Barriers to women’s access to decision-making positions in sport organizations: the case of establishing a girls’ volleyball academy in Israel

The aim of this paper is to highlight the nature of the barriers facing women in terms of their participation in decision-making in Israeli sport, and to identify and evaluate some of the strategies and tactics adopted to overcome these barriers. This is done by making reference to a particular case study, the case of the process of establishing a major policy initiative in Israeli sport – the founding of the national Volleyball Academy for Young Talented Girls. The case is analyzed in order to identify how and why the goal of establishing the Academy was successful, and to consider what may be learned in terms of the implications for the tactics and strategies used that might be adopted by other women in similar circumstances.     

Psychopathy and Violent Crime: A Prospective Study of the Influence of Socioeconomic Status and Ethnicity

The relationship between psychopathy and violence is well-established. However, few studies have examined the extent to which this relationship is influenced by sociodemographic predictors of violent criminality. In this prospective study we examine the power of psychopathy to predict criminal violence across ethnicity and levels of socioeconomic status in 199 European American and African American U.S. county jail inmates. A Psychopathy x SES x Ethnicity interaction was identified such that among European Americans psychopathy predicted recidivism at lower levels of SES but was unrelated to recidivism at higher levels of SES. The predictive power of psychopathy was relatively stable across SES among African Americans. The implications of our results for psychopathy and violence prediction are discussed.     

Semiotic technologies: a case study of discipline-based practices and pedagogy

This paper examines semiotic technologies, both in terms of the resources they harness and the practices developed around their use. It draws on data collected as part of an ethnographic investigation into the meaning-making practices deployed within civil engineering study. The data is used as a case study for examining semiotic technologies as socially situated resources for disciplinary practices. Using a multimodal social semiotic approach, we argue that technologies are not self-evident, and that their use constitutes specific social practices that require development in the classroom. In order to deploy technologies in pedagogically effective ways, we need to understand the semiotic resources they draw on (including embodied resources). Awareness that technologies are not neutral or value-free, but are socially situated and ideologically laden, may enable meta-level understanding of the discipline, thus creating the possibility for improved pedagogical practices.     

The Evidentiary Introduction of Psychopathy Checklist-Revised Assessed Psychopathy in U.S. Courts: Extent and Appropriateness*

We examine the application of Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) assessed psychopathy in U.S. courts from the time of the introduction of the PCL-R in 1991, through the end of 2004, and consider the PCL-R in light of relevant evidentiary standards and the empirical support for the construct of psychopathy. Our review of the Westlaw legal database indicates that the evidentiary introduction of PCL-R assessed psychopathy extends across state and federal jurisdictions, and has increased considerably in recent years. We identify nine contexts in which PCL-R evidence has been introduced and examine the appropriateness of such introduction. In most contexts the PCL-R was considered with regard to the prediction of violence in the community, and in such context the introduction of PCL-R scores appears appropriate, at least with regard to European American male offenders. However, PCL-R assessments may not meet relevant evidentiary standards with regard to the prediction of institutional violence and violence among females, adolescents and ethnic minorities.     

Hitler's opening gambit: Intelligence,encirclement, and the decision to Ally with Poland

This article asks why the German Foreign Ministry supported Hitler's radical reconstruction of Germany's eastern policy. Already by the fall of 1933, Germany was turning to an alignment with Poland against Soviet Russia ‐ the reverse of Germany's decade‐long Rapallo policy. The author identifies three principal factors that influenced the conservative, typically anti‐Polish diplomats in the Foreign Ministry to support the scheme: fear of a Polish‐Soviet alliance hinted at by recurrent intelligence reports; internal pressure from army and state police officials; and the constraints of the international system.     

Transformation or Dilution: Fundamental Rights in the EU Social Space

Abstract:  This article argues that in developing social rights to counterbalance economic freedoms, the EU has begun to reformulate traditional notions of rights. Instead of creating rights in their traditional individualised, negative, judicially enforceable, and fault-based form, a new proactive model is emerging, which aims at institutional change, based on the notion of the active citizen and the centrality of participation in both rule formation and enforcement. It is argued that while this model has important advantages, its weakness lies in its dependence on political will. The challenge is therefore to ensure that proactive strategies are firmly centred on fundamental rights rather than political discretion. Part I briefly sketches the development of social rights in the EU; Part II examines the applicability of Third Way ideology; Part III considers European employment strategy and gender mainstreaming, asking whether they represent a dynamic new manifestation of fundamental rights at work, or a betrayal. Part IV applies a similar evaluation to the EU Charter.