When Opportunity Knocks: Confronting Theory and Empirics About Dynamics of Gender Wage Inequality

Social Indicators Research - We present empirical evidence that large structural shocks are followed by changes in labor market inequality. Specifically, we study short-run fluctuations in adjusted...     

Perception and Acceptance of Technological and Environmental Risks: Why Are Poor Countries Less Concerned?

The research has been aimed at answering two questions: (1) What factors impact perception and acceptance of technological and environmental hazards? (2) Why are rich societies involved more in protecting their environment and health than poor societies? Data has been collected from representative samples of two countries—Poland and Sweden. The results indicate that (1) contrary to earlier findings, the inverse relations between perceived benefits and dangers of hazards has not been observed, (2) acceptance of a risk has been mostly influenced by perceived benefits, (3) rejection of a risk has been mostly influenced by its perceived harmful consequences. Concerning the second question, it has been found that: (1) perceived hazard's danger and benefit is not the only factor that impacts its acceptance, and (2) a broader economic context can impact acceptance (tolerance) of hazards. It has been found that being aware of high dangers and not very high benefits of hazardous activities, Poles still have accepted them. Thus, Poles seem to follow an old proverb: “When one does not have what one likes, one has to like what one has.”     

Accounting for ethos or programmes for conduct? The brave new world of research ethics committees

This paper examines the operation of power and its consequences arising from the growth of new ethical bureaucracies in universities. We use the UK as a case study to illustrate more general points about the globalised nature and impact of such bureaucratisation. Our focus is on the social sciences as this is where, we argue, the impact is likely to be most marked. The paper is organised in five sections. The first introduces our concerns. Section 2 traces the genealogy of these new regimes of control in the UK. We then problematise the new ethical bureaucracies, making an analysis in terms of the shift in the locus of power away from researchers to becoming centralised in bureaucratic structures. In section 4 we explore some of the ways in which researchers might respond to the changing regimes of ethical control. Finally, we offer considerations of the ways in which ethical governance of research might be differently conducted so as to avoid the adverse consequences of new regimes of control on research practice. Our aim is to provoke debate and thereby contribute to a platform from which to reassert ways to ensure that research is ethical and that do not interfere with the production and consumption of critical social science.     

Identifiable state‐space models: A case study of the Bay of Fundy sea scallop fishery

State‐space models (SSMs) are now popular tools in fisheries science for providing management advice when faced with noisy survey and commercial fishery data. Such models are often fitted within a Bayesian framework requiring both the specification of prior distributions for model parameters and simulation‐based approaches for inference. Here we present a frequentist framework as a viable alternative and recommend using the Laplace approximation with automatic differentiation, as implemented in the R package Template Model Builder, for fast fitting and reliable inference. Additionally we highlight some identifiability issues associated with SSMs that fisheries scientists should be aware of and demonstrate how our modelling strategy surmounts these problems. Using the Bay of Fundy sea scallop fishery we show that our implementation yields more conservative advice than that of the reference model. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 47: 27–45; 2019 © 2018 Statistical Society of Canada     

Post-Truth and the Production of Ignorance

This essay is written in response to Fujimura and Holmes’s piece “Staying the Course,” published in the December 2019 special issue of Sociological Forum—Resistance in the Twenty-First Century.     

Research encounters,reflexivity and supervision

Reflexivity in qualitative and ethnographic social science research can provide a rich source of data, especially regarding the affective, performative and relational aspects of interviews with research subjects. This paper explores by means of three case examples different ways of accessing and using such reflexivity. The examples are drawn from an empirical psycho-social study into the identity transitions of first-time mothers in an inner-city multicultural environment. Fieldnotes and supervision were used to engage with researcher subjectivity, to enhance the productive use of reflexivity and to address the emotional work of research. The methodology of the supervision was psychoanalytic, in its use of a boundaried frame and of psychoanalytic forms of noticing oneself, of staying engaged emotionally as well as creating a reflective distance. The examples illustrate how this can enhance the knowledge gained about the research subjects.     

Clean and green organizing in urban neighborhoods: Measuring perceived and objective outcomes

ABSTRACT

One way in which urban community organizations attempt to improve neighborhood health is through cleaning and greening efforts. Few studies have evaluated how such efforts are related to changes in both residents’ perceptions of neighborhoods and objective community-wide cleaning and greening indicators over time. Drawing upon quantitative and qualitative data collected during an evaluation of a community-building initiative in two communities, results show how neighborhood changes in cleaning and greening were reflected in perceived and objective measures and how these measures compare across different time periods and sub-groups of residents within the two target communities. We provide suggestions for additional ways that future evaluations of urban cleaning and greening efforts can examine the impact.     

Foucault,Politics and Organizations: (Re)‐Constructing Sexual Harassment

This article reviews the body of knowledge around workplace sexual harassment. In deploying a Foucauldian analysis, it attempts to argue that this knowledge, as part of the wider discourse on sex, may (re)produce consequences counter to those which its proponents espouse. In particular, the discussion seeks to problematize the status of harassment knowledge as truth; the depiction within this knowledge of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sex; the roles this knowledge identifies for men and women within the phenomenon of harassment; and the theme within harassment knowledge that sex is central to our existence. The conclusion aims to suggest the ways in which this kind of analysis is useful by addressing the criticisms usually levelled at Foucault's work.