The Influence of Volunteer Recruitment Practices and Expectations on the Development of Volunteers’ Psychological Contracts

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Volunteer recruitment and retention continue to be important issues for not-for-profit organisations. A theoretical...     

Discussion of Green’s “Melanie Klein and the Black Mammy: An Exploration of the Influence of the Mammy Stereotype on Klein’s Maternal and Its Contribution to the ‘Whiteness’ of Psychoanalysis”

This article is a response, in cinematic, historical, and autobiographical terms, to Emily Green’s “Melanie Klein and the Black Mammy: An Exploration of the Influence of the Mammy Stereotype on Klein’s Maternal and Its Contribution to the ‘Whiteness’ of Psychoanalysis.” The author attempts to open up Green’s analysis to a wide range of aesthetic, emotional, and political implications, moving between a consideration of the “passing” motif in Douglas Sirk’s film Imitation of Life (1959); thoughts on racialization and trauma in psychoanalytic history more generally; and reflections on the author’s own experiences of racialization and collective disavowal in psychotherapeutic training.     

Access is not enough: the impact of emotional costs and self-efficacy on the changes in African-American students’ ICT use patterns

Previous research has examined the impact of computing interventions to reduce digital inequity. However, few studies focus on factors such as inequalities to material access, Internet use patterns, and affective or emotional anxiety. This paper investigates the potential role of emotional costs and computer self-efficacy in the connection between computer use at home and students’ computer use patterns. Data for this research come from pretest and posttest surveys administered to fourth- and fifth-grade African-American students. The results reveal that students’ home computer use is a significant predictor of the change in their information and entertainment usage over the course of the intervention. Students’ emotional costs partially mediate the relationship between home computer use and information-oriented usage over the intervention period. The findings suggest that providing students access to digital devices is not enough to close the digital divide.     

Melanie Klein and the Black Mammy: An Exploration of the Influence of the Mammy Stereotype on Klein’s Maternal and Its Contribution to the “Whiteness” of Psychoanalysis

This article seeks to show the influence of the black mammy stereotype on Melanie Klein’s theorization of the maternal object. It takes as its starting point the underrepresentation of black analysts and their negative experiences within psychoanalysis and links this to the wider cultural phenomenon of “whiteness,” defined as the denial of racialized experience. It then explores a symbol of this whiteness, the colonial stereotype of the black mammy, and demonstrates that she was a well-known figure in the interwar Britain in which Klein developed her ideas. It suggests that the colonial dynamics between the mammy and white people are repeated in Klein’s formulation of the maternal object and infant, and argues that we can see evidence of this in Klein’s analysis of Dick and in her theorization of the maternal object as split and as a combined parent figure. It then shows that a “negress” is central to the article used by Klein in her formulation of reparation, but that Klein transformed this article, replete with questions of racial identity, into a theory of “universal” psychic processes by reading the “negress” as mammy. It argues that the mammy may well have been a potent figure for Klein both professionally and personally due to the modernist trend of using “blackness” to break from tradition and due to a precedent of the mammy facilitating Jewish assimilation into whiteness. The Kleinian theory of the maternal object, inflected with the racial dynamics embodied by the mammy, can therefore be seen as contributing to psychoanalysis’ silence on race, perpetuating the invisibility of whiteness to white subjects and legitimating (psychic) violence toward the black other.     

Empowerment through work: the cases of disabled individuals and low-skilled women workers on the US–Mexican border

This article discusses workers at two organizations: one employing disabled individuals and another employing low-skilled Mexican-American women. Workers at both organizations show positive effects from employment, including having increased self-efficacy and self-esteem, valuing work as a source of income and personal growth, as well as developing a sense of community. These perceptions contrast sharply with statements presented about how they viewed themselves and their abilities before working in these organizations. Through comparisons between these two sets of experiences, we show how individuals draw meaning, dignity, self-esteem, and empowerment from work.     

