Legislative responses to wrongful conviction: Do partisan principals and advocacy efforts influence state-level criminal justice policy?

The number of discovered wrongful criminal convictions (and resulting exonerations) has increased over the past decade. These cases erode public confidence in the criminal justice system and trust in the rule of law. Many states have adopted laws that aim to reduce system errors but no study has examined why some states appear more willing to provide due process protections against wrongful convictions than others. Findings from regression estimates suggest that states with a Republican controlled legislature or more Republican voters are less likely to pass these laws while the presence of advocacy organizations that are part of the ‘innocence movement’ make legislative change more likely. We thus identify important differences in the political and social context between U.S. states that influence the adoption of criminal justice policies.     

Depoliticising literature,politicising diversity: ethno-racial boundaries in Dutch literary professionals’ aesthetic repertoires

Although still a neglected area, over the years a growing body of sociological research on the position of ethno-racial minorities in Western artistic fields has emerged. With this article we aim to contribute to this research area by focusing on ethno-racial diversity in the Dutch literary field. Through in-depth interviews, we analyse how gatekeepers mobilise specific cultural repertoires and by doing so draw ethno-racial boundaries when discussing acquisition, assessing quality and positioning themselves in the literary field. We argue that literary publishers and other professionals (selectively) employ an ‘old school’ modernist repertoire that especially values the formal aspects of literary products, by which non-white writers and publishers concerned with diversity are often positioned in an identity politics framework. Their work is said to take in a less prestigious ‘political’/’subjective’ position rather than a ‘literary’/‘universal’ one. As such, this paper informs on how gatekeepers’ practices shape the position of non-white authors in the Dutch literary field.     

Young people,social media and connective action: from organisational maintenance to everyday political talk

Social media is pervasive in the lives of young people, and this paper critically analyses how politically engaged young people integrate social media use into their existing organisations and political communications. This qualitative research project studied how young people from a broad range of existing political and civic groups use social media for sharing information, mobilisation and, increasingly, as a means to redefine political action and political spaces. Twelve in-person focus groups were conducted in Australia, the USA and the UK with matched affinity groups based on university campuses. The groups were of four types: party political group, issue-based group, identity-based group and social group. Our focus group findings suggest that this in-depth approach to understanding young people's political engagement reveals important group-based differences emerging in young people's citizenship norms: between the dutiful allegiance to formal politics and a more personalised, self-actualising preference for online, discursive forms of political engagement and organising. The ways in which political information is broadcast, shared and talked about on social media by engaged young people demonstrate the importance of communicative forms of action for the future of political engagement and connective action.     

Enoch Powell,empires, immigrants and education

2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, an intervention that is still viewed as one of the most incendiary statements of the perceived decay and violence likely to follow legislation intended to assure minoritised British citizens of equal rights regardless of their ethnic origin. In this essay, Sally Tomlinson (one of Britain’s foremost multicultural theorists) reflects on Powell’s legacy and the contemporary scene where in the US, UK and across Europe, White resentment and fear is increasingly shaping ‘mainstream’ debates about nationhood, migration and education.     

Humor and satire in politics: Introducing cultural sociology to the field

The landscape of political humor and satire is changing rapidly, and it is becoming an increasingly relevant aspect of our culture. Although scholars have been actively trying to capture this change, majority of the existing frameworks for understanding humor and satire in politics still reduce these phenomena to mere genres or rhetoric tools. In addition, they provide insufficient accounts concerning the reception of humor and satire, and neglect to interpret and explain what they communicate. In the article, a general understanding of humor and satire outside of a political context, followed by an overview of studies discussing humor and satire in politics through their applications in social movements, as leadership tools, and through their manifestations in mass media has been presented. Lastly, a cultural sociological perspective to the field has been introduced. It has been argued that approaching humor and satire in politics through a structural hermeneutic method of the Strong Program will enable us to recognize and treat political humor and satire as autonomous and complex cultural systems which carry an internal power to move people.     

Ambivalent Spaces—The Emergence of a New Gay Male Norm Situated Between Notions of the Commercial and the Political in the Swedish Gay Press, 1969–1986

Within sexual geographies, sexual struggles over urban public spaces are frequently explored. Less common is research on sexual struggles within sexually shared spaces and gay spaces. The aim of the article is to examine discursive struggles of meanings of gay male identity enacted in discussions of commodification/capitalism, disclosure, and space in Swedish gay press during 1969–1986. We trace the ambivalent feelings or the emergence of a new gay male norm situated between commercialism and non-commercialism within the Swedish gay press back to the 1970s. In the article we show how a monosexualization process was taking place in both the Swedish gay press as well as within sexual spaces. We explore rhetorical struggles between two competing discursive meanings of (ideal homonormative) male homosexuality, gay culture, and space: one wider (inclusive) and one narrower (exclusive).     

非专业大学英语开设背诵课探讨

从3个方面分析阐述了背诵在外语学习中的重要性,并结合有关教学实践,提出在大学公共英语教学中增开背诵课的设想,并对如何开好背诵课提出一些建议。     

华北村落的人类学研究方法

在探讨中国社会组织原则时 ,将华南的宗族研究范式与华北的满铁研究传统结合起来 ,可以形成一条行之有效的学术实践路线 ,这就是追踪调查再研究模式。它所具有的学术魅力在于 :(1)方法论上 ,确立了一种将不同研究传统结合起来的研究取向 ,即追踪调查再研究模式 ;(2 )与国际汉学人类学界接轨 ;(3)考察村落社会文化变迁的原委 ,洞悉社会转型期的实质 ,对处于传统与现代之间的华北村落社会提供一场人类学个案解说     

列宁社会主义建设方法论及其在中国的发展

社会主义建设的方法论 ,是社会主义建设和发展的一个至关重要的问题。列宁在此问题上进行了不懈的探索 ,并找到了正确的方法 ,这就是间接过渡的方法。列宁社会主义建设方法论 ,在中国得到了发展 ,毛泽东和邓小平为此都作了不懈的努力 ,并由邓小平创立了有中国特色的社会主义建设方法论     

公民·公民教育·思想政治教育

公民概念在西方由来已久 ,它直接与国家相连并被认为是政治民主的一个关键因素。西方公民教育的核心 ,就是通过政治社会化形成公民意识。我国传统上只有臣民而无公民和公民教育 ,民国建立后所实施的公民教育也不成体系。真正将公民教育单独提出并加以强调 ,是在我国社会的转型时期。在社会主义市场经济条件下 ,立足于公民的塑造 ,培养公民的意识、观念与精神 ,是思想政治教育与时俱进、顺应时代发展的客观要求