Cultivating Better Food Access? The Role of Farmers' Markets in the U.S. Local Food Movement

The local food movement has grown substantially in the United States in recent years. Proponents have hailed this growth as a shift away from a conventional food system rife with inequality toward one that introduces more just outcomes for society. While the movement's development and popularity have proliferated, little research has examined nationally how successful it is at delivering on its promises. By combining the social movement and food system literatures with quantitative methodology, this article examines the accessibility of the farmers' market across the United States. Using multivariate logistic regression, the analysis focuses on several identifying characteristics of individuals within and characteristics of neighborhoods across the United States to explore what increases (or decreases) the likelihood of a farmers' market being located within their boundaries. The results suggest that several social, economic, and racial differences exist between those living in areas with farmers' markets and those in areas that do not. Additionally, the analysis found that several neighborhood characteristics significantly influence the likelihood of a farmers’ market being present, including a neighborhood's socioeconomic status, the quality of neighborhood infrastructure, participation rates in social support programs, and the prevalence of poverty. In addition to posing questions of accessibility for the local food movement this research contributes to our understanding of grassroots social movements by examining the avenues and potential limitations that they negotiate while ensuring their stated goals are reached.     

Will you (still) love me tomorrow: Pro-Americanism and the China factor in Asia

This study seeks to investigate how amiable attitudes toward the United States as an ideal development model can be decreased by a predisposition toward accepting China as a favorable regional power. The empirical results from performing regression analysis of survey data in 13 Asian countries show that a positive evaluation of China in terms of its democratization level and having good influence in one's own country negatively correlate with a liking of the United States. The middle class is less likely to be pro-American. Higher national income leads to a lower evaluation of the importance of the United States, probably revealing a self-congratulatory tone in public opinion. This study concludes that the United States is not loved wholeheartedly by the public opinion of this region. Neither is China sought after as a development model. For most Asians, Japan appears to be a popular choice, besides choosing one's own country.     

Social Workers' Postgraduate Use of the IFD Interpersonal Communication Model

Interpersonal communication assessment models have become very popular as a means of quickly establishing rapport in many settings across the United States. Despite their popularity and possible utility, there has been minimal research into the impact of these models, especially over time and in educational settings (more than 6 months after the training is over). In the master's of social work (MSW) program at Brigham Young University (BYU), the interpersonal family dynamics (IFD) model is used as a tool to better understand human behavior and strengthen relationships in the social work practice environment. This training is provided to first-year students in the foundation human behavior in the social environment course and to field supervisors in their field training conferences. BYU's MSW program graduates were surveyed to find out their perceptions of the utility of IFD. With a relatively high level of accuracy, the graduates reported IFD was a useful approach to better understanding human behavior in their daily practice. Graduates used the model as much in their personal lives as in their professional lives.     

Incorporation and Gated Communities in the Greater Metro-Los Angeles Region as a Model of Privatization of Residential Communities

ABSTRACT

The privatization of urban public space has accelerated through the closing, redesign, and policing of public parks and plazas, the development of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) that monitor and control local streets and parks, and the transfer of public air rights for the building of corporate plazas ostensibly open to the public. In the suburbs, privatization also takes the form of conservation easements that restrict access to public lands, the creation of shopping malls and new town centers relocated within these private commercial developments, and the building of gated residential communities. Accompanying this expansion of private interests are changes in strategies of governance and regional differences in how local governments and residents are encouraging private encroachment on public space. This article focuses this third set of privatization practices by discussing how gated communities manipulate municipal and town planning laws to control public space and tax dollars. To accomplish this task, I discuss the emergence of gated communities as a new form of privatization of urban/suburban space and then tease out the legal and institutional underpinnings of this spatial governance. The geography of gated communities in greater metro-Los Angeles region and their use of the strategy of incorporation to capture public taxes for private use is employed as a model for understanding the future of gating in the United States. The Los Angeles model is then compared to current gating patterns in urban and suburban gated communities in New York and Texas. These manipulations of private land use controls in the United States are not necessarily new, but with gating there is an accelerating trend away from governmental and public control of land use toward an increased reliance on privately created controls. The consequences of this shift toward privatization of land use control is an impoverishment of the public realm and access to public resources, especially public space.     

