Intersectionality emphasizes numerous points of difference through which those who occupy multiple disadvantaged statuses are penalized. Applying this consideration to the workplace, we explore ways in which status-based and structural aspects of work undermine women and people with physical disabilities and diminish psychological well-being. We conceptually integrate research on the workplace disadvantages experienced by women and people with disabilities. Drawing on a longitudinal analysis of community survey data that includes a diverse sample of people with and without physical disabilities, we (...) explore the claim that women with disabilities are burdened by greater disadvantage in work settings compared to men with disabilities and women and men without disabilities. We find evidence that in comparison with these groups, women with disabilities on average are more psychologically affected by inequitable workplace conditions, partly because they earn less, are exposed to more workplace stress, and are less likely to experience autonomous working conditions. (shrink)

Max Weber's fragmentary writings on social status suggest that differentiation on this basis should disappear as capitalism develops. However, many of Weber's examples of status refer to the United States, which Weber held to be the epitome of capitalist development. Weber hints at a second form of status, one generated by capitalism, which might reconcile this contradiction, and later theorists emphasize the continuing importance of status hierarchies. This article argues that such theories have missed one of the most important forms (...) of contemporary status: celebrity. Celebrity is an omnipresent feature of contemporary society, blazing lasting impressions in the memories of all who cross its path. In keeping with Weber's conception of status, celebrity has come to dominate status “honor,” generate enormous economic benefits, and lay claim to certain legal privileges. Compared with other types of status, however, celebrity is status on speed. It confers honor in days, not generations; it decays over time, rather than accumulating; and it demands a constant supply of new recruits, rather than erecting barriers to entry. (shrink)

Roommate relationships are fundamental to the social environment of many emerging adults. However, no validated, widely used, measure of roommate relationship quality exists for examining the impact of these relationships on individual functioning and health. In this report, we present preliminary evidence of the factor structure, concurrent validity, and construct validity of the Roommate Relationship Scale as a measure of roommate relationship quality using a sample of U.S. college students who participated in a multi-wave study. An exploratory factor analysis at (...) the first wave, and confirmatory factor analyses with independent samples of new participants at each of two subsequent waves showed stable factor loadings and adequate fit. Moreover, the scale demonstrated good fit and reliability in a longitudinal multilevel CFA framework. The RRS significantly positively correlated with relationship length, self-esteem, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and negatively correlated with symptoms of anxiety and avoidant attachment style, indicating concurrent validity of the scale with respect to these constructs. Consistent with findings from other relationship types, self-reported RRS scores decrease longitudinally, both across and between semesters of academic life, indicating construct validity of the scale. We conclude that the RRS is useful for evaluating roommate relationship quality among U.S. college students, and hopefully beyond. Further research should validate the scale’s utility in other, more diverse, populations and refine its underlying generating psychological process. (shrink)

This paper examines Irish campaigns for condom access in the early 1990s. Against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis, activists campaigned against a law which would not allow condoms to be sold from ordinary commercial spaces or vending machines, and restricted sale to young people. Advancing a conception of ‘transformative illegality’, we show that illegal action was fundamental to the eventual legalisation of commercial condom sale. However, rather than foregrounding illegal condom sale as a mode of spectacular direct action, we (...) show that tactics of illegal sale in the 1990s built on 20 years of everyday illegal sale within the Irish family planning movement. Everyday illegal sale was a long-term world-making practice, which gradually transformed condoms’ legal meanings, eventually enabling new forms of provocative and irreverent protest. Condoms ‘became legal’ when the state recognised modes of condom sale, gradually built up over many years and publicised in direct action and in the courts. (shrink)

The Repeal campaign articulated new and transformative relationships between law, reproduction and the political in Ireland. During the campaign, ordinary people took ownership of and participated in mutual teaching and critique of law on a wide scale. Art, along these lines, was often used to document and archive the injustices worked by the 8th Amendment. However, art also became a means of imagining law otherwise. In this piece, I use Jacques Rancière’s work on the relationship between aesthetics and politics to (...) analyse artistic contributions to feminist legal discourses associated with Repeal. (shrink)

Current literature has documented the detrimental effects of cyberbullying which include a range of internalising and externalising problems for those involved. Although critical, this research can sometimes ignore social-ecological aspects of a child’s life that can potentially ‘buffer’ the negative psychological effects of such involvement. With this in mind, this cross-sectional investigation of 12-16 year olds [M(SD): 13.5(1) years] in Ireland focused on the role of friendship quality and gender in association with cyberbullying involvement and psychological well-being (N= 2410). The (...) Cyberbullying and Online Aggression Scale was used to measure cyber perpetration and victimisation. A modified version of the Cambridge Friendship Questionnaire was included to investigate peer friendship quality. Finally, the Moods and Feeling Questionnaire and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire were chosen to provide a measurement of psychological well-being. Prevalence rates for various types of cyberbullying roles (cyber bullies, victims and bully/victims) are presented, as well as differences for psychological well-being, friendship quality and cyberbullying involvement. In addition, regression models were used to determine the associations between gender, age, friendship quality and involvement in cyberbullying with psychological well-being. The results are considered in terms of the current literature and directions for future research are suggested. (shrink)

Hélène Cixous has written a substantial body of writings about art. This article borrows Derrida's conception of the countersignature to explore the relationship she envisages in them between the plastic arts and writing. It argues that the works to which Cixous is drawn, many of which involve copying words, are driven by the desire to capture what is essentially uncapturable in the artist's idiom. Recognizing in them a displacement of her own concerns, Cixous suggests in these texts that all art (...) speaks a common language in so far as it represents the same attempt to pass beyond its own limits, visual or verbal. Writing and painting are thus as much translations of each other as one language is of another. In particular, their status as translations or copies profoundly troubles the possibility of determining the signatory of the text. (shrink)

This article discusses Glas in the light of Derrida's notion of the countersignature as both affirmation and betrayal of the countersigned. It explores how the two columns of Glas confirm as well as oppose each other, notably in relation to sexual difference, and examines how Derrida in turn is both faithful and unfaithful towards Hegel and Genet. Tracing the complexity of Derrida's signature, it reflects on its broader implications for his deconstructive project.

