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The present study sought to determine whether or not there is an association between contextual effects of violent socialization on violent youth behavior across different nations.

The data in this study derive from the International Dating Violence Study, a dataset of over 17,000 college students collected in 32 different nations. Variables consist of various scales from the Personal Relationship Profile that focuses on experiences and behaviors occurring prior to age 15 years, as well as national indicators of violence. Multilevel modeling analysis was used to analyze the data.

The results indicate two important findings. First, violent socialization significantly varies across different national contexts and this contextual effect accounts for a significant proportion of variation in youth violence. Second, violent socialization, both within individual families and as a contextual effect within different nations, is significantly associated with increases in violent youth behavior across the nations.

The International Dating Violence Study is a cross-sectional convenience sample of college students, which is not representative of specific nations nor college students. Further, the present study classifies nations as a “community” rather than explore microlevel communities within a nation. Future research should focus on examining variation of area specific norms for subsets of communities within nations with representative samples of a general population.

The present study appears to be one of the first published studies offering empirical evidence for international research on the theoretical argument of the contextual effects of violence within a nation, and begins to increase knowledge among criminologists of such contextual factors being associated with youth violent behavior across different nations.

Community perception of climate change is a factor in increasing local awareness of climate disaster risk. This encourages more disaster risk reduction actions by the communities themselves, and thus, provides a driver for sustainable community disaster risk management (DRM) initiatives. Using these hypotheses, this chapter assesses whether the communities’ climate change perceptions, awareness of climate hazardous risk, and subsequent actions on DRR enable local DRM capacity to reduce the increasing climate disaster risk. The study conducts household surveys with an original questionnaire in four communities in Cartago City, Costa Rica.

The capability approach is a normative framework that seeks to evaluate the quality of life through the evaluation of individual freedoms. It is behind the Human Development Index and it is increasingly applied in educational research, mostly in topics related to inequalities and curriculum development. This chapter provides an overview of the use of the capability approach in higher education. It first outlines its two versions, the evaluative version of Sen and the relational version of Nussbaum, arguing their complementary nature. Second, it points out its major critiques, namely the difficulties in its operationalisation. Finally, it reviews some examples of its application in higher education research, focusing mostly in Western-based contributions.

Henryk Grossman was the first person to systematically explore Marx’s explanation of capitalist crises in terms of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall and to place it in the context of the distinction between use and exchange value. His “The Law of Accumulation and Breakdown of the Capitalist System” remains an important reference point in the Marxist literature on economic crises. That literature has been plagued by distortions of Grossman’s position which derive from early hostile reviews of his book. These accused Grossman of a mechanical approach to the end of capitalism and of neglecting factors which boost profit rates. Grossman, in fact, contributed a complementary economic element to the recovery of Marxism undertaken by Lenin (particularly in the area of Marxist politics) and Lukács (in philosophy). In both published and unpublished work, Grossman also dealt with and even anticipated criticisms of his methodology and treatment of countertendencies to the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Far from being mechanical, his economic analysis can still assist the struggle for working class self-emancipation.

In order to gain a deeper understanding of how emotional dynamics play out in organizations, a better understanding of the underlying structure of emotions in the workplace is needed. This study set out to investigate the emotional reality of work teams that are confronted with organizational change and to create a feeling scale that can be used to analyze and evaluate the emotional experience of employees involved in and affected by the change. This chapter outlines the results of an iterative statistical analysis to determine the underlying structure of emotions and basic dimensions on which emotions can be categorized. Feeling scales ranging in length from 22 to 42 feeling items were answered by up to 26,900 respondents as part of employee surveys that were used to investigate the subjective perception of organizational change. Factor analysis and self-organizing maps (SOMs) analysis were used in order to cluster and differentiate the underlying basic categories of emotions. The results show that feelings are mainly differentiated as either positive or negative and that those two main factors consist of seven underlying categories, which are summarized as the emotion scales: “Passion,” “Drive,” “Curiosity,” “Defiance,” “Anger,” “Fear and Distress,” and “Damage.” The basic dimensions of the emotions were “hedonic tone” and “affective focus.”

Purpose – The chapter discusses the importance of remittances for the way rural people in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea, engage with capitalism in the form of development, wage labor, and the modern consumer economy.Methodology/approach – The chapter draws upon a combination of original ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2002 and 2008 and readings of previous anthropological research about Manus.Findings – The chapter shows how the remittances of goods and money are part of the maintenance of long-term exchange relationships between emigrants and their rural kin, and how remittances are regarded as crucial in fostering local development. The remittances comprise a large proportion of the flow of money into Manus. They also form social ties between migrants and villagers, and may facilitate the return of migrants to their home village. The moral conflicts and evaluations of status and leadership tied into the remittance practices and the strategies employed by returning migrants are explained as the articulation of different values rather than one system supplanting the other.Originality/value – The aspect of remittances related to return migration is particularly under-theorized in anthropology. In this way the chapter has value to both researchers specializing in remittance-economies or local-level politics and development planners and practitioners.

Purpose – To provide classroom teachers with an overview of a range of assessments that can be administered either individually or to a group.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter is organized from early literacy skill assessments (both individual and group based) to comprehension and standardized tests.

Findings – Provides detailed information on skills required for each element of reading, design of assessment, intended purpose, and process of administration.

Research limitations/implications – This is not an exhaustive list, the authors strove to highlight the most reliable and practical assessments from a large body of possible choices.

Practical implications – This is a valuable source for classroom teachers who are provided with a wide-range of assessment choices covering the breadth of reading skills with extensive details on each.

Originality/value of paper – Teachers need a range of assessments to choose from to make decisions at the individual, class and school level.