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This chapter uncovers the destabilizing and transformative dimensions of a legal process commonly described as assimilation. Lawyers working on behalf of a marginalized group often argue that the group merits inclusion in dominant institutions, and they do so by casting the group as like the majority. Scholars have criticized claims of this kind for affirming the status quo and muting significant differences of the excluded group. Yet, this chapter shows how these claims may also disrupt the status quo, transform dominant institutions, and convert distinctive features of the excluded group into more widely shared legal norms. This dynamic is observed in the context of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights, and specifically through attention to three phases of LGBT advocacy: (1) claims to parental recognition of unmarried same-sex parents, (2) claims to marriage, and (3) claims regarding the consequences of marriage for same-sex parents. The analysis shows how claims that appeared assimilationist – demanding inclusion in marriage and parenthood by arguing that same-sex couples are similarly situated to their different-sex counterparts – subtly challenged and reshaped legal norms governing parenthood, including marital parenthood. While this chapter focuses on LGBT claims, it uncovers a dynamic that may exist in other settings.

The issue of export instability exerts an enduring fascination for economists with an interest in the area of economic development. Over several decades a voluminous literature has emerged embracing debates on the domestic consequences and on the causes of export instability. The purpose here is to examine these debates and an attempt is made to set out different theoretical stances, to classify and examine empirical findings, and to indicate the directions in which the debates have moved. Such a statement of a review article's purpose is, of course, incomplete without more specific delineation of the boundaries within which the general objectives are pursued. Here that delineation has three facets.

This paper argues that Charles Reznikoff’s autobiography, Family Chronicle: An Odyssey from Russia to America, presents Jewish law as an ethical alternative to U.S. law. The autobiography illustrates how Jewish law refuses to let social and economic hierarchies compromise its emphasis on truth-finding and the speedy resolution of legal troubles. Family Chronicle tragically portrays the Reznikoff family’s inability to exert equal bargaining power with its landlords, something commercial lease law assumes they can do. Reznikoff’s autobiography suggests that the United States can better realize its democratic principles by revising commercial lease law to reflect the tenant-centered approach of residential lease law.

Genetic and environmental factors are associated with psychosis risk, but the latter present more tangible markers for prevention. We conducted a theoretical exercise to estimate the proportion of psychotic illnesses that could be prevented if we could identify and remove all factors that lead to increased incidence associated with ethnic minority status and urbanicity. Measures of impact by population density and ethnicity were estimated from incidence rate ratios [IRR] obtained from two methodologically‐similar first episode psychosis studies in four UK centres. Multilevel Poisson regression was used to estimate IRR, controlling for confounders. Population attributable risk fractions [PAR] were estimated for our study population and the population of England. We considered three outcomes; all clinically relevant ICD‐10 psychotic illnesses [F10‐39], non‐affective psychoses [F20‐29] and affective psychoses [F30‐39]. One thousand and twenty‐nine subjects, aged 18‐64, were identified over 2.4 million person‐years. Up to 22% of all psychoses in England (46.9% within our study areas) could be prevented if exposures associated with increased incidence in ethnic minority populations could be removed; this is equivalent to 66.9% within ethnic minority groups themselves. For non‐affective psychoses only, PAR for population density was large and significant (27.5%); joint PAR with ethnicity was 61.7%. Effect sizes for common socio‐environmental risk indicators for psychosis are large; inequalities were marked. This analysis demonstrates potential importance in another light: we need to move beyond current epidemiological approaches to elucidate exact socio‐environmental factors that underpin urbanicity and ethnic minority status as markers of increased risk by incorporating gene‐environment interactions that adopt a multi disciplinary perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to report an attempt to quantitatively evaluate pedagogies designed to help learners clarify their personal values systems in a sustainability context.

A pre-test/post-test survey was used to assess shifts in values orientations among 113 undergraduates from the same discipline, following the completion of intensive values-based sustainability training workshops.

The results indicate that small but statistically significant shifts in participant perceptions of their personal values orientations occurred, particularly in relation to values correlating with sustainability.

