Becoming an Academic: Early vs. Later Professional Experiences

Abstract

This paper investigates the relevance of both formal training and current career conditions for the professional activity of an academic. We focus on the socialization of a sample of Ph.D. sociologists submitting papers for publication. Using regression procedures, we relate productivity of the training faculty, current publication pressures, sex, and year of degree to publication-related activity. We find that current publication pressures is a better predictor of professional activity than is productivity of the training faculty. In addition, sex appears to mediate professional socialization experiences.     

Family Microtransitions: An Observational Study

This research aimed to study the processes that take place during family microtransitions, that is, when family members move from an interactive form characterized by specific roles (active or peripheral) to another form that requires a change in these roles. For this purpose, 21 normative triads composed of mother, father, and a 4-year-old child were observed in a laboratory while playing together in a setting where they were asked to change their interactive configuration three times. The data revealed different ways of family functioning in coping with the microtransitions. Two groups emerged from the analysis that presented different characteristics. In particular, the family triads that completed the assigned task showed a significantly higher level of coordination and emotional tuning, a larger number of processes implied in the triadic dynamics, and a greater communicative coherence between the verbal, the expressive, and the corporal channels, compared with the group that did not complete the task.     

The Politicization of Knowledge Claims: The “Laffer Curve” in the U.S. Congress

Political debates over knowledge claims often become emotionally charged, with two sides not only disputing what is true but seeing those on the other side as deluded or worse. By looking at use of the term “Laffer curve” in the U.S. Congress from 1977 to 2010, we draw attention to two ways such debates over knowledge claims can evolve. The Laffer curve is a simple schematic representation of the relationship between tax rates and government revenue that was influential in U.S. tax policy in the late 1970s. Early on, Republicans and Democrats faced off over the Laffer curve as a cognitive symbol to be debated with argument, evidence, and reference to experts. Over time, Republicans continued to treat the Laffer curve as a cognitive symbol, but for Democrats it became a polluted expressive symbol that could be dismissed without debate. Democrats also articulated the Laffer curve as part of an ironic narrative about the failure of the Reagan administration, which ended the possibility of serious deliberation. We suggest that the dynamics seen here may also be present around other politicized knowledge claims, such as the claim that human activity is causing climate change.     

Integrating Services for Older People in Aging Communities in The Netherlands: A Comparison of Urban and Rural Approaches

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to discuss approaches to services integration for older people in urban and rural aging environments in The Netherlands, and the preliminary effects of these approaches on local aging conditions. In urban areas, services integration revolves around the creation of functional spatial hierarchy. In rural areas, the emphasis is on forging links between service providers. Outcomes for health and use of professional care services are similar. Out-comes for housing, informal care, and accessibility of services differ between urban and rural areas in ways that can be traced back to local aging conditions and elements of the specific approach to services integration used. In both urban and rural areas, much more could be done to connect formal programs to the lifeworlds of older dwellers.     

Inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to population–environment research for sustainability aims: a review and appraisal

The causes and consequences of demographic changes for the environment, and the possible ways of influencing population dynamics to achieve ‘sustainability’, have been the subject of many debates in science and policy in recent decades. However, the body of knowledge concerning relationships between population dynamics and sustainability is quite fragmented, dispersed over many disciplines, and encompasses diverse theories, paradigms and methodologies. This paper reviews four selected frameworks: linear, multiplicative, mediated, and system-theoretical approaches and perspectives. We represent how population–environment relationships are conceptualized, provide examples of research questions and accepted approaches, and critically assess their utility for different sorts of research for sustainable development. We note the growing recognition of the value of embracing complexity in population–environment research, and how this is consistent with normative aims of development.     

Cultures of Aspiration and Poverty? Aspirational Inequalities in Northeast and Southern Thailand

The paper provides micro-level evidence of rising inequality in Thailand, using data from an intensive study of seven communities in Northeast and Southern Thailand. This inequality affects participants’ material and subjective wellbeing, their aspirations, and the extent to which they feel these are realised. The paper argues that adaptation, expressed as reduced aspirations, could explain why the effect of material poverty on people’s satisfaction with their lives is small. The reduction in attainment of aspirations linked to socio-economic status suggests that a small, but constant group of people are being excluded from a shift in the societal consensus over what constitutes a good life.     

Italian Americans in the ‘Bocce Belt’: ‘Old World’ memories and ‘New World’ identities

This essay examines the development of an ethnically and racially segregated resort landscape in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York in the twentieth century. Focusing on the history of Italian American resorts clustered primarily in Greene County, New York, it demonstrates that ethnicity continued to shape the social and cultural lives of many European immigrant New Yorkers and their families well after World War II. Ethnic resorts provided vacationers with an insulated recreational environment in which group identity and transatlantic ties – both real and imagined – could be fostered and sustained. However, the flexibility of these ethnic identities and the pervasive discrimination against African Americans at ethnic resorts in the 1940s and 1950s reveals the extent to which European Americans had largely internalized a sense of white ethnic identity by the postwar decades. The history of ethnic resorts in the Catskills sheds light on the process by which generations of European Americans in New York City negotiated these multiple ethnic, national, and racial identities.     

A comparison of college students’ perceptions of older and younger tattooed women

ABSTRACT

A randomly assigned sample of 376 college students responded to a survey involving a between-subjects 2 × 3 experiment designed to assess the impact of age (older versus younger) and tattoo status (i.e., no tattoo, feminine tattoo, or masculine tattoo) on three dependent measures: credibility, attractiveness, and promiscuity. Older and younger women are perceived differently depending on tattoo status. Not wearing a tattoo may lead to a more favorable perception of older women than wearing one, but wearing a feminine tattoo may engender a more favorable impression of older women than having a masculine tattoo. But not having a tattoo may not be as helpful for the perception of younger women as it is for older women. Also, while younger women may be rewarded for gender role transgression with respect to tattoo status, this is not so for older women.     

“How Big is Big Enough?”

This article examines the representation of masculinity in Sex and the City through an analysis of the characters Big and Steve. Although the show is unique in that it presents female characters as the primary subjects of identification and presumes a female audience, it participates in the patriarchal project of measuring men, especially Big and Steve, against each other. At first, Big represents classic old-style phallic male character, the hero of both fairy tale and Hollywood romantic comedy. Steve, on the other hand, represents the new man, a flawed hero of modern relationship myths. However, throughout the course of the series, the illnesses of these two characters shift these representations. The series ultimately opens space for new representations of masculinity.