If you look like me,I'll talk to you: a preliminary study of ethnic identity and inter‐ethnic interaction among women in Singapore

In Singapore, government policy is for equal but separate development of the four major ethnic groups—Chinese, Malay, Indian and other. In this study, I attempt to gain some preliminary views of how strongly women identify with their own ethnic group and how freely they are prepared to interact with people from other ethnic groups in non‐work‐related situations. I confine my study to females for two reasons. One is that traditional ethnic dress is common among females in Singapore but much rarer among men, and this makes a strong non‐verbal statement of identity. The second reason is to avoid differences between males and females, which I did not wish to pursue within the limits of this exploratory study. The findings of my pilot investigation indicate that intra‐ethnic spontaneous interaction is more likely to occur among women who display a strong national identity. Moreover, younger women, who were exposed during their school years to the government's recent drive to nurture ethnic and cultural differences, are less open to inter‐ethnic interaction than are women in their 30s and older, who grew up when the government drive was towards creating one common national identity for the people of Singapore.     

"If I can't have you, no one can": development of a Relational Entitlement and Proprietariness Scale (REPS)

Relational proprietariness and entitlement have been theoretically related to partner violence following the threat of relationship dissolution. To date, however, no measure has been employed to verify such accounts. A multistage item pool development and refinement strategy was employed, resulting in a 32-item measure with strong construct validity. An online survey administered to 279 students resulted in an interpretable factor structure of sexual proprietariness and entitlement, consisting of social, behavioral, and information control, and a potential factor of face threat reactivity. These factors added unique variance to the prediction of instrumental and expressive aggression, were related to self-esteem and attachment, and were not contaminated by social desirability. Recommendations for bolstering the face threat reactivity factor and future studies are suggested. This measure provides a new tool that contributes to the prediction of intimate partner violence.     

‘If you want to have a future and a life,do an apprenticeship’: the expectations and realities of tradesmen’s transition to adulthood

ABSTRACT

Apprenticeship programs are promoted to facilitate youth’s transition from school-to-work, especially for those who might not otherwise attend postsecondary education. These programs may help youth achieve other markers of adulthood earlier. In this paper, we draw on qualitative interviews with Canadian young men in the skilled trades to explore whether they believe their educational choices have given them an advantage in their transition to adulthood. We also draw from the 2011 GSS, a nationally representative survey, and Cox modeling to examine three early adult transitions – home-leaving, first union, and first marriage – to determine if apprenticeship programs facilitate earlier transitions compared to other educational streams. Our respondents expressed that they transitioned to adulthood more quickly than their peers, due to early employment and avoiding student debt, however, many also had trouble finding stable employment and often took on debt related to their training. Using nationally representative data, we find tradesmen tend to leave home earlier than their peers, they form first unions at younger ages but marry slightly later than their more highly educated counterparts. Our results contribute to our understanding of how apprenticeship programs in Canada facilitate transitions to adulthood among a recent cohort of young men.     

If you plant it,they will come: quantifying attractiveness of exotic plants for winter-active flower visitors in community gardens

Urban community gardens are potentially important sites for urban pollinator conservation because of their high density, diversity of flowering plants, and low pesticide use (relative to agricultural spaces). Selective planting of attractive crop plants is a simple and cost-effective strategy for attracting flower visitors to urban green spaces, however, there is limited empirical data about which plants are most attractive. Here, we identified key plant species that were important for supporting flower visitors using a network-based approach that combined metrics of flower visitor abundance and diversity on different crop species. We included a metric of ‘popularity’ which assessed how frequently a particular plant appeared within community gardens. We also determined the impact of garden characteristics such as size, flower species richness, and flower species density on the abundance and diversity of flower visitors. Two plant species, Brassica rapa and Ocimum basilicum were identified as being particularly important species for supporting flower visitor populations. Flower species richness had a strong positive effect on both the abundance and diversity of flower visitors. We suggest that gardeners can maximise the conservation value of their gardens by planting a wide variety of flowering plants including attractive plants such as B. rapa and O. basilicum.

     

“We believe in you,like really believe in you”: Initiating a realist study of (re)engagement initiatives for youth not in employment,education or training with experiences from northern Sweden

Due to a scarcity of rigorous evaluations and to commence a realist study addressing the lack of knowledge about the workings of interventions directed towards "NEET" youth, this research aimed to understand how and under what circumstances (re)engagement initiatives are expected to facilitate the social integration of young people who are in a situation that prevents them from entering into studies or work. By conducting the first phase in realist evaluation, qualitative interviews with five managerial stakeholders from two northern Swedish initiatives and reviews of documents were carried out for data collection. Using thematic analysis and retroductive reasoning, an intervention-context-actors-mechanisms-outcomes configuration was developed to elicit an initial programme theory that explained how the initiatives were presumed to operate and under what contextual contingencies. The results indicate that the intervention is expected to improve the youths’ wellbeing and engage them in work or studies by strengthening their competence and confidence in a caring and collaborative context. To incorporate the diverse voices and heterogeneous experiences of youth themselves, and ascertain whether the intervention works as intended, for whom, in what conditions and why, the results now need to be tested in selected cases and refined in subsequent phases of evaluation research.     

