RIESMAN'S CHARACTER TYPOLOGY AND MUSICAL PREFERENCES

Researchers analyzed YUM(!) Brand/Kentucky Fried Chicken's (KFC's) response to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' (PETA's) KFC cruelty campaign in order to add a new component to the current organizational deviance literature related to how corporations defend themselves against attacks. KFC's reaction to PETA's attempts to label it deviant is a unique pattern of response we dub strategic interaction, in which each tactic used by PETA is met with a new and adaptive response by KFC. After an extensive campaign, PETA was still unable to succeed at changing KFC's policies. We attempt to explain PETA's lack of success in terms of superficial appeasement and appropriation. Superficial appeasement is a newly identified stalling tactic, which may provide organizations with the time they need to create a history of corporate responsibility in response to accusations of deviance. Appropriation involved KFC's co-optation of a joint panel that was intended to facilitate dialogue between the two organizations, but instead became almost entirely filled with panelists sympathetic to KFC's existing corporate policies, a technique that may facilitate other corporations attempting to defend themselves.     

Early Cultural Dialogues in Cross-Cultural Clinical Practice

This article examines the quality of cultural dialogues between clients and therapists when they initiate and integrate verbal references to culture in the beginning process of therapy. Six cross-cultural dyads in short-term–oriented community mental health services participated in the study. The initial three sessions of actual clinical encounters were taped, and conversation analysis was used for an intensive analysis of the treatment sessions. Despite the presence of a wide range of affectively charged cultural content raised by the clients, the therapists showed only minimal responses to these topics. The potential of therapeutically germane cultural dialogue was lost, and the discussion of material involving cultural differences regressed to monologues expressed by clients. In this sample, there was little talk that focused on cultural differences or similarities between clients and therapists. Implications and limitations of the study in cross-cultural clinical practice are discussed.     

Lone Parents and Welfare‐to‐Work in England: A Spatial Analysis of Outcomes and Drivers

Mirroring changes across nations of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, recent UK governments have redrawn lone parents' entitlement to social assistance benefits ever tighter around participation in the labour market. A radical shift since 2008 has been the gradual transfer of most non‐employed lone parents into the ‘activating’ Jobseekers' Allowance (JSA) regime. The enhanced conditionality requirements of this JSA regime have been justified by both paternalistic and contractualist arguments but, however justified, are built on the premise that behavioural factors drive lone parent employment outcomes, a view made increasingly forcefully under the current Coalition government. This article uses up‐to‐date administrative data at local authority level across England to provide a geographical perspective into the sub‐national changes in lone parent employment outcomes since the transfer to JSA from 2008, as well as the relevant importance of the alternative structural and behavioural accounts to these outcomes. The findings suggest that the JSA transfer has increased lone parent employment, that structural rather than behavioural drivers are more relevant causal factors and that there is good reason to be concerned about the effect of the reforms on the well‐being of lone parents and their children.     

Community and drug use among gay men: the role of neighborhoods and networks

Gay neighborhoods serve as vital places for gay men's socializing, yet few studies have examined their contributions to gay men's health-either directly or indirectly via residents' social networks. Drawing from theoretical perspectives on community and networks, we test hypotheses concerning whether gay neighborhoods and social network factors are associated with patterns of recent illicit drug use among a sample of 740 urban gay men from New York City. Higher odds of drug use were observed among individuals who resided in gay neighborhoods, had networks composed predominantly of other gay men, and had increased socialization with gay men. Network factors did not mediate associations between gay neighborhoods and drug use. These findings highlight the need to better contextualize the health risks faced by gay men by accounting for both neighborhood and network structures.     

Adolescent Career Development in Urban‐Residing Aboriginal Families in Canada

The purpose of this study was to understand how urban‐residing Aboriginal adolescent–parent dyads (n = 11) jointly constructed and acted on goals and strategies with their social supports (n = 17) to facilitate the adolescents' career development. A modified protocol following the qualitative action‐project method was used. A discrete joint project was identified for each family. These joint projects can be clustered into 3 joint career development projects: (a) navigating toward a safe future, (b) negotiating school continuance, and (c) intergenerational continuity through tradition of care. A 4th project emerging from the data was family survival. Family survival projects supplanted participants' efforts to engage in career development projects.     

Pessimism and optimism towards new discoveries

Theory and Decision - In this paper, we provide an axiomatic foundation of pessimism and optimism towards ambiguity that emerges due to growing awareness. In our setup, this corresponds to a...     

Risk Assessment Research: Only the Beginning

[This editorial is an essentially unedited version of testimony I presented to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (Subcommittee on Technology, Environment, and Aviation) on November 16, 1993. The hearing marked the release of an Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) report entitled "Researching Health Risks," for which I was part of an advisory panel (along with Curtis Travis and a dozen other experts in risk assessment). The title of my testimony foreshadowed the dual message I hoped to convey: that more research to improve risk assessment is sorely needed, but that we ought not let that need blind us to other deficiencies in risk-based decision-making that may deserve equal or greater attention.]     

The Environmental Justice Debate: A Commentary on Methodological Issues and Practical Concerns

Over the last decade, environmental sociology has produced a tremendous stream of research pertaining to environmental justice issues. In general, we now know that low income groups and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to toxic wastes. In this paper, I argue that future research requires a shift in methodological approach. Learning how groups come to be exposed to toxic wastes requires an understanding of the organizational processes that shape decisions regarding production practices and regulatory enforcement strategies. I conclude by making three claims: (1) Documenting that disempowered groups are exposed to toxic wastes more than other groups is important. Disentangling whether race or class matters more is more dubious. (2) If we want to make claims about process, we should study process and not outcomes. (3) Insofar as we have to study outcomes, we should be more aware of which outcomes we want to study and what types of inferences we are able to draw from outcomes.