The Joy of Teaching Current Events

Set during the immediate years after the creation of the Berlin Wall, this case study focuses on the East German Ministry for State Security (MfS) and its secret police force known as the Stasi. Students, acting as West German spies working in East Berlin, recover secret documents used by the East German government in its efforts to maintain power, control, and stability over both its citizens and Western Europe. This activity uses higher-level Bloom's taxonomy as students evaluate, compare, and contrast documents for importance and relevance. Each document represents measures commonly used by Eastern Bloc nations throughout the Cold War, providing students with creative insight on how domestic and foreign espionage played a vital role in the struggle between Soviet communism and American democracy. This lesson is an example of how to use the case study approach.     

How Do Children Matter? A Comparison of Gender Earnings Inequality for Young Adults in the Former East Germany and the Former West Germany

The former Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) differed sharply in their family policies. We follow 1950s and early 1960s birth cohorts from their first jobs to 1989 to see in what ways having children affected earnings for women and men. For the FRG, we find that being a parent had stronger earnings effects (positive for men and negative for women) than in the GDR, with much of this impact mediated by employment hours for women. This does not mean that having children was unimportant for women's and men's earnings in the GDR, but it indicates that the less variable life course led to more society‐wide than individual‐level impact. Further, in the East, some young women balanced family and employment by taking jobs below their qualifications, and this reduced their earnings.     

Persistent Policy Effects on the Division of Domestic Tasks in Reunified Germany

We are only beginning to unravel the mechanisms by which the division of domestic tasks varies in its sociopolitical context. Selecting couples from the German SocioEconomic Panel who married between 1990 and 1995 in the former East and West regions of Germany and following them until 2000 (N= 348 couples), I find evidence of direct, interaction, and contextual effects predicting husbands’ hours in and share of household tasks but not child care. East German men perform a greater share of household tasks than West German men after controlling for individual attributes and regional factors. Child care remains more gendered, and the first child’s age proves the most important predictor of fathers’ involvement. These findings further our understanding of how the state shapes gender equity in the home.     

Policy, Preferences, and Patriarchy: The Division of Domestic Labor in East Germany, West Germany, and the United States

Individual agency observed in the gendered division of laboris shaped by structural factors, but only recently has evidenceemerged that the effect of women’s resources varies systematicallyin its sociopolitical context. Here we use the 1994 InternationalSocial Survey Program to assess whether the relative effectof a proxy for women’s and men’s preferences—hallmarkof individual choice—varies as well across three countrieswith divergent historical policy approaches regarding the privatesphere. East German socialist policies required and supportedwomen’s employment; West German policy promulgated a malebreadwinner model, and U.S. policy primarily remains silenton the private sphere. The division of domestic tasks and relativestrength of individual preferences on shifting it vary by region.In the former East Germany the division of domestic labor ismore egalitarian and the effect of preferences is small butequal for the genders. In West Germany the division is moretraditional and preference effects are greater, but gender differencesin these are insignificant. The U.S. division of domestic taskfalls between the two German regions, and the gender differencein preference effects is the greatest, with U.S. men’spreferences predicting significantly more variance than do U.S.women’s. Consequently, allowing the market to dominatedoes not yield equal strength of preferences in the individual-levelmodels used to predict the division of domestic tasks. Thissupports the dual-system feminist claims that capitalism canexacerbate nonmarket patriarchal hierarchies.     

Police Encounters for Behavioral Health-Related Reasons in Rural and Remote Communities: A Canadian Study☆

Evidence suggests police officers are increasingly called upon to respond to incidents related to mental health issues, emotional problems, and substance abuse. Many have raised concerns regarding their involvement in such incidents. Yet, little is known about these encounters in rural and remote communities despite evidence suggesting that the context of non-urban areas should matter. Accordingly, this article proposes to examine variations in self-reported encounters with the police for behavioral health-related reasons across urban, rural, and remote communities. Using data from the 2014 General Social Survey, a representative sample of the Canadian population, we assess these self-reported encounters from two different angles: encounters for one's own behavioral health crisis and encounters for a family member's behavioral health needs. While findings on the former are inconclusive, those examining police contacts for a family member suggest that living in rural or remote communities is significantly associated with a greater probability of experiencing such situations relative to living in urban areas. Furthermore, this probability increases with the relative geographical isolation of communities. These results are discussed in light of the rising concerns regarding our reliance on the police for such incidents and the need to account for the situation of rural and remote communities.     

