What Do Movements Mean? The Value of Participant-Observation

Participant-observation can teach us much about the everyday meanings of doing social activism. I conceptualize these implicit meanings in relation to work in the sociology of culture, and social movement studies, and give examples from activists' everyday interaction. A participant-observer's forays into implicit meanings illuminate three dimensions of activists' experiences: the ways activists practice democratic citizenship in their groups, the ways they build group ties, and the ways they define the meaning of activism itself. By probing these implicit meanings, we can address questions that concern many social movement scholars. We increase our understanding of how movements grow, accomodate conflict, and build alliances, and we can specify which insights are useful in theories of contemporary or new social movements.     

What Changes MSW Students' View on the Mission of Social Work?

Little is known about how professional social work education affects students' view on the social work mission. Using a secondary analysis of larger longitudinal data collected from masters in social work (MSW) students in California, USA, this study sought to explore the relationship among the students' demographic characteristics, their primary reasons for pursuing an MSW degree, and their view on the mission of social work at the time of entering an MSW program, whether the students' view on the mission of social work changed in the course of an MSW education, and factors contributing to a change of MSW students' view on the social work mission—individual adaptation vs societal change—between the beginning and the end of the MSW program. The results showed that students' degree of social action involvement, type of field practicum, and ideological variables predicted students' view changes or adherence between entering the MSW program and graduating.     

It Takes Two? An Exploration of Processes and Outcomes in a Two‐Session Couple Intervention

Although relationship distress is common, couples often forego professional help due to concerns such as time constraints, financial costs, and stigma. The two‐session relationship checkup is an alternative format of couple intervention developed to address these concerns. In this qualitative study, we interviewed 20 coupled participants and six clinicians to examine the checkup's processes and outcomes. The phenomenological themes that emerged revealed sequential processes by which this format works. Couple themes included client motivation, the therapeutic relationship, and therapeutic change in terms of perceptions and behaviors—particularly with regard to communication. Clinician data largely mirrored these themes. The results suggest the intervention addressed barriers to help‐seeking and may be a viable selective option for at‐risk couples.     

Gender and Value Orientations—What’s the Difference!? The Case of Japan and the United States

This paper analyzes gendered social identity in Japan and the United States, countries with comparable postindustrial economic systems but distinct cultural traditions. Using national surveys (1995), we find gender differences in value orientations to be neither systematic nor consistent. They often disappeared after controlling for demographic and human-capital variables, though not so often for Japan. Other variables proved more important predictors of values than gender, although in different ways in Japan and the United States. We conclude by reassessing the use of the term gender in social research and the cultural meaning of gender relations by addressing the feminist concerns with issues of gender location.

Age Is But a Number? An Exploration of Age Differences in Episodic Volunteering

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Age has long been understood as a strong demographic determinant of volunteering. However, to date, limited literature...     

Creating an Immigrant-Friendly Society—What Drives Feelings Toward Immigrants?

The number of individuals currently living in a country other than the one in which they were born peaked at more than 244 million in 2015. This makes the global society a culturally and racially diverse one. Although unpopular with some residents, immigrants are the reality of contemporary society. This study discusses immigration as a global phenomenon and the creation of immigrant-friendly society as a necessity. The study utilizes data from the 2014 General Social Survey on American attitudes toward immigrants to create the feelings toward immigrants (FTI) index and investigates the determinants of the feelings toward immigrants in the United States. The study finds that college education, income, political views, citizens, and residing in the West and the Northeast United States affect feelings toward immigrants. Interestingly, the study reveals that college education enhances the positive perception of liberals and moderates the negative views that conservatives and citizens might have. The study concludes that policymakers seeking to create immigrant-friendly society should focus on the above factors rather than race, attendance, and participation at religious events and other variables that were not significant.     

