Establishing an Office of Scientific and Public Affairs

Procedures for high-interaction two-variable color mapping are described, whereby the user interacts with a graphic display to produce a color statistical map in a few seconds. The approach emphasizes the methodological benefits derived from the ability to examine the nature of the linkage between the statistical and spatial distributions of bivariate data. A series of examples illustrate this method.     

Government support for Indigenous cultural and natural resource management in Australia: The role of the Working on Country program

In Australia national concerns about climate change, biodiversity loss, water quantity and quality and land degradation have high priority on the government's environment agenda. With this comes the opportunity to strategically integrate Indigenous land and sea management into plans for tackling these challenges, not least because the Indigenous estate—which includes some of the most biodiverse lands in Australia—continues to increase as a result of successful land and native title claims and the declaration of more Indigenous Protected Areas. This paper explores government support for Indigenous land and sea management focusing on the Commonwealth government's Working on Country program. The paper outlines the development of formalised Indigenous cultural and natural resource management, and the emergence of the Working on Country program is discussed in the past and current policy context. The opportunities and challenges for the future of the program, and formalised Indigenous land and sea management in Australia more broadly, are outlined. To finish, a note of cautious optimism: while an expanded Working on Country program underpinned by community‐led priorities and aspirations has the potential to simultaneously ameliorate Indigenous poverty and ensure natural resource management occurs, this will require targeted investment and a more holistic and less sectoral approach from government.     

Ties that Bind: Cultural Interpretations of Delayed Adulthood in Western Europe and Japan1

Throughout the developed world, young adults hit hard by declining labor market opportunities and rising housing costs have been staying in the natal home. Particularly hard hit are the weak welfare states of southern Europe and Japan, while the social democracies have continued to support the residential independence of young people at very early ages. This article considers the divergent cultural interpretations of this pattern of “delayed departure” in order to show that the same demographic configurations may be coded quite differently.     

Images of self and spinal cord injury: exploring drawing as a visual method in disability research

This article describes the use of drawings in a research project aimed at understanding the personal experience of spinal cord injury. The article briefly reviews the use of visual methods in disability research, and then describes the specific procedures used to elicit and analyze two sets of drawings: ‘draw your self’ and ‘draw how you see spinal cord injury in your mind’. The drawings were a small but essential part of a larger study focused on the community integration and participation of adults (n = 160) with spinal cord injury. Despite the challenges posed by this method for research participants with paralysis, the drawings provided unique insight into the personal meanings of spinal cord injury and how this injury is understood and represented to others. Using examples of participants' own drawings, we show how elicited drawings are a useful adjunct to traditional interview methods in studies of disability.     

The Development of Four Types of Adolescent Dating Abuse and Selected Demographic Correlates

This study determined the shape of trajectories from ages 13 to 19 of 4 types of dating abuse perpetration and examined whether the demographic characteristics of sex, minority status, socioeconomic status, and family structure systematically explained variation in the trajectories. The data are from 5 waves of data collected from 973 adolescents participating in the control group of a randomized trial. The mean trajectory for psychological dating abuse was positive linear, but the mean trajectories were curvilinear for moderate physical, severe physical, and sexual dating abuse. At all ages, boys reported more severe physical and sexual dating abuse than girls, minorities reported more moderate and severe physical dating abuse than Whites, adolescents in single‐parent households reported more psychological and severe physical dating abuse than those in 2‐parent‐households, and parental education was negatively associated with psychological and moderate physical dating abuse perpetration. The findings have implications for future research and for practice.     

Research Notes the Relationship Between Admissions Criteria and Academic Performance in an MSW Program

The authors report on an investigation of the correlation between admissions criteria and academic performance at one state university. The admissions data used in this study were collected from 654 MSW students who attended the school from 1985 to 1992. Test scores on a comprehensive exam taken by these MSW students prior to graduation were used as the measure of academic performance. The authors found that two admissions criteria, undergraduate GPA and GRE score, and two applicant characteristics, gender and race, were significantly correlated with academic performance.     

Charismatizing the Routine: Storytelling for Meaning and Agency in the Burning Man Organization

Expanding organizations face the routinization of charisma dilemma in which rationalization, or everyday organizing activities, drains meaning and depresses agency. Using an ethnographic study of the organization behind the annual Burning Man event, I show how storytelling can combat disenchantment by promoting consideration of agency and meaning-making. This research demonstrates how storytelling infuses organizational rationality with meaning and agency, thereby ??charismatizing the routine.?? Through storytelling, people can derive meaning from even the most mundane routines and inspire listeners to imagine possibilities not covered by rules or conventions. Stories also stave off bureaucratic ritualism by clarifying the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate activities, encouraging a range of actions over coercive restrictions.     

North Central Sociological Association Presidential Address the Community College Conundrum: Pitfalls and Possibilities of Professional Sociological Associations

Abstract

This presidential address examines the “community college conundrum” within our discipline. Although it is reported that 44 percent of first-time undergraduate students attend community colleges, community college faculty are underrepresented in the American Sociological Association (ASA) and within our regional associations. This lack of participation has two roots: (1) our disciplinary lack of interest in studying community college education as a unit of analysis; and (2) the failure by sociologists to understand community college education as a social justice concern. Data for this study include an assessment of membership and participation in our disciplinary associations, content analysis of the journal Teaching Sociology, and a review of ASA syllabi sets. Findings reveal a common theme: community college sociologists are ignored and afforded a marginal status—a “less than” status—within our discipline. Recommendations include calling on the ASA and all sociologists to recognize the importance of community colleges in doing the work of “public sociology.”