Roma Youth Development in Context

One goal of this volume was to review the effectiveness of the positive youth development (PYD) perspective in improving the developmental outcomes of Roma youths. In addition, the volume was interested in formulating recommendations on how to improve the welfare of other marginalized and improvised youth against a backdrop of accruing knowledge from this strength-based approach. The primary focus of this concluding chapter is to build on lessons gained from applying PYD principles with Roma youth. While acknowledging the developmental gains Roma youth have achieved following the application of PYD principles, the chapter points to the fact that these gains are limited because of the prolonged and institutionalized prejudice and discrimination Roma have suffered within the societies in which they live. In light of the limitations imposed on Roma youth, the chapter suggests the need to draw on principles from acculturation and multiculturalism to help remove societal hindrances that can prevent Roma from being integrated into the fabric of the societies that they reside in.

A Theory of China's 'Miracle': Eight Principles of Contemporary Chinese Political Economy

China's rapid economic development in recent years is often characterized as "miraculous." Talk of a "Beijing Consensus" or "China model" has become commonplace in academic debates. But as we have written elsewhere, "theoretical problems have started to emerge with regards to the very existence, content, and prospects of the China model." The key question, then, is what kind of economic theory and strategy underpin this "miracle."… [W]e hold that the country's major recent developmental gains are the achievements of theoretical advances in political economy, originating in China itself, while the main problems that have accompanied China's development reflect the damaging influence of Western neoliberalism.… We hope to clarify the official theoretical model behind China's economic "miracle," using the terms and concepts prevalent in China today.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The role of salience in young children's processing of ad-hoc implicatures

Language comprehension often requires making implicatures. For example, inferring that "I ate some of the cookies" implicates the speaker ate some but not all (scalar implicatures); and "I ate the chocolate-chip cookies" where there are both chocolate chip cookies and raisin cookies in the context implicates that the speaker ate the chocolate chip, but not both the chocolate chip and raisin cookies (ad-hoc implicatures). Children’s ability to make scalar implicatures develops around age five, with ad-hoc implicatures emerging somewhat earlier. In the current work, using a time-sensitive tablet paradigm, we examined developmental gains in children’s ad-hoc implicature processing, and found evidence for successful pragmatic inferences by children as young as 3 years in a supportive context and substantial developmental gains in inference computation from 2 to 5 years. We also tested whether one cause of younger children (2-year-olds)'s consistent failure to make pragmatic inferences is their difficulty in inhibiting an alternative interpretation that is more salient than the target meaning (the salience hypothesis). Our findings supported this hypothesis: Younger children’s failures with pragmatic inferences were related to effects of the salience mismatch between possible interpretations.

Methodology to Identify Opportunities for Development-Oriented Quality Innovation

This chapter considers the broader developmental impact of quality innovation as a process that creates novelty that satisfies not only the short-term profit of firms but also the long-term developmental gains of the society at large. Development is associated with the production of an expanding range of more complex products, which ultimately are the result of innovation. In the context of development-oriented quality innovation, the question is how governments and business sector could foster the emergence of more complex products given existing productive capacities and the incentives created by domestic and global demand. This chapter presents a methodology to identify such opportunities for development-oriented quality innovation and illustrate its application in the context of the least developed countries.