‘A drop in the bucket‘: Collective efficacy perceptions and environmental behaviour

Environmental degradation is a complex problem, many aspects of which may not be solved unless collective effort is undertaken. Collective Efficacy theory provides a useful framework to investigate how people view their ability and the effectiveness of their actions to solve environmental problems, which has been largely overlooked until now. Six focus groups were conducted to explore efficacy beliefs expressed by environmental Activists and Non‐Activists in Perth, Western Australia, relating to waste management. All participants (n=38) expressed pessimistic views about the abilities of others to perform pro‐environmental behaviours. However, Activists were positive that a collective effort would be effective (‘many drops will fill up the bucket’) while Non‐Activists felt strongly that the problem would still exist even if everyone performed waste‐minimising behaviours (‘it's just a drop in the bucket’). Behaviour change interventions might be more effective if they focus on convincing people that collective effort will be effective in solving environmental problems.     

Sonic Envelopes

ABSTRACT

This article examines ways in which an individual's experiences of spatial environments are informed by physical and psychic perceptions of sound. It explores how sonic images, memories, voices, spaces and events constitute “sonic envelopes.” These aesthetic figures are developed out of the late-nineteenth-century writings by the philosopher Henri Bergson and from contemporary audio-walks by the artist, Janet Cardiff. Each shows that sound, space and time are embodied in the individual's powers of sensory perception. Bergson and Cardiff's sonic envelopes may therefore enable reevaluations of the relationships between sound, space and time that connect the individual to his or her environment.     

Book Reviews

Through the Window, Out the Door: Women's Narratives of Departure, from Austin and Cather, to Tyler, Morrison, and Didion. Janis P. Stout. A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States. Sheila Rowbotham. Ghost Dancing the Law: The Wounded Knee Trials. John William Sayer. A West Texas Soapbox. Jim Sanderson. A Guide to American Crime Films of the Thirties. Larry Langman and Daniel Finn. A Guide to American Silent Crime Films. Larry Langman and Daniel Finn. All Things Herriot: James Herriot and His Peaceable Kingdom. Sanford Sternlicht. Arab Comic Strips: Politics of an Emerging Class Culture. Allen Douglas and Fedwa Matli-Douglas. Bing Crosby: A Bio-Bibliography. J. Roger Osterholm. Drawing the Dream of the Wolves: Homosexuality, Interpretation, and Freud's “Wolf Man.” Whitney Davis. Culture and Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle-Class Identity, 1850–1930. Katherine C. Grier. Inventing New England: Regional Tourism in the Nineteenth Century. Dona Brown. American Popular Culture at Home and Abroad. Ed. Lewis H. Carlson and Kevin B. Vichcales. Encyclopedia of Pop Culture: An A to Z of Who's Who and What's What, from Aerobics and Bubble Gum to Valley of the Dolls and Moon Unit Zappa. Jane and Michael Stern.     

Is “humane managed care” an oxymoron? (Essay Review)

Abstract

Though the impact of managed care on clinical social work practice and education has been widely acknowledged and critiqued, Humane Managed Care? edited by Schamess and Lightburn, represents a compendium of papers addressing all aspects of the recent phenomena and its impact on practitioners, educators, and most especially our clients. In reviewing this impressive and comprehensive volume, this paper addresses many of the most controversial and painful aspects of the “Managed Care Revolution,” including its impact on the level of clinical practice and its economic and political ramifications. It is suggested that the editors and some of the authors are less hopeful about the possibility of providing “humane” treatment in the managed care environment than they were only a few years earlier, as indicated by a comparison of this volume with the 1996 special edition of Smith College Studies in Social Work. This article also critiques some of the anthology's chapters, which suggest that the changes in health care delivery will ultimately be beneficial to clinical social workers.

Essay Review: Humane Managed Care? Gerald Schamess, M.S.S. & Anita Lightburn, Ph.D. (Eds.). (Washington, DC: NASW Press, 1998.)     

