Institutional Prejudice Research Articles

Buildings as reflectors of societal values: what features of psychiatric wards reveal about stigma

Abstract Built Environment (BE) features bearing domestic attributes align with the concept of psychosocial re-integration. To understand the level of de-institutionalisation in relation to mental health infrastructure, a series of 29 case studies occurred in four countries from 2000 onwards. We collected data from Europe, the UK, New Zealand and more recently in the US: England (n = 15), France (n = 5), New Zealand (n = 4) and the US (n = 5). This included five acute wards in England and five in France in 2000-2004, two further acute wards in England in 2015-2017, four facilities in New Zealand in 2017-2020 (catering also for the Māori population), six further wards (older adult rehab, older adult dementia, acute, rehab, PICU, older adults) and two forensic wards in England and five wards in the US in three different hospitals (one mental health and four mental health wards in general hospital: two adult and two adolescent) in 2023-2024. An architectural checklist was developed to evaluate the traits of the exterior and interior and measure the degree of institutionalisation vs homelikeness for mental health buildings. Cross-country comparison revealed recent case studies to be closer to the institutional end with increased anti-ligature features. Most NZ and the US samples were the most institutional ones. The checklist revealed that acuity was potentially not a determinant of institutional versus domestic buildings. Data shown that very few features were universally present, questioning what is the absolute minimum in relation to the illness rather than the policies. The US sample provides further food for thought, especially in relation to the location of psychiatric wards inside general hospitals and the reasons that lead to this. Finally, by looking at the BE for mental health, we uncover issues regarding the service provision and institutional prejudices connected to stigma. This questions the adequacy of de-institutionalisation policies in certain contexts. Key messages • The study of the architecture of healthcare facilities can depict aspects related to the health service provision and raise questions about the effectiveness of rehabilitation strategies. • The architecture of psychiatric wards questions the success of some de-institutionalisation decision-making in a cross-country comparison.

A phenomenological study of women’s everyday lived experiences and perceptions in science research organizations in India

There has been a significant paucity of representation of women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) on a worldwide scale. Women are more likely to be at a disadvantage than men due to the existence of gender prejudices as well as other social and cultural variables. This tendency is also present in India. Feminist scholars within the Science, Technology, and Society field have conducted thorough examinations of the gender component, despite their relatively small representation. This study aims to examine the challenges faced by female scientists in higher education institutions in India to comprehend these issues. It employs a phenomenological approach, using primary data to investigate how female scientists perceive their day-to-day lives and the world around them, and it focuses on the perceptions and experiences of these women. The study finds that women who work in STEMM fields face a wide variety of challenges and roadblocks both on the personal and professional front. In addition, it highlights certain attitudes that have a negative impact on women working in the field of science, such as the rationalization of institutional prejudices and unwillingness to recognize discrimination. It concludes with a few policy implications.

Gendered Realities: Reforming Juvenile Justice in India

For the past few decades, the juvenile justice system in India has shifted from a rehabilitative to a retributive paradigm, leading researchers to become increasingly interested in the gendered implications of paradigm change that may exacerbate problems of young offenders, especially females. The current article explores the question of how social attitudes, institutional prejudices, and intersectional identities affect the ways in which female offenders are perceived and treated in India. The framework for the current study includes theoretical concepts of rehabilitation, retribution, and feminist theory. The use of secondary analysis and the description of policy changes and historical context studies are included in the research. Employing a data-driven analysis based on a combination of case studies, quantitative data, and inter-state comparison, the research reveals that female offenders face systemicinstitutional and individual problems, including re-victimization, trauma, and inadequate access to quality rehabilitation services. This article argues for genderresponsive and intersectional juvenile justice policies and redirects attention to rehabilitation available results for future policy and research initiatives

How Social Structures Are More Than Collections of Individuals

The problem of race has typically been treated as a problem of individual or institutional prejudice. However, more attention needs to be paid to structural racism, which shows how racialized opportunity structures sustain racial injustice even when actors are not prejudiced. Because Catholic social thought treats social structures as mere aggregates of individual behavior, however, it is unable to explain how opportunity structures constrain human agency, how social positions condition the behaviors of people who occupy them, and how harms may occur without intent. A critical realist approach to understanding social structure corrects the reductive tendencies of dominant perspectives on race, such as colorblindness and antiracism, and helps explain how nonracists can perpetuate racial injustice. An analysis of the case of residential segregation shows how the pursuit of individual goods in racialized opportunity structures like the housing market simultaneously hinders the common good.

