The Sliding Scale of Snitching: A Qualitative Examination of Snitching in Three Philadelphia Communities

We conducted an in‐depth interview study with 77 young men in three moderate to high‐crime neighborhoods in Philadelphia to hear their stories about community violence and relations with police. In this article, we have analyzed how Latino, African‐American, and white young men experience policing and how they discuss the guidelines around cooperation with the police and what they view as snitching. Contrary to popular perception, talking to the police is not always banned in poor or high‐crime neighborhoods. Instead, the respondents present a variety of personal rules that they use to assess when cooperation is called for. We argue that the policing they experience within disadvantaged neighborhoods shapes their frame of legal cynicism, which in turn makes decisions not to cooperate with the police more likely.     

Race and Population Change: A Longitudinal Look at Cleveland Neighborhoods

This paper investigates the relationship of racial composition to neighborhood population change from 1910 to 1990 in the Cleveland metropolitan area. To better understand the long-term dynamics of urban neighborhood change, we focus our analysis upon the longitudinal relationship of race, socioeconomic status, and life cycle stage to changes in neighborhood population densities. First, we find that the more established neighborhoods of the African-American community have experienced dramatic declines in population since 1950, a pattern that represents a clear change from the earlier part of the twentieth century. Second, population loss is experienced through a variety of mechanisms, including the demolition of dwellings, the increase in housing vacancy, and the decline of household size. Third, much of this population loss should be interpreted within the context of high economic distress, occurring most frequently in older African-American communities. Over time, economic distress appears to be more important than race in and of itself in leading to the loss of neighborhood populations.     

Why are Depressive Symptoms More Prevalent Among The Less Educated? The Relevance of Low Cultural Capital and Cultural Entitlement

Analyzing nationally representative survey data collected in the United States in 2014 (n?=?1,932), we formulate and test a novel explanation for the educational gradient in depressive symptoms. We theorize that status as cultural capital drives this gradient in addition to well-established economic and social factors, via the feelings of cultural entitlement it inspires. Therefore, we use structural equation modeling to decompose the education effect. We demonstrate that in addition to economic (job security and income) and social factors (embeddedness in the neighborhood), cultural capital indeed accounts for the educational gradient in depressive symptoms via cultural entitlement. We conclude that for understanding social gradients in mental health it is vital to be sensitive for the cultural mechanisms that status as cultural capital can inspire. Based on our findings we propose suggestions for further research.     

An empirical assessment of the effect of professionalism on cynicism among prison guards

Prison guards have generally escaped social science inquiry. Although the prison guards’ officially prescribed role (custody and security) is straightforward, part of the problem is their isolation from the free society and the danger and uncertainty surrounding their work. One attitude that is potentially emergent in this problematic environment is cynicism. To minimize the effects of cynicism on prison guards, correctional agencies have devised and implemented a plan of professionalization, which is characterized by a concern for higher standards in all areas and improved benefits and working conditions. Our focus was evaluating the effect, if any, professionalism has on cynicism.

Analysis of data derived from 144 prison guards showed that the relationship between professionalism and cynicism is complex. Generally, only one professionalism dimension—sense of calling to the field—reduced a prison guard's cynicism. Effects of other professionalism dimensions on cynicism ranged from negligible to moderate.     

Neighborhood context and racial/ethnic disparities in judicial processing

This article examines the importance of neighborhoods in shaping judicial processing and racial/ethnic disparities in court outcomes. Scholarship instructs that court actors—prosecutors, defense counsel, and judges—make legal decisions with local communities in mind. With the rise of geographic information in arrest records and mapping techniques, greater opportunities exist to evaluate the role of neighborhood context in the juvenile and criminal courts. This article synthesizes research on how the characteristics of neighborhoods where defendants live and/or offend influence judicial processing. Attention is given to how scholars define neighborhoods, identify key neighborhood conditions, and analyze the relationships among places and judicial decisions. Emphasis is also placed on unpacking debates on whether neighborhood conditions diminish or aggravate racial/ethnic disparities in court outcomes, such as incarceration decisions. Its analysis reveals findings of neighborhood effects as well as evidence of neighborhood characteristics widening racial/ethnic differences in judicial processing. This article thus encourages the consideration of community context in disparity studies and policy efforts to improve citizens' access to justice.     