'Because they have all the power and I have none': state restructuring of income and employment supports and disabled women's lives in Ontario, Canada

We examine the connections between neo-liberal forms of state restructuring and intervention in disabled people's lives, looking in particular at how these have affected disabled women's experiences of an income support program, the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), in Ontario, Canada. We first outline why and how state programs have been re-designed and implemented in increasingly harsh ways as a result of such neo-liberal forms of state restructuring. Even groups formerly considered among the 'deserving poor' have found their access to social assistance diminished. We then argue that this is an outcome of state programs, policies and practices which are re-asserting and more deeply entrenching 'ableness' as a necessary condition of citizenship, inclusion and access to justice. Finally, we illustrate how disabled women's lives and well-being have been altered as a result of changes in the provision of these forms of state assistance using in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with 10 women in Ontario.     

Made by a human like you or me: Back to the Greek classics to further develop the rhetorical paradigm of public relations

The first aim of this paper is to establish some of the core assumptions and concepts that have been used to build the rhetorical paradigm for developing public relations theory. The key tenets of this paradigm are deployed to enable some critical reflection on the value of the model, and particularly the work of Heath, for scholars who accept that public relations is constituted by persuasive discourses and perpetual competition between opposing interests and values. The second aim of this paper is to explore the question of where next? How do we develop the rhetorical paradigm and take it into new directions and allow it to embrace new problems? This paper will attempt to do this by applying agonistic theories of democracy. To mirror how Heath has drawn on classical writers such as Aristotle, Isocrates and Quintilian, this paper will also draw on classical texts: Firstly, through the satirical drama and social commentary in the writing of Aristophanes; and then through Honig’s work in reinterpreting Sophocles’ play Antigone. Agonism derives from the ancient Greek word agōn - a contest or struggle. A key priniciple of classical agonism is that protagonists should seek to win acclaim and admiration by performing openly in public, and it extols plurality above dispassionate deliberation. This suggests some resonance with the dominant assumptions of the rhetorical paradigm, but more modern forms of agonism make post-foundationalist assumptions of the impossibility of any consensus existing beyond precarious hegemonic relationships. They also hold to a radical pluralism that when applied challenge widely-held assumptions that ethically grounded public relations practice is that which seeks to eliminate conflict in favour of seeking consensus. Fusing agonistic cooperation with Heath’s notion of concurrence is suggested as a means of integrating critical theory into the rhetorical paradigm.     

On the desegregation of the visible elite; or,beware of the emperor's new helpers: He or she may look like you or me

In this article an analysis is offered as regards the emergence, beginning in the late 1980s, of a new set of elites. While the desegregation of the elites is acknowledged to have begun earlier, as a consequence of the irresistible demands of the civil rights movement and women's movement for inclusion in decision-making positions, it is argued that there has been an increasing cooptation of the intent of these affirmative action appointments. It is posited that the traditional elites, having initially selected qualified Blacks and qualified women, without regard to personal political ideology, are increasingly selecting more conservative and/or opportunistic persons. As might be argued, for example, in the appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court of the United States, these new elites, in government, education, industry, etc., while fitting a desegregating gender and/or complexion criteria, are ideologically closer to the old elites. They are, it is additionally argued, in a domestic neocolonial analogy to the African decolonization experience, to temporarily elongate the legitimacy of the old regime because they may be identified with by people who share their characteristic. The author nevertheless presents reasons why he believes this may be a limiting development in the short range, but a positive development in the long range in requiring a more deracialized and degenderized definition of oppression and oppressors and why this may reignite the pursuit of social and economic justice for all.     

‘It is like being put through a blender’: inclusive research in practice in an Australian university

Abstract

How can university-based researchers committed to a position of solidarity with, and activism alongside, people with disabilities maintain such a stance in the metric-driven environment of the modern university? How can the academy ensure there is the opportunity for people with disabilities to contribute to production of the knowledge in which they have most at stake, in a wider environment where access to basic services for people with disabilities is precarious? In this article we draw on our experience as a team of university-based and community-based researchers with and without disabilities to reflect on these questions, using a framework of reflexive solidarity to consider practical strategies for strengthening the relationship between disability activism and the academy.     

‘Some have ideologies,we have values’: the relationship between organizational values and commitment in a political party

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to advance the study of organizational values by analyzing the role of values in a Danish political party called The Alternative, a party claiming to be guided by values rather than ideology. Inspired by recent work in organizational psychology, I group The Alternative’s values into two categories: vision values and humanity values. Through an empirical investigation, I show how the vision values encourage members to take initiative in realizing their own political ideas, while the humanity values encourage them to remain morally inclusive towards people with different views. The combination of vision and humanity values allows The Alternative to maintain commitment from members who might otherwise feel marginalized by the emergence of dominant ideas within the party. The paper’s contribution consists in highlighting the importance of using qualitative methods to study how values influence commitment and to expose the political dimension of this relationship.     

