The Associate Editors listing for Volume 4 of The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences is now available.

The most recent issue, Volume 4, Number 9, of  The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences includes:

• Multiculturalism in the Cadre of English Empire: Edmund Burke as an Early Vindicator of Cultural Rights by Christos Grigoriou.
• Documenting Expo’67: A Documentary Assemblage and Construction of an Inclusive and Multicultural Canada by Marc Kosciejew.
• Do Poor Households See Themselves as Poor? by Seung-Ki Lee.
• Not all Occupational Health and Safety is Created Equal: The Case of Mexican Migrant Farm Workers in Ontario by Omar C. Bourouh and Brian Bacchus.
• Political Economy of IT in India: Challenges and Policy Responses by Dilip Dutta and Supriyo De.
• Perils of the Sea: An Insight into the Most Commonly Covered Risks in Marine Insurance by Wan Izatul Asma Wan Talaat and Shaik Mohd Noor Alam S.M. Hussain.

The most recent issue, Volume 4, Number 9, of  The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences includes:

• Late Maya Society, Competition, and Ceramic Composition: A Petrographic Analysis of Ceramics from Mayapán by Carmen G. Sánchez Fortoul.
• Cuban Culture, Artwork Production, and the Impact of Tourism on Naive Painters by Christiane Paponnet-Cantat.
• The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Adjustment Amongst First Year Students in a Malaysian Public University by Maria Chong Abdullah, Habibah Elias, Rahil Mahyuddin and Jegak Uli.
• Social Capital among Older Chinese Adults: An Exploratory Study of Quality of Life and Social Capital in a Chinese Urban Community by Honglin Chen, Wong Yu-Cheung and Kinsun Chan.
• Creating and Presenting Science Communication Information to Facilitate Learning and Memory by Raquel Harper and Donna Rouner.
• Evaluation of Methodological Teaching Strategies for Students of Different Specializations in Education Sciences, Social Education and Physiotherapy by Cipriano Romero Cerezo, Mar Cepero, Manuel López-López and José Luis Ortega-Martín.

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
Allen Lane, 331 pp, £20.00, March 2009, ISBN 978 1 84614 039 6

The argument of this fascinating and deeply provoking book is easy to summarise: among rich countries, the more unequal ones do worse according to almost every quality of life indicator you can imagine. They do worse even if they are richer overall, so that per capita GDP turns out to be much less significant for general wellbeing than the size of the gap between the richest and poorest 20 per cent of the population (the basic measure of inequality the authors use). The evidence that Wilkinson and Pickett supply to make their case is overwhelming. Whether the test is life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity levels, crime rates, literacy scores, even the amount of rubbish that gets recycled, the more equal the society the better the performance invariably is. In graph after graph measuring various welfare functions, the authors show that the best predictor of how countries will rank is not the differences in wealth between them (which would result in the US coming top, with the Scandinavian countries and the UK not too far behind, and poorer European nations like Greece and Portugal bringing up the rear) but the differences in wealth within them (so the US, as the most unequal society, comes last on many measures, followed by Portugal and the UK, both places where the gap between rich and poor is relatively large, with Spain and Greece somewhere in the middle, and the Scandinavian countries invariably out in front, along with Japan). Just as significantly, this pattern holds inside the US as well, where states with high levels of income inequality also tend to have the greatest social problems. It is true that some of the most unequal American states are also among the poorest (Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia), so you might expect things to go worse there. But some unequal states are also rich (California), whereas some fairly equal ones are also quite poor (Utah). Only a few (New Hampshire, Wyoming) score well on both counts. What the graphs show are the unequal states tending to cluster together regardless of income, so that California usually finds itself alongside Mississippi scoring badly, while New Hampshire and Utah both do consistently well. Income inequality, not income per se, appears to be the key. As a result, the authors are able to draw a clear conclusion: ‘The evidence shows that even small decreases in inequality, already a reality in some rich market democracies, make a very important difference to the quality of life.’ Achieving these decreases should be the central goal of our politics, precisely because we can be confident that it works. This is absolutely not, they insist, a ‘utopian dream’.

