Making Sense of Social Change: Observing Collective Action in Networked Cultures

This article presents an overview of rising trends in the study of networked interactions conveyed by social media technologies and the emergence of new meanings associated with social change. In recent years, a healthy amount of studies has focused on ICT uses within collective action, considering social media tools to have become crucial components of many transnational movements and social change projects. Crossing boundaries between social movements theories, political science, and communication studies, literature suggests that ‘online activism’ and increasingly networked interactions may have transformed the meanings and definitions associated with ‘collective action’ and ‘social change’. To make sense of these meanings, we identify three approaches used by scholars, which focus on (i) the actual networking of actors, (ii) the diffusion of new repertoires and frames through networks, and (iii) making sense of new meanings conveyed within networked cultures. We conclude by suggesting the need for more comprehensive research to better observe and make sense of how's actors define collective action and how they use social media tools when striving to convey social change.     

Effects of sexual arousal on men's and women's behavior in sexual disagreement situations

A role‐play procedure was used to investigate the effects of acceptance of rape supportive beliefs (RMA), sexual intimacy, and sexual arousal on behavior in sexual disagreement situations. In Experiment 1, 67 college women role‐played their responses to their date's initial and continued unwanted sexual advances after viewing either an erotic or a neutral videotape. The women were more definite in their nonverbal responses to the “continued” than to the “initial” sexual advances. Low RMA women were less definite, and high RMA women were more definite, in their nonverbal refusals of unwanted intercourse than of unwanted breast fondling. Low RMA women were more definite in their verbal refusals after viewing the neutral than the erotic videotape. In Experiment 2, 78 college men role‐played their responses to their date's first and second refusal of their sexual advances. Men were less compliant in response to the first than to the second refusal. High RMA men who viewed the neutral film were less compliant than were low RMA men. However, high RMA men who viewed the erotic film were more compliant than high RMA men who viewed the neutral film. The men who viewed the neutral film were less compliant with refusals of breast fondling than with refusals of intercourse. Additionally, men who viewed the erotic film were more compliant with refusals of genital fondling than with refusals of intercourse. Finally, sexual experience and sex‐role ideology predicted when the man would try the same advances again.     

Minority Voices: Abolitionism in West Africa

This paper examines the claims of Eric Williams and the more recent Legacies of British Slave Ownership projects regarding the influence of enslavement in the building of Britain and its empire through a multi-generational study of a leading British elite family, the Bentincks. Using the concept of imperial careering, it charts how four men from this family not typically identified as enslavers or abolitionists were entangled with enslavement in Britain's Western and Eastern empires. It concludes that the influence of enslavement was extensive and mainly exploitative, but involved losses as well as gains for these elite protagonists.     

‘Let your indulgence set me free’: reflections on an ‘Africanised’ Tempest and its implications for critical practice

A joint production of The Tempest by Stratford’s Royal Shakespeare Company and Cape Town’s Baxter Theatre raises questions about the possibilities, and difficulties, of the deliberate ‘Africanisation’ of Shakespeare. I argue that the discursive fields within which ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘Africa’ are read carry significations that preclude easy acknowledgement. I consider the interpretative function an unapologetic, celebratory ‘Africa’ performs when it is put in conversation with canonical Shakespeare. Drawing on Terence Hawkes’s notion of ‘presentism’, I argue that in its effects this particular staging gives life both to the partisan discourse of public forgiveness in South Africa and to the powerful figure of ‘Shakespeare’. An African Tempest that engages the discourse of forgiveness allows ‘Shakespeare’ to share in the sociality invoked by ubuntu. Post‐apartheid theatre would do better to resist a post‐Truth and Reconciliation Commission hope of transcendence and an iconic ‘Shakespeare’. However, it may take great boldness to claim the latitude with which to trespass beyond an apparently familiar ‘Africa’ and an uninterrogated ‘Shakespeare’. The cultural legacies of ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘Africa’ need to be treated with the kind of unflinching critique of self and society that Edward Said deems central to the work of the humanities.     

Older Women Doing Home Care: Exploitation or Ideal Job?

The increased need for both personal assistance workers and meaningful employment opportunities for older workers results in growing numbers of older home care aides. This study examined lifetime financial security and perceived advantages of older age in this field through interviews with 31 older home care aides. Study participants experienced high levels of financial insecurity and perceived older workers as particularly well suited to the home care job. The consequences of this low-wage, low-status work are explored along with implications for social workers to advocate for improved conditions for these workers providing essential care to frail elders.     

Mothers' experiences, resources and needs: The context for reunification

This paper extends prior scholarship regarding the characteristics of mothers involved with the child welfare system. In-person interviews were conducted with a statewide sample of 747 mothers, 318 with children remaining in home and 429 with children in care, to examine their socio-demographic and psychosocial characteristics as well as service needs. Mothers were mostly impoverished, struggling to meet basic needs, and coping with early trauma, mental health problems, substance abuse and domestic violence. Almost half reported an annual income of less than $10,000 and 70% were unemployed, but few received public benefits with the exception of food stamps. Mothers with children in care experienced greater economic hardship than mothers whose children remained in home. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

The relation of violence exposure and ethnicity to intelligence and verbal-performance discrepancies in incarcerated male adolescents

Incarcerated populations have an estimated incidence of intellectual disabilities (IDs) far higher than national norms, ranging as high as 10%. In the present study, the relation between ID and violence exposure in 115 incarcerated adolescents was examined. Interpersonal violence exposure (IPV-E) predicted an average decrease in full scale IQ of 4.5 points, explaining approximately 5% of the difference in IQ. Child maltreatment increased the odds of having a verbal disability by three folds and explained 17% of the variance in verbal disability. Hierarchical regression was used to examine the relative contribution of ethnicity, poverty, and violence exposure to intellectual functioning. The literature on racial bias in incarceration and the implications for the present study are discussed.