Systemic Discrimination Exposing Chaos Among African Families in Their Eyes were Watching God

Families of African Americans were purposefully maintained fragmented to support the culture of slavery. They overcame institutional prejudice, legal segregation, and poverty in order to maintain their loose construction. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, African American families are subjected to systematic discrimination that creates chaos and internal hatred by encouraging racial preference, affirmative action, targeted citizenship, personal bias, gender inequality, and other issues. This research sheds light on this issue. Systemic discrimination in this research refers to institutional inequity, prevailing intolerance, marginalization, and rejection of a person/character based on membership in a certain group. These concepts in the chosen novel have been examined using theoretical framework produced by Critical Race Theory. The novel's textual analysis indicates that systematic prejudice aids in the transfer of racial oppression from the individual to the institution of marriage and family life functioning in society. The study also demonstrates the negative consequences of institutionalized inequality on marriage and family structures, which destabilize communities and present African American families as weak and loosely knit.

We’ve all got skin in the game: National Diversity Working Group: Power, Privilege and Position

This article describes the thinking and processes involved in initiating the National Diversity Working Group: Power, Privilege and Position (PPP) at the Institute of Group Analysis (IGA) in the UK. It argues that while group analysis is in theory distinguished by a commitment to engaging in power differences and wider socio-political issues, this theory has not hitherto been deeply reflected in practice in the institutional culture of the IGA, reflecting a disconnect between theory and practice. This article suggests that in practice there has been lived experience of a culture of various institutional prejudices. In this context there was an increasingly urgent need to take action to address the intransigent culture around power and difference at the IGA. The PPP was needed as a response to the entrenched anti-group processes at work in maintaining institutional prejudices. Positive responses to addressing institutional racism have created opportunities for organizational change. The article explores how the PPP working group’s responses to addressing institutional racism worked to support organizational change and how this work has been instituted throughout the wider community. The article emphasizes how in response to the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM), issues concerning race have recently become focal in the PPP’s life and therefore form the focus of the article. Drawing on Brown’s notion of the ‘Monitor of Justice’ it argues that in setting up the PPP there was a harnessing of hitherto marginalized but pro-social group norms in the IGA culture in the face of anti-social institutional prejudice. In this context the article contains a detailed reflection of the lived experience of a black group analyst taking on a key leadership role in the organization by becoming the Chair of the PPP. It describes how under this leadership, working collaboratively with colleagues, PPP has become a highly innovative and creative centrifugal force in the IGA within two years. It tracks the process of culture change and how creating a safe space for experiences of marginalization within organizations can lead to wider system changes that increase inclusivity. When institutions can remain open and not become defensive about these experiences, this can lead to the wider culture being able to integrate these important experiences and adapt.

Arab Student Experiences of Inclusivity and Exclusivity at Portland State University and Off-Campus Locations

The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of Arab and Arab-American students at Portland State University and in non-campus settings. The study focuses on the question: How do Arab and Arab-American students experience inclusivity and exclusivity on and off campus? The research sample includes five Portland State students, three Arab-Americans and two international Arabs. Students were chosen to include Muslims and Christians, students who wear the hijab, students with heavy accents, and students who fit the stereotypical appearance of Arabs, as well as students who may not be obviously identified as Arab. Subjects were asked about the personal experiences that formed their perception of belonging or othering in various settings. Themes of personal and institutional prejudice are explored. Four major themes emerged: (a) an overall sense of belonging on campus; (b) experiences of exclusion and stereotyping; (c) experiences of ignorance, racism, and prejudice, primarily in off-campus locations; and (d) strong disapproval of racial categorization of Arabs as “white” in campus census collection practices. This study demonstrates a commonality in experiences between Arab and Arab-American students and shows the need for further investigation of the racial categorization practices at Portland State University and other state and government organizations.