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Structural Anthropology

by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Translated from the French by Claire Jacobson, by Brook Grundfest Schoepf

The paradox is irresoluble: the less one culture communicates with another, the less likely they are to be corrupted, one by the other; but, on the other hand, the less likely it is, in such conditions, that the respective emissaries of these cultures will be able to seize the richness and significance of their diversity. The alternative is inescapable: either I am a traveller in ancient times, and faced with a prodigious spectacle which would be almost entirely unintelligible to me and might, indeed, provoke me to mockery or disgust; or I am a traveller of my own day, hastening in search of a vanished reality. In either case I am the loser…for today, as I go groaning among the shadows, I miss, inevitably, the spectacle that is now taking shape. —from Tristes Tropiques

Claude Lévi-Strauss—the man who has created anthropology as a total occupation, involving a spiritual commitment like that of the creative artist or the adventurer or the psychoanalyst—is no man of letters. Most of his writings are scholarly, and he has always been associated with the academic world. Since 1960 he has held a very grand academic post, the newly created chair of social anthropology at the Collège de France, and heads a large and richly endowed research institute. But his academic eminence and ability to dispense patronage are scarcely adequate measures of the formidable position he occupies in French intellectual life today. In France, where there is more awareness of the adventure, the risk involved in intelligence, a man can be both a specialist and the subject of general and intelligent interest and controversy. Hardly a month passes in France without a major article in some serious literary journal, or an important public lecture, extolling or damning the ideas and influence of Lévi-Strauss. Apart from the tireless Sartre and the virtually silent Malraux, he must be the most interesting intellectual figure in France today.

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The ninth issue of Volume 4 of The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences has been published.

Volume 4, Number 9 includes:

• Social Assistance Dynamics in Beijing, China by Meng Xiao.
• The Effects of Learning English by Singing: A Case Study by Chun-lin Luo.
• Past, Present, and Future of Social Network Analysis: Network as a Metaphor, Method, Theory, or Paradigm? by Sungsoo Hwang.
• Expert Versus Lay Risk Discourses in Public Health: Implications for Disease Prevention by Annmarie Ruston.
• Iberian Explorations in Eastern North America During the 1500s: A Lost Chapter in U.S. History by Jose S. Gil and John W. Luton.
• The Interdisciplinary Process: A Qualitative Study of Interdisciplinary Projects in Higher Education by María Soledad Martínez Miranda.

The following is adapted from a lecture given at New York University on October 19, 2009.

Americans would like things to be better. According to public opinion surveys in recent years, everyone would like their child to have improved life chances at birth. They would prefer it if their wife or daughter had the same odds of surviving maternity as women in other advanced countries. They would appreciate full medical coverage at lower cost, longer life expectancy, better public services, and less crime.

When told that these things are available in Austria, Scandinavia, or the Netherlands, but that they come with higher taxes and an “interventionary” state, many of those same Americans respond: “But that is socialism! We do not want the state interfering in our affairs. And above all, we do not wish to pay more taxes.”

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From Jerry A. Jacobs, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Recently we’ve heard a lot of talk about interdisciplinarity, along with claims that traditional academic departments are limiting the ability of the modern university to meet the world’s most daunting intellectual challenges. Will the disciplines soon be seen as anachronisms, holdovers from an outdated 20th-century model? In my view, efforts to reorganize academe based on interdisciplinary principles would have disastrous consequences in the short term—and would end up reproducing our disciplinary or departmental structure in the long term.

While calls for stronger interdisciplinary ties have a long history, in recent years the movement has had a strong wind behind its sails. The National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have set aside funds for interdisciplinary research, and leading research institutions have undertaken sweeping efforts. For example, in late 2007, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor announced plans to hire 100 faculty members over five years “in areas that advance interdisciplinary teaching and research.” A national survey of faculty members in American colleges, conducted before the current economic crisis by the sociologist Neil Gross, of the University of British Columbia, and colleagues, reveals that interdisciplinarity as a concept is broadly popular with faculty members as well.

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The eighth issue of Volume 4 of The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences has been published.

Volume 4, Number 8 contains:

• Reading Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night through the Lens of Ecocriticism by Sumana Biswas.
• The Benefits of an Interdisciplinary Collaborative Learning Experience: The Student Perspective on Outcomes by Robert Wellmon, Barbara Gilin, Linda Knauss and Margaret Linn.
• Appreciating Social Entrepreneurship in the Context of a Globalized Landscape by Joanne Neal.
• Assisting and Protecting Refugee Women: A Policy Analysis by Barbara J. Kampa and Raphael Nawrotzki.
• From Control to Compromise: An Empirical Measurement of the Israeli Majority Government’s Attitude towards the Arab Minority by Tal Shahor.
• The Transformation in Malaysia’s 12th General Election: The End of National Front Hegemony by Noor Sulastry Yurni Ahmad.
• Work-Family Conflict and its Antecedents among Single Mother Employees by Aminah Ahmad, Maznah Baba and Siti Aishah Hassan.
• Globalization, Culture, and the Question of Cultural Imperialism: The Case of Goody’s and the Greek Context by Joseph Michael Gratale.