Book Reviews

The Guide to United States Popular Culture. Edited by Ray B. Browne and Pat Browne. The Detective as Historian: History and Art in Historical Crime Fiction. Edited by Ray B. Browne and Lawrence A. Kreiser, Jr. Preface by Robin W. Winks. Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives. Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham, eds. Popular Culture: Cavespace to Cyberspace. Marshall W. Fishwick. Great Cars of the Great Plains. Curt McConnell. Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia. Ed. James L. Watson. The History of Jazz. Ted Gioia. Puppets and “Popular” Culture. Scott Cutler Shershow. Theater and Society: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. Haiping Yan, ed. Armonk Teenage Nervous Breakdown: Music and Politics in the Post‐Elvis Age. David Walley. The Ignorance Explosion: Understanding Industrial Civilization. Julius Lukasiewicz. The Unofficial Encyclopedia of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Nick Talevski. Graphic Novels: A Bibliographic Guide to Book‐Length Comics. D. Aviva Rothschild. Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride. Horace Logan with Bill Sloan. Women Imagine Change: A Global Anthology of Women's Resistance from 600 B.C.E. to Present. Eugenia DeLamotte, Natania Meeker, and Jean O'Barr, eds. We Mean to Be Counted: White Women and Politics in Antebellum Virginia. Elizabeth R. Varon. Gender and American Culture series. Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited. Deirdre Boyle. What Evil Means to Us. C. Fred Alford. A Sense of Place: Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Essays in Honor of William and Margery Vandament. Edited by Russell M. Magnaghi and Michael T. Marsden.     

Environmental Policy Attitudes: Issues,Geographical Scale,and Political Trust*

Objectives. This article examines environmental policy attitudes, focusing on the differences in preferences across issue type (i.e., pollution, resource preservation) and geographical scale (i.e., local, national, global). In addition, we study whether an individual's trust in government influences environmental policy attitudes. Methods. Analyzing data from the 2007 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we estimate a series of OLS regression models to examine the public's environmental policy attitudes. Results. We find stronger public support for government action to address pollution issues than resources issues, and stronger support for local and national pollution abatement than dealing with global problems. We also find that Republicans and ideological conservatives are less likely to support further government effort to address the environment, and that more trusting individuals are more favorable to government action to address pollution and global issues. Conclusion. Environmental policy attitudes vary by the nature of the issue; however, political ideology and partisan affiliation are consistent predictors of preferences across issues, even when controlling for an individual's level of trust in government.     

Review Essays

Interpreting Women's Lives: Feminist Theory and Personal Narratives. Personal Narratives Group (Eds.). Writing a Woman's Life. Carolyn G. Heilbrun. Ethnic Humor Around the World: A Comparative Analysis. Christie Davies.     

Science resource inequalities viewed as less wrong when girls are disadvantaged

In response to some resource inequalities, children give priority to moral concerns. Yet, in others, children show ingroup preferences in their evaluations and resource allocations. The present study built upon this knowledge by investigating children's and young adults’ (N = 144; 5–6-year-olds, M_age = 5.83, SD_age = .97; 9–11-year-olds, M_age = 10.74, SD_age = .68; and young adults, M_age = 19.92, SD_age = 1.10) evaluations and allocation decisions in a science inequality context. Participants viewed vignettes in which male and female groups received unequal amounts of science supplies, then evaluated the acceptability of the resource inequalities, allocated new boxes of science supplies between the groups, and provided justifications for their choices. Results revealed both children and young adults evaluated inequalities of science resources less negatively when girls were disadvantaged than when boys were disadvantaged. Further, 5- to 6-year-old participants and male participants rectified science resource inequalities to a greater extent when the inequality disadvantaged boys compared to when it disadvantaged girls. Generally, participants who used moral reasoning to justify their responses negatively evaluated and rectified the resource inequalities, whereas participants who used group-focused reasoning positively evaluated and perpetuated the inequalities, though some age and participant gender findings emerged. Together, these findings reveal subtle gender biases that may contribute to perpetuating gender-based science inequalities both in childhood and adulthood.     

Poverty, Social Exclusion and the Politics of Disability: Care as a Social Good and the Expenditure of Social Capital in Chuadanga, Bangladesh

People labelled with disabilities in Chuadanga, Bangladesh, are denied equitable access to social networks and formal services. In terms both of funding future formal service programmes and of designing community‐based outreach programmes, this lack of access is not a simple reflection of one's impairment but a facet of the social exclusion and stigma that is culturally ascribed to disability in Chuadanga. We utilize a social model to focus on the cultural processes initiated by the onset of illness or impairment. Our participants are drawn from four types of diagnosed disability: blindness, orthopaedic impairment, hearing impairment and mental disorder. Although this inquiry is in line with Daly's focus on how future spending on formal services to promote care and equity in Europe can be helped by searching out information that is often ignored, the particular focus of this study is Chuadanga and the research questions incorporate a disability studies perspective. The authors consider care as a social good and an expenditure of social capital, in reviewing findings from a recent empirical study of disability and employment in the Bangladesh district of Chuadanga. Regardless of disability, poverty can be a morally and socially devastating ordeal. However, the authors conclude that the added loss of social solidarity and equitable access, due to the social exclusion and stigma of disability for the families concerned, make it statistically far less likely that they will access formal services or be able to escape poverty.     

