The Gender Sensitivity of Well-being Indicators

This article assesses the gender sensitivity of indicators of health, nutrition, education, and composite indices which are relevant to developing countries, using the analytical framework of ‘functionings’. It finds that a disaggregated under-10 female–male ratio (0–4 years and 5–9 years) appears to be a suitable indicator for health. Difficulties with data collection and interpretation reduce the reliability of indicators of morbidity and nutrition intake. Nutrition outcome indicators like anthropometric measures are potentially useful, if genetic differences between population groups as well as between males and females are controlled for. In assessing gender gaps in education, enrolment and drop-out ratios are more useful than adult literacy or mean years of schooling, but micro-level research is required to decide which of these two is better. Composite indices like the Physical Quality of Life Index and Gender-related Development Index are potentially useful, given some alterations to increase their relevance to developing countries.     

Topographies of Difference: Cartography of the City of Naples, 1627–1775

The eclipse of the city view by the geometric plan around 1700 is a well‐documented phenomenon that traditionally has been explained by recourse to a meta‐historical narrative about the progressive triumph of science over art. In actuality, throughout the early modern period the modes of representation available to the cartographer ranged from the geometric to the pictorial, and their employment was predicated on concerns that were more cultural and political than scientific. To show how these concerns contributed to the dramatic shift in the representation of cities which occurred at the outset of the eighteenth century, the content of the languages employed in the most famous early modern view (1627) and the plan of Naples (1775) is analyzed and the ways in which their respective strategies of representation explicitly sought to accommodate or challenge the political status quo are exposed.     

REVIEWING CHILD ABUSE POLICY IN AMERICA: A SOCIAL SERVICE APPROACH

For all the recent attention to the problems of child abuse and neglect, this specific policy area has rarely been examined as belonging to the more general area of social service policy. This article begins to remedy this omission. First, the article examines child abuse policy in terms of the conflicts of value faced in the formation of social service policy. Next, the relationship between child abuse and other recent social service issues responding to familial violence or childhood dependency is discussed. Here the article shows that governmental response to child abuse has been used to encourage governmental interest in adoption reform, sexual exploitation of children, domestic violence, and day care.     

Archaeology, History, and Material Culture: Grounding Abstractions and Other Imponderables

United States national programs for historic preservation have a great influence on public memory and commemoration. Decisions about what may be listed in the National Register of Historic Places or designated a National Historic Landmark may commemorate or silence parts of the past. Historians invoke the concept of integrity as a gatekeeper to control access to these lists. Archaeologists have the opportunity to contest some of the imposed silences and make these lists more inclusive of underrepresented groups.