British women's anti-suffragism and the forward policy, 1908-14

This article reinstates prominent female leaders within the organised opposition to women's suffrage in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. More specifically, it focuses upon the evolution of a positive, constructive anti-suffragism, labelled the Forward Policy by Mary Ward and other women campaigners who were active in the period leading up to the First World War. These women participated in contemporary citizenship debates through their writings, through their commitment to social action, and through their sometimes problematic relationship with male antisuffragism. The article concludes that women's anti-suffragism deserves closer study in its own right, and through its supporters’ own records, as well in relation to suffragism and the wider women's movement.     

A Heterotopian Analysis of Maritime Refugee Incidents

Given the persistent significance of states in the determination of legal identities of people on the move, a consideration of the construction of people as legal (or illegal) migrants, refugees, or asylum-seekers must also recognize that these determinations take place in conjunction with the simultaneous processes through which spaces such as sovereign states or ships carrying asylum-seekers are constructed. A heterotopian analysis of the Tampa and the SIEVX of 2001 allows for a consideration of the ways in which notions of sovereignty, territory and governmentality work to stabilize ambiguous situations produced by the conflictual discourses of human rights and state power.     

The interplay of (semiotic) technologies and genre: the case of the selfie

ABSTRACT

The selfie is one of the most widely publicized, criticized, and debated visual phenomena of our time. However, formulating a definition of the selfie is not straightforward, as visual clues – be they representational or compositional – alone are not sufficient for identification. Recognizing an image as a selfie, rather than a portrait, often requires viewers to interpret the image in relation to the technological and sociocutural context in which the photo was taken and shared. In this paper, we consider the technological conditions that have shaped the evolution of the selfie as a visual genre. Central to our discussion is the premise that the selfie is not simply a genre for self-representation, but means of generating various perspectives: that of the selfie maker, the represented visual participant, and the viewer identification. This unique perspective-generating affordance of the selfie is both facilitated and constrained by the various technologies involved in selfie practices. On the one hand, the technological and physical constraints of the smart phone camera give rise to a specific form of “distorted” look which makes certain types of selfie possible. On the other hand, social media platforms facilitate the sharing of selfies, which results in increasingly stylized and creative ways in which perspectives of the self can be represented, negotiated, and, in the case of selfies manipulated via apps, augmented.     

Al-Qaeda’s Propaganda Decoded: A Psycholinguistic System for Detecting Variations in Terrorism Ideology

We describe a novel hybrid method of content analysis that combines the speed of computerized text analysis with the contextual sensitivity of human raters, and apply it to speeches that were given by major leaders of Al-Qaeda (AQ)—both in its “core” Afghanistan/Pakistan region and its affiliate group in Iraq. The proposed “Ideology Extraction using Linguistic Extremization” (IELEX) categorization method has acceptable levels of inter-rater and test-retest reliabilities. The method uncovered subtle (and potentially non-conscious) differences in the emphases that Usama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri put on the various components of their ideological justification for terrorism. We show how these differences were independently recognized as the crux of the rift in AQ, based on documents that were confiscated in Abbottabad following Usama Bin Laden’s assassination. Additionally, several of the ideological discrepancies that we detected between AQ “core” and its Iraqi affiliate correspond to schisms that presumably led to the splintering of AQ Iraq and the rise of ISIS. We discuss IELEX’s capability to quantify a variety of grievance-based terrorist ideologies, along with its use towards more focused and efficient counter-terrorism and counter-messaging policies.     

Goal Setting and Self-Efficacy Among Delinquent, At-Risk and Not At-Risk Adolescents

Setting clear achievable goals that enhance self-efficacy and reputational status directs the energies of adolescents into socially conforming or non-conforming activities. This present study investigates the characteristics and relationships between goal setting and self-efficacy among a matched sample of 88 delinquent (18 % female), 97 at-risk (20 % female), and 95 not at-risk adolescents (20 % female). Four hypotheses related to this were tested. Findings revealed that delinquent adolescents reported fewest goals, set fewer challenging goals, had a lower commitment to their goals, and reported lower levels of academic and self-regulatory efficacy than those in the at-risk and not at-risk groups. Discriminant function analysis indicated that adolescents who reported high delinquency goals and low educational and interpersonal goals were likely to belong to the delinquent group, while adolescents who reported high educational and interpersonal goals and low delinquency goals were likely to belong to the not at-risk group. The at-risk and not at-risk groups could not be differentiated. A multinomial logistic regression also revealed that adolescents were more likely to belong to the delinquent group if they reported lower self-regulatory efficacy and lower goal commitment. These findings have important implications for the development of prevention and intervention programs, particularly for those on a trajectory to delinquency. Specifically, programs should focus on assisting adolescents to develop clear self-set achievable goals and support them through the process of attaining them, particularly if the trajectory towards delinquency is to be addressed.     