Contesting Water Rights: Collective Ownership and Struggles against Privatization

The post‐1980s have seen increasing struggles over rights to water. Water rights have involved intense protests and campaigns against privatization of water including bottling of water and advocacy for citizens control of water. We review scholarly work to focus on four main aspects: the complexities intertwining globalization processes, the state, and water rights; collective ownership of water resources; peoples’ participating in managing and using water; and the campaigns against privatization which have emerged in both the developing and developed world in different ways. The conclusion calls for adopting a social movement lens to examine the struggles for water rights by providing some lead research questions around the macro and micro level theoretical approaches.     

A More Perfect Commodity: Bottled Water,Global Accumulation,and Local Contestation

Bottled water sits at the intersection of debates regarding the social and environmental effects of the commodification of nature and the ways neoliberal globalization alters the provision of public services. Utilizing Polanyi's concept of fictitious commodities and Harvey's work on accumulation by dispossession, this article traces bottled water's transformation from elite niche item to a product consumed by three fourths of U.S. households. Drawing on ethnographic research with participants in two cases of proposed spring water extraction from rural communities by industry leader Nestlé Waters, we make two principal arguments. First, the case of bottled water necessitates a reevaluation of existing theoretical frameworks regarding water privatization and commodification. Municipal tap water networks pose substantial barriers to capital accumulation, leading one influential scholar to frame water as an “uncooperative commodity.” However, bottled water's characteristics enable it to evade many of these constraints, rendering it a “more perfect commodity” for accumulation. Second, expansion of the market good of bottled water alters the prospects for the largely publicly provided good of tap water. We conclude that the growth of this relatively new commodity represents a more serious threat to the project of universal public drinking water provision than that posed by tap water privatization.     

The U.S. Economic Polity,Social Identity,and International Human Rights

In this essay, I provide some complementary perspectives on certain themes that emerge in Judith Blau's (2016) timely and insightful article, “Human Rights: What the United States Might Learn from the Rest of the World and, Yes, from American Sociology.” In response, I offer some very brief reflections structured through two prisms by which we might think further about the United States and human rights. These perspectives pick up on the core issue of Blau's article, the U.S. rejection of socioeconomic rights, and how this issue in turn relates first to the “social identity” of the United States as a whole, and second to the role of the political economy in states' recognition of human rights.     

Explaining the United States’ Penal Exceptionalism: Political,Economic, and Social Factors

In this review, I examine explanations for why the United States is a world leader in its use of imprisonment. I first outline cross‐national trends in incarceration and then evaluate the state of the literature and empirical evidence for why the United States is more punitive than other advanced industrialized nations. I argue a confluence of political, economic, and social factors distinct to the United States context are implicated in the punitive turn in the 1970s. Specifically, United States’ penal exceptionalism is the result of (1) a shift of criminal justice policy from the judicial to the legislative branch of government; (2) political responses to social and economic changes including deindustrialization and the upheaval of race relations in the 1960s; and (3) a weak welfare state. These changes stand in stark contrast to the dynamics of criminal justice policymaking among comparable nations. However, there is a need for more comparative research on the topic, as understanding the mechanism behind the stabilization or decrease of penal populations in other countries may better elucidate the reasons for America’s divergence from international trends.     

Student Migration: Evidence from Chinese Students in the US and China

This article is based on the analysis of a pair of cross‐national parallel surveys on Chinese students, respectively inside the People's Republic of China and in the US. Specifically, it makes comparisons between two cross‐sectional groups: 1) Chinese students in a PRC university who intend to study abroad (with a subset that stated that the United States is their top destination), versus 2) Chinese students already at a US university. Building on a “motility” concept while using an “Intellectual Migration” conceptual framework and chi‐square and logistic regression analyses, it demonstrates that Chinese students' possibly returning to the PRC are significantly influenced by their gender, college GPA, family finance, assessment of China's current and future development. The results on outmigration or return migration intentions are presented, and it concludes with some policy implications and future research directions.     

