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Purpose – We study the determinants of growing wage inequality in 16 OECD countries in the past two decades of the twentieth century. The main independent variables that we consider are those pertaining to labor market institutions, to international trade with less developed nations, and to deindustrialization.

Methodology – We specify a statistical model of pay differentials using first differences over five-year periods. The main estimation method used is weighted ordinary least squares. Where necessary, we use instrumental variables and two-stage least squares. We also undertake extensive robustness exercises, including a version of extreme bounds analysis and deleting each individual country from the analysis.

Findings – The determinants of wage inequality are different in the 1980s and in the 1990s. In the 1980s, growing wage dispersion is due to changes in the institutions of the labor market, including declining unionization and declines in the level at which wages are bargained collectively. In the 1990s, increases in pay inequality are due to increasing trade with less developed nations and weakening of social insurance programs.

Originality – This is the first study to report that the causes for pay inequality differed between the 1980s and the 1990s. It is also the first to document statistically that trade with the less developed nations systematically increases pay inequality in the developed world in the 1990s.

In this chapter, I explore my autobiographical beginnings as a means of better understanding what brought me to the research I explore throughout this text. As Clandinin and Connelly as well as Clandinin and Caine suggested, examining our own stories along with the stories of our research participants is essential to understand the identity-making process. Autobiographical beginnings within narrative inquiry bring to the surface those factors influencing the researcher’s perspectives, thus locating the researcher within the inquiry as well as within a larger life context. The experience of metaphorically travelling back into the muskeg where I grew up in Northern Saskatchewan and then writing about it shaped the structure of my reflections on this inquiry into identity-making and curriculum making on the edges of community. In this chapter, I refer to the edges of community as a metaphorical space or spaces occupied by people positioned or constructed as marginalized from a dominant norm positioned or constructed as central to a community. I suggest a reframing of our understanding of spaces conventionally referred to as marginalized as well as contend that the notion of marginalization, itself, is a metaphor. In my inquiries into identity-making and curriculum making, I attend to the ways in which people’s positioning within communities is complex and shifting. As this chapter illustrates, our individual identities are multivalent and inextricably intertwined with who we are, who we were, and who we wish to become, whether we are researchers, teachers, or pre-service teachers.

This study/paper aims to explore civic participation within multimodal expression. With the rise of content produced and circulated within participatory cultures online, there has been much attention raised regarding questions of audience and attention to this content. For example, does production of media content constitute having a voice if no one is paying attention?

Using multimodal analysis and mediated discourse analysis, this study examines adolescents’ school-based media production and use of multimodal ensembles to recruit and maintain audience attention to specific content in their radio and video documentaries.

Research findings reveal deliberate attempts to connect with audience needs when creating media as well as exploration of emerging civic identities.

Questions for how researchers in literacy and learning can further investigate and articulate civic engagement and advocacy are suggested.

Implications for how teachers can use multimodality to create spaces for civic engagement are provided.

This study is original in that few studies have applied the concepts of participatory politics to media products and process conducted in school settings. This study begins to test the utility of these constructs.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories:

The word witch conjures up a black-cloaked figure with a pointed hat flying on a broomstick, often with green skin and a hooked nose: the epitome of feminine evil. Although this version of witches was popularised in The Wizard of Oz (1939) and commercialised in mid-twentieth-century North American Halloween costumes, conjecture is that it originated from the slightly greenish hue of applying botanical remedies, or the appearance of witches who had endured bruising and painful torture. During the height of the European witch hunts (about 1450–1750, with the greatest intensity 1550–1650), an estimated 40,000–60,000 witches were executed (Levack, 1987). Although some men factored into this death toll, estimates are that 75–80% of witches executed were women (Gibbons, 1998). Fear and persecution of witches exists globally, dating to Ancient Rome, but the more systematic purges were the result of complex forces, including rapid social and economic changes of the Early Modern era, the Reformation, the Little Ice Age and the Plague (Federici, 2014; Golden, 2006). Those perceived as witches, often impoverished, older, single women, were easy scapegoats for society's ills.

In recent decades, the depth and accuracy of archival research into witch hysteria have improved. Drawing on this research, this chapter examines the place of witch persecutions in the contemporary context. Although people often recognise the injustice of these persecutions, few countries have granted legal pardons or erected memorials to their victims. Why is the acknowledgement of these injustices so slow coming? What fears about witches do we still harbour?

There is a real need for longitudinal research into the factors that cause or contribute to sustainable high organisational performance. Especially in Asia there has not been much research into this topic. The goal of this study is to evaluate whether paying dedicated attention to the factors that were found during previous research to determine the sustainable success of a high‐performance organisation (HPO) in Asia would result in sustainable increased organisational performance.

Nabil Bank, the case company to which the high performance framework was applied, was visited one year later to evaluate whether its performance had improved after taking into account the improvements that originated from the first research.

Although Nabil Bank's financial performance had improved, the increase in HPO results was not so great. Possible explanations for this are that there is a perception gap between management and employees with regard to the improvements achieved, and the fact that Nabil Bank has continued with implementing improvement actions that are already under way, while not starting additional ones specifically targeted at improving the HPO factors. Alternatively, it can be stated that, if the transition to an HPO takes on average three to five years, an improvement per year of 0.3 to 0.5 points is viable. In this light Nabil Bank is definitely on its way to becoming an HPO but it seems to be taking the “slow road”.

The research results show that dedicated attention has to be paid to the HPO factors in order to take full advantage of them.

This is the first longitudinal research into the factors that determine sustainable high performance in Asian organisations.