AGING KNOWLEDGE AND SELF-REPORTED AGEISM

The term, ageism, refers to any form of personal or institutional prejudice or discrimination based on chronological age. Ageism may encompass attitudes and prejudices, as well as behaviors, highlighting the complex nature of ageist behaviors observed among students and professionals alike (Allen, Cherry, & Palmore, 2009). We examined the prevalence of self-reported ageist behaviors in a sample of college students who ranged in age from 18 to 44 years to test the hypothesis that aging knowledge would be associated with self-reported ageist behaviors (positive and negative). The study sample was comprised of adults who were enrolled in classes at Louisiana State University (n = 110). Most of these students were traditional aged college students (18-25 years old). Participants completed the Relating to Older People Evaluation (ROPE; Cherry & Palmore, 2008), the Facts on Aging Quiz (FAQ; Palmore, 1998), and the Knowledge of Memory Aging Questionnaire (KMAQ: Cherry et al., 2003). Results indicated that positive ageist behaviors were more frequent than negative ageist behaviors. Men endorsed positive and negative ageism items more than women reported. Follow-up analyses on participants’ responses to the two aging knowledge questionnaires showed that increased knowledge of aging was significantly correlated with diminished reports of negative ageist behaviors, after controlling for age and gender. These results imply that self-reported ageist behaviors are associated with aging knowledge. Strengthening college curricula by including course offerings in adult development and aging may improve self-reported ageist behaviors among college students.

Dynamics of the social network of young female transsexuals that live and deal with HIV/AIDS.

to analyze the social network of young female transsexuals who live with HIV/AIDS. descriptive and exploratory study of qualitative approach, based on the Social Network Theory, developed in a Brazilian reference hospital for HIV/AIDS, with six transsexual women. Individual interviews were recorded and transcribed, and the data were subjected to analysis of similarities through the software program IRaMuTeQ. the categories observed were: 1) dynamics of primary social network and social challenges; 2) dynamics of secondary social network and the institutional prejudice. the dynamics of the social network is based on the lack of support of primary and secondary networks, and the containment process limits the reach of quality of life and social emancipation. To deal with this theme will provide the visibility of young female transsexuals in confronting vulnerabilities and guaranteeing human rights.