Insider-allies: The precarious politics of men in identity-fluid feminism

Academic and activist conversations about the position of men in feminism often operate under the assumption that women are the movement's key beneficiaries and men are privileged outsiders lending their support. I use 59 interviews from a broader project on feminist and LGBTQ+ activism in the United States to illustrate how men's orientation to feminism is shaped by whether social movement organizations adopt what I call woman-centered or identity-fluid politics. While woman-centered politics treat men as allies whose intentions must be vetted by women, identity-fluid feminism imagines men as insiders with their own independent investment in the movement. I argue that the tension between these two models of identity politics gives men a liminal “insider-ally” position within feminism. Although feminist men are given a tentative authority to speak for the movement, the persistence of woman-centered understandings of feminism means men's insider status is contested, especially when they dominate feminist spaces, compromise women's sense of safety, and seek leadership.     

Complicating Patriotism in the Elementary Grades: An Examination of Rugg and Krueger's Overlooked Textbooks

In the late 1930s several prominent self-described patriotic groups attacked social studies pioneer Harold Rugg as “un-American.” The largest instance of textbook censorship in American history unfolded. Yet little attention was given (and continues to be given by scholars) to Rugg's elementary textbooks that he wrote with Louise Krueger. This article examines Rugg and Krueger's complete “Elementary Series” in light of the un-American criticisms levied at Rugg. It documents how, despite critics’ claims, the books were immediately celebratory of the United States and its people, teaching a traditional patriotism that casts the nation as the supreme level of social analysis through an unquestioning, best-story approach. Furthermore, it shows how the books lack Rugg's justice-oriented philosophy of the “American Problem.” The article concludes by charging elementary social studies teachers, teacher educators, and researchers to consider critical questions related to the teaching of patriotism in the elementary grades.     

Examining the Ethical Utility of Social Work Program Rankings in the US: Are We Measuring One Thing and Selling Another?

Social work program rankings are frequently used in the US to communicate program identity, and no ranking structure has become as commonly accepted as the one compiled by US News & World Report. However, the metrics used to assemble these rankings, and what the rankings have been used to communicate, have come under question over recent years. This project details an analysis that was conducted on the relationship between US News rankings for social work programs in the United States (n = 200) and Carnegie research designations for the universities with which those programs are affiliated. Findings suggest that as institutional size increases, so do rankings. This study assesses the strength of that relationship and questions the ethical utility of this ranking system, particularly when used as a tool to recruit students (a common practice in the United States). Additional metrics are suggested to help potential students make more informed decisions in reference to program selection.     

Economic Well‐Being in Salvadoran Transnational Families: How Gender Affects Remittance Practices

This article examines how migrant parents' gender affects transnational families' economic well‐being. Drawing on 130 in‐depth interviews with Salvadoran immigrants in the United States and adolescent and young adult children of migrants in El Salvador, I demonstrate that the gender of migrant parents centrally affects how well their families are faring. Gender structurally differentiates immigrant parents' experiences through labor market opportunities in the United States. Simultaneously, gendered social expectations inform immigrants' approaches to parental responsibilities and remitting behaviors. Remittances—the monies parents send—directly shape children's economic well‐being in El Salvador. I find that even though immigrant mothers are structurally more disadvantaged than immigrant fathers, mother‐away families are often thriving economically because of mothers' extreme sacrifices.     

