The AGENCY Computer Simulation Model

AGENCY is a computer simulation model developed to emulate service delivery in a mental health center, but broadly applicable to most human service delivery organizations. Definition of the service providing agency is input to the program from a separate data file, so the program is extremely flexible and general. Initial validation results are positive. The program is written in SIMULA to run on a DEC-10.     

Using the Personal Computer in Disaster Intervention

We describe in this paper the contributions of the personalcomputer to a rural mental health program designed to address disaster-induced psychological problems following a flood. The computer served a vital role in several areas. First, we were able to use the computer in desktop publication of pamphlets for disaster survivors. Second, we used the computer for managing data to assess the needs of survivors, evaluate effectiveness, and generate reports. And third, we used the computer to mail letters to all survivors, providing them with updated information regarding available services and continuing concerns. In evaluating the success of the program, we conclude that the computer enabled us to implement a program that was inexpensive, responsive, efficient and effective.     

Negotiating the Digital Closet: Online Pseudonymity and the Politics of Sexual Identity

Online surveillance interferes with the individual's ability to control their expressive identity - to determine the scope of the social context in which their activities are to be seen and interpreted. Entrepreneurs have responded to these concerns by offering pseudonymizers, which employ cryptographic techniques to allow users to create several unlinkable personae and choose among them when engaging in various online interactions. This article investigates the tension between pseudonymity as a design paradigm for privacy technologies and as a lived practice for users. Because coming out - strategic revelation and the claiming of identity - has been at the core of the gay liberation movement, this article posits a politically and sexually active gay professional man as an ideal user of pseudonymity software, and places the design logic of pseudonymity within that particular set of social understandings. It reveals the conflicts, contradictions and trade-offs inherent in that use. Pseudonymity permits a very strong control of identity. It permits the user to segregate his public performances, and to engage in public debate without fear of bodily retribution. However, it is all but useless as a means of controlling the social context of those performances. It requires that decisions about self-presentation in certain contexts be made in ignorance of who is sharing that context, and with what resources or purpose. While it promotes the production of multiple selves, those selves are not easily lent to practices of intimacy or community. Pseudonymity also facilitates profiling practices that define and reify classes of people, even as it protects the individual from some of the repercussions of being defined as part of that class. In short, pseudonymity software is informed by a politics of heroics rather than of community.     

Computer systems in addiction treatment programs: Availability and implications for program evaluation

Addiction treatment programs have been slow to adopt computerized information systems. Little systematic data exist on programs' technological infrastructures and use of electronic databases to store and analyze client information. Likewise, there is little information available on counselors' access to and use of the Internet for learning about new treatment techniques. Drawing upon data obtained in 2002–2003 from nationally-representative samples of publicly- and privately-funded addiction treatment centers and their counselors, this article describes the current state of the field in terms of data system availability and Internet usage. The availability of client-level databases is variable but continues to evolve. Programs maintaining electronic client data appear to be at an advantage for implementing outcomes monitoring activities. While counselors' access to computers is high, their use of the Internet and the NIDA website is low. The implications of these findings, and directions for future research, are discussed.     

Open adoption records,the human rights of adopted people,and discrimination: the case of Odièvre v France 2003

The recent judgement by the European Court of Human Rights in the Odièvre v France case has denied some adopted people the right to access identifying information about their family of origin. Yet, in the UK, adopted people have enjoyed the right to access identifying information for many years. The evidence from practice and research has demonstrated the positive benefits adopted people and their birth and adoptive relatives have gained from an open record policy. In this paper, the authors argue that denying some adopted people access to information that could enhance their personal identity creates an act of discrimination.     

从《十亿之夜》看后现代语境下身份认同的复杂性

认同问题是当今世界的热点,而跨越不同国家和文化的女性写作所寻求的身份认同往往是多元认同的结合。本文力图通过对在阿拉伯国家甚至在西方世界都享有盛名的作家嘉黛最重要的作品之一《十亿之夜》的介绍,探讨后现代语境下身份认同的复杂性。     

消费主义视阈下“90后”大学生的国家认同与政治认同

消费主义作为一种"去意识形态"的意识形态,通过形而下的生活方式和消费内容,不同程度地影响和削弱当代大学生的国家、民族认同与政治认同,降低民族凝聚力、向心力、整合力,并进而影响到国家统一、民族团结和政治安定。因此,必须从意识形态安全、国家软实力等方面考虑,重视消费主义对大学生的国家认同、民族认同和政治认同方面的影响,从学校教育、家庭教育、社会教育和自我教育四个方面完善和提高大学生的国家认同、民族认同与政治认同,抵御消费主义文化的消极影响。     

