Unmasking the crowd: participants’ motivation factors,expectations, and profile in a crowdsourced law reform

This article examines the demographic characteristics, motivations, and expectations of participants in a crowdsourced off-road traffic law reform in Finland. We found that the participants were mainly educated, full-time working professional males with a strong interest in off-road traffic. Though a minority, the women participating in the process produced more ideas than the men. The crowd was motivated by a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Intrinsic motivations included fulfilling civic duty, affecting the law for sociotropic reasons, to deliberate with and learn from peers. Extrinsic motivations included changing the law for financial gain or other benefits. Participation in crowdsourced policy-making was an act of grassroots advocacy, whether to pursue one’s own interest or more altruistic goals, such as protecting nature. The motivations driving the participation were in part similar to those observed in traditional democratic processes, such as elections as well as other online collaborations such as crowdsourced journalism and citizen science. The crowds’ behavior was, however, paradoxical. They participated despite the fact that they did not expect that their contributions would affect the law.     

Women on strike: mobilizing against reproductive injustice in Poland

The paper employs a lens of reproductive justice (RJ) to discuss the events of the 2016 mobilization against a total abortion ban proposal in Poland. By presenting the context of women’s rights in Poland, especially the abortion debates, we argue that the 2016 Women’s Strike showed that taking a stand for reproductive justice was countered by governmental actions. By using a case study approach, the paper analyzes the Strike as a tumultuous act of women’s solidarity while simultaneously assessing its implications for RJ issues. We discuss the aftermath and the socio-political reticence to acknowledge the complexities of women’s lives and reproductive choices. Further, we provide arguments for applying the RJ framework into discerning the notion of ideal citizens and gendered social control in Poland. This localized analysis has a global relevance by reflecting the impact of worldwide trends in women’s rights activism and RJ in the context of resurfacing nationalisms and populism.     

Gender differences in gambling preferences and problem gambling: a network-level analysis

Most gambling studies have a gender-blind research approach, although a large body of scientific evidence suggests that gambling in females is on the rise and that males and females have different gambling behaviours and experience specific gambling-related harm. This study addressed these gender differences using a network analysis, an innovative approach considering disorders/concepts as dynamic systems of interacting symptoms/items. Data on gambling activities, problem gambling, substance use and mental health were collected in a representative sample of French adult gamblers (n = 8805). The study capitalized on the network analysis directly to compare associations of specific gambling activities with gambling disorder symptoms separately for both genders. The network analysis revealed that problem gambling was strongly associated with gambling machines among females, whereas it was related to sports betting, poker and casino games among males. The networks that included substance use and mental health showed that substance use was related to specific gambling activities. These findings confirm the links between various gender-specific gambling patterns and problem gambling and suggest a need to consider these gender differences to improve prevention efforts. More broadly, the present study further supports the importance of gender differences for gambling research and policy.     

In search of the glass ceiling: gender and recruitment to management in Norway's state bureaucracy1

There are still fewer female than male managers in Norway's state bureaucracy. This article asks if there are organizational barriers which prevent women from entering these positions. Is there really a glass ceiling, or must one look outside the organizational environment to find an explanation? Is it rather the case that the scarcity of female managers is caused by women's own preferences or their life situations outside work? Or do both contribute to the situation? The study shows that female managers are treated just as well as male managers in central parts of the state bureaucracy. Employers give equal shares of respect and attention to both genders. Female managers are encouraged to apply for the same number of jobs as men and are offered an equal number of jobs as men when they apply; in fact, women are offered more jobs than men, when one controls for the number of job applications. This indicates that organizational barriers are not the problem. The study also shows that there are no differences in work orientation between male and female managers. Female managers are just as ambitious as male managers. Nor do female managers find it more difficult than male managers to combine work and family life. So, how can one explain the low number of female managers? The study shows that one reason can be that female managers apply for management jobs less often than their male colleagues. The cause of this seems to be anticipated discrimination rather than lack of ambition or self‐confidence. However, this slows down women's movement into higher management positions in the state bureaucracy.     

Real men, real husbands: Caregiving and masculinities in later life

Drawing on data from in-depth personal interviews with a sample of fifty-three older men caring for their impaired wives, authors report findings on these men's caregiving experience, specifically on the way they see themselves as men within such role. Through analytic methods based upon content analysis and open coding, authors found that when describing their gendered understanding of themselves participants evidenced several negotiations with the dominant masculine ideology in order to maintain their sense of masculinity and legitimate their presence in a feminine role. This was accomplished by reframing their definition of a man and reinforcing that of a husband and by retaining varying degrees of power over the caregiving relationship. The social visibility of the role within particular gendered community-based social networks was found to be important in shaping these older men's masculinities.     

Subsidizing “Stayers”? Effects of a Norwegian Child Care Reform on Marital Stability

Since January 1999, all parents in Norway with children aged 1 to 3 years who do not attend publicly subsidized day care are eligible for “cash‐for‐care” (CFC). One important purpose of the reform is to enable parents to spend more time with their children. We analyze whether the CFC reform has affected marital stability, using individual register data covering information on 130,265 observations of married couples. The results from both a natural experiment approach and from a matching procedure indicate that the CFC reform has reduced the likelihood of marital dissolution in the short run.     

Puerto Rican drug users experiences of physical and sexual abuse: comparisons based on sexual identities

This study integrates the results of quantitative and qualitative methods to elucidate the association between sexual identity and physical and sexual abuse among Puerto Rican drug users. A structured questionnaire was administered to 800 subjects in New York and 399 in Puerto Rico. A total of 93 subjects (7.9%) self-identified as homosexual or bisexual. Gay males were significantly more likely than heterosexual males to report first occurrence of physical abuse by a family member in childhood. Both gay and bisexual males were more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to report first experiencing unwanted sex in childhood and intimate partner physical abuse later in life. Lesbians were more likely than female heterosexuals to report unwanted sex in childhood. Qualitative data were collected through in-depth life histories with 21 subjects and suggest that gay and lesbian subjects perceive antihomosexual prejudice on the part of family members as one cause of childhood physical and sexual abuse.     

当前日本高等教育办学理念改革评析

日本大学审议会发表的《关于 2 1世纪的日本大学及其改革策略》咨询报告 ,标志着日本高等教育办学理念正在发生重大变革。结合近几年来日本在这方面的一系列改革尝试 ,我们可以看出日本高等教育将朝向更加灵活多样的方向发展。研究生后继续教育是继续发展的重要方向 ;本科生与研究生的一体化教育是当前日本国立大学办学理念改革的重要手段。     

Uniformity and Diversity in Turkish Business Groups: Effects of Scale and Time of Founding

This study aims to extend recent theoretical and empirical work that has begun to question the strong homogeneity argument in much of the macro‐institutional literature on nationally dominant forms of organizing. More specifically, the paper develops the proposition that intra‐national variety is likely to be greater in business strategies and structures than in governance patterns. Drawing upon macro‐institutionalist and contingency theories, testable hypotheses are derived from this proposition that postulate relationships between size and time of founding and organizational dimensions of strategy, administrative structure, and forms of governance. These hypotheses are then tested on a sample of business groups that have historically been the dominant form of large business organization in Turkey. Findings did show, as expected, that governance structures remained insensitive to size and time of founding effects. Variety associated with size was apparent in the case of central administrative structures, although features associated with vertical control remained invariant. Hypotheses concerning diversification and internationalization strategies received only partial, and in the latter case, rather weak support. The findings are indicative, however, of divergence resulting from differences in size and institutional conditions of founding.