Learning from Schools: School Choice,Political Learning,and Policy Feedback

This article investigates the policy feedback and political learning effects of school vouchers. Of particular interest is how market‐based policies affect the likelihood that program participants will connect their experiences with the policy to the government. I examine parent survey data from an evaluation of the Milwaukee school voucher program. I find that voucher parents are more likely than public school parents to perceive that the government has influenced their child's schooling and to believe that their experiences with their child's school have taught them about how government works. Further, voucher parents report that their experiences with the policy have made them more politically active. While majorities of voucher and public school parents support increased public school expenditures, there is some evidence that school vouchers may decrease support for public schools.     

Policy Innovativeness and Interstate Compacts

Are some American states inherently more innovative than others? This question has confounded researchers for more than four decades. In this study we develop a measure of collective policy innovation that measures formal cooperative policy arrangements among the states, compare the measure to existing measures of internal state policy innovation, and assess whether existing innovativeness measures explain policy cooperation among the states. This test of the innovativeness concept addresses internal and external validity concerns that have long plagued this research tradition. Our multivariate analyses indicate that policy innovativeness is often a statistically and substantively important determinant of compact participation. These results suggest that (i) innovativeness is a meaningful and durable state attribute, (ii) several existing indices successfully capture the underlying latent concept, and (iii) innovativeness provides analytic utility in multiple empirical contexts.     

Vagantibus Graeciae fabulis: the North African wanderings of Antaios and Herakles

The myth of Antaios and Herakles emerged from the encounter between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. This article explores two parallel courses of the myth's progressive development. One is geographical, with the myth travelling from east to west (from Kyrenaika, through Tunisia, to Tangier). The other unfolds within the plot itself: at first Herakles stands for the Greeks (and later the Romans), while Antaios embodies the indigenous Libyans. However, shifting political circumstances also allow for the (conjectural) identification of Greeks with the figure of Antaios, and a (certain) equation of Libyans with Herakles. On the whole, the history of the myth from the seventh to the first centuries BCE reflects the development of a politically and culturally coherent Mediterranean over the same period, from the first Greek settlers in Libya to the Mediterranean empire of Augustus.     

熊十力“体用不二”本心论哲学的逻辑建构

现代新儒家之一的熊十力创造了以"体用不二"本心论为核心的哲学体系。他通过科玄之辨,明示哲学为究体之学,且破立结合,通过批驳西学、道家和大乘空有二宗,最终构建起"体用不二"本心论这一哲学本体论。这样熊氏就会通中外,熔融古今,揭橥其本体哲学的逻辑架构,昭示了其哲学缜密的思维逻辑论证过程。     

Continental Patterns in Stone Tools: A Technological and Biplot-Based Comparison of Early Late Pleistocene Assemblages from Northern and Southern Africa

The technology of the end products i.e. blades and points in Late Pleistocene stone artefact assemblages from Klasies River, South Africa, and the Nile Valley, Egypt, are compared. The comparison includes univariate and multivariate analysis of metrical attributes enhanced by graphical biplot displays. The end products in these assemblages are either dominantly points or blades and this is related to the core reduction strategy adopted. The MSA 11 from Klasies River and the Nubian Complex industry from the Nile Valley are point industries made in the Levallois tradition, while the MSA 1 from Klasies River and the Taramsan from the Nile Valley may be non-Levallois or adapted Levallois blade industries. Dating of the assemblages shows the changes between dominant core reduction strategies are sequential and time restricted in both South and North Africa. It is concluded that variability of the same kind occurs in Middle Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic assemblages south and north of the Sahara in the early Late Pleistocene.Dans cet article, les technologies des produits recherchés, des lames et des pointes, pour certains ensembles lithiques de Klasies River, Afrique du Sud et la Vallée du Nil, Egypte, sont comparées. Cette comparaison implique des analyses univariées et multivariées de variables métriques biplot. Les produits recherchés sont bien des pointes que des lames, selon les stratégies dexploitation adoptées. Le MSA II de Klasies River et le Complexe nubien de la Vallée du Nil sont des industries à pointes issues de la tradition Levallois. Par contre, le MSA I de Klasies River et le Taramsien de la Vallée du Nil évoquent une technologie de production non-Levallois ou Levallois modifiée. Les éléments de datation disponibles indiquent que les changements dans la prépondérance des stratégies dexploitation senchaînent dans une séquence chronologique bien identifiable, aussibien dans lAfrique du Sud que lAfrique du Nord. On arrive à la conclusion quune variabilité du même caractère est attestée dans les ensembles du Middle Stone Age et du Paléolithique moyen au sud et au nord du Sahara, pendant le Pléistocène supérieur ancien.     