Learning from Mental Health Lived Experience and the Influence on Students’ Practice

This study explored how learning from mental health lived experience influenced Australian social work students’ practice during their first fieldwork placement. Involvement of mental health consumers in social work education is gaining momentum, yet little is known about how this type of learning informs students’ practice. Ten social work students participated in semistructured interviews and one focus group. Findings suggest that learning from lived experience promoted social work practice that honoured the expertise of mental health consumers and privileged personal recovery. Factors such as organisational culture and supervisor attitudes were found to mediate the students’ attempts to privilege lived experience.     

The influence of accountability for the crisis and type of crisis communication on people’s behavior,feelings and relationship with the government

In this paper we investigated to what extent the willingness of people to take advice from the local government, people’s feelings of collective efficacy and empowerment, and their relationship with the local government, is dependent on whether the local government was accountable for the crisis or not. In addition, we were interested in the influence of empathic versus neutral crisis information on people’s behavior, feelings and their relationship with the local government. The results indicate that people’s intention to follow the advice of the local government is generally high, even when the local government is held accountable for the crisis. However, accountability negatively influenced people’s relationship with the local government, as well as collective efficacy. Our research shows that this negative outcome for people’s relationship with the local government cannot be countered by empathic crisis information. However, conveying empathic concern in the crisis information did enhance level of collective efficacy.     

Spillover effects of maternal education on child’s health and health behavior

This study investigates the effects of maternal education on child’s health and health behavior. We draw on a rich German panel data set containing information about three generations. This allows instrumenting maternal education by the number of her siblings while conditioning on grandparental characteristics. The instrumental variables approach has not yet been used in the intergenerational context and works for the sample sizes of common household panels. We find substantial effects on health behavior for adolescent daughters, but neither for adolescent sons nor for the health status of newborns. We show that possible concerns for the validity of the instrument are unlikely to compromise these results. We discuss mother’s health behavior, assortative mating, household income, and child’s schooling track as possible channels of the estimated effects. Maternal education seems to affect daughter’s smoking behavior through the higher likelihood of the daughter pursuing a higher secondary schooling track.     

‘The Light of Knowledge Follows the Impulse of Revolutions’: Prince Saunders,Baron de Vastey and the Haitian Influence on Antebellum Black Ideas of Elevation and Education

This article details the influence that Haitian ideas about education had on early black intellectuals. Following the successful slave revolution, leaders of the new Haitian state set out to develop a new educational system. African-American observers paid close attention to these developments and often attempted to mimic them. Especially important was the black traveller and activist Prince Saunders, who was hired by the Haitian King Henry Christophe to build schools. Combining social and intellectual history, this article argues that black intellectuals in the North were inspired by the memory and symbol of Haiti to develop an education system and elevation ideology that served explicitly political purposes.     

Working Beyond the Traditional Retirement Age: The Influence of Health on Australia’s Older Workers

This article examines the relationship between health and workforce participation beyond the age of 65 years in Australia. This study found that people with a chronic health condition were less likely to be employed than those without a health condition (OR, 0.59; 95% CI [0.38, 0.92]). Among those with a chronic health condition, those in income quartile 2 (OR, 0.27; 95% CI [0.11, 0.67]) and 3 (OR, 0.38; 95% CI, [0.15–0.93]) were significantly less likely to be employed relative to those in income quartile 4. Older workers with a chronic health condition were less likely to work beyond the age of 65; however, among those with a chronic health condition, those with very high income and those with very low income were the most likely to keep working.     