以色列在非对称战争中的媒体策略调整

战争与媒体有着密切的联系。尤其是在实力悬殊的非对称战争中,媒体策略的运用在造成以弱胜强或者强者不能赢局面的过程中发挥了重要作用。以色列是地处中东危机频发的国家,拥有比较完善的危机管理机制,并通过战争总结经验教训,不断完善。本文以2006年黎以战争和2008年至2009年之交的加沙战争为例,考察了以色列在两次非对称战争中的媒体政策的调整,政府新闻部门、国防军和媒体的组合拳是当今以色列在非对称战争中媒体策略运用的主要特点,并取得了比较明显的效果。因此,媒体战、信息战在今后的非对称战争中也将占据更为重要的位置。     

Investing in people: The role of social networks in the diffusion of a large-scale fraud

This paper draws from social network analysis and diffusion theory to study the case of a mortgage fraud that spread undetected for five years in British Columbia, Canada. The fraud is studied from the point of view of 559 victims who unknowingly invested in the Ponzi scheme which defrauded 2285 investors for a total of $ 240 million dollars. Results show diffusion played a role in the success of the Eron fraud even though the fraud ended before it reached the final stages of a classic diffusion process. A closer look at the social structure of the Eron network revealed the elements that made the fraud successful: (1) change agents, particularly Eron principals and Eron employees invested their personal time and effort recruiting investors; (2) independent brokers actively spread the fraud to their clients; and (3) opinion leaders, investors themselves, unknowingly spread the fraud through their social networks by recruiting their friends and family to invest in Eron.     

中东地区清真寺功能的演变

清真寺是伊斯兰教最重要的建筑物，其功能随着历史发展而不断演变。中古时期的清真寺以宗教功能为基础，兼具社会、政治和文化功能，在穆斯林生活中占据核心地位；近代以来，清真寺保持和加强民族认同以及提供情感依托和社会支持的功能得到强化，大众动员功能逐渐增强。这些功能在全球化时代得到进一步发展，在一定程度上缓解了全球化引起的伊斯兰国家民族认同危机、经济结构面临调整、人口跨国流动增加等压力。     

The success of the Cuban success story: Ethnicity,power, and politics

This article examines the convergence of various forces that constructed a public image of Cuban Americans in the United States as a politically united, socially homogeneous, and economically successful ethnic group. The claims that comprise the Cuban “success story” are not well‐grounded in an objective, empirical reality, but do reflect the historical interplay of power and politics locally, nationally, and internationally. The focus is on how politicians, the media and the civic elite construct images of reality, the processes that determine which images gain prominence in the public mind, and the ways in which the images, themselves, shape social and political outcomes. Metropolitan Miami provides the laboratory, but the analytical approach generates important insights for the study of ethnicity and the politics of identity more generally.     

The Idea of a Cosmopolitan Europe: On the Cultural Significance of Europeanization

The idea of a cosmopolitan Europe is defined against a ‘national Europe’, on the one side and on the other, ‘global Europe’ where an internationalist EU-led Europe plays a major role in the world. A cosmopolitan Europe is a more accurate designation of the emerging form of Europeanization as a mediated and emergent reality of the national and the global. It is possible to conceive of European identity as a cosmopolitan identity based on a cultural logic of self-transformation rather than as a supranational identity or an official EU identity that is in a relation of tension with national identities. As a cosmopolitan identity, European identity is a form of post-national self-understanding that expresses itself within, as much as beyond, national identities.     

Ageing in the bush: The role of rural places in maintaining identity for long term rural residents and retirement migrants in north-east Victoria,Australia

As a consequence of local population ageing, which is more pronounced in rural areas, the issue of maintaining a positive quality of life for rural older people is attracting significant attention. While environmental psychology theory has advocated the role of place identity in defining the self, there has been little applied research exploring how this occurs in later life. This exploratory, qualitative study (n = 16) utilises 6 and 7 identity process theory to investigate how rural older Australians (retirement migrants and long-term residents) use place to sustain and build a sense of self at a time when many are susceptible to age-related loss. The paper draws on the concepts of distinctiveness, continuity, self-esteem and self-efficacy in order to explore how place identity is supported and maintained. Findings suggest that rural places are beneficial in terms of identity maintenance, with differences between long term and more recent rural residents. Furthermore, findings also highlight that place-related change or growth can potentially threaten older people’s identification as a ‘rural’ person.     

The Parable of Matthew: Identity Politics, Politics of Desire, and the Politics of Performance

Matthew Shepard's murder in October 1998 provides an opportunity to examine and reconsider identity politics as they play out around Matthew's body. After a sustained critique of identity politics, the author proposes, in their stead, a politics of performance, which offers a constructive alternative to current political agendas by allowing the simultaneous preservation and erasure of difference.     

