Scholarly ethics and courtroom antics: Where researchers stand in the eyes of the law

In 1993 the author, then a Ph.D. candidate in sociology, was jailed for 159 days after refusing to violate the American Sociological Association’sCode of Ethics provisions prohibiting the sharing of confidential research data with law enforcement authorities. This article discusses theCode, presents the facts of the case, answers critics of the author’s and the ASA’s stance, summarizes an attorney’s analysis of researcher’s rights in the eyes of the law, and concludes by urging sociologists to seek federal legislation protecting them and their work product from intrusions by public and private institutions. with emphases in environmental sociology, social movements, research methods, and science and technology at Montana State University.     

A three-stage process of reactions to change: Maternal employment and day care

This article delineates a three-stage process of reactions to social and economic changes that threaten traditional values. In the first stage, public and professional reactions are predominantly negative; in the second stage, predominantly ambivalent; and in the third stage, predominantly accepting. This three-stage process is used to analyze the reactions to increases in maternal employment and day care. A key issue for future investigation is whether the same process represents a predictable sequence of reactions to other social and economic changes that threaten traditional values.Thanks are extended to Judy Sidden and Chris Ivanick for their contributions to this article.His research interests include family policy and comparative family issues. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University.     

‘Where are you from?’: Identifying place1

Many social research projects, such as interviews, focus groups, and surveys, take local place as a given: they choose participants from a particular place, take this place as background for what the participants say, ask them about place‐related issues, and correlate responses with different places. But people can identify places in different ways, in geographical or relational terms, and in different levels of scale. This study analyses passages in focus groups in which participants say where they are from, shows that participants generally take the question and answer as routine, and then shows the ways the interaction develops when this routineness is broken, amended, or called into question. When a participant revises their statement of where they are from, they adapt to what they see as the knowledge and stance of their interlocutor, they re‐present themselves, and they create possibilities for further talk, defending, telling stories, or showing entitlement to an opinion. I argue that the ways people answer this question, interactively, can tell us about them, and us, as well as about their map of the world.     

Finish what you start: A study of Design Team change initiatives' impact on agency climate

This study employs a multi-site longitudinal design to examine the effect of a Design Team intervention on organizational climate. Thirteen private, not-for-profit child welfare agencies from one state participated in a Design Team intervention to address workforce needs. A total of 407 workers from those agencies responded pre and post intervention to a survey that measures worker perceptions of the psychological climate of their organization using the Parker Psychological Climate Survey. Workers in organizations that completed the Design Team intervention had statistically significant increases in three of the four dimensions of the Parker scale. On the role dimension, significant change was noted on all three subscales on the interaction between Time 1 and Time 2 (ambiguity: p = 0.012; conflict: p = 0.04; overload: p = 0.05). On the organization dimension, the justice and support subscales had significant differences in the desired direction (justice: p = 0.05; support: p = 0.03). On the supervisor dimension, significant change was observed in the desired direction for both the goal emphasis and work facilitation subscales (goal emphasis: p = 0.02; work facilitation: p = 0.00). Statistically significant improvements in the organizational climates of child welfare agencies suggest the benefit of future research to test the effectiveness of Design Team interventions in other service areas. These findings build on intervention research with organizations by linking the ability of an organization to fully implement a change initiative to their capacity to improve the workplace climate for employees.     

HRC and DPA on where harm reduction is,where it's going

As “harm reduction” increasingly becomes less grassroots and more established in governmental and organizational bureaucracies, ADAW asked representatives of two major groups — the Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC) and the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) — about the current and ongoing role of harm reduction.     

Weights on the rise: where and for whom?

Using over 70 nationally representative surveys, I find evidence of a dramatic increase in the share of women who are overweight in developing and transition economies, especially in Latin America and the Middle East. Urban rates of the overweight, measured by the body mass index (BMI), are also far higher than those in rural areas. In examining the inter-temporal changes in the entire standardized weight distribution, there are nonetheless many instances where it is not possible to reject the null of non-dominance, especially in rural areas. It is also clear that the distribution of women’s BMIs in most countries is becoming markedly less equitable, and that this increase in univariate inequality is driven largely by the increase in BMIs among overweight and obese women. This is somewhat analogous to the oft discussed “rich get richer” story. That is, the increasing concentration of weight, standardized by heights, among the overweight is driving a significant share of the overall increase in BMI inequality. A related finding is that when I decompose the changes in the prevalence of overweight into the effect of shifts in the mean versus changes in the distribution, in many countries, even holding mean BMI constant, there would be a marked increase in the prevalence of clinically overweight women due to changes in the shape of the BMI distribution.     

