Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Our world is filled with conflicts. They often cause us grave problems. However, conflicts themselves are not the real problem. Conflicts are often positive and a given conflict can have meritorious purposes. Problems arise principally from the means by which conflicts are often waged: through violence.
By Sarah Damaske
October was National Work-Family Month and, while we have a ways to go to making work-family balance a reality for all, I also think that we have a lot to celebrate. Women’s portion of the labor force hit an all-time high in the last decade and it remains at historically high levels today. And women’s employment has helped to bolster families in these hard economic times.
By David S. Meyer
The Occupy Wall Street movement, several weeks strong and gaining momentum, reminds us that tea partyers aren’t the only people unhappy with the state of the nation.
The two groups are angry about some of the same things, too, especially the government bailouts for big banks — a similarity that Vice President Biden observed in remarks. They’ve taken different tacks for expressing their anger. The Occupiers camp out in New York’s Financial District, while
What percentage of long-term care nursing home admissions is precipitated by a hospitalization? How is this changing over time? How does the risk for long-term care placement vary by patient, disease, and health system characteristics?
The hypothesis is that most institutionalization is triggered by an acute event requiring hospitalization, which then interacts with underlying risk factors to result in long-term nursing home care. Differences in percentage of patients in a nursing home 6 months post-hospitalization, by age, gender, etc. were tested.
By Louis René Beres
A visibly deep pleasure is embraced by cell phone talkers. For tens of millions of Americans, there is almost nothing that can compare to the ringing ecstasy of a message. It also seems that nothing can bring down a deeper sense of despair than the palpable suffering of cellular silence. Perhaps half of the American adult population is literally addicted to cell phones. For them, a cell, now also offering access to an expanding host of related social networks, offers much more than suitable business contact
By Elizabeth Beck
Neither Sarah nor I have met Troy Anthony Davis. I first met his family in about 2003, which was about 18 years into his death sentence when Sarah and I were working on In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row Families. At the time, his sister
By Adam Rosen
A little over three weeks ago, Hurricane Irene passed through New York City. Although residents greeted warnings from authorities with wildly varying degrees of seriousness, their response was nearly uniform: hunker down. Even for those types relishing the chance to buck official admonishment, there wasn’t much point. Concerts were canceled, beaches were closed, and untold numbers of brunches went unserved. I wasn’t, in truth, all that bothered by the state of affairs.
By Corey Robin
Ross Douthat, the conservative New York Times columnist, and Dan Savage, the liberal sex columnist, recently had a Bloggingheads conversation about sex, lies, and videotape. It’s a fascinating discussion, mostly because of what it reveals about the conservative mind and its attitude toward sex.
With the new school year approaching, Social Explorer is taking a closer look at education data today and over the years. The most recent available data (from the 2009 American Community Survey) reveal education levels and distinctions among groups, as well as the correlations between educational attainment, income and employment.
The most recent available data (from the 2009 American Community Survey) reveal education levels and distinctions among groups, as well as the correlations between educational attainment, income and employment.
By Christiana Bratiotis
Sharon is a 53-year-old white woman who is unmarried and lives alone in a multi-family home in a northeastern suburb. Sharon recently lost her job due to her multiple mental and physical health disabilities. Because of her job loss, Sharon is unable to afford her rent. She is now 3 months in the rears and her landlord is demanding payment. He recently stopped by to talk with Sharon. She was home but did not answer the door.
By Charles Kurzman
Last month, a few hours after a bomb exploded in downtown Oslo, I got a call from a journalist seeking comment. Why did Al Qaeda attack Norway? Why not a European country with a larger Muslim community, or a significant military presence in Muslim societies? I said I didn’t know.
A second media inquiry soon followed: Given NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the number of disaffected Muslims in Europe, why don’t we see more attacks like the one in Norway? This question was more up my alley. I recently
By Sharon Zukin
E. B. White was correct when he wrote more than sixty years ago that New York is a city of neighborhoods, and he was even more correct that every neighborhood has its own “little main street.” “No matter where you live,” he says, “you will find within a block or two a grocery store, a barbershop, a newsstand and shoeshine shack, an ice-coal-and-wood cellar.., a dry cleaner, a laundry, a delicatessen” and on to the “hardware store, a liquor store, a shoe-repair shop.” Except for the coal
The U.S. Census first collected data on librarians in 1880, a year after the launch of the American Library Association. They only counted 636 librarians nationwide. Indeed, one respondent stated that he was the ‘Librarian of Congress.’ The number of librarians grew over the next 100 years however.
By Tom Dening
Suddenly care homes are hot news. As I drove to work this week, the two leading national stories were both on this topic. First was the shocking care provided to the residents of Winterbourne View in Bristol. As one scene of abuse was followed by another, the whole effect was increasingly distressing and I could only watch to the end in order to ensure that action was going to follow. ‘Call the police’ was going through my head throughout. The second story was about Southern Cross, the care home provider that expanded rapidly but has now run into trouble as its income can no longer finance the rents for the homes.
By Michael Biggs and Steven Knauss
The BNP’s membership list was leaked in November 2008 by a disgruntled activist who had been expelled late in 2007; he has since admitted responsibility and been convicted. The BNP never challenged the list’s authenticity, merely stating that it was out of date. The list is apparently a complete record of membership at November–December 2007. Of the 13,009 individuals listed, 30 were missing a current address, 138 had a foreign address, and 41 lived in Northern Ireland. Of the remaining members, 12,536 (97.9 per cent) can be precisely located in Britain using the postcode field of their address (Office of National Statistics, 2004, 2008).
By Joshua Knobe
Imagine that tomorrow’s newspaper comes with a surprising headline: ‘Scientists Discover that Human Behavior is Entirely Determined.’ Reading through the article, you learn more about precisely what this determinism entails. It turns out that everything you do – every behavior, thought and decision – is completely caused by prior events, which are in turn caused by earlier events… and so forth, stretching back in a long chain all the way to the beginning of the universe.