From sacrum to profanum: reinterpretation of communist places of power in Baltic cities

Places always represent the social and cultural dimensions of societies, seen through relationships between ideas, beliefs, and hopes. Places and their social practices are interwoven into the urban fabric and have become vital components of urban and ideological identities. Ideological systems create unique arrangements and classifications of those special places, which can be called “hallowed” or “profaned.” This project focuses on the recent transformation of the communist system of “sacral” spaces and their recent “profanation.” The transformation of meaning, together with the use and attitude toward landscape, has become visible due to spatial and functional manifestations of post-socialist cities.     

Ian Turner’s The Australian Dream and Australia’s “settler transition”

Focusing on radical labour historian Ian Turner’s The Australian Dream (1968), this article reflects on the evolution of Australia’s settler colonial imagination. During a few crucial decades in the nineteenth century, colonial traditions were overcome by settler colonial ones. The former espoused a system where British rulers would paternally manage a colonial environment and all its populations (pastoralists, free settlers, convicts, emancipated convicts, and Indigenous peoples); the latter advocated the establishment of self-reliant agricultural communities of free settlers. In Replenishing the Earth (2009), James Belich distinguished between settler “transition” and settler “revolution”, and emphasised the imaginative elements that underpin and precede the shift to settler self-government. As the global settler transition took hold, locales usually associated with the perception and expectation of degenerative processes were reconfigured as propitious sites for experimenting in sociopolitical regeneration. Following and expanding on Belich’s framework, this article links Australia’s settler transition with its historiography.     

Marital fertility during the Korean demographic transition: child survival and birth spacing

In this paper, we examine marital fertility patterns during the demographic transition in Korea. The demographic transition was a fundamental transformation in human societies, and has been a key topic in demographic research. However, our understanding of the demographic transition in Korea is limited, largely due to a lack of adequate data. By using individual longitudinal data drawn from the population registers in a rural Korean village between 1920 and 1977, we attempt to contribute to this literature. We first discuss conceptual and data issues, and the historical context. We then test a key exposition of demographic transition theory: an improvement in child survival was a prerequisite for fertility decline. We find that: (1) an improvement in child survival was crucial for marital fertility changes across birth cohorts; (2) the relationship between child survival and marital fertility remained stable; (3) parity-specific fertility control emerged early and birth spacing became important later as ways of limiting marital fertility; and (4) the sex of the deceased offspring became important for marital fertility. The implications of these findings for the Korean demographic transition and future study topics are discussed.     

Psychological Empowerment and the Pursuit of Social Change: Outcomes of Foster Youth Engagement

Youth aging out of foster care are assumed to embody a disempowered group, for whom civic engagement opportunities are rare. Utilizing a targeted initiative, this study explores individual- and community-level outcomes derived from foster youth civic engagement. Data were collected via: (a) interview and survey research with foster youth advisory board leaders; (b) interview and survey research with civic youth workers; and, (c) non-participant observation of five foster youth advisory board meetings. Directed content analysis revealed three emergent themes, which transcended the data inductively (Opportunity through Access; Positive Conceptions of New Jersey's Department of Children and Families; and, Participatory Competence). These themes support and extend our current understanding of empowering outcomes for this population. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.     

Social Media and E-professionalism in Child Welfare: Policy and Practice

The professional child welfare literature offers little guidance to child welfare managers and agency policy makers about the use of social media to search for or communicate with clients. Ethical social media use relies upon e-professionalism, defined as the professional identity established by workers through the way they utilize digital communications. This article offers considerations for standards of e-professionalism in child welfare policy and practice. Specific considerations are outlined for social media policy and practice scenarios are offered, which can be used to prompt agency discussions with child welfare workers.     

论我国当前群防群治工作

群防群治是我国社会治安综合治理的重要力量。建国后,国家群防群治工作从实践到理论进行了长期的探索。改苹开放后,群防群治工作有了新的特点和变化,面临新的机遇和挑战。当前全国各地群防群治队伍形形色色,但是基本可以归结为四类,这四类群防群治队伍的组织形式、管理模式、工作内容职责、经费保障有的有规范性文件依据,有的还没有规范性文件依据,实践中作法缺乏统一。当前推动群防群治工作需要做的工作很多,其中通过立法统一、完善群防群治各项工作,加强人防与物防和技防的结合,保障经费,明确工作职责是关键。     

宪政维度中的刑讯逼供与罪刑法定

罪刑法定原则是刑法的根本原则之一,而刑讯逼供在我国是一个在司法中久禁不止,且甚为普遍的现象.刑讯逼供罪具有独特的多重当事人结构,与宪政视野的罪刑法定原则相契合.罪刑法定原则的设置源于宪政意义上的限制权力、保障人权的考虑.