Self,Career and Nationhood: The contrasting aspirations of British and French elite graduates

There is increasing interest in the emergence of a ‘global middle class’ in which high achieving young graduates increasingly look to develop careers that transcend national boundaries. This paper explores this issue through comparing and contrasting the aspirations and orientations of two ‘elite’ cohorts of graduates. Interviews with students at the University of Oxford, England, and Sciences‐Po, France, reveal very different ambitions and allegiances. Our Oxford respondents portray their futures as projects of self‐fulfilment as they build portfolio careers by moving from job to job and from country to country with limited social allegiances – epitomizing the nomadic worker of the transnational elite. Our Parisian respondents, on the other hand, display strong allegiances to the nation, state and civic duty. Their projects of the self involve reconciling their personal aspirations with strong allegiances to France. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of these differences. It argues that the enduring role of education in the formation of national identities should not be overlooked and that more detailed research is needed on the contextual specifity of transnationalism and the (re)production of elites.     

Community standards,conservatism, and judgments of pornography

In an attempt to determine if a community standard existed and to relate judgments of pornography to conservatism, scores on Wilson and Patterson's Conservatism Scale, yes‐no judgments on whether 25 pictures were or were not pornographic, and demographic data were obtained from a random sample (N = 114) of a community. Results were as follows: (1) suggestive evidence for the existence of a community standard; (2) the c‐scale correlated .57 (N = 114, p < .01) with number of pictures judged pornographic; (3) the 25 pictures met Guttman requirements of unidimensionality (reproducibility of .925); and (4) factor analysis of the pornography judgments yielded three clear‐cut factors and one ambiguous factor which were ordered along the Guttman dimension.     

A home from home: the organization as family

The basic unit of human organization has always been the family, although the meaning and composition of “family” has altered over the millennia of human existence. The current view in Western thought is that there is a distinct schism between the family and other social organizations, particularly those organizations associated with work. As a broad distinction, the family is held to be in the private sphere of human interaction and work organizations in the public. Much feminist theory is predicated on this private/public split, and one of the reasons proposed for the social inequality of women is that the private, which is women's “natural” domain, is held to be of lesser social significance.

The paper considers, in a light-hearted (but we hope not lightweight) manner, the metaphor of the organization as family. We provide analogies between the notions of “family” as a private social institution and the work organization, drawing no conclusions, but providing some small insights into affinities and congruences which blur the private/public distinction. If we assert anything at all, it is this: because the work organization is family, we are able to slip from one to the other each day with the minimum of psychic stress.

“Travail, Famille, patrie” (the slogan of the Vichy régime)     

Racialization in a ‘homogenous’ society? The case of Buraku people in Japan

This paper examines the puzzling status of Buraku people in Japan through the methodological prism of historical sociology. I develop a theoretical approach that emphasizes the concept of racialization to illuminate the historical and social construction of Buraku status. I propose this approach as a complementary alternative to prior analytic perspectives. Two major perspectives have dominated research on the status of Buraku people. First, an earlier approach that focused on the legacy of caste discrimination. The second framework focuses on Buraku people as part of the struggle for universal human rights. This article raises three basic, but interrelated questions about the historical development of Buraku status in Japan. Why did the Buraku people become subject to such overt discrimination in local community life, and through government policy? How was the state involved in the social construction of Buraku people? How did the Buraku liberation struggles challenge formalized discrimination?     

Imputation procedures for categorical data: their effects on the goodness-of-fit chi-square statistic

An imputation procedure is a procedure by which each missing value in a data set is replaced (imputed) by an observed value using a predetermined resampling procedure. The distribution of a statistic computed from a data set consisting of observed and imputed values, called a completed data set, is affecwd by the imputation procedure used. In a Monte Carlo experiment, three imputation procedures are compared with respect to the empirical behavior of the goodness-of- fit chi-square statistic computed from a completed data set. The results show that each imputation procedure affects the distribution of the goodness-of-fit chi-square statistic in 3. different manner. However, when the empirical behavior of the goodness-of-fit chi-square statistic is compared u, its appropriate asymptotic distribution, there are no substantial differences between these imputation procedures.     