Effect of Educational Expansion on Educational Inequality in Post-industrialized Societies: A Cross-cultural Comparison of Japan and the United States of America

Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationship between educational expansion and educational inequality. I first reconsider the conceptual basis of educational expansion, noting that in post‐industrialized societies, people's educational attainment is no longer measurable in a simple temporal increase because of the recent leveling‐off in the younger generation. I then review the theoretical framework of educational inequality. After presenting a summary of related studies, I provide a multilevel regression model that examines the macro/cohort influence of educational expansion on educational inequality in Japan and the United States. The following propositions are derived from my analyses: Educational expansion has functioned to dissolve both the socio‐economic and the cultural‐educational reproduction processes in Japan; meanwhile, inequality in terms of micro coefficients remains. In the United States, both the magnitude of gender inequality and the influence of the socio‐economic reproduction process are smaller than in Japan. The macro/cohort effects of educational expansion are generally smaller in the United States. This is true despite the fact that educational expansion significantly dissolves gender inequality in the United States, while educational expansion has little to do with gender equalization in Japan. My comparison of the model's fit concludes that the trajectory of educational equalization follows the two‐fold consequence of educational expansion. In sum, these results show that in conjunction with the non‐linear sequence of educational attainment in the post‐industrialized phase of development, the macro/cohort influence of educational expansion as well as the micro structure of educational inequality undergo gradual transformations.     

The Impact of the Economic Downturn,Immigrants, and Political Representation on White Supremacist Group Organization in the United States

Abstract

On the surface, groups advocating white supremacy appear similar. However, upon closer examination these groups vary in their strategies and goals as well as how they are affected by the economic downturn, immigrants, and political representation. This study utilizes resource mobilization theory to examine the relationship among political ideology, partisanship, public policy, social factors, and white supremacist group organization in the United States between 2000 and 2007. With the fifty states as the unit of analysis, I conduct a pooled time-series analysis to answer the following research questions: Is there a relationship among a state's political ideology, partisanship, public policy, social factors, and individual white supremacist group organization? Does this relationship vary by white supremacist group type? White supremacist group data disaggregated by type reveal that group dynamics are in play as groups navigate state political and social factors to determine ideal areas to organize. This study reveals the importance in examining white supremacist groups disaggregated by type, particularly the political and social factors that motivate their level of organization.     

After the March: Using Instagram to Perform and Sustain the Women's March

The January 2017 Women's March was an example of the paradigmatic March on Washington, part of the repertoire of collective action used by social movements in the United States for decades. Similar marches were held on its first and second anniversary, in January 2018 and January 2019, respectively. One did not need to travel to the nation's capital to participate in these marches, however; activists also organized hundreds of “sister marches” across the United States and internationally. Yet, a sole focus on these one‐day, physical events misses a great deal of activity. In this article, we examine social media activity related to the Women's March on the platform Instagram that was posted well after the 2017 march was over but before the 2018 march was fully planned. We do so to gain purchase on how individuals and organizations use social media to maintain movements between large events. We analyze a systematic sample of Instagram posts from two sources: (1) individual Instagram users’ public posts with the hashtag #womensmarch and (2) posts from the official Instagram account of the Women's March. Conceptualizing these posts as political performances, we use our findings to draw implications for the study of contemporary protest.     

Race and Place in the Adaptation of Mariel Exiles*

The influx of lower class émigrés during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift complicates the “success story” image of previous waves of Cuban exiles to the United States. Examination of Mariel exiles in terms of racial variation in adaptation does not exist; nor is analysis of the geographic distribution and internal migration of Mariel Cubans within the United States represented. Mariel exiles maneuver along distinguishable paths of adaptation as evidenced by patterns of settlement and geographical mobility. I argue that place is a necessary ingredient in illuminating diverse adjustment experiences among immigrants and refugees in the United States.

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Observations on the 1994 Mexican National Elections

On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. Over a period of fifteen years NAFTA will eliminate trade barriers between Mexico, Canada, and the United States. As the economics and politics of the three countries become increasingly interdependent, it is important for social workers in the United States to become better informed about developments in Mexico and Canada which affect the welfare of Mexicans and Canadians and which have implications for social welfare policy and programming in the United States. This report, by a ''United Statesian''1 social worker who participated in the efforts of Alianza Cívica/Observatión '94 to monitor the 1994 Mexican national elections, describes the political context of those elections; the training and credentialing of an ''international visitor;'' election day activities in Tecalapa, Guerrero; and the author's reflections on the electoral process and subsequent events in Mexico.