Religion as an insulator of delinquency in schools

While much of the current social control literature has examined the role of religiosity in delinquency, very little attention has been given to its effect on school delinquency. This study sought to fill that void by examining the effectiveness of social bond theory in restraining students from committing school delinquency in a rural Southern county. Further, given the literature that suggests that delinquency varies along developmental stages, the authors also sought to determine the effect of the revised social bond along 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th grades. Findings indicate that social control theory was moderately successful in explaining school delinquency, while religion achieved significance in the 6th, 8th, and 12th grades, but not the 10th grade. Suggestions for practitioners and policy makers are also discussed. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Criminal Justice Association, Raleigh, NC, 2004.     

Sa`id Ahmad Al-Jinahi’s I was in Dhufar: gendered militarization and modern space in revolutionary Oman

Sa`id Ahmad Al-Jinahi’s journalistic account of the Dhufar Revolution (1965–1976) seeks to define an aspirational revolutionary modernity by describing how militarization has the potential to transform gender roles in Dhufar. For Jinahi, revolutionary masculinity is the combination of an ideological commitment to armed liberationist struggle and the physical ability to master Dhufar’s challenging natural environment. Inside militarized spaces, both men and women may participate in this masculinity. Once Jinahi encounters women outside of these spaces, however, he sees them as sexual objects rather than as revolutionary comrades. This article argues that Jinahi articulates an aspirational modernity by, first, connecting Dhufar to a global space of liberationist struggles and, second, emphasizing an ideologically infused and environmentally savvy masculinity that strictly limits female participation to militarized spaces and proscribes women’s agency outside the physical boundaries of revolutionary armed struggle.     

Beyond the scarcity scare: reframing the discourse of hunger with an eco-mind

Solutions to world hunger continue to be impeded by a frame – a set of assumptions – that keeps much of humanity focusing narrowly on quantitative growth. The result is greater food production and greater hunger. Yet, across the world another way of seeing, one grounded in the relational insights of ecology, is transforming food systems in ways that both enhance flora and fauna and strengthen human relationships, enabling farmers to gain a greater voice in food production and fairer access to the food produced.