“Catching them young” – some reflections on the meaning of the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the tension between government protestations that youth justice policy is evidence-led and what the evidence implies in the context of the age of criminal responsibility. Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a conceptual analysis of government policy and the evidence base. Findings – The paper concludes that the current low age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales can be understood as a manifestation of the influence of underclass theory on successive governments. Research limitations/implications – The paper is not based on primary research. Practical implications – The arguments adduced help to explain the reluctance of government to countenance any increase in the age of criminal responsibility. Social implications – The analysis might help inform approaches adopted by youth justice policy makers, practitioners and academics with an interest in seeking a rise in the age of criminal responsibility. Originality/value – The paper offers an original analysis of government intransigence on an important social issue

“Our Largest and Most Varied Life”: Walt Whitman’s Bicentennial

May 31, 2019 marks Walt Whitman’s two-hundredth birthday. In his lifetime, Whitman was a schoolmaster, journalist, editor, novelist, poet, and more, though his posthumous legacy has depended largely on his career as the author of a distinctly American volume of verse, Leaves of Grass, which begins famously: “I celebrate myself…” As a reviewer of his own work, his words rang true enough. But Whitman has also been celebrated by readers, scholars, and statesmen since the advent of his muscular, free verse, not to mention by devoted friends and followers such as Horace Traubel, who would describe Whitman on the occasion of his seventieth birthday as “our largest and most varied life.” We’re still coming to terms with exactly how large and varied Whitman’s life was, as new discoveries of lost volumes of his prose, including a novel, have landed him on the front page of the New York Times twice in as many years (2016 and 2017), and for the first time(s) since the Civil War. Whitman’s bicentennial occasions a look back not only at these new discoveries from Whitman’s lifetime, but also at Whitman’s influence that extended well past his own life into new centuries in which his democratic optimism and Jacksonian populism would be championed, utilized, and also called into crisis. This exhibition prompts such examination by presenting a retrospective glance at (1) the many faces of Walt Whitman as he self-fashioned from dandy to sage; (2) the process by which he developed his signature poetic line that would be a hallmark of Leaves of Grass; (3) his interventions in the American Civil War; (4) how Whitman’s legacy has been shaped by those who have come after.Englis

A One-In-A-Billion Chance : The Transformative Effect of Stan Lee and Spider-Man on American Popular Culture

The body of research from scholarly sources on the history of comic books contends that Stan Lee’s original run of The Amazing Spider-Man influenced American culture in a generic sense, but little has been written on the specific ways the comic influenced popular culture. This paper details four specific ways that Stan Lee’s Spider-Man influenced American popular culture during the tumultuous decade of the 1960’s. The comic redefined the modern American hero by making a flawed character, with a tenuous grasp on the moral high ground, the protagonist. It also affirmed the newly established teenage identity in American society by depicting a teenager as a full-fledged superhero, not a sidekick. Stan Lee’s Spider-Man also pioneered the use of the comic book medium as a platform to discuss contentious national issues during the 1960’s, including civil rights, drug abuse, and the Vietnam War. Finally, the title undermined censorship in the comic book industry by daring to defy the Comics Code Authority’s prohibition on depictions of drug use. Through these four groundbreaking efforts Stan Lee and Spider-Man earned their place in the pantheon of American popular culture icons and shaped the course of American culture for decades to come

Watch, listen and learn: Observing children’s social conduct through their communication

This paper argues for the use of conversation analysis (CA) and membership categorisation analysis (MCA) (Sacks, 1992) to investigate children’s social conduct. A majority of prior research in this area has tended to focus on limited theoretical perspectives situated in developmental psychology, resulting in a dichotomous presentation of either prosocial or antisocial behaviour (see Bateman & Church, 2008 for an overview). Although the use of predefined categories “antisocial” and “prosocial” may be helpful for the organisation of data, there is a concern that these pre-defined classifications lead to children themselves being categorised as either consistently prosocial or antisocial (for example Nelson & Crick, 1999). This view encourages stigma and the labeling of children rather than offering further insight into children’s social worlds (Bateman & Church, 2008). This problem represents a shortfall in information regarding the complexity of peer interactions and how they are locally managed by the children themselves, disregarding the range of social competencies engaged in by the participants. Therefore a shift in theoretical approach is argued for here as this informs of how social order is produced through verbal and non-verbal communications between the participants themselves (Butler, Fitzgerald & Gardner, 2009; Sacks, 1992a; 1992b;). Analyzing children’s social conduct through observing their communication offers an innovative, theoretical shift which is becoming more valued in many different areas of early childhood and particularly for the study of social relationships in education. This paper will outline the concept of communication as perceived from an ethnomethodological (EM) perspective, provide a background to EM and conversation analysis (CA), discuss some findings from research and then discuss the practical application of these findings for practice

Döppler's principle for a windy atmosphere

In view of the interest which is being taken in the effect of wind on the propagation of sound it may be worth while to recall the form which Döppler's principle assumes when a wind is blowing