Understanding preferences for tree attributes: the relative effects of socio-economic and local environmental factors

Urban plant biodiversity is influenced by both the physical environment and attitudes and preferences of urban residents for specific plant types. Urban residents are assumed to be disconnected from their immediate environment, and cultural and societal factors have been emphasized over environmental factors in studies of landscaping choices. However, we postulate that local climatic and environmental factors can also affect preferences for plant attributes. Therefore, spatial and temporal patterns in urban tree biodiversity may be driven not only by the direct effect of environmental variables on plant function, but also by the effect of environmental variables on attitudes toward trees and associated choices about which types of trees to plant. Here, we tested the relative effects of socio-economic and local environmental factors on preferences toward tree attributes in five counties in southern California in and surrounding Los Angeles, based on 1,029 household surveys. We found that local environmental factors have as strong an effect on preferences for tree attributes as socio-economic factors. Specifically, people located in hotter climates (average maximum temperature 25.1 °C) were more likely to value shade trees than those located in cooler regions (23.1 °C). Additionally, people located in desert areas were less likely to consider trees to be important in their city compared with people located in naturally forested areas. Overall, our research demonstrates the inherent connections between local environmental factors and perceptions of nature, even in large modern cities. Accounting for these factors can contribute to the growing interest in understanding patterns of urban biodiversity.     

Information-seeking during acquaintanceship: Effects of level of social understanding and personal relevance

Two studies examined how individual differences in social understanding influence children's information-seeking orientations during an initial meeting with a peer, in which they do or do not anticipate future interaction. Study 1 involved a relatively controlled, laboratory setting in which 7-9 year old children were presented a list of questions from which to choose what to ask the peer. The findings indicate that children who view a person's behavior in terms of stable dispositional characteristics (high SDC), express greater interest in gathering trait-related information about an unfamiliar peer than children who do not perceive people in terms of stable traits (low SDC), but only when they expect to play games with that peer in a future interaction. Study 2 involved a more naturalistic observation of the actual questions 7-9 year old children ask during an initial meeting with an unfamiliar peer. The findings showed that high SDC children asked more questions of the peer when they expected interaction than when they did not, whereas low SDC children did not differ significantly across conditions. Taken together, the two studies indicate that the future, predictability orientation of high SDC children leads to a more extensive information search about a peer when they expect interaction with that peer involving instrumental choices.     

Raising Girlyboys: A Parent's Perspective

An increasing number of children are expressing themselves in gender-expansive or gender-variant ways. A subgroup of those children are girlyboys: boys who accept themselves as boys but cross culturally defined gender lines in their attitudes, behaviors, and desires. Using clinical material, written accounts, and personal observations, this paper investigates the experience of parents raising these boys. Facilitative parenting is differentiated from obstructive parenting within the rubric that gender-fluid outcome is healthy and parents can have influence in this arena. The experience of parents with their girlyboys is also offered as a window through which to view a young boy's protogay development. Analysis is made of the ways in which the psychoanalytic lens has traditionally blurred or distorted our thinking about parents' roles in gender-variant children's development. An alternative view of parenting, informed by the work of post-modern psychoanalytic gender theorists, is proffered, with an end to reinforcing healthy gender-fluid development.     

VIOLENCE,MORALITY, AND TELEVISION COMMERCIALS

It is popularly believed that television violence and declining morality are important causes of crime. Nearly all of the research in this area, however, has centered attention on programs, both news and entertainment. Commercials have generally been neglected. The present study sought to remedy this oversight . Findings from a content analysis of 1,699 commercials show that only a very small percentage of commercials contain violence. The findings also indicate that a low number of commercials exhibit behavior or attitudes that run contrary to conventional moral standards. It is theorized that although advertisers sponsor programs that feature violence or morally controversial themes, they do not wish to closely associate such content with the products or services they seek to sell.     

Women Empowering Women

As women in this female-centered profession of social work, we have not effectively advocated for ourselves in terms of leadership in our educational systems. We reexamine the 2008 special section of the Journal of Social Work Education on women in the academy and build on information that suggests social work has lost its momentum to advocate for a more unified feminist voice and standpoint epistemology in our scholarly literature, teaching materials, and leadership models. We reflect on pioneers who helped pave the way, and we question our own involvement as women in surrendering to the dominant voice. We conclude with suggestions for eliminating status-based disparities, unifying our stance as women, and strengthening the feminist voice in leadership, mentorship, and education through the lens of relational-cultural theory.     

A Collaborative Student Affairs and Faculty Health Assessment and Intervention Initiative

Abstract

The authors describe a collaborative partnership forged between faculty and student affairs staff to improve student health at a large urban university. They examine skills and reward structures of each constituency and the stages of the collaboration in the context of 2 theoretical models. A comprehensive data collection and dissemination process in the campus community provided goals for the initial stage of the partnership, leading to implementation of campus initiatives that use the reciprocal skills of each stakeholder. Outcomes of the collaboration included (1) a working relationship between faculty and student affairs staff, (2) increased dialogue with high-level administrators, (3) more coordinated campus efforts to decrease high-risk drinking, (4) use of outcome measures for implementing and evaluating health programs, and (5) an opportunity for interdisciplinary research. The authors offer suggestions for implementing the process on other campuses.     

A structural hermeneutics of The O’Reilly Factor

There has been a significant rise in opinion and talk-based programming on American cable news channels since the mid-1990s. These news analysis programs are often politically partisan in their interpretive approach. This article examines one of the most prominent and popular of these shows, The O’Reilly Factor using the theoretical tools of structural hermeneutics. The program produces a radically simple and partisan schema for interpreting the news, but to do so it relies on the constructed persona of the host, a complex underlying meaning structure formulated around binary oppositions, and a number of rhetorical techniques. The show simplifies, but is not itself simple. To simplify the news in a way that suggests partisan conclusions that still seem relevant rather than cartoonish, individual episodes and segments of the show frame issues in terms of a meaning structure that leads strongly to partisan conclusions, but affords an appearance of the reasonable consideration of diverse views. It is suggested that this kind of deep analysis of meaning structures is important for making sense of how news analysis programs and mediated partisanship function as a cultural system.     

CONSUMING IRELAND: LUCKY CHARMS CEREAL,IRISH SPRING SOAP AND 1-800-SHAMROCK

This article analyses some of the most prominent and long-lasting US advertising campaigns that have engaged themes of Irishness. The trend toward using Irishness to sanitize the commodified nature of goods and services in a variety of US television commercials has accelerated dramatically at the end of the 1990s. Expanding upon the formative campaigns discussed here, corporate brands as varied as General Foods International Coffees, AT & T Long Distance Service, the cholesterol medication Zocor, Folger's Coffee, Dr Pepper soda, Platinum Mastercard and Mobil Oil have all deployed advertising that references Irishness as a mode of transformative identity, a form of ideological camouflage, an accessory discourse to ‘family values’, or a catalyst for the pleasures of white ethnic heritage. Limited in its scope, but attentive to the strategies of some of the most formative campaigns that inspired these trends, this piece seeks to indicate some of the most prominent coordinates on the expanding map of Irishness in contemporary US popular culture.