Resource characteristics in social exchange networks: Implications for positional advantage

Despite the wide range of resources that traverse social networks, social exchange research has focused on only a narrow subset. Notably, prior social exchange research has not considered resources like information that have the capacity to diffuse through networks. The current study investigates how differences between the standard social exchange resource and an information-type resource affect the advantage provided by one's network position. Results of a laboratory experiment support predictions and offer two new insights to the foundations of positional advantage: (1) the location of advantageous positions in a network differs by resource characteristics, and (2) only in particular situations is a single position able to experience high levels of both power and exchange frequency.     

Algorithms for resource allocation of substance abuse prevention funds based on social indicators: a case study on state of Florida--Part 3

The purpose of Part 3 is to develop an algorithm for an equitable distribution of state prevention funds to its substate jurisdictions based on the need for prevention services. In this series, the need for prevention services is measured in terms of the existing social indicators observed at the county level. In order to establish a conceptual link as well as the empirical relevance of the selected social indicators as proxy measurements of the estimated need for prevention at the county level, we have employed both concurrent and construct validity tests using the following three constructs as the criterion variables in a multiple regressing setting: 1) county-based composite drug use index score (COMDRUG) measured via the statewide drug survey; 2) county-based proportions of prevention target populations using the conceptual definition advanced by the Institute of Medicine (IOM); and 3) the composite risk factor score (COMRISK) assembled from a list of twenty-two risk and protective factors observed for each county. These constructs were identified previously in Parts 1 and 2. While employing eight social indicators to estimate the overall prevention needs observed at the county level, the social indicators thus selected were able to explain 69 percent of the variations in COMDRUG, 68 percent of the variation in the proportions of students in need of prevention services using IOM definition, and 60 percent of the variation in COMRISK. Following successful validations of the social indicators as viable media with which to estimate county-based prevention needs, the ensuing multiple regression equation is, then, used to build a resource allocation model by determining the proportion of each county's share of the total statewide COMDRUG-predicted from the social indicators and, then, by weighting the latter proportion by the population size of each county under age eighteen. In this way, we have devised county-based Prevention Needs Index (PNI) scores based solely on social indicators. Finally, the county's share of PNI score is computed as a proportion of to the total statewide PNI score. Following this line of algorithm for resource allocation, we were able to develop yet another resource allocation model solely based on social indicators without the benefits of survey data. Comparing the funding results originating from four resource allocation models (i.e., COMDRUG, IOM Definition, COMRISK, and Social Indicators), it has been learned that there is a remarkable similarity from one funding level to another. Since all four schedules of county-based prevention funding levels have shown very high intercorrelations with a range from .9862 to .9993, it has been determined that these schedules are measuring essentially either the same domain or latent domains that are functionally equivalent to one another. Accordingly, no preference is made among the resource allocation models suggested, although it is suggested that the final decision on the level of funding must be based on the selection of the schedule for resource allocation rather than the suggested amount or level of funding computed for each county.     

Normative approaches to justice in physical education for pupils with physical disabilities – dilemmas of recognition and redistribution

Seeking social justice in education for pupils with disabilities creates certain dilemmas. A ‘school for all’ means that educators are faced with the dilemma whereby the notion of ‘disability’ is perceived as ought not to matter but where in actual fact it seems to matter very much! This article explores ways out of this general educational dilemma using the context of physical education (PE) for pupils with physical disabilities within the compulsory school as an example. Justice theories of resource distribution and cultural recognition affect educational outcomes, where the demand is for justice and equity. Fraser’s notion of ‘social status’, together with a pluralistic approach to identities where personal experiences are given a place, is used to suggest a solution to the dilemma. It is concluded that a redistribution of economic resources and social recognition is necessary if social justice within PE is to become a reality.     

