The longitudinal link between popularity,likeability, fear of negative evaluation and social avoidance across adolescence

This study investigated the longitudinal bidirectional associations between likeability, popularity, fear of negative evaluation, and social avoidance, to aid in preventing the negative consequences and persistent trajectories of low social status and heightened social anxiety. In total, 1741 adolescents in grades 7–9 participated at 3 yearly waves. A self-report questionnaire measured fear of negative evaluation. Peer nominations assessed likeability, popularity, and social avoidance. Lower popularity predicted more avoidance, and vice versa. More avoidance was related to lower likeability over time. Being less popular and/or more liked by peers, increased fear of negative evaluation. Support for a transactional model between social anxiety and social status was found, but distinguishing different social status and social anxiety components is necessary.     

"Show me your impact": evaluating transitional justice in contested spaces

This paper discusses some of the most significant challenges and opportunities for evaluating the effects of programs in support of transitional justice - the field that addresses how post-conflict or post authoritarian societies deal with legacies of wide spread human rights violations. The discussion is empirically grounded in a case study that assesses the efforts of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and one of its Guatemalan partners to evaluate the effects of a museum exposition that is attempting to recast historic memory and challenge racist attitudes in post-conflict Guatemala. The paper argues that despite the increasing trend to fund transitional justice programs, many international aid donors are stuck in traditional and arguably orthodox paradigms of program evaluation. This is having a negative effect not only upon the administration of aid but also upon how transitional justice research is perceived and valued by local populations. The case study experience indicates that there is no perfect evaluation model or approach for evaluating transitional justice programming - only choices to be made by commissioners of evaluation, evaluators, and those being evaluated. These are profoundly influenced by the extreme politics and moral values that define transitional justice settings as contested spaces in which calls to remember the tragic past must be balanced with aspirations to re-build a hopeful future.     

The Cross-Cultural Study of Women and Politics:

This essay seeks to examine the approaches andmethods most propitious to the cross-cultural study of women and politics, because it is in the cross-cultural context where the methodological problems of studying women and politics are posted in their complexity. Using Arend Lijphart's concept of the "comparative method," the essay applies this concept to the cross-cultural study of women and politics as a means of avoiding a number of conceptual problems inherent in the subject matter. The essay focuses on political participation, broadly defined, and uses this focus as a means of illustrating through substantive examples the problems of studying women and politics. A critique of the predominantly American literature is offered, as well as an examination of the successful uses of the comparative method as examples for future research. The particular data problems for women's studies scholars are discussed. Operationalization of the variable sex or gender is placed in the context of cross-cultural study. A number of research approaches are discussed: the case study variant of the comparative method, longitudinal analysis, elite studies, cohort analysis, cross-sectional analysis, and the ecological approach. The last two approaches are critized as being particularly unsuited to studying women and politics.     

Experiences of student veterans with social anxiety and avoidance: A qualitative study

Eight-to-ten percent of returning combat veterans report symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), of which 7–13% also report symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder. Both disorders are characterized by maladaptive patterns of social functioning, which can have significant effects on the lives of returning combat veterans and increase suicidal risk. The objective of the present study was to identify elements of the lived experience of college student veterans experiencing social anxiety and avoidance. Twelve student veterans with post-9/11 active duty service were interviewed about their lived experiences with social anxiety/avoidance within the framework of phenomenological theory. Data was analyzed using multilevel coding and theme analysis. Analysis of interview themes (n = 12) clarified university campus environments that induce social anxiety/avoidance and the impact on personal and professional relationships, learning, and navigation of physical space. Implications of this study include addressing student veterans’ needs through clinical intervention and further representative research on prevalence rates of these risk factors in various university and community college settings.     

Surviving and thriving: Bringing back sociology at the University of San Francisco

This article provides a case study of successful departmental revitalization at the University of San Francisco. We examine the current crisis in the field of sociology and others’ recommendations for addressing it. Reforms are outlined that transformed USF Sociology from a nearly extinct program to a model department on campus. Jennifer Turpin’s research focuses on violence, militarism, gender, and war; Mike Webber’s research examines the relationship between business and politics; Anne Roschelle’s research concentrates on racial, ethnic, and underclass family networks; William Edwards studies urban development, globalization, and social inequality; and Joseph Angilella’s interests include religion and society and complex organizations.     

Staff Development as a School Climate Intervention to Support Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students: An Integrated Research Partnership Model for School Counselors and Counselor Educators

ABSTRACT

This article posits that an integrative research partnership model can assist school counselors in addressing the marginalization of transgender students in schools through staff development. A methodological integration of action research and program evaluation through quantitative and qualitative data collection is explained, and a collaborative process is highlighted. A case example is provided to demonstrate the use of the design.     

