Myriad potential for mentoring: Understanding the process of transformational change through a gender equality intervention

This article contributes to understanding transformational change towards gender equality by examining the transformational change potential of a mentoring programme for women, a type of gender equality intervention both criticized and praised for its ability to bring about change. Drawing upon an empirical case study of a mentoring programme for women academics in a Dutch university, we explore three dimensions of transformational change: organizational members (i) discussing and reflecting upon gendered organizational norms and work practices; (ii) creating new narratives; and (iii) experimenting with new work practices. Our findings indicate five specific conditions that enable transformational change: cross‐mentoring, questioning what is taken for granted, repeating participation and individual stories, facilitating peer support networks and addressing and equipping all participants as change agents. We suggest that these conditions should be taken into account when (re)designing effective organizational gender equality interventions.     

论全球气候治理中城市的角色转型——兼论中国困境与出路

从全球气候治理的1.0时期、2.0时期到3.0时期，城市逐渐实现了从“幕后参与者”到“共同引领者”的角色转型。这一转型既得益于全球治理理论在气候变化领域的延伸，更受惠于城市外交理论的推动和全球气候治理中“集体行动的困境”之驱使。就目前来看，中国城市的这一“共同引领者”角色还无法完全体现出来——不仅在隐性的“南北分割”的权力结构和发展中国家的气候治理分歧中，面临着对外发展的困境；而且在中央政府对地方政府的气候治理行动的“单向”型构造及城市的“经济发展”和“治理责任”的两难抉择中，面临着对内优化的瓶颈。针对这些问题，中国可以采取“两条干路+六条支路”的“两轨并行”式路径来寻求合理的应对之策。国家可以在寻求发展中国家的集体身份认同之时，进一步完善国内温室气体减排政策和立法，并赋予城市以一定的自主性；而城市也可以在深化城市气候外交，加强与国家的“双向”型气候治理互动的同时，推动“韧性城市”的长效发展。     

Institutional evolution and abrupt change: Reforming the administration of social assistance in Finland

Historical institutionalist studies have explained institutional change as resulting from critical junctures that interrupt long periods of stability or from endogenous, incremental evolution. Building on these theories, discursive institutionalists have focused on the roles of agency, ideas and discourse as explainers of change. Combining these approaches, this article analyses Finland’s decision in 2014 to transfer the administration of basic social assistance from municipalities to the central government. This study demonstrates that institutional change can be both abrupt and evolutionary. Due to sudden, exceptional political circumstances, the decision in question was made quickly and under pressure, circumventing possible veto players. However, it was possible only because of the incremental, endogenous change that had occurred in the way in which social assistance was administered at the municipal level. It enabled a change in political discourse, which eroded the credibility of the ideational frames that policy actors had previously utilised to reject the centralised model.     

Juvenile Delinquency Under Conditions of Rapid Social Change

Increased juvenile delinquency can be seen as an indicator for a deteriorating social fabric under conditions of rapid social change. Criminological theories suggest, however, that such conditions do not per se produce delinquency: They force youth into prodelinquent leisure activities with peers, leading to an endorsement of delinquent behavior and offering the infrastructure for it. Resources acquired in family and public life, however, may prevent youth from drifting into such prodelinquent leisure activities and indirectly from delinquent behavior. Empirical tests of these hypotheses have to employ simultaneous analyses of societal-level and individual-level data. On the basis of an international youth study, the paper undertakes such an analysis: In the years 1992–95, data from 42 independent samples of seventh graders from East and West Germany, Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czechia, and Greece were surveyed. Data on deviant school behavior, delinquent drift, nurturant parenting, and subjective feelings of justice in public were obtained from 7282 thirteen- to fourteen-year-olds. Processes of rapid social change were incorporated as data on changes in GNP in the years proceeding the surveys. Analyses show that delinquent drift is a valid predictor of deviant school behavior only on the individual level. The extent to which adolescents engage in prodelinquent peer activities depends more on the cultural context in which adolescents live than on their personal experience in the family and in public. Nurturant parenting does, however, covary negatively with deviant school behavior irrespective of level of analysis.     

Frontier spaces of vulnerability: Regional change,urbanization, drought and fire hazard in Santarém,Pará, Brazil

Fire hazard is a mounting concern in tropical rainforests of the Brazilian Amazon and has raised awareness within the science community of the links between agricultural fire use, drought and accidental fire. As a result, fire is being addressed as a crisis event with mitigation focused on those who light fires, particularly smallholder agriculturalists. Little attention is paid to the historical and ongoing ways in which Amazon landscapes and peoples have been made more susceptible to fire. Frontier regions of the Brazilian Amazon serve a variety of functions within the larger Brazilian society, including as extractive reserves for economic development, as social safety valves to reduce population pressures, and as areas to support urban regional integration. Each of these functions has impacted frontier environments in ways that create more flammable landscapes and/or shape the vulnerability of people to fire hazard. This paper uses a case study inthe Brazilian Lower Amazon to understand how vulnerability to fire hazard develops. It argues that if fire mitigation remains centered on fire as a crisis event, an understanding of what constitutes frontier spaces of vulnerability, both in landscape and in populations, will be limited.     

The University: An Agent of Social Change?

Can universities be agents of progressive social change? How would we know if a university was acting as an agent of social change? Drawing on four case studies, I raise a number of questions to problematize our understanding of the university as an agent of social change. I outline a number of contributing factors that appear to explain successful cases. I conclude by arguing the relevancy of these cases for larger, and more traditional, sociological projects.     

图书馆工作人员应该转变的六个观念

文章认为,要使图书馆工作适应新的技术革命和社会主义市场经济的需要,就必须转变观念.当前需要转变的观念有以下六个方面:图书馆由藏书中心变成文献资料中心、信息中心、智力开发中心;从关门办馆到开门办馆;从无偿服务到有偿服务;从独自办馆到馆际协作;从手工操作到运用现代技术手段;从与世无争到积极竞争.     

隐逸词在南宋遗民词中的新变

元初南宋遗民词人是一个颇具特色的群体,南宋遗民词中的隐逸词是宋亡后士大夫心理与境遇的反映。南宋遗民词人的心奥,南宋遗民词中隐逸词的新特点,是在宋末元初那一特定历史时代的产物,是其时的特有文化现象。     

一曲美国南方没落贵族的挽歌--评威廉·福克纳的《喧嚣与骚动》

《喧嚣与骚动》是美国现代著名作家威廉·福克纳的惊世之作。在小说中 ,福克纳刻画了一幅美国旧南方贵族没落的图景 ,为没落的旧南方贵族弹奏了一曲凄凉的挽歌 ,深刻地揭示了美国旧南方的衰败。本文从不同的角度来体现小说深刻的思想主题及作品鲜明的艺术特色     

话题转换的顺应性研究

根据顺应理论,使用语言的过程是一个进行选择的过程,语言使用者不仅选择语言形式,同时还选择使用策略。话题转换现象是对社会规约和心理世界的一种顺应。话题转换不当,会产生负面影响,妨碍交际的进行。