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Focuses on whether developmental trends observed within groups are different between groups (cultures) in three- to six-year-old children in a battery of tests derived from a theoretical model relating to attention, learning, and memory processes. Subjects were selected from Cambridge, Massachusetts and from two lowland villages in Guatemala. (Author/AS)

The criminal justice system and the media perpetuate the rhetoric of closure, which frames the end of grief for homicide survivors, or murder victims' loved ones, as an attainable goal on their path to healing. Public discourse has also framed the death penalty as justice for survivors. However, little scholarly attention has addressed survivors' experiences and perceptions of closure and justice. This research addresses this gap in the literature using in-depth, qualitative interviews with 36 community, academic, and criminal justice experts on homicide survivorship, 12 of whom are homicide survivors themselves. Using grounded theory, we derived six themes on closure and justice from the data. The majority of respondents indicate that survivors do not experience closure, and that they consider the term misleading. The question as to the meaning of justice produced more disparate responses. While many indicated that justice has unique meanings for individual survivors, holding the perpetrator accountable emerged as the most common theme. Half of the respondents also indicated that justice does not exist in homicide cases because of their difficult experiences with the criminal justice system. The findings have implications for policy, practice, and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the 'end of the Cold War', the United States has persisted in its aggressive foreign policy towards Cuba. This observation prompts the authors to ask both how it is possible for aggressive US foreign policies towards Cuba to remain virtually unchanged in the face of dramatic upheaval, and what made it possible in the first place for the United States to pursue such policies towards as small a state as Cuba. Drawing on recent constructivist and discursive theory, the authors argue that extant approaches, such as realism, belief systems analysis, and the analysis of domestic politics, cannot explain this hostility. Instead, the authors argue, it is the discursive construct, 'the Cuban problem', that has enabled both the existence and the persistence of US hostility against Cuba. This discourse constructs identities and interests for the United States and Cuba, such that US aggression towards Cuba has been rendered both seemingly inevitable and legitimate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]