The Spatial Production of Learning Opportunities in Skateboard Parks

Drawing on an ethnographic study of skateboarders, we examine how learning occurs in two city skateparks. We consider the dialectical relationship between participants’ activity and setting, or individually experienced spaces of the skateparks. Individuals edit these settings in activity, even as activity generates setting, and space is socially produced in the collective editing and activity of participants. Learning opportunities, or access to participation in the communities of practice of the parks, emerge from this spatial production. In the two skateparks these learning opportunities were inseparable from other skateboarding activity; spaces of teaching, learning, and skating overlapped and mutually elaborated each other.     

New tech,old exploitation: Gig economy,algorithmic control and migrant labour

Digital platforms are the newest technological wave that is reshaping and reconfiguring the economic and labour landscape. Digital platforms often known as the gig economy are increasingly adopting app-based models to connect consumers with workers to complete their on-demand tasks. However, on-demand platforms continue to rely on the unequal division of labour and the precarious nature of the work to create labour markets that can respond accordingly to the increase in service provision. This review highlights two main themes that have emerged within the on-demand gig economy in the current literature—mythical autonomy and algorithmic control and misclassification of labour and the complexity of migrant workers in navigating this space. Finally, this review calls for further research into the inside/outside dichotomy of migrant labour within the gig economy and their experiences of labour exploitation through app-based digital platforms.     

Tolerance Within Community: Does Social Capital Affect Tolerance?

Credit cooperatives are financial intermediaries that pay attention to social criteria. Thus, if such entities want to survive and thrive in the new international context, they cannot ignore their inefficiencies in both the financial and social dimensions of their activity. However, previous research on efficiency in credit cooperatives is very limited and only considers their financial activity. To date, no study has been published giving evidence through indicators on whether these banking institutions are socially efficient. This paper therefore constructs a social efficiency index of Spanish credit cooperatives during the period 2008–2014 and examines its main explanatory factors. After applying a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis approach, the results from the first stage indicate that, on average, the social efficiency of Spanish credit cooperatives reaches an acceptable level of 66.42 %. Second-stage truncated regression reveals that entities with a greater proportion of branches in urban areas are socially less efficient, whereas both their size and the number of service points have a positive effect. Interestingly, social efficiency also varies significantly depending on the regional location of credit cooperatives in Spain. As a result, our findings enable these Social Economy financial institutions to both know their performance relative to their social activity and use this information to improve their competitiveness in the future.     

Development of the Geographical Proportional-to-size Street-Intercept Sampling (GPSIS) method for recruiting urban nightlife-goers in an entire city

Abstract

We developed the Geographical Proportional-to-size Street-Intercept Sampling (GPSIS) method in order to obtain a sample of nightlife-goers which accounted for the diversity of spaces, patrons and locations within two Swiss cities. Popular nightlife zones were identified and quantified using social media data and local experts’ knowledge. Young people were recruited in the streets on Friday and Saturday nights on three consecutive weekends using the ‘fixed-line method, pro-rated for the zone’s estimated popularity. Of the 3092 young adults approached, 896 agreed to pre-register. The importance of recruitment in multiple zones and over multiple weekend-days was evidenced by significant variations in participant demographics and registration rates between recruitment zones, times and weather conditions. To conclude, by combining a geographical approach with in situ recruitment, GPSIS has considerable potential as a tool for recruiting samples that represent the diversity of the nightlife population and spaces.     

The Political and Civic Lives of Public Sector Workers: Unions and “Public Service Motivation”*

Public sector employees are highly engaged in civic and political life, from voting to volunteering. Scholars have theorized that this political activity stems from “public service motivation,” or the selection of publicly oriented individuals into public work. We build on this work by analyzing the role of public sector unions in shaping participation. Unions are central mobilizing organizations in political life, and one in three public sector workers are unionized. Special supplements of the Current Population Survey provide data on various forms of participation, sector, union membership, and union coverage. Logistic regressions find that unionized public sector workers have much higher odds of engaging in a range of activities compared to non‐union public workers, including protest, electoral politics, and political communication. Union membership impacts service work to a lesser extent, suggesting that unions are more central to political lives. These findings have implications for the consequences of union decline, including the class, race, and gender composition of who participates in democratic life.     

Evaluation results of a 21st birthday card program targeting high-risk drinking

The B.R.A.D. Birthday Card initiative was started on the campus of Michigan State University (MSU) in April 1999. MSU administrators send the safe-drinking 21st birthday card (B.R.A.D.) and laminated wallet card to students shortly before their 21st birthday. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of the 21st birthday card, MSU and B.R.A.D., Inc, applied for and were awarded a 2-year US Department of Education grant in 2001. PARTICIPANTS: The authors surveyed 1,731 students within 2 weeks of their 21st birthday. METHODS: Of all students turning 21 years old during the study, the authors randomly selected students for each group. A control group received no card. All others received the standard B.R.A.D. card or a gender-tailored message card. RESULTS: Key findings include: 74% of students saved part of the card, 65% shared the card with family or friends, 22% reported thinking about the card during their celebration, 12% reported drinking less because of the card, 15% reported learning something new about alcohol poisoning, and 98% believed that MSU and B.R.A.D. should continue sending cards to students. CONCLUSIONS: Receiving, reading, and recalling the content of the B.R.A.D. card appears to reduce the total number of drinks a celebrant consumes.     

Is There a Correlation Between the Use of Representational Gestures and Self-adaptors?

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior - There are individual differences between people in their production of representational gestures, hand movements that represent the referent. In the present study,...     

Validation of the Four-Dimensional Connectedness Scale in a Multisample Volunteer Study: A Distinct Construct from Work Engagement and Organisational Commitment

This study examines the psychometric properties of a new self-report instrument to measure organisational connectedness (The Four-Dimensional Connectedness Scale; 4DCS) in two volunteer samples: state emergency service volunteers and volunteer ambulance workers. Confirmatory factor analyses in both studies supported the proposed four-factor structure of the 4DCS (other workers, recipients, task and values). In addition, confirmatory factor analyses showed that connectedness, commitment and engagement were separate constructs??a three-factor model with a Connectedness factor, a Commitment factor and an Engagement factor fitted best to the data. Moreover, hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that connectedness and engagement each shared unique variance with job satisfaction and intention to continue. The results confirm the factorial, discriminant and predictive validity of connectedness relative to engagement and commitment. It is concluded that the 4DCS has acceptable psychometric properties and that the instrument can be used to study volunteer wellbeing.     

Portfolio value-at-risk estimation for spot chartering decisions under changing trade patterns: A copula approach

Evolving geopolitical relationships between countries (especially between China and the United States) in recent years have highlighted dynamically changing trade patterns across the globe, all of which elevate risk and uncertainty for transport service providers. In order to mitigate risks, shipowners and operators must be able to estimate risks appropriately; one potentially promising method of doing so is through the value-at-risk (VaR) method. VaR describes the worst loss a portfolio is likely to sustain, which will not be exceeded over a target time horizon at a given level of confidence. This article proposes a copula-based GARCH model to estimate the joint multivariate distribution, which is a key component in VaR estimation. We show that the copula model can capture the VaR more successfully, as compared with the traditional method of calculation. As an empirical study, the expected portfolio VaR is examined when a shipowner chooses among Panamax soybean trading routes under a condition of reduced trade volumes between the United States and China due to the ongoing trade turmoil. This study serves as one of the very few papers in the literature on shipping portfolio VaR analysis. The results have significant implications for shipowners regarding fleet repositioning, decision making, and risk management.