Reassessing Corporate Image—An Examination of How Image Bridges Symbolic Relationships With Behavioral Relationships

Abstract

In this study we examine corporate image by identifying how image congruency might exert an impact on a public's beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward an organization in a time of crisis for that organization. An experiment was conducted to test the research questions, and the results of the study revealed that a corporation that presented image congruency with a public's expectations could maintain public approval when there was no crisis. In the event of a crisis, however, image congruency might also protect the company via an indirect route. Given image congruency, a public's behavioral intentions toward the corporation seemed to remain consistent regardless of situational changes.     

What Drives Progressive Policy? Institutional Politics,Political Mediation,Policy Feedbacks,and Early U.S. Old‐Age Policy

What drives progressive public policy? Because progressive policy challenges the interests of powerful people and interests that dominate policy making, it is puzzling that progressive policy ever happens. This article addresses this question by modeling and appraising institutional political, political mediation, and policy feedback theories and models of progressive policy making. Institutional political theory focuses on political institutional conditions, bureaucratic development, election results, and public opinion. Political mediation theory holds that social movements can have influence over progressive policy under favorable political conditions. Policy feedback theory holds that programs will be self‐reinforcing under certain conditions. The article goes beyond previous research by including and analyzing public opinion in institutional political and political mediation models and addressing positive policy feedbacks. We appraise five models derived from these three theories through fuzzy set qualitative comparative analyses of the generosity of early old‐age policy across U.S. states at two key moments. We find some support for each theory, and the results suggest that they are complementary. Left regimes or social movements can initiate progressive policy, which can be reinforced for the long term through positive policy feedback mechanisms. We discuss the implications for current U.S. politics and for progressive policy elsewhere.     

What are Homes Made of? Building Materials,DIY and the Homeyness of Homes

This article considers the meanings that are attached to, and outcomes produced by, the things that houses are built from. It reflects on the meanings attached to the “robustness” of building materials for people who carry out DIY (Do-It-Yourself) projects. DIY is important to some people as a way to build relationships and perform a culturally valued identity. For interviewees in New Zealand, working on their own homes was an important aspect of their lives, and more malleable building materials allowed such work and had positive connotations and produced feelings of homeyness in contrast to more robust “permanent” materials. The article thus raises questions about how the built material of home relates to our feelings about it as well as highlighting the diverse practices and relationships that—literally—construct homes.     

What Drives the Voting on Abortion Policy? Investigating Partisanship and Religion in the State Legislative Arena

Abstract

Much of the public policy debate on abortion now centers in the nation's state capitals. This research assesses the impact of partisanship and religiosity on the voting behavior of state legislators. Recent research indicates that a legislator's religious affiliation and the religiosity of their home districts can be a powerful predictor of votes on abortion bills, but this research uses a unique data set developed to analyze voting in the Florida House of Representatives to re-test those ideas and test several new ones. This work challenges the notion that member religion or district religiosity is more influential than partisanship in predicting votes on abortion. Ordered probit techniques show partisanship, gender and legislator religion (for Catholic and Jewish members only), to be the most significant predictors of abortion voting behavior. A number of district characteristics are found to be less significant. Theoretically, this suggests that legislators fulfill their party obligations as trustee on the floor of the House, more so than following constituent interests in the classic delegate role, as originally noted by Burke.     

What constitutes great IDEA? An examination of corporate diversity communication on facebook and external and internal stakeholder reactions

This study conducted a quantitative content analysis to examine corporate Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) communication (n = 1216) from 48 corporations on Facebook through the lens of dimensionality, stakeholders, drivers (legitimation), and level of investment. Findings indicated that most of the IDEA communication on Facebook focused on gender and racial/ethnicity diversity, employee, and community stakeholders. The IDEA communication was almost equally value- and performance-driven and reflected external promotion level of investment. External stakeholders engaged more with performance-driven and external promotion IDEA communication. The volume of IDEA posts reflected corporate internal diversity practice and was positively related with Glassdoor ratings of the corporation by African American, Middle Eastern, and LGBTQ+ employees.     

