Cross-cultural social science research and questions of scientific medical imperialism

Concern for the rights and safety of individuals has caused clinical researchers to develop informed consent protocols for research involving human subjects. The applicapability of these regulations to social science research is often tenuous, since such research usually focuses on populations rather than individuals, and potential damage is apt to be political rather than personal. In cross-cultural social research, the protocols developed by Western clinical researchers may be not only ludicrously inapplicable, but intrusive and disruptive within the cultural context, raising questions of the intellectual imperialism of Western research ethics.     

Evaluation of a home-based language training programme with severely mentally handicapped children

A home-based Language Training Programme was carried out with pre-school and school-age severely mentally handicapped children, over a 16–18-month period. Compared to control groups, the experimental groups did not show significantly greater progress on normreferenced measures of language development, although all groups showed significant improvement over time. The implications of these findings are discussed in the light of a number of methodological problems with the study.     

Control of adolescents' arbitrary matching-to-sample by positive and negative stimulus relations.

In Experiment 1, four developmentally delayed adolescents were taught an A-B matching-to-sample task with nonidentical stimuli: given Sample A1, select Comparison B1; given A2, select B2. During nonreinforced test trials, appropriate matching occurred when B stimuli appeared as samples and A stimuli as comparisons, i.e., the sample and comparison functions were symmetrical (B-A matching). During A-B or B-A matching test trials in which familiar samples and correct comparisons were presented along with novel comparisons, the subjects selected the correct comparisons. In tests with familiar samples and both incorrect and novel comparisons, subjects selected the novel comparisons, demonstrating control by both positive ("matching") and negative ("nonmatching") stimulus relations in A-B and B-A arrays. In Experiment 2, 12 developmentally delayed subjects were taught a two-stage arbitrary-matching task (e.g., A-B, C-B matching). Test sessions showed sample-comparison symmetry (e.g., B-A, B-C matching) and derived sample-comparison relations (e.g., A-C, C-A matching) for 11 subjects. These subjects also demonstrated control by positive and negative stimulus relations in the derived relations.     

Young people's career choices and careers guidance action planning: A case-study of training credits in action

A specific careers guidance action plan, used in conjunction with one of the original training credits pilot schemes, is investigated. Analysis revealed tensions between the pragmatically rational way in which young people reported making career decisions and the technically rational system of guidance built into the design of the scheme. These tensions created operational difficulties for careers officers, and raise important issues for further debate about the nature of careers education and guidance