Top-Down Civic Projects Are Not Grassroots Associations: How The Differences Matter in Everyday Life

Research on civic associations blurs an important distinction between the unfunded, informal, ongoing associations that theorists like de Tocqueville described versus current participatory democracy projects that are funded by the state and large nongovernmental organizations, are open to all, and are usually short-term. Based on a long-term ethnography of youth programs in the United States, this paper shows that entities like these, which participants and researchers alike often called “volunteer” or “civic” groups, operate very differently from traditional civic groups. The ethnography systematically details prevalent tensions that actors face when they try to cultivate the civic spirit in these increasingly typical organizations.

I Trust You with My Child: Parental Attitudes to Local Authorities in Cases of Disobedient Children in 18th Century Denmark

During the 18^th century, a series of new institutions appeared in the provinces of Denmark. Their purpose was to discipline beggars and vagrants and to teach them not only to work, but also the Word of God. These tugt workhouses also became institutions for the reform of disobedient children behaving in an “un-Christian” manner. Children were often placed here at the initiative of their parents. The article argues that the trust placed by parents in the state authorities in this way can be understood within the framework of Luther's social teaching, especially his doctrine of the three estates and the understanding of the nature of authority and of mutual obligation that is represented there.     

Student portfolios as windows into intercultural knowledge and knowing

This research paper deals with intercultural knowledge and knowing as displayed in higher education student portfolios. The portfolios were written by student pairs taking a global education course at Centria University of Applied Sciences, Finland, during seven academic years. Conceptual metaphor theory and metaphor analysis were utilised to explore intercultural knowledge and knowing in the portfolio texts. The study is one of the few metaphor analyses conducted in the context of intercultural/global education. For the analysis, we selected a sample of student portfolios that represented both degree-taking students and exchange students. In this study, interculturality was defined as interaction of people representing various cultural backgrounds, world-views and identities. The research questions were the following: What conceptual metaphors and metonymies do the students utilise when writing about culture and interculturality? What main conceptions of culture and interculturality do the metaphors and metonymies reflect? In the result section of this paper, we provide citations of portfolio text to discuss the four most frequently occurring metaphors and metonymies. We also discuss our interpretations about the underlying conceptions of culture and their significance for the practice of intercultural education.     

Imagining is Not Observing: The Role of Simulation Processes Within the Mimicry-Liking Expressway

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior - Individuals automatically mimic a wide range of different behaviors, and such mimicking behavior has several social benefits. One of the landmark findings in the...     

Revisiting demand,politicization and externalization in authoritarian political regimes: policy advisory system in Russian practices

ABSTRACT

This study contributes to debate on three related questions in Policy Advisory System research. Is the Policy Advisory System concept applicable in countries other than developed democracies? How does it function in a state-centred authoritarian regime? How does the authoritarian environment affect tendencies such as “politicization” and “externalization”? These questions are addressed using materials on the current Russian governance structure and advisory practices, focusing on two broadly defined “governance subsystems” in the Presidential Administration of Russia, “Political Bloc” and “Economic Bloc”, both acting as regular customers for advisory communities. One finding is the phenomenon of “Dual Demand” from the same centre of power—“stability” for “Political Bloc” and “innovation” for “Economic Bloc”—which contributed to creation of two different clusters of policy advisory agencies with different statuses. Other findings include transformation of “politicization” to policy control mechanisms and attempted “externalization” turning into the reverse—“internalization”—bringing independent advisory organizations under the supervision of government structures.     

Latin American Immigration,Maternal Education,and Approaches to Managing Children's Schooling in the United States

Concerted cultivation is the active parental management of children's educations that, because it differs by race/ethnicity, nativity, and socioeconomic status, plays a role in early educational disparities. Analyses of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (n = 10,913) revealed that foreign‐born Latina mothers were generally less likely to engage in school‐based activities, enroll children in extracurricular activities, or provide educational materials at home when children were at the start of elementary school than were U.S.‐born White, African American, and Latina mothers, in part because of their lower educational attainment. Within the foreign‐born Latina sample, the link between maternal education and the three concerted cultivation behaviors did not vary by whether the education was attained in the United States or Latin America. Higher maternal education appeared to matter somewhat more to parenting when children were girls and had higher achievement.     

陕西关中地区金融发展与经济增长关系的实证分析

以陕西关中地区为研究对象,通过选取其1990~2003年金融发展和经济增长的相关数据,通过建立计量经济模型和葛兰杰因果关系检验,结果发现实际利率、金融相关比率与关中地区经济增长率之间有着较强的负相关性;金融发展与经济增长之间的因果关系是单向的,即表现为经济增长带动了金融发展,而金融发展对关中地区经济增长的推动作用并不显著,这说明关中地区还存在着较为严重的金融抑制现象。为此,提出必须从金融机构的数量扩张与结构优化两个方面强化金融对经济增长的支持作用。     

Do Millennials Care About NPOs? Intergenerational Differences in Attitudes Towards Nonprofit Organizations

In this study, we analyse whether there are differences in attitudes towards nonprofit organizations (NPOs) between the generational cohorts of Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. We do so by analysing survey data from Switzerland in two steps, a Bayesian estimation as well as a cluster analysis. The overall results suggest that there are, at best, only few and small intergenerational differences: the only consistent effect we find are the more negative attitudes of the Baby Boomer cohort towards professional associations and towards sports NPOs, but those differences could be due to life cycle rather than intergenerational effects. Overall, our results suggest that the Millennial generational cohort is at least as interested in and willing to engage with NPOs as previous generational cohorts.     

Lower bone mineral density in older female endurance skiers – a cross-sectional,observational study

Background

Physical activity (PA) is generally beneficial for bone health, but the effect of high levels of PA over many years, in older women, is unknown.

Methods

T-score from Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), and self-reported baseline characteristics were recorded for 24 female, cross-country-skiing-competitors, aged 68–76?years, from the Birkebeiner Ageing Study. Data from 647 women in the same age range from the Tromso-6 population study, with recorded DXA findings, were used for comparison.

Results

The athletes reported a median(range) of 9(1–34) participations in the 54?km, yearly ski-race, indicating long-term PA. They also reported more moderate and high levels of PA than women in the general population (52% vs. 12 and 30% vs. 0%, respectively). The athletes had lower body mass index (BMI) than the controls (mean BMI 21.7 vs 26.9?kg/m², p?<?0.001). As many as 22/24(92%) of the athletes and 477/647(74%) of the controls had a low bone mineral density (BMD) (T-score?<???1), p 0.048, Pearson chi square test. Odds ratio (OR) of low BMD was 3.9 in athletes vs. controls (p 0.048, logistic regression), but adjusting for BMI largely diminished the effect estimate, which was no longer statistically significant (aOR 1.81, p 0.432). The proportion of self-reported fractures was the same in the two groups.

Conclusions

This pilot study suggests that long-term, high levels of PA are associated with low bone mineral density in older women, and the finding might be due to differences in BMI. Despite the lower bone mineral density the athletes did not report more fractures.