Farewell to multiculturalism? sharing values and identities in societies of immigration

For critics of multiculturalism, societies of immigration need to strengthen cohesion based on shared democratic values and national identities. This article suggests that democratic values are not a sufficient basis for political cohesion, because they are universal and cannot identify a particular polity toward which one ought to be loyal. Immigrants are always asked to accept a package deal that includes not only democratic values, but also the hegemony of established national cultures. Shared democratic values may also not be strictly necessary for political cohesion. They must be embedded in political institutions and ought to be respected by office holders, democratic politicians, and parties, but democratic states must tolerate that most citizens appear to hold illiberal beliefs including illiberal attitudes toward immigrants. Immigrants are then often asked to profess a commitment to values that citizens do not widely share. If political loyalty, cannot be exclusively based on democratic values, must societies of immigration then ask newcomers to assimilate into a shared national identity? The article argues that this requires, first, a self-transformation of these identities in response to immigration. Instead of regarding shared identities as overriding all other affiliations, democratic states should see them as overarching and overlapping. Different attitudes toward dual nationality illustrate the implication of this suggestion. The article concludes by proposing a catalyst model of multiculturalism as an alternative to the metaphors of the melting pot, the salad bowl, and the mosaic.     

Unemployment, Social Capital, and Subjective Well-Being

It has been shown in past research that unemployment has a large negative impact on subjective well-being of individuals. In this paper, I explore whether and to what extent people with more social capital are sheltered from the harmful effects of unemployment. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel 1984–2004, I find that social capital is an important predictor of well-being levels, but there is no evidence that it moderates the effect of unemployment on well-being. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed, and suggestions for future research given. This paper was written while I was visiting scholar at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, MI. I am grateful to the Institute for its hospitality, to Andrew Clark, Andrew Oswald and three anonymous referees for valuable comments, and to the German Socio Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin, for providing the data.     

Der Wissenschaftsbegriff als Indikator von Denkstadien Heideggers

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Non-equivalence of WPPSI, WPPSI-R, and WISC-R scores

The WPPSI-R, WISC-R, and WPPSI were administered in a counterbalanced design to 72 children, between the ages of 5 years, 11 months and 6 years, 8 months, in order to determine their equivalence by testing the equality of means, variances, and covariances based on scaled scores and IQs. The results indicated that the three scales were not equivalent with respect to any of the IQs because they did not meet one or more of the criteria. The relative magnitudes of the mean IQs on the three scales were in accord with the predicted order: highest IQs on WPPSI, next highest on WISC-R, and the lowest on WPPSI-R. Results were discussed in the context of the secular inflation in IQs and the corresponding compensatory deflation built into the normative data of the new versions.     

Measures of spatial memory and routes of learning

Spatial memory was investigated in two experiments by direct methods. Methods included scaling of distances, estimation of bearings, and positioning of objects. Participants learned small-scale configurations under different orders of presentation. In Exp. 1, routes included a shortest path, i.e., a traveling salesman solution, a random sequence, and a path that maximized distances. In Exp. 2, spatial and temporal distances varied independently. It was analyzed whether the different methods yielded the same information. For bearing estimates a new scaling procedure was developed. Computations resulted in two-dimensional Euclidean solutions in close correspondence with the stimulus configuration. In addition, solutions showed an effect of temporal conditions of learning.     

Parental Mourning and Children's Behavior

This article alerts professionals to sibling death as a possible reason for behaviors exhibited by young clients. Aside from their own grief, children are affected by parental mourning over a child's death and accompanying changes in the family environment. Children show their distress in a variety of behaviors, some of which appear to be unrelated to the loss. Four areas of concern are presented with case illustrations: cognitive distortions, reactions to parents' distress and preoccupation with the loss, being a replacement child, and effects of parents' failure to work through their grief. Suggestions for helping children and parents include using a genogram for identifying loss, helping the family talk about the death, and providing a support group for children.