新形势下上海加强外来人口服务与管理研究

近年来,大量来沪人员进入上海,一方面延缓了上海老龄化进程,推动了上海城市建设和经济发展;但与此同时,来沪人员的持续快速涌入也使得上海公共资源的投入始终跟不上人口迅速膨胀的需求。特别是来沪人员聚集区域,公共服务资源紧张、城市管理压力巨大、社会治安形势严峻以及群体性矛盾风险积聚等问题较为突出,成为影响上海社会稳定和谐的重要隐患。由此,如何加强新形势下上海外来人口的服务与管理,应对＂新二元结构＂带来的突出矛盾与问题已成为上海新时期社会建设与社会管理创新的重要议题。     

Human–environment interactions in South Florida's Everglades region: Systems of ecological degradation and restoration

This chapter examines the societal drivers of environmental change in South Florida's Everglades region during the past 150 years. This historical geography is developed through the use of a conceptual framework constructed to facilitate the analysis of human–environment interactions and nature–society systems of ecological degradation and restoration at the regional scale. The framework is composed of four basic interlinked components: interaction mechanisms (e.g., land use, direct resource utilization, pollution and external inputs, resource competition), feedback mechanisms (e.g., basic needs, quality of life, environmental ethics), control systems (e.g., governmental regimes, legal institutions, resource management), and the societal context (e.g., population and demographic patterns, social structure and organization, technology, economic conditions, societal values). A primary objective of this chapter is to determine the presence and importance of each of these components during the process of environmental change over the period of study—1845 to 1995.Data for the analysis are drawn from primary and secondary sources on the environmental, social, economic, and political history of South Florida. The results indicate that although elements of each component were present throughout the entire period, different elements of each component play more significant roles at differing moments. The shifts in importance are used to define four periods of environmental change within the region. The periods are the following: (1) frontier settlement (1845–1900), focused on basic needs acquisition and direct utilization of the resource base; (2) drainage and land conversion (1900–1930), focused on population and economic growth, land use change, and increased resource management and competition; (3) flood control and consolidation (1930–1950), focused on inputs from external sources and infusion of advanced technology, the development of governance and social structures, and increased concern for quality of life; (4) postwar boom, flood control, and water supply (1950–1970), focused on accelerated land use change, increased pollution, and further heightened concern for local quality of life; and (5) period of limits (1970–1995), focused on pollution and resource competition concerns, a developing regional environmental ethic and amenity values, and environmental preservation governance strategies.Taken together, the five periods represent the differing nature–society systems through which South Florida's regional ecosystem was degraded and which is now entering a phase of restoration.     

Social Disorganization Theory and the Contextual Nature of Crime in Nonmetropolitan Counties*

Abstract This research explores violent and property crime rates in nonmetropolitan counties. It is argued that crime rates are lower in these counties because of higher levels of social integration. We test the hypothesis that predictors of crime from social disorganization theory exert different effects on violent and property crimes at different levels of population change in nonmetropolitan counties. We use a spatial lag regression model to predict the 1989–1991 average violent and property crime rates for these counties, taken from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). The results show that a factor‐analyzed index of resource disadvantage (poverty rate, income inequality, unemployment, percent female‐headed households) has different effects on both violent and property crime at different levels of population change in nonmetropolitan counties. Contrary to expectations, we find that resource disadvantage exerts a greater positive effect on both violent and property crimes in nonmetropolitan counties that lost population between 1980 and 1990. Implications for theory and research are discussed.     

Social Consequences of Employee/Management Buyouts: Two Canadian Examples From the Forest Sector*

Abstract Local control of natural resource processing facilities in small rural communities is often viewed as beneficial to community development. This paper employs social impact assessment tools to examine the social and economic effects of change in the ownership of forest products mills in two communities. Our analysis documents (1) the degree to which local ownership of the new, locally owned corporations led to local reinvestment of profits, and (2) whether the goals of the architects of these buyouts were realized: the maintenance of jobs, income, population, and a way of life. Overall, both communities were able to maintain jobs, population, and real estate values, and profits were reinvested in mill upgrades. After the buyouts, however, both communities experienced a rise and then a decline in community cohesion, and changes in local social and power relations, in which local ownership was short‐lived; benefits to relationships within the community were mixed.     

