BSW Students of Color: Principle Factors Influencing Intent to Persist Through Completion of Degree

Students of color remain underrepresented in social work education programs. According to the Council on Social Work Education (2016), only 37.4% of the 19,596 BSW degrees awarded during the 2014–2015 academic year were awarded to students from historically underrepresented groups. Through the lens of empowerment theory, this article presents a conceptual framework for understanding the varied and nuanced influencing factors contributing to BSW students’ intent to persist through completion of degree. This article explores ways social work education programs can provide opportunities for students to demonstrate that they are motivated and competent learners who intend to persist in their social work education endeavors. Findings will inform postmatriculation activities such as academic advising and field-practicum.     

The Queerness of the Drive

The view of sexuality Freud first proposed in the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality contains a discrepancy between the sexuality perverse and polymorphous described in the first two essays and the biologically directed, reproductive sexuality of the third essay. According to Jean Laplanche, the theorist of psychoanalysis who is Freud’s closest reader and translator, the discrepancy is due to two contradictory opinions Freud apparently held at different moments of his writing: one, that sexuality is exogenous, an effect of seduction by adults; two, that sexuality is endogenous, innate in the human biological organism. This article focuses on Laplanche’s elucidation of two aspects of sexuality present in each adult: an instinctual, hormonally based, and ultimately reproductive sexual impulse, which begins at puberty, and the drive-based sexual impulses first theorized by Freud as polymorphous-perverse infantile sexuality, which begin in infancy and continue to be active throughout the individual’s life. Laplanche’s rereading of Freud leads to a more complex understanding of sexuality as always deviant, in one way or another and to a greater or lesser degree, from the established social norms. So-called sexual deviance, therefore, is not a problem within the sexual but an issue within the social field.     

Greedy Institutions,Overwork, and Work‐Life Balance

Teresa Sullivan, President of the University of Virginia, offered her thoughts on “Greedy Institutions” and the work‐life balance in her AKD Distinguished Lecture at the August 2013 meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York City. We appreciate Dr. Sullivan's willingness to revise her address for publication in Sociological Inquiry. In the age of smart phones and 24/7 accountability, her thoughts on these issues—particularly at American universities—are timely and instructive.     

Newborn Body Perception: Sensitivity to Spatial Congruency

Studies on adults have demonstrated that the perception our own body can be manipulated by varying both temporal and spatial properties of multisensory information. While human newborns are capable of detecting the temporal synchrony of visuo‐tactile body‐related cues, it remains unknown whether they also utilise spatial information for body perception. Twenty newborns were presented with a video of an infant's face touched with a paintbrush, while their own face was touched either in the spatially congruent, or an incongruent, location. We found that newborns show a visual preference for spatially congruent synchronous events, supporting the view that newborns have a rudimentary sense of their own body.     

Gender Differentials in Intermarriage Among Sixteen Race and Ethnic Groups

This paper examines gender differences in out-marriage rates in the United States among 16 race and ethnic groups. Among most groups of Asian Americans, females are more likely to marry whites than are their male counterparts, the reverse of the pattern among African Americans discussed by Merton (1941). We find some Hispanic-American groups in both camps. We explore whether the greater contact between white U.S. military personnel in Asian countries explains the pattern of Asian white marriages. We also introduce a new statistical approach that facilitates comparisons across multiple race and ethnic groups. Data from the 1% sample of the 1990 Census are analyzed in this study.     

A process-oriented perspective of IS success: Examining the impact of IS on operational cost

Effective measurement of information system (IS) success continues to be a top concern for both practitioners and researchers. Labeled the “productivity paradox”, previous attempts to quantify the benefits of IS have often resulted in inconclusive or inconsistent results. The present study contributes to IS success research through the development and empirical testing of a process-oriented model of IS success. Using an operational perspective and combining primary and secondary measures, this study examines the influence of lower-level intangible IS and information technology (IT) benefits on higher-level financial measures. Additionally, we introduce IS plan quality as an antecedent to the model's input variables. Primary survey data from CIOs of primarily Fortune 2000 size firms are combined with secondary data, total operational cost, from Compustat to facilitate the examination of the IS benefits. This study also addresses shortcomings cited in other studies that might have contributed to the productivity paradox by including control variables in the model, defining a research perspective—the operational success perspective—and clearly articulating the level of analysis as the organizational level. The results supported a process-oriented view of the benefits from IS and showed how the effects of IS along a path can lead to better organizational performance, in this case, lower overall costs. These results are discussed and future research implications are presented.     

Paying for God’s Work: A Rights-Based Examination of Faith-Based NGOs in Romania

This paper examines issues of democratic accountability as they apply to faith-based organizations cooperating in international developmental efforts, with a specific focus on the freedom of expression rights of nonprofit organizations and the freedom of association rights of their clientele. Child welfare nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Romania are used as a case study for examining the issue. The paper begins with a discussion of NGO-government partnerships in service provision in international development, and examines the ethical concerns surrounding church-state separation as applied to nonprofits in the United States and in the context of foreign aid. The literature analysis is complimented by empirical evidence from the Romanian case, using data gathered in a qualitative study exploring the role of NGOs as social service providers and policy advocates. The paper concludes by discussing the particular role that bureaucratic discretion and power plays in protecting the freedom of association rights of clientele in Romania.