Book Review of Ethnic Diversity and Social Cohesion: Immigration, Ethnic Fractionalisation and Potentials for Civic Action by Merlin Schaeffer, Farnham: Ashgate, xi +pp.180, £60 (hardback) ISBN 978-1409469384

The relationship between ethnic diversity and social cohesion has long been a question of interest for both academics and policy-makers. In recent years, in the era of increasing ‘super-diversity’ and the associated ‘crises of multiculturalism’ (Lentin, A. and Titley, G. 2011, The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age, London: Zed), this question has taken on renewed urgency for many western democracies. Indeed, as Merlin Schaeffer identifies in his opening chapter, ‘The entire literature on ethnic diversity and social cohesion is engaged in a dispute on the question of whether ethnic diversity is one of the contextual factors eroding trust and engagement’ (2014:12). Symbolic of this has been the work of Robert Putnam. His broader findings about the importance and possibilities of ‘social capital’ found a cross-over audience, exciting interest amongst politicians and media commentators, but his findings on the, apparently initially negative, relationship between increased ethnic diversity and levels of trust in neighbourhoods, have been more troubling. Such findings have been used in different countries to attack both further immigration and even the existence per se of significant ethnic diversity. For instance, in the UK, David Goodhart suggested a direct and negative relationship between increased ethnic diversity and the social solidarity that necessarily underpins the welfare state

Contesting the cruel treatment of abortion-seeking women

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Reproductive Health Matters. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH MATTERS, [VOL 22, ISSUE 44, (2014)] DOI: 10.1016/S0968-8080(14)44818-

On the equation xk=z1k1z2k2⋯znkn in a free semigroup

AbstractWord equations of the form xk=z1k1z2k2⋯znkn are considered in this paper. In particular, we investigate the case where x is of different length than zi, for any i, and k and ki are at least 3, for all 1⩽i⩽n, and n⩽k. We prove that for those equations all solutions are of rank 1, that is, x and zi are powers of the same word for all 1⩽i⩽n. It is also shown that this result implies a well-known result by Appel and Djorup about the more special case where ki=kj for all 1⩽i<j⩽n

Quadratic Word Equations with Length Constraints, Counter Systems, and Presburger Arithmetic with Divisibility

Word equations are a crucial element in the theoretical foundation of constraint solving over strings, which have received a lot of attention in recent years. A word equation relates two words over string variables and constants. Its solution amounts to a function mapping variables to constant strings that equate the left and right hand sides of the equation. While the problem of solving word equations is decidable, the decidability of the problem of solving a word equation with a length constraint (i.e., a constraint relating the lengths of words in the word equation) has remained a long-standing open problem. In this paper, we focus on the subclass of quadratic word equations, i.e., in which each variable occurs at most twice. We first show that the length abstractions of solutions to quadratic word equations are in general not Presburger-definable. We then describe a class of counter systems with Presburger transition relations which capture the length abstraction of a quadratic word equation with regular constraints. We provide an encoding of the effect of a simple loop of the counter systems in the theory of existential Presburger Arithmetic with divisibility (PAD). Since PAD is decidable, we get a decision procedure for quadratic words equations with length constraints for which the associated counter system is \emph{flat} (i.e., all nodes belong to at most one cycle). We show a decidability result (in fact, also an NP algorithm with a PAD oracle) for a recently proposed NP-complete fragment of word equations called regular-oriented word equations, together with length constraints. Decidability holds when the constraints are additionally extended with regular constraints with a 1-weak control structure.Comment: 18 page

Diversity, urban space and the right to the provincial city

Using three vignettes of the same physical space this article contributes to understanding of how the right to the city is contested in provincial England in the early twenty-first century. Oral history and ethnographic material gathered in Peterborough between 2010 and 2012 are drawn on to shed new light on the politics of diversity and urban space. This highlights the multiple place attachments and trans-spatial practices of all residents, including the white ethnic majority, as well as contrasting forms of active intervention in space with their different temporalities and affective intensities. The article carries its own diversity politics, seeking to reduce the harm done by racism through challenging the normalisation of the idea of a local, indigenous population, left out by multiculturalism. It simultaneously raises critical questions about capitalist regeneration strategies in terms of their impact both on class inequality and on the environment

French responses to the Prague Spring: connections, (mis)perception and appropriation

Looking at the vast literature on the events of 1968 in various European countries, it is striking that the histories of '1968' of the Western and Eastern halves of the continent are largely still written separately.1 Nevertheless, despite the very different political and socio-economic contexts, the protest movements on both sides of the Iron Curtain shared a number of characteristics. The 1968 events in Czechoslovakia and Western Europe were, reduced to the basics, investigations into the possibility of marrying social justice with liberty, and thus reflected a tension within European Marxism. This essay provides an analysis specifically of the responses by the French left—the Communist Party, the student movements and the gauchistes—to the Prague Spring, characterised by misunderstandings and strategic appropriation. The Prague Spring was seen by both the reformist and the radical left in France as a moderate movement. This limited interpretation of the Prague Spring as a liberal democratic project continues to inform our memory of it

A Videotape Presentation To Motivate High School Students To Enter The Teaching Profession

The practicum addressed the need to diminish the critical teacher shortage that was facing the state of Florida. The author, the 1989 Florida Teacher of the Year and the Christa McAuliffe Ambassador for Education, developed an appropriate presentation strategy for motivating senior high school students, specifically members of the Florida Future Educators of America, to enter the teaching profession. The author produced a videotape that combined with a lecture and discussion formed a presentation that was offered at five senior high schools. The results of the postsurvey as compared to the presurvey indicated that the presentation was effective. Additionally, one program specialist from the Office of Teacher Recruitment and Retention of the Florida Department of Education, the statewide coordinator of the Florida Future Educators of America, and one sponsor of a local group of the Florida Future Educators of America considered the videotape to be ideally suited for teacher recruitment purposes. Because of the success of this practicum, the author recommended that the videotape produced for this practicum be used extensively within the state of Florida. This recommendation was accepted, and all future Christa McAuliffe Ambassadors for Education will have the opportunity to use the videotape as part of their presentation to Florida Future Educators of America groups. In addition, the videotape will be available on loan to the 250 sponsors of the secondary school chapters of Florida Future Educators of America. Appendices include the presurvey, postsurvey, evaluation forms, evaluator\u27s comments, and presentation summary

Articles of Faith: Freedom of Expression and Religious Freedom in Contemporary Multiculture

This article examines the relationship between freedom of religion and freedom of speech and expression within contemporary multicultural liberal democracies. These two fundamental human rights have increasingly been seen, in public and political discourse, in terms of tension if not outright opposition, a view reinforced by the Charlie Hebdo killings in January 2015. And yet in every human rights charter they are proximate to one another. This essay argues that this adjacency is not coincidental, that it has a history and that, in illuminating this history, it is possible to explore how the contemporary framing of these two rights as being in opposition has come about. Looking back to the framing of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, the essay offers an historical perspective that, in turn, facilitates a reappraisal and re-evaluation of these two liberties that is the necessary, albeit insufficient, predicate to the task of addressing the problematic of multicultural ‘crisis' in the contemporary liberal democracies of Western Europe, North America and Australasia, in which the presence of certain religious communities (Muslims, in particular) and the role of religion in public and political life more generally (and, conversely, of secularism) has assumed a central importance