The challenge of training in applied sociology

This paper adds to the current dialogue in our discipline regarding the challenge of expanding nonacademic employment opportunities for sociologists and training our students for such employment. The argument is made that this challenge should be seen as an opportunity for us to demonstrate the relevance of our knowledge and expertise to society and to advance the intellectual development of our discipline. Moreover, the achievement of these benefits does not require sacrificing the distinctive intellectual core of sociology as a humanistic liberal arts discipline. To help bridge the gap between academic and nonacademic cultures, several interrelated strategies are suggested that address issues of marketing and public relations, as well as curriculum revision. The internship, as a key feature of “applied” programs, is crucial in terms of both training students and facilitating our contacts with potential employers. where he developed the department’s internship program, and has done consultation with religious and social service organizations. where he helped develop the Master’s program in applied sociology, and has done extensive consultation with business organizations regarding their needs for sociological skills and expertise. which is jointly sponsored by the College of Business and Management and the Department of Sociology, and which conducts studies in organizational design, entrepreneurship, and strategic management at the University of Maryland in College Park. has done extensive consultation and research with business organizations and the military on personnel and family issues. in Jacksonville and utilizes sociological concepts in courses on organizational management and design. a member of the ASA Ad Hoc Committee on Under- and Un-employment. where he recently completed a term as Head of the Department and a leave of absence to the staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.     

Performative Listening

Communication as transaction implies the importance of listening, but it leaves room for the mistaken impression that listening fails to shape the content of the encounter. Listening scholarship focuses on the constituent elements and effects of the act but has left unaddressed the ways the listening act is entirely sufficient to fulfill duties and/or create relationships. Borrowing the elements of speech act theory, I describe three categories of illocutionary performative listening—listening toward relationship, toward leadership, and toward fairness—and call for research into such corollaries as listener credibility and meta-listening.     

Innovation in Social Work Students' Assessment

It is always a challenge in social work education to set assessment tasks that will encourage learning. This paper, written collaboratively by a lecturer and team of students, describes one novel approach to assessment developed at the University of Edinburgh.     

Still connecting the dots: An investigation into infants' attentional bias to threat using an eye-tracking task

An attentional bias toward threat has been theorized to be a normative aspect of infants' threat and safety learning, and an indicator of risk for internalizing psychopathology in older populations. To date, only four studies have examined this bias using the dot-probe task in infancy and the findings are mixed. We extended the literature by examining patterns of attention to threat in a culturally and linguistically diverse sample of infants aged 5–11 months old (N = 151) using all measures previously employed in the infant dot-probe literature. Given that an attentional bias toward threat is associated with higher risk of developing anxiety disorders later in life, we also examined how negative affect—an early correlate of later anxiety disorders—is related to attentional bias toward threat in infancy. This study was the first to use a consistent measure of negative affect across the whole sample. An eye-tracking dot-probe task was used to examine attentional bias toward threat (i.e., angry faces) relative to positive (i.e., happy faces) stimuli. Results showed that an attention bias to threat was not characteristic of infants at this age, and negative affect did not moderate the putative relationship between attention and emotional faces (angry, happy). These findings therefore suggest that attention biases to socio-emotional threat may not have emerged by 11 months old.     

Workplace learning strategies,barriers, facilitators and outcomes: a qualitative study among human resource management practitioners

Recently the role of human resource management (HRM) practitioners has become more professionalized and more strategic. Consequently, HRM practitioners have had to develop new competencies in areas such as change management, influence and technology. Workplace learning, which is important for professional development, is examined for 13 HRM practitioners in government, healthcare, post-secondary education and business organizations in the Halifax Regional Municipality area. Of particular interest were learning strategies, barriers to and facilitators of learning and outcomes of learning. To obtain rich data, practitioners were interviewed face to face using an interview guide. Results indicated that these practitioners are mostly similar to other professional groups in terms of workplace learning, with a few key differences. The similarities and differences are presented, and implications of these findings for HRM practitioners and future directions for research are discussed.     

How many ways can you look at a proportion?: cross-community vote transfers in Northern Ireland after the Belfast Agreement

Summary.  The single transferable vote is a method of election that allows voters to mark candidates in order of preference. Votes that are not required to elect a candidate are passed to the next candidate in the voter's order of preference. Results of this kind of election give us data about the degree to which voters of a given persuasion are willing to pass their vote to a candidate of a different persuasion. Measures of voters' willingness to pass a vote to a candidate of a different persuasion are of particular interest in places such as Northern Ireland, where communities differ by religion and national aspiration, and agreed new political institutions are based on cross-community power-sharing. How we quantify this voting data may depend on the questions that we want to answer, of course. But, to understand changes in how the voter orders her or his preference, one may need to ask several questions, and to quantify the results of the election in more than one way.     

Pension financialization and collective risk sharing in Canada and Finland

This article contributes to the debate concerning pension financialization and how countries are adapting their pension systems to respond to demographic ageing. We do so by examining the statutory pension systems of Canada and Finland, which diverge interestingly from current international trends. The Canadian and Finnish public pension schemes reflect two tendencies often associated with pension financialization: an increasing reliance on financial markets and an investment policy with a diversified asset allocation. However, unlike in many other countries, this has not resulted in heightened individual risks in old-age income security caused by a shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pensions – an otherwise common trend internationally.     

Resource Dependence as a Mechanism for Survival: The Case of the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital

This paper examines the evolution of the largest university teaching hospital in Ireland, from its origins in 1861 to the present day, drawing upon the lens of resource dependence theory as proposed by Pfeffer and Salancik (1978). Analysing the mission, resources and governance of the hospital, three distinct eras are identified, self-financing, transitionary and that of government/non-profit partnership. The paper demonstrates that despite traumatic events and financial crises this hospital has survived through evolving resource dependence and has preserved its voluntary status notwithstanding its current collaborative partnership with the Irish State.     

The Roles of Instability and Housing in Low-Income Families’ Residential Mobility

Given the repercussions of residential mobility, increased understanding of correlates of mobility is important for efforts to support family well-being. Using survey data on low-income families from the Three City Study (N = 2393), multilevel mixed longitudinal analyses examined factors associated with family residential mobility across the domains of family instability, housing and neighborhood contexts, and family characteristics. Results revealed contributions of family instability and housing and neighborhood contexts to residential mobility, with a higher rate of residential moves associated with experiences of intimate partner violence, relationship transitions, and job transitions, as well as with living in private-market rentals, substandard housing, and disordered neighborhoods. However, owning a home and living in disadvantaged neighborhoods predicted a lower rate of residential moves.     

CUMULATIVE ADVERTISING EFFECTS: THE ROLE OF SERIAL CORRELATION*

Since its publication, Palda's [12] initial work which supported the existence of a lagged relationship between advertising expenditures and sales has been frequently discussed and criticized. That criticism has been directed at both methodological and structural issues. This paper is an attempt to answer some of the questions which have been raised regarding the structural issues concerning the role of autocorrelation in Palda's results and to develop the implications of these structural issues for the marketing manager.