Ideological and pedagogical tensions in an environmental sustainability education project: A review of adult education practices around Lake Fundudzi,South Africa

ABSTRACT

Research in poor communities in South Africa faces intellectual challenges and tensions which offer lessons for evaluating environmental education (EE). This article illuminates five such tensions that emerged during the course of an adult environmental education programme, implemented from 1999 to 2002, in communities surrounding the catchment of Lake Fundudzi in South Africa: tensions arose between traditional and modern concepts of community; between traditional and post-apartheid structures of local governance; between liberal empowerment and traditional conservationist ideologies; and also within and between environmental ideologies and research paradigms. Paramount among the lessons learned is the need to develop multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary (MIT) practices that are sensitive to local community and environmental needs, and to solutions expressed through local residents, community workers and academics – in other words, the recognition and affirmation of local indigenous knowledge systems (IKSs).     

Balanced or Biased? Interest Groups and Legislative Lobbying in the European News Media

This article examines the coverage of legislative lobbying in European news media. The starting point thereby is that lobbying in the crowded European Union (EU)-level interest community is not only a struggle for direct access to policymakers, but that in order to realize policy goals many interest groups rely on political attention generated by the media. Our main research question is how media attention is skewed toward particular interests and which factors explain these varying levels of prominence. Our empirical analysis is based on a set of 125 legislative proposals adopted by the European Commission between 2008 and 2010. For all these cases we identified 379 interest organizations that made public statements, we coded the amount of media attention these organized interests gained, the type of statements they made as well as some key organizational features. While the aggregate levels of attention look pretty balanced, our evidence shows that media prominence is skewed toward particular types of interests; in particular that organized interests which oppose a proposed policy gain significantly higher levels of media attention.     

Democracy and the European Union: Matching means to standards

In justifying recent European Union Treaty changes, member-state governments have claimed that publics are doubly represented in the EU: through their elected governments and through the European Parliament. This review evaluates ‘dual representation’ as a means of delivering democratic standards. It concludes that present institutional arrangements contain some means of aligning policy outcomes with citizen preferences but they do not match up so well to ‘input’ or procedural conditions for public control with political equality. One troubling aspect of this is that there are good normative grounds for holding ‘input’ standards to be prior to ‘output’ ones. Another is that difficulties of public control are, on Union matters, more acute in relationships between representatives and voters than in those between representatives and other power holders.     

Does terrorism create terror?

The conceptual and etymological meaning of the terms ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’ is so closely connected that it seems difficult to distinguish the one from the other. However, by comparing the idea that terrorism inevitably creates terror with the results of recent empirical studies of the psychological effects of terrorist attacks, four different points of view emerge corresponding to four distinct interpretations of the results. It is thus clearly necessary to redefine the terminology relating to terrorism, in order to conduct the discussion on a more rigorous basis.     

Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Substance-Using Women Entering Cook County Jail

In the United States, the number of incarcerated women continues to rise each year, with African American women having the highest incarceration rates. Many women enter prisons and jails with an extensive trauma history, though little is known about the percentage of these individuals suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and specific trauma exposures they have had based on factors such as homelessness, degree of substance problems, and race. The present study examines a largely African American substance-using population of incarcerated women to determine the impact of various factors on specific traumas reported. We found that individuals reporting symptoms meeting criteria for PTSD had experienced the highest average number of traumas, and those who had ever been homeless also experienced many and varied trauma exposures compared with those who had never been homeless. Higher substance problems were also associated with more trauma exposure. Fewer than 10 percent of the sample met full criteria for PTSD, though those reporting having ever been homeless and those with higher substance problems were significantly more likely to meet all criteria. Results indicate a need to assess previous homelessness as a method for identifying additional trauma exposures and guiding treatment to women's specific needs and trauma profiles.     

