Shifting categories,changing attitudes: A boundary work approach in the study of attitudes toward migrants

Considerable research exists that examines attitudes toward migrants. Most studies are quantitative, relying on surveys or survey experiments, but a growing body of literature explores such attitudes from a qualitative perspective. At the same time, the study of symbolic boundaries and how people use cultural repertoires of meanings to draw distinctions between “us” and “them” is increasing. This review looks at research, both quantitative and qualitative, which has put these two streams of work into conversation with one another. We organize this work along three dimensions: (1) the micro-level of individuals and their life-worlds; (2) the meso-level of negotiation among the moral communities of civil society; and (3) the macro-level of institutions and policy. We also highlight those studies that cut across levels. By doing so, we help bridge the quantitative/qualitative divide. Studying attitudes toward migrants through the concept of symbolic boundaries allows us to apply a more sensitive and meaning-centered approach toward attitude formation, contestation and change and to explore the linkages to available cultural repertoires.     

Art work or money: Conflicts in the construction of a creative identity

The identity projects of novice creative practitioners must take account of the economy of art work. It has been suggested ( McRobbie, 2002a ) that in the contemporary cultural industries in the UK, a new understanding of the connection between creative work and money has replaced past ‘anti‐commercial’ notions. This claim is investigated through a narrative‐discursive analysis of interviews from a longitudinal study with current and recent Art and Design postgraduates. Their ongoing identity projects are shaped by established understandings of creative work and the prospects it offers for earning and employment, and also by more local discursive resources given by personal life contexts. An analysis of two interviews with a single speaker shows how these resources are taken up within her ongoing and distinctive identity project. Both old and new repertoires of art and money are in play in her talk. She must negotiate dilemmas and potentially troubled positionings in order to reconcile a creative identity with relationships and responsibilities towards others. Coherence is only achieved momentarily and is disrupted by new life circumstances. By investigating an identity project at the level of talk, the analysis shows the complexity of the speaker's work to construct and claim a creative identity.     

A comparative analysis of Norwegian and American social workers’ views about inclusion of religion and spirituality in social work

ABSTRACT

This article presents results from a comparative analysis of national surveys of Norwegian and American social workers’ views and practice with regard to inclusion of religion and spirituality in their professional work with clients. Findings include views about professional values, educational preparation, raising the topics of religion and spirituality with clients experiencing oppression, and use of related interventions. Overall, American social workers are more likely to address religion and spirituality than Norwegians. International comparative statistical and conceptual analyses consider influences of differences in practice settings, respondents’ age and length of experience, and cultural contexts.     

How to Describe It? Why the Term Coming Out Means Different Things in the United States and France

Drawing on 30 in‐depth interviews with U.S. and French lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, we find important similarities in how U.S. and French respondents strategically managed the visibility of their sexual identities but differences in the vocabulary used to discuss those experiences. Specifically, all of the Americans used the expression coming out spontaneously while only five French respondents did so. Instead, French respondents typically rejected coming out in favor of other words or expressions. Rather than simple effects of speaking different languages, these differences stemmed from distinct connotations given to the same—widely diffused—expressions within each local context. Unlike their American peers, who saw the expression's origin in their own history and used in everyday lives, most French respondents resisted what they perceived to be an American cultural object imported by the French media. We also find evidence that the meaning of coming out is changing in both contexts such that in the future, the French and Americans may perceive and use it more similarly. This research contributes to our understanding of the intersection between language, meaning, and political context, within a cross‐national setting.     

The Discursive Management of Financial Risk Scandals: The Case of Wall Street Journal Commentaries on LTCM and Enron

Scholars of financial risk culture have repeatedly identified its reliance upon popular confidence in the possibility and value of ??risk-management.?? The past two decades, however, have seen repeated outbreaks of scandalous financial failures involving some of the most idealized risk-management experts. Examining Wall Street Journal commentaries published in the aftermath of the ??Long-Term Capital Management?? and ??Enron?? debacles, the paper uncovers the discursive strategies involved in making sense of these financial scandals. It calls attention to the considerable retrospective interpretive space that the risk discourse enjoys, illustrating the degree to which it relies upon after-the-fact reconstructions of ??risk?? and ??risk-taking.?? Despite probabilistic rhetoric, commentaries moralize bad outcomes by working backwards in time, retrospectively linking the outcomes to narratives of earlier and irresponsible transgressions of supposedly obvious risk calculi. The paper discusses the implications of its findings for a variety of theoretical accounts of contemporary financial risk culture.     