Internal crisis communication: The effects of negative employee-organization relationships on internal reputation and employees’ unsupportive behavior

This study seeks to advance the growing body of research in internal crisis communication by exploring the role of negative employee-organization relationships (NEOR) in determining crisis outcomes (employees' unsupportive behavior and internal reputation). The current study was conducted using 465 full-time employees working in the technology sector (phone manufacturing industry) in the United States. The employees were recruited using an online research tool, Qualtrics. Multiple hierarchical regression and path analysis were used to analyze the results. The results reveal that a) NEOR affects internal reputation negatively and increases the likelihood of unsupportive behavior, b) timing does not affect the relationship between NEOR and crisis outcomes, c) rebuilding strategies help in overcoming employees' unwillingness to support the organization during a crisis, and d) negative emotions influence the effect of NEOR on the crisis outcomes. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Influence of competition level on referees’ decision-making in handball

The influence of competition level on referees’ decision-making was investigated. Referees’ decisions in 90 handball games (30 games X 3 competition levels) were observed in different situations related to the advantage rule, and 100 referees from two different levels of expertise were subsequently asked to offer explanations for the competition-level effects from the first part of the study. Results revealed that at the highest level of competition referees intervened less frequently with sporting sanctions, but more frequently with disciplinary sanctions. These effects were apparent mainly in immediate intervention situations and unsuccessful advantage situations, but not in successful situations. Referees explained these effects of competition level in terms of a player competence stereotype, in addition to referees’ different expertise across competition level. The implications of the findings for understanding how status-related stereotypes impact on intervention behavior are discussed.     

Living on the margin: the positioning of the ‘Khumi’ within the sociopolitical and ethnic history of the Chittagong Hill Tracts

The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh has long been represented as a region of multi-ethnic setting, ethnic conflict and ethnic movement in South Asia. However, inter-ethnic relationship through the practice of unequal power and positions among the ‘Pahari’ (hill-people), the inhabitants of the CHT, has largely been ignored in the deeper understanding of the CHT. In addition, available CHT literature talks mostly about numerically dominant ethnic groups, whereas less attention is paid to the marginalized ‘Pahari’ ethnic groups. This paper examines the positioning of the ‘Khumi’, one of marginalized Pahari ethnic groups, within the larger canvas of CHT vs state across times and regimes. In an attempt to identify the position of the Khumi within the sociopolitical and ethnic history of the CHT, it seeks answers to three central questions: (a) How did the Khumi appear in the demographic configuration of the CHT? (b) How had they, along with the CHT and its other inhabitants, been dealt with during the colonial and postcolonial regimes? (c) How do they position themselves in the recurrent sociopolitical dynamics of CHT vs state relationship? The paper is based on critical consideration of secondary sources on the region in collaboration with relevant comprehensive data collected through ethnographic fieldwork undertaken from November 2005 to April 2007 in the CHT of Bangladesh.     

The Influence of Consent on College Students’ Perceptions of the Quality of Sexual Intercourse at Last Event

ABSTRACT. The current study assessed consent's relation to quality of sexual intercourse. College students (n = 640) participated in a survey assessing their most recent intercourse. Hierarchical regression was conducted: alcohol consumption, relationship status, and age were entered in Step 1; the Internal and External Consent Scale factors were entered in Step 2. For women, three internal consent factors explained a significant proportion of variance in quality of intercourse beyond Step 1 (ΔR² = .17, p < .001). For men, one internal and two external consent factors were significant predictors beyond Step 1 (ΔR² = .24, p < .001). Preliminary findings suggest consent is associated with quality of intercourse.     

The particularity of the universal: critical reflections on Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power and the state