Baseline subjective stress predicts 1-year outcomes among drug court clients

Psychological stress has long been known to predict negative changes in physical and behavioral health in the general population. The same relationships have been found in research on drug abusers. In this longitudinal study, 477 clients of two Kentucky drug courts were followed for 1 year to examine the relationship between subjective stress at intake and outcomes 1 year after the baseline of this 18-month drug court program. Greater baseline subjective stress was significantly associated with poorer employment, substance use, criminal justice, and health outcomes at 1-year follow-up, even after adjusting for selected demographic characteristics and baseline levels of the outcomes of interest. If these results are replicated in these and other drug courts, then a stress reduction treatment trial within the drug court context should be attempted and evaluated.     

The U.S. Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs: current status and future considerations

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) drug testing standards were published in 1988 and revised in 1994, 1998, and 2004. In 2004, significant revisions defining, standardizing, and requiring specimen validity testing on Federal employee donor urine specimens were included. In a separate notice, HHS proposed to establish scientific and technical guidelines for the Federal Workplace Drug Testing Program to: (1) permit laboratory testing of hair, oral fluid, and sweat patch specimens in addition to urine specimens for marijuana, cocaine, phencyclidine, opiates (with focus on heroin), and amphetamines [including methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), methylenedioxyethamphetamine (MDEA), methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA)]; (2) permit use of on-site point of collection test (POCT) devices to test urine and oral fluid at collection sites; (3) permit use of instrumented initial test (screening only) facilities [IITF] to quickly identify negative specimens; and (4) add training requirement for collectors, on-site testers, and MROs. This proposal was published in the Federal Register on 13 April 2004, with a 90-day public comment period. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, HHS, reviewed those comments and is preparing the Final Notice that will define the requirements for such testing, including: specimen collection procedures, custody and control procedures that ensure donor specimen identity and integrity, testing facility, initial and confirmatory test cutoff concentrations, analytical testing methods, result review and reporting, evaluation of alternative medical explanations for presence of drug or metabolite in the donor's specimen, and laboratory certification issues. Voluntary pilot performance testing (PT) programs for each specimen type are on-going since April 2000 to determine how to prepare PT materials for specimens other than urine to evaluate laboratories' ability to routinely achieve accuracy and precision required. Certification programs will be developed using the current urine drug testing National Laboratory Certification Program model. The addition of accurate and reliable workplace drug testing using hair, oral fluid, and sweat patch specimens will complement urine drug testing, and aid in combating industries devoted to suborning drug testing through adulteration, substitution, and dilution. For example, hair testing may detect chronic drug use for up to 90 days and be useful in pre-employment situations; oral fluid testing may detect drug use in past hours and be useful in post-accident situations; sweat patch testing may be useful in follow-up drug testing and treatment programs; POCTs and IITFs may be most useful for quickly identifying specimens that are negative for drugs and indicate that the specimen is valid.     

Short Term Change in Attitude and Motivating Factors to Change Abusive Behavior of Male Batterers after Participating in a Group Intervention Program Based on the Pro-Feminist and Cognitive-Behavioral Approach

The Domestic Abuse Education Project (DAEP), in Burlington, Middlebury, and St. Albans, Vermont, is a group based domestic abuse intervention program, based in a pro-feminist and cognitive-behavioral approach for domestic violence intervention and prevention. A pre and post-test instrument was developed and implemented to determine short-term change in attitude of participants and motivating factors to change behavior, after completing the twenty-seven session program. After the program, participants reported a positive change in attitudes regarding their abusive behavior and stereotypical beliefs about women. Participants were also more motivated to change their behavior by the effect abuse has on their family relationships. However, many participants continued to agree that insecurity, jealousy, and alcohol and drug use can cause violence. The positive changes in attitude and motivational factors show that this is an effective model in changing underlying batterer attitudes that provide rationale for abusive behavior.