The “Out of Africa Tribe” (II): Paleolithic warriors with big canoes and protective weapons

It is generally difficult to establish a timeline for the appearance of different technologies and tools during human cultural evolution. Here I use stochastic character mapping of discrete traits using human mtDNA phylogenies rooted to the Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence (RSRS) as a model to address this question. The analysis reveals that the ancestral state of Homo sapiens was hunting, using material innovations that included bows and arrows, stone axes and spears. However, around 80,000 y before present, a transition occurred, from this ancestral hunting tradition, toward the invention of protective weapons such as shields, the appearance of ritual fighting as a socially accepted behavior and the construction of war canoes for the fast transport of large numbers of warriors. This model suggests a major cultural change, during the Palaeolithic, from hunters to warriors. Moreover, in the light of the recent Out of Africa Theory, it suggests that the “Out of Africa Tribe” was a tribe of warriors that had developed protective weapons such as shields and used big war canoes to travel the sea coast and big rivers in raiding expeditions.

Theories of Militancy in Practice: Explanations of Muslim Terrorism in India

This article analyzes the interaction between theories of radicalization and state responses to militancy in India. Focusing on the interpretation of the increased frequency of terrorist attacks in Indian metropolises in the last decade, the article examines the narratives surrounding those classified as terrorists in the context of rising Muslim militancy in the country. Different state agencies operate with different theories about the links between processes of radicalization and terrorist violence. The scenarios of radicalization underlying legislative efforts to prevent terrorism, the construction of motives by the police, and the interpretation of violence by the judiciary all rely on assumptions about radicalization and violence. Such narratives are used to explain terrorism both to security agencies and to the public; they inform the categories and scenarios of prevention. Prevention relies on detection of future deeds, planning, intentions, and even potential intentions. "Detection" of potential intentions relies on assumptions about specific dispositions. Identification of such dispositions in turn relies on the context-specific theories of the causes of militancy. These determine what "characteristics" of individuals or groups indicate potential threats and form the basis for their categorization as "potentially dangerous." The article explores the cultural contexts of theories of radicalization, focusing on how they are framed by societal understandings of the causes of deviance and the relation between the individual and society emerging in contemporary India. It examines the shift in the perception of threat and the categories of "dangerous others" from a focus on role to a focus on ascriptive identity.

Time Preferences and Environmental Concern: An Analysis of the Swiss ISSP 2010

This study analyzes the trend of environmental concern in Switzerland using data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 1993, 2000, and 2010. First, we compare the observed trend with indicators of the intensity of public debate regarding the environment. The results show that both the number of articles dealing with environmental issues in print newspapers and the debates in the Swiss parliament strongly increased during the observed period. The ecological awareness of the population, however, remained constant over this time. Second, we scrutinize the "social basis" of environmental concern paying particular attention to individuals' time preferences. Third, we investigate the relationship between environmental concern and proenvironmental behavior, on the one hand, and the relation of concern and the acceptance of governmental regulations, on the other hand.

Norms on the gender perception of role nouns in Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Slovak

We collected norms on the gender stereotypicality of an extensive list of role nouns in Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Slovak, to be used as a basis for the selection of stimulus materials in future studies. We present a Web-based tool (available at https://www.unifr.ch/lcg/) that we developed to collect these norms and that we expect to be useful for other researchers, as well. In essence, we provide (a) gender stereotypicality norms across a number of languages and (b) a tool to facilitate cross-language as well as cross-cultural comparisons when researchers are interested in the investigation of the impact of stereotypicality on the processing of role nouns.

Book Review: Entrepreneurship and Regional Development

Zoltan Acs Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010. 640 pp. $299.95 (hardback). ISBN 978-1-84844-978-7

Small town sustainability: economic, social, and environmental innovation. 2. überarb. Aufl.

In an age where the globalization process is threatening the uniqueness and vitality of small towns, and where most urban planning discourse is directed at topics such as metropol-regions or mega-regions and world cities, the authors here emphasize the need to critically reflect on the potential of small towns. The second edition is expanded to cover the intensive development of small towns in China and Korea. In addition, the authors examine the impact of the economic crisis on small towns and the recent development of the Slow City movement.

Social stressors at work and sleep quality on sunday night – The mediating role of psychological detachment

Purpose Recovery is a critical link between acute reactions to work-stressors and the development of health-impairments in the long run. Even though recovery is particularly necessary when recovery opportunities during work are insufficient, research on recovery during weekends, is still scarce. To fill this gap we tested, whether the inability to psychologically detach from work mediates the effect of social stressors at work on sleep quality on Sunday night. Design/Methodology Sixty full-time employees participated in the study. Daily assessment included diaries on psychological detachment and ambulatory actigraphy to assess psychophysiological indicators of sleep quality. Results Hierarchical regression analyses revealed social stressors at work to be related with psychological detachment and with several sleep quality parameters on Sunday night. Furthermore, psychological detachment from work mediated the effect of social stressors at work on sleep quality. Limitations Methodological considerations regarding the use of actigraphy data should be taken into account. Research/Practical Implications Our results show that social stressors at work may lower resources just before people get started into the new working week. Originality/Value This is the first study to show that social stressors at work are an antecedent of psychological detachment on Sunday evening and of objective sleep quality on Sunday.

