Isomorphism,Institutional Parochialism,and the Sociology of Religion

This article investigates whether the field of sociology of religion is occupied by parochial concerns. We characterize institutional parochialism as the degree to which people in an academic field tend to study their own societies. This study employs a content analysis of articles published in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and Sociology of Religion from 2001 to 2008, with particular attention paid to the incidences in which Muslim and non-Western groups were studied before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There was no change in the rate that “Muslim” communities were studied following the 9/11 attacks, but it appears journal content did change to reflect ongoing debates in the West and in response to mimetic pressures being placed on the field. Overall, if the sociology of religion can be characterized as parochial, we contend that the broader field of American sociology is likely far more so.     

Creating caring institutions for community informatics

This paper explores the potential affordances of applying a feminist ethics of care approach to community informatics practices in public internet access facilities. As feminist technology scholars have long observed, technology and technoculture are strongly encoded as masculine, privileging traits such as scientific knowledge, rationality, objectivity, and distance. These characteristics are expressed in traditional infomediary practices in a variety of ways, including notions of expertise, ways of conceptualizing technology, emphasis on skills attainment, and deficit-based models of user behavior. In contrast, ethics of care emphasizes the importance of relational and situated knowledge, pluralistic voices and experiences, and relationships bound by mutual interdependence. Traditionally, caring has been feminized and thus necessarily excluded from technoculture and relegated to invisible and unpaid labor. Caring and associated affective labor practices remain an under-examined subject in infomediary practices. Public libraries and community technology centers are logical places to explore for care work, given that they share many characteristics of the spaces where care work has historically been performed. We argue that an ethics of care framework has several possible affordances for infomediary practices in these institutions, including highlighting the gendered power dynamics that define and shape existing practices; distributing care work and making existing care work visible; and envisioning a more holistic and ethical approach to engaging diverse publics. We translate Tronto’s seven warning signs for ‘bad care’ in institutions into seven positive guidelines for providing ‘good care’ in public internet access facilities, then contextualize these for community informatics institutions and practices.     

Automatic Bayesian quantile regression curve fitting

Quantile regression, including median regression, as a more completed statistical model than mean regression, is now well known with its wide spread applications. Bayesian inference on quantile regression or Bayesian quantile regression has attracted much interest recently. Most of the existing researches in Bayesian quantile regression focus on parametric quantile regression, though there are discussions on different ways of modeling the model error by a parametric distribution named asymmetric Laplace distribution or by a nonparametric alternative named scale mixture asymmetric Laplace distribution. This paper discusses Bayesian inference for nonparametric quantile regression. This general approach fits quantile regression curves using piecewise polynomial functions with an unknown number of knots at unknown locations, all treated as parameters to be inferred through reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (RJMCMC) of Green (Biometrika 82:711–732, 1995). Instead of drawing samples from the posterior, we use regression quantiles to create Markov chains for the estimation of the quantile curves. We also use approximate Bayesian factor in the inference. This method extends the work in automatic Bayesian mean curve fitting to quantile regression. Numerical results show that this Bayesian quantile smoothing technique is competitive with quantile regression/smoothing splines of He and Ng (Comput. Stat. 14:315–337, 1999) and P-splines (penalized splines) of Eilers and de Menezes (Bioinformatics 21(7):1146–1153, 2005).     

Whose problem? Disability narratives and available identities

Special Issue on the Arts and Community Development, Volume42, Number 4. Unfortunately, the article contained an incorrect quotationthat     

Harnessing the community sector

The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically the prevailing policy approach that seeks to cultivate the community sector by the ‘third sector’ route of developing existing community-based groups. Analysing the extent and nature of participation in the community sector using both secondary data from the 2000 General Household Survey and primary data from a case study of the community sector in rural England, the finding is that a culture of participation in ‘third sector’ groups is relatively alien to lower-income populations and that such groups are much more used by relatively affluent populations for the purpose of developing their social networks. If the intention of harnessing the community sector is to improve the material circumstances of lower-income populations, a third sector approach of developing existing community-based groups is thus found to be inappropriate. Instead, it is argued that a ‘fourth sector’ approach is required. This seeks to further cultivate the prevailing culture of participation in one-to-one reciprocal exchange that is predominantly used by lower-income populations to improve their material circumstances. The paper concludes by outlining how this might be achieved.     

'Management Standards' work-related stress in the UK: practical development

Research commissioned for the UK's Health & Safety Executive (HSE) supports the view that a preventative, risk-assessment based approach would be more effective than case-based methods in achieving a nationwide reduction in work-related stress. The background to this approach is described and discussed in a companion paper in this issue (Mackay, Cousins, Kelly, Lee, & McCaig, 2004). The present paper describes the development of HSE's new stress Management Standards—which offer organizations continuous improvement through a three-phase stress preventative process—and the development of a supporting 'Indicator Tool' (a two-phase questionnaire to assess employee perceptions of working conditions). The Management Standards comprise a series of 'states to be achieved', which are statements of good practice in six key stressor areas: demands, control, support, relationships, role and organizational change. For each stressor area there is also a 'platform statement' that outlines the main aims to be achieved by the organization. This statement may include a target percentage of employees finding that the organization meets the standard: this matter will be settled after the standards have been assessed in a public consultation campaign. To use the new process, an organization's state can first be assessed using the Indicator Tool; liaising with workers in focus groups enables a further exploration of issues raised; finally, there may be formulation of interventions and subsequent review. It is not intended that the standards will be legally enforceable. HSE's aim is that they and the associated methodology will enable organizations to effectively tackle work-related stress, and subsequently reduce both its incidence and prevalence.     

Why do people engage in paid informal work? A comparison of higher- and lower-income urban neighbourhoods in Britain

The aim of this paper is to show that the extensive and growing sphere of paid informal work is not the same everywhere. Instead, we identify distinct socio-spatial differences in its character and the reasons why people engage in such work. Drawing upon interviews with 511 households in higher- and lower-income urban neighbourhoods of British cities, we reveal that for people living in the higher-income neighbourhoods, most paid informal work is conducted under social relations akin to formal employment. Exchange is between consumers and suppliers previously unknown to each other who are motivated by economic gain. For the populations of the lower-income neighbourhoods, in contrast, paid informal exchange occurs mostly between relatives, friends and neighbours for reasons associated with redistribution and sociality. Consequently, we show the need to move beyond assigning a universal character and logic to paid informal work and for greater recognition of the socio-spatial differences in this form of exchange. El objetivo de este articulo es demostrar que la esfera extensiva y creciente del trabajo pagado informal no es en todos sitios igual. En cambio, identificamos distintas diferencias socio-espaciales en al carácter y en el porque la gente se dedica a tales trabajos. Recurrimos a entrevistas con 511 hogares de barrios urbanos con ingresos elevados e ingresos bajos en varios ciudades británicas para revelar que, para los que viven en los barrios de ingresos elevados, la mayoría del trabajo pagado informal se conduce según relaciones sociales parecidas a las del empleo formal. En este caso, el intercambio ocurre entre consumidores y proveedores, previamente desconocidos, motivados por ganancia. Por cambio, en los barrios de ingresos bajos, el intercambio pagado informal ocurre principalmente entre familia, amigos y vecinos por razones asociadas con la redistribución y la socialidad. Por consiguiente, demostramos la necesidad de avanzar mas allá del mero nombrar un carácter y una lógica universal al trabajo pagado informal, y de dar mayor reconocimiento a las diferencias socio-espaciales en esta forma de intercambio.