Playing and affective time-spaces

In this paper I have two objectives. The first is to critically explore definitions of playing that have underpinned a great deal of research in children's geography. In so doing I want to highlight some of the assumptions that various authors within geography have made (often implicitly) about the ontological status of playing. This will in turn, lead me to work with, between and sometimes against three authors who have tried to theorize playing. In following this route, I hope to come to some tentative conclusions about the status of playing, which paradoxically will eschew any (strong) ontological commitment at all. This leads to my second objective, which is to explore four particular aspects of playing—embodiment, affect, objects and time-space—to examine how they are interleaved with spaces and spacing. In necessarily situating this work within my research at Hilltop Primary School1 1. This is a pseudonym, used as part of a confidentiality agreement signed with the school. View all notes in the summer of 2001, I hope to show that geographical studies can contribute to definitions of playing as much as playing can inflect certain notions of space.     

The origins of lithic projectile point technology: evidence from Africa,the Levant,and Europe

Projectile weaponry is a human cultural universal, but its origins and antiquity remain poorly understood. Stone- and bone-tipped projectile weapons have long been treated as emergent features of the "Upper Paleolithic" behavioral revolution. Recently it has been proposed that projectile technology was in widespread use among Homo sapiens populations in Africa during Middle Stone Age (MSA) times. One obstacle to researching the origins of projectile point technology is that the criteria archaeologists employ for recognizing plausible and implausible stone projectile points are largely subjective (overall tool shape, microwear traces). Tip cross-sectional area (TCSA) is a ballistically significant dimension that works well at discriminating North American stone projectile points (spearthrower dart tips and arrowheads) from spear points. This paper compares the TCSA values of ethnographic North American stone projectile points to hypothetical Middle and Upper Paleolithic stone projectile points from Africa, the Levant, and Europe. The results of this comparison do not support the hypothesis of widespread use of stone-tipped projectiles in Africa, the Levant, or Europe prior to 40 Ka. In the New World and in Australia, where we have the richest ethnographic record of stone projectile point use, these implements are largely employed in big-game hunting and in warfare. One or both of these factors may have played a role in the widespread adoption of stone projectile point technology after 40 Ka.     

英国新社会史思潮的兴起及其整体社会史研究的国际反响

“新社会史研究”作为一种史学新思潮,与西方史学的整体化趋势,几乎同时出现于现代国际史学舞台。英国新社会史思潮具有广泛和深刻的国内外史学渊源。英国新社会史学派宣扬的核心问题是坚持“自下而上”史学观念,它彰显了由此观念指导下的整体社会史取向和研究实践。从较广泛的分析角度看,在国际史学发展格局重新调整的现时背景下,英国马克思主义新社会史学派引起国内外史学界的广泛注意和效仿。它对国际史学发展的推动性作用是不可忽视的,这集中体现了该学派及其整体史学研究的国际反响。     

Dot-in-circle: An ethnoarchaeological approach to soft-stone vessel decoration

Discovery of the zahrah carving tool on a trip to the Ru'us al-Jibal/Musandam Peninsula provided the impetus for the following ethnoarchaeological examination. Ethnographic information recovered from numerous interviews is outlined in detail. The connection between the various carving tools used by the Shihuh tribes in this region and the dot-in-circle motif is investigated. Similar artefacts recovered from archaeological sites are also reviewed and implications discussed.