268 Shifting Away from Racial Bias

Studies from 1997-2016 have identified race as a predictive factor in regard to emergency department (ED) length of stay (LOS), extending across age groups and sexs. However, it is difficult to discern a true bias towards race without confounding factors of resource limitations and/or socioeconomic status (SES). Increased ED wait times lead to delayed care and decreased patient satisfaction, and can impact disparate populations disproportionately. This paper aims to explore if the LOS in an urban ED, when stratified by illness severity, changes based on age, race, and SES. Patient records from 1/2018 - 12/2018 at a level 1 urban trauma center ED, with census of 80k patients, was pulled from the EHR. Patients were stratified to illness severity by using disposition status. Subjects were then categorized by race, age, and SES, using the National Reading System of social grading. Race categories used: Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native American, and White. Age was defined as: Child (0-12), Adolescent (13-18), Adult (19-64), and Geriatric (65+). SES used the five following labels: Classes A, B, C1, C2, and D. Patient zip codes were cross referenced with census income data. Class A represented the top 4% of earners while class D denoted the bottom 20%. Primary outcomes were total LOS in the ED and time to provider (TTP). To assess baseline prognostic strength of each variable, a logistic regression was performed prior to stratification of patient data. Following, patient data was organized by disposition status. The average and median LOS was recorded for each variable. When not accounting for patient disposition, a logistic regression with univariate analysis showed that neither race nor socioeconomic status were independent predictors of LOS. Age was shown to be a significant predictor: with adults as the reference, a child had a log-odds ratio of 0.6, p= 0.001, 95% CI [0.57, 0.63], indicating roughly a 40% reduction in LOS. Geriatric patients had a log odds of 1.52, p= 0.001, 95% CI [1.50, 1.55]. Thus across all groups the typical geriatric patient was waiting up to 50% longer regardless of their disposition status. When patients were placed into three separate cohorts: admitted, discharged, and observed, the prognostic effect of our variables became evident. Age was again predictive, with admitted children having a median LOS (min) of 296 (IQR 215-360) v adults 538 (IQR 335-920), yielding a difference of 242 min, p=0.001. TTP was inversely correlated with admitted adults being seen 19.45 min, p= 0.0093, 95% CI [4.80, 34.11] faster than children. LOS results had an average 62.14 min, p= 0.001, 95% CI [56.38, 67.91] difference between admitted Black and White patients. TTP was not significantly reduced for White patients compared to other races. While there was no difference in TTP, SES results revealed a difference between admitted Class A and D patients for total LOS [395 (IQR 246-713) v 581 (IQR 367-995)]. Disparity between SES classes was 186 min, p=0.0103, three-fold more than the disparity that race accounts for. TTP correlated with age but no other variables. LOS correlated with all variables with race showing less of a disparity than SES. Unlike literature highlighting the influence of race, our data suggests that SES may be a stronger predictor, signifying needing to shift the discussion from institutionalized racism in health care, to one that addresses institutional prejudice toward lower socioeconomic groups.

El contenido estereotípico y el discurso acerca del prejuicio racial en Bahía

Esta investigación tuvo como objetivo descubrir el contenido de los estereotipos asociados a las personas racializadas blancas y negras, así como verificar las justificaciones para la existencia de prejuicio racial en Bahía. En esta encuesta participaron 146 personas, de las cuales un 56.8% fueron estudiantes de una universidad pública de Salvador de Bahía y un 43.2% no estudiantes, con edades comprendidas entre 16 y 75 años (M =29.84 DT = 12.663), el 47.6% eran de sexo femenino y el 52.4% de sexo masculino. Los participantes respondieron a una prueba de asociación libre, que contenía las palabras estímulos: personas negras y blancas; además de una pregunta referente a la existencia de prejuicio en Bahía para justificar su respuesta. Los contenidos de los estereotipos indican que a las personas racializadas como blancas y a las negras se les asocian estereotipos referentes al estatus y condiciones sociales. Las personas blancas fueron percibidas como poseedores de un mayor estatus (ricos y guapos) y las personas negras con menor (pobres y trabajadores), lo que corroboró el modelo del contenido de los estereotipos de Fiske et al. (1999, 2002, 2007). Además, los participantes afirmaron que perciben la existencia del prejuicio racial en Bahía. Las justificaciones se agruparon en dos categorías. La primera presenta el prejuicio racial como un fenómeno histórico, mientras que en la segunda el prejuicio racial es visto como un fenómeno actual. Por lo tanto, se pudo verificar que el prejuicio racial fue percibido como un fenómeno social cuyas raíces están en la estructura social brasileña, que lo configura como un fenómeno institucional, que cuestiona el mito de la democracia racial en Brasil.Palabras clave: contenido de los estereotipos, prejuicio racial, prejuicio institucional.

The "Elderly" in Medicine: Ethical Issues Surrounding This Outdated and Discriminatory Term.

The objective of this study was to investigate and describe how the use of the term “elderly” contributes to bias and problems within the medical system. A systematic review of the relevant literature and history was conducted. The term “elderly” does not define age accurately and carries bias and prejudice that lead to harm through discriminatory practices, institutional prejudices, and “ageist” policies in society and medicine. Doctors and healthcare providers seldom intentionally try to harm any patient, but might do so through unconscious anti-elderly bias. Studies indicate that medical students already demonstrate anti-elderly bias; researchers may lump patients aged 65 and over together, confounding specific information needed for individualized treatments; and out of unwarranted concern, medical and surgical treatments may be denied, despite minimal increased risk of mortality. When the cost of healthcare rises, it is the elderly against whom rationing is suggested. The term “elderly” has no place in medicine. Anti-elderly health care rationing is as unethical as rationing targeted against any group. It is reverse paternalism to make rules that limit others’ medical care, happiness, and life span without their consent. Medicine is the science and art of individual communication, evaluation and treatment. Once we deny care to any one group, we open the door to denial to others.