Parenting Strain Among Mexican‐Origin Mothers: Differences by Parental Legal Status and Neighborhood

Despite increasing recognition of the critical importance of legal status for understanding the well‐being of immigrants and their families, there has been scant research on this topic. Using Wave 1 of the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (2000–2002) and the 2000 decennial census, the authors investigated how parenting strain among Mexican‐origin mothers varies by legal status and neighborhood context. They found significant differences in parenting strain by nativity and legal status, with undocumented mothers reporting the lowest level. Results from multilevel models with cross‐level interactions reveal that the influence of neighborhood immigrant concentration differs by legal status. Percent foreign born in the neighborhood is associated with reduced parenting strain for documented Mexican‐origin mothers, whereas it is associated with heightened parenting strain for undocumented Mexican‐origin mothers. The findings provide empirical support for the need to recognize legal status distinctions in studies of the well‐being of immigrants and their families.     

The gentrification of “Boerum Hill”: Neighborhood change and conflicts over definitions

The article presents a case history of a gentrifying neighborhood, with special reference to the interplay between cultural artifacts and the forces of the political economy. In Boerum Hill, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, newly arriving middle-class homeowners used various political and cultural methods, including changes in nomen-clature, house tours, manipulation of boundaries and an attempt to secure historic landmark status, in order to enforce their definition of what the neighborhood should be. A countermovement then emerged on the part of older residents, who, using a different set of cultural referents (based on the notion of ethnic pride), sought to enforce a different definition. The author proposes that while the neighborhood is a socially constructed entity, the resources with which this construction takes place are unequally distributed. Moreover, as the notion of neighborhood has become increasingly politically salient in recent years, the author suggests that cultural conflicts over the definition of neighborhoods have become a feature of urban politics.     

From concerned citizens to activists: a case study of 2015 South Korean MERS outbreak and the role of dialogic government communication and citizens’ emotions on public activism

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the cognitive-affective-behavioral sequence of public activism by examining the role of citizens’ perception of government dialogic communication during a national pandemic crisis. Through a case study of the 2015 Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea, the results of a survey of 400 South Korean citizens showed that distrust in government and a high level of situational uncertainty were significantly mitigated by citizens’ perceptions of government efforts for dialogic communication during the crisis. Conversely, when the perception of dialogic government communication was low, high distrust in government increased cynicism, anger, and anxiety among citizens; high situational uncertainty led to higher levels of anger and anxiety, but not cynicism. Consequently, the findings showed that anger, anxiety, and cynicism significantly motivated citizens’ intentions to take actions against the government. Direct and positive effects of anger, anxiety, and cynicism on activism participation were not found and were mediated by the citizens’ activism intentions.     

Neighborhood mechanisms and the spatial dynamics of birth weight

This study addresses two questions about why neighborhood contexts matter for individuals via a multilevel, spatial analysis of birthweight for 101,662 live births within 342 Chicago neighborhoods. First, what are the mechanisms through which neighborhood structural composition is related to health? The results show that mechanisms related to stress and adaptation (violent crime, reciprocal exchange and participation in local voluntary associations) are the most robust neighborhood-level predictors of birth weight. Second, are contextual influences on health limited to the immediate neighborhood or do they extend to a wider geographic context? The results show that contextual effects on birth weight extend to the social environment beyond the immediate neighborhood, even after adjusting for potentially confounding covariates. These findings suggest that the theoretical understanding and empirical estimation of 'neighborhood effects' on health are bolstered by collecting data on more causally proximate social processes and by taking into account spatial interdependencies among neighborhoods.     

Making Hakka Spaces: Resisting Multicultural Nationalism in Taiwan

Projects of official nationalism have long been understood as state-sponsored attempts at enforcing cultural uniformity within the borders of the national territory. Contemporary nationalisms tend to compartmentalize minority cultural groups in a way that marginalizes those who are not seen as belonging to the core of the “modern” nation. Contemporary official Taiwanese nationalism promotes the “ethnic Taiwanese” (Hokkien) majority as the modern center of an otherwise diverse nation, primarily through the funding and ‘preservation’ of non-Hokkien cultural traditions. Though these programs that celebrate local cultures are more inclusive than earlier nationalisms in Taiwan, the terms of inclusion nonetheless function as a form of neoliberal state control of minorities, such as the Hakka (kejia ren). This article examines how Hakka “culture workers” (wenhua gongzuozhe) resist state attempts at spatial and symbolic marginalization. From producing ethnographies that create a Hakka neighborhood to organizing a parade route that symbolically links that neighborhood to Taipei's government and financial centers, Hakka culture workers resist multicultural nationalism by making Hakka spaces that are resistant to state attempts to marginalize them. I argue that their work is a prime example of how communities and individuals can successfully negotiate the cultural and spatial politics of the neoliberal state.     