Book Reviews

Jimmy Durante: His Show Business Career. David Bakish Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation. Giabbaberto Bendazzi Fashion, Culture, and Identity. Fred David The Media and the Persian Gulf war. Robert E. Denton, Jr. The 1,000 Hour War: Communication in the Gulf. Thomas A. McCain and Leonard Shyles. Sam Shepard. David J. DeRose. From Art to Politics: How Artistic Creations Shape Political Conceptions. Murray Edelman. What Katy Read: Feminist Re-Readings of “Classic” Stories for Girls. Shirley Foster and Judy Simons. The Annonated Baseball Stories of Ring Lardner, 1914–1919. Ed. George W. Hilton. Psychological Reflections on Cinematic Terror: Jungian Archetypes in Horror Films. James F. Iaccino. Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Musak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong. Joseph Lanza. The Vonnegut Encyclopedia: An Authorized Compendium. Marc Leeds. Dancing With the Devil. José E. Limón. The Myth of Repressed Memeory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse. Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketchum. Postmodernism and Popular Culture. Angela McRobbie. Dan Stuart's Fistic Carnival. Leo N. Miletich. Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy. Ed. Marc. H. Miller. Bar-20: The Life of Clarence E. Mulford, Creator of Hopalong Cassidy, with Seven Original Stories Reprinted. Francis M. Nevins, Jr. Gilbert and Sullivan. Interviews and Recollections. Ed. Harold Orel. Words About Wizards: Recollections of Magicians and Their Magic, 1930–1950. Robert Parrish. Watch the Skies!: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth. Curtis Peebles. Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth Century. Phillippe Perrot. Trans. Richard Bienvenue. It Wasn't Pretty, Folks, But Didn't We Have Fun?: Esquire in the Sixties. Carol Polsgrove. Yesterday's Stories: Popular Women's Novels of the Twenties and Thirties. Patricia Raub. Supter Heroes: A Modern Mythology. Richard Reynolds. Disciplines of Delight. The Psychoanalysis of Popular Culture. Barry Richards. The Critical Response to Bram Stoker. Ed. Carol A. Senf. Changing Appearances: Understanding Dress in Contemporary Society. George B. Sproles and Leslie Davis Burns. Bamboula: The Life and Times of Louis Moreau Gottschalk. S. Frederick. The Power of Style: The Women Who Defined the Art of Living Well. Annette Tapert and Diana Edkins. Negotiating Performance: Gender, Sexuality, and Theariticality in Latin America. Eds. Diana Taylor and Juan Villegas. Daring Do's: A History of Extraordinary Hair. Mary Trasko. Maps of Heaven, Maps of Hell: Religious Terror as Memory from the Puritans to Stephen King. Edwad J. Ingebretsen, S. J. Armonk.     

Book Reviews

Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America. Ronald Hoffman, Mechal Sobel, and Fredrika J. Teute The Children's Culture Reader. Henry Jenkins Ancient Greek Popular Literature. William Hansen Finitude's Score: Essays for the End of the Millennium. Avital Ronell Celebrity Caricature in America. Wendy Wick Reaves Jean‐Luc Goddard. Interviews. David Sterritt Dead End Kids: Gang Girls and the Boys They Know. Mark S . Fleisher The Red Atlantis: Communist Culture in the Absence of Communism. J. Hoberman Hog Ties: Pigs, Manure, and Mortality in American Culture. Richard P. Horwitz. The Crowded Prairie: American National Identity in the Hollywood Western. Michael Coyne Tennis: A Cultural History. Heiner Gillmeister Meat Is Murder! An Illustrated Guide to Cannibal Culture. Mikita Brottman.     

Embracing Sculptural Ceramics: A Lived Experience of Touch in Art

ABSTRACT

Sculptural ceramic objects created by and for the body were made within the context of art-based research, in which theoretical explorations and studio practice were integrally interwoven. Studio explorations developed from theoretical knowledge gained from human physiology, and from the development of an understanding of the “lived experience” as expressed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, through the experiences of the artist in making, and comments from visitors at exhibitions. The artworks challenge the visual hegemony of the art gallery by more fully engaging the body's sense of touch through the embrace. The sculptures, which were made by “casting hugs,” instinctively invite interaction, with soft curves that echo the human body, textures to visually entice individuals to touch, and a pleasurable weight that slows down responses. In public exhibition the artworks are enthusiastically embraced and held, broadening and articulating a tactile aesthetic for sculpture, and shifting focus from the sculptural objects themselves to one's physical and emotional experience of those objects.     

