Intersubjectivity Without Agreement

In this paper, there is an attempt to construct the notion of intersubjectivity as a process of a coordination of participants' contributions in joint activity. This notion incorporates the dynamics of both agreement and disagreement. I argue that a traditional definition of intersubjectivity as a state of overlap of individual understandings overemphasizes agreement and de-emphasizes disagreement among the participants in joint activity. It disregards disagreement at two levels: 1) by focusing only on integrative, consensus seeking, activities, in which disagreement among participants of joint activity often is viewed as only the initial point of the joint activity that has to be resolved by the final agreement (macro-level), and by considering disagreements as only nuisances or obstacles while focusing on integrative activities (micro-level). To illustrate how disagreement can constitute intersubjectivity at macro- and micro-levels, examples of children ' s development of a classroom play are examined. Diversity and fluidity of intersubjectivity will be discussed.     

Aid Without Power

Book reviewed in this article: Western Middle Powers and Global Poverty. The Determinants of the Aid Policies of Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Edited by Olav Stokke The Emergence of Japan's Foreign Aid Power. By Robert M. Orr Jr. Development Cooperation, 1990 Report. Efforts and Policies of the Members of the Development Assistance Committee. OECD Development Assistance Committee     

How to be a Marriage Therapist Without Knowing Practically Anything

Therapists in training as marriage and family therapists often do not learn techniques for bringing about change. They also do not learn ways to conceal from colleagues and from clients the fact that they do not know how to solve the presenting problems of couples in distress. Both general and specific techniques are reviewed for concealing ignorance as well as ways to make correct excuses for failure. The presentation is designed for therapists who find themselves not knowing what to do with a couple in a particular case and for therapists who do not know what to do with any case .     

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News

      

The Mourning After From a Cause to a Living*

Family therapy used to generate immense creativity and a health irreverence, but is in danger of becoming formalized and co-opted by established systems. Selected rigidities, humbuggeries and dilemmas are reviewed, with an eye on some pasts and futures.     

Hope for a Cause as Cause for Hope: The Need for Hope in Environmental Sociology

Hope is a crucial component of agency involving the setting of goals, visualization of obstacles, and increasing willpower in the effort of achieving a desired goal. This hope is not simply optimism and is potentially a bridge between structure and agency. Yet, the powers of hope in sociology have been greatly unexplored including the ability of collective hope to create social change. This lack of hope is particularly poignant in environmental sociology as the sub-discipline looks for solutions to some of the greatest challenges humanity and the planet faces. This article discusses the undercurrent of pessimism in environmental sociology and calls for the integration of hope as it is necessary for generating potential social environmental change.     

Doing Family Without Having Kids

Families that do not include children are largely overlooked by family scholars and in popular discourse. Yet this is one of several family forms that has grown in developed nations since the 1970s. As increasingly fewer adults choose to become parents, understanding the families they create, and the consequences of these family forms, will become even more important. Studies of childless adults reveal that they create bonds to fulfill many of the same functions that families with children fulfill. Research on how, and the extent to which, the childless “do” family without kids is reviewed and suggestions for future research are made.     

Supported Employment as a Paradigm Shift and a Cause of Legitimation Crisis

Supported employment in its original form represents a new service paradigm, where services are organised as individualised supports aimed at securing the presence of disabled people in their local communities. Using Finland as an example, this article analyses difficulties that arise when a new service paradigm is introduced that is incompatible with the old forms of service. In this case, the accession of Finland to the European Union brought with it an active employment policy of a marginalised workforce. Along with this development, funding for supported employment projects threatened to produce a legitimation crisis in old service organisations. The crisis was managed in two ways. First, the concept of supported employment was redefined to more accurately fit into old forms of service. Secondly the project activity was ceremonialised and its goals were made ambiguous.     

The Networks That Fight Cyberterrorist Networks

This article analyzes how law enforcement agencies, cyber security labs (i.e., in universities), and other departments or organizations (i.e., the private sector and the U.S. military) create their own networks—and even join forces between one another—in their fight against cyberterrorists. By and large, cyberterrorism refers to electronic attacks against the Internet, information technologies, or other critical infrastructures. In order to engage in malicious activities against the Internet (as well as computer technologies, networks, and infrastructures), cyberterrorists create networks themselves. Hence, this idea of analyzing the social networks of two opposing sides rests on the premise that it takes networks to fight networks.     

