Language capital and development: the case of African language publishing for children in South Africa

In recognizing 11 official languages, the 1996 South African Constitution provides a context for the management of diversity with important implications for the redistribution of wealth and power. The development and implementation of the language-in-education policies which might be expected to flow from the Constitution, however, have been slow and ineffective. One of the casualties of government procrastination has been African language publishing. In the absence of well-resourced bilingual education, most learners continue to be taught through the medium of English as a second language. Teachers are reluctant to use more innovative pedagogies without the support of adequate African language materials and publishers are cautious about producing such materials. Nonetheless, activity in this sector offers many opportunities for African language speakers. This paper explores the challenges and constraints for African language publishing for children and argues that market forces and language policy need to work in mutually reinforcing ways. Further progress is necessarily dependent on the political will to implement language-in-education policies that promote additive bilingualism and, in the process, guarantee sales for risk-averse publishers.

Architecture, sedentism, and social complexity at Pre-Pottery Neolithic A WF16, Southern Jordan

Recent excavations at Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) WF16 in southern Jordan have revealed remarkable evidence of architectural developments in the early Neolithic. This sheds light on both special purpose structures and “domestic” settlement, allowing fresh insights into the development of increasingly sedentary communities and the social systems they supported. The development of sedentary communities is a central part of the Neolithic process in Southwest Asia. Architecture and ideas of homes and households have been important to the debate, although there has also been considerable discussion on the role of communal buildings and the organization of early sedentarizing communities since the discovery of the tower at Jericho. Recently, the focus has been on either northern Levantine PPNA sites, such as Jerf el Ahmar, or the emergence of ritual buildings in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of the southern Levant. Much of the debate revolves around a division between what is interpreted as domestic space, contrasted with “special purpose” buildings. Our recent evidence allows a fresh examination of the nature of early Neolithic communities.

Communication and social regulation. the criminalization of work-related death

This paper addresses the movement towards criminalization as a tool for the regulation of work-related deaths in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the last 20 years. This can be seen as reflecting dissatisfaction with the relevant law, although it is best understood in symbolic terms as a response to a disjunction between the instrumental nature and communicative aspirations of regulatory law. This paper uses empirical data gathered from interviews with members of the public to explore the role that such an offence might play. The findings demonstrate that the failures of regulatory law give rise to a desire for criminalization as a means of framing work-related safety events in normative terms.

Bayesian parameter estimation for latent Markov random fields and social networks

Undirected graphical models are widely used in statistics, physics and machine vision. However Bayesian parameter estimation for undirected models is extremely challenging, since evaluation of the posterior typically involves the calculation of an intractable normalising constant. This problem has received much attention, but very little of this has focussed on the important practical case where the data consists of noisy or incomplete observations of the underlying hidden structure. This paper specifically addresses this problem, comparing two alternative methodologies. In the first of these approaches particle Markov chain Monte Carlo (Andrieu et al., 2010) is used to efficiently explore the parameter space, combined with the exchange algorithm (Murray et al., 2006) for avoiding the calculation of the intractable normalising constant (a proof showing that this combination targets the correct distribution in found in a supplementary appendix online). This approach is compared with approximate Bayesian computation (Pritchard et al., 1999). Applications to estimating the parameters of Ising models and exponential random graphs from noisy data are presented. Each algorithm used in the paper targets an approximation to the true posterior due to the use of MCMC to simulate from the latent graphical model, in lieu of being able to do this exactly in general. The supplementary appendix also describes the nature of the resulting approximation.

The role of efficacy and well-being in guiding the use of education and training services by young homeless mothers

This paper builds on previous work applying the concept of well-being to the field of housing. It uses the concepts of self-esteem, efficacy and social identity to explore the situations of a group of young homeless mothers. In particular, it focuses on the impact of well-being factors, among others, in understanding the uptake of education and training services. The paper concludes by arguing that well-being issues are crucial for housing agencies and others who want to engage with young homeless people.

The role of transfer in language variation and change: Evidence from contact varieties of French

In this Special Issue, the focus is on contact-induced language variation and change in situations of societal bilingualism that involve long-term contact between French and another language. As is well known, when two or more languages are spoken by groups of speakers in the same geographical area, over time, features from one language can be transferred to the other language, especially when the languages in question are unequal in terms of prestige, institutional support and demographic factors. The process that leads to the adoption of such features in the contact languages is generally known as INTERFERENCE or TRANSFER, and these terms are also used to describe the features in question (i.e. the end product of the process of transfer). In this issue we prefer to use the term TRANSFER over the use of the notion INTERFERENCE, as the former has fewer negative connotations than the latter.

‘European strategists and European identity in the nuclear age’

European writers on strategy (in French: strategistes, as opposed to practitioners, stratèges) developed their thoughts on the best strategies and postures of nuclear deterrence against their own beliefs in the identities of their own countries - were they seen as "Europesn" or as "nation-states" who must under no condition surrender their sovereignty?

Continuity of care for people with psychotic illness: its relationship to clinical and social functioning.

Background: The relationship between continuity of care and user characteristics or outcomes has rarely been explored. The ECHO study operationalized and tested a multi-axial definition of continuity of care, producing a seven-factor model used here. Aims: To assess the relationship between user characteristics and established components of continuity of care, and the impact of continuity on clinical and social functioning. Methods: The sample comprised 180 community mental health team users with psychotic disorders who were interviewed at three annual time-points, to assess their experiences of continuity of care and clinical and social functioning. Scores on seven continuity factors were tested for association with user-level variables. Results: Improvement in quality of life was associated with better Experience & Relationship continuity scores (better user-rated continuity and therapeutic relationship) and with lower Meeting Needs continuity factor scores. Higher Meeting Needs scores were associated with a decrease in symptoms. Conclusion: Continuity is a dynamic process, influenced significantly by care structures and organizational change.