Social (Dis)Approval and Collective Action Participation: Re‐evaluating the Positive Linearity Thesis

Survey‐based studies on collective action generally assume that social approval of participation in collective action has a positive and linear effect on actual participation. However, this assumption has not yet been subjected to a genuine empirical evaluation. This article investigates the positive linearity thesis, using survey data on participation and non‐participation in a street demonstration in The Hague in 2011. Statistical analyses provide evidence in support of a curvilinear relation between social approval and participation—an increased rate of participation in case of both approval and disapproval by peers. We discuss two processes underlying the observed relation: one pertaining to rebelliousness and the other regarding political awareness. The article generally illustrates the need for further empirical research on social influence and participation in collective action.     

Placement Educators’ Experiences and Perspectives of Supervising International Social Work Students in Australia

International social work students in Australia have reported difficulties in finding quality placement opportunities and dealing with issues such as language and cultural barriers. While placement issues have been mostly investigated from a student perspective, this study explores the experiences and perspectives of placement educators towards supervising international social work students. It draws on an online survey of 83 placement educators working for an Australian university. The majority of placement educators reported that they supervised international students differently to domestic students. These differences were negatively framed as challenges involving students’ language competence, their understanding of cultural norms, and knowledge of Australian welfare systems. This framing implies that cultural and linguistic differences between international students and placement educators are viewed in terms of student deficiency rather than as a positive opportunity for mutual learning and professional development.     

Bridge Leadership: Gendered Consumerism and Black Women’s Political Power within Early 20th Century “Don’t Buy” Campaigns

This research surveys the literature around black consumerism and social movements, exploring the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” (DBWYCW) campaigns of the 1920s-1940s. The author examines the integral roles women played (as organizers, agitators, and beneficiaries) in various economic boycotts within the context of Belinda Robnett’s theory of bridge leadership, with a particular focus on consumerism as a major vehicle through which African-American women engaged in movement work during the DBWYCW campaigns. This article challenges the erasure of women’s leadership by reframing “Don’t Buy” as a women’s movement. Applying Robnett’s bridge leadership theory to different eras, regions, and movements, we see how the Great Depression combined with activism in the gendered sphere of consumerism and facilitated the activism of black women. This paper also expands Robnett’s conceptualization of professional and indigenous bridge leaders by identifying urban working class women within the “Don’t Buy” movement who fit these leadership categories.     

Impact of physical activity and sedentary behaviour on fall risks in older people: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

The objective of this work was to summarise and evaluate the evidence showing that physical activity is a protector factor as regards falls in older people. Relevant studies were identified through a systematic search in the MEDLINE and Cochrane Library, under the keywords of accidental fall/numerical data and risk factors, and with the bibliographies of retrieved papers. The combined odds ratio (OR) [95% confidence interval] for physical activity was 0.75 [0.64, 0.88] with moderate heterogeneity (I ²?=?33%). For fall injury, it was 0.59 [0.47, 0.74] and, for falls in general, it rose to 0.94 [0.76, 1.17] with nil heterogeneity. The combined OR for sedentary factors was 1.14 [1.10, 1.82] with moderate heterogeneity (I ²?=?36%). Regular physical activity in daily life yields significant reduction in falls in older people, especially falls with injuries.     

What is DIstinctive about Mediation? Experience and Expertise in Media

If great material resources and specialist technical knowledge are no longer required for individuals to act as mass communicators, what resources are required? This paper reviews social theories of production that can help to shed light on the matter. It explores the nature of knowledge required in the production of content meant for a mass audience, and the manner of its validation. The paper progressively conceptualizes mass communication or mediation in terms of ‘media experience and expertise.’ It begins by framing the discussion of media production in terms of mediation and symbolic/media power, and teasing out knowledge and competence as problems that merit special attention. It then draws on two parallel areas of scholarship to think through the blurring of formerly neat boundaries between interpersonal and mass communication; producer and audience; and expert and layperson. First, the renewed interest in the lived experience of professional producers that is spurred by media production ethnographers. Second, ongoing debates in Science and Technology Studies (STS) around knowledge production and public participation. The paper concludes with a discussion of outstanding issues with respect to media theory and proposals for future work.     

