When the Lord builds the house: An autoethnographic account of working in an evangelical for-profit organizational culture

Religion is often perceived as a private topic, thus belonging outside the traditional conceptualization of a work environment. However, religion is a pervasive organizing framework and an understanding of its role in the workplace is needed from a communicative perspective. In the following autoethnography, I describe my experience working for a Christian for-profit homebuilder – starting with new employee orientation and moving through my final day at Local Homes. I focus on instances where tension emerges between expectations and reality as I learn about and interact within the overtly evangelical Christian organizational culture. The tension is illustrated through four vignettes that correspond to the traditional phases of socialization. Through writing this autoethnographic account, I attempt to move beyond my personal experience and situate my story within larger disciplinary and societal conversations about the socialization process in a religious organization. With this goal in mind, I conclude with methodological and theoretical implications.     

Toward a genealogy of the liberal government of youth

While discourses that define and demarcate young people such that they become legitimate targets of negative practices of marginalisation and exclusion have not disappeared, these are no longer the dominant discourses and modes of governing youth. Constructions of youth as self-determining subjects and empowerment polices of youth participation increasingly animate contemporary approaches to governing young people throughout the West and beyond. Until recently, the dominant critique of such developments consisted of accusations of failed attempts to realise certain principles in practice or of their ideological functions. There is however an emerging critical youth studies literature that analyses such developments drawing on the work of Beck and Foucault’s notion of ‘governmentality’. In this paper, I argue that while these studies challenge some of the assumptions upon which such developments rest, they are yet to challenge the extent to which these contemporary ways of constructing and governing youth are new. Using Foucault’s genealogical method my research traces an unacknowledged nineteenth century history of these common ways of constituting and governing youth today. To conclude I consider the strategic usefulness and ramifications of these findings for critical youth studies and policies of youth participation.     

An evaluation of the rural development commission's redundant building grant

The Rural Development Grant operates the Redundant Building Grant which is designed to bring redundant buildings in certain areas into commercial activity. This paper outlines the results of a recent evaluation of the Grant largely based on contacts with more than 400 applicants in nine counties. This survey is used to explore five aspects of rural policy: property development; business performance; job creation; integrated rural development; and aspects of land use planning.     

The bivariate alpha-skew-normal distribution

In this paper, we propose a new bivariate distribution, namely bivariate alpha-skew-normal distribution. The proposed distribution is very flexible and capable of generalizing the univariate alpha-skew-normal distribution as its marginal component distributions; it features a probability density function with up to two modes and has the bivariate normal distribution as a special case. The joint moment generating function as well as the main moments are provided. Inference is based on a usual maximum-likelihood estimation approach. The asymptotic properties of the maximum-likelihood estimates are verified in light of a simulation study. The usefulness of the new model is illustrated in a real benchmark data.     

Identity Work,Techniques of Neutralization,and Deviance: Exploring the Relationship Among Older Adult Gamblers

This study investigates the value of techniques of neutralization in understanding how people involved in marginal to widely deviant behaviors perform identity work. Based on 33 in‐depth interviews with older adult gamblers, we show how techniques of neutralization are used to align personal and social identities. We describe the techniques of neutralizations our participants use along a continuum of gambling involvement, showing how techniques differ in variety and content and are contingent on larger narratives about appropriate behaviors, identities, and selves operating in contemporary society. Our research helps to refine sociologists' understandings of relationships between levels of involvement in deviant behaviors and identity work.     

Are Hearing Voices Networks Compatible with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Psychosis?

The most extensively evaluated intervention for auditory hallucinations is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Psychosis (CBTp), which is usually delivered in statutory settings by experienced clinicians. In contrast, peer support networks, such as the Hearing Voices Network (HVN), operate informally using peers to normalise and manage voices. This article compares these two approaches to identify points of synergy and difference. Its analysis suggests the two approaches share many features, but also deviate in important ways that could compensate for each other. Instead of competing with each other as might first be thought, they may actually be complementary. Further, HVN may align comfortably with the values and principles of social work. Social workers seeking to engage with voice hearers may be advised to study the underlying principles of each approach to guide the way in which they can capitalise on intervention opportunities to better assist voice hearers.     

The effects of school desegregation on mixed-race births

We find a strong positive raw correlation between black exposure to whites in their school district and the prevalence of later mixed-race (black-white) births, consistent with the literature on residential segregation and endogamy. However, that relationship is significantly attenuated by the addition of a few control variables, suggesting that individuals with higher propensities to have mixed-race births are more likely to live in desegregated school districts. We exploit quasi-random variation from court-ordered school desegregation to estimate causal effects of school desegregation on mixed-race childbearing, finding small to moderate effects that are largely statistically insignificant. Because the upward trend across cohorts in mixed-race childbearing was substantial, separating the effects of desegregation plans from secular cohort trends is difficult; results are sensitive to how we specify the cohort trends and to the inclusion of Chicago/Cook County in the sample. The fact that the addition of a few control variables substantially weakens the cross-sectional relationship between lower levels of school segregation and higher rates of mixed-race childbearing suggests that a substantial portion of the observed correlation is likely due to who chooses to live in places with desegregated schools. Researchers should be cautious about interpreting raw correlations between segregation—whether residential or school—and other outcomes as causal. Our results also point to the need to carefully explore specification of cohort effects in quasi-experimental designs for treatments where cumulative exposure is important.