Volunteers Managing Volunteers: The Role of Volunteer Board Members’ Motivating and Demotivating Style in Relation to Volunteers’ Motives to Stay Volunteer

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Against the background of declining volunteering rates in nonprofit and voluntary organizations, this study examined the...     

Sociological discourse of the relational: the cases of Bourdieu & Latour1

Pierre Bourdieu's approach to sociology has been so widely recognized as being innovative that his innovations can be said to have been academically incorporated to the degree of having‐been‐innovative. On the other hand, the more recent work of Bruno Latour seems to offer a fresh innovative impetus to sociology. Over against Bourdieu's relational sociology, Latour's relationist sociology overcomes the subject‐object dichotomy, and abandons the notions of ‘society’ and ‘the social’. In this contribution, a comparison is made between the ideas of Bourdieu and Latour on the question of what sociology should look like, specifically focusing on their respective ideas on what can be called the relational. A Latourian critique of Bourdieu is provided, as well as a Bourdieusian analysis of Latourian sociology. Rather than ending up with two different ‘paradigms’, an attempt is made on the basis of Foucault's archaeology of discourse to view Bourdieusian and Latourian sociology as distinct positions within a discourse on the relational.     

Large Differences in Time Use for Three Data Collection Systems

Two versions of an electronic time use diary are compared with the conventional paper-and-pencil one (or PAPI). One version was a self-administered diary (Computer-Assisted Self-Interview or CASI), while the second was based on an interviewer-administered procedure (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview or CATI). Comparison of the data collection systems used for time use statistics revealed large differences between the procedures for most of the activities. Many of these differences were significant at the 0.05 level. Since no general effect of the registration method was found, several activities have been studied in detail to account for the differences in time use. We pay attention here only to the results for two specific activities; time spent on travel and watching television/listening to the radio. For both activities, specific registration characteristics were responsible for the differences found.     

Causal direction in a model of life satisfaction: The top-down/bottom-up controversy

In social indicator studies, there is some controversy about the causal direction between subjective well-being and domain-specific satisfaction variables; a “top-down” approach is distinguished from a “bottom-up” approach. In this paper, the effects in both directions are estimated in a model with reciprocal relationships as a starting model. It can then be determined which of the two effects for each pair of variables is strongest and which effect can be ignored in the model. This procedure is applied to four different datasets collected in the Netherlands, and to models with different exogenous variables. Comparing the best solutions obtained for all different models and datasets, it is shown that the direction of the effects is not consistent across models and datasets. We have to conclude that it is impossible to obtain a stable solution for the model of subjective well-being in this study. As a consequence, we also have to conclude that the results from other studies cannot be trusted in which the causal order in a model of subjective well-being is tested.     

Design of experimental studies for measurement and evaluation of the determinants of Job Satisfaction

In this paper the authors examine the methodology of data analysis and collection usually applied in Job-Satisfaction studies and more generally in Well-being research. In this field, data is collected through questionnaires and analysed using multivariate statistical techniques, a process which is commonly known as non-experimental research. The article points out some of the problems in this procedure and proposes an alternative experimental methodology which is applied to evaluate Job-Satisfaction over a Dutch random sample. Essentially it consists of the implementation of factorial designs in questionnaire construction. The use of fractional factorials is also discussed.     

Random effects models for estimation of the probability and time to progression of a continuous biomarker

Biomarkers play a key role in the monitoring of disease progression. The time taken for an individual to reach a biomarker exceeding or lower than a meaningful threshold is often of interest. Due to the inherent variability of biomarkers, persistence criteria are sometimes included in the definitions of progression, such that only two consecutive measurements above or below the relevant threshold signal that “true” progression has occurred. In previous work, a novel approach was developed, which allowed estimation of the time to threshold using the parameters from a linear mixed model where the residual variance was assumed to be pure measurement error. In this paper, we extend this methodology so that serial correlation can be accommodated. Assuming that the Markov property holds and applying the chain rule of probabilities, we found that the probability of progression at each timepoint can be expressed simply as the product of conditional probabilities. The methodology is applied to a cohort of HIV positive individuals, where the time to reach a CD4 count threshold is estimated. The second application we present is based on a study on abdominal aortic aneurysms, where the time taken for an individual to reach a diameter exceeding 55 mm is studied. We observed that erroneously ignoring the residual correlation when it is strong may result in substantial overestimation of the time to threshold. The estimated probability of the biomarker reaching a threshold of interest, expected time to threshold, and confidence intervals are presented for selected patients in both applications.     

Imaginaries of postponed arrival: on seeing ‘society’ and its ‘immigrants’

This paper discusses a logic of seeing in official assessments of the ‘integration of immigrants’ in West European societies and interprets these as arrival narratives. In postcolonial and diasporic literature, the arrival narrative is not concerned with the actual date of arrival but with the question ‘how much has someone really arrived?’ (Quayson, A. 2013. Postcolonialism and the diasporic imaginary. Lecture series: New directions in literary postcolonial studies. Utrecht University, 7 Oct.). The official, state-initiated monitoring of immigrant integration is based upon measurements of the degree to which the population classified as ‘immigrant’ is ‘integrated’ in a ‘host society’. In literary terms, this can be interpreted as a narrative in which a personage – classified in highly specific, contingent ways, as ‘immigrant’ – is portrayed as being in a mode of arriving but without having arrived and without ever really arriving. The way in which this narrative of postponed arrival is shaped involves a specific way of seeing in the routinized work of quantitatively assessing immigrant integration. With the narratological concept of focalization we analyse a logic of seeing present in the reports and images of immigrant integration monitoring practices in the Netherlands. Moreover, we discuss the workings of a societal gaze, instituted on the basis of particular societal norms reproduced at the ‘place of arrival’, that is, the place imagined as ‘society’. This societal gaze operates as a performative practice distributing a way of seeing, thereby enacting the reproduction of existing power asymmetries between ‘members of society’ and ‘immigrants’. As such, we conclude, the hope for ‘arrival’ constitutes a form of ‘cruel optimism’ (Berlant, L., 2011. Cruel optimism. Durham: Duke University Press).     

Family Influences on Intermarriage Attitudes: A Sibling Analysis in the Netherlands

This study examined the influence of the family on native Dutch attitudes toward having ethnic minority members as kin through marriage using multiactor data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (N = 1,652). Results from multilevel models showed that 28% of the variation in ethnic attitudes can be ascribed to the family. We investigated different pathways through which the family affects these attitudes; 60% of the family influence was explained. Results revealed that the intergenerational congruence of attitudes and the transmission of attitudes and structural and cultural positions are important mechanisms. Furthermore, family characteristics in adulthood—strength and warmth of family relationships—related to intermarriage attitudes, and the strength of family relationships moderated attitude congruence within families.