Normal responses to sexually anatomically detailed dolls

The behaviors and verbalizations of normal, preschool age boys and girls during interactions with sexually anatomically detailed (SAD) dolls were examined. A structured, nonsuggestive interview with each child was videotaped, and five behaviors and five verbalizations were coded for each of five phases of the interview. A two-way ANOVA (gender × phase) showed that during those phases when the dolls were undressed, both boys and girls showed more sexual exploratory play, aggressive behavior which was nonsexual, and active avoidance. Across all phases, nonsexual aggression accounted for 31% of the boys' and 22% of the girls' total responses. Behavioral and verbal sexual exploratory play represented 42% of the boys' responses and 50% of the girls' responses. In contrast, sexually aggressive behavior accounted for only 1% and 2% of the boys' and girls' responses, respectively. Girls interacted with the dolls more than did boys. Additionally, girls demonstrated more affection to the dolls than did the boys, and boys displayed more anxiety with the dolls than did girls. Investigators should be cautious as to inferences about preschoolers' interactions with SAD dolls, especially interactions of a sexual or aggressive nature which do not clearly depict fondling or intercourse.     

Crime scene investigation in child-abuse cases

Although child abuse and neglect continue to appear in the medical literature frequently, little regarding scene investigation in such cases has been discussed. Many explanations have been offered for this deficit, the most common one is based on the time delay between infliction of the injury and discovery. At the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, child-abuse cases submitted for consultation repeatedly show deficits in the scene investigation and its documentation. Since the discovery of child abuse is dependent on either physical evidence of repetitive punitive measures or an injury pattern not in agreement with the alleged circumstances, it behooves the assigned investigator to make every attempt to document the scene(s) as in any other criminal investigation.     

Concentrations of ethanol in two segments of the vascular system.

The time courses of capillary and venous blood concentrations of ethanol after oral administration of 0.30 and 0.34 g/kg doses of ethanol to two normal human subjects indicated that, by interpolation, equal capillary and venous concentrations are reached at only one time, and this time varied with the subject. The capillary/venous blood concentration ratios varied markedly as a function of time in both subjects over the entire observation period of 4 h.     

The New Chum girl: Upending Colonial Clichés in Lilian Turner's Emigration Novel

This essay analyses Lilian Turner's Three New Chum Girls (1910) to show how settler authors played with colonial clichés as part of a critical reaction to shifting imperialist and nationalist ideologies at the turn of the century. In particular, Turner redefines the derogatory colonial term “new chum”—commonly used to describe a recent emigrant in the settler colonies—to suggest what the welcome of new arrivals ought to be like. Yet if her deliberate reworking of stereotypes consequently contains an element of wish-fulfilment, the narrative also offers a startlingly stark portrayal of settler life. Emigration, Turner contends in the novel, is neither easy nor a solution to problems at home. Nor does settler Australia provide a convenient space for fortune-seeking sojourns. Turner thus dismantles two clusters of common clichés: emigration as a pat ending in fiction and settlers' return to the homeland as an equally expedient plot twist. The self-irony that runs through much of her intertextual rewriting of both metropolitan fiction and male-coded settler writing reveals how emigration and return were being imagined and written about differently in the settler colonies and how Turner was utilising the exposure of false expectations to promote her vision of a welcoming settler community.     

The Limits of Theoretical Integration

The integration of theoretical knowledge is often seen as the ultimate goal of research activity in the social sciences. In this article I explore limits in the form and degree to which our knowledge can be integrated, as well as limits in the worth and desirability of some kinds of integration. Most of the analysis depends on drawing two kinds of distinctions in theoretical activity—between theoretical and metatheoretical work and among different types of integration in each kind of work. Using primarily examples from theory and research on justice issues, I articulate three different ways in which work at the theoretical level can be integrated. Each type represents a distinct kind of knowledge development, requires different criteria of evaluation, and involves a varying degree of difficulty to achieve. Nevertheless, each of these types of integration is well worth pursuing. Justice research shows evidence of work involving all three types. Using a somewhat broader range of examples, I also distinguish three different ways in which metatheoretical work might be integrated. Again, each type is quite distinct and should be evaluated in different ways. However, each of these types is significantly more difficult to achieve than any of the types of theoretical integration. Moreover, I suggest that the last metatheoretical type—involving the integration of entire strategies, perspectives or schools of thought—is probably not even a desirable goal. As a consequence of these analyses, I recommend (1) that social scientists in general (and justice researchers in particular) focus most of our attention on one or another of the types of theoretical integration, and (2) that we articulate clearly which type of integration we are pursuing and evaluate our success at the effort using only the appropriate criteria. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Social Justice Conference in Bremen, Germany, 10–12 March 2005.

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