Death fantasies of father-absent and father-present late adolescents

Parental perceptions of father-absent and father-present late adolescents were studied by having them create stories to selected pictures from the Thematic Apperception Test and the Michigan Pictures Test. Ratings on the manifest thematic content of the stories revealed that father-present females, but not males, introduced themes of death and loss involving the parents with significantly greater frequency than did late adolescents who had actually lost their fathers. One of the tasks of adolescence, as described in psychoanalytic writings, is decathecting internalized parental images. It is possible that father-present females produced significantly more death and loss themes because they were actively coping with their fantasies of parental loss. The significantly fewer fantasies of parental loss given by father-absent females is consistent with this psychoanalytic model which suggests that the loss of a parent at an earlier developmental period complicates the decathexis process in adolescence. Reasons for the failure to find differences between father-absent and father-present males are discussed, and suggestions for future research are provided.This research is based upon the doctoral dissertation of the first author.Received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Texas at Austin; internship at the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts. Current research interests include death and dying and adolescent personality development.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Current research interests include imaginary companions and fantasy in young children and adolescent psychosexual development.     

The United Kingdom: Federalism in Denial?

In May 1999, the United Kingdom took an historic step towardbecoming a regionalized state with the creation of the NationalAssembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament. This articleoutlines the historical background and new government architectureof the UK. This new architecture must be understood within afederal model and as a possible step toward federalism, despiteofficial aversion to the term. Serious questions must be raisedabout whether the new intergovernmental mechanisms, such asthe Joint Ministerial Committee, will be effective, given thesevere asymmetries in the new system. Instead of a multilateralintergovernmental system, such as characterizes most federalsystems, three very different, bilateral intergovernmental arrangementsare developing between each territory and London.     

Scenes from a mall: Retail training and the social exclusion of low-skilled workers

In this article we examine how post-industrial Britain and Denmark undertake vocational training for low-skilled retail workers. Specifically, we evaluate whether leaders in training skilled industrial workers are also doing the best job with low-skilled service workers. While Danish retail is increasingly becoming a haven for low-skilled workers, British workers are gaining in skills levels with the transition to services even in the retail sector. While some suggest that social democratic countries have sacrificed the political interests of low-skilled workers in order to protect core manufacturing workers, we find no evidence of this. Rather, the high expectations of vocational training in Denmark have forged barriers to the easy admission of low-skilled service workers, while the British system provides more entry points for vocational training at different levels. The structures of coordination that had narrowed the gap between white-collar and blue-collar manufacturing workers during the industrial age are creating new cleavages in the post-industrial economy.     

Latinos/as in the criminal and juvenile justice systems

With few exceptions, prior explanations of racially disparate punishment have followed a dichotomous approach (i.e., African American versus Caucasian), due in part to the limitations of existing data. Researchers have either excluded Latino/a, defendants or treated them as a monolithic group. Consequently, there is not much on Latinos/as, whose experiences with the criminal and juvenile justice systems differ from those of African American and Caucasian. This article expands on current literature by providing a thorough overview of existing literature on Latino/as. It critiques this body of literature and lists ten common methodological flaws that may contribute to findings of equal treatment. Finally, it provides a concise summary of the main subgroups within the umbrella term ‘Latino/a’ to highlight the heterogeneity within this classification.     

Digital rights management (DRM) and the development of mobile content in Europe

If mobile content is going to be a success, it is important that the content provided to the end users is of high quality and that it creates value for the end users. Therefore, it is important that the content producers can protect their copyrights in order to be able to earn money on the production of high value content. Due to “Everything-over-IP” (i.e. a single Internet Protocol platform for both voice and data traffic) and convergence, including the extension of the media sector to the mobile sector, more distribution channels are made available for content. In this situation, DRM can play an important role as it enables the content producers to better control and bill their content although it is distributed over several different distribution channels and networks.This paper looks at the possibilities of DRM for the development of mobile content markets. It will in detail look at the current legal problems and possibilities that are associated with DRM and mobile content, i.e. the national borders due to national legal systems, the harmonisation at EU level, the problems with copies for personal use, the enabling of control over copyrights and the legal protection of DRM systems. Based on the analysis of the legal situation, the outcomes on the development of mobile content markets are analysed.