Refusals: Who, Where and Why

The characteristics of a very small group of people who refusedto participate in a personal interview panel study are investigatedin this article. Comparisons are made between characteristicsof respondents and refusers in the initial interview and subsequentinterviews. Details of the refusal situation and reasons givenby refusers for their noncooperation are also discussed.     

Sexual Harassment: Where We Were,Where We Are and Prospects for the New Millennium Introduction to the Special Issue*

L'article qui suit présente les documents qui existent sur le harcèle-ment sexuel et examine brièHvement les questions qui restent en suspens et la manière dont on pourrait les aborder. II donne des définitions et des concepts, se penche sur la question de la fréquence et de la Constance du harcèlement sexuel, et étudie les corrélations, les stratégies mises sur pied pour réagir et leurs effets. II discute des modèles de pouvoir en place dans les entreprises et dans la société patriarcale ainsi que des théories des rôles et de l'attribution; l'article propose aussi un modèle de responsabilité sociale à multiples facettes. Enfin, il détermine les obstacles qui empêchent encore les femmes de travailler et de vivre dans un milieu sécuritaire. In this article, I summarize the major highlights of the burgeoning literature on sexual harassment and briefly review the remaining issues and how they may be addressed. Definitions and conceptualizations, as well as the incidence and perseverance of sexual harassment are summarized along with correlates, response strategies and effects. Organizational and patriarchal power models as well as role and attribution theories are discussed, leading to a proposal of a multifaceted social responsibility model to better deal with the complexities of sexual harassment. The paper ends with an assessment of the contribution of this special issue to the field, and identifies remaining barriers to safe work and leisure environments for women.     

Where local and national evaluators meet: unintended threats to ethical evaluation practice

The ethical work of program evaluators is based on a covenant of honesty and transparency among stakeholders. Yet even under the most favorable evaluation conditions, threats to ethical standards exist and muddle that covenant. Unfortunately, ethical issues associated with different evaluation structures and contracting arrangements have received little attention in the evaluation research literature. This article focuses on the unintended ethical threats associated with multitiered evaluation contexts. After briefly reviewing the various frames through which evaluation theory and ethics are commonly viewed, we discuss ethical challenges associated with multitiered evaluation designs including examples drawn from our evaluation projects. The article concludes with specific findings and recommendations for evaluators, grantors, grantees, and researchers.     

Deciding Where to go: Policies,People and Perceptions Shaping Destination Preferences

There is considerable interest among European politicians and policymakers in the factors influencing the destination preferences of refugees and other migrants. Drawing on in‐depth qualitative interviews with more than 250 Syrians, Eritreans and Nigerians, this article examines the destination preferences of those crossing the Mediterranean in 2015 and the extent to which they were aware of, and/or influenced by, policies intended to control and manage their arrival. Our findings question the extent to which deterrence policies have their intended or assumed effects. Preferred destinations are rarely identified solely, or even primarily, on the basis of migration policies devised by different governments with the explicit aim of reducing the number of arrivals. Rather they reflect the “coming together” of a wide range of factors, including access to protection and family reunification, the availability/accuracy of information, the overall economic environment and social networks. Moreover perceptions of migration policies may be more significant than their content as the implications are often not known or misunderstood.     

Running hard to stand still: Communication and information technology within social work training

Recent years have seen rapid technological changes and these have impacted on social work and social work education. Social work educators struggle to keep pace with these changes. Drawing on the author's own experience, this article outlines some key resources that are available to social work educators and students, reflects on the role of 'Communication and Information Technology' within the social work curriculum, and looks towards future developments in relation to online learning.     

大众文化将把青少年引向何方?

一 中国已经进入了一个大众文化的时代。大众文化在西方的产生是与现代化的进程相一致的,它产生于工业革命以来生产方式和交换方式变革所带来的文化与经济一体化的结合过程。我们知道,进入本世纪以来,随着世界经济的持续快速增长,大众消费时代也接踵而至。在大规模的物质刺激、物质享受、物质消费的引导和支配下,文化消费由初露锋芒到逐步上升为一个独立的层次,在市场需求的刺激下,以赢利为目的的文化工业便应运而生;现代科学技术的飞速发展和大众传媒的兴起则为文化工业的发展提供了必要的科学基础与技术支撑;而现代化进程中文化…     

Examining Where We Were and Where We Are: Clinical Issues in Adoption 1985–1995

This article examines the changes in adoption practices over the past decade by referencing a series of 1985 articles published by Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal that presented theoretical considerations for maintaining closed adoptions. The author uses her own experience as an adoption professional, those articles currently published in the field of adoption and the experience of those most impacted by adoption, birthparents, adoptive parents and adoptees, in examining and presenting the benefits and value of open adoption.