The English Advanced Extension Award: the twin crossroads

English is the most popular and successful of the subjects currently offered at Advanced Extension Award, a UK examination for the ablest 18-year-olds. Government plans for post-16 reform suggest that AEAs may not continue as a separate examination for much longer. This paper discusses the reasons for the popularity of AEA English, and two key issues for the future which its success raises: the way forward for curriculum reform of English subjects post-16, and whether AEA, or AEA-style assessment, can satisfy the demand of elite universities for a means of identifying top students.

Reducing implicit prejudice by blurring intergroup boundaries

In two experiments we examined whether and when blurring intergroup boundaries reduces implicit prejudice. In Experiment 1 we observed that when participants first completed a task in which they generated characteristics that overlapped between an ingroup and an outgroup they showed less implicit bias as measured by an Implicit Association Test. In Experiment 2 we found that the effectiveness of blurring intergroup boundaries for reducing implicit bias was moderated by pretask levels of ingroup identification. We discuss these findings in the context of extending differentiation-based interventions for reducing explicit bias to the domain of implicit attitudes.

Marks, spaces and boundaries

Dictionary compilers and designers use punctuation to structure and clarify entries and to encode information. Dictionaries with a relatively simple structure can have simple typography, and simple punctuation; as dictionaries grew more complex, and encountered the space constraints of the printed page, complex encoding systems were developed, using punctuation and symbols. Two recent trends have emerged in dictionary design: to eliminate punctuation, and sometimes to use a larger number of fonts, so that the boundaries between elements are indicated by font change, not punctuation.

Redefining the outer boundaries of EU Law: the Zambrano, McCarthy and Dereci trilogy

In its three recent rulings in the cases of Zambrano, McCarthy, and Dereci, the Court appears to have been determined to redefine the external boundaries of EU law, in cases involving the family reunification rights of Union citizens.These three judgments can be read as an indication that for Article 20 TFEU to apply, there is no longer a requirement of a cross-border element on the facts of the case, and that it is sufficient if the contested national measure has the effect of ‘depriving citizens of the Union of the genuine enjoyment of the substance’ of their rights (the ‘Zambrano principle’).The cases can, at the same time, also be read as a confirmation that the free movement provisions do – still – require a cross-border element and, in particular, the exercise of inter-State movement, in order to apply. Though the result in these cases has not been entirely unexpected, especially in the aftermath of the Rottmann ruling, it is rather problematic in that, although it is obvious that the Court wishes to redraw the line dividing the national and EU spheres of competence, it does not make it entirely clear where this line now lies and leaves many essential questions unanswered, which will obviously require some time to be resolved. EU lawyers are consequently, once more, left with having to decipher as best as they can the real intentions of the Court in this new line of case-law, which has been further complicated by the fact that what the Court seems to have given with one hand in Zambrano (and before that in Rottmann), has taken it back to a large extent through its rulings in McCarthy and Dereci, which appear to confine the former two cases to their own exceptional facts.6 Moreover, the ‘reverse discrimination Pandora’s box’, the opening of which appears to have been the real target of these references, remains untouched: instead of providing a direct solution to this problem, the Court has chosen to – once again – broaden the scope of the Treaty provisions in order to include within it as many situations as possible and, thus, prevent the emergence of this type of differential treatment on a case-by-case basis.As will be explained, nonetheless, this is by no means an appropriate solution to the reverse discrimination conundrum.

India’s disappearing common lands: fuzzy boundaries, encroachment, and evolving property rights

Opportunistic land encroachment occurs in many low-income countries, gradually yet pervasively, until discrete areas of common land disappear. This paper, motivated by field observations in Karnataka, India, demonstrates that such an evolution of property rights from common to private may be efficient when the boundaries between common and private land are poorly defined, or ‘‘fuzzy.’’ Using a multi-period optimization model, and introducing the concept of stock and flow enforcement, I show how effectiveness of enforcement effort, whether encroachment is reversible, and punitive fines, influence whether an area of common land is fully defined and protected or gradually or rapidly encroached.