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To fully comprehend changes in the process of educational attainment in a Society, we must acknowledge changes in the social structure. This paper examines changes in the Dutch educational attainment process over a 25-year period. We compare the attainment levels of two generations of students, those born around 1940 and those born around 1965. The analysis is conducted in two stages. In the first stage, we use a variant of multiple correspondence analysis to determine whether changes in the Dutch systems of labor, welfare, and education have affected levels of attainment. In the second stage, we measure changes in the attainment process using a simple version of the Wisconsin model. Results of the first analysis show that changes in Dutch society have affected the educational attainment of certain groups. For example, the modernization of agriculture has had a positive effect on the attainment of farmer's children, and the extension of the welfare system has had a negative effect on the attainment of children from welfare families. The results of the second analysis show that there has been considerable change in the attainment process. The effect of achievement score on selection into secondary school has increased, and the effects of sex and residence have decreased. However, this increase in meritocratic selection has been offset by an increase in the effect of social class on achievement score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With this poetic opening, the Dutch anthropologist Francio Guadeloupe situates his experience as an Afro-Antillean man living in the Netherlands. With this book, Guadeloupe explicitly makes room for nuance to the academic debate on Blackness. Black Man in the Netherlands: An Afro-Antillean Anthropology, by Francio Guadeloupe. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) emerged as sexually transmitted infection among HIV-infected men who have sex with men (MSM). We studied whether HCV circulated in identifiable high-risk MSM subcultures and performed phylogenetic analysis. Methods: HIV-infected MSM were recruited at the sexually transmitted infections (STI) outpatient clinic and a university HIV clinic in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2008–2009. Participants completed a detailed questionnaire and were tested for HCV antibodies and RNA, with NS5B regions sequenced for analysis of clusters. Results: Among 786 participants, the median age was 43 (IQR 37–48) years, and 93 (11.8%) were HCV-positive. Seropositivity was associated with belonging to subcultures identified as leather (aOR 2.60; 95% CI 1.56–4.33), rubber/lycra (aOR 2.15; 95% CI 1.10–4.21), or jeans (aOR 2.23; 95% CI 1.41–3.54). The two largest HCV-RNA monophyletic clusters were compared; MSM in cluster I (genotype 1a, n = 13) reported more partners (P = 0.037) than MSM in cluster II (genotype 4d, n = 14), but demographics, subculture characteristics and other risk behaviors did not differ significantly between the two clusters. Discussion: HCV infection is associated with identifiable groups of leather/rubber/lycra/jeans subcultures among HIV-infected MSM. Separate epidemiological HCV transmission networks were not revealed. Active HCV screening and treatment within specific subcultures may reduce HCV spread among all MSM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Born in The Hague in 1946, the author has been interested in simulation and gaming since he was 12 years old. Simulations, particularly the role-play type, were then, and still are, fun for the author. He used them for recreation, to replay history and practice strategy and tactics, to enjoy politics and journalism, and to interact with friends and foes. He was inspired to use simulation exercises as a training tool for educational purposes all over the world. Could the history and the history-to-come of a human being, and his or her vision of the real and imaginary worlds, be described in stages like in world history? The author attempts to do so in this contribution to Simulation & Gaming. His life has always been intertwined with reality and fiction alike, and has passed through certain stages, so it might be of help to sketch it through the metaphor of human history. After all, the history and politics of humankind were his main motivations for creating simulation games to teach others, as well as himself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents abstracts provided by the Afrika-Studiecentrum (ASC) in Leiden, the Netherlands, including abstracts on discourses on development in the social space of post-Mobutu teleserials in Congo, the expertise of women in Islamic esoteric practices in Africa and the presence of Neopentecostal movements in Africa.

Transnational Dutch-Iranian hyperlink networks allow the exploration of relationships between virtual and physical space. According to many of its analysts, the Internet implies a virtual transcendence of place, but ethnographic approaches have convincingly redirected attention to issues of embeddedness. Here, this concept principally applies to national contexts of hyperlink production, content, and directionality. This article examines the interrelationships of on-line and off-line contexts (patterns of Dutch-Iranian communal organization) as a prelude to explorations of transnational hyperlinking. My findings indicate that national hyperlinks remain relatively important and that transnational links, far from being ‘deterritorialized’, follow national patterns for their sectoral distribution. That is, physical space, of nation-state boundaries in particular, weighs heavily on virtual interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a description of the contemporary Dutch anthropology, which is an expanding field of activity, involving field research on virtually all continents. Dutch anthropology has been grown from colonial practice, infused by nineteenth century German academic traditions, practiced by academics who are ambtenaren, and widely spread over the world, thus, anthropology in the Netherlands betray a distinct civil servant discourse. Furthermore, it generally suffers from awkward presentation because of the important exceptions that have been disregarded. Finally, the author concludes that all these descriptions of the contemporary Dutch anthropology reflect the soberness and parsimony of Dutch culture at large.