The survey data were collated in six separate groups, potentially introducing unforeseen variables. As value types, rather than individual values, were used as the basis of the survey, there could be variations in participant perception and understanding of the value-type labels.

No control group was possible because the training intervention was a compulsory aspect of the participants’ degree programme, and the surveys were administered by the participants’ tutor, which could lead to “teacher” bias.

This research evaluates pedagogies aiming to allow individuals to clarify their values and better understand the motivational role these have in influencing “sustainable” behaviour. The research can inform the design and execution of “holistic” educational and training programmes seeking to help individuals understand their personal role in creating a more sustainable future.

The originality of this research lies in the quantitative analysis of values-specific education for sustainable development pedagogies. Findings point to the need for further research to assess the application of the pedagogies across different disciplines.

Since the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935, American labor law has prohibited certain forms of workplace organization in nonunion firms. Congress routinely considers legislation to overturn that prohibition and allow employers more flexibility in creating workplace teams. Systems of employee representation were a prominent feature in American firms after World War I, and in the early 1930s, employers used them extensively as a union substitution technique. At United States Steel, ironically, employee representation provided the means for unionization of the firm. The company’s experience offers insight in the contemporary debate.

As a learning theory, the continuous improvement (CI) discourse has benefited countless manufacturing enterprises to improve and adapt their methods of production. As one of the pillars of total quality management, it has generally included a range of dynamic concepts from high involvement teamwork and production enablers, to other social and technical capabilities such as innovation techniques. Such methodologies have been promoted in the literature as potential manifestos that can transform existing capabilities from simple representations of capability, to dynamically integrated ones (often labelled “full CI capacity”). The latter term in particular deserves more attention in the literature. Since CI techniques cannot be separated from organisational learning methodologies, it follows that CI methods should underpin holistic learning. This paper explores whether CI methodologies have advanced far enough to be considered as integrated and holistic in their own right. If not, it follows that new theories, challenges and discourses should be considered for exploration in the CI literature.

The labor theory of value (LTV) offers a lucid and forceful example of a “theory” thought to stand outside “history.” Considered as an “objective” form of theorizing, the LTV seeks transhistorical truths about the relationship between humans and nature – whereby, as everyone knows, value in the world is produced by the fundamental force of human labor power. Marx is typically taken to have subscribed to some form of the LTV, and thus to have signed on to this form of theorizing. This article refuses to treat Marx as an analytic, ahistorical theorist who would either affirm or deny the LTV. Rather, I read Marx as a genealogist who excavates the story of labor and value within the specific historical context of an emerging capitalist social formation. This genealogical approach to Marx, and particularly to his less-often-discussed, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, shows plainly that Marx never subscribed to the LTV, but more importantly that he eschewed the form of theory that the LTV presumes. Rather than seeking to make transhistorical theoretical claims about the relation between labor and value, Marx meant to demonstrate to his readers something about the way in which a definite and concrete (historically situated) capitalist social formation establishes value. A capitalist social formation establishes its own specific value relations, by first constituting, and then dissimulating, a link between labor and value.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a greater understanding of the role of team learning by examining the link between team centrality and organisational learning.

This paper is a conceptual paper that examines a range of literature related to team learning. It is the first paper in a series of three. The final paper examines the propositions developed in this and a subsequent paper by exploring team learning in over 30 large companies across a range of industries. Team processes are all but defined by pre‐existing organisational processes. At one extreme, they are directive and driven. At another, they are dynamic and fluid and underlie a degree of self‐managed activity. Team processes accordingly are potentially dynamic or rather basic depending on the level of structured or unstructured activity. The paper suggests that potentially dynamic teams are those that display superior learning routines that are embodied within each team's processes. This paper contends that team learning is a centrally located variable within organisational learning processes.

To date, team characteristics, team building, and team structures have been the focus of much research, but team learning routines have been underplayed in the team's literature. Teams are central in the organisational learning process.

This paper establishes the theoretical underpinning for a final paper that will make significant recommendations. There are practical implications, however, of various links across the themes, particularly the centrality of the team in the learning process.

This paper is a highly valuable due to very little research being completed to date on this topic.