Social choice theory and the “Centre de Mathématique Sociale”: some historical notes

In this paper we describe some research directions in social choice and aggregation theory taken at the “Centre de Mathématique Sociale” since the fifties. We begin by presenting some institutional aspects concerning this center. Then we sketch a thematic history by considering the following questions about the “effet Condorcet” (“voting paradox”): What is it? How is it overcome? Why does it occur? These questions were adressed in Guilbaud's paper (Guilbaud GTh (1952) Les théories de l'intérêt général et le problème logique de l'agrégation, (Theories of the general interest and the logical problem of aggregation) which will mark the beginning of our inquiry. The conclusion outlines some more recent research developments linked to these questions.     

Public relations critical intersections special section introduction

The theme of this special section arose from the idea that interdisciplinary interactions, or the cross-fertilization of methods, philosophies, theories, and modes of practice across disciplines, can open out productive ways of addressing complex issues and wicked problems. Our call for papers reached out to public relations scholars and to researchers in other fields to submit articles at these generative intersections at different time. They were invited to reflect on traditional concerns, or current issues, or projected trends in public relations and elsewhere. As editors making a call to open boundaries, we invited participation along a spectrum of possible intersections whether of content, methods, pedagogy or technology. Taking different positions on that spectrum, the articles in the section examine the nature, engagement and evaluation of intersections. In writing this introduction, the editors took an overview of the articles in the light of three fundamental questions: “How and where does interdisciplinarity occur in public relations?”; “Are there indications of how public relations intersects with other fields to engage existing and potential future challenges?”; and “What principles might serve to evaluate answers to questions one and two?” In addition, we explore how each of the selected intersections in the articles might add value to public relations as a discipline and a practice.     

Early Understanding of Subject and Object Wh‐Questions

In this study, we used the splitscreen preferential looking paradigm to test 13‐, 15‐, and 20‐month‐olds' developing understanding of simple matrix what‐questions of the forms “What hit the X?” (subject‐question) and “What did the X hit?” (object‐question). Infants responded appropriately to subject‐questions by 15 months of age, and to both subject‐ and object‐questions by 20 months. At no age did infants look longer toward the object overtly mentioned in the question, as might be expected based on a surface account of early language acquisition. This suggests that infants may have some understanding of these complex structures long before they are produced.     

White Professors Taking Responsibility for Teaching White Students about Race,Racism, and Privilege

How does a white professor teach a course composed of predominantly white human-services students about race, racism, and privilege? What are some of the pitfalls? What works? What is challenging? Why should such a course be part of the undergraduate human services curriculum? This article investigates these questions by exploring a course taught by the author, “Exploring Race and Challenging Racism in the United States.” A variety of pedagogical tools and approaches are discussed.     

Social, Economic, and Attitudinal Characteristics of Cohabitation in Israel

This article examines cohabitation in Israel. Since the 1980s cohabitation has been on the rise, with heterosexual couples living together without being legally married. The purpose of this article is to address the following questions: What are the characteristics of cohabitation; what economic circumstances affect cohabitation; why is cohabitation chosen over “family” and is it becoming a threat to the family institution? The sample consisted of 50 couples. Our major findings were that cohabitation does not seem to be an alternative to marriage, but a prelude to it. We found a high correlation between the cohabitants' willingness to marry and their willingness to have children in the future. Cohabitants live in rented apartments, usually do not share a bank account, and have no formal economic agreement.     

Excitable Speech: Judith Butler, Mae West, and Sexual Innuendo

Working with Judith Butler's Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, this essay pursues a series of questions on the performativity of speech acts, using sexual innuendo as an example. As performed by the provocative American playwright and classic Hollywood film star, Mae West, sexual innuendo provides an instance of “excitable speech” that allows for the exploration of speech as a site of political resistance. The questions that frame this discussion are as follows: How are vulnerability and agency produced in speech? What are the foreclosures or censors at work in producing speech and the speaking subject? What constitutes the “force” of the performative speech act? How is the speech act repeatable? And do these conditions leave room for Butler's notion of linguistic agency, where the speech act works to undermine linguistic conventions through resignification? Finally, the essay offers queer readings of Mae West in order to demonstrate the concept of “discursive performativity,” which underpins Butler's argument.     

Is Sex Work Sex or Work? Forming Collective Identity in Bangalore

While sex worker activism grows increasingly vibrant around the world, the forms and practices of sex work vary widely, and are often secret. How do sex workers come to see themselves as sex worker activists? What tensions emerge in the formation of collective identity within sex worker activist organizations, especially when the term “sex work” has often traveled linked to transnational organizations and funding? To answer these questions, this article analyzes in-depth interviews and participant observation on sex worker activism in Bangalore, India. Focusing on an organization I call the Union, I argue that it was first within the “shop floor” of transnationally funded HIV prevention organizations, and then within the activist work of the Union, that sex workers came to identify collectively as activists at a large scale. However, distinct configurations of practice among gendered groups of sex workers in Bangalore meant each group related differently to the formation of a sex worker activist collective identity. Two aspects of sex workers’ practice emerged as particularly central: varying experiences of sex work as “sex” or as “work,” and varying levels of anonymity and visibility in public spaces. Organizing through transnationally funded HIV prevention programs helped solidify these categories of differentiation even as it provided opportunities to develop shared self-hood.     