Declining social mobility? Evidence from five linked censuses in England and Wales 1971–2011

In this paper we add to the existing evidence base on recent trends in inter‐generational social mobility in England and Wales. We analyse data from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (ONS‐LS), which links individual records from the five decennial censuses between 1971 and 2011. The ONS‐LS is an excellent data resource for the study of social mobility because it has a very large sample size, excellent population coverage and low rates of nonresponse and attrition across waves. Additionally, the structure of the study means that we can observe the occupations of LS‐members' parents when they were children and follow their own progress in the labour market at regular intervals into middle age. Counter to widespread prevailing beliefs, our results show evidence of a small but significant increase in social fluidity between 1950s and the 1980s for both men and women.     

Kitwood's thought and relational social work

Tom Kitwood is a key figure in the development of thought about dementia, but generally no references are made to his work outside of elderly care. This article argues that Kitwood's thought has much to offer to all the professional caregivers, regardless of the users’ category they are caring for, and to the broader field of professional social work. Some key themes from the writings of Kitwood are examined, namely the critique of the ‘standard paradigm’; the conception of malignant social psychology; the respect for otherness in the positive person work; the person with dementia as a resource for reciprocity processes; the new culture of dementia. For each of these issues similarities between Kitwood's approach and relational social work are identified. Relational social work considers the helping process and the well-being development as co-constructions, in which the contributions not only by the helper (or the caregiver, or the social worker), but also by the helpee (or by the care recipient, or by the user) are essential: both at the same time are helped and helpers, and both are empowered by this. This idea—of great value to all social work fields—is remarkably close to the Kitwood's thought about the dementia care.     

Payroll taxes for social security in the United States: The future of fiscal and social policy illusions

This paper examines the validity of common assumptions about the basis of public support for the U.S. social security program. Various rationales for the social insurance approach are summarized and critically assessed. A review of public opinion surveys from 1935–1981 shows: (1) the distinction between social insurance and public assistance was not regarded as important by the public in the program's early years; (2) most Americans are now aware that the system operates on a pay-as-you-go basis; (3) there is widespread feeling that social security payroll taxes are too high, but at the same time a majority of the population thinks program benefits should be maintained or increased; and (4) serious doubt about the program's future is widespread, with many workers believing that there will not be sufficient money left for their own pensions when they retire. The paper concludes that the explanation of social security's enduring popular appeal and the phenomenon of mass toleration of rising payroll taxes is more closely tied to the perception that the program serves a deserving clientele, rather than a result of the social insurance approach.     

Utilization of the interprofessional education,practice, and research model in HBCU social work education

ABSTRACT

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are often overlooked as a resource to address the need for a diverse healthcare workforce even though they are an essential component of ensuring diversity. In order to meet the needs of the current patient population, HBCUs’ social work programs must move from silo education, practice, and research pedagogy to inter-professional education (IPE), practice (IPP), and research (IPR) modalities when developing partnerships that promote the elimination of health disparities. This article discusses the contributions of a HBCU’s School of Social Work to the growth of IPE, IPP, and IPR utilizing the Ujima principle of Nguzo Saba. The projects developed were an attempt to provide meaningful and relevant education to social work students while exposing them to a collaborative inter-professional education, practice, and research experience. The three social work projects included intra-university and social community collaborations and exposing students to experiential inter-professional education, practice, and experimental learning. This is an opportunity for social work students to become involved in the evolving best practices pedagogy for inter-professional education, practice, and research which social work must embrace in order to fulfill the National Association of Social Workers imperative of preparing students to work in collaborative health care teams. The expected outcomes of these inter-professional ventures reflect a HBCU’s commitment to increasing the competency in inter-professional modalities aimed at supporting, empowering, and preparing high caliber diverse graduates who will grow the future and lead the world as a diverse healthcare workforce.     

