Insurgency and institutionalization: the Polanyian countermovement and Chinese labor politics

Why is it that in the nearly 10 years since the Chinese central government began making symbolic and material moves towards class compromise that labor unrest has expanded greatly? In this article I reconfigure Karl Polanyi’s theory of the coutermovement to account for recent developments in Chinese labor politics. Specifically, I argue that countermovements must be broken down into two constituent but intertwined “moments”: the insurgent moment that consists of spontaneous resistance to the market, and the institutional moment, when class compromise is established in the economic and political spheres. In China, the transition from insurgency to institutionalization has thus far been confounded by conditions of “appropriated representation,” where the only worker organizations allowed to exist are those within the state-run All China Federation of Trade Unions. However, in drawing on two case studies of strikes in capital-intensive industries in Guangdong province, I show that the relationship between insurgency and institutionalization shifted between 2007 and 2010.     

Establishing Mobility Measures to Assess the Effectiveness of Night Vision Devices: Results of a Pilot Study

In preparation for an evaluation of night vision devices, an exploratory study was conducted to gain initial experience with the sensitivity of chosen mobility measures under night conditions. The measures included cane contacts and object recognition distances. Results provide preliminary evidence that these two measures may be sensitive to the effects of a night vision device.     

An advertising effect model

A model of advertising effects has been developed based on a distinction between “persuasion” advertising and “trigger” advertising. The former is designed to induce prospective purchasers to try the product and to establish a “product image”. The latter is aimed at “triggering” a purchase on the part of an individual whose image of the product has already been formed. The distinction has major implications for the type and timing of advertising. The model can be applied to determining an optimum distribution of advertising effort in the introduction of a new product, and the optimum advertising media mix.     

Social Support and Career Optimism: Examining the Effectiveness of Network Groups Among Black Managers

As companies look for better ways to managediversity, one of the approaches that is emerging is theuse of female and minoritynetwork groups. These groupsare not well understood, and there has been no quantitative analysis of their impact onminority employees. Social network theory suggests thatnetwork groups should enhance the social resourcesavailable to women and minorities and in that wayenhance their chance of career success, but somecritics of network groups suggest that backlash mightproduce greater social isolation and discrimination. Inthis paper, we analyze a survey of members of theNational Black MBA Association to find out whethernetwork groups have a positive impact on careeroptimism, what specific effects of these groups are mostbeneficial, and whether groups enhance isolation ordiscrimination. Results indicate that network groups have apositive overall impact on career optimism of Blackmanagers, and that this occurs primarily via enhancedmentoring. Network groups have no effect ondiscrimination, either positive or negative. There are someindications of greater isolation, but also someindications of greater contact with Whites.     

Social protection for retirees: the diminishing role of employers

Jobs are changing in ways that will reduce benefits for retirees. This paper explores the variety of pressures that will tend to produce this result. One major factor is that employers have been responding to cost pressures and the need for flexibility by redesigning jobs. There has been a trend--which is likely to continue--toward more part-time and temporary jobs, more subcontracting, and more contingent-pay systems. The consequences are complex and not all bad, but for retirees the tendency will be toward fewer, less generous, or less secure benefits. As workers approach retirement age facing the prospect of diminished benefits, increasing numbers of them will have to choose work to maintain their standard of living. At the same time, demographic pressures will gradually push employers to seek new pools of workers, including retirees. Gradually, employers are likely to provide fewer social-protection benefits to older people, but more employment opportunities.     

The interrelationships of self-monitoring factors,personality traits,and nonverbal social skills

Following recent developments concerning individual differences in nonverbal social skills, the present study examined the inter-relationships of several standardized measures of nonverbal skills and personality. Particular attention was given to the concept of self-monitoring, thought to be a skill central to social interaction. Based on previous research which suggested that self-monitoring, as measured by the Self-Monitoring Scale (SMS), is a multidimensional construct, it was hypothesized that self-monitoring may actually be comprised of a number of more basic social skills. Correlations between standardized measures of basic social skills and three factors obtained from factor analysis of the SMS (Briggs, Cheek, & Buss, 1980) supported this conception. The elements of self-monitoring appear to be “charisma,” “performance,” and “social sensitivity.”     