财政分权、地方财政赤字与土地财政

基于地方财政赤字的视角,研究财政分权与地方政府土地财政策略的内在作用逻辑,通过理论分析发现:地方财政赤字激励了地方政府在利益觉醒后利用预算制度缺口,用"扭曲之手"来攫取预算外财政收益,进而驱动地方政府实施积极的土地财政策略来实现财政增收的政策目标。省际面板数据的实证结果进一步验证了财政分权、地方财政赤字对土地财政的正向驱动作用。土地财政的治理从深化分税制改革、改善地方财政收入结构、变革土地财政形成机制、完善行政绩效考核体制、加强预算监管等方面入手。     

重大公共危机情境下治理效能：注意力分配转移的关键作用

地方干部是理解我国行政系统运转的基础,他们的行为深受行政系统注意力分配的影响。疫情早期受到系统性风险冲击,行政系统功能不彰,可从三个层面理解：面临制度间隙与危机情景,地方干部热衷承担过程性责任,规避结果性责任;传统激励机制惯性牵扯了突变情境新激励机制的效果;行政系统“死机”与疫情信息“黑洞”并存。面临这些挑战,最高决策层通过权力权威、激励与资源配置三种制度化方式引导干部群体注意力分配,有效推动行政系统由“多任务”转变为“危机处理”。结果显示,我国迅速取得疫情防控和复工复产双推进,彰显了“中国制度”的优势。     

过失犯的构成要件构造及其适用

如何适用刑法对过失犯予以处罚,虽然在刑法理论上有各种不同学说,然而均缺乏从过失犯整体构成要件的角度进行思考。本文认为,过失犯的注意义务之未规定属于立法者未能详尽地描述出的犯罪行为构成要素,这样,根据条文对犯罪构成要件的规定还无法推断行为的违法性,还必须由法官对注意义务作出必要的补充判断,因此其在构成要件构造上属于开放性的。分析过失犯的构成要件构造是对过失犯理论研究领域的拓展,有利于我们明确过失犯的类型性意义,以提倡法官对超出立法技术限度的注意义务进行补充。过失犯注意义务之未规定不属于法律漏洞,对之应该采用狭义的法律解释方法适用之。     

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms,Relationship Adjustment,and Relationship Aggression in a Sample of Female Flood Victims

This study tested a model examining the interrelationships among posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, intimate relationship adjustment, and intimate relationship aggression in a sample of 205 adult female flood victims. At the bivariate level, higher PTSD symptoms were associated with higher physical and psychological aggression victimization, poorer relationship adjustment, and higher physical and psychological aggression perpetration. Results from structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses indicated that relationship aggression victimization influenced aggression perpetration directly, and in the case of physical aggression, indirectly through its relationship with PTSD symptoms and relationship adjustment. The influence of PTSD symptoms on physical aggression perpetration was fully explained by poorer relationship adjustment. These findings extend prior work from other traumatized populations documenting associations between variables reflecting PTSD symptomatology and indices of relationship functioning, and indicate a need for further investigation in this area of inquiry. This research was supported in part by a grant to Patricia A. Resick from the National Institute of Mental Health (1-R01-MH55542).     

图片再认ERP在重型颅脑损伤后记忆障碍鉴定的应用

目的探讨图片再认事件相关电位（ERP）对重型颅脑损伤（sTBI）后记忆障碍法医学鉴定的应用价值。方法采用韦氏记忆量表（WMS—RC）和Neuroscan ERP仪,对74例健康志愿者（对照组）及需评定精神伤残等级的29例重型颅脑损伤后记忆障碍者（sTBI组）进行记忆能力和图片再认ERP检测。结果sTBI组WMS-RC各分测验量表分及记忆商数（MQ）均值均明显低于对照组（P〈0．01）;完成ERP任务的反应时、正确率明显延长和降低（P〈0．01）。对照组在靶与非靶刺激呈现后170ms和500ms左右均可记录到潜伏期无显著性差异的二个正向波（P170和P500）,但靶刺激诱发的P500波幅明显高于非靶刺激（P〈0．01）;sTBI组可记录到相似的ERP波形,但各成分的波幅、潜伏期均明显降低和延长（P〈0．01）。sTBI组P500潜伏期与WMS—RC的记图、再认、再生分测验量表分和MQ值均呈高度负相关（r=-0．73～-0．83,P〈0．01）,而与伤残等级呈明显正相关（r=0．65,P〈0．01）。结论图片再认诱发的Psoo潜伏期与WMS-RC反映的短时记忆功能及鉴定的精神伤残等级明显相关,可为sTBI后记忆障碍的伤残鉴定提供一项较客观的神经电生理依据。