• Revealing Clio’s Secrets: The Case for Historical Macromeasurement by Sean M. Clark.
• Three Versions of “Power” in Michel Foucault’s Work by Kyrkos Doxiadis.
• A Breakwater in the Waves: Social Work and the History of Immigration to the United States by Gregory Acevedo and Natasha Menon.
• “Doing it with the Lights on”: The Decriminalisation of New Zealand Sex Work by Maria-Victoria Pérez-y-Pérez.
• Representation of the Indian Community in the Media in Malaysia by Ponmalar N Alagappar and Maya Khemlani David.
• Roots and Routes of Similarity in Virtual Communities by Elena-Madalina Hordila – Vatamanescu.
• An Analysis of the Reading Attitudes and Habits among ESL Part One Diploma Students in MARA University of Technology Malaysia, Johor Branch by Noriah Ismail and Suhaidi Elias@Alias.
• The Influence of American Elitist Attitudes and Private Letters on President McKinley’s Decision for War by Bettye Grable.
• Uninterrupted: Mentally Ill Art Students’ Narratives of Learning and Creating by Olivia Sagan.
• Personal Journal as Transitional Object: Self and Others in Private Pages by Nectaria Karagiozis.

The seventh issue of Volume 4 of The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences has been published.

Volume 4, Number 7 contains:

• Interview Techniques in Three Different Research Scenarios by Elena Caprioni, Manuela Deiana and Erik Eklund.
• The Potentialities of Post-essentialist Pedagogy by Vicki Anne Crowley and Cassandra Loeser.
• From the Magna Carta to Caperton v. A. T. Massey: Judicial Impartiality and the “Crown Jewels of Our System of Government” by Lin Allen.
• The Self and Consumer Society by Rami Gabriel.
• Hallucinogenic Plants and Religious Belief by Rita Singh and Deblina Kar.
• The Best Educational Practices for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder by Norsiah Fauzan.
• The Politics of the Turkish Gecekondu (Slum) Dwellers: A Case Study on the Izmir Kurucesme District by D. Burcu Egilmez.
• Spousal Partner Homicide Across the United States: Community Correlates, the Importance of Place, and Implications for Comparative Studies by Sheryl Van Horne.
• The Settlement and Social Inclusion of Immigrant Youth in New Zealand by Amritha Sobrun-Maharaj, Samson Tse, Ekramul Hoque and Fiona Rossen.
• The Mothers’ Opinion for Education in Kindergarten as an Indicator for their Participation in the Pedagogical Work of Preschool Learning Environments by Maria Sakellariou.

• Emotional Reactions to Perceived Injustice: Anger, Envy or Sadness? by Abdul Karim Khan, Samina Quratulain, Naheed Sultana and Jean-Marie Peretti.
• The Political Analysis on Chinese Governments’ Work Reports during the Transitional Period: The Cases of the State Council Work Reports from 1993 to 2007 by Zhen Li.
• Intellectuals and the Quest for a New Political Culture by Pilar Damião de Medeiros.
• The Human Rights and Roma Minority in European Union: A Socio-Legal Analysis of Discrimination Cases from Romania by Cristina Otovescu-Frasie and Darina Lepadatu.
• The Unique Knowledge of Forensic Nursing: Implications for Interprofessional Education by Arlene Kent-Wilkinson.
• Discourse, Gender and Identity in Environmental Education: An Analysis of Australian Online Recruitment Advertisements by Joy Hardy.
• Examining Empathy and Perspective Taking Among High-Risk and Low-Risk Persistently Antisocial and Non Antisocial Young Adults by Effie Zafirakis.
• Divorced Mothers: Challenges and Coping Mechanisms (A Turkish Sample) by Hulya Oztop and Nuri Dogan.
• Repatriating Race: Exorcising Ethno-exclusion by Jon Austin and Andrew Hickey.
• Stepfamilies among Brazilian Low-income Classes: Relationships and Roles by Felipe Watarai and Geraldo Romanelli.