Differences in levels of deviance between Japanese and American students: the influence of peer deviance

In the current study, by drawing on the literature concerning peer deviance and criminological social learning theory, and on theory and research concerning cultural variability in uncertainty avoidance, we offer a rationale for predicting that peer deviance will be lower among Japanese than among Americans. The lower level of peer deviance among Japanese, in turn, might explain why crime and deviant behaviour are less common in Japan compared to the United States. Analyses of comparable survey data from college students in Japan and the United States (N = 1271) provide strong support for our hypothesis.     

高校思想政治理论课教学方法改革初探

十八大报告指出：＂全面实施素质教育,深化教育领域综合改革,着力提高教育质量,培养学生社会责任感、创新精神、实践能力。＂这是对我国教育部门提出的新要求。理论与实践表明,在教学活动中,教学方式方法是影响人才培养质量和创新人才培养至关重要的因素之一。因此,结合我国高校思想政治理论课教学方法改革的历史实践,对我国思想政治理论课教学方法改革的趋势进行探讨,这在十八大大力倡导培养学生＂创新精神＂的大背景下显得十分必要。     

《特殊痕迹检验》课程考核模式的改革与实践

考核模式改革是我校＂教学重心转变＂工作中教学模式改革的重点和核心内容之一。本文通过对《特殊痕迹检验》课程考核模式的改革与实践,提出了适应本专业学生教学练战一体化的考核模式。     

Written Discipline Policies Used by Administrators

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to draw on the findings of two related studies about school discipline. The first study, a national survey of school law issues, indicated that over 37% of administrators report handling discipline either frequently or daily. The results of the second study, a content analysis of 64 written codes of conduct commonly used to make discipline decisions, were that these documents were primarily punitive in nature with an emphasis on suspension and expulsion. Implications of the study are that administrators spend excessive time handling discipline issues using punitive policies. Suggestions are made for future research about discipline policies and the ways in which they are used in schools. Implications for the creation of more proactive policies will be made.     

论大学生思想政治理论课教学的价值渗透--以《毛泽东思想和中国特色社会主义理论体系概论》为例

作为我国大学意识形态教育的主渠道和主阵地,大学生思想政治理论课教学,在我国社会主义思想文化和核心价值观念之宣讲、教育与渗透工作中的重要作用显而易见。为推进当代大学生思想政治理论课教学中的价值渗透工作,我们要在明确把握其基本依据的前提下,认真探讨并全面梳理价值渗透的要素系统,同时积极思考和建构实现价值渗透的基本路径,以有效增强新形势下大学生思想政治理论课程服务于时代、服务于现实的实际效果。     

关于财经类专业统计学创新教学改革的思考

统计学课程是高等院校财经类专业的基础核心课程,其主要目的是培养和提高学生的统计思维能力和统计基本技能。近年来统计教学改革在突出实践性和应用性上取得了一定的成效,但仍存在着例如对统计学学科性质和目标的认知偏差、教学方法单一及实践能力的训练不足等问题。需要做好确立财经类专业统计学课程的教学目标,不断改进教学方法和教学手段,充分运用多媒体教学,加强计算机教学的应用,真正落实实践教学环节,并正确处理好教学与教材、多媒体与板书以及基础课与专业课之间的关系。     

A framework for the comparative analysis of church–state relations in Europe

This article analyses how the policies specified in EU directives are transposed by EU member states. In contrast to existing transposition studies it develops a policy-specific approach to explain how directives are transposed by national actors. In this approach the outcome of transposition depends on the institutional arena in which decision-making takes place and the interests of the domestic actors involved. These institutional arenas can vary from parliament to national ministries and agencies. Domestic actors are taken as policy-specific veto players. Their preferences may lead to two different responses to the requirements of a directive. First, they can transpose a directive literally, keeping deviations to a minimum. Second, domestic actors can adopt a non-literal interpretation of the directive, leading to more substantial deviations within the boundaries allowed by the European Commission. These responses are illustrated by two cases of transposition of EU directives, the tobacco products directive and the animal trade directive. The case analysis shows that the policy-specific approach proposed in this article helps in understanding transposition. It clarifies how the ambitions formulated in Brussels are transformed by national administrations into policies.     

The normalizing role of rationalist assumptions in the institutional embedding of neoliberalism

The political economy of Britain over the past three decades provides an interesting example of the consolidation, normalization and institutionalization of a new economic paradigm – neoliberalism. As such, it serves as a potentially instructive focus for debate both about the conditions under which economic paradigms are replaced and consolidated and the evolution of such paradigms through the process of institutionalization. In this paper I suggest that the institutionalization of this new economic paradigm has been associated with the shift from a normative to a normalized and necessitarian neoliberalism. I examine the role played by rationalist assumptions in this extended process of normalization-institutionalization. After presenting a stylized account of the evolution of British neoliberalism, I show how New Labour's monetary policy regime is the heir to the legacy of monetarism and its agenda of labour-market reform is the heir to Thatcherism's supply-side economics. I suggest that the time-inconsistency thesis and the business school globalization thesis have played an equivalent role, for New Labour, to that played for the new right by monetarism and supply-side economics in legitimating neoliberalism. In this way neoliberalism has been normalized. In the final sections of the paper I reflect on the implications of the normalized and necessitarian character of neoliberalism in Britain for its contestability and for democratic economic governance more broadly.     

Market coordination and the making of conventions: qualities,consumption and sustainability in the agro-food industry

Abstract

The coordination of activity across sites and spaces of production and consumption is a key concern for economic analysis. Joining a revival in the application of convention theory to agro-food scholarship, this paper considers complementary insights – related principally to ‘the economy of qualities’ – that animate different aspects of e/valuation, competition and alignment. These understandings are extended by more thoroughly acknowledging contemporary developments in consumption scholarship. The arguments are advanced through a case study of the orange juice market, linking its current high-carbon trajectory to the commercial and cultural significance of freshness. The analysis offers new insights into distributed processes of qualification as well as the mechanisms through which conventions are assembled and sustained. Finally, a more integrated approach to food production and consumption is outlined.     

Pussy Riot as agent provocateur: conspiracy theories and the media construction of nation in Putin's Russia

This article studies the impact of conspiracy theories on post-Soviet Russian nation-building through the analysis of how the Pussy Riot trial was constructed by the Russian media. Conspiracy theory as a phenomenon is defined as a populist tool for relocation of power among different political actors, which creates identities and boosts social cohesion. This interpretation of conspiracy theories helps investigate how the media constructed the image of Pussy Riot and their supporters as a conspiring subversive minority, which threatened the Russian nation. The ability of conspiracy theory for swift social mobilization helped the authorities to strengthen the public support of its policies and model the Russian nation as ethnically and religiously homogeneous.