The Fatality Risks of Sport-Utility Vehicles,Vans, and Pickups Relative to Cars

This paper examines the public health consequences of the regulatory subsidy given to light trucks. The empirical challenge is to disentangle the causal effects of light trucks from the selection bias that may occur due to drivers sorting into different vehicle types depending on their unobservable characteristics. I address this by using state variation of snow depth as an instrumental variable for vehicle miles traveled of light trucks and cars. This instrument has strong first-stage explanatory power. Since snow depth is likely a direct determinant of crashes, I meet the exclusion criteria by restricting the dependent variable to those crashes that occurred in the summer. My findings suggest that, given a crash, light trucks are more dangerous to others but less dangerous for those driving them. However, I also find that light trucks are more likely to crash than cars, which neutralizes the safety advantage to those who drive them. My estimates for aggregate fatalities suggest that a world of light trucks leads to substantially more fatalities than a world of cars.     

Social Group Work with Asian/Pacific-Americans

This paper discusses the Asian/Pacific clients and the group practice modality. Specific suggestion are offered to help group workers better understand Asian/Pacific-American clients, capitalize on their unique strengths, and minimize their limitations. Part I of this paper addresses practical group work considerations for the Pre-Group Phase; Part II addresses practical group work considerations for the Group Interaction phase.     

Going to Camp Together: Lighting the Group Work Fire in a New Generation

This article describes the structure and process of Group Work Camp, an experiential training program sponsored by the International Association for Social Work with Groups (IASWG). The purpose of this 3-day event, which offers workshops and activities in a camp environment, is to transmit the skills, culture, and philosophy of social work with groups to students and new professionals. Camp also aims to connect participants to the group work community through interaction with skilled and enthusiastic professionals and educators. Participants live together as a large group and engage in ever-changing small groups. They learn primarily by experiencing group membership in the present moment, reflecting on this experience, and then discussing its implications. As the Chinese proverb says, “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Involve me and I will understand.” In the course of this experiential learning process participants develop strong connections with peers and mentors and become familiar with IASWG, a resource for support and stimulation that will be invaluable as they pursue group work practice in an environment likely to isolate them from group work peers. The article ends with a discussion of the implications of this model for group work education, supervision, and practice.     

Re‐conceptualizing Abstract Conceptualization in Social Theory: The Case of the “Structure” Concept

I this paper, I draw on recent research on the radically embodied and perceptual bases of conceptualization in linguistics and cognitive science to develop a new way of reading and evaluating abstract concepts in social theory. I call this approach Sociological Idea Analysis. I argue that, in contrast to the traditional view of abstract concepts, which conceives them as amodal “presuppositions” removed from experience, abstract concepts are irreducibly grounded in experience and partake of non‐negotiable perceptual‐symbolic features from which a non‐propositional “logic” naturally follows. This implies that uncovering the imagistic bases of allegedly abstract notions should be a key part of theoretical evaluation of concepts in social theory. I provide a case study of the general category of “structure” in the social and human sciences to demonstrate the analytic utility of the approach.     

Manipulation of social choice rules by strategic nomination of candidates

It often happens that the entry of a third candidate into a race for legislative office is supported by a group of voters who favour, not the new candidate, but one of the two initially declared candidates. It is hoped that the third candidate will draw votes away from a particular one of the other two, changing the course of the election. This phenomenon is examined at a general level and the set of social choice rules which are invulnerable in this sense is characterized.This paper was written while I was a Canada Council Research Fellow visiting at Stanford University. I am grateful to Professor W. Leinfellner for helpful comments on a first draft and I assume full responsibility for errors.     

Group Work with Low-Income Black Youths

Low-income Black youths face problems which negatively impact on their self-concepts and educational achievement. Without an education, the opportunities for social mobility for them are severely decreased. The small group is suggested as a medium of intervention in the public schools by which large numbers of low-income Black youths can be reached and assisted with problems which interfere with their cducation. This paper discusses group work with this population, the theoretical framework utilized, and the applicability of some of the insights gained from working with this population to group work wilh Blacks in general.     

Safety and Comfort,Content and Process: Facilitating Open Group Work with Men Who Batter

Based on the open group format of the McGill Domestic Violence Clinic this paper discusses four important concepts in treatment group work with men who batter: safety, comfort, content and process. This paper explores why men who batter might wish to avoid treatment groups as well as what might encourage them to attend these groups regularly. Interventive techniques such as "the comfort/discomfort level." "empathic projection," use of humor and the "process statement" are defined and highlighted by case examples. The paper concludes by suggesting what benefits the treatment group client takes with him when he moves on from the group.     