Hochschulentwicklung und Bürgerrechte in der BRD und der DDR

The universities in the Federal Republic of Germany are expanding more or less continuously since the 1950s; the expansion of those in the German Democratic Republic, by contrast, stagnated since 1971. The two patterns of educational development are due to different normative concepts of the social order. Educational policy in socialist East Germany gave institutional expression to the belief in objective laws of social development and hence in an objective demand for highly qualified manpower. In this normative context higher education took on a particular meaning and functions, provoked serious social conflicts and was finally reduced by political decree. In the Federal Republic, by contrast, freedom of educational and occupational choice prevailed, and the former elitist academic education was popularized. At the same time the culture of professionalism expanded in the world of work. In this process higher education turned into a matter of universal social interest.     

Vetting and Letting: Cohabiting Stepfamily Formation Processes in Low‐Income Black Families

The authors examined cohabiting union formation processes by analyzing in‐depth interview data collected from 30 individuals in cohabiting relationships: 15 low‐income Black mothers of adolescents and their partners. Prior research suggests that cohabiting union formation is a gradual, nondeliberative process. In contrast, most couples in this study described a gradual but highly deliberative process. Mothers focused primarily on vetting their partners to ensure child well‐being and less on when and how their partners officially came to live with them, a process the authors call vetting and letting. Mothers delineated 4 strategies to ensure their child's well‐being when vetting their partners, and their partners reported that they understood the importance of participating in this process. The authors argue that vetting and letting is a child‐centered family formation process, not a partner‐centered union formation process, and that cohabiting union processes may vary substantially by subpopulation.     

The impact of privatization and change of social security systems upon living conditions of east German households

After the collapse of the communist regime East Germany became the prime example of a ‘Big Bang’ strategy of transformation. Rapid marketization and privatization brought about a disastrous economic downturn. But immense transfer payments from West Germany and the import of a well‐developed system of social security institutions accompanied the transformation, minimizing social costs. This article summarizes the main developments and analyzes their impact on the living conditions of East German households. The indicators presented cover labour force participation, business activities and economic inactivity in the household context; relative income position, poverty, income inequality and the self‐assessment of income changes; consumption and livelihood. The article reveals both the different experiences of gains and losses within East German society and the (in some respects) advantageous position of East German households compared with households in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech and Slovak Republics.     

“It Did Not Affect Me”: The (IR)Relevance of the German Reunification in Autobiographical Narratives of East Germans

How do individuals make sense of events that are associated with major social‐systemic changes? The paper explores the relationship between “German reunification” and processes of meaning making and identity formation by former citizens of the German Democratic Republic. Analyzing twenty‐six in‐depth, life‐history interviews of East Germans born in two different generational cohorts, I examine the various narrative strategies employed that allow these East Germans to embed the experience of the German reunification through means of narrative emplotment. Diverting from a notion that it is historical events that shape our autobiographical memories, I argue that historical events are selected from a historical tool kit which provides individuals with narrative resources from which narrative identity can be formulated. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/d69JXE0Ryqw .     

The Rules of (Dis)engagement: Black Youth and Their Strategies for Navigating Police Contact

Prior work on youth–police relations examines young people's general perceptions of the police, their differential treatment by police officers, and officers' discretion in dealing with youth. Yet researchers have largely neglected the question of how young people attempt to shape these encounters. I address this critical gap, while also incorporating the experiences of “on track” youth and young women—two groups that are not exempt from police contact but traditionally ignored in the youth–police literature. Drawing on semistructured group and individual interviews with 19 black young people in New York City, I investigate the strategies they employ or subscribe to in navigating police contact. Three types of strategies emerged from my analysis: avoidance, management, and symbolic resistance. Avoidance strategies are marked by young people's attempts to preemptively steer clear of officers on the street. Management strategies are employed by young people during police encounters to limit risk or harm, while symbolic resistance is a subtle tactic used by some youth to preserve their dignity in these interactions. This study also considers the gender differences in respondents' approaches and offers new insights into how they assess their police interactions in an era of highly publicized incidents of police brutality.     

The fertility of migrants before and after crossing the border: the ethnic German population from the former Soviet Union as a case study

Empirical data on persons of German ethnic origin migrating to Germany from the former Soviet Union are used to calculate their relative ferility levels before and after arriving in their new host country. Despite small numbers in the survey , a suitable method was used to effecitvely compare fertility before and after crossing the border with an index measure of national fertility rates. A relatively strong fertility decline was observed for German origin migrants ( Aussiedler ) from the former Soviet Union during their first years in Germany.
More interesting, we consider, is how and to what extent the change in living conditions affected reproductive behaviour after arrival in Germany.
Surprisingly, the fertility of this former high-fertility population fell to a level much lower than the already low German fertility. The extraordinarily high fertility levels of certain religious groups within the former Soviet Union fell even more rapidly after arrival in their new home country.
The results of the study may shed light on another development in Germany: that immediately after reunification the total fertility rate in the former GDR fell to the extremely low level of about 0.6 in 1993 and 1994. The experience of the former East German population is therefore similar to that of German-origin migrants from the former Soviet Union.     