The proscription of male homosexuality in the history of the institutionalized psychoanalytic movement

Abstract: This work aims to explore the historical proscription of gay candidates to the psychoanalytic training offered by the societies affiliated to the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). Through a research made in reports, archives and bulletins, it was found that the homosexual visibility movement that emerged in the 1970s brought into light both the institutional prejudice and the rationalizations that grounded it. The development of psychoanalytic theory and the model of psychoanalytical institutionalization are pointed out as key factors for the exclusionary practice.

The proscription of male homosexuality in the history of the institutionalized psychoanalytic movement

Abstract: This work aims to explore the historical proscription of gay candidates to the psychoanalytic training offered by the societies affiliated to the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). Through a research made in reports, archives and bulletins, it was found that the homosexual visibility movement that emerged in the 1970s brought into light both the institutional prejudice and the rationalizations that grounded it. The development of psychoanalytic theory and the model of psychoanalytical institutionalization are pointed out as key factors for the exclusionary practice.

Conceptualizing Family Structure in a Social Determinants of Health Framework

AbstractIn this article, we propose the conceptualization of family structure as an important socially stratified grouping within a social determinants of health (SDOH) framework. We explore how family science literature supports this conceptualization of family structure through evidence of inequity in health outcomes across structurally diverse families that can and ought to be addressed; social stratification across family structures in which some family forms have greater prestige and power than others; and internalized, personally mediated, and institutional prejudices and discriminations that operate on the basis of these social stratifications. Ultimately, we contend that conceptualizing family structure as a socially stratified grouping within an SDOH framework can help enhance family science scholarship and assist family professionals in more effectively serving contemporary families.

Representaciones sociales sobre consumo de sustancias en contexto universitario: la voz de los estudiantes

El objetivo del presente estudio fue describir las representaciones sociales asociadas al consumo de sustancias -legales e ilegales- y construidas por los estudiantes de una universidad privada de la ciudad de Medellín. La investigación tuvo un enfoque cualitativo con un alcance descriptivo. Para la recolección de los datos se utilizó una encuesta de evocación libre y un listado de oraciones inconclusas y se trabajó con un grupo de 100 estudiantes. Los hallazgos muestran que los estudiantes piensan el consumo de sustancias desde la posibilidad de la elección, al tiempo que lo asocian con el riesgo del daño; así mismo, cuestionan el perjuicio social e institucional que representa el acceso a las drogas en el contexto universitario. Las categorías bajo las cuales se agrupan los hallazgos son: percepción sobre el consumidor universitario, el consumo de sustancias y el acceso a la droga.