Virtue and the material culture of the nineteenth century: the debate over the mass marketplace in France in the aftermath of the 1848 revolution

This article treats the intellectual problem of revolution, agency, and the advent of liberal democracy from the standpoint of mid-nineteenth century France in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions. After a discussion of the theoretical and historiographical problem??in particular the relevance for this period in history of science studies??the article discusses the views of former Saint-Simonian and political economist, Michel Chevalier, eventually turning to the debate over the free market of goods and labor between the early French socialist Louis Blanc and Chevalier in Chevalier??s new role of liberal free trade activist who trumpeted the ideology of the mass marketplace. Chevalier??s engagement of the social question turned on a distinctively moral, ideological, and, ultimately, technocratic defense of the free market??this free market utopianism became both starker and more ideologically refined as a result of Chevalier??s engagement with Blanc, especially in regard to worker-education. Both referred to the new mass marketplace of cheap, retail goods created by the rapid advance of mass transport, modern logistics, as le bon marché. French political economists went so far as to invoke a new way of life: la vie a bon marché (literally, ??life on the cheap??). This notion of work and life was opposed by Blanc on the grounds of fraternal social solidarity. Finally, and potently, the moral virtues of the free market were conceived by Chevalier as a direct answer to social revolution, a means for affording social stability.     

Political talk on mobile instant messaging services: a comparative analysis of Germany,Italy, and the UK

Mobile instant messaging services (MIMS) are emerging as important digital environments in citizens’ everyday lives. We explore the use of MIMS for talking about politics with unique survey data on samples representative of Internet users in Germany, Italy, and the UK. First, we show that robust percentages of our respondents who use MIMS employ them for posting political messages and discussing politics. Second, we demonstrate that political talk on MIMS is positively associated with users’ tendency to censor themselves politically on social networking sites (SNS) and, to a lesser extent, with ideological extremism. Third, we find that the association between self-censorship on SNS and the likelihood of publishing political contents on MIMS is stronger for individuals living in former East Germany where, due to historical reasons, large segments of the population are reluctant to talk about politics in public. Our findings suggest that MIMS make a distinctive contribution to contemporary repertoires of political talk, with important implications for the quality and inclusiveness of interpersonal political discussion.     

Amnesia: Cultural Memory,Reconciliation, and Communal Accountability in the Americas

Contributing to debates on the status of comparison in transnational American studies, this essay offers a morphologically comparative approach to memory’s cultural politics in conflict resolution, juxtaposing two histo-ries — one ‘geo-political’ (nation-state, transatlantic) and the other ‘micro-history’ (small-town, regional) — whose ensuing negotiations unsettle paradigms of silencing and forgetting, especially as these pertain to ‘reconciliation’. Offering an alternative to predominantly psychoanalytic treatments of cultural memory and power, this essay employs morphological analysis and queer theory to explore cultural amnesia through blending ethnographic and media sources on the politics of it in the assignment of accountability and belonging.     

Ethno-religious groups work values and ethics: the case of Jews,Muslims and Christians in Israel

This study examines and compares, for the first time, the MOW (Meaning of Work) among Jews and Arabs (Muslims and Christians) in Israel and attempts to explain the similarities and the differences in work ethics among these ethno-religious groups. The MOW questionnaire was conducted on 898 Jewish, 215 Muslim and 103 Christian respondents who were currently working. The MOW dimensions were: economic orientation, entitlement norms, obligation norms, interpersonal relations orientation, intrinsic orientation and work centrality. The findings reveal significant differences in most of the MOW dimensions between the three religious groups. Overall, demographic factors partially explain the MOW differences. The MOW differences among the three groups can be explained mainly by cultural differences. Since there is mass Arab (Muslims and Christians) immigration from the Middle East to Europe this study provides a better understanding of their perceptions about work and their work values and ethics. The applications of the findings for organizations are discussed.     

Narratives and self-identity in later life: Two rural American older women

Older adults often draw on memories to construct stories about themselves that help them to retain and validate their self-identities, doing this within the cultural contexts that have shaped their lives. In this paper, we examine the life history narratives of two working class, rural American older women and the ways in which those narratives are similar despite one major difference: one has dementia. In both cases, major themes that are consistent with gender-based, working class, rural American cultural values are dominant, including closeness of family, hard work, ties to the land, and religious faith. In the first case, she reconstructs memories of her life in accordance with dominant cultural and personal values, downplaying the ways in which her experiences were “out of step” with these values. In the second case, her sense of identity remains and is expressed through her co-constructed memories although she is experiencing cognitive loss.     