“At a moment,you could collapse”: Raising children with autism in the West Bank

The current qualitative study examined knowledge, attitudes, burdens and coping strategies related to caring for a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the West Bank. Based on a sample of 24 Palestinian parents, the study found that parents struggled with financial stressors, child behavioral and medical challenges, and depression. Few parents were aware of ASDs prior to their children's diagnoses. Furthermore, discrimination and stigma from extended family members and the larger community intensified parents' feelings of shame and experiences of social isolation. While some parents coped by withdrawing from the community or denying the diagnosis, others aimed to increase social interactions and access information. Religious coping was found to be partly adaptive for some of the participants. The study underscored the vital need to increase community awareness of ASDs and increase social support for parents in the West Bank.     

'I don't speak with a Geordie accent, I speak, like, the Northern accent': Contact-induced levelling in the Tyneside vowel system

Evidence is presented in this paper of the levelling of the Tyneside (Newcastle) English vowel system toward that of a putative regional standard. This process is hypothesised to follow from the fragmentation of tight-knit urban communities that formed after large-scale immigration to Tyneside from elsewhere in the British Isles during the 18th and 19th centuries. High levels of dialect contact brought about by this influx are argued to have promoted the creation of an urban koiné, which in its contemporary form appears increasingly to be losing specifically local features. In addition to contact and mobility as agents of change, the history of unusually acute stigma attached to Tyneside speech should be considered. These and other social factors inform an analysis of the FACE and GOAT variables in the speech of 32 contemporary Tyneside English speakers of various ages, both sexes and from two social class groups.     

“If You Talk Badly about Drilling,You're a Pariah”: Challenging a Capitalist Patriarchy in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale Region

Research on energy development is largely gender neutral, creating a need to illuminate how gender structures life in contemporary energy boomtowns. This study demonstrates how gender and the local economy are intertwined to perpetuate a capitalist patriarchy, which structures life for residents in these communities. The purpose of this article is to show that this economic‐gender structure creates tensions between those men and women whose gender performances reinforce hegemony and those who perform gender in direct opposition to resource extraction. I argue that men and women unconstrained by the capitalist patriarchy are better able to challenge its dominance than residents employed in the local economy. I use qualitative interviews (N = 39) with community residents and observations of community events in northeastern Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale region as the primary methods of data collection. This study complements previous research by demonstrating the relationship between masculinity and femininity, showing the variability of gender in natural‐resource‐based settings and defining the hierarchal relationship among masculinities and femininities during periods of rapid energy development.     

Imperial contradictions: is the Valley a watershed,region, or cyborg?

Is California's Imperial Valley a watershed? If so, at what level and by what topographic logic? Is it a region? If so, at what level and by what geographic logic? Are its boundaries natural, political, or multivalent on different scales? In short, this essay looks at the special (re)production of environmental conditions within a cyborg world. Here, the Valley is comprised of (a) Colorado River water; (2) migratory waterfowl; (3) the accidentally manufactured, but intentionally seeded food chain of the Salton Sea (3) the San Andreas Fault, (4) Mexican field labor; (5) public universities extension services; (6) global markets and supply chains; (7) international biotechnology, chemical and seed conglomerates, and (8) state and federal regulation of water rights, regulations and markets. The Valley is a cyborg, a historical entity comprised interdependently of nature, technoscience and humanity. This, characterization, however, raises problems with conceptions of the massive losses of migratory waterfowl from avian cholera at the Salton Sea, the agroecological devastation caused by the unintentional introduction of the Silver Leaf whitefly, and the “wastage” of constrained water rights as environmental crises of nature. The articulation of a cyborg perspective sees the environmental conditions of the Valley as the product of relations comprised of uneven and indeterminate ecological process, technoscientific trajectories, and human practices. Extending the cyborg's integration of nature, technology and social agency, a relational reading of James O’Connor's second contradiction of capitalism thesis is developed. O’Connor's political ecology and Haraway material semiotics, while broadly operating at different levels of analysis, prove surprisingly resonant.     

This is not a race, this is a farce: Formula One and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway tire crisis

Formula One is the most technologically advanced and financially lucrative form of motorsport in the world with global audiences in the billions over the course of a season. A highly unusual and potentially deadly set of events took place during the Friday practice for the sixth annual United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Controversy and blame soon followed. Using Benoit's public relations and image restoration strategy framework, this paper examines the different strategies employed during the crisis by the Formula One teams, Michelin, the Federation Internationale De L’Automobile, Formula One Management, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. An examination of the crisis situation at the United States Grand Prix allows this study to expand Benoit's initial framework into sport as well as examining the implications for public relations and image repair strategies.