New Methods for Describing What People Think*

Sociological research on what people think has been hampered by inadequate methods. These inadequacies are illustrated by Coleman's survey research and Burner's participant observation study. The ethnoscience approach in anthropology is developing improved methods for studying cognitive content, and the usefulness of these methods is illustrated by research on (1) wedding ceremonies, (2) kinship terminology and (3) norms and social change.     

From Theory to Implementation: intercultural education in Italian schools

This article examines the gap existing between the de jure and the de facto situation of im/migrant children in Italian schools. Basing our comments on the specific pedagogical expertise and activities of CD/LEI (Centro di Documentazione/Laboratorio per una Educazione Interculturale — Research/Documentation Centre on Intercultural Education), an inter‐institutional organization operative in Bologna, we will discuss ways of creating a multicultural learning environment, in order to address more effectively the educational needs of im/migrant pupils in Italy.

The major findings of a book, recently published by the founder of CD/LEI and two colleagues are also presented. The book, entitled Dall'accoglienza alia Convivenza (From the Reception of Im/migrants to an Intercultural Society), is intended as a working tool for heads, teachers and school staff in primary and secondary schools in Italy.     

Accounting for uncertainty in the historical response rate of the standard treatment in single‐arm two‐stage designs based on Bayesian power functions

In phase II single‐arm studies, the response rate of the experimental treatment is typically compared with a fixed target value that should ideally represent the true response rate for the standard of care therapy. Generally, this target value is estimated through previous data, but the inherent variability in the historical response rate is not taken into account. In this paper, we present a Bayesian procedure to construct single‐arm two‐stage designs that allows to incorporate uncertainty in the response rate of the standard treatment. In both stages, the sample size determination criterion is based on the concepts of conditional and predictive Bayesian power functions. Different kinds of prior distributions, which play different roles in the designs, are introduced, and some guidelines for their elicitation are described. Finally, some numerical results about the performance of the designs are provided and a real data example is illustrated. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Access to Childcare Services: The Role of Demand and Supply-Side Policies

Different demand-side or supply-side instruments can be used in order to encourage the use of formal childcare. With the budgetary constraints of the last two decades, some countries have changed their childcare policy leading to the implementation of demand-side rather than supply-side instruments. The introduction of demand-side subsidies to encourage the use of formal childcare services was a major change in Belgium since, until 1988, subsidies were directly granted to childcare services providers in order to reduce their running costs. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of both demand-side and supply side subsidies on the use of formal childcare by low-income families. From this perspective, we analyzed, on the one hand, the effect of the tax deduction instrument implemented in Belgium and, on the other hand, the effect of an increase in the provision of childcare places on the use of formal childcare services. We found that the choice of policy instruments is not neutral in terms of access to formal childcare for families belonging to different income groups. Indeed, while a higher supply of childcare places increases the probability of access for low-income families, the tax deduction can have a mixed outcome as far as access to childcare is concerned.     

Black Edens,country Eves: Listening,performance, and black queer longing in country music

ABSTRACT

This article explores Black queer country music listening, performance, and fandom as a source of pleasure, nostalgia, and longing for Black listeners. Country music can be a space for alliance and community, as well as a way of accessing sometimes repressed cultural and personal histories of violence: lynching and other forms of racial terror, gender surveillance and disciplining, and continued racial and economic segregation. For many Black country music listeners and performers, the experience of being a closeted fan also fosters an experience of ideological hailing, as well as queer world-making. Royster suggests that through Black queer country music fandom and performance, fans construct risky and soulful identities. The article uses Tina Turner's solo album, Tina Turns the Country On! (1974) as an example of country music's power as a tool for resistance to racial, sexual, and class disciplining.     

Patterns of evolutions of social enterprises in France: a focus on work integration social enterprises

The objective of this paper is to characterize the patterns of emergence and evolution of social enterprise in France with a focus on work integration social enterprises (WISEs). After a review of the history of social and solidarity economy practices, identifying the processes that brought these practices to develop, we discuss the boundaries of the notion of social enterprise in the French case. We then briefly present the historical evolution of work integration. On that basis, two models of social enterprise applied to the case of work integration are extracted, crystallizing crucial tendencies. The limits and prospects of social enterprise in the field of work integration in France are discussed in the conclusion.     

Children of Exception: Redefining Categories of Illegality and Citizenship in Canada

This article examines legal discourses on precarious status children in Canada over the last decade. Drawing on different theoretical frameworks and taking into account laws and court decisions, the paper will examine the way in which precarious status children are regarded as powerless subjects in need of protection and as threatening others. The article argues that these two apparently contrasting discourses are embedded within specific socio‐historical constructions of childhood and children's citizenship which deny and limit their agency and conceive of their claim to membership as illegitimate. In the case of precarious status children, illegality and citizenship need to be redefined in a developmental perspective, questioning the potential risks associated with prevalent moral and social assumptions on childhood.     

Bureaucratic Role Perceptions and Gender Mainstreaming in Canada

Since the mid‐1990s, governments have adopted gender mainstreaming (GM) as a strategy for achieving gender equality and improving women's social, economic and political conditions. Yet, studies indicate that GM continues to be unevenly implemented, both within and across countries. To explain this outcome, this paper focuses on the local implementers of GM — the gender focal points — and how they understand GM and interpret it in their everyday work. Drawing upon interviews with gender focal points in the Canadian public service, we explore how bureaucratic role perceptions shape how these local actors understand GM and how they navigate the complex terrain between bureaucratic neutrality and the equality agenda of gender mainstreaming. Our exploratory study shows no common understanding among our interviewees, revealing how the meaning of gender mainstreaming varies depending on whether the public servant views himself or herself as policy analyst, policy advisor or policy advocate. Based on these insights, we conclude with suggestions for future research on gender mainstreaming.     

Fuzzy Measures of Longitudinal Poverty in a Comparative Perspective

In this paper we present a methodology for the study of longitudinal aspects of monetary and multi-dimensional poverty, and apply this in a multi-country comparative context. The conventional poor/non-poor dichotomy is replaced by defining poverty as a matter of degree, determined by the place of the individual in the income distribution. The same methodology facilitates the inclusion of other dimensions of deprivation into the analysis: by appropriately weighting indicators of deprivation to reflect their dispersion and correlation, we can construct measures of non-monetary deprivation in its various dimensions. An important contribution of the paper is to identify rules for the intersection and union of fuzzy sets appropriate for the study of poverty and deprivation. These rules allow us to meaningfully study the persistence of poverty and deprivation over time. We establish the consistency of the approach when applied to a time sequence of any length. We can thus study longitudinally over time a whole range of indicators of poverty and deprivation, from cross-sectional monetary poverty rates to multi-dimensional indicators of deprivation: in particular, we propose the new “Fuzzy At-persistent-risk-of-poverty rate”, and compare it with the corresponding Laeken indicator adopted by Eurostat.     

Does patience matter in marriage stability? Some evidence from Italy

Time preferences can affect divorce probability by both affecting the quality of the match and affecting the spouses’ reactions to negative shocks. We analyse the relationship between time preferences and divorce decisions using data from the Italian Survey on Household Income and Wealth, which provides a measure of time preferences based on a hypothetical financial situation in which individuals have to decide how much money to give up in order to receive a certain amount of money immediately rather than in one year’s time. By controlling for a number of individual and family characteristics, we find that impatient individuals are more likely to experience divorce. The effect is robust to different specifications of our model and is not affected by reverse causality problems. We also find that the more risk averse individuals are, the less likely they are to experience divorce.