Homelessness,Public Space and Civil Disobedience

This paper argues that anti-social behaviour, in the context of homelessness, ought to be seen as acts of civil disobedience. Firstly, I identify public space as a hostile space for people experiencing homelessness. Secondly, I detail how this reveals a default interpretation of them as anti-social through their mere presence. Thirdly, I explore how this de-politicises. I go onto define and examine civil disobedience theory, as a counter narrative to anti-social behaviour. I then argue how acts of disruption by people experiencing homelessness in public space can qualify as civil disobedience. I acknowledge this as a wicked problem but claim that flipping the default framing of homelessness in this way has normative gain, undoing the de-politicising othering that anti-social behaviour narratives have caused.     

Shedding Some (More) Light in Bourdieu's Habitus and Doxa: A Socio-Phenomenological Approach

In this paper, I attempt to shed more light in Bourdieu's habitus and doxa, by drawing on phenomenological and Bourdieusian-based literature, social theory and some findings from sociological research. Despite the fact that there is a vast work concerning the examination of these two concepts, there are still some misunderstandings about them. For that reason, I have tried to draw a clearer picture of habitus, by linking it with phenomenological “being-in-the-world” and describing its elements. As for doxa, I discuss its conceptual relation with habitus and phenomenology's natural attitude. Also, attention is given to some aspects of both habitus and doxa, which have not addressed in detailed fashion yet, but they are nevertheless theoretically useful for empirical qualitative research.     

A case study on a generalist service delivery model for street children in Durban,South Africa: Insights from the capability approach

This paper adopts a qualitative case study on the generalist service delivery model of I‐Care, a Durban‐based non‐governmental organization that works with male street children. Fifteen face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 10 I‐Care employees and 5 former street children. A focus group was set up with I‐Care employees. Although existing literature is forthright about a generalist approach for children at risk, it remains unclear how to implement this approach in practice. This paper reviews a continuity of 5 fundamental social work practices for working with street children: (a) outreach work, (b) child–family and child–community mediation, (c) transitory care centres and programmes, (d) brokerage, and (e) mentorship and follow‐ups. The study analyses how these practices contribute to the capability and agency expansion of the street children and outlines challenges that service providers and former street children experience. The main challenges acknowledged are balancing between the agency and protection of street children and the adaptation of children to street life. The study proposes intervention strategies to overcome these challenges.     

Partisan Joiners: Associational Membership and Political Polarization in the United States (1974–2004)*

Objectives. Associational life may foster political integration or amplify division, depending on how individuals partition themselves into groups and whether their multiple affiliations embed them into concentric or cross‐cutting social circles. Starting from this premise, I relate trends in associational membership to political partisanship, and ask if there is any evidence of increased political polarization in the associative patterns of Americans. Methods. Using GSS data (1974–2004) on affiliations to 16 types of groups, I plot trends and run multilevel models to examine changes over time in the partisan allegiances of group members and patterns of overlapping memberships. Results. The often‐lamented decline in group membership affects primarily the category of single‐group members and is limited to a few types of groups. The density of the network of overlapping memberships has remained stable over time and there are no real changes in the patterns of shared memberships between group types, nor do Republicans and Democrats differ in their patterns of preferential affiliation. Although political partisanship does not drive patterns of group affiliation, group members, especially those affiliated with multiple groups, are more radical in their partisan identification than nonmembers, and most types of groups have become politically more heterogeneous over time. Conclusion. The puzzling finding that group types are not becoming more partisan, while group members are, leads to the hypothesis (to be tested in future research) that civil society polarization is occurring at the level of actual groups, and not group types.     

Off-reservation boarding high schools teachers: How are they perceived by former American Indian students?

This study focuses on American Indian adults who attended 4 all-Indian off-reservation boarding high schools located in the Southwest and run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (B.I.A). A century after openning these off-reservation boarding schools, the B.I.A. shifted its emphasis to closing them. Because of the emphasis placed on closing off-reservation high schools, I was interested in obtaining former American Indian students' perspectives of teacher-student relationships in these off-reservation boarding high schools. I interviewed American Indians asking them to recall their perceptions of former teachers in the off-reservation boarding high schools. This paper focuses on two questions: What were these American Indians' recollections of the teacher-student relationships they had with their former teachers in the boarding school setting? Was the process of assimilation fostered within the context of the all-Indian boarding schools?     

