You are who remembers you. Detecting leadership through accuracy of recall

We measured interpersonal perception accuracy by focusing on the relationship between actors’ centrality and their ability to accurately report their social interactions. We used the network measures of actors’ betweenness centrality and degree centrality to identify the most prominent members by correlating ego-perception and alter-perception in a “non-reciprocity” type of misalignment. We found a positive correlation between actors’ centrality and their centrality as assessed by senior management, and a negative correlation between actors’ centrality and their accuracy in recalling interactions. Underreporting social interactions may represent a third way of measuring the importance of members and finding the most influential actors.     

Latino Acculturation and Perceived Educational Achievement: Evidence for a Bidimensional Model of Acculturation among Mexican-American Children

Considerable attention has been paid to the educational fate of Latino children and youths due to mounting evidence that their educational progress has been stagnant. This study investigates the effect of acculturation on perceived educational achievement among Mexican-American children, employing bidimensional acculturation theory to help explain acculturation patterns as related to both ethnic and mainstream identities. Using a sample of 294 Mexican-American children, five acculturation patterns were identified using cluster analysis. We found that the separated group of children had significantly higher educational achievement than the highly assimilated group. The study asserts that the segregated acculturation pattern can be protective for educational achievement of Mexican-American children within ethnically segregated environmental contexts.     

A symbolic approach to competence development

A deep-lying assumption nested in the civil service culture is that of competence. The article illustrates the research project carried out in a municipality over a period of three years, using a symbolic approach to competence development. Competence is defined as a symbolic field, an imaginary territory comprising the ideas, projects and emotions that subjects attribute to their organization within a metaphorical map which represents the texture of organizing. Possessing competence or being competent is the dilemma which provides the key to the analysis of the symbolization processes which took place during the consultation. The social representation of competence highlights the relationships between organizational actors (the competent civil servant, the competent boss, the competent politician, the competent administration, the competent citizen) and their mutual image. Competence therefore becomes a relational concept.     

Regional Proximity Factor: An Advantage or a Disadvantage for Development?

This paper will focus on the assumption that in the actual globalized system, the role of the State is completely changed due to the new global players that are emerging as international and regional organizations. In this context, the regional proximity factor has acquired great importance, as the three case studies will demonstrate. For this purpose, we will introduce some alternative variables to facilitate the use of economic, political and social tools. Then, we will compare countries’ performances at the global and regional level and their social, economic and political results, in order to improve the utilization of the regional proximity factor as a tool to analyze the international relations dynamics and the innovative national approach to the international opening     

Changing Policy Environments in Europe and the Resilience of the Third Sector

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - In the article, we analyse the impact of changing policy environments on the development of the third sector in Europe....     

On the Spectral Decomposition in Normal Discriminant Analysis

This article enlarges the covariance configurations, on which the classical linear discriminant analysis is based, by considering the four models arising from the spectral decomposition when eigenvalues and/or eigenvectors matrices are allowed to vary or not between groups. As in the classical approach, the assessment of these configurations is accomplished via a test on the training set. The discrimination rule is then built upon the configuration provided by the test, considering or not the unlabeled data. Numerical experiments, on simulated and real data, have been performed to evaluate the gain of our proposal with respect to the linear discriminant analysis.     

Conceptual Framework for Marriage Education Programs for Stepfamily Couples with Considerations for Socioeconomic Context

Stepfamily couples face unique challenges that put them at higher risk for dissolution than non-stepfamily couples. Risks for stepfamily couples are magnified in the context of lower economic resources, making low-income stepfamily couples a key target population for intervention and for community education programs. Existing programs and services for couples often do not address the unique situations of stepfamilies. This article builds on previous reviews that have offered information on important research themes and assessment of available curricula for stepfamily couples and presents a more comprehensive conceptual model to guide program design and services for stepfamily couples inclusive of specific objectives, as well as conditions and antecedents affecting content and prioritized needs. The goal is to enhance efforts to strengthen more vulnerable couples in complex families.     

Determining Latent Classes of Cumulative Family Structure Experiences in Emerging Adulthood

ABSTRACT

Using a sample of emerging adults (N = 536), this study examined detailed cumulative family structure spanning birth through emerging adulthood. Latent class analysis was used to determine profiles of cumulative family structure experiences based on measures of family structure measured at 5 time points, duration in current family structure, the number of parent relationship transitions, and the number of sibling transitions. Two distinct stable groups, 2 distinct mostly stable groups, and 1 highly unstable group emerged. Additionally, we explored 2 demographic variables as predictors of class membership, and class-level differences on current levels of well-being with a sample of emerging adults.     

COVID‐19 as a breakdown in the texture of social practices

‘A lot of things need to be repaired and a lot of relationships are in need of a knowledgeable mending. Can we start to talk/write about them?’ This invitation — sent by one of the authors to the others — led us, as feminist women in academia, to join together in an experimental writing about the effects of COVID‐19 on daily social practices and on potential (and innovative) ways for repairing work in different fields of social organization. By diffractively intertwining our embodied experiences of becoming together‐with Others, we foreground a multiplicity of repair (care) practices COVID‐19 is making visible. Echoing one another, we take a stand and say that we need to prevent the future from becoming the past. We are not going back to the past; our society has already changed and there is a need to cope with innovation and repairing practices that do not reproduce the past.