Identity,Campus Climate,and Burnout Among Undergraduate Women in STEM Fields

Women remain underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and these male‐dominated fields are often described as “chilly” and unwelcoming to women. This study examined the potential moderating effect of chilly climate on woman–scientist identity interference and academic burnout among 363 female undergraduate STEM students. Results indicated that identity interference related to greater emotional exhaustion, greater cynicism, and lower academic efficacy. A chillier climate related to more emotional exhaustion and cynicism. Furthermore, a positive relation was found between woman–scientist interference and cynicism when chilly climate was low or moderate. When interference was high, chilly climate did not have a relation with cynicism. When women experienced many threats (i.e., high chilly climate, high interference), they reached a threshold where additional emotional cost did not matter. Results highlight the importance of improving the campus climate for female scientists, as well as the need to assist female scientists in identity development.     

In the mood for obedience: Despair,cynicism, and seduction among employment service employees

Based on an ethnography at the Swedish Public Employment Service, this paper offers a typology of how employees managed to obey tasks they would rather not perform. It is argued that earlier studies of workplace obedience have tended to focus on a single mood in which the actor obeys: despair, cynicism, or seduction. Here, the movement between these moods is analysed. To pass from despair to cynicism, the emotional sensitivity particular to despair must be reduced. This happens through processes of detachment. To pass from cynicism to seduction, employees must break down the reflexive layer that obstructs enthusiasm. This happens through positive thinking. The reflexive step back to cynicism requires an analytic space that can be obtained either intentionally or through certain events. Building up the sensitivity that distinguishes cynicism from despair occurs through forms of alarm.     

The relationality of law and culture: Dominant approaches and new directions for cultural sociologists

Much of the cultural sociological research in law and culture falls into one of the following approaches: (1) law as a structure that enables and constrains culture; (2) culture as a structure that enables and constrains law; and (3) law as a cultural toolkit or repertoire upon which actors draw to orient strategies for action. This article briefly reviews these approaches, then, drawing from the generative socio‐legal tradition in law as culture, highlights a fourth approach. While law and culture are often analyzed as autonomous forces in ongoing contention, negotiation, and reconciliation, the socio‐legal approach conceptualizes the relationality of law and culture as constituted by ongoing contention. I argue that this relational approach may offer cultural sociologists who do not study law a framework for better analyzing how power undergirds, enables and constrains cultural meaning. I offer examples to illustrate the utility of this research agenda through three areas of interest for cultural sociologists: (1) embodiment; (2) emotions; and (3) political culture. Such an approach encourages a two‐way bridge between cultural sociology and socio‐legal studies conceptualizing culture as a dynamic system of power relations.     

The roles of family,neighborhood, and school contextual factors on social work minority students’ educational aspirations and integration

This study examined the significance of three macro social determinants (i.e., family, neighborhood, and school factors) on the educational aspirations and integration of social work minority undergraduate students using a qualitative study of 40 interviews. Two research questions were raised: (1) how did family, neighborhood, and school contextual factors account for the participants’ postsecondary education in social work, a study that places more emphasis on the attainment of humanitarian goals over future economic outlook? and (2) what roles did family, neighborhood, and school play in shaping these participants’ postsecondary educational aspirations and integration? Overall, educationally resilient participants received strong family support but also encountered social roadblocks, stigmatization, and racial discrimination in the mainstream culture. Ironically, these social challenges also served as the major driving forces that inspired them to pursue their postsecondary education and major in social work. The findings of this study urge the general public and higher educational settings to develop more cultural sensitivity, validate unique contribution, and promote equality of cultural diversity among minority social work students.     

Environmental Racial Inequality in Detroit

This study uses industrial pollution data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and tract-level demographic data from the 2000 U.S. census to determine whether environmental racial inequality existed in the Detroit metropolitan area in the year 2000. This study differs from prior environmental inequality research in two important ways. First, it offers a positive rationale for using hazard proximity indicators. Second, it uses a distance decay modeling technique to estimate hazard proximity. This technique weights each hazard's estimated negative effect by distance such that the estimated negative effect declines continuously as distance from the hazard increases, thus providing more accurate estimates of proximity-based environmental risk than can be obtained using other variable construction techniques currently found in the literature. Using this technique, I find that Detroit's black neighborhoods were disproportionately burdened by TRI facility activity in 2000 and that neighborhood racial composition had a strong independent effect on neighborhood proximity to TRI activity.     

