Older disabled workers' perceptions of volunteering

The activity of volunteering is readily available to, and undertaken by, able-bodied people in Australia and is recognized as a valuable social pursuit, particularly among citizens of retirement age. Despite the known benefits of volunteering, however, there are few reports of disabled people participating as volunteers and little is understood of their experiences or perceptions of volunteering. The aim of this study was to explore how older workers within supported employment settings perceived the opportunities for and barriers to volunteering. Fourteen people with long-standing impairments participated in this small qualitative study. Overall the participants were positive about volunteering, but noted they might require support to volunteer successfully. Drawing upon the participants' views, recommendations are made for developing training. Disabled workers facing retirement need to be supported to have opportunities for active participation in the community as volunteers if so desired.     

The expressive and communicative functions of preschool children's smiles in an achievement-situation

Two studies examined how different social contexts determine whether preschoolers' smiles in an achievement-game serve an expressive function indicating success versus failure experiences and/or a communicative function. Facial behavior was coded with the Facial Action Coding System. Unexpectedly, in Study 1 children (N=19) smiled more often after failure than after success. Study 2 investigated the influence of face-to-face contact with the experimenter on preschoolers' smiles (N=20). However, there were no differences between success and failure, but with face-to-face contact subjects exhibited more smiles than without. Features of the social situation that are supposed to determine the predominance of the communicative or expressive function of a smile are discussed.We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Detlef Friedrich and Katja Johann in the data collection and Signe Preuschoft in coding and analyzing the data.     

Economics of Radiation Protection: Equity Considerations

In order to implement cost-benefit analysis of protective actions to reduce radiological exposures, one needs to attribute a monetary value to the avoided exposure. Recently, the International Commission on Radiological Protection has stressed the need to take into consideration not only the collective exposure to ionising radiation but also its dispersion in the population. In this paper, by using some well known and some recent results in the economics of uncertainty, we discuss how to integrate these recommendations in the valuation of the benefit of protection.     

Family Experiences of Competition and Adolescent Performance

The authors examined how mothers' and fathers' feelings of competition at home and work affect their relationships with their daughters and sons using time‐diary data from a national sample of 220 families. Multivariate analyses revealed 3 relationships between parents' feelings of competitiveness at work and home and feelings of competition experienced by their children at school and home: (a) parents' and adolescents' competitiveness varied across home, work, and school—with mothers and fathers reporting similar levels of competition at work but daughters feeling more competitive at school than sons; (b) parents' competition at work was associated with similar activities; however, daughters' and sons' competition at school varied by activities; and (c) mothers' competition was associated with strategies for college enrollment and varied by gender, most notably with respect to daughters' academic progress. The results suggest how parents' competitive disposition may motivate their children's academic performance, especially between working mothers and their daughters.     

The sociolinguistics of late modern publics

This issue examines struggles over public discursive power in late modern society, understanding that late modern publics are characterized by a destabilization of formerly unmarked public authorities, in other words, an unsettling of standardized “voices from nowhere” (Gal & Woolard, 2001). The contributions to the issue illustrate traditional social and academic elites’ discursive reactions to such developments. In the introduction, we outline different theoretical frameworks of modern and late‐modern publics, identify factors that contribute to a destabilization of modern certainties of social public order, and argue that a weakening of traditional public norms not only implies emancipation but also, as the contributions to the issue demonstrate, may bring along new forms of public dominance. For the positioning of contemporary sociolinguistic theory and practice, we conclude that it is the crucial task of the current public moment to critically self‐engage with our own relations with, and ideologies of, the public. Dieses Themenheft befragt Strukturen öffentlicher Diskursmacht in spätmoderner Gesellschaft und zeigt auf, dass spätmoderne Öffentlichkeit durch eine Destabilisierung von vormals unmarkierten Autoritäten ist, in anderen Worten, von standardisierten “voices from nowhere” (Gal & Woolard, 2001). Die Beiträge illustrieren Reaktionen traditioneller sozialer und akademischer Eliten hierauf. In dieser Einleitung skizzieren wir verschiedene theoretische Zugänge zu moderner und spätmoderner Öffentlichkeit, identifizieren Faktoren, die zu einer Destabilisierung von sozialen Gewissheiten der Moderne beitragen und legen dar, dass eine Schwächung traditioneller öffentlichen Normen nicht nur soziale Emanzipation impliziert sondern, wie die Beiträge zu diesem Heft zeigen, auch neue Formen öffentlicher Dominanz hervorbringt. In Bezug auf zeitgenössische soziolinguistische Theorie und Praxis schlussfolgern wir daraus, dass es im aktuellen öffentlichen Kontext eine zentrale Aufgabe der Soziolinguistik ist, sich kritisch mit den eigenen Beziehungen zu und Ideologien von Öffentlichkeit befassen. Das Themenheft soll zu dieser Auseinandersetzung beitragen.     

Incarceration and Household Asset Ownership

A considerable literature documents the deleterious economic consequences of incarceration. However, little is known about the consequences of incarceration for household assets—a distinct indicator of economic well-being that may be especially valuable to the survival of low-income families—or about the spillover economic consequences of incarceration for families. In this article, we use longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine how incarceration is associated with asset ownership among formerly incarcerated men and their romantic partners. Results, which pay careful attention to the social forces that select individuals into incarceration, show that incarceration is negatively associated with ownership of a bank account, vehicle, and home among men and that these consequences for asset ownership extend to the romantic partners of these men. These associations are concentrated among men who previously held assets. Results also show that post-incarceration changes in romantic relationships are an important pathway by which even short-term incarceration depletes assets.     

Public Sociology on Twitter: a Space for Public Pedagogy?

Research has examined various elements of Twitter; however, no scholarship has explored how sociologists currently use the platform. This empirically driven paper explores how individuals that self-identify as sociologists on Twitter use the popular micro-blogging social media site. A total of 152,977 tweets from Twitter profiles of 130 sociologists were collected and examined using qualitative media analysis. The potential use of Twitter allows the sociologist to become both the generator and interlocutor of dialogue with publics. We frame our data analysis and discussion around the core theme of expertise - namely, the role that expertise plays in the use of Twitter by sociologists. Our findings indicate that when sociologists used Twitter as sociologists (i.e., drawing upon their stated research expertise) little direct engagement with publics occurred. Thus, while sociologists appear to be using Twitter as a space for public sociology, the use of this interactive platform is mostly limited to the generation of content, a finding consistent with Burawoy’s traditional form of public sociology. Suggestions for future research are noted.