Practice Evaluation of Community Initiatives for Social Service Delivery in a Deprived Neighborhood in Scotland

ABSTRACT

Improving social service in local communities is a complex undertaking. Over the past few decades, the performance and sustainability of community initiatives have been questioned, while such factors as a lack of funding, insufficient community involvement, unsatisfactory community service, and lack of awareness of the impact of community initiatives have restricted community development. From a case study of community operations in Scotland, this article provides insights into how social service delivery is organized in the absence of public capital. This study utilized data from semi-structured in-depth interviews with a sample of 76 participants from a deprived area in Scotland, including community management team members (n = 6), local residents (n = 52) and community partners (n = 18). The findings illustrated how participants of all ages, local organizations, policy makers, funders and media came together to create a cohesive and responsive community environment. Residents' needs and funders' demands were identified. Results further revealed that a Community Partnership Mechanism helped strengthen the social service network and create flexible social services. Service benefits included improved resident wellbeing in the context of less government intervention. Future implications include suggestions for government and other stakeholders involved in community reform to focus on service recipient skill building and tracking changes between the indicators and service provision.     

Book Reviews

Grenzenloses Vergnügen. Der Aufstieg der Massenkultul, 1850–1970. Kaspar Maase. Aesthetic Ideology. Edited by Paul de Man. Intro by Andrzej Warminski. Hazardous Duty. David H. Hackworth. The Lust Monopoly: Privatizing the Postal Service for the Information Age. Edited by Edward L. Hudgins. National Parks and the Woman's Voice: A History. Polly Welts Kaufman. Manhood in America: A Cultural History. Michael Kimmel. Women in Waiting in the Westward Movement: Life on the Home Frontier. Peavy, Linda, and Ursula Smith. Drawing the Dream of the Wolves: Homosexuality, Interpretation, and Freud's “Wolf Man.” Whitney Davis. The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research. Edited by Steven E. Woodworth.     

Book Reviews

The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires 1800–1900. George Reid Andrews. Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years. Elizabeth Wayland Barber. The Saint: A Complete History in Print, Radio, Film and Television of Leslie Charteris' Robin Hood of Modem Crime, Simon Templal; 1928–1992. Burl Barer. Aspects of British Calendar Customs. Eds. Theresa Buckland and Juliette Wood. Reading the Social Body. Catherine B. Burroughs and Jeffrey David Ehrenreich, eds. Ethnomimesis. Robert Cantwell. Al Capp Remembered. Elliott Caplin. Holy Days and Holidays. Edward M. Deems. The Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. Simon During. Songs About Work: Essays in Occupational Culture For Richard A. Reuss. Ed. Archie Green. The Politics of Pictures: The Creation of the Public in the Age of Popular Media. John Hartley. Breaking the Ties that Bind: Popular Stories of the New Woman, 1915–1930. Ed. Maureen Honey. Mythical Trickster Figures: Contours, Contexts and Criticisms. Ed. William H. Hynes and William G. Doty. Edward Stratemeyer and the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Deidre Johnson. Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon. Norman M. Klein. Meeting the Madwoman: An Inner Challenge for Feminine Spirit. Linda Schierse Leonard Speaking the Unspeakable: A Poetics of Obscenity. Peter Michelson. Feminism/Postmodemism. Ed. Linda J. Nicholson. Humor Scholarship: A Research Bibliography. Don L.F. Nilson. The Crawfish Book. Glen Pitre. Dick Tracy and American Culture: Morality and Mythology, Text and ContextS. Garyn G. Roberts. Gender in Popular Culture: Images of Men and Women in Literature, Visual Media, and Material Culture. Eds. Susan W. Rollins and Peter C. Rollins. Adult Comics: An Introduction. Roger Sabin. Society's Impact on Television: How the Viewing Public Shapes Television Programming. Gary W. Selnow and Richard R. Gilbert. Animating Culture: Hollywood Cartoons from the Sound Era. Eric Smoodin. Media and Public Policy. Ed. Robert J. Spitzer. Football and Its Fans: Supporters and Their Relations with the Game, 1885–1985. Rogan Taylor. The Less Noble Sex: Scientific, Religious, and Philosophical Conceptions of Woman's Nature. Nancy Tuana. Almanac for Americans. Willis Thornton. Christmas on the American Frontier 1800–1900. John E. Bauer. Happy Birthdays Round the World. Lois S. Johnson. Jewish Holidays and Festivals. Ben M. Edidin. Round the Year with the World's Religions. Royston Pike. Season Feasts and Festivals. E.O. James. Yearbook of English Festivals. Dorothy Gladys Spicer. Imagining America: Dutch Youth and Its Sense of Place. Mel Van Eltern The Remote Control in the New Age of Television. Ed. James R. Walker and Robert V. Bellamy, Jr. Professors, Politics and Pop. Jon Wiener. “It 's Time for My Story”: Soap Opera Sources, Structure and Response. Carol Traynor Williams. Bodylore. Ed. Katharine Young.     