The crisis of 'identity' in high modernity

The concept of 'identity' is central to much contemporary sociology, reflecting a crisis that manifests itself in two ways. Firstly, there is a view that identity is both vital and problematic in this period of high modernity. Secondly, while this awareness is reflected in sociology, its accounts of identity are inconsistent, under-theorized and incapable of bearing the analytical load required. As a result, there is an inherent contradiction between a valuing of identity as so fundamental as to be crucial to personal well-being, and a theorization of 'identity' that sees it as something constructed, fluid, multiple, impermanent and fragmentary. The contemporary crisis of identity thus expresses itself as both a crisis of society, and a crisis of theory. This paper explores the diverse ways in which 'identity' is deployed before turning to case-studies of its use by Anthony Giddens and Manuel Castells. This strategy demonstrates the widespread and diverse concern with identity before exploring how problematic it has become, even in the work of two of the world's leading sociologists.     

Wall Street Scandals: The Myth of Individual Greed1

There is rarely an introductory text in sociology that does not begin with C. Wright Mills’s (1967) distinction between personal troubles and structural or public issues. To lack sociological imagination is to confuse between these two levels of analysis in trying to explain public issues in terms of personal troubles, or history in terms of the individual’s biography. “Troubles occur within the character of the individual and within the range of his immediate relations with others; Issues have to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of his inner life” ( Mills, 1967:8 ). Issues are generated in response to the dynamics of the social system and unfold within the larger structural and historical contexts where the character of the individual takes shape. Yet, the most popular explanation of the contemporary financial crisis with its disastrous social and economic consequences is personal greed. It is the greedy investment bankers, corrupt politicians, and unscrupulous lobbyists who are to take the brunt of the current economic meltdown in the United States. A few bad apples on Wall Street have created havoc on Main Street. Here, one may argue that greed that—if not kept in check—which seems to afflict almost everyone, transcending social class and status boundaries, may be a public issue—a structural problem—rather than a problem within the character of the individual. Not to be greedy within the contemporary social and economic system may be considered pathological, an instance of personal trouble.     

从族群与国家认同矛盾看阿拉伯国家的国内冲突

在阿拉伯世界，族群、国家、民族、宗教多元认同的存在决定了阿拉伯国家的国家认同深受多元认同的困扰。本文主要探讨了种族、语言、宗教、教派等族群认同对阿拉伯国家认同的挑战，分析了阿拉伯国家族群冲突的四种主要形态：权力分割族裔化而引发的国内冲突；权力垄断族裔化而引发的国内冲突；主体民族与少数民族族裔群体的冲突；跨界族群寻求自治与独立引发的冲突。阿拉伯国家的族群冲突反映了阿拉伯民族国家建构存在的问题和遭遇的挫折。     

The Myth of Global Social Work: Double Standards and the Local-Global Divide

The push towards “global standards” in social work is part of a movement to generate uniformity, quality control, and benchmarking for professional education programs. It acts as a powerful vestige of modern institutions and professional associations to prescribe through processes of standardization, formalization, and technical specificity. In social work “global standards” attempt to create a fixed set of minimal requirements to which all professional programs should adhere. Standards are viewed along two dimensions: (i) as a necessity due to the changes and scale of complexity in social work; and (ii) as a vehicle for importing dominant forms of knowledge, values, and skills. Those parties who enthusiastically underwrite attempts to construct “global standards” in fact create a powerful network of allies that undermine local or cultural differences and fail to reconcile them. Global standards in social work undercut indigenous skills and values and negate the expertise of professional judgement. They constitute an unnecessary and politically motivated intrusion in the world of social workers. Ultimately, standards such as these are an illegitimate, impersonal, and voluntary means of regulation. As such, global standards are inherently political because their construction and application formally regulates the local practices in which they become embedded. Over time, they modify the position of social work practitioners and alter relations of accountability to the standards themselves.     

论消费主义与当代青年身份建构

消费主义对当代青年的影响应该引起重视。当前,消费主义盛行的原因之一在于消费给人们提供一种身份建构的重要方式。在消费中,人们体验着自由和平等,确定了自身的价值所在,实现被他者认同,并获得了群体归宿感。然而,这种身份构建方式具有极大的不稳定性,它使人为物所役,而自由、平等也成为幻影。当代青年所处的时代在一定程度上催生着消费主义,但是,青年不应该因此而沉沦其中,要清醒认识消费之于人类的本真意义,寻求更为合理的身份建构方式。     

The potential of dialogues on social identity and diversity for immigrant civic integration

Local governments have become increasingly important in the governance of immigration. The present study evaluates a local government sponsored dialogue on social identity and diversity aimed at promoting the civic integration of immigrant participants. Based on models for community dialogues across cultural differences and on the literature on immigrant civic integration, the researcher designed, implemented and evaluated the dialogue. The evaluation was based on an exit questionnaire completed by participants, observation notes taken by the researcher, and a follow-up interview with the program coordinator. The evaluation suggests that dialogues among newcomers about social identity and diversity that match most of the ideal conditions for positive intergroup contact stated in the literature likely facilitate immigrant civic integration. Participants reported improved feelings of mutual understanding and inclination to collaborate across cultural differences. The findings also indicate that participants developed a capacity to balance appreciation for cultural differences and group identities with proclivity to collaboration across cultural groups.