The demographic transformation and the sociological enterprise

The dramatic demographic changes of the 1980s and 1990s in the United States are creating a multiracial, multicultural society. This article examines the intellectual challenges for sociology posed by the emerging racial diversity brought about by these population trends. The problem is that conventional sociological frameworks no longer apply in this increasingly complex social world of rapid population changes, diversity, and polarization. Most significant, conventional American sociology, which has focused on white society rooted in western culture, is challenged by three large racial/ethnic categories. We argue that diversity must be incorporated into our sociologies. This requires two new approaches: (1) Sociology must be recentered, that is, it must move away from the notion that whites have the universal experience against which all others are measured; and (2) Sociologists must apply to diverse populations the same kind of sociological analysis that they apply to mainstream categories. This means that we demythologize by dispelling common myths about those outside the mainstream and that we uncover the mechanisms that construct social differences.     

Out of the Darkness: Three Waves of Family Research and the Emergence of Family Therapy for Lesbian and Gay People

Like family relationships themselves, the history and treatment of lesbian and gay people and their families is complicated. For this paper, three waves of research on the families of gay and lesbian individuals are described. During the first wave, gay and lesbian sexual orientation was seen as a disease and family dynamics were blamed for its genesis. Subsequently in the second wave it was believed that, fearing rejection many gay and lesbian people either distanced or were rejected from their own families and established friendship networks that have been described as families of choice. More recently, in the third wave, the family has been identified as a resource for lesbian and gay youth whereby open relationships with parents can help protect them from mental illness, substance abuse, and HIV risk. Furthermore, an increasing number of same-sex couples are choosing to become parents, overcoming biological and social obstacles. In this article these shifting views of the role of family in the lives of lesbian and gay people will be described along with case material that illustrates the historic influences, current developments and future directions of family treatment for this population. To be maximally effective with gay and lesbian people and their families, clinical social workers and other mental health professionals must understand how family therapy has been influenced by a progression of ideas that continue to evolve. In this paper, research examining the role of the family in the lives of lesbian and gay people will be described in three waves; as a source of blame, to an impediment to gay and lesbian happiness and ultimately a resource that can enhance lesbian and gay well-being. The influences of research on family therapy with this population will be described and case examples will demonstrate how to harness the strengths of family relationships identified in the most recent wave.     

Fundamentals for an International Typology of Social Enterprise Models

The quest for a widely accepted definition of social enterprise (SE) has been a central issue in the last two decades. However, it only seems feasible today to identify a few criteria that were most debated: the specific role of individual social entrepreneurs, the place of social innovation, the search for market income and the issue of governance. The arena of conceptualization efforts should now be fed with more contributions starting from bottom-up approaches built upon a hypothesis that could be termed “the impossibility of a unified definition”. In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework combining principles of interest (mutual, general and capital interest) and resource mixes to identify institutional trajectories generating four major SE models. We then show that all four SE models may address the actual diversity of SE’s social missions. Finally, we suggest that such social missions may be enhanced differently depending on the respective governance mechanisms.     

Continuing Validity of the Collective Behavior Approach

This study evaluates the collective behavior (CB) approach that dominated studies of social movements from the 1920s to the 1970s. Its roots lie in five scholarly traditions: Durkheim (collective consciousness), Mill (a sum of individual cost‐benefit calculations), Weber (charisma and bureaucracy), Simmel (interaction of individuals), and European mass psychology. CB studies began in Chicago University in the 1920s by Robert E. Park. His pupil Herbert Blumer made the basic classifications in the field. In the interactionist school, Ralph Turner and Lewis Killian stressed the emerging norms that modify CB, and Kurt and Gladys Engel Lang focused on collective processes. In the structure‐functionalistic school, Talcott Parsons stressed the impact of cultural trends in movement emergence, and Neil Smelser developed a value‐added theory of how social movements form. CB tradition was attacked in the 1960s when its theories did not fit into the student movement and there was a paradigm shift to resource mobilization and Marxist approaches. However, with the rise of constructivism, the ideas of CB have been reinvented in new social movement studies.     