Gender and Networks in a Local Voluntary-Sector Elite

Focusing on gender inequality in a local community elite, we investigate the role of gender in access to and participation in networks of nonprofit trustees in Louisville, Kentucky. We examine two types of network relations: participation in the network of overlapping board memberships (the structural network) and interpersonal ties of collegiality and friendship (the social network). Asking whether the gender hierarchy found in most private and public sector organizations is mirrored in this inner circle of trustees, with men occupying the most influential positions in the structural and social networks, we find some male advantage in the structural network. Men predominate in holding most board seats, occupying multiple board seats, and in having slightly greater network centrality. By contrast, women hold the edge in the social network, with slightly greater centrality and higher levels of social integration. Women's disadvantage in the structural network is at least partly counterbalanced by their prominence in the social network of trustees in Louisville. Results indicate that the local nonprofit sector includes a small number of women (but no people of color) in leadership roles.     

Born Without a Silver Spoon: Race,Wealth, and Unintended Childbearing

The United States has a surprisingly high rate of unintended fertility, particularly among women of color. Although studies have examined socioeconomic correlates of unintended fertility, the role of economic resources remains unclear. Wealth may provide an important context for whether a birth was intended or unintended. Moreover, staggering racial wealth disparities may contribute to racial/ethnic patterns of unintended childbearing. This study examines the linkages between wealth and unintended first births, drawing on data from the NLSY79 (N?=?1508). Results suggest that net wealth is negatively related to the probability of having an unintended first birth, controlling for a host of sociodemographic characteristics. We also use decomposition analysis to quantify wealth’s contribution to racial/ethnic disparities in unintended childbearing. Second only to marital status, differences in net wealth account for 9–17% of racial/ethnic disparities in unintended childbearing. Our results suggest that wealth is a significant and heretofore overlooked correlate of unintended childbearing.     

The Role of Social Networks in Getting a Job

This article reviews recent research on the effect s of social networks on access to job information and getting a job in the United States. Drawing on network ties from friends, family members, acquaintances, employers, or coworkers can improve the job search because individuals gain access to and make use of their network’s social capital. While this job searching strategy can result in a successful job search for some, not all job seekers benefit from reliance on social networks. We spotlight research that documents how reliance on social networks as a means to find work can actually maintain sex and racial/ethnic inequality at work. We discuss research documenting the important role social networks play in the job acquisition process. The last half of this review focuses on several new developments in the literature that promise to further our understanding of social networks’ lasting effects on employment outcomes.     

Affect and Sexual Responsivity in Men With and Without a History of Sexual Aggression

Despite increased attention to understanding risk factors for sexual aggression, knowledge regarding the emotional and sexual arousal patterns of sexually aggressive men remains limited. The current study examined whether sexually aggressive men exhibit unique profiles of affective responsivity, in particular to negatively valenced stimuli, as well as sexual arousal patterns that differentiate them from nonaggressive men. We presented 78 young men (38 sexually aggressive; 40 nonaggressive) with a series of videos designed to induce positive, sad, or anxious affect. Affect and subjective sexual arousal were assessed following each film and erectile responses were measured continuously. Sexually aggressive men reported significantly higher levels of sexual arousal following both the positive and negative conditions as compared to nonaggressive men. Erectile responses of sexually aggressive men were significantly greater than nonaggressive men’s following the positive affect induction. Self-reported positive affect, but not negative affect, was a significant predictor of subjective sexual arousal for both groups of men. Compared to nonaggressive men, sexually aggressive men showed significantly weaker correlations between subjective and physiological sexual arousal. Findings suggest that generalized heightened propensity for sexual arousal may be a risk factor for sexually aggressive behavior.     

The Hazards of Predicting Divorce Without Crossvalidation

Divorce prediction studies (e.g., Gottman, Coan, Carrere, & Swanson, 1998) suggest that couples' eventual divorce can be very accurately predicted from a number of different variables. Recent attention to these studies has failed to consider the need to crossvalidate prediction equations and to consider the prevalence of divorce in the population. We analyze archival data to demonstrate that accuracy and predictive value drops precipitously during crossvalidation. We conclude that results of studies without crossvalidation analyses should be interpreted with extreme caution, no matter how impressive the initial results appear to be.