The Value of Information in Decision‐Analytic Modeling for Malaria Vector Control in East Africa

Decision analysis tools and mathematical modeling are increasingly emphasized in malaria control programs worldwide to improve resource allocation and address ongoing challenges with sustainability. However, such tools require substantial scientific evidence, which is costly to acquire. The value of information (VOI) has been proposed as a metric for gauging the value of reduced model uncertainty. We apply this concept to an evidenced‐based Malaria Decision Analysis Support Tool (MDAST) designed for application in East Africa. In developing MDAST, substantial gaps in the scientific evidence base were identified regarding insecticide resistance in malaria vector control and the effectiveness of alternative mosquito control approaches, including larviciding. We identify four entomological parameters in the model (two for insecticide resistance and two for larviciding) that involve high levels of uncertainty and to which outputs in MDAST are sensitive. We estimate and compare a VOI for combinations of these parameters in evaluating three policy alternatives relative to a status quo policy. We find having perfect information on the uncertain parameters could improve program net benefits by up to 5–21%, with the highest VOI associated with jointly eliminating uncertainty about reproductive speed of malaria‐transmitting mosquitoes and initial efficacy of larviciding at reducing the emergence of new adult mosquitoes. Future research on parameter uncertainty in decision analysis of malaria control policy should investigate the VOI with respect to other aspects of malaria transmission (such as antimalarial resistance), the costs of reducing uncertainty in these parameters, and the extent to which imperfect information about these parameters can improve payoffs.     

Young Infants Match Facial and Vocal Emotional Expressions of Other Infants

Research has demonstrated that infants recognize emotional expressions of adults in the first half year of life. We extended this research to a new domain, infant perception of the expressions of other infants. In an intermodal matching procedure, 3.5‐ and 5‐month‐old infants heard a series of infant vocal expressions (positive and negative affect) along with side‐by‐side dynamic videos in which one infant conveyed positive facial affect and another infant conveyed negative facial affect. Results demonstrated that 5‐month‐olds matched the vocal expressions with the affectively congruent facial expressions, whereas 3.5‐month‐olds showed no evidence of matching. These findings indicate that by 5 months of age, infants detect, discriminate, and match the facial and vocal affective displays of other infants. Further, because the facial and vocal expressions were portrayed by different infants and shared no face–voice synchrony, temporal, or intensity patterning, matching was likely based on detection of a more general affective valence common to the face and voice.     

Screen Images and Concepts of Sexual Agency in Science and Social Science

This article contributes to studies of how inequities of power are naturalized in culture through the idea of “screen images,” a form of shared projective thinking. Screen images develop when socioeconomic reality contradicts shared cultural values and thus produces moral anxiety. The screen images we trace are those of the Lady and the Whore in bourgeois Victorian cultures, which we believe represented compromised versions of female sexual agency. Although these images originated in Victorian models of sexual difference, we show that they continue to shape models in 20th-century medicine, primatology, and evolutionary social science. These screen images reveal a historically persistent denial of agentive sexuality in women and have served as a defense through which people have avoided confronting the socioeconomic bases of gender inequality.     

Efficiency of bailey's trigonometric levels in factorial experiments

Bailey has shown that choice of certain trigonometlk levels for factors in a symmetrical confounded factorial design is more efficient for quantitative treatments. This paper introduces certain incidence matrices associated with the flats of different pencils of such designs to obtain an explicit expression for the efficiency and also gives a simpler derivation of Bailey's results.     

Interplay between Friends' Aggression and Friendship Quality in the Development of Child Aggression during the Early School Years

The aim of this study was to investigate the unique and combined role of friendship quality and friends' aggression in regard to the persistence of young children's physical aggression from kindergarten to grade 2. The sample included 1555 children (808 girls) assessed annually using teacher ratings. Two theoretical perspectives (i.e., the social learning and the social bonding perspectives) served as frameworks to guide the analyses and interpret the results. In line with the social learning perspective, friends' aggression was related to a significant increase in children's physical aggression. However, in line with the social bonding perspective, good friendship quality played both a compensatory and a protective role, by, respectively, reducing children's initial level of physical aggression and by mitigating, albeit marginally, the associations between friends' and children's physical aggression. These results suggest that fostering a positive relationship between friends in the early school years may decrease physical aggression even if the friends are aggressive.