Editor's Introduction

One of the main purposes of The Good Society's founders was to examine political institutions and their functioning, not only in light of the values and purposes they were designed to promote, but also in light of those currently prevailing. In that sense, this issue marks a return to the journal's roots. The symposium on Lawrence Hamilton's Freedom Is Power: Liberty through Political Representation examines the author's effort to diagnose and treat the ills of democracy in South Africa from a consequentialist perspective: Do the formal protections and privileges granted to South Africa's citizens, or their ostensible representation in deliberative institutions, actually make them free?Hamilton argues not—and not simply because of public corruption or institutional flaws. Rather, he insists (with nods to John Dewey and Amartya Sen) that freedom can only mean the ability to determine and pursue specific actions or goods, and in a context of interdependence, each citizen's degree of freedom depends on the power she wields over and through her representatives. It makes no difference, then, if South Africa's institutions promote one version of the common good—say, sustained economic growth—versus another—say, predictable social order. There is no common good, aside from the equal opportunity for all citizens to pursue their material, social, and ideal interests as far as the demands of equal representation permit. The essence of politics, as Machiavelli taught, is not achieving consensus but managing conflict. To avoid revolution the system must manage conflict fairly, and to manage fairly it must preclude the economic, social, and intellectual domination of one group or groups by another or others.Thus, for Hamilton, freedom is power and power is representation without domination. He suggests several institutional innovations intended to enhance the national voice of local communities and the country's large poor population, as well as to ensure regular constitutional review and encourage necessary constitutional reforms. As the symposium's diverse contributors make clear, Hamilton's theory, analysis, and prescriptions are all provocative. But whether persuaded by Hamilton or his critics, readers committed to the Civic Studies enterprise should note his ultimate goal, which is neither to tie representatives more directly to their constituents' demands nor to help them identify an objective or aggregate national interest. Rather, it is to create and preserve spaces in which ideas can compete and interests evolve to challenge both individual and institutional prejudices—not once and for all, but continuously and indefinitely.If the Hamilton symposium recalls the concerns that originated the Civic Studies field, the First Annual Civic Game Design contest reported in this issue gestures toward the diversity and innovation that characterizes the field currently and seems likely to do so in future. Of course, as contest organizers Joshua A. Miller, Sarah Shugars, and Daniel Levine write, the impulse behind it can be traced back to John Dewey's insistence that democracy is as much a system of habits—a way of life—as a form of government, and thus rewards practical reinforcement in daily life. Above all, this kind of democracy—democracy as a constant process of civic inquiry and renewal—regularly requires citizens to ask and answer the question, “What should we do?”That question demands reflection on the goals and capacities of oneself, of one's fellow citizens, and of both together, under whatever particular circumstances obtain at the moment. In short, it is analogous to a game, not in the sense of a trifling distraction but in the sense of a structured social activity combining competition and cooperation. After all, even the most competitive games require a collective assent to and interpretation of rules and procedures. Why not design games to hone other, more explicitly interpersonal, problem-solving skills?Both the contest organizers and the winning designers took that challenge seriously. More important, they identified others that reflect Dewey's appreciation for the way our spheres of activity interpenetrate. Along with teaching a civic skill, write the organizers, a game can raise awareness of a civic issue; produce a civic experience; promote a civic cause; and encourage engagement in another civic activity. Indeed, perhaps the ideal civic game would not merely achieve all five goals, but remind players that their individual capacities, knowledge, and experiences are mutually constitutive, not only of one another, but of the moral and social universe they inhabit. That might sound geeky, but it would be a serious win for civic life.

Urban Butoh: A performance philosophy in an age of digital acceleration

The purpose of this article is to define Urban Butoh as a performance praxis, suggesting that the nature of deceleration regarding performative actions, can be considered progress. Urban Butoh has facilitated for me, a process of critical reflexivity, while in the flux of movement; cognisant that we are living in an age of digital acceleration. An important implication concerning this praxis, gives permission to take back ownership of personal narrative discourses by engaging in post-traditional research vis-a-vis knowledge systems not included in dominant westernised academic or artistic cannons; thereby enabling a process of researching untold stories to re-evaluate dominant cultural assumptions. One can argue that although underlying attitudes have not really changed with respect to underlying perceptions leading to ethnic stereotyping in Britain, cultural policy has, due to the performative resistance of those subjugated by institutional prejudice.

A Still Practically Relevant AristotleReal Social Science: Applied Phronesis. Edited by Bent Flyvbjerg, Todd Landman, and Sanford Schram. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