Hélène Cixous and Jacques Derrida position themselves very differently in relation to literature. This article analyses that difference in the light of their relation to the symptom, the fundamentally unanalysable form through which the unconscious manifests itself. While Derrida dwells more on the impossibility of ever accessing the original secret wound to whose existence the symptom opaquely attests, Cixous tends to focus more on the effect, the symptom itself. For both, the ‘chance’ of literature lies in the fact that neither (...) the source nor the destination of letters can be determined. I argue that the difference between Derrida's relative resignation to this condition and Cixous's celebration of it helps to explain the contrast between his position at the margins of literature and her unequivocal embrace of it. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated whether differences in the experience of regret may be a potential explanation for damaging behaviours associated with psychopathy and criminal offending. Participants were incarcerated offenders (n = 60) and non-incarcerated controls (n = 20). Psychopathic traits were characterised with the Psychopathic Checklist: Screening Version. Regret was assessed by responses to outcomes on a simulated gambling task. Incarcerated offenders experienced a reduced sense of regret as compared to non-incarcerated controls. We obtained some evidence that specific psychopathic (...) factors and facets could differentially relate to the experience and use of emotions. Our data provide initial evidence of important associations between negative emotions and decision behaviour in the context of criminal offending. (shrink)

Methodological triangulation is the use of more than one method to investigate a phenomenon. Nurse researchers investigate health phenomena using methods drawn from the natural and social sciences. The methodological debate concerns the possibility of confirming a single theory with different kinds of methods. The nursing debate parallels the philosophical debate about how the natural and social sciences are related. This article critiques the presuppositions of the nursing debate and suggests alternatives. The consequence is a view of triangulation that permits (...) different methods to confirm a single theory. The article then explores the consequences for the philosophy of social sciences. (shrink)

A growing body of literature critical of ethics review boards has drawn attention to the processes used to determine the ethical merit of research. Citing criticism on the bureaucratic nature of ethics review processes, this literature provides a useful provocation for (re)considering how the ethics review might be enacted. Much of this criticism focuses on how ethics review boards _deliberate,_ with particular attention given to the lack of transparency and opportunities for researcher recourse that characterise ethics review processes. Centered specifically (...) on the conduct of ethics review boards convened within university settings, this paper draws on these inherent criticisms to consider the ways that ethics review boards might enact more communicative and deliberative practices. Outlining a set of principles against which ethics review boards might establish strategies for engaging with researchers and research communities, this paper draws attention to how _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ for the ethics review might be enacted in the day-to-day practice of the university human ethics review board. This paper develops these themes via a conceptual lens derived from Habermas’ (The theory of communicative action. Volume 1: Reason and the rationalization of society, 1984 ) articulation of ‘communicative action’ and Fraser’s (Social Text, 25(26), 56–80, 1990 ) consideration of ‘strong publics’ to cast consideration of the role that human ethics review boards might play in supporting university research cultures. _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ provide useful conceptual prompts for considering how ethics review boards might undertake their work. (shrink)

Moloney, Francis J Jesus' teaching on divorce is a question of central importance to the Christian churches. The ministry of Pope Francis, and the agenda of the Synod of Bishops on the Family, has again drawn attention to the issue. Given the paucity of material on marriage and divorce in the entire Bible, it is not surprising that very little material in the New Testament is dedicated to Jesus' attitude to the issue. But what is found in Paul, Mark, (...) Matthew and Luke is confronting to contemporary sensitivities, and calls for clear analysis. An uncritical affirmation that Jesus prohibited divorce does not do justice to what is recalled in our inspired Scriptures. The fact that he did so must be given its due importance, but Jesus' prohibition of divorce and remarriage is not the only word on marriage and divorce in the pages of the New Testament. A neglect of the subtleties expressed across the pastoral and theological reinterpretations of Paul, Mark, and Matthew, accepted by the church as the inspired Word of God, call for close attention. (shrink)

Moloney, Francis J In 1996 the American sociologist, Rodney Stark, published a provocative sociological study called The Rise of Christianity. He wrote this book because his reading of the work of the historians of early Christianity showed that their history was good, but their sociology was nonexistent. He minimalised many theories about the rise of Christianity. Theologians and church historians regularly point to the transforming effect of the purity of the doctrine, the teaching of the resurrection, the blood of (...) the martyrs, a sacramental life, and other such central Christian beliefs and phenomena as the reasons for its rapid spread in the Roman Empire. Stark questions this, insisting that the fundamental motivation for the phenomenon was that the Christians cared for one another, especially their women. (shrink)

Christian Smith has described the religious attitudes of American youth and many adults as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. In this formulation the word “therapeutic” does much work, and is meant to indicate that the goal of life is to be happy, to which end religion is instrumental. Martha Nussbaum has argued that Hellenistic schools of philosophy were therapeutic and instrumental in much the same way, and that this is a possible mode of philosophy even today. Appealing to the historical investigations of (...) Pierre Hadot and Giovanni Reale, this paper shows that Neoplatonism was an even more successful form of therapeutic philosophy, a fact which Augustine recognized and to which he responded in his therapeutic masterpiece Confessions, through his depiction of his mother as a sage. This suggests that Catholicism can be powerful when presented therapeutically, which might be a more appropriate mode for evangelism in our therapeutic age. (shrink)