The Aripae o's Landscape: Local Control Within Global Reality

The Aripae o are maroon descendants living in the Lower Caura region of Bol var state, Venezuela. A product of an earlier process of globalization that gave rise to the Atlantic slave trade, present-day Aripae o continue to resist any outside influence, intervention, or penetration that could spur sociocultural relations of inequality and (in)difference. Although they are consciously aware of the sociocultural disparities inherent in the modern world capitalist system, this does not imply that they are necessarily against the globalizing tendencies of modernity. Rather, their desire is to have direct participation and control over the resources that they consider important for their cultural production, representation, and reproduction. Through the utilization of the concept of "landscape" as an integrated and yet polysemic cultural repertoire, the aim of this article is to demonstrate that the Aripae o's commitment to their traditional way of life still incorporates their appreciation of modernity and globalization.     

Globalization and Free Trade Agreements: A Profile of a Nicaraguan Factory Community

This study examines a Nicaraguan community 3 years after the signing of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to learn how families, living in a community constructed near a US-owned factory, maintained resilience under growing negative conditions. These conditions relate to family dislocation, loss of support systems, lack of childcare, safe water, and food security, in addition to labor injustices. Although maintaining relatively high scores on a baseline resilience test, these families and others like them in Central America, demonstrate a struggle for survival in a globalized context.     

A Re-examination of Defining Moments in Vygotsky's Work and Their Implications for His Continuing Legacy

This article argues for the idea of different moments in Vygotsky's work while highlighting combinations of ideas and concepts that were particularly emphasized in distinct moments of his work. After Vygotsky's death, these moments were not considered a theoretical system in development, either in former Soviet psychology or in Western interpretations of his work. Vygotsky's legacy seems to have been mostly reduced to one concrete focus of his work, mistakenly identified as cultural-historical theory. The overemphasis of selected aspects of Vygotsky's work resulted in an overshadowing of other ideas that have remained relatively “unknown” until fairly recently. In this article, previously underemphasized elements in Vygotsky's psychology, such as emotions, fantasy, imagination, personality, and the generative character of human psyche, are emphasized. A consideration of these elements offers new and refreshing alternatives to Vygotsky's legacy. These previously underemphasized elements are markedly represented in Vygotsky's first and third moments. Furthermore, in the third and final moment of his work, the category of sense opened up a completely new perspective for a systemic and complex approach to understanding the human mind.     

Small mammal assemblages in fragmented shrublands of urban areas of Central Chile

Mediterranean-type ecosystems are one of the most affected environments by habitat loss and fragmentation due to urban development, however only few studies have evaluated the effects of urbanization on the biodiversity of remnant fragments in these ecosystems. This study aims to evaluate the effects of urban development over small mammal assemblages inhabiting isolated forest fragments of an urban area of Chilean Mediterranean zone. We compared abundance and richness of small mammal assemblages of six remnant fragments within an urban matrix, and six fragments similar in area and habitat characteristics with those of urban area, but surrounded by a rural matrix. We found that small mammal assemblages differ considerably among fragments types (urban vs rural), with lack of endemic species from urban fragments and with high proportion of introduced rodents in urban fragments. Furthermore abundance of small mammals was higher in rural than in urban fragments. In urban areas small mammal abundance and richness were not correlated with any of the explanatory variables assessed (woody cover, flora heterogeneity, fragment area, perimeter/area ratio). However in rural fragments small mammal richness was negatively correlated with flora heterogeneity and the abundance of small mammals was positively correlated with perimeter/area ratio. These results reveal important differences within the effects of fragmentation over small mammal assemblages among the two types of fragments assessed. Our findings suggest that in forest fragments isolated by urbanization, larger areas with good quality habitats are not sufficient to maintain native small mammal population.     

The impact of labor shortage on the employee commitment

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the impact of the shortage of labor on individuals’ workplace attitudes, strangely their commitment. It is beneficial for organizations to develop their management strategies in view of employees’ loyalty attitudes. As a conceptual paper, the article contains a theoretical deduction. The characteristics of the labor market (macro level), the organizational needs and responses (meso level), and the set of the employees’ commitment (micro level) are linked to a theoretical process. According to our results, the average levels of the different dimensions of employee commitment will be changed in the future. The levels of continuance commitment and professional commitment will be higher, while the levels of deliberate commitment and affective commitment will be lower in the employee commitment profiles. By increasing continuance commitment and professional commitment, the toolkit of the HR strategy needs to be transformed to make it more relevant external motivation tools and training-development solutions. Meanwhile, it is important to note that the interactions among the employees will be less frequent and they will have less affection for their workplace. Labor shortage transforms individuals’ workplace attitudes. Understanding of employees’ decisions to maintain their organizational membership is supported by the relationships found in this research.     

Beyond 3×1: Linking Sending and Receiving Societies in the Development Process

In this paper, I explore the possibilities of linking and expanding existing sending and receiving countries' initiatives that mobilize immigrants to participate in the development process of their countries of origin in such a way as to advance two main goals of such initiatives: (1) to multiply their developmental impact in sending regions; and (2) to help increase the social and political capital of immigrants and immigrant associations, so as to facilitate both their role in the development of their countries of origin and also their integration in their host societies. In the paper, I will study the Mexican 3×1 programme and Spain's co‐development model and explore the ways in which programmes such as these could be ideally linked and implemented, in diverse contexts, in a way that is advantageous to both sending and receiving societies. The paper is based on research conducted over the past 9 years with Mexican immigrant associations in the United States; on interviews with Mexican government officials in Mexico and the United States; and on interviews conducted in 2008 and 2009 in Spain.     

What Narrows the Stepgap? Closeness Between Parents and Adult (Step)Children in Germany

Using data from the German Family Panel (pairfam) based on 11,746 intergenerational family relationships, the present study examined differences in parental closeness across relations with multiple, coresidential, and non‐coresidential adolescent and adult children. Replicating previous research in a multilevel analysis across families, the authors found a strong positive effect of biological descent on closeness in comparison to adoptive and steprelations; this parental favoritism toward biological offspring was partly explained by selection via parental resources and attitudes. Supplemental within‐parent fixed effect analyses suggested that the relative disadvantage of stepchildren was offset by longer duration of the stepparent–stepchild relationship, lower household income, fewer children in the household, and high parental affirmation of familism.     

Examining Familial-Based Academic Success Factors in Urban High School Students: The Case of Puerto Rican Female High Achievers

ABSTRACT

This article works to dispel the myth that Puerto Rican female urban high school students living in poverty are not capable of performing at high academic levels. This article attempts to counteract these beliefs by describing the four success factors that seven Puerto Rican female high school students attribute to their high academic achievement. These success factors are: (1) religiosity and extracurricular activities as sources of social capital, (2) affirming and maintaining a Puerto Rican identity, (3) maternal influences on students' academic achievement and, (4) the potential for caring teachers and other school staff to influence high academic achievement. Finally, our findings suggest that opportunities for Latinas and other youth of color are still inequitably structured in large, comprehensive high schools. Hence, we argue that schools must continue to bridge the large gap between themselves and the families/communities they serve and utilize the funds of knowledge and social capital that their students already bring to school.