Handling relational stress and distance with the public: From the service to the helping relationship

What kinds of tensions arise in jobs involving human contacts? And what forms of stress are associated with them? To answer these questions, the work performed by the activists who receive the public in a major French AIDS organization has been studied. Attention is focused not only on the difficulties that crop up in dealing with the public but also on activists' theories for explaining them and endowing them with meaning. These theories, which fit into established approaches to “relational stress” and burnout, do not lack contradictions. Referring to studies in the psychopathology of work and adopting an approach in terms of “distributed cognition” can shift discussion toward an original perspective that, without discrediting activists' explanations, sheds more light on handling relations and adjusting distance with the public.     

The problem of justification in social work

Abstract

In this paper we argue that the real test of professional social work practice is whether it can be plausibly, effectively and defensibly justified. Since the early 1950s social work in Australia has engaged in a strategy of professionalisation. This strategy and its implications were described by McDonald and Jones in 2000. This paper supports the concerns expressed. We argue that the way out of our profession's dilemma is by focusing on the problem of justification. The main questions addressed by McDonald and Jones appear to be: What is professional social work practice? Does the concept of professionalism serve us and our clients well now? What form should social work take in the future? Their answer is ‘that the “strategy of professionalisation”, as conventionally conceived by Australian social work, is no longer viable in the emerging milieu.’ We build on that answer by exploring the notion of justification in terms of the concepts Foundationalism, Coherentism and Reliabilism. We conclude by suggesting that the immediate task for social work in this new century is to solve the problem of justification.     

Diversity Trouble

In line with Judith Butler’s famous “Gender Trouble”, this article starts by challenging some basic assumptions. What are the conceptual premises of diversity and its management? How do these concepts define identities? How do they decide and influence the entrepreneurial management of these identities? And what patterns of action are typical for diversity conscious organizations? Following these questions by focusing on the discussion of diversity in the German-speaking world, the authors discuss three distinct issues they have had with current diversity management concepts: first, the personalization of social systems; second, the monolithic construction of organizational cultures; and third, an understanding of change that follows a rather mechanistic logic. Trying to light up different blind spots, the article argues for a different approach to diversity management, paying more respect towards organizational dynamics, coping with complexity in a mindful manner, and a sense of ambivalence that should be at the heart of diversity leadership.     

Standing Up for Science and Social Justice

What does it mean to do social science—perhaps especially for those of us whose research focuses on issues of social justice—during what my students gingerly refer to as “this time we're living in”? Community based participatory research offers one important approach.     

Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision: Executive Summary

What ages desire? As the body ages do experiences and expressions of desire change in tandem? Or do the dynamics of desire run more freely and communicate unrestricted by the body's temporal location? Clinical and personal vignettes are developed to explore these questions and to consider how, for gay men in particular, erotic desire associates to experiences and memories related to “coming out.”     

From Source to Evidence? Teachers' Use of Historical Sources in Their Classrooms

To explore questions in history and to construct historical narratives, historians work with evidence from the past. This approach to teaching history (inquiry involving the use of evidence) is an accepted part of the research on history teaching and is promoted widely in standards frameworks and practitioner publications as “good history instruction.” What happens in a standards-based setting where teachers are covering large bodies of content? Do teachers use sources as part of their daily instruction? If so, how? We were afforded the unique opportunity to spend time observing what 35 teachers do by analyzing 352 videos submitted over a 4-year time span. We observed a spectrum of source use within and across teacher practice. In this article we share what we noticed.     

Women,crimes, and judicial dispositions: A comparative examination of the female offender

Utilizing records from the Seattle Police Department, we explored questions of a new “masculinized” female offender and a “chivalrous” criminal justice system. Crime‐specific arrest statistics provided a means to study both questions. Arrest statistics were recoded three separate ways: according to traditional views of the “masculinity” of an offense; legalistic crime categories; and seriousness ratings. These three categories were compared by sex across a four‐year period. Comparisons of final dispositions provided the basis of a final look at the “chivalry” issue. The findings suggest that females are not making great inroads into either traditionally masculine crimes or crime in general, and while there is little in the data to suggest prejudicial treatment based on sex, chivalry is supported by certain arrest and disposition rates.     