Advancing Social Capital Measurement: Using General Social Survey Cycles to Develop an Efficient Survey Instrument

The General Social Survey (GSS) has provided significant insight about the state of societies around the world through the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). Although broadly applicable, in this study the context for developing a new social capital survey instrument covers the Canadian GSS since 1985. Questions in the GSS are often used by researchers who are interested in specific questions or themes for use in some form of re-sampling. Given significant social and relational themes, GSS cycles from 1985 to 2013 were reviewed using a social capital framework to produce a new Social Capital GSS survey instrument. A process of vetting and sorting questions led to development of a 41 question instrument that includes 16 demographic and context variables and 25 social network and trust variables. After testing and refinement, the instrument was used with a randomly sampled group across selected East Hamilton Census Tracts that are differentiated by median income and a standard deviation above and below respectively (n?=?97).     

Child‐free and unmarried: Changes in the life planning of young east German women

Using evidence from demographic and survey data, this research examines how one decade of postsocialism has changed the life planning of young East German women. Aggregate data reflect marriage and fertility postponement and increased nonmarital birth rates and cohabitation. The analysis shows East German women's “stubbornness” ( Dölling, 2003 ) in adhering to life perspectives in line with the German Democratic Republic (GDR) standard biography (high nonmarital childbearing, high work orientation, rejection of the homemaker status, desire to combine work and family). The most important findings are that (a) motherhood is postponed to increase child‐free time, (b) cohabitation is increasingly becoming an alternative to marriage, (c) marriage (but not partnership) is increasingly optional for childbearing, and (d) employment is prioritized over family formation.     

The Influence of Gender Composition in Powerful Positions on Public Relations Practitioners' Gender-Related Perceptions

Against the background of the high feminization of the German agency sector, this article investigates 2 specific factors that help explain women's careers in public relations agencies: gender stereotypes and the organizational context. We present parts of a recent German explorative study: Long interviews were conducted with 13 female public relations experts to explain their view on women's situation in public relations in general and to describe their own careers. Findings reveal the evolution of a “PR bunny” stereotype that adds a negative touch to the female image as “natural born communicators.” Furthermore, our results support the argument that women seem to prefer (a) the organizational culture of public relations agencies, (b) agency-specific job tasks, and (c) agency-specific work processes. Possible consequences for practitioners and the profession are discussed.     

Aid and its impact on domestic change: The case of police reforms in Macedonia

This article examines the role that aid from the European Union (EU) has played in leading to change in non‐EU Member States. It particularly explores whether the EU's financial assistance has led to change in Macedonia. The question of police reforms in Macedonia, and of the EU's impact on these, are complex because of the sensitivity of such reforms in terms of the functioning of the country's multi‐ethnic democracy. Using the institutionalism approach, the article argues that the police reforms have indeed been heavily dependent on EU funding and traces the EU's role in the implementation of police reforms in Macedonia.     

Crossover Children: Examining Initial Criminal Justice System Contact Among Child Protection-Involved Youth

ABSTRACT

Child protection-involved youth face increased risk of criminal justice system contact. Such “crossover children” experience earlier police involvement and more serious criminal justice sanctions, yet little is known about their early offending. Using a cross-sectional sample of 300 crossover children before three Victorian Children's Courts in 2016–17, this mixed-methods study examines the nature and context of children's initial police charges. Findings indicate that crossover children are initially charged with disproportionately violent offending, and often incur first police charges around the time of initial care placement. For many, initial criminal justice contact occurred in the context of conflict with caregivers, ongoing maltreatment, and household adversity, or emotional and behavioural regulation challenges. Efforts towards preventing offending for child-protection-involved youth should focus on preventing childhood maltreatment, alongside targeting parent–child relationship challenges, and strengthening community and care system responses that address the impacts of complex trauma, mental health problems, and neurodisability.

IMPLICATIONS

• Compared to all sentenced children, those from statutory child protection backgrounds are charged with more serious offending at their first criminal court adjudication.

