Nonviolence as teacher education: a qualitative study in challenges and possibilities

This paper explores the challenges and possibilities of teaching nonviolence in teacher education. Using qualitative teacher research, this paper discusses teacher education students’ responses to the notion of nonviolence and how to create beneficial pedagogical conditions for students to learn nonviolence and its meanings for education. The data were collected from three graduate classes that, to different degrees, addressed the role of nonviolence in education. Three shifts in students’ understanding of nonviolence as a result of their learning are identified: the shift from a narrow to a broad understanding, the shift from a passive view to a proactive view, and the shift from looking outside to looking inside and engaging in emotional work. The pedagogical conditions that facilitated these shifts are also discussed, including strategies for engaging students’ inner work, creating experiential relationships with the other, and transforming classroom relational dynamics. This study also suggests the need not to approach violence and nonviolence as binary but to approach nonviolence as a daily practice to continuously unlearn violence and promote nonviolent relationships. Implications of this study for teacher education are discussed last.     

Agricultural commercialisation models,agrarian dynamics and local development in Ghana

The renewed commitment of African states to modernising agriculture has reignited longstanding debates about different models of agricultural commercialisation. Which forms of commercialisation models will reduce land dispossession and the impoverishment of smallholders, and transform smallholder agriculture and the wider economy? Of the three broad models of agriculture commercialisation in this debate – plantation, contract farming and medium-scale commercial farming – contract farming has been identified as central to the future of Africa’s commercial agriculture. This paper provides empirical evidence from Ghana on the impacts of these three models on land, labour/employment, livelihoods and local economic linkages. Our findings show that the plantation and the commercial farming areas have highly commercialised land relations, land scarcity and high land prices, compared to the outgrower area where traditional systems of accessing land still dominate, enabling families to produce their own food crops while also diversifying into wage labour and other activities. Food insecurity was highest in the plantation area followed by the commercial area, but lowest in the outgrower area. Here, semi-proletarianised seasonal workers combine self-provisioning from their own farms with wages, and this results in better livelihood outcomes than for permanent workers in plantations and commercial farms. Due to the processing units in the plantation and the outgrower models, they provided more employment. However, the casualisation of labour and gender discrimination in employment and access to land occur in all three cases. All three models generated strong economic linkages mainly because they combined attributes such as processing, provided markets for nearby farmers, induced state infrastructural development and diffused technology in competitive ways. The effects of the models on household and local development are coproduced by their interaction with pre-existing conditions and wider national economic structures.     

Living in the Past or Living in the Future? Analyzing Parties’ Platform Change In Between Elections,The Netherlands 1997–2014

Do parties change their platform in anticipation of electoral losses? Or do parties respond to experienced losses at the previous election? These questions relate to two mechanisms to align public opinion with party platforms: (1) rational anticipation, and (2) electoral performance. While extant work empirically tested, and found support for, the latter mechanism, the effect of rational anticipation has not been put to an empirical test yet. We contribute to the literature on party platform change by theorizing and assessing how party performance motivates parties to change their platform in-between elections. We built a new and unique dataset of >20,000 press releases issued by 15 Dutch national political parties that were in parliament between 1997 and 2014. Utilizing automated text analysis (topic modeling) to measure parties’ platform change, we show that electoral defeat motivates party platform change in-between elections. In line with existing findings, we demonstrate that parties are backward-looking.     

Small Countries,Big Performers: In Search of Shared Strategic Public Sector HRM Practices in Successful Small Countries

This article compares strategic public sector HRM practices between 10 small countries that have consistently shown extraordinary economic, social, and governance performance. The fact that these small countries, which are traditionally considered to be disadvantaged, have become benchmarks of good government suggests they have uniquely maximized and leveraged their key resource: people. In search of novel lessons, we assess through secondary data how their public sectors have organized and institutionalized four key HRM activities: 1) selection, 2) appraisal, 3) training, and 4) compensation, and whether they engage in strategic, centralized efforts to architect and “bundle” these activities. Our exploratory case study findings show that these high performing countries employ various integrated efforts to attract the best and brightest into their public sectors, and train and reward them well, although they differ in terms of their centralization dynamics. We conclude our article with seven propositions for future research and implications for emerging small countries.     

Flying bananas: small producer tactics and the (un)making of Philippine banana export chains

Global production network (GPN) analysts argue that workers actively contribute to the shaping of GPNs through different forms of agency. In this contribution I extend this argument to the tactical agency of small producers. By focusing on the phenomenon of side-selling among Filipino banana contract farmers, I show that these tactics have contributed to the emergence of alternative trade networks that undermined traditional lead firm behaviour and inspired new struggles over chain governance. However, as a diverse and ambiguous group of growers engages in this tactical agency, predominantly as small capital, they also contribute to the continuation of broader dynamics of capital accumulation and labour exploitation.     

城市群：城市化健康发展的主体形态

城市群是区域经济活动的空间组织形式,是城市化发展的必然趋势和城市化的高级形态。在我国,城市群的发展和完善是推进城市化发展的主要途径。有必要确立城市群作为我国经济发展的中心环节,以城市群为主体形态推动我国城市化健康发展。     

城市群:城市化健康发展的主体形态

城市群是区域经济活动的空间组织形式,城市群的形成和发展是城市化的高级形态。随着经济发展与城市化水平的提高,城市群的形成与扩张是城市化发展的趋势,并在城市化进程中发挥重要作用。在我国经济发展水平和城市化水平较高的地区,城市群的发展和完善是推进城市化发展的主要途径。今后,我们有必要确立城市群作为中国经济发展的中心环节,以城市群为主体形态推动我国城市化健康发展。     

羌族与白马藏人文化比较研究

羌族与白马藏人源于古代同源的羌族和氐族,是两支地域相邻且文化相近的族体.其文化的相近主要表现在生计、生活、宗教、习俗等方面,但由于历史原因,两种文化也存在一些差异,羌族受汉化较深,农耕业较先进;白马藏人多受藏文化影响,农业生产相对落后.     

毛泽东晚年大民主与小民主思想述评

大民主和小民主是民主的两种形式,毛泽东晚年多次谈到大民主和小民主的问题。在大民主方面,毛泽东认为,就是无产阶级领导下对敌人和官僚主义者实行专政的轰轰烈烈的群众运动,其主要形式是“四大”。在小民主方面,毛泽东认为,就是和风细雨地处理人民内部和党内问题,其主要形式是整风。大民主和小民主思想的目的是:反对官僚主义,防止和平演变,保持人民政权的纯洁性。但在实践中,大民主的恶果是:造成了整个社会的混乱,必定与个人崇拜、个人专断相呼应,使广大人民的民主权利受到严重摧残。     

国外应对弱势群体社会公平问题的现代实践与启示

伴随世界政治文明的进步和发展,各国循由不同的实践路径走向公平正义,取得了许多成功的实践经验,也不乏失败的教训。这些经验和教训,对于我国积极和有效应对当前及今后一段时间内凸显的弱势群体社会公平问题,全面实现"十二五"规划提出的今后五年"顺应各族人民过上更好生活新期待"、"保障和改善民生"、"坚定不移走共同富裕道路,使发展成果惠及全体人民"等战略构想,无疑具有重要的实践借鉴和启迪意义。