An Overview of a Hospital-Based Child Advocacy Center’s Experience from Turkey

The purpose of the present study was to investigate sociodemographic variables, features of sexual abuse (SA), and first psychiatric evaluation results of abused children, and to analyze the relation of the psychiatric evaluation results to the children’s age and gender, type and duration of abuse, abuser–child relationship, and marital status of the children’s parents, at one of the most experienced Child Advocacy Centers (CACs) in Turkey. All data were obtained from reports prepared by child and adolescent psychiatrists. The sample of this study consists of 436 child sexual abuse (CSA) cases who admitted ?zmir CAC between April 2014 and November 2015. The statistical analyses yielded significant relations between psychiatric symptoms and chronic abuse, the gender of the children, and type of abuse. Suicidal ideation and behaviors due to sexual abuse (SA) were also examined. According to our results, it is fair to say that children exposed to SA benefit from immediate psychiatric help because of their vulnerability for psychiatric disorders due to abuse. In this context, CACs are very important multidisciplinary establishments to determine children’s multiple needs to ease their trauma with collaborative teamwork. Psychiatric evaluation should be part of this multidisciplinary context.     

Teaching Note—An Exploration of Team-Based Learning and Social Work Education: A Natural Fit

The literature on team-based learning (TBL) as a pedagogical methodology in social work education is limited; however, TBL, which was developed as a model for business, has been successfully used as a teaching methodology in nursing, business, engineering, medical school, and many other disciplines in academia. This project examines the use of TBL in a Human Behavior in the Social Environment (HBSE) class and how a convenience sample (n?=?44) of undergraduate students responds to this method of learning. The project addresses the implications for this pedagogical style as an innovative way for teaching the social work curriculum and preparing a future generation of social workers to be productive members of work-related and professional groups.     

Qualitative Cowboy or Qualitative Dude: An Impasse of Validity,Politics, and Ethics?

Sociological theorists' recent critique of foundationalism, the notion that observers can accurately represent a single, objective reality, has led to calls for sociology to abandon its claim to epistemic privilege. A related debate has ensued among qualitative sociologists over ethnography's claim to produce objective, authoritative accounts of field realities. This debate over "the crisis of representation" has apparently reached an epistemological impasse, as both "modernist" and "postmodernist" participants draw on a conceptual dichotomy inherited from correspondence models of science. The impasse is ethical as well, as participants "talk past one another" as they debate the appropriate responsibilities of sociologists. A pragmatist solution to this dilemma has been offered, but gives insufficient attention to the politics that shape the criteria to be used in judging the validity of accounts in local contexts. Drawing upon "modernist" discussions of field methods and an empirical case of "studying up" in Mondragón, Spain, this paper argues that a more politically attentive pragmatism could contribute to research practice that is both epistemologically and empirically defensible.     

“What About the Rest of Us?” An Overview of LGBT Poverty Issues and a Call to Action

In this article, I argue that, despite the myth of gay affluence, existing research is conclusive enough to claim that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adults are overall less financially secure than their heterosexual, cisgendered counterparts. I demonstrate that LGBT poverty is a broad social issue that can no longer be viewed as affecting only specific subpopulations of LGBT communities. I argue that the social work profession and the LGBT movement need to recognize LGBT poverty as a social issue. I then present a call to action for social work practitioners, researchers and LGBT organizations.     

What Gets Covered? An Examination of Media Coverage of the Environmental Movement in Canada

This article analyzes press releases from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Greenpeace (GP) to assess how their tactics and frames affect the amount of coverage they receive in The Globe and Mail and National Post from 2000 to 2010. While it is clear that some tactics are more likely to garner media coverage, the full range of tactics and frames are not effective for all groups. For example, calling to the public to engage in a social issue leads to increased media coverage for GP but not WWF. And, using research does not affect media coverage for WWF, but decreases coverage for GP. This study demonstrates that the effect of tactical choices on media coverage is contingent on the identity of the group using them.