Asking Sensitive Questions in Online Surveys: An Experimental Comparison of the Randomized Response Technique and the Crosswise Model

Self-administered online surveys provide a higher level of privacy protection to respondents than surveys administered by an interviewer. Yet, studies show that asking sensitive questions is problematic also in self-administered mode. Because respondents might not be willing to reveal the truth and provide answers that are subject to social desirability bias, the validity of prevalence estimates of sensitive behaviors gained via online surveys can be challenged. A well-known method to combat these problems is the Randomized Response Technique (RRT). However, convincing evidence that the RRT provides more valid estimates than direct questioning in online mode is still lacking. Moreover, an alternative approach called the Crosswise Model (CM) has recently been suggested to overcome some of the deficiencies of the RRT. In the context of an online survey on plagiarism and cheating on exams among students of two Swiss universities (N = 6,494), we tested different implementations of the RRT and the CM and compared them to direct questioning using a randomized experimental design. Results reveal a poor performance of the RRT, which failed to elicit higher prevalence estimates than direct questioning. Using the CM however, significantly higher prevalence estimates were obtained making it a promising new alternative to the conventional RRT.

Gender Stereotypes and Gendered Vocational Aspirations among Secondary School Students

Research Topic/Aim: Horizontal gender inequalities appear to be rather stable, with girls more often choosing ‘female' service professions, and boys choosing career paths related to science, technology, engineering or mathematics, since measures to bring more women into typical ‘male' jobs and more men into typical ‘female' jobs did not turn out to be sustainable. This paper focuses on gender stereotypes, namely non-egalitarian patriarchal gender-role orientations and gender associations of the school subjects German and mathematics. Dealing with and abolishing such gender stereotypes may be key strategy to reach sustainability regarding more equal vocational choices. Thus, gender stereotypes will be theorised and empirically analysed as a major predictor of gender-typical vocational perspectives considering interest in these school subjects as a mediating factor. Furthermore, we focus on structural patriarchy as a root of gender-role orientations, and teacher gender regarding its impact on gendered images of subjects. Theoretical and methodology framework: Our analyses of gender segregation in vocational aspirations and vocational choice center on Gottfredson's (2002; Gottfredson and Becker, 1981) Theory of Circumscription, Compromise and Self-Creation. One of the main assumptions of this theory is that people associate jobs with particular sexes and those jobs that do not fit particular gender roles are not considered. Empirical analyses are based on survey data of eighth-graders in the Swiss canton of Bern (N = 672). Structural Equation Models (SEM) for male and female students are estimated. Conclusions/Findings: Results reveal different patterns for boys and girls; for boys, gender-typical (male) vocational perspective could be explained via gender role orientations, interest in mathematics and gender associations of the school subjects, for girls, the factors under consideration could be empirically linked to ‘atypical vocational perspective'. Relevance to Nordic educational research: The study focuses on gender relations in society and how they are reproduced. Gender segregation in vocational choice and at the labour market is a universal issue - affecting both egalitarian and non-egalitarian gender regimes in similar ways. Although in general Northern countries appear to be more equal regarding gender inequality, gender segregation is rather persistent (Jarman, Blackburn and Brooks, 2012) and therefore remains a relevant topic.

Deregulation strategies and its regulating effects: The case of the termination of Social Assistance for rejected asylum seekers in Switzerland

Deregulation strategies and their regulating effects: The case of the termination of Social Assistance for rejected asylum seekers in Switzerland. In Switzerland, rejected asylum seekers no longer have any residence rights. In 2003 the Swiss state decided to terminate the so far granted social assistance for people with a non-entry decision on their asylum request. In 2008 the termination of social assistance was expanded to all rejected asylum seekers. Nevertheless, facing the impossibility of deporting them, the Swiss state entitled this group of people to emergency assistance. It is a basic, which is stated in the Swiss Federal constitution. In this context, new structures were established specially for rejected asylum seekers. These structures had to be set up, financed, controlled, managed and legitimized. For example, collective centres were set up exclusively for rejected asylum seekers. In this speech, I want to analyze the political and bureaucratic process of terminating social assistance for rejected asylum seekers. The exclusion of rejected asylum seekers from social aid was embedded in a wider austerity program of the Federal State. The Federal Migration Office had been requested to save money. The main official goal was to reduce the support of these illegalized people, reduce any structures that would prolong their stay on Swiss ground and to set incentives so that they would leave the country on their own. But during the implementation, new regulating effects emerged. Drawing on ethnographic material, I will highlight these “messy procedures” (Sciortino 2004). First, I will analyze the means and goals developed by the Federal authorities while conceptualising the termination of social assistance. Second, I will focus on the new built structures and elaborate the practices and legitimating strategies of the authorities. As a conclusion, I will analyze the ambivalences of these processes which, at the end, established specific structures for the “unwanted”.

Post-immigration education of adult immigrants in Switzerland

In 2000, 20 per cent of the Swiss resident population was constituted by foreigners (Fibbi and Wanner 2009). As in other European countries, the migrant population in Switzerland can broadly be differentiated into three groups: 1) Migrant groups from less-developed regions with substantially lower educational attainments and an increased risk for unemployment than in the reference population, 2) Migrant groups that are rather more successful, although still somewhat behind the majority population, 3) Migrant groups who even outperform the majority population in terms of educational and employment success (Heath et al. 2008). Given these inequalities – in particular in the first migrant group – participation in further education in the country of destination might contribute to better integrate migrants in the Swiss society in general and the labour market in particular. On the basis of the pooled SAKE data set (1991-2000), patterns of participation in further education of adult migrants are analysed. As the results show, many migrant groups differ from the Swiss reference population regarding participation in further education. While inequalities are often explained by educational attainments and occupational status, in some cases they hold even if controlled for the determinants explaining participation in further education in general. Regarding migrant-specific determinants, type of residence permit proved to be an important indicator explaining the disadvantages in access to further education encountered by migrants originating from Former Yugoslavia.