Navigation, interaction and bridge team work

During the course of this paper we explore the interaction of seafarers engaged in navigation on the bridge of a merchant ship. More specifically we examine how ‘bridge teams’ utilise a range of practical conversational methods and devices in carrying out the days work within a context where temporal and spatial considerations are paramount. Utilising the principles of ethnomethodologically informed conversation analysis we analyse transcribed materials gathered from a working bridge. The business of bridge team‐work is the generation of a mutual frame of navigational perspective and decision making. A central aspect of this interactional accomplishment is a confirmatory form of talk that is utilised in order to avoid confusion and maritime disaster. The paper also explores empirical examples of interaction and identifies the way in which bridge team‐work is accomplished, organised and sustained. The paper suggests how consideration of these features may inform further enquiry and modify training practice.     

Story, narrative and team work

During the course of this paper I explore some dimensions of talk‐in interaction within the context of social/care work team meetings. Furthermore, I contrast traditional approaches to analysing members stories by illustrating the situated dimension and characteristics of members stories within talk‐in‐interaction. In addition, I address some topics relating to the investigation of social/care team work and briefly consider the story as a mechanism for reducing complexity within the locally accomplished parameters of team work.     

Toward an Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Youth,Sexualization, and Health

The commentaries in this issue of the Journal of Sex Research by Vanwesenbeeck and Else-Quest and Hyde on “Bad Girls Rule” are connected to two larger conversations concerning (a) the intersections of sexuality, objectification, culture, health, and power; and (b) academics as public scholars. Vanwesenbeeck makes the case for considering both the risks and the rights associated with sexualization. Else-Quest and Hyde argue for the need to use a developmental lens when discussing girlhood and sexuality. This response recognizes the need for a developmental approach; elaborates on previous critiques about over-reliance on epidemiological terms in the American Psychological Association task force report on the sexualization of girls; and rearticulates the value of placing feminist, cross-disciplinary, and cross-national scholarship at the center, rather than the margins, of this dialogue. Were such a dialogue to occur, evidence of cultural and personal variations of childhood and youth should be considered along with evidence of human personality development. Although scholars in psychology have been leaders in public scholarship on sexualization and girlhood, it is an ethical and intellectual obligation for scholars from other disciplines (e.g., public health, women's studies, sociology, cultural studies, and epidemiology) to also contribute to this conversation.     

Culture and personality in international schools: are trait differences in students’ personalities attenuated or amplified?

International schools provide a unique context for examining the influence of culture on adolescent personality and identity. In order to investigate whether intercultural education attenuates or amplifies known cultural differences in personality, the traits of 81 students from Chinese, North American, and mixed Chinese-North American cultural backgrounds were assessed. An online version of a Five Factor Model (FFM) personality inventory was used to measure personality. Students participating in the study attended a large, American international high school in Hong Kong. Despite previous studies showing cultural differences in personality, MANOVA results yielded no significant differences between the personality traits of students from Chinese, North American or mixed Chinese-North American cultural backgrounds. The findings support theories that propose intercultural schooling is associated with acculturation. Paradoxically, numerous qualitative investigations of cultural identity have concluded that a more distinctive, amplified cultural identity emerges when individuals move to more multicultural environments. The paper considers these different findings and the role of personality in culturally diverse classrooms. Implications for intercultural education are discussed.     

Fathers' Early Emotion Talk: Associations With Income,Ethnicity, and Family Factors

Contextual, mother‐, child‐, and father‐level variables were examined in association with fathers' emotion talk to infants during a shared picture book activity, in an ethnically diverse, low‐income sample (N = 549). Significant main effects included the rate of emotion talk from fathers' romantic partners (i.e., the infant's mother), infant attention and distress, and sensitive parenting. Significant interactions were also found. Higher income African American fathers referred to negative emotions more than non‐African American higher income fathers. In addition, African American fathers who demonstrated more negative and intrusive parenting referred to positive emotions more than non‐African American fathers who demonstrated negative and intrusive parenting. Our findings support family systems theory and, specifically, the interdependence of individuals' behaviors within the family unit. Interaction effects are discussed with respect to cultural variation in beliefs about parenting behaviors and the cultural experience of African Americans, including the Black cultural experience and the minority experience.