Buzzes and barriers: young people's attitudes to participation in the arts

SUMMARY: This article draws on evidence collected through interviews with 700 young people between the ages of 14 and 24 in five different regions of England. Material from this source is used to construct a tentative typology of attitudes towards participation in the arts. This typology contains a set of twelve positive attitudes (or motivations) associated with arts involvement, followed by a set of eight negative attitudes which emerge as barriers to participation. In addition, an attempt is made to identify those positive attitudes which most frequently appeared to accompany high levels of involvement in the arts. It is suggested that a self-identity or self-expression motive (‘I participate in the arts because it's how I define myself, it's a means of self-expression’) and a physiological motive (‘I participate in the arts because of feeling a real buzz’) are particularly evident among arts enthusiasts.     

Cultural Underpinnings of Special Education: Implications for Professional Interactions with Culturally Diverse Families

This article identifies certain cultural assumptions that underlie special education policy and practice in the United States, and argues that unawareness of cultural relativity contributes to considerable cross-cultural dissonance in working with families from diverse backgrounds. With regard to policy, the article argues that, despite an ideal of parental participation, the medical note on which the law is based frequently results in misunderstanding between professionals and parents who do not share the same value system. Three aspects of such misunderstandings are explored: The way disability is defined, the power accorded to professional expertise, and the commitment to the decontextualized language of objective science. With regard to practice, the article further identifies four areas of parent-professional dissonance: Beliefs about parenting styles, education goals, family and community concerns, and the pragmatics of communication. Explicit awareness of cultural relativity is recommended as an essential step towards reciprocal relationships with families from diverse backgrounds.     

The effects of interruption,gender, and status on interpersonal perceptions

This study examined: (1) how violations in turn-taking, ie., interruption, are perceived, (2) whether attributions toward an interrupter vary according to gender and status, and (3) how individuals who adopt cross-sex interruptive styles are seen. Subjects listened to a four-minute audiotape of a conversation and rated conversants on masculinity, femininity, competence, sociability, attractiveness, and traditionality. Sex of interrupter, style of interruption (statement, question, no interruption), and status were varied. Results suggest that interruption leads to negative personality attributions. Interrupters were seen as less sociable and more assertive than individuals who did not interrupt. They were also perceived as more masculine and less feminine than those who did not interrupt. Few sex differences emerged, indicating that women who interrupt are not penalized relative to men.We would like to thank Emory Cowen for his helpful comments and suggestions on earlier version of this article. We extend special thanks to Anne Bogat for her assistance and support at Michigan State University, and to Sharon Benson, Erica Colwell, Scott Fischer, Maureen Goldman, Jason Korosec, Michael Lynch and Ann Skoczenski for their assistance and patience in the development of the materials.     

Social capital, the social economy and community development

Social capital is increasingly used in the field of communitydevelopment and the social economy. This article describes someof the results to emerge from a three-year research project(CONSCISE Project), which looked at the contribution socialcapital can make to the social economy within local economicdevelopment. Following the definition of social capital, thearticle examines how it can be assessed and then goes on tolist the main findings on the significance of social capitalin the understanding of the social economy and community development.It concludes with a number of policy implications on how socialcapital can be used within the context of community development.     

The Benefits and Pitfalls of Social Capital: Empirical Evidence from Two Organizations in the United Kingdom *

Recently, there has been a shift in the way management scholars view the firm, from traditional models that are based on ideas of opportunism and market failure to newer knowledge‐based theories that argue for a more socialized perspective. One of the key components of these theories is the notion of social capital. Social capital is the set of resources that accrue to an individual or group by virtue of their social connections. As such, it is a resource that is jointly owned. Most recent research adopts a more‐is‐better approach to social capital, suggesting that individuals with larger quantity of ties derive more positive benefits. However in this paper, we argue that using social capital has both benefits and drawbacks for organizations, and that these positive and negative aspects of social capital occur simultaneously. To substantiate our claim, we use data collected from sets of interviews with senior and middle managers in two organizations in the United Kingdom. Our findings indicate that while social capital has many beneficial effects with respect to information access and retrieval, community building, and underlying group norms, there are also a number of less‐beneficial aspects, which are under‐explored in the current empirical literature. Furthermore, we suggest that organizations must develop an understanding of the bridging and bonding elements of social capital, as these are critical for its implementation. Implications of the research findings and future research directions are discussed.