Conducting Large‐Scale Surveys in Secondary Schools: The Case of the Youth On Religion (YOR) Project

There are few published articles on conducting large‐scale surveys in secondary schools, and this paper seeks to fill this gap. Drawing on the experiences of the Youth On Religion project, it discusses the politics of gaining access to these schools and the considerations leading to the adoption and administration of an online survey. It is concluded that successful research in schools has to be planned carefully in collaboration with key members of staff, and justified as an educational activity. Providing speedy feedback was helpful to ensure schools benefited from the research and to keep them engaged with the project. © 2011 The Author(s). Children & Society © 2011 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited     

Maya cosmopolitans: engaging tactics and strategies in the performance of tourism

Maya heritage is embraced throughout Yucatán as a crucial component of tourism promotions. This, coupled with an emphasis on multiculturalism, makes the state itself a local actor in the marketing of Maya identity through the creation and funding of community-based tourism projects. This article discusses the shifting role of the state in shaping these communities, referencing a Maya village in the Mexican state of Yucatán as the context. The aim is an understanding of the articulation of local tactics to conceal cosmopolitanism while remaining competent in the eyes of funding agencies and the strategies employed by the state that reinforce the importance of performance for tourists. The desire on the part of state creates situations in which individuals are expected to exist in concurrent states of authenticity and modernity, as both traditional and cosmopolitan.     

Does generosity beget generosity? The relationships between transfer receipt and formal and informal volunteering

This paper examines whether receipt of public or private assistance is associated with recipients’ own generosity in the form of formal and informal volunteering. Using matched data from the 2007–2011 American Time Use Survey and the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey, this paper finds that receipt of private assistance from friends and relatives is negatively associated with the time women spend caring for non-household adults and the time men spend caring for non-household children. Receipt of public assistance is found to be negatively associated with men’s care of non-household adults. No associations are found between either type of assistance and time spent volunteering for a formal organization.     

The Nagorno Karabakh Conflict through the Prism of the Image of the Enemy

The post-Soviet space is fraught with multiple problems, risks and threats caused by unresolved conflicts. The vast majority of these conflicts possess a strong ethno-political component that complicates all the conflict resolution attempts: neglect of the role of ethnicity in interstate and intrastate conflicts can lead to overt conflict on the one hand and a deadlocked situation in respect to all mediation on the other hand. This article focuses upon the role and impact of ethnicity factor and the ways in which it is exploited and manipulated. The Nagorno Karabakh conflict serves as the major empirical case.     

Economic,Financial and Geopolitical Governance: USA,European Union and China

The paper examines the policies, choices, structural reforms, regulatory rules, corporate and public administration matching the world standards, openness, innovation, competitiveness, fulfillment of multilateral obligations, integration and regional approach achievements and international relations conditionality in the “Global Governance and Geopolitics” of the main economic, financial and policy issues, with special focus on the new regional approaches pursued by America, the European Union and Asia and the role of the emerging and transition countries. After the US Dollar, now the Eurozone is under pressure and the main Asian countries fear a contagion effect. While somebody proposes a slow devaluation of the Euro in order to soften the public deficits of the group of most exposed countries and restore more competitiveness to the real economy, political leaders are thinking to adopt indirectly the Euro two speeds operative monetary strategy, through the introduction of the majority vote, instead of the full Members consensus, for the most important decisions at the ECB in Frankfurt. Aside these monetary and institutional measures, the binding of the single national fiscal policy to more strict EU parameters of compatibility with the Eurozone sustainability appear unavoidable. This paper represents the background of my lecture given on November 4 at the Beijing Forum 2011 “The Harmony of Civilizations and Prosperity for All: Tradition and Modernity, Transition and Transformation” () at the PEK University.     

How moral disengagement facilitates the detention of refugee children and families

Refugee children and families are a vulnerable demographic with the propensity to disrupt entrenched disparaging perceptions about immigrants. This project investigates how institutionalised moral disengagement practices [Bandura, Albert. 2002. “Selective Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral Agency.” Journal of Moral Education 31: 101–119] at family detention centres facilitate the apprehension and confinement of children and families seeking asylum. Interviews with former volunteers and an analysis of news reports describing conditions at these centres reveal that moral disengagement plays a pivotal role in rationalising detention, while also enabling restrictive immigration policies and mass deportations. This occurs through the criminalisation of immigrants, suppressing details about residential conditions, and a quota capacity model. Findings are contextualised with regard to recent immigration legislations.     

An audit of received international business corruption literature for logic,consistency, completeness of coverage

This analysis of International Business (IB) corruption literature identifies gaps and inconsistencies in how corruption is perceived or deliberated in top academic journals. The reviewed articles tend to focus on one of the three key themes of IB corruption (Contributing factors, Consequences, and Combating) and are categorised into the six sub-domains of the IB framework. The content of the articles is categorised into the respective themes and discussed in relation to underpinning theories and key constructs. The process is intended to be less a synthesis of the literature than an audit revealing that IB corruption research is weakened by tendencies to: 1) Be siloed within its subtheme and to not cross-tie to work in other key themes—this issue is very severe in the Combating theme; 2) Have a short-term focus that disregards the cumulative effects of total graft, and; 3) Asymmetrically focus (predominantly) on the supply side of corruption. These finding suggest several avenues for further research.     

Televisual pregnancy beauty

Theorizing the contours of televisual pregnancy beauty, this essay demonstrates how televisual stylistics construct and communicate a political ideology of pregnancy. When the crime dramas Bones and In Plain Sight incorporated their star actors’ pregnancies, they produced different televisually styled portrayals of pregnancy; these medium-specific portrayals play an important role in how pregnancy itself is culturally conceptualized. Although pregnancy beauty, the commodification and sexual objectification of the pregnant and postpartum body, has been analyzed in ways that link it to post-industrial, neoliberal, capitalist, and patriarchal forces, this analysis demonstrates how televisual style sets the scene for this broader discourse. Specifically, I contend that the costuming, blocking and staging, cinematography, and editing determine how the pregnant body appears, and this then communicates a clear ideology to viewing audiences. Through these two case studies, I analyze contrasting televisual styles and argue that while Bones’ style disciplines the pregnant body and In Plain Sight’s style welcomes the pregnant body, both styles enact a televisual pregnancy beauty that commodifies pregnancy.     

Immigrant Latino Families Saving Against Great Odds: The Case of CSAs and the Prosperity Kids Program

Children’s savings account programs are interventions that seek to engage disadvantaged children and their families in early college saving, cultivate college-saver identities, and reduce disparities in educational and economic outcomes. Existing research has revealed positive effects of CSAs on children’s outcomes, but questions remain about how and for whom CSAs facilitate these outcomes. This study uses account data from 493 accountholders and findings from interviews with 50 participants to examine asset accumulation and savings experiences among mostly low income, Latino families in New Mexico’s Prosperity Kids CSA program. One-third of the families made a deposit into their child’s account designated as “savers” with a median total contribution of $123 and a median account balance, including initial seed deposit, of $345. Longer duration of program enrollment and fewer number of unexcused absences predicted savers status. Qualitative findings highlight emerging college-saver identities, viewed through the framework of identity-based motivation, understood to include salience, normalization of difficulty, and group congruence. Qualitative interview data further suggest that initial seed money, deposit incentives, and withdrawal restrictions were important influences on participants’ saving. These findings suggest CSA features that may encourage positive savings outcomes for economically disadvantaged households and, then, that may have implications for future CSA policy development.