Sociology as a vocation

What does it mean to be a sociologist? Does it still make sense to “commit a social science”? This essay reflects on the former question and answers the latter affirmatively. It accepts much of Weber’s argument in “Science as a Vocation,” but it goes beyond Weber by suggesting that the practice of sociology is meaningful in ways he did not fully recognize. The point of doing sociology is not only being dedicated to specialized scholarly work or called to illuminate human affairs, but also being oriented to certain virtues and moved by a particular kind of passion.     

Graduate Education for Social Change

ABSTRACT

Is it possible to conduct an effective, progressive, and politicized program for graduate students in our contemporary conservative context? This article evaluates the outcomes over seven years of a pioneering program in Political Social Work. Based on survey data of Political Social Work alumni, it addresses four outcome measures: enrollment, satisfaction with curriculum and field opportunities, job and career development, and persistence of political ideology and practice. While being “political” during the past decade is clearly different than it was in the 1960s, the evidence proposes that political content and practice can have a significant place in both social work education and the field. More specifically, the study demonstrates that politicized social workers in the 1990s were able after graduation to secure employment, sustain progressive values, and practice political social work.     

Celebrity Philanthropy in China: An Analysis of Social Network Effect on Philanthropic Engagement

Celebrity philanthropy is a recent but widespread phenomenon in China. Using social network analysis, this paper seeks to answer the following questions: Is a celebrity’s position within a social network related to that celebrity’s philanthropic engagement, and how? Does a celebrity’s network position interact with normative influence to affect philanthropic engagement? What implications the study has for the development of modern philanthropy in China? Hypotheses regarding the associations between philanthropic engagement and a celebrity’s social network were tested using a sample from the “Celebrity Relationship Database.” Findings suggest that philanthropic engagement was more common in the center of the social network; under normative influence, a celebrity was more likely to engage in philanthropic activities if other members within the social network were active in philanthropic engagement; and, the effect of normative influence was stronger for celebrities who were positioned at the center of a social network than those who were positioned at the periphery. Implications for the development of modern philanthropy in China are also discussed.

     

Elder Abuse and Neglect: A Survey of Clergy Awareness,Knowledge, and Intervention Preferences

This article explores the research question: What is the perceived level of elder abuse and neglect awareness and knowledge among Protestant clergy members in Kentucky? Of the 300 clergy contacted, 160 participated, for a response rate of 53.3%. Pearson Chi-Square analyses were used to determine statistical significance, and phi coefficient correlations examined the strength of the associations between variables. Findings indicate that approximately 44% of clergy members in this study report some “awareness” of elder abuse and neglect. However, 56% of clergy respondents do not know that Kentucky is an “any person” mandatory reporting state. Specifically, participating clergy appear poorly informed about legal requirements for reporting elder abuse and neglect and perceive types of abuse differently. Untrained clergy with little formal training indicate a willingness to provide therapy to victims despite reporting that they do not feel qualified to do so.     

Chuprov and Neyman: Priority in Science and the Uneven Diffusion of Scientific Results

Priority in “discovery,” which sometimes leads to eponymy, is a highly prized form of reward in the scientific community. Recognition of priority is a norm whose violation will bring opprobrium (e.g. suspicion of plagiarism) upon the offender. But in order for an idea to receive an attribution of novelty, and its author to be acknowledged, it must first be noticed. This essay is a case study of an innovation (formulas related to stratified sampling) in the field of mathematical statistics that was “overlooked” for many years by many. Unknowingly, Jerzy Neyman (1894-1981) “refound” these formulas a decade later (1933). When a statistician in 1950 uncovered the original idea and its author (A.A. Chuprov, 1874-1926), he contacted Neyman who promptly published a “Recognition of priority” (1952). The study examines the perplexing situation in which some results become known to and recognized by the statistical community, while others, originating from the very same paper, were “overlooked” by sampling statisticians (among others) who, unlike Neyman, had access to the paper and thus had ample opportunity to identify Chuprov's formulas as relevant to their work. Chuprov was well-known in the statistics world, and the publication in which he published his ideas (1923) was a respected statistical journal (Metron). How is it that it took nearly 20 years for someone in the statistics community to notice that Chuprov had anticipated Neyman in deriving the formulas in question?     

The Formative Power of Metony#metoo

ABSTRACT

What can we learn about #MeToo starting with a formal analysis of its structure? What does the linguistic affirmation of adding one “me” to another “me” ad infinitum create in its powerful drift? This metonymical structure, moving part by part, creates the wildfire spread of the movement, adding to its volatility, including its power against institutional structures that trade more in identity, the stability of an “I,” and the self-preservation of metaphor. This little fragment that we name in this regard “metony#metoo” aims to point to and name a primal scene that is both the open secret of misogynistic violence and the pain and impossibility of sexual relationships. Putting these two together, this volatile structure that points to and exposes structural violence, we ask in this essay—where will we land? What further invention beyond the vent of venting is necessary to help lend this movement an ethical dimension?