Exposed Yet Unrevealed: Reflections on the Poetry of Women Prisoners

Women comprise a small but rapidly growing proportion of prisoners incarcerated in countries around the world. Research shows that women experience prison differently than men, primarily due to the extent that personal relationships (both inside and outside prison) shape the culture and climate of women’s prisons. However, the literature does not adequately address women’s perspectives on their unique prison experiences. Prisoners’ poetry is a rich and largely untapped source of information that offers nuanced views of crime, punishment, and prison life. This research employs poetry written by female prisoners as a medium from which to learn about their lives in prison. The poems selected in this sample reflect a number of themes involving the common feelings of pain and loneliness, the routine of prison life, traumatic pre-incarceration experiences, and family issues. These themes are then compared with themes found in poetry written by male prisoners.     

Using a sequence of point optimal tests to select a varying coefficient model

Recent literature in empirical finance has strongly considered the possibility of varying coefficient specifications and has utilised sequences of tests to select a particular varying coefficient model for the data.This paper explores the use of a sequence of point optimal tests in this context and finds power to be the driving factor in correct model selection.     

The Problems of Effecting Change Within the British Civil Service: A Cultural Perspective

This paper examines the relatively unexplored area of underachievement in organization change programmes, where the original ambitions of the authors of change fail to be realized at the level of implementation. A case in point is the British Civil Service which after several years of government endeavour has not seen the large-scale, ‘second order’ change that had been expected. The paper offers a cultural perspective on this issue. Using the findings from an in-depth, ethnographic study of one of the newly formed agencies within the civil service, it argues that attempts at change can be frustrated by a ‘cultural infrastructure’ at the local level which acts to neutralize any attempt to change from above - in relative power terms a case of David defeating Goliath. This structure is a social defence against the anxieties and ambiguities brought about by the threat of impending change, and is manifested not as resistance, or even avoidance, but disregard and unstudied indifference. These local cultural orientations are the cause of ‘schematic myopia’ (Harris, 1989) or collective blindness, which prevent those affected from recognizing the significance of a major change initiative. An examination of these cultural processes reveals the inherent weaknesses and limitations of one of the most ubiquitous of change models to be found in organizations today: the top-down, ‘invasionary’ approach to change.     

Racial Authenticity and Familial Acceptance Among Transracial Adoptees: A Bothersome Bargain of Belonging

Transracial adoption in the United States has increased significantly in recent years. Crossing the color line within the intimate familial sphere has important implications for how institutions such as the family enable and constrain individuals' identity work. We explore how transracial family members utilize racial stereotypes and racialist understandings in everyday life, employing 30 in‐depth, life‐story interviews with both transracial adoptees and their white siblings. In attempts to accomplish a sense of belonging and authenticity, we argue that both transracial adoptees of color and their white siblings experience divergent and paradoxical expectations of familial and racial authenticity. We find that although they often utilized “color capital” in a quest for racial authenticity, in certain spaces and environments, they were expected to eschew their nonwhite identity and embrace “acting white” as purported by white family members and their “white debt” approach to racial socialization. This study adds nuance to the question of how families navigate the enduring power of the color line in relation to the reproduction of both material inequalities and racial discrimination.     

Sex Ratios,Single Motherhood,and Gendered Structural Relations: Examining Female-Headed Families Across Racial-Ethnic Populations

Sex ratio research often ignores how structural inequalities influence sex ratio effects. Employing decomposition analysis and using standardized U.S. Census tract data from 1970 to 2000, this research investigates how adult sex ratio effects predict the proportion of single parenting women among White, Black, and Hispanic/Latino populations, examining both main and conditional effects of sex ratios on female-headed families. Analyses reveal that main sex ratio effects consistently predict the proportion of single mothers across all racial-ethnic groups, but the conditional effect of gender-distributed labor force participation differentially influences sex ratio effects across race-ethnicities. Specifically, relative labor force participation consistently weakens the sex ratio effects on female headship among Whites. However, the relative female employment alters sex ratio effects among Blacks only when examining the same area over time, and it does not alter sex ratio effects among Hispanic/Latino populations. Findings underscore the importance of understanding family as a sociopolitical phenomenon.     

Some kids are left behind: The failure of a perspective,using critical race theory to expand the coverage in the sociology of youth sports

Sports are no longer simply extracurricular activities. For many children, sports are curricular, central to their identity, development, and peer and familial relationships. However, sport scholars and sociologists spend little time trying to learn and understand the huge growth in youth sports participation and even less attention to the role of race in youth sports. Sociology could offer much more, but suffers from what James McKee calls ( 1993 ) “the failure of a perspective” with regard to studying and understanding race, racism, and race relations. Critical Race Theory can help to extend the coverage of youth sports to include more input from Youth and of Scholars of Color. In this article, we review a current debate in the sociology of youth sports, which illustrates the gap in understanding the experiences of youth of color and Black athletes in particular. And, we provide solutions and ideas for future research.     

Countering Depopulation in Kansas: An Assessment of the Rural Opportunity Zone Program

Population Research and Policy Review - Many rural areas throughout the Great Plains, including Kansas, have been affected by “brain drain” or the out-migration of well-educated people....     

How Much Do Liberal and Conservative Identifiers Differ in the United States?*

Recent scholarship has reported that identification as a liberal or conservative shapes lifestyle orientations and behaviors. Liberal/conservative differences with respect to such arenas as family and religion go beyond ideological identification research's traditional focus on policy attitudes and political processes. But are differences on non-political issues as large as those relating to political ones? This question has yet to be addressed, and it is critical to putting in firmer perspective the degree to which liberal and conservative identifiers differ in the United States. We take up investigation through analysis of 106 items from the General Social Survey 2006 panel. We compare ideological identification's influence with respect to political versus non-political orientations and behaviors. Application of Morgan and Winship's model of causal inference builds from past studies’ cross-sectional analysis. Results extend ideological identification scholarship, while cautioning against wide-ranging claims advanced by several public commentators.     

Overcoming Ungrievability: Transgender Expectations for Identity after Death

Butler (Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London, UK: Versa; 2004) observed cultural shifts immediately after 9/11 and suggested that, with regard to grievable and ungrievable lives, societal power structures “produce and maintain certain exclusionary conceptions of who is normatively human” (p. xiv–xv). The current study brings new understanding to the concept of grievability by exploring the symbolically violent de-transitioning of trans people after their deaths. The aim of this exploratory study was to examine the thoughts and attitudes of older trans people (40 y. o. plus) with regard to the phenomenon of nonconsensual de-transitioning after death and the expectations they have regarding the expression of their own identity after death. The wishes of the participants were grouped into four outcome categories: hoping to be memorialized only as their lived identity (25%); only as their identity-assigned-at-birth (6%); as both identities combined (44%); and those who claimed that they did not care how their identity was memorialized (25%). Our findings serve to emphasize the importance of open and honest end-of-life communication as well as to underscore the diverse nature of the transgender population and the complexity of the transgender identity.