Mapping the global football field: a sociological model of transnational forces within the world game

This paper provides a sociological model of the key transnational political and economic forces that are shaping the 'global football field'. The model draws upon, and significantly extends, the theory of the 'global field' developed previously by Robertson. The model features four quadrants, each of which contains a dominant operating principle, an 'elemental reference point', and an 'elemental theme'. The quadrants contain, first, neo-liberalism, associated with the individual and elite football clubs; second, neo-mercantilism, associated with nation-states and national football systems; third, international relations, associated with international governing bodies; and fourth, global civil society, associated with diverse institutions that pursue human development and/or social justice. We examine some of the interactions and tensions between the major institutional and ideological forces across the four quadrants. We conclude by examining how the weakest quadrant, featuring global civil society, may gain greater prominence within football. In broad terms, we argue that our four-fold model may be utilized to map and to examine other substantive research fields with reference to globalization.     

Explaining Cross-Country Differences in Attitudes Towards Immigration in the EU-15

In this paper, we use data from the first two rounds of the European Social Survey to analyze the extent to which differences in average attitudes towards immigration across the EU-15 countries may be explained by differences in socioeconomic characteristics and individually perceived consequences of immigration, using an extension of a decomposition technique developed by Fairlie (2005). We find that despite the significant effects of socioeconomic characteristics on attitudes, differences in the distributions of these characteristics can only explain a modest share of the cross-country variation in average attitudes. A larger part can be explained by differences in perceived consequences of immigration, but the main part is still left unexplained. Apart from providing useful input for policy makers working in the area of immigration policy, this raises a number of questions for further research for which the ESS data can be successfully applied.

Depressive Symptoms Among Native and Immigrant Adolescents in Norway: The Role of Gender and Urbanization

The study investigates depressive symptoms among 3,431 adolescents aged 13–15 years. The sample comprises both native Norwegian and immigrant adolescents living in Norway. The main finding of the study is that the level of depressive symptoms is significantly higher among the immigrant adolescents than their Norwegian counterparts. When analysed separately for boys and girls, the difference is still significant for boys. Generally depressive symptoms are significantly higher among girls than among boys. Depressive symptoms, especially in boys, may also be related to the degree of urbanization of the area they live in. In cities, there is a significant difference between native Norwegian and immigrant boys, with immigrant boys having a higher level of depressive symptoms than native Norwegians. The implications for future research about immigrant adolescents and their psychosocial adjustment are discussed.

Efficient and effective learning for safety from incidents

Learning from incidents is important for improving safety. Many companies spend a great deal of time and money on such learning procedures. The objectives of this paper are to present some early results from a project aimed at revealing weaknesses in the procedures for learning from incidents and to discuss improvements in these procedures, especially in chemical process industries. The empirical base comes from a project assessing organizational learning and the effectiveness of the different steps of the learning cycle for safety and studying relations between safety-specific transformational leadership, safety climate, trust, safety-related behavior and learning from incidents. The results point at common weaknesses in the organizational learning, both in the horizontal learning (geographical spread) and in vertical learning (double-loop learning). Furthermore, the effectiveness in the different steps of the learning cycle is low due to insufficient information in incident reports, very shallow analyses of reports, decisions that focus at solving the problem only at the place where the incident took place, late implementations and weak solutions. Strong correlations with learning from incidents were found for all safety climate variables as well as for safety-related behaviors and trust. The relationships were very strong for trust, safety knowledge, safety participation and safety compliance.     

Use of graphical modality in a collaborative design distant setting

In this paper, we present an original environment, the Distributed Collaborative Design Studio (DCDS) which allows multimodal real-time remote exchanges, and which aims at re-creating remotely the conditions of co-present meetings. This environment associates a videoconference tool (supporting verbal and non-verbal communication) and an original realtime shared digital hand-drawn sketches system (supporting graphical communication). The users can import documents and annotate them in real-time at distance. In this paper, we are interested in studying the use of the graphical modality (digital sketch and document annotations) as a tool for collective design and remote communication. This study takes place in the framework of a collaborative architectural design studio, which has taken place during 3 month, and gathering students from Belgium and France to work together in 3 small groups mainly at distance. The study focuses on the role of graphical modality in the synchronous remote meetings supported by the DCDS. We identify the types of digital annotations made on the imported document, thanks to the electronic pen, and their role in the cognitive processes of designing and in the collaboration and communication processes. We also identify the different practices of digital sketching, according to the group and its collaborative strategies. We discuss the utility of the graphical modality as an efficient support for collaborative synchronous activities and show that the DCDS environment supports different strategies of collaborative design (co-design and distributed design). We conclude on recommendations for improving the system and for designing sketch-based collaborative environments.     

Called to Medicine: Physicians’ Experiences of Career Calling

Using consensual qualitative research methodology, the authors explored physicians’ (N = 17) career calling experiences through semistructured interviews. Eight domains emerged: definition of calling, development of calling, calling's fit with career, maintenance of calling, emotional well‐being, relationships, recreation, and future. Within these domains, 17 general and 40 typical categories emerged. Results suggest physicians’ callings were influenced by others, met with both support and barriers, and chosen because of fit with interests, prosocial motivation, or religious/spiritual influences. Calling positively and negatively influenced emotional well‐being, relationships, and recreation and was expected to continue after retirement. Counselors are encouraged to use a narrative lens to conceptualize clients’ calling development, use job crafting techniques to support calling maintenance, and prepare clients for postretirement career calling development. Future research might examine when and why a medical calling's strength may change over time.