School context influences the ethnic identity development of immigrant children in middle childhood

The present paper describes a study investigating the ethnic identity development of Latino immigrant children (n = 155) in middle childhood (ages 8–11) in a predominantly White community. The study examined how ethnic identity was related to children's school context. School context was operationalized at the structural level, as the ethnic composition of the teachers and peers, as well as the schools' implicit messages about their valuing of multiculturalism; and the proximal interpersonal level, as children's perceptions of peer discrimination and teacher fairness. Results indicated that both the structural and proximal context predicted children's ethnic label choices, the importance placed on their ethnic identity, the positivity of their ethnic identity, and their American identity.     

An Interview with Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender of Hip Mama

Abstract

Every small, unassuming zine has the potential to be big. Case in point: Hip Mama, a zine that began in the early '90s as Ariel Gore's senior project using a $1,000 student loan and blossomed into a nationally acclaimed alternative parenting resource. Together with Bee Lavender, Gore continues to publish the journal much as she did with that first issue. But today new readers and new technologies are pushing the zine onto the Web and into larger communities. Read all about how a little zine became a giant in this interview with Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender of Hip Mama. Serials Review 2002; 28:159–162.     

Spatial distribution of structure infesting ant species inhabiting urban housing developments of different ages

The distribution of ant colonies within a community is often well defined, yet this distribution can change due to changing environmental conditions, resource availability, and colony growth. In this study, structure infesting ant communities were sampled for one year within three Puerto Rican housing developments of different ages. These developments represented environments in different stages of recovery after a disturbance (secondary succession). Spatial mapping was used to plot the distribution and abundance of ant communities within these developments. At the beginning of the study, the youngest housing development (1 year since construction), had the fewest number of species present (ave. 1.6 per house). The second housing development (4 years old) had a greater number of species (ave. 2.6 per house), and a greater sampling frequency (the same species collected at multiple houses) than Site 1. The oldest development (8 years old) had both the greatest number of species (ave. 2.7 per house), and sampling frequency of the three sites. In all developments, the number of species, sampling frequency, and ant biomass increased throughout the year as colonies grew and foraging ranges expanded. It was observed in all developments, that species coexistence also increased throughout the year. As colony populations increased, there was a greater occurrence of multiple species being collected at the same sample house. In the youngest development, the two most dominant species increased in numbers during the year and began to be collected from the same sample houses. Spatial diagrams documented that multiple species in the older housing developments (later stages of succession), also shared a common distribution. Even the most dominant species (S. invicta) in all three sites, did not exclude additional species from foraging within its established range.     

Implementing a Multidimensional Poverty Measure Using Mixed Methods and a Participatory Framework

Recently, there have been advances in the development of multidimensional poverty measures. Work is needed however on how to implement such measures. This paper deals with the process of selecting dimensions and setting weights in multidimensional poverty measurement using qualitative and quantitative methods in a participatory framework. We estimate the multidimensional poverty measures developed by Alkire and Foster for a particular group: persons with psychiatric diagnoses in the United States. To select relevant dimensions and their relative ordering, two discussion groups are convened: one consisting of persons with lived-experience expertise and the other consisting of people with mental health service provision or research expertise. Several methods are used to convert dimension rankings into weights. The selection and ordering of dimensions differed between the two discussion groups, as did the resulting poverty measures. For instance, the poverty headcount using the dimensions and weights of the ‘lived experience’ group ranged from 20.61 to 26.96% as compared to a range of 18.62–33.19% using those of the ‘provider/researcher’ group. One of the main results of this study is that the Alkire Foster method is sensitive to the selection of dimensions and the methods used to derive rankings and weights. It points toward the limitation of relying exclusively on small scale qualitative methods for the selection and ranking of dimensions. In addition, the participatory framework used in this study was found to be essential in interpreting results, in particular with respect to the limitations of the data set in measuring relevant dimensions.