Measuring Anti‐Americanism in Editorial Cartoons*

Objective. Anti‐Americanism has been subjected to minimal statistical analysis. Further, scant attention is paid to what constitutes anti‐Americanism for Americans. The objective of this article is to measure Americans' perceptions of anti‐Americanism. Methods. Using a range of quantitative methods, including Pearson's correlation coefficient, Shannon's entropy measure, and Cohen's d statistics, we measure students' evaluations of editorial cartoons after 9/11. Twin measures of message and equity, along with participant and cartoon variables, are used to calibrate anti‐Americanism in Spanish and U.S. editorial cartoons. Results. Our results indicate that message ratings, that is, anti‐ or pro‐American, were more dependent on the nature of the cartoons than of the participants. White males rated these editorial cartoons as more equitable than other participants. The study shows that Spanish cartoons were rated significantly more anti‐American. Conclusion. The article concludes that the use of U.S. icons is key to seeing anti‐Americanism, along with gender, race, and origin of cartoon.     

Book Reviews

I'll Take You There: An Oral and Photographic History of the Hines Farm Blues Club. Matthew A. Donahue. Forward through the Rearview Mirror: Reflections on and by Marshall McLuhan. Paul Benedetti and Nancy DeHart John Jakes: A Critical Companion. Mary Ellen Jones. The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Poe to the Internet. Shawn James Rosenheim. The Archaeology of Ancient Arizona. Jefferson Reid and Stephanie Whittlesey. Entertaining Tsarist Russia. James von Geldern and Louise McReynolds, eds. The Language of Landscape. Anne Whiston Spirn. Hunting the Wren: Transformation of Bird to Symbol. Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence. The Lost Works of William Carlos Williams: The Volumes of Collected Poetry as Lyrical Sequences. Robert J. Cirasa. For the Time Being: Ethnography of Everyday Life. Richard Quinney. Britannia's Children: Reading Colonialism through Children's Books and Magazines. Kathryn Castle. A Taste for Pop: Pop Art, Gender, and Consumer Culture. Cecile Whiting. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life. Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen. Who Is Andy Warhol? Colin MacCabe, ed. Coming of Age in Cyberspace. David S. Bennahum. Masculinities, Spectatorship, and Contemporary Consumption. Sean Nixon. Ministry and Theology in Global Perspective. Don Pittman, Ruben Habito, Herry Much, eds. Fearless Girls, Wise Women and Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World. Kathleen Ragan, ed. Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning. Ien Agn, Ruth Barcan, Helen Grace, Elaine Laly, Justine Lloyd, and Zoe Sofoulis, eds.     

Book Reviews

Denisoff, R. Serge, and William D. Romanowski. Risky Business: Rock In Film. Gilman, Sander. The Jew's Body. Hall, Hal W. The Work of Louis L'Amour: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide. Porter, Susan L. With an Air Debonair: Musical Theatre in America 1785-1815. Donald G. Godfrey. comp. Reruns on File: A Guide to Electronic Media Archives. Fowler, Karin J. Anne Baxter: a Bio-Bibliography. Robbins, Jhan. Inka Dinka Doo: The Life of Jimmy Durante. Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing & Cultural Anxiety. Sweeney, Kevin. Henry Fonda: a Bio-Bibliography. Riggin, Judith M. John Wayne: A Bio-Bibliography. Baughman, James L. The Republic of Mass Culture: Jouralism, Filmmaking and Broadcasting in America Since 1941. Bird, S. Elizabeth. For Enquiring Minds: a Cultural Study of Supermarket Tabloids. Science, Culture and Popular Belief in Renaissance Europe. Edited by Stephen Pumfrey, Paolo L. Rossi & Maurice Slawinski. Women and Religion: A Bibliographic Guide to Christian Feminist Liberation Theology. Compiled by Shelly Davis Finson. The Ted Williams Reader. Edited by Lawrence Baldassaro. Josh and Satch: The Life and Times of Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige. John B. Holway. A Genius by Moonlight. W.J.M. Brady. The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses. Edited by David Howes. Women's Comic Visions. Edited and Introduced by June Sochen. Semzons and Battle Hymns. Edited by Graham Walker and Tom Gallagher. The Whole Pop Catalog. The Berkeley Pop Culture Project. Ticket To Paradise: American Movie Theaters and How We Had Fun. John Margolies and Emily Gwathmey.