Ethical Commitments in Community-Based Research with Youth

This article offers an ethnographic account of a formally organized group of students who worked to influence policy in their schools and the adults they encountered in this activity. I also address my role as an observant participant to highlight a series of emergent “ethical opportunities” that created contexts for mutual human development. This account is intended to contribute to a discussion of the developmental role of contradictions highlighted in cultural-historical activity theory. In particular, I seek to highlight opportunities afforded by community-based research for all involved to respond to contradictions as learners, rather than arbiters of ethical practice.     

The common will

This paper discusses the formation of a common will among a group of people from two separate points of view: that of social choice theory and that of discourse ethics. The paper evaluates the formation of a common will by “silent” mechanisms for aggregating individual wishes and preferences, traditionally the domain of social choice theory, from a procedural perspective. I will consider—and answer in the negative—the question of whether or not there exists a mechanism for aggregating individual preferences that is perfectly reflective—in the sense that it can be applied recursively in order to justify or legitimate its own application. I will then consider discourse ethics from a consequentialist standpoint—rather than the traditional, process-oriented perspective from which it usually advanced and defended—and show that its insistence on dialogue as a means for the formation of a common will is based on underlying assumptions about the nature of preferences—such as the discussability of tastes and the malleability of time scales—which run counter to the view of preferences normally associated with standard economic theory. I conclude that, although neither approach to the formation of a common will fares well by the standards normally used to justify the other, proponents of either approach have much to learn from a dialogue with proponents of the other.     

The Integration of Racial and Ethnic Minorities into White Congregations

Drawing from the homophily principle and organizational ecology theory, I follow previous literature and predict racial minorities will have lower levels of belonging and commitment when attending predominantly white congregations. Going beyond this literature, I incorporate contemporary racial stratification literature and propose integration into white congregations would vary by racial group as a result of the differing symbolic group positioning of minorities in America's racial hierarchy. Results from multilevel models using a national dataset generally support my hypotheses. The findings from this study reveal distinctions between minority racial groups within predominantly white congregations. Thus, the homophily principle and organizational ecology are not sufficient when studying race within congregations, as it is not enough to rely solely on the numeric representation of racial groups in congregations without taking into account the social positioning of these groups. These results, their implications, and potential directions for future studies are further discussed.     

Two's Company,Three's a Crowd: Revisiting Triangles in Family Therapy

In this article I would like to investigate the place of the couple in family therapy intervention. Within this I will look at the usefulness of the concepts of triangulation and triangles in families and as to whether it is a theory that translates to be useful in practice and in technique. Attention will be paid to both the experience of this phenomena and emerging theories of the mind which casts new light on the concept of the emotional triangle.     

Application and analysis of the affinities diagram on the examination of usability problems among older adults

Older adults have been facing usability problems every day, and with the increasing of life expectation those issues will be more and more frequent. The study of this group capacities and limitations could help designers to project systems more usable to everyone.     

Homosexuals,Heretics, and the Practice of Freedom Commentary on Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance by Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pelligrini

Here I construe Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini's proposal to protect freedom of sexual expression among consenting adults within an agonistic theory of democracy. Jakobsen and Pellegrini argue contrary to the U.S. Constitution, state legislatures have intervened in political conflicts over sexual morality by “establishing” sectarian Christian mores, and they urge more robust protection of religious and sexual expression. I develop three themes in response: First, to display the democratic framework of their proposal, I briefly set out the constitutional analogy on which Jakobsen and Pellegrini depend; second, I explain Jakobsen and Pellegrini's rejection of the ethos of tolerance in light of the agonistic political theory of William E. Connolly; and third, I propose that Freud's theory of mourning and melancholia may point to affective resources for invigorating practices of freedom.     

Chamber music and organization theory: some typical organizational phenomena seen under the microscope

In this paper I suggest, on the one hand, that organization theory offers an interpretation of the reality of arts producing organizations and, on the other, that the empirical analysis of these realities can supply new input for organization theory. As a practical example of artistic production I refer to an international chamber music festival. Close inspection of chamber music will reveal characteristics that apply to any type of organization. I begin by looking at the nature of arts management and the arts manager. I go on to analyse the characteristics of the production process in the performing arts, which can be seen as communication taking place on three levels: between audience and performers (concept of ‘prosumer’); within the performing group (‘listening ability’); between the author of the written text and the performer/interpreter (‘concept of value’). I finish by showing how in a symboliccultural framework the features identified in the paper can feed back into organization studies.

Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets     

The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? the theory construction movement revisited

Using book publication dates as markers, I divide the movement of (formal) theory construction into two periods. The first period started in 1954 and lasted for about a decade; the second period started in 1965 and ended in 1972. I argue in this paper that the publication of a dozen more books on how to construct scientific theories in the seven years after 1965 marked the beginning of the end of, rather than the end of the beginning of, the theory construction movement in sociology. Although the formal mode of theory construction is dead now, efforts toward theory construction will never end. I conclude by delineating the major features of a new approach to theory construction that has been emerging in sociology.     

‘Hearing the Real Stories about the Issues at Hand’: Politically Active Elders Engage Bachelor in Social Work (BSW) Students in Influencing Social Policy

This article focuses on the successes and challenges experienced by a social work program offering experiential learning opportunities to bachelor in social work (BSW) students. As part of the BSW Experiential Learning (BEL) Program, policy students collaborated with politically active older adults to develop compelling letters to the editor of a newspaper and influential letters to state-level legislators concerning policies impacting older adults. Using a two-year quasi-experimental design, one section of the course paired students with older adults while the other section served as the control group. Although no significant differences were found in influencing student interest in working with older adults, students paired with older adults showed greater confidence in and learning of the content. Lessons learned from this experience and implications for future implementation will be detailed.     

Group Styles of Justice or Service: How Ticket Inspectors Manage Contested Citizen Encounters

People who interact with citizens in their job often have to use discretion when facing complex situations. Research shows that how people understand their job regulates this use of discretion. Yet, little research has conceptualized how group culture shapes these understandings and discretionary actions in real-life citizen encounters. This article addresses this gap with a microsociological theory of group culture. To demonstrate the merits of this theory, I use a sample of 11 interviews and 88 body-worn camera recordings to analyze how ticket inspectors perceive and act in contested ticket-fining events. The analysis identifies two group styles of moral inspection characterized by tight or loose regulation: justice or service. These styles are associated with the two operating teams in a traffic company and influence how inspectors manage contested events with a risk of escalation. I discuss how these findings contribute to the sociology of culture and enhance the understanding of how group culture shapes discretionary actions in citizen encounters.     

Some Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory in Adult Psychotherapy

This paper discusses the usefulness of attachment theory in working with adults in psychotherapy. There are four classifications of attachment status in adults: secure attachment, and three types of insecure attachment: dismissing, preoccupied, and disorganized. These categories do not conform to standard diagnostic entities. I discuss examples of the three insecure attachment categories and the likely transference and countertransference configurations that may occur in each category. These categories provide an additional way for therapists to understand and to respond to the needs of their clients.     

‘The Tortoise under the couch’: an African woman’s reflections on negotiating insider- outsider positionalities and issues of serendipity on conducting a qualitative research project in Cape Town,South Africa§

Issues of positionality of Black African researchers researching African issues is seldom discussed in methodological literature. In this article, I reflect from an African perspective on issues of insider/outsider positionalities and of serendipity and unexpectedness during my fieldwork which are areas often dominated by writing from the global north and by writers and researchers who do not identify as African people of color and hope that my article will contribute to fill this gap. I share my background, identity, gender and age, and how these might have influenced my approach and interpretation during the process. My qualitative study explored perspectives and subjective experiences of Xhosa speaking adults with epilepsy and their carers in an urban Black township in Cape Town, South Africa. I conclude with the tortoise metaphor to show the cultural relevance thereof, the importance of curiosity and of embracing events of unexpectedness in fieldwork.     

Ursache oder Urheber: Argumente gegen einen reduktiven IndividualismusCause or Creator: Arguments against Reductionist Individualism

In sociological action theory, individualistic positions typically criticize practice theoretical approaches in regard to their assumption that individual acts are the products of collective social processes. Instead, individualistic theories generally reduce every action and all social processes to individual actors. This critique on practice theoretical arguments, however, is based on a missing distinction between the cause and the creator of the social meaning of action. Drawing on conceptual distinctions between cause and creator, causality and coordination, and causality and constitution of meaning, I will reject the individualistic critique on theories of practice in this article. Furthermore, I will determine problems of a social theory that is based on an individualistic ontology more generally.     

Making hermeneutics explicit: how QCA supports an insightful dialogue between theory and cases

Typically, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is praised for its hermeneutic dialogue between theory and empirical cases. However, in reporting research with QCA, these hermeneutic processes will usually not be illustrated. This paper aims at showing clear how QCA induces this dialogue between theory and data. As an illustrative example, I use a research situation dealing with a genuine research question of Legislative Studies: the causes of party unity. Using the classical dichotomous and the MV-QCA approach, the paper mainly shows how to deal productively with contradictory theoretical statements and how stepping from simpler to more complex models adds explanation while still making clear further routes to improve insights into the substantive research topic: both theoretically and empirically. Finally, non-observed configuration (‘logical remainders’) will be used to simplify the resulting theory, and its theoretical and empirical plausibility will be evaluated. The whole paper makes explicit how the QCA approach forces researchers to reveal the dialogue between theory and cases – just as it was intended by the inventor of this analytical tool.     

