Schools as racialized organizations in policy and practice

In this paper we examine schooling inequalities through drawing from the contributions of racialized organizations. We apply the components of this racial theory to offer a new framework for examining racial inequalities in US K-12 schools. We analyze case studies to demonstrate how the four tenants of racialized organizations operate in three schools. In particular, we highlight how these tenants surface through schools' policies (school rules around discipline, language, and tracking) and practices (interactions between students, teachers and staff). We offer a framework for understanding how schools are shaped by the racial hierarchy at the organizational level. We close by considering implications and suggestions for future research.     

Effects of method on participants and disclosure rates in research on sensitive topics

This study replicates and extends the research of Rosenbaum, Rabenhorst, Reddy, Fleming, and Howells, which also appears in this special issue. Responses from 398 randomly assigned participants regarding differentially sensitive topics were collected via four methods of data collection: written questionnaires, face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, and an automated telephonic data collection system (ATDC). Several significant differences in data collection methodology and topic area were found, including greater disclosure of sensitive information via the ATDC system than via face-to-face and paper-and-pencil conditions. Participants who were assigned to the ATDC condition felt significantly more comfortable answering questions compared to those in the face-to-face interview condition. Participants in the telephone interview condition reported answering significantly more carefully than participants answering via written questionnaire. Taken together, the results of this study and the previous one it replicates suggest that the ATDC produces disclosure rates that are at least equivalent to, if not greater than, those generated using traditional methods for collecting sensitive data.     

Funerals and families: locating death as a relational issue

Situated at the intersection of the Sociology of Death and Sociology of the Family, this paper argues that the organization and funding of funerals is an overlooked and available lens through which to examine cultural and political norms of familial obligation. Drawing on interviews with claimants to the Department for Work and Pensions’ Social Fund Funeral Payment, the paper shows how both responsibility for the organization and payment of a funeral is assumed within families, and how at times this can be overridden by the state. In highlighting the tension between reflexive choice and political norms of family espoused in this policy context, it supports Gilding's ( 2010 ) assertion that understanding family practice through reflexivity alone neglects the institutions and conventions within which ‘doing’ family takes place. In so doing, the paper further makes a case for families and relational negotiations and tensions to be more explicitly included within sociological understanding(s) of death more generally.     

Mandatory, preferred, or discretionary: how the classification of domestic violence warrantless arrest laws impacts their estimated effects on intimate partner homicide

Warrantless arrest laws for domestic violence (DV) are generally classified as discretionary, preferred, or mandatory, based on the level of power accorded to police in deciding whether to arrest. However, there is a lack of consensus in the literature regarding how each state's law should be categorized. Using three classification schemes, this study examined whether variations among these schemes impact research outcomes by analyzing the effects of discretionary, preferred, and mandatory warrantless arrest laws on intimate partner homicide (IPH). Variations in classification schemes and in the dates of law passage presented in the literature resulted in differing estimated effects of the laws.     

Leader character, ethos, and virtue: Individual and collective considerations

Character is an indispensable component of leadership and its development, and thus warrants future research focus. Before a purposeful research stream on character can proceed, however, it is critical that we fully define and conceptualize the character construct (the ontological basis) and then consider how we might best measure this construct and test it across a diverse array of contexts (the epistemological basis). We pursue these ends by first unpacking the definition of leader character and then by posing a series of questions. Following our initial thoughts related to the locus of character and how leader character is transmitted to and received by followers, we proceed by discussing how character relates to or serves as an antecedent to exemplary leadership styles, how character is contextualized, and how character is developed.     

Computer systems in addiction treatment programs: Availability and implications for program evaluation

Addiction treatment programs have been slow to adopt computerized information systems. Little systematic data exist on programs' technological infrastructures and use of electronic databases to store and analyze client information. Likewise, there is little information available on counselors' access to and use of the Internet for learning about new treatment techniques. Drawing upon data obtained in 2002–2003 from nationally-representative samples of publicly- and privately-funded addiction treatment centers and their counselors, this article describes the current state of the field in terms of data system availability and Internet usage. The availability of client-level databases is variable but continues to evolve. Programs maintaining electronic client data appear to be at an advantage for implementing outcomes monitoring activities. While counselors' access to computers is high, their use of the Internet and the NIDA website is low. The implications of these findings, and directions for future research, are discussed.     

Urban multiculture and everyday encounters in semi‐public,franchised cafe spaces

This paper engages with an emergent literature on multiculture and concepts such as conviviality and negotiation to explore how increasingly ethnically diverse population routinely share and mix in urban places and social spaces. As part of a wider ESRC funded, two‐year qualitative study of changing social life and everyday multiculture in different geographical areas of contemporary England, this paper draws on participant observation data from three branches of franchised leisure and consumption cafe spaces. We pay particular attention to the ways these spaces work as settings of encounter and shared presence between groups often envisaged as separated by ethnic difference. Our findings suggest that corporate spaces which are more often dismissed as commercial, globalized spaces of soulless homogeneity can be locally inflected spaces whose cultural blandness may generate confident familiarity, ethnic mixity, mundane co‐presence and inattentive forms of conviviality.