Rationalists, Fatalists, and the Modern Superstitious: Test-Taking in Introductory Sociology

As sociologists we are guided by a rational approach to understanding the social world. This rational approach is also evident in the way we test students. But do students approach tests from the same orientation that we take in creating them, or are they influenced by such nonrational orientations as superstitions? To explore this question the authors created and administered the Luck and Superstition Questionnaire to 426 students taking Introduction to Sociology. We found that nearly 70 percent of students indicate some level of test‐related superstitious practice. However, we also found that superstitious practice was largely unrelated to religious belief and practice, gender and race, educational performance and grade expectations, and end‐of‐semester pressures. These results are entirely consistent with Colin Campbell's theory of modern superstition. Superstitious practice in modern society is self‐sustaining–not integrated into social institutions or systems of belief–and only “half‐believed” by the very practitioners of modern superstition.     

Working relationships

This paper describes a workshop intended to promote greater understanding and future cooperation between health visitors, general practitioners and social workers. The workshop has been run for students on qualifying courses but its content and procedures are relevant for programmes for qualified workers. The paper outlines the aims and practice of the workshop and some of the issues arising from it.     

The effects of landscape scale on greenery and traffic relationships with urban birds and butterflies

Actions and policies to enhance biodiversity in the urban landscape must match the spatial scale at which biodiversity responds to the management and target variables. To this end, we compare the importance and effect of different kinds of greenery cover and road-lane density on bird and butterfly species richness between two landscape scales: 50-m versus 126-m radii around point counts (equivalent to areas of 0.8 h and 5 ha, respectively). We also compared the results against those of an earlier study using 500-m walking transects with widths of 100 m (i.e., 5 ha). Road lane density was more important at the 126-m than 50-m radius for both birds and butterflies. For birds, natural vegetation or forest cover and cultivated shrub cover were also more important at 126-m radius whereas the cultivated tree canopy cover was more important at 50-m radius. Cultivated tree cover and natural vegetation or forest cover were positively associated with species richness while road lane density and cultivated shrub cover were negatively associated with species richness. The results from point counts generally corroborate the results from the transects-based study, except that the short-duration point counts performed poorly in sampling butterflies. Our results indicate that in designing urban greenery policy, the plot sizes of individual developments is an appropriate spatial scale for the stipulation of tree cover targets, while urban planners have more flexibility to allocate natural greenery at broader spatial scales.

     

Are Conventional Farmers Conventional? Analysis of the Environmental Orientations of Conventional New Zealand Farmers*

Abstract Within the political economy of agriculture and agrofood literatures there are examples of approaches that reject simple dichotomies between alternatives and the mainstream. In line with such approaches, we challenge the assumption that alternative agriculture, and its attendant improved environmental practices, alternative management styles, less intensive approaches, and better approaches to animal and ecosystem welfare, is the only source of agricultural sustainability. This article uses national farm‐survey results for New Zealand's sheep and beef, dairy, and horticulture sectors to examine conventional farmers, measure their assessments of farming practices, and assess their environmental orientation. Analysis identifies a proenvironmental cluster of farmers in each sector characterized by a higher environmental‐orientation score and distinct ratings of other farm practices queried in the survey. We interpret the results in terms of the exposure of different agricultural sectors to the effects of market‐based, audited, best‐practice schemes. The presence of shades of “greenness” among conventional farmers has important implications for environmental management and for our understanding of the various and complex pathways toward the greening of agrofood systems.