Boundary Politics in the Public Sphere: Openness, Secrecy, and Leak

The issue of openness/secrecy has not received adequate attention in current discussion on the public sphere. Drawing on ideas in critical theory, political sociology, and cultural sociology, this article explores the cultural and political dynamics involved in the public sphere in modern society vis-à-vis the practice of open/secret politics by the state. It argues that the media, due to their publicist quality, are situated at the interface between publicity and secrecy, which thereby allows for struggles over the boundary of state openness/secrecy in the public sphere. A theory of boundary politics is introduced that is contextualized in the relationship among state forms, the means of making power visible/invisible (media strategies), and symbolic as well as discursive practices in the public sphere. In explaining the dynamics of boundary politics over openness/secrecy, three ideal-types of boundary creation are conceptualized: open politics, secrecy, and leak. The theory is illustrated with a case study of the Patten controversy in Hong Kong.     

Swimming upstream: The challenges and rewards of evaluating efforts to address inequities and reduce health disparities

Racial and ethnic disparities in the health of Americans are widespread and persistent in the United States despite improvements in the health of Americans overall. Increasingly, strategies for reducing disparities have focused on addressing the factors that contribute to – if not fundamentally underlie – health disparities: social, economic, and environmental inequities, which limit access to resources and cause unhealthy exposures. As public health shifts to interventions that seek to improve the circumstances of disproportionately affected populations and achieve equity through policy change, alternative methods to evaluate these efforts are also required. This paper presents an example of such approaches to addressing asthma disparities through Regional Asthma Management and Prevention's (RAMP) programmatic efforts and an evaluation of these activities. The paper describes RAMP's targets and strategies, as well as the specific evaluation methods applied to each, including activity tracking, observations, surveys, key informant interviews, and case studies. Preliminary evaluation findings are presented, as are lessons learned about the efficacy of the evaluation design features – both its strengths and shortcomings. Findings discussed are intended to contribute to the growing literature that provides evidence for the application of emerging approaches to evaluation that reflect non-traditional public health and support others interested in expanding or replicating this work.     

Defining religion: a practical response

After addressing the post-modern argument that defining religion is impossible, bad or both, the case is made that functional definitions of religion are generally not definitions but assertions about the consequences of religion substantively defined. A substantive definition of religion is proposed. The relationship between ordinary and sociological language is discussed. A review of recent debates in the sociology of religion makes the point that our arguments rarely concern the definition of religion; they are much more often about the practical identification and measurement of the features of the social phenomenon which we want to study and those problems are not peculiar to the sociology of religion.     

Political activation and social movements: Addressing non-participation in Aotearoa New Zealand

The decline of participation in traditional civic political processes, like voting in elections and writing to elected representatives, continues to deepen in contemporary liberal democracies. However, civics comprise only one avenue for political participation. Social movements also play a key role in influencing political affairs by exerting pressure on established institutions from outside rather than within. ‘Political activation’ is key to understanding and addressing non-participation in both movement and civic settings alike, yet activation in movement settings, like non-participation more generally, remains under-researched. This article seeks to address this imbalance by exploring ways of using political activation theory to synthesise research on the fields of political participation and non-participation, in both civic and social movement contexts. After reviewing the literature on activation, which favours political participation in civic settings, I then juxtapose this existing scholarship with a case study focused more on non-participation and social movements as they are understood by movement organisers in Aotearoa New Zealand. In so doing, I demonstrate how civics, social movements, participation and non-participation can be better understood together to advance scholarship on why people do or do not engage with politics.     

The Citizen's Role and Voter Turnout

Abstract

A typological approach to the study of citizen orientations toward politics in the United States requires that the basic concepts used to create the typology have clear empirical and theoretical meaning. This paper attempts to reconceptualize the typology originally proposed by Gamson and Paige. Using national survey data from 1968 through 1976, we propose that psychological involvement in politics and political trust are two major dimensions which are useful for describing types of citizen orientations. The evidence indicates a basic change in the American citizenry during recent years. A political culture dominated by quiescent (trusting but uninvolved) citizens has become an alienated culture. The explanatory powers of the typology are tested with the simple case of voting turnout. Each of four types of citizens demonstrates stable levels of turnout.     

Incorporation vs. Separation:

This article examines the approach to the study of women and politics in the People's Republic of China and assesses the impact of gender studies (or lack of it) on women and the larger part of society in China. The author argues that most materials for studying women and politics in China emanate from the office of the All-China Women's Federation, an appendage of the Chinese Communist Party, and not from political science textbooks. This approach, however, falls short of addressing major political and economic problems facing women of China.     

