in the likelihood of referendum passage for school districts following label receipt. We do not find much evidence of changes in the likelihood of passage or the yes vote share following label receipt for municipalities, but we do find that these voting outcomes rise following label removal. We also find that local officials do not appreciably change their tax-setting behavior in response to these labels, as the size and likelihood of property tax proposal are largely unchanged following label receipt or removal.     

Is an Early Start the Best Start?: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Political Science Summer Bridge Program

Summer bridge programs are supposed to connect a graduating high school senior’s summer to their first semester in college, easing the transition away from home and into a university setting. Although research is plentiful on the programs, assessments regarding the overall effectiveness of such programs have been mixed (e.g., Cabrera, Miner, and Milem 2013 Cabrera, Nolan, Danielle Miner, and Jeffrey Milem. 2013. “Can A Summer Bridge Program Impact First-Year Persistence And Performance?: A Case Study Of The New Start Summer Program.” Research in Higher Education 54(5): 481–498.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Douglas and Attewell 2014 Douglas, Daniel, and Paul Attewell. 2014. “The Bridge and the Troll Underneath: Summer Bridge Programs and Degree Completion.” American Journal of Education 121(1): 87–109.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Grayson 2003 Grayson, J. Paul. 2003. “The Consequences of Early Adjustment to University.” Higher Education 46(4): 411–429.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). As Cabrera, Miner, and Milem (2013 Cabrera, Nolan, Danielle Miner, and Jeffrey Milem. 2013. “Can A Summer Bridge Program Impact First-Year Persistence And Performance?: A Case Study Of The New Start Summer Program.” Research in Higher Education 54(5): 481–498.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) note, many of the studies collect data from participants in a one-time satisfaction survey and/or do not have an equivalent group of students who did not participate in the program from which to compare effectiveness. Our proposed study mitigates these flaws by employing a nonequivalent-groups quasi-experiment (NEG). Our bridge program—called Early Start (ES)— tapped into social, emotional, and academic engagement, as we sought to integrate the students into the university and school communities while holding high expectations and actively involving them in their own learning (Tinto 2004 Tinto, Vincent. 2004. Student Retention and Graduation-Facing the Truth, Living with the Consequences. Washington, DC: The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. [Google Scholar]). Results suggest that not only were students enrolled in our program better socially and emotionally integrated into the university during their first year but they also scored better on content-based political science questions at the end of the fall semester, compared to their non-Early Start peers. Finally, aggregated data indicate an increase in retention for Early Start participants.     

Health Literacy in High-Risk Youth: A Descriptive Study of Children in Residential Care

Although previous studies have demonstrated that children in out-of-home care present with elevated levels of mental and physical health, educational, and behavioral problems, little is known about youth's ability to manage health care needs or access health information and support. This study evaluates the health literacy skills of 229 youth served in a residential setting. Results revealed that the majority of youth demonstrated some level of risk, and anywhere from one-quarter to one-third demonstrated significant health literacy deficits suggesting a need for additional research and treatment intervention. Implications, study limitations, and recommendations for practice and future research are discussed.     

Women's Liberation at the Grass Roots: a view from some English towns,c.1968–1990

ABSTRACT

Historical scholarship on the women's liberation movement (WLM) across the UK is as yet underdeveloped. This article argues against the commonly held assumption that London socialist-feminist accounts speak for England as a whole. This article examines the history of the WLM in England as refracted through a range of different English urban localities, specifically Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Bolton and Leeds/Bradford. It attempts to show the importance of local studies to appreciate the diversity of the English women's liberation movement. The movement had very many unifying characteristics, but how they played out across the country differed according to local contexts.