On the Ambiguities of Greening

This article discusses some of the underlying contradictions in the contemporary attempts to achieve a more sustainable socio-economic development. Based on research conducted in a European project on public participation and environmental science and technology policy, the article identifies a tension between a business orientation and a more critical orientation in the efforts to 'green' societies. It concludes by outlining a broad, cultural approach to understanding the dynamics of ecological transformation.     

Does Housing Counseling Change Consumer Financial Behaviors? Evidence from Philadelphia

Pre-purchase homeownership counseling is a social service for low- to moderate-income households intent on becoming first-time homeowners. Despite the record number of low- and moderate-income households achieving first-time homeownership over the past decade, there is little research on housing counseling’s effectiveness, in terms of long-term positive financial behaviors. In addition, the research community has traditionally adhered to a proscribed definition of success within programs, which hinders evaluative efforts. This paper examines whether counseled borrowers have experienced financial behavior changes within 5 years after having purchased a home. There were mixed results regarding overall financial behavior changes. Agency identity had little influence on some counselees’ behaviors, while counseling agency characteristics had some limited effects on client behaviors.     

Employee experiences with family and medical leave: A case study

This article examines employee experiences with family and medical leave policies at an urban public transportation union work site in the United States. The case study focuses on the leave experiences among a sample population of 91 primarily African-American women transit workers, including reasons for taking or not taking leaves, decisions regarding how much leave time to take, and work impacts experienced after returning from leaves. The case study found that all respondents with new babies or ill children took leaves, as did 78% of those with illnesses and 39% of those with ill family members. Among those eligible to take leaves, the most frequent reason for not doing so was the lack of wage replacement. Knowledge of leave policies was minimal and not associated with the likelihood of leave-taking. These findings are discussed in terms of their workplace and community implications, including the need to expand the length and types of family leave coverage, the need for government-mandated paid leave, approaches for increasing employee knowledge of leave rights, and the need for continued research into leave experiences of minority populations.     

Lay and professional knowledge in social work: reflections from ethnographic research on child protection

This paper is concerned with the discursive interaction of lay and professional knowledge in the practice of social workers. The contention is that identifying discrete sources of knowledge—such as evidence-informed materials—may be less important for explaining how social workers guide their practice than recognising the effect of the discursive interaction of lay and professional knowledge within organisational culture. The example used for this discussion is child protection work, with a particular emphasis on how practice can be seen to be gendered. In the course of making this overall argument, the paper draws on academic debates about the nature of knowledge in professional work and discusses lay and professional knowledge as revealed through ethnographic research carried out in a social work team in the UK.     

Men,spinal cord injury,memories and the narrative performance of pain

This article draws upon data generated from life history interviews with a small group of men who had experienced spinal cord injury (SCI) through playing sport and defined themselves as disabled. By focusing on the initial acute phase of rehabilitation following SCI their autobiographical memories of pain are explored in relation to the narratives constructed by the participants some years after the event had taken place. Attention is given to the themes of unspeakable pain, naming pain, welcomed pain, hidden pain and locked in pain. The analysis highlights the contextual nature of this phenomenon and the narrative resources that are drawn upon by individuals to give meaning to pain over time.     

STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION AND THE TREES: An Analysis of Deforestation in Less-Developed Countries, 1990–2005

This study tests a hypothesis derived from an expanded theory of foreign investment dependence. The tested hypothesis states that less-developed countries with higher levels of primary sector foreign investment exhibit greater rates of deforestation. Findings for cross-national analyses of deforestation from 1990 to 2005 for 40 less-developed countries confirm the hypothesis, providing support for the proposed theorization. Additional results indicate that the presence of environmental international nongovernmental organizations is beneficial for natural forest areas, while population growth is a key driver of deforestation in less-developed countries. Besides confirming the hypothesis, this research underscores the importance for sociologists to consider both political–economic forms of integration and human-ecological factors when investigating how humans impact the environment.     

Distance between you and your home: the estrangement of postcolonial writing

This essay argues that the writing of postcolonial migrant authors has been critically deployed in such a way that it appears to vindicate a long standing romantic ideology of artistic detachment. In order to present an alternative account, the field of Nigerian anglophone fiction is examined here and the experiences of two aspiring authors offered as case‐studies. It is argued that their experience, and the wider circumstances of Nigerian cultural production, demonstrate that postcolonial migrant writing is not an expression of ‘aesthetic alienation’, but of the estrangement that Marx recognised as a subjective consequence of capitalism.     

Determinants of Food Safety Risks: A Multi‐disciplinary Approach*

Abstract This research employs a multi‐disciplinary approach by developing a model that draws upon psychometric, cultural, and reflexive modernization perspectives of risk perception. Using data from a 1999 national telephone survey, we tested our model on three food risks— pesticides, Salmonella, and fat. Results showed that perceptions of risks do vary by the nature of the risk investigated. Consistent with the psychometric perspective, the level of knowledge and control varied by risk, but these differences did not correspond with levels of concern. Worldview variables were correlated with perceptions of pesticides, indicating the relevance of cultural approaches. High levels of concern associated with each food risk, and the robustness of the relationship between trust and the perception of food risks, raise the possibility that trust acts as a coping mechanism, which is consistent with the reflexive modernization approach. Knowledge and trust were significantly related to all three risks.