To belong or not to belong: some self-conceptual and behavioural consequences of identity uncertainty / Pertenecer o no pertenecer: algunas consecuencias de la incertidumbre identitaria en el autoconcepto y en el comportamiento

Abstract

How does identity uncertainty affect the extent and way in which people identify with and define themselves in terms of prototypical group attributes? According to uncertainty-identity theory feelings of uncertainty about oneself and one’s identity are a powerful motive for identifying with and defining oneself in terms of a social group, particularly one that is a distinctive and clearly defined entity that furnishes a consensual group prototype. In this article I overview uncertainty-identity theory and some of its key findings, with a particular focus on how uncertainty-identity processes can produce extremism — zealous identification with and attachment to autocratically led, normatively homogeneous groups that are pronouncedly ethnocentric and intolerant of dissent. I also explore uncertainty-identity contexts in which groups may break apart and where people may be reticent about identifying with highly entitative groups — a discussion of marginalization, exclusion and schism.     

Achievement in a Relational Context: Preferences and Influences in Female Adolescents

Friends' influence on achievement‐related choices in female adolescents was investigated using the Thematic Apperception Test (H. Murray, 1943), in the context of self‐in‐relation theory (J. V. Jordon, A. G. Kaplan, J. B. Miller, I. P. Stiver, & J. L. Surrey, 1991). Two hypotheses were tested: (1) Achievement‐related stimuli will elicit stories with more unfavorable and conflicted outcomes than will affiliation stimuli; (2) Thematic representation of achievement will be more homogeneous in more highly cohesive peer groups. A multivariate analysis of variance with repeated measures yielded significant results for Hypothesis 1. Thematic analysis of stories supported Hypothesis 2, showing peer group influence on achievement strivings in female adolescents.     

Developmental Recapitulation in Adaptation to Vision Loss Among Middle-Age and Older Adults

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that a recapitulation of developmental stages occurs during periods of readjustment in situations involving significant contextual or environmental change. The purpose of this paper is to examine if evidence exists for developmental recapitulation among middle-age and older adults adapting to recent vision impairment. Psychosocial development was operationalized in accordance with Erikson's stage theory (Erikson, 1963, 1980) and measured using the Inventory of Psychosocial Balance (Domino & Affonso, 1990). Data were obtained from 99 middle-age and 96 older adult vision rehabilitation service applicants and compared with normative scale data for these age groups. Results found significantly lower Trust, Initiative, Industry, and Intimacy scores for middle-age adults and lower Initiative and Industry scores for older adults. Unexpectedly, middle-age adults who were visually impaired had significantly higher Integrity scores compared to the normative group. Findings provide preliminary evidence for developmental recapitulation of psychosocial stages in the process of adaptation to vision loss in middle age and older adults. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of social work practice with this population and future research.     

A city within a city: A “snapshot” of aging in a HUD 202 in Detroit, Michigan

Because of a recent surge of aging in place literature, we know a considerable amount about how older adults wish to remain in long lived-in homes and communities. However, there are still gaps in our knowledge. What happens when older adults live in a community that does not support their everyday needs? This paper represents an initial attempt to explore how one group of poor, non-white, central city residents in Detroit, Michigan make sense of and organize a new age-segregated home. Findings presented in this article are based on 30 in depth and photographic elicitation interviews with African American, low-income, older adults living in one Housing and Urban Development 202 (HUD 202). Findings suggest that participants in this sample cultivated a new urban space within the facility to compensate for the deficiencies of a deteriorated inner-city neighborhood. I use these findings to encourage broader conceptualizations and consideration for the aging in place model to be more inclusive to the lived experiences of older adults who occupy oppressed places.     

The Revolt Against Cultural Authority: Power/Knowledge as an Assumption in Organization Theory

Foucault-inspired organization theory hasinterpreted the Enlightenment effort to make reason thefoundation for human freedom as a failure. Reason isseen as developing into disciplinary knowledge, which dominates modern organizations and theindividuals who live and work in them. In fact, theindividual s very identity is the means by which theindividual is enslaved. Knowledge is thus seen asnowhere separate from power. In this essay, I will usea concept of traditional authority to examineFoucault-inspired organization theory and itspower/knowledge conceptual framework in terms of theirethical and cultural implications. This will includeFoucault s influence on both the literature in criticalorganization theory and postmodern organization theory.My approach will highlight the Foucault-inspired misinterpretation of the effect of theEnlightenment on modern organizations, its rejection ofthe authority of the past as a basis for moral order,and its impossible attempt to find freedom through the destruction of cultural authority.