“Parent Advocacy” as an Ideological Code: LGBTQ Parents Engage with Disability Services

What does the work that LGBTQ parents do to find resources for their disabled children reveal about the social organization of services? This article presents findings from an institutional ethnography study based on interviews with 15 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ) parents and six key community informants in Toronto, Canada. The analysis focused on the work parents did to engage with disability service systems on behalf of their children, and the ways in which families’ social privilege and/or marginalization affected their experiences. Particular attention was paid to the ways in which “parent advocacy” was taken up, responded to, and critiqued in these interviews. “Parent advocacy” was found to operate as what Dorothy Smith has called an “ideological code” (Smith 1999), offloading systemic responsibilities onto parents, shielding inequities, and promoting individualized competition between service users. This study suggests that the systemic organization that makes “parent advocacy” necessary also renders parents’ relative privilege or marginality central to what their children receive.     

Selling the cryptosphere in China

ABSTRACT

China, one of the world’s most clandestine states, is currently engaged in moves to make state secrecy a matter of public policy, even inaugurating a ‘National Security Education Day’ in 2016. This article explores some recent campaigns about spy-catching to show how the state is using crowdsourcing, content marketing, and prosumerist gambits to sell an emergent social space of civic duty that I term the cryptosphere. Inciting civic participation is a particularly deft tool for propaganda work of this kind, which pivots on performative ideology. The ostensible purpose of these campaigns is to enlist the Chinese people in the securitization of the state, but in practice this is a highly disingenuous move given that the realm of the classified in China is so vast that ‘keeping secrets’ can only be perfunctory for almost all of its citizens. So far, commentators outside China have either been amused by the state’s new forays into infographics and mash-up videos, or critical of their xenophobic messaging. But the state’s apparently light-hearted drive to remind the Chinese people of the need to track spies is only peripherally about foreigners. It is occurring at a time when the government is also trialling a vast algorithmic grab on its own citizens’ personal data via the social credit system; operating a CCTV surveillance regime of more than one million cameras; and conducting mandatory biometric profiling in Xinjiang using DNA, blood types, iris scans, and fingerprints. These policies, I argue, constitute the exoskeleton of the cryptosphere. But this new sphere also needs its soft padding. Propaganda campaigns which school subjects on how to perform the role of loyal ‘informants’ – at the very moment that their own information is increasingly being expropriated by the state – are providing just this kind of thought work cushion.     

Impact of subsidiaries' cross-border knowledge tacitness shared and social capital on MNCs' explorative and exploitative innovation capability

As subsidiaries' cross-border knowledge increases in tacitness, it becomes more difficult for subsidiaries to articulate and for multinational corporations' (MNCs') headquarters to integrate and apply. Herein, dynamic capabilities and social capital theory frame structural and relational social capital as capabilities that improve the productivity of subsidiaries' cross-border knowledge tacitness shared on MNCs' headquarters explorative and exploitative innovation capability. The hypotheses are tested on a data set consisting of survey data collected from 220 senior managers or executives at the headquarters of Taiwan-based MNCs. Interestingly, structural social capital between headquarters and subsidiaries strengthens the negative association between subsidiaries' cross-border knowledge tacitness shared and explorative innovation capability; relational social capital attenuates the negative association between subsidiaries' cross-border knowledge tacitness shared and both explorative and exploitative innovation capability. Stated differently, different types of social capital can facilitate (i.e., relational social capital) or impede (i.e., structural social capital) innovation capability when cross-border knowledge tacitness is high. The validity and managerial implications of these findings are explored through interviews with senior managers or executives of MNCs headquarters or subsidiaries. Theoretically, this study emphasizes the importance of understanding relationships between subsidiaries and MNCs' headquarters to understand the association between subsidiaries' resources and MNCs' headquarters innovation capability.     

Interpersonal Influences on Students' Academic and Career Decisions: The Impact of Sexual Orientation

The authors investigated differences in interpersonal influences on career decision making between gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) and heterosexual college students. Contrary to hypotheses, GLB students reported having more career role models than did heterosexual students, and the amount of inspiration received from role models did not differ between the 2 groups. However, GLB students perceived they received less support and guidance from others in their academic and career decision making. As expected, GLB students were more likely to endorse the importance of a career role model's sexual orientation and support of people with their own sexual orientation. Career intervention and research implications are discussed.     

The Alliance in Relationship Education Programs

Couple relationship education (CRE) programs are associated with positive romantic relationship outcomes; however, the mechanisms by which these gains occur are less understood. The current study (122 couples) utilized actor–partner modeling to examine the association between the therapeutic alliance and dedication and negative and positive communication for racial/ethnic minority couples. Additionally, we examined whether gender and delivery format moderated these relationships. Results demonstrated that both men's and women's alliance scores were significantly related to their own outcomes. Higher ratings of alliance were related to partner outcomes for men only. The association between partners' alliance and dedication outcomes was stronger within the group format as compared to the couple format. Implications for leaders of CRE programs are offered.