Unequaled Acts of Injustice: Pan‐Indigenous Encounters with Colonial School Systems

This essay reviews a recent film dealing with the forced removal of Australian Aboriginal children from their communities by the Australian government for the best part of 60 years. It uses the review to draw parallels between Australian Aboriginal ‘stolen generations,’ the colonial schooling experienced by the indigenous Maori of New Zealand, the ‘mission school syndrome’ suffered by First Nations people in North America, and the routine punishment for language offenders experienced by the Coorg people from India. Anachronistic as they may seem, such racist policies are not relics of the past but features of modern governance that have only been abandoned relatively recently. In some cases, their ramifications are only just beginning to be felt. Some of the implications for criminology are touched upon. The film is situated in the context of existing video and literary materials dealing with the issue of schooling as a tool for assimilation that readers may find equally informative.     

The ABCs of Communication

People in every culture tend to regard the way they do things as"normal."This includes the communicative practices and norms that people learn from interacting inside their culture.But in regard to ways of speaking,what may seem natural to one person may be odd or misunderstood by someone outside that culture.What seems natural to the speaker is actually ritualized behavior,generated and governed by cultural norms.     

Rules of the Tongue

I believe Chinese teachers here have the best intentions in the world. Schools must measure and assess how students learn, yet evaluating language learning is a particularly slippery slope.     

Global Democracy: A Symposium on a New Political Hope

The idea that the values and norms of democracy can also be applied to global politics is increasingly debated in academe. The six authors participating in this symposium are all advocates of global democracy, but there are significant differences in the way they envision its implementation. Some of the contributors discuss if and how substantial changes undertaken by states, mostly in their foreign policies, may also generate positive consequences in global politics. Other contributors address the nature of the international arena and the possible reforms it should undergo starting with the reform of international organizations. The debate combines theoretical aspects with normative proposals that could also be advanced in the political arena and offers a wide range of perspectives on the attempts to achieve a more democratic global political community.     

Members of the international commission for the history of representative and parliamentary institutions as at 31 march 1984

F.L. Carsten: The First Austrian Republic 1918–1938: A Study Based on British and Austrian Documents. (Gower Publishing 1986, pp. 309; ISBN 0 566 05162 1; £22.50.)

A.R. Peters: Anthony Eden at the Foreign Office 1931–1938. (Aldershot: Gower Publishing and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986; pp. viii, 402; ISBN 0 5660 5117 6; £25.00.)

Brian Girvin and Roland Sturm (eds.): Politics and Society in Contemporary Ireland. (Aldershot: Gower Publishing, 1986; pp. ix, 199; ISBN 0 566 05135 4; £18.50.)

Klaus von Beyme: Political Parties in Western Democracies (Aldershot: Gower Publishing, 1985; pp. xiii, 444; ISBN 0 566 00570 0 £25.00.)

Gordon Smith: Democracy in Western Germany: Parties and Politics in the Federal Republic (3rd edition, Gower, 1986; pp. xi, 243: ISBN 0 566 05267 9 (pb); £6.95.)

George C. Malcher: Poland's Politicized Army: Communists in Uniform (New York, Praeger Publishers, 1984: pp. xvi, 287; ISBN 0 275 91221 3; £34.95.)

I. Crewe and M. Harrop (eds): Political Communications: The General Election Campaign of 1983 (Cambridge University Press, 1986; pp. vii, 335; ISBN 0 521 30425 3; £25.00.)     

How Resilient are Labour Markets to Natural Disasters? The Case of the 1998 Bangladesh Flood

Natural disasters devastate economies as they impede capital accumulation. The resilience of labour markets is crucial for the poor who rely on labour to reduce risk. We evaluate how the 1998 ‘flood of the century’ affected wages in Bangladesh. We find short-term declines in agricultural and non-agricultural wages. Agricultural workers who moved towards non-agricultural employment to cope benefitted through a lower percentage reduction in short-term wages. Endowed with human capital, salaried workers were unable to mitigate income risk. Extending the eligibility of credit access or relief programmes may preserve local businesses and their employees in the years following a flood.     

Routine forensic use of the mitochondrial 12S ribosomal RNA gene for species identification

Since July 2004, Mitotyping Technologies has been amplifying and sequencing a approximately 150 base pair fragment of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that codes for 12S ribosomal RNA, to identify the species origin of nonhuman casework samples. The approximately 100 base pair sequence product is searched at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST and the species match is reported. The use of this assay has halved the number of samples for which no mtDNA results are obtained and is especially useful on hairs and degraded samples. The availability of species determination may aid forensic investigators in opening or closing off lines of inquiry where a highly probative but challenging sample has been collected.     

Molecular Assay for Screening and Quantifying DNA in Biological Evidence: The Modified Q‐TAT Assay*

Abstract: A method is described for the quantitation of total human and male DNA. Q‐TAT utilizes end‐point, multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the amelogenin and SRY loci to quantify DNA and incorporates a cloned nonhuman template to detect PCR inhibition. Standard curves of fluorescence from amelogenin or SRY amplicons were generated from amplification of known amounts of NIST traceable SRM‐female or SRM‐male DNA. Curves showed good linearity up to 500 pg of SRM‐template (R² > 0.99) and reliably estimated total and male DNA content in casework samples. The nonhuman pRL_null template included in each PCR was a sensitive indicator of known PCR inhibitors including EDTA, hemin, blue denim dye, and humic acid. Finally, the SRY amplicon was a sensitive indicator of male DNA and, in mixtures, could reliably estimate male DNA present in an excess of female DNA. The Q‐TAT multiplex is a reliable quantitation method for forensic DNA typing.