Reports of Conferences, Institutes, and Seminars

This quarter's column features reports from the 2011 Electronic Resources & Libraries Conference; the 2011 North Carolina Serials Conference; the 2011 Association of College and Research Libraries Conference; the 2011 Kansas Library Association Conference; the New England Technical Services Librarians Section of the New England Library Association Spring 2011 Conference; and the 2011 Texas Library Association Conference.     

A noisy road or noisy resident?: a demonstration of the utility of social constructionism for analysing environmental problems

Within the developing field of environmental sociology the use of social constructionist approaches has often been criticised for detracting attention from the severity of environmental problems and for failing to contribute to attempts to manage them. While there are is a number of published social constructionist analyses of how various environmental problems have come to prominence, few of these address the criticisms which have been levelled at the approach. This paper attempts to contribute to this gap in the literature by providing a reflective case study of the use of social constructionism to analyse a specific environmental problem - the noise generated by a new road. The case study discussed is of the A27 road between Havant and Chichester. The results illustrate that treating environmental problems as socially constructed is often the most valid approach given that the existence and character of these problems, as well as how best to address them, are often contested. In addition it is suggested that the results of social constructionist analyses can make a practical contribution to the management of environmental disputes.     

Ethical challenges in conducting research with hard to reach families

This paper reflects on some of the ethical challenges encountered by the authors whilst undertaking sensitive qualitative research with parents and children who are traditionally hard to reach. The research aimed to provide more holistic and in‐depth accounts of parenting on a low income in diverse social circumstances than already exist. The nature of the sample and the subject matter that was covered inevitably raised many familiar ethical dilemmas and some that are less often encountered in practice, particularly in relation to child protection. In this article we discuss our approach to ethics, some of the ethical challenges we encountered undertaking work with families and discuss the complexity of decision‐making around risk of harm to children. We conclude that a clear framework to avoid harm should be developed at the outset and a transparent approach to child protection issues should be used. Additional time and resources need to be incorporated at the planning stage of similar projects in order to develop appropriate methods, ensure effective decision‐making and support researchers. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Women's Accounts of Organizational Politics as a Gendering Process

Organizational politics is implicated in all levels of organizational functioning, from power structures and informal interaction to individual identity. This study argues that organizational politics provides an approach to examining professional women's experiences of organizations as gendered. Women graduates in male‐dominated organizations claimed not to be limited by explicit discrimination, but they construct organizational politics as being masculine in character and as a barrier to their careers. These women represent organizational politics as irrational, aggressive, competitive and instrumental, leading to individual, not organizational, success. Their accounts undermine the stereotypical dichotomy of masculine rationality and feminine emotion by claiming that women behave reasonably and by focusing on emotion in men's political game playing. However, claiming to be rational and rejecting politics, while acknowledging its role in career success, is uncomfortable for ambitious women. They risk sabotaging their own position by appearing too sensitive to engage in the less savoury aspects of organizational life. Organizational political processes are seen as fundamental to gender in organizations, first, because political activity is seen as gendered and masculine and contrary to female identity; secondly, because politics is part of the informal system which constructs organization from which outsiders are excluded; and finally, because political activity is linked to the performance, achievement and maintenance of power.     

Speed Mentoring in Teaching and Learning: Young people with experience of the care system mentor social work students

The value of listening and talking to young people with experience of the care system has been recognised as a vital and positive contribution to social work students' learning. A model of co-production was used to develop a series of speed mentoring events whereby social work students placed in local authority children and family settings were mentored by young people with experience of the care system. This tentative review of this small-scale project shares the authors' critical reflections on the value and reliability of this model, for evaluating the outcomes of co-productive mentoring relationships between young people and social work students. The reversal of the power dynamic between student and service user contributed to the unsettling of assumptions about each other and empathy for each other's role. The student authors reflect on learning about the child's experience that has influenced their practice. The mentor authors welcomed the opportunity to participate in the development of ‘young people friendly’ social workers. Suggestions are made as to how this model could be developed to contribute to a more systematic approach to the role of service users in mentoring, advising and contributing to the supervision process of students and social workers.     

Issue Saliency and Gender Stereotypes: Support for Women as Presidents in Times of War and Terrorism*

Objective. This article examines how issue saliency affects the public's perceptions of whether a man or a woman would make a better president when considering the most important problem facing the nation. Method. The study uses telephone survey data of adults in the United States collected by the Annenberg Public Policy Center in September 2003. Multinominial logistic regression models were conducted to parse out the effects of issue saliency on presidential gender preference while taking demographic characteristics and party identification into account. Results. People who said that terrorism, homeland security, and/or U.S. involvement in Iraq was the most important problem facing the nation were more likely to say that a man would do a better job handling the issue as president. Conclusion. This study finds that issue saliency affects presidential gender preference above and beyond demographic and party identification variables.     

The implications of the Lima target: Explorations with a world industrialization model

The Second General Conference of the UNIDO held in Lima in 1975 declared that the share of developing countries in total world industrial production should reach 25% by the year 2000. The model presented in this article has been constructed in order to investigate whether this target is consistent with other more generally accepted goals of development and is feasible within the area of production and trade possibilities.The model is a dynamic, multisectoral, multiregional input-output model. It focuses on the impacts and mutual consistency of targets of growth, regional income distribution, industrialization, consumption levels, and trade. In the empirical application three periods, three regions, and nine sectors have been distinguished to produce intersectorally, interregionally, and intertemporally consistent accounts for the main variables. Since the study is concerned with the maximum possible growth of industrial output of the developing countries, a linear programming approach has been used.The report is organized as follows. After an introduction, the second section describes the mathematical model. The third section contains a detailed explanation of the data basis and of the assumptions made to stimulate the model. The numerical results of the model are discussed in the fourth section, and the main conclusions are given in the fifth.     

Citizens' attitudes towards economic insecurity and government after the 2007 financial tsunami: A Hong Kong and Taiwan comparison

Wang KY‐T, Wong C‐k, Tang K‐L. Citizens' attitudes towards economic insecurity and government after the 2007 financial tsunami: A Hong Kong and Taiwan comparison The purpose of this study was to investigate people's attitudes to economic insecurity and government in Hong Kong and Taiwan after the financial tsunami of 2007. Random sampling telephone surveys were conducted in July 2009. These are the main conclusions: First, the most vulnerable groups hurt by the financial crisis were low‐income families and people who had lost their job or were afraid of losing it. This implies that the old policy issue of social stratification and the emerging policy issue of employment insecurity coexisted during the financial crisis. Second, personal experiences of economic insecurity had an influence on people's perceptions of the severity of the economic crisis at the societal level. Third, citizens had ambivalent feelings about public interventions during the crisis. Fourth, there were both convergence and divergence between Hong Kong and Taiwan with regard to attitudes to particular issues. The policy implications of these findings are discussed in the final section of this article.