How Resource Dependency Can Influence Social Resilience within a Primary Resource Industry*

Abstract Maintaining a healthy balance between human prosperity and environmental integrity is at the core of the principles of Ecological Sustainable Development. Resource‐protection policies are frequently implemented so as to regulate the balance between resource access and use, however, they can inadvertently compromise the ability of resource users to adapt and be resilient. Resource users who are especially dependent on a resource are more seriously compromised. But how do we define and measure resource dependency? And how do we assess its ability to influence social resilience? In this study, a conceptual model of resource dependency is developed in terms of: (i) occupational attachment, (ii) attachment to place, (iii) employability, (iv) family attitude to change, (v) business size, (vi) business approach, (vii) financial situation, (viii) level of specialisation, (ix) time spent harvesting, and (x) interest in and knowledge of the environment. The model of resource dependency and its effect on social resilience are (quantitatively and qualitatively) tested and explored using the commercial fishing industry in North Queensland, Australia. Results show that occupational attachment and employability were important influences as were business size and approach. Results can be used to identify vulnerability to institutional change and guide policy development processes.     

Aging,Health, and Social Policy:

Seven major turning points in the evolution of U.S. aging policy are identified and reviewed: (1) the Social Security Act (2) the Great Society (3) the federalization of Old Age Assistance (4) the enactment of comprehensive social services (5) Social Security improvements (6) New Federalism, and (7) medical cost-containment policies under Medicare and Medicaid. In the 1980s, significant and growing problems of uninsurance and underinsurance for health care have re-emerged. Simultaneously, state Medicaid programs are characterized by their increasing variation and inequities, while there has been a decline in access for the poor. The future of aging policy will be decided in the context of four socio-demographic realities: (1) population aging (2) trends in mortality and morbidity (3) the relationship between income and health, and (4) aging as a woman's issue. The article concludes with a call for a recommitment to the public interest and to public solutions which affirm that health care is an inalienable right.     

An analysis of major social obstacles affecting human resource development in Iran

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to analyze the major social obstacles affecting the human resource development (HRD) in Iran. The study population included faculty members in Yazd province, Iran (N = 280, n = 162). A survey and a researcher-made questionnaire were used to collect data. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by using Cronbach’s alpha (0.88) and its validity was approved by a panel of experts. The results indicated that the major social obstacles affecting HRD are ‘an increase in the share of foreigners in the labor market’, ‘frustration of native graduates’ and ‘local brain drain’, respectively. Furthermore, the results of exploratory factor analysis indicated that the most important social obstacles affecting HRD can be summarized into six factors including migration, lack of nativism, inclination towards foreigners, gender imbalance, lack of justice in distribution of resources, and lack of meritocracy. These factors altogether could explain 65.45% of the total variance. In the end, some applied recommendations (such as paying more attention to rural youth, fair distribution of facilities towards urban and rural balance, supporting native elites, preference for employment, and applying indigenous peoples based on meritocracy, creating favorable balance at different levels of academic education, avoiding gender inequality) have been presented.     

Exploring the politics of social movements through 'sociological intervention': a case study of local exchange trading schemes

Touraine's method of Sociological Intervention (SI) for the analysis of social movements is examined in the light of a case study of Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS). Tempered by Melucci's critique of Touraine's attempt to find one ‘higher’ meaning of a social movement. LETS was examined using a staged series of focus groups to uncover and illuminate the extent that LETS can be regarded as a social movement. The appropriateness of SI as a method within the resource constraints of a small study is discussed, and SI is recommended as an effective method of examining emerging social movements if triangulated with other methodological approaches.     

Enforcement of exogenous environmental regulation, social disapproval and bribery

Many resource users are not directly involved in the formulation and enforcement of resource management rules and regulations in developing countries. As a result, resource users do not generally accept such rules. An enforcement officer who has social ties with the resource users may encounter social disapproval and possible social exclusion from the resource users if he/she enforces the regulation zealously. The officer, however, may avoid this social disapproval by accepting bribes. In this paper, we present a simple model that characterizes this situation and derive results for situations where the officer is passively and actively involved in the bribery.