Social Capital and Neighborhood Poverty

ABSTRACT

Research indicates that concentrated neighborhood poverty has numerous detrimental effects on the health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities. The term “neighborhood effects” has been used to describe the interaction between socioeconomic disadvantage and social problems at the neighborhood level. Social capital theory, defined broadly as social networks characterized by trust and reciprocity represents one prominent explanation for the phenomenon of neighborhood effects. Within poor neighborhoods, it is theorized that socioeconomic characteristics of the neighborhood foster inadequate social capital and it is this low level of social capital that leads to the phenomenon of neighborhood effects. In order to explore the utility of social capital theory in explaining neighborhood effects, this paper argues for an ecologically-grounded model of social capital that allows for the different ways in which social capital operates within different types of neighborhoods. Implications for social work practice, policy and education are discussed.     

Risk and Resilience of Immigrant Women in Intimate Partner Violence

Violence inflicted against women by their intimate partners presents an especially critical area of inquiry among battered female immigrants following the striking ethnic diversification after the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. This article reviews contemporary literature of intimate partner violence; seeks to illustrate the current state of knowledge; and provides a conceptual framework that summarizes the unique experiences of immigrant women confronting the challenges of couple violence. Five underlying cultural and structural mechanisms influencing immigrant women's susceptibility, re-adjustment, and recovery were identified: (1) acculturation, (2) cultural mechanisms, (3) mental health, (4) structural elements, (5) legal contexts, and (6) social support. A synopsis of practice implications in the context of the literature is discussed.     

RESIDENTIAL STABILITY, NEIGHBORHOOD RACIAL COMPOSITION, AND THE SUBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF NEIGHBORHOOD PROBLEMS AMONG OLDER ADULTS

This study investigates the effects of neighborhood racial composition and residential stability—as measured by the percentage of individuals who have lived in the same location for the past five years—on perceived neighborhood problems. Among a sample of older black and white adults, findings indicate that the patterns are contingent upon residents' race. For whites who reside in neighborhoods with a low percentage of black residents, greater residential stability is associated with fewer perceived neighborhood problems net of individual- and neighborhood-level disadvantage. For blacks, greater residential stability is associated with fewer neighborhood problems, but the percentage of black residents is associated with more neighborhood problems. In both cases, individual- and neighborhood-level socioeconomic disadvantages contribute to those patterns. These findings have implications for theories about the personal and social effects of residential stability and neighborhood racial composition, as well as race differences in the links between neighborhood context and the subjective assessment of neighborhood problems.     

Ethnic Community and Ethnic Boundaries in a “Sauce‐Scented Neighborhood”1

This article investigates the problem of ethnic boundary making in a changing context. Our case is Boston’s North End, a historically Italian neighborhood undergoing changes to its social and physical environment, making the ethnic definition of neighborhood identity and belonging more difficult though not less salient. Consequently, participants in the workings of the neighborhood—residents, business owners, politicians—face challenges of both boundary placement (who is Italian and who is not?), as well as cultural content (what does it mean to be “Italian”?). Rather than viewing Italian ethnicity as simply weakening over time, we argue that the North End shows ethnicity is in a stage of category divergence, where the still‐dominant ethnic identity is juxtaposed not against another ethnic out‐group, but at various times against boundaries of class and race, commercial and community values, even city political boundaries. Drawing on ethnographic research and in‐depth interviews, we describe three group identity frames that illustrate these processes and reveal how Italian ethnicity continues to animate discourse and action in the neighborhood.     

CYNICISM ABOUT COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN HONG KONG

ABSTRACT

In Hong Kong, the years since the handover of the territory to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997 have been a dispirited period characterized by open cynicism toward the government. Against this widespread social discontent and dissatisfaction, the government has tried to promote social cohesion and community spirit as a way forward to resolve social conflicts. How people respond to this call for more community involvement and whether they have faith in the ability of community engagement to make a change are questions that should be addressed. This article focuses on cynicism about community engagement in terms of taking part in social services and community affairs, and explains the variation in this attitude. It is found that perceptions of social disadvantage, social trust, and the presence of dependent children have significant effects on cynical attitudes toward community engagement. This article is concluded by an argument for a “broader” definition of community responsibility that includes the fulfillment of family and work obligations, and the avoidance of passing moral judgment on burdened individuals with limited resources.