地方治理与农民工保护

本文从地方治理的角度分析了国家的农民工保护政策在珠江三角洲地区未能得到有效执行的原因。并揭示了国家的农民工保护政策主要是通过地方政府来执行的,但是如今地方政府的权力和合法性基础已经受到了削弱,限制了地方政府在监管劳动力市场、为农民工提供社会保障和公共服务方面的能力。本文还提出了如何将农民工进一步纳入地方治理结构,充分组合各种社会组织和市场力量来保护农民工权益的政策建议。     

Collective Action Among Private Tenants

Summary The paper describes the action of a group of low-income tenants,inexperienced in dealing with bureaucracies or in understandingthe complexities of landlord-tenant law, who attempted to improvetheir living conditions by using the Government's Rent Tribunal While the legal remedies provided under the Rent Acts were effective,the tenants were reluctant to use them until they had organizedas a group. This was because of the particular relationshipthey had with the landlady who made it difficult for them todiscuss with her their rights as tenants. Their only way ofchanging this was through collective action We discuss the use of conflict strategies in a short-term issue;that is, in fighting a landlady for better living conditions(both lower rents and adequate repairs). It illustrates thedifficulty of mobilizing a group of people whose ususal everydayexperiences are that it is difficult, if not futile, to takeaction to improve their situation. This is so in spite of machineryset up by the Government to arbitrate over rents for privateproperty. The difficulty lies in the precarious financial positionin which deprived groups often find themselves, making it easyfor them to fall into rent arrears and therefore be liable toeviction from their accommodation. It is difficult also becauseproperty owners are more likely to have easy access to the legalmachinery. These tenants are usually in no position to holda landlord to his side of the contract because they lack theresources to pay the legal fees entailed     

Penal and welfare conditionality: Discipline or degradation?

This paper aims to complement analyses of welfare conditionality by examining what can be learned from studies of conditional punishment in the criminal justice system. Drawing on a range of recent studies, I explore lived experiences of the conditionality attendant on penal forms of supervision; penal forms that have expanded rapidly in recent decades. I argue that, to paraphrase Stan Cohen, such supervision is as much about the dispersal of degradation as it is about the dispersal of discipline. Indeed, in contemporary western societies, both in punishment and in welfare systems, I suggest that conditionality functions less to discipline poor and marginalised people and more to disqualify them from the entitlements of ordinary citizenship. In so doing, conditionality constructs them as denizens, thus serving to limit the liabilities for the state that arise from social inequalities. Extending Delroy Fletcher and Sharon Wright's metaphor, the abusive slaps now meted out in concert by both hands of the penal state are as much about degrading and denying the entitlements of “needy” denizens as they are about influencing their conduct. But crucially, even within the increasingly restrictive context created by these developments, penal practitioners can and do provide care and assistance.     

Semiosis,thought and codes: A theoretical framework for social knowledge

I present a theoretical social psychological framework for social knowledge based mainly on the triadic concept of sign relations and the process of semiosis. The framework is based on concepts from authors aligned with interpretative semiotic approaches, such as Peirce, Deely and Eco. After defining signs and sign relations, I propose to conceive social knowledge as sign relations happening in communication processes, and employ the notion of code to account for socially shared group conventions. I suggest that the analysis of code properties such as content, social acknowledgment and history can identify differences in social knowledge forms and the concrete contexts that sustain them. The framework is discussed in comparison with other social and cultural psychological approaches based on semiosis. Finally, methodological implications are commented.     

Recognizing Diversity and Group Processes in International, Collaborative Research Work: A Case Study

The myth that most if not all senior researchers who have national prominence can 'successfully' manage international research is alive and well in the academy today. Many researchers believe that research management and consultancy is acquired through a process of trial and error and demands little contemplation or training. The purpose of this paper is to break these myths and to establish various benchmarks for good research management, particularly on an international level. The guiding assumption of the paper is that as research becomes more global, high-quality research management is a necessary resource, which demands sensitivity to diversity as well as an awareness of group processes. This means those issues such as language, race, ethnicity, gender, disability and group work should not only inform our research findings but also guide our research practice in international collaborative settings. Throughout this paper, I use a case study of a large EU-funded project as a way of illustrating key themes.     

语词与意义的文化解读

言与意的关系问题是古今中外文化史上讨论颇多的基本文化问题之一。矛盾论者割裂了二者关系 ,提出言不尽意、辞不达意的矛盾论题。如果从本体意义上揭示语言与意义的同一性 ,那么就语言存在方式而论 ,语言走向意义不仅可能 ,而且必然     

The Personal/Group Discrimination Discrepancy

This article extends Allport's (1954) analysis of targets of discrimination by examining why minority group members perceive more discrimination directed at their group than at themselves. Two studies were conducted to explain this personal/group discrimination discrepancy by focusing on the role of stereotypes, which allow people to process information faster. Women (Study 1) and African Americans (Study 2) made ratings of personaland group discrimination while a computer recorded the time it took them to respond. Both took less time to make ratings of group discrimination than personal discrimination. Moreover, the less time it took for them to respond to questions about group discrimination, the larger the discrepancy was between their ratings of personal and group discrimination. These results suggest that the personal/group discrimination discrepancy emerges when minority groupmembers are using a stereotype in which discrimination encountered by their group is believed to be high.     

The repeated public goods game: A solution using Tit-for-Tat and the Lindahl point

This paper demonstrates how a repeated public goods problem may be solved by using Tit-for-Tat (TFT) on the Lindahl point. The general solution is developed; geometric and numerical examples are offered.I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.