• Among “crossover children”, earlier police charges were seen for Indigenous children, those experiencing greater cumulative maltreatment, and children with emotional or behavioural challenges related to trauma, mental health, and neurodisability.

• Crossover children are most often first charged by police in the year before, and after, their first out-of-home care placement.

     

Change and continuity in youth transitions in Eastern Europe: Lessons for Western sociology*

This paper argues that the evidence from research among young people in post‐communist countries vindicates and should consolidate confidence in the Western sociology of youth's conventional transitions paradigm which seeks links between social origins, routes and destinations. Contrary to claims about postmodern fluidity, individualisation, and a blurring of traditional structural boundaries, the expected links between origins, routes and destinations have persisted throughout the transformation of the former communist countries. The relevant evidence also confirms the primacy of education‐to‐work and family/housing life stage transitions. Other aspects of young people's lives – their uses of leisure, levels and patterns of social and political participation, and socio‐political attitudes, for example – become meaningful and explicable only when set in the context of the routes that individuals’ lives have taken, and the stages that they have reached, vis‐à‐vis their school‐to‐work and family and housing transitions. The paper proceeds to argue that the exceptionally thorough changes that are still in process in East‐Central Europe and the former USSR reveal with exceptional clarity the processes whereby young people's life chances are structured in ways that are not of the individuals’ own making. It has been, and it remains, possible to observe how young adults learn from their own youth life stage transition experiences and, where applicable, use the assets that they acquire or retain, to advantage their own children thereby structuring the opportunities that confront all members of subsequent cohorts of young people. Finally, it is argued that the sociological approach being advocated is uniquely able to use the evidence from young people as a window through which to identify the impact of the ongoing macro‐changes in former communist countries among different socio‐demographic groups in the wider populations.     

The Viability of Career Maturity Theory: A Developmental—Contextual Perspective

The critical role of the timing of person—context interactions is important in the conceptualization of the school-to-work transition. It is argued that career maturity, with its focus on the individual and its ties to stage models and notions of age-appropriateness, gives insufficient attention to the particular contexts of time and culture within which it may be observed. The use of recent advances in developmental theory is suggested as a viable alternative for understanding developmental transitions. Findings from the research literature and from a recent study of young adults from former East Germany and former West Germany are cited in support of this proposal. These findings highlight limitations of the construct of career maturity in showing how individual differences and contextual factors contribute to the school-to-work transition in contrasting environments of former East and West Germany.     

Police Accounts of Body-Worn Camera Footage In News Media

People offer accounts in response to actions that are subjected to valuative inquiry. Recordings of police actions captured on body-worn camera (BWC) video can become subject to valuative inquiry when footage is publicly released. This footage may possibly undermine police legitimacy. Managing legitimacy is a basic rationale for why police provide accounts in response to their conduct. Proponents of BWCs assert that the devices enhance legitimacy and, while police have long used accounts to justify their conduct, less is known about how body cameras affect police accountability in practice. Drawing from Scott and Lyman's accounts theory framework, this qualitative, exploratory study examines official police accounts as both outcomes of police accountability in practice and as provided in the context of news media coverage of publicly released body-worn camera footage. This allows us to ask the following questions: What types of accounts have police officials provided in news media reports in the context of publicly released BWC footage? And, more generally, what insight might an analysis of police accounts provide about accountability in relation to the implementation of BWCs? A key finding reveals that the timing of police accounts varied quite considerably, and that accounts were usually not static. The findings provide some general insight into what kinds of actions captured on body camera recordings constitute acceptable use of force by officers, even in situations when police actions resulted in death. This study also provides a small empirical window into when and how police officials provide accounts in response to publicly released body camera footage.     

Native Friends and Host Country Identification among Adolescent Immigrants in Germany: The Role of Ethnic Boundaries

Many studies find that high shares of native friends are positively related to immigrant youths' identification with the host country. By examining various immigrant groups together, these studies imply that having native friends matters in the same way for the national identification in different immigrant groups. In contrast, we argue that the extent to which having native friends affects immigrants' national identification depends on both immigrant group characteristics and the receiving context, especially on ethnic boundaries and related group differences in perceived discrimination and the compatibility of ethnic and national identities. Analyses based on data from the National Educational Panel Study in Germany that are representative of 15‐year‐old adolescents in secondary schools indeed reveal pronounced group differences: While national identification of ethnic German repatriates as well as of adolescents of former Yugoslavian and Southern European origin is related to the share of native friends, as hypothesized, we do not find this association for immigrants of Turkish and Polish origin. Our finding underlines the importance of theoretically as well as empirically accounting for group differences.