A critical review of Bourdieu’s theory of the state is developed here against the backdrop of both his wider theoretical project and empirical studies. Elaborating the concepts of symbolic capital, symbolic violence, and symbolic domination, the centrality that Bourdieu accords to symbolic forms is compared to benchmark Weberian accounts that start with the state monopoly of violence. Reviewing also some of the burgeoning secondary literature discussing his theory of the state, Bourdieu’s writings, which encompass various antinomies, are shown to vacillate between two distinct perspectives—a strong and a weak theory of the state. His rejection of the “physicalist” approaches of Marx, Elias, and Tilly is elaborated and subject to a counter-critique, particularly in relation to the notion of symbolic “violence.” Bourdieu’s account of the state is shown to be as much a political as theoretical intervention. His antagonism towards Marxist accounts in particular is shown to be rooted in a pragmatic interest in the role of the “left hand of the state” in progressive reform; and this perspective is traced back to the twin influences of Durkheim and Hegel, French republicanism, and in particular the potential of the state to express a universal interest. At the same time, compared with sophisticated Marxist and Weberian accounts and the work of Norbert Elias and Gramsci, Bourdieu’s theory is shown to be severely lacking in the way that he deals with violence and coercion. His “expanded materialism,” particularly with the “strong theory,” bends the stick too far and overplays the symbolic basis of consent. Nevertheless, Bourdieu’s insights with regard to the pervasive influences of state practices of classification, taxonomy, delegation, and naming are shown to have real utility with regard to focused empirical investigations of the state in modern societies.     

The Influence of Family Expressiveness,Individuals’ Own Emotionality,and Self-Expressiveness on Perceptions of Others’ Facial Expressions

To examine individual differences in decoding facial expressions, college students judged type and emotional intensity of emotional faces at five intensity levels and completed questionnaires on family expressiveness, emotionality, and self-expressiveness. For decoding accuracy, family expressiveness was negatively related, with strongest effects for more prototypical faces, and self-expressiveness was positively related. For perceptions of emotional intensity, family expressiveness was positively related, emotionality tended to be positively related, and self-expressiveness tended to be negatively related; these findings were all qualified by level of ambiguity/clarity of the facial expressions. Decoding accuracy and perceived emotional intensity also related positively with each other. Results suggest that even simple facial judgments are made through an interpretive lens partially created by family expressiveness, individuals’ own emotionality, and self-expressiveness.     

The confession of a timber baron: patterns of patronage on the Indonesian–Malaysian border

This article explores the socio-economic significance of patronage at the edge of the Indonesian state. It argues that marginal borders and adjacent borderlands where state institutions are often weak, and state power continuously waxes and wanes, encourage the growth of non-state forms of authority based on long-standing patron–client relationships. These complex interdependencies become especially potent because of traditionally rooted patterns of respect, charismatic leadership and a heightened sense of autonomy among borderland populations. The article contends that an examination of these informal arrangements is imperative for understanding the rationale behind border people's often fluid loyalties and illicit cross-border practices, strained relationships with their nation states and divergent views of legality and illegality. The article contributes to recent anthropological studies of borders and believes that these studies could gain important insight by re-examining the concept of patronage as an analytical tool in uncovering circuits of licit and illicit exchange in borderlands.     

The effects of parental divorce on individuals’ commitment to same-sex relationships

Abstract

Research on the intergenerational transmission of divorce has demonstrated that individuals who come from divorced families have reduced commitment to the institution of marriage, which may translate to reduced commitment to one’s current relationship. We tested the association between two components of relationship commitment (dedication and constraint) and parental divorce in a sample of 251 adults in same-sex relationships. Results demonstrated that parental divorce was significantly associated with lower dedication commitment among women, but not men. Parental divorce was not associated with constraint commitment for either gender. These findings suggest that, consistent with research on individuals in different-sex relationships, women in same-sex relationships who come from divorced families may feel less dedicated to their own relationships, putting them at greater risk for relationship instability and divorce.     

Mechanisms Behind the Negative Influence of Single Parenthood on School Performance: Lower Teaching and Learning Conditions?

We take a first step toward unravelling the mechanisms behind the negative influence of single parenthood and the proportion of single-parent families on school performance, using 2012 international Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data. We find that individual truancy of pupils fully explains the relationship between living in a single-mother family and math performance (after controlling for confounding factors, such as parental socioeconomic status). School-level measures of classroom disruption and truancy and individual truancy explain some of the negative effect of the school’s concentration of students from single-parent families on individual students’ math performance. However, the effect of a school’s proportion of single-parent families remains significantly negative on individual performance.