County child poverty rates in the US: a spatial regression approach

We apply methods of exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and spatial regression analysis to examine intercounty variation in child poverty rates in the US. Such spatial analyses are important because regression models that exclude explicit specification of spatial effects, when they exist, can lead to inaccurate inferences about predictor variables. Using county-level data for 1990, we re-examine earlier published results [Friedman and Lichter (Popul Res Policy Rev 17:91–109, 1998)]. We find that formal tests for spatial autocorrelation among county child poverty rates confirm and quantify what is obvious from simple maps of such rates: the risk of a child living in poverty is not (spatially) a randomly distributed risk at the county level. Explicit acknowledgment of spatial effects in an explanatory regression model improves considerably the earlier published regression results, which did not take account of spatial autocorrelation. These improvements include: (1) the shifting of “wrong sign” parameters in the direction originally hypothesized by the authors, (2) a reduction of residual squared error, and (3) the elimination of any substantive residual spatial autocorrelation. While not without its own problems and some remaining ambiguities, this reanalysis is a convincing demonstration of the need for demographers and other social scientists to examine spatial autocorrelation in their data and to explicitly correct for spatial externalities, if indicated, when performing multiple regression analyses on variables that are spatially referenced. Substantively, the analysis improves the estimates of the joint effects of place-influences and family-influences on child poverty.

The Distress and the Meaning Making of Divorced Abused Arab Women in Israel

Women’s divorce in the Arab society in Israel goes against patriarchal social values. The aim of this research is to explore the meaning that abused Arab women gave to their divorce. The present study based on interviews with 13 women, who had been divorced for 2 to 5 years. Analysis revealed that the women perceived their coping as navigation between the cost of stigma and familial and social distress, and the gains of their connection to sources of strength and self-worth. The discussion based on the interviewees’ existential experience their self-identity as meaning makers and choosers.     

Volunteers and the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder

Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) result from exposure to a traumatic event and influence a person's ability to cope psychologically. Recent documentation from emergency rooms shows that medical personnel, including volunteers who treated severely injured people, can develop symptoms of PTSD even though the volunteers themselves were not personally subjected to the stressful event. This article finds similar results among adolescents who volunteered with Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance, and blood bank service. Because of the security threats Israel has faced, these adolescents are likely to be exposed to traumatic events during their volunteer service, and some may develop PTSD. This article explores who is most susceptible to developing PTSD and the underlying theories of why that may be the case. Since the adolescents' motives to volunteer vary, the article proposes that volunteers with certain motives retain their enthusiasm for volunteering despite the danger of developing PTSD symptoms. It also finds that some of the motives to volunteer correlated with a reduction in the level of PTSD symptoms. Understanding the adolescents' motivations to volunteer will help nonprofit leaders and managers allocate volunteers according to their motivations and the levels of threat a particular job entails.     

Similar Others in Same-Sex Couples’ Social Networks

Same-sex couples experience unique minority stressors. It is known that strong social networks facilitate access to psychosocial resources that help people reduce and manage stress. However, little is known about the social networks of same-sex couples, in particular their connections to other same-sex couples, which is important to understand given that the presence of similar others in social networks can ameliorate social stress for stigmatized populations. In this brief report, we present data from a diverse sample of 120 same-sex couples in Atlanta and San Francisco. The median number of other same-sex couples known was 12; couples where one partner was non-Hispanic White and the other a person of color knew relatively few other same-sex couples; and there was a high degree of homophily within the social networks of same-sex couples. These data establish a useful starting point for future investigations of couples’ social networks, especially couples whose relationships are stigmatized or marginalized in some way. Better understandings of the size, composition, and functions of same-sex couples’ social networks are critically needed.