Participation,education, and pluralism: towards a new extension ethic

The concern driving current debate on agricultural extension is increasingly that of how to help farmers learn how to deal with the complex world around them responsibly and profitably, in such a way that the extension worker is ancillary. This article seeks to deconstruct and provide a more reasoned assessment of agricultural extension services through a reflection on development paradigms, adult education, individual empowerment, and institutional pluralism. By calling into question the underlying ethical dimensions of agricultural extension, it is possible to develop an alternative paradigm and thereby generate new insights into it. The article concludes that the raison d'être of agricultural extension today must be to create an ethical basis which ensures that extension practices are more inclusive and thus responsive to the needs of farmers and other rural populations, integrating individual expectations into the wider socio-economic, cultural, political, and geographical environment.     

S&;T Parks and business incubators in middle-sized countries: the case of greece

This paper links the policy context regarding S&T parks to the objectives and characteristics of the established parks and incubators in a relatively small, converging European country. S&T parks and incubators in Greece during the past decade and a half have gradually shifted in terms of ownership and management from university/research institute to the private sector and in terms of financing from public to private funds, also involving the provision of seed capital and access to venture capital. This gradual shift toward more private engagement has created a variety of models out of which, it is hoped, successful innovative companies will emerge in larger numbers than in the past.

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A Working Class Critique of Criminological Theory

The absence of a thoroughly developed, working class critique of criminological theory has resulted in bias in the creation of knowledge regarding crime and deviance. Much as feminist writings illuminated the unique problems related to gender, and works by those discussing racial and ethnic minorities highlighted the special concerns related to race and ethnicity, a working class perspective can expose the particular issues having to do with class. A brief discussion will be presented dealing with the portrayal of working class people in the media, and the complicity of academia in allowing working class stereotypes to persist. A sketch of a working class perspective will then be developed, and it will be used to critique fourteen of the major criminological theories today in terms of their relative sensitivities and considerations of the class factor in crime and justice issues. The final section places each of the fourteen theories on a continuum from those that do not consider the working class experience at all to those that give the working class experience full consideration. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Sexuality and Law in the New Europe

Kees Waaldijk and Andrew Clapham (eds), Homosexuality: A European Community Issue—Essays on Lesbian and Gay Rights in European Law and Policy     

Intimate Partner Violence in Extremely Poor Women: Longitudinal Patterns and Risk Markers

Despite high revalence rates of intimate partner violence in the lives of extremely poor women with dependent children, few studies have investigated the patterns of violence that occur over time, and the characteristics of women that serve as risk markers for partner violence. This paper describes patterns of domestic violence longitudinally and uses multivariate analyses to delineate childhood and adult risk markers for recent intimate partner violence in this population of women. Analyses draw upon a sample of 436 homeless and extremely poor housed mothers receiving welfare, in a mid-sized city in Massachusetts with a large Hispanic population of Puerto Rican descent and relatively fewer Blacks. We found that among women with complete longitudinal data (N=280), almost two-thirds experienced intimate partner violence at some point during their adult life by the end of study follow-up, and that the abuse before and after the baseline interview was episodic and limited over time. To examine the role of individual women's factors, while controlling for partner characteristics, we used baseline data on women who had been partnered during the past year (N=336). Among childhood predictors, we found that sexual molestation contributed most significantly to adult intimate partner violence that occurred during the past year prior to the baseline interview. Adult risk markers included inadequate emotional support from non-professionals, poor self-esteem, and a partner with substance abuse problems. Having a partner with poor work history was another independent predictor of recent abuse. Ethnicity did not significantly predict whether women were abused or not during the past year, contrary to other findings reported in the literature.