Mentors as Social Capital: Gender,Mentors, and Career Rewards in Law Practice*

Previous studies have demonstrated that mentoring provides numerous career benefits to individuals and organizations. This article advances past work by examining the effects of individuals’ primary and multiple developmental relationships in a longitudinal study of the careers of lawyers. We develop a social capital perspective on mentorship emphasizing reciprocity of exchange, resource mobilization, and normative expectations embedded within mentoring relationships. We empirically assess mentoring benefits across a diverse range of career rewards. The results provide evidence that male lawyers gain more from their mentor‐derived social capital than female lawyers. Specifically, male lawyers with mentors of senior status benefit with elevated earnings, greater perceived fairness in their workplace, and greater work satisfaction. Women with multiple mentors, however, report enhanced work satisfaction. Implications for research on mentoring, social capital, and professional careers are discussed.     

Social workers' reflexive understandings of their “everyday” communications with children

Over the past two decades, the use of ethnographic research methods, in combination with a range of discursive, conversational, and multimodal analytical approaches, have provided vivid accounts of the complex nature of social workers' everyday communication. This paper discusses the potential and the problems of combining a video‐stimulated recall methodology with an explicit theoretical framework, in order to generate critical reflexive “insider” accounts of social workers' direct encounters with children. The framework employed was based on an adaptation of Goffman's concepts of “framing” and “footing,” which were integrated into an analytical process designed to theorize social workers' critiques regarding the nature of their communication with children. Three detailed case exemplars are used to demonstrate the potential of this methodology to explore the “delicate” agency required by social workers in the practice of authentic communication in complex professional inquiries with children. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the theoretical and practical issues associated with utilizing reflexive methodologies in professional contexts.     

Where the wild things are! Do urban green spaces with greater avian biodiversity promote more positive emotions in humans?

Urban Ecosystems - Urban green space can help mitigate the negative impacts of urban living and provide positive effects on citizens’ mood, health and well-being. Questions remain, however,...     

Long-range continuities in comparative and historical sociology: The case of parasitism and women’s enslavement

Theory and Society - In this methods-building article, I show how attention to long-term continuities in female enslavement patterns helps us understand the emergence of the Black Atlantic....     

Work-related musculoskeletal discomfort and injuries in Australian optometrists

Work-related musculoskeletal discomfort and injuries are reported by optometrists. The purpose of this paper is to describe the process used to investigate work-related discomfort in Australian optometrists. A multistage project was conducted which included questionnaires, interviews and onsite observations. Participants, with and without self-reported discomfort, included clinical optometrists, optometry students and clinical teachers. The various stages of the study developed over the course of the project, primarily in response to results collected at various stages. A multistage approach proved valuable for confirming results and testing hypotheses, and for investigating different groups of workers (clinicians, teachers and students). General guidelines to reduce the risk of work-related discomfort in optometrists can be developed from this project. Specific recommendations and teaching curricula have been identified in this project as areas of future research and development.     

“It’s Give and Take”: Australian Families’ Experiences of Negotiating Financial and Domestic Contributions When Young Adults Return Home

Young adults are increasingly reliant on parental support, with co-residence as a result of a return home increasingly common. Despite this, little is known about how family members negotiate financial and domestic contributions post-return. This qualitative study used a phenomenological methodology to explore the experiences of Australian parents and young adults who returned to co-residence in terms of the younger family members’ contributions to their household. Findings revealed that the young adults acknowledged the need to contribute but often varied in how much assistance they offered. For the most part, the extent of this contribution reflected their parents’ actions; the tendency not to ask for assistance and undertake tasks themselves meant offspring were not given incentives to contribute. While this at times resulted in unmet expectations and frustration among parents, they continued to act in ways that favourably accommodated their offspring. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the negotiation between parents and young adults in regards to household contributions, and the need for further qualitative investigation in this area.     

Student and Teacher Views on Cheating in High School: Perceptions,Evaluations, and Decisions

Why do so many adolescents cheat despite judging that cheating is wrong? Two studies tested a new model of cheating in high school. In Study 1, 85 high schoolers in the Western U.S. reported their perceptions, evaluations, and motivations surrounding their own and hypothetical cheating. In Study 2, 83 teachers reported their views about cheating; we also analyzed course syllabi. About half of the adolescents reported unintentional cheating, and many judged their own cheating—but not hypothetical cheating—as acceptable. Decisions to cheat were responses to competing pressures, low value placed on the assignment, and other considerations. Study 2 revealed teacher-student disagreements about cheating, and minimal content about academic integrity in syllabi. The findings supported the proposed model of adolescent cheating.     

The Mother-in-Law Mystique: A Tale of Conflict,Criticism and Resistance

While women have been described in various disciplines as the kin keepers of family relationships, empirical data show that the greatest rivalry in newly constructed heterosexual families exists between two women: the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law. Numerous rituals are employed across cultures in order to ease the expected tension between these two rival women. Yet, the topic seems to have been overlooked by feminist and family therapy research alike. Inspired by Bowen's (1978) concept of differentiation of self and Linn's (1998) and Gilligan's (Linn & Gilligan, 1990) ideas of the resisting self, the present study examines these female rivals as moral critics in the war zone of the family. The study sample consists of 14 mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law, and sons/husbands, belonging to five Israeli families of diverse cultural origin. Gilligan's Listening Guide was used to assess how participants saw the dilemmas of their situation, adopted a critical distance, and formed an authoritative moral voice.     

Immigrant Group Differences in Job Satisfaction

Despite the large number of immigrants in Canada’s labor force, studies of immigrants to Canada have devoted insufficient attention to how country of birth and race are related to job satisfaction. Using data from a general population telephone survey of English-speaking workers in Toronto (n = 659), we investigate job satisfaction differences between white Canadian-born workers and immigrants born in the Caribbean, the Philippines, South Asia, China, Portugal, the United States, and the UK. Each of the immigrant groups is racially homogenous, and most of the groups are composed of (non-white) visible minorities. We find that the contrasts between Canadian-born whites and workers born in the Philippines and China remain substantial, and statistically significant under one-tailed tests, after age, gender, job type, income, job demands, job control, job support, workplace discrimination, job-related stress, and perceived unfairness at work are all controlled. We argue that social comparison theory offers the most compelling explanation for the persistence of group differences in job satisfaction after controls.