fieldworker invests a great deal of time and effort to gain rapport and learn a language for which there is little or no written history and literature. My only regret in reading this wonderful collection of essays by mature scholars is that there were too few contributions by anthropologists who have combined multisited ethnography with long-term fieldwork in a single location during the course of a career. Starting in one place and changing to another is only one way of developing a comparative perspective in anthropology. Missing are accounts by anthropologists who have invested a great deal of time in one location with one group, done fieldwork in other places, and returned to the first field site with a fresh pair of eyes and ears and new theories. Those who have followed this trajectory have discovered new topics to explore, changed their ideas about the culture they thought they had fully understood, and learned how their informants interpret their historical experiences in unanticipated ways. An enjoyable aspect of all of these essays is the embrace of serendipity as a source of creativity. Changing life situations and chance encounters led to unanticipated discoveries in new locations for all of the contributors. I would hope, however, that the contributors’ embrace of serendipity does not mean that choosing new field sites according to some kind of plan is necessarily obsolete. It is interesting that Herzfeld, who presents one of the most coherent accounts of his professional trajectory, makes the most impassioned defense of serendipity. My impression from reading his essay and his work is that his earlier fieldwork on the Island of Rhodes and in Crete was the source of a vision that carried him through his ethnography of the state in Rome and in Thailand, which came about because of many chance encounters. The strength of this collection is that the contributors reveal how anthropologists face many personal challenges in their struggle to combine life and work: they have come up against institutional prejudices based on the area-studies focus in many universities; they have struggled, sometimes valiantly, to master new languages; and they have read pages of history, ethnography, and theory to prepare for fieldwork in a new place. These essays show rather than tell why there is no one best way to develop a comparative perspective in anthropology and how fieldwork, wherever it takes place, is our lifeblood.

Print and Power in France and England, 1500-1800

This volume provides a wide range of arguments about the power of print in France and England from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. While discussions and theoretical concerns occasionally anticipate or echo others, the collection is especially notable for the diversity of arenas and formats in which political issues and the medium of print converge. Armstrong's research into modifications made to late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth-century Burgundian works printed in France uncovers publishers' systematic adoption of measures to avoid controversial political topics and disparagement of the French. As Austin contends, a discrepancy between authorial intention and audience reception also explains the publication triumph of Immanuel Tremellius's 1575–1579 Latin translation of the Bible, a standard of the Calvinist faith and successful competitor against the Catholic-identified Vulgate, which Tremellius himself valued and relied upon. Changes in the reception of academic publications in England are scrutinized by Knight, who compares Gabriel Harvey's anxieties in the 1570s and 1580s about circulating his work in English rather than Latin and attracting a court as well as academic audience, with Robert Burton's confident emphasis on institutional prejudices against the vernacular, signalling the acceptance of more commercially oriented scholarly publications forty years later. In her study of eighteenth-century public opinion in England through analysis of the anonymous ‘Letters to the Printer’ appearing in the London Chronicle in 1765, Dean uncovers another form of incongruity between the authors' message in this political exchange and the promotion of differing interpretations through the layout of these letters in juxtaposed columns. Other formats were adopted to disseminate governmental propaganda, such as André Félibien's illustrated books on royal buildings, tapestries and festivals during Louis XIV's reign. Reaching both a French and foreign audience, these beautiful volumes, Saunders asserts, attested to the king's power to mount public displays, while advertising his potential to mount military campaigns. Political staging through the illustrated book yielded different results for the less stable transitional government of the Directory, as Adams suggests in an analysis of Grasset Saint-Sauveur's Costumes des Représentans. Although designed to convey a positive image of the new administration through portrayal of official costumes, this volume was, according to Adams, as naive and flawed as the new Constitution. Less obvious was the elites' control of propaganda through clandestine pre-Revolutionary French pamphlets. Buttressed by the memoirs of the police lieutenant-general J.-P. Lenoir, Burrows argues against Habermas and Darnton that political crises of the period resulted more from royal failure to contain factionalism, manifest in subversive pamphleteering, than from the influence of outsiders. Morrissey's more philosophical piece on the shifting meaning of ‘charity’ and its relationship with the development of early English literary criticism seems the least relevant discussion of issues of print and power, as it traces the eighteenth-century rise of criticism as a perceived need to compensate for readers' limited ability in the context of changing ideas about the social control of text and meaning. The dense, high-quality articles in this collection, while wide-ranging, will interest French and English literary specialists, literary theorists, book historians and historians alike.