The Function of Avoidance in Improving the Understanding of Disaster Recovery

Functional avoidance as an intermittent coping mechanism is a necessary component in disaster recovery. By temporarily avoiding losses after disaster, survivors can secure basic needs and begin rebuilding. It is not until recovery projects are completed that mental health outcomes become apparent. Many individuals begin a healthy grieving process; however, for others, where avoidance extends past the completion of normalizing tasks it becomes pathological. This study presents the concept of functional avoidance and investigates the point at which it becomes dysfunctional using case examples and data from a mental health clinic. Findings suggest increased emotional distress, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder over 3 years after Hurricane Katrina.     

Older Hispanic Women and Breast Cancer Screening: Do Cultural Factors Matter?

High morbidity and mortality cancer rates among older minority adults underscores the importance of identifying and addressing health disparities related to age and cultural factors that may influence participation in cancer screening and early detection of disease. Disparities for Hispanic women exist in part due to behavior, including lower participation in cancer screenings. Using data from the 2008 wave of the Health and Retirement Study, this study investigated the relationships among cultural factors, time orientation, and uncertainty avoidance among Hispanic women. Results indicate that time orientation and uncertainty avoidance predicted older Hispanic women’s participation in breast cancer screening services.     

“Settlers” and Zimbabwe: Politics,Memory, and the Anthropology of Commercial Farms During a Time of Crisis

This article examines the contested politics surrounding the participation of white farmers in the national public sphere in Zimbabwe. It examines how farm workers have acted as an “interior frontier” to white farmers and how this has helped to shape the public identification of white farmers in colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe. In so doing, the differential use of the term settlers and the memory of colonialism within the current violence surrounding land reform and democratization are analyzed. Through addressing some of the engagements with this ambiguous identification of white farmers, the politics of analysing “settlers” within anthropology and postcolonial studies is raised.     

The White City: Race and Urban Politics

Urban regime analysis and growth machine theory offer critical tools to study power and inequality in cities. However, the field of urban politics has moved away from critically addressing race. I discuss these theories' potential contributions before suggesting scholars “bring race back” to urban politics in several key areas: studying “White urban regimes” in addition to Black urban regimes; examining how Whiteness factors into growth (and anti‐growth) coalitions; exploring how racial discourse shapes urban regimes; and accounting for the relationship between suburbs and “fringe cities” and the city, including suburban regimes.     

ON THE FAULT LINE: RACE,CLASS AND THE US PATRIOT MOVEMENT

This paper analyses the identity politics of the US Patriot Movement and how it addresses the anxieties its primary constituency–working-class whites–have with globalization. White workers find themselves straddling an identity fault under globalization. By virtue of their class, they suffer exploitation within a capitalist system. By virtue of their race, they find themselves the beneficiaries of racial privileges. To analyse how a patriot politic addresses this dual positionality, a poststructuralist identity theory is employed, focusing on a subset of this literature known as whiteness studies. It is argued that discourses of patriotism keep patriots from addressing the economic basis of many of their grievances while buttressing notions of cultural/racial superiority through ‘safe’ nationalistic coding. The Patriot Movement in Central Kentucky is examined as a case study–in particular, its deployment of a patriot politic around two issues: calls to legalize industrial hemp and efforts to stop the designation of a biosphere reserve in the state. This paper's conclusions are situated within a current debate in whiteness studies between those calling for the abolition of whiteness and those calling for its reconstruction. The paper contends that disidentification is not a viable option without alternative categories to replace it. The willingness of Kentucky patriots to galvanize around a patriot politics despite realizing goals through it indicates that working-class whites are anxious for political categories of action in the new global era. Given that working-class whites are mobilizing around categories that code their race-based anxieties, however, reconstruction paradigms must also consider the reconstruction of categories–such as ‘patriot’–that currently work to divide workers along racial lines.     

A remedial strategy for data analysis

Professional evaluators are often called upon to analyze data produced by a catastrophically inadequate evaluation design. This problem is occurring more frequently as accountability pressures force program experts into evaluation activities for which they are not trained. A remedial strategy involving diagnosis of error, application of a corrective procedure and sensitization of program personnel of the need for a more sophisticated stance, is proposed as a solution. A case study is described and the contribution of a remedial strategy to improved evaluation is outlined.     

The manifestations of politics in evaluation: An exploratory study across the evaluation process

Evaluation has been described as a political act. Programs and policies are generated from a political process, and the decision to evaluate and how to use the evaluation are manifestations of the political dynamic. This exploratory study was conducted with practicing evaluators to understand what they view as political situations in the evaluation process and how they responded to these situations. Findings suggest that, in relation to the potential evaluation phases in which each respondent has been involved, evaluations are susceptible to politics when initially attempting to identify stakeholders and when it’s time to report the evaluation findings. Evaluators have also developed multiple strategies for dealing with these situations, including finding allies for the evaluation and working to explain the evaluation process and its implications. We hope that this study will help to inform novice and expert evaluators about the various political situations they may encounter in their practice.