Partitioning large signed two-mode networks: Problems and prospects

While a substantial amount of attention within social network analysis (SNA) has been given to the study of one-mode networks, there is an increasing consideration of two-mode networks. Recent research on signed networks resulted in the relaxed structural balance (RSB) approach and its subsequent extension to signed two-mode networks involving social actors and social objects. We extend this approach to large signed two-mode networks, and address the methodological issues that arise. We develop tools to partition these types of networks and compare them with other approaches using a recently collected dataset of United Nations General Assembly roll call votes. Although our primary purpose is methodological, we take the first step towards bridging Heider's structural balance theory with recent theorizing in international relations on soft balancing of power processes.     

Change IS Possible: Reducing High-Risk Drinking Using a Collaborative Improvement Model

Abstract

Objective: To describe the adoption of public health and improvement methodologies to address college students’ high-risk drinking behaviors and to aid in prevention efforts. Participants: Members of 32 colleges and universities, content experts, and staff members of the National College Health Improvement Program (NCHIP). Methods: A 2-year learning collaborative developed by NCHIP trained individuals from 32 different college and universities in using the Plan–Do–Study–Act cycle as a method to create and implement initiatives aimed at reducing students’ high-risk drinking behaviors and related harms. Results: Participants experienced success ranging from noteworthy increases in type and amount of interventions directed at reducing high-risk drinking, to creating collaboratives across campus, the local community, and stakeholders. Challenges related to data collection and creating lasting cultural change remain. Conclusions: The use of quality improvement methodologies and creation of a national collaborative successfully effected meaningful change in high-risk drinking behaviors on college campuses.     

Rebuilding Community Organizing Education in Social Work

Although the campaign and election of Barack Obama as the nation's first President with a background in community organizing (CO) has boosted the visibility and popularity of the field, graduate social work programs have not taken full advantage of the opportunity. This article, therefore, presents a three-fold argument regarding the future of CO education. There is an increasing demand and need for trained organizers and community organizing education. This historical moment holds significant potential for CO education in social work. Graduate schools of social work with CO programs should broaden their outreach to attract potential students and activists to careers as social change agents.     

MAKING A NAME IN GAMES

This article explores the development and implementation of a Toronto-based incubator supporting local women in developing their own games. The incubator was created to help change the current (male-dominated) status quo of game production, promising participants skills sharing, support for the development of a new game, and entry into the local community of indie games developers. It was at the same time part of a large network of commercial and non-commercial interests with a shared agenda of promoting the local digital innovation scene. These different motivations and actors are considered to understand the nature of this complex social network market and the circulation of particularly feminized affective labour therein, detailing how value, reward, and benefit are conceptualized throughout this network. The article focuses on how and where these understandings are in alignment and where they fall apart, revealing problematic structures of power and control linked in particular to gender and entrepreneurialism in the area of digital innovation.     

‘Aboriginal mass culture’: a critical history

In Australia, some Aboriginal art objects are celebrated as fine art of great cultural, aesthetic and economic value, while the vast majority are judged to be stylistically derivative and intrinsically compromised by overtly mercenary market forces. This article introduces the concept ‘Aboriginal mass culture’ as a means for understanding the significance of the often maligned forms of the Aboriginal art and culture industry in Australia and to address the problem of why it continues to be difficult to demarcate the space of Aboriginal fine art. While a canonical and connoisseurial art history approach must disavow the vast majority of ‘Aboriginal art’, this article embraces a sociological perspective and turns an analytical eye upon the Aboriginal art and culture industry in its entirety, treating it as a phenomenon of visual culture that mediates Indigenous/non-indigenous relations within national public culture. It offers a critical history of ‘Aboriginal mass culture’ from the market for ‘Aboriginalia’ in the post-Second World War era through to the unruly Aboriginal art market of the present day. In so doing, it illuminates some of the drivers of these cultural forms across commercial, governmental and civil society domains. Its analysis reveals the way in which ‘Aboriginal mass culture’ manifests the unique social and economic circumstances that underpin Aboriginal art practices and the ways in which Aboriginal art is entangled with a redemptive political and civic project in Australia that has sought to affirm a resilient Indigenous presence and stimulate new visions of nationhood, heritage and intercultural fellowship.     

Risk,interest groups and the definition of crisis: the case of volcanic ash

This paper considers a key aspect of the ‘risk society’ thesis: the belief that we should be able to manage risks and control the world around us. In particular it focuses on the interface between risk and risk events as socially constructed and the insights that ‘critical situations’ give us into ‘the routine and mundane’, the otherwise taken for granted assumptions underlying risk regulation. It does this with reference to the events precipitated by the April 2010 volcanic eruption in the Eyjafjallajökull area of Iceland. The resulting cloud of volcanic ash spread across Europe and much of Europe's airspace was closed to civil aviation for six days, with far reaching consequences including huge financial losses for airlines. The social processes of defining and reacting to risk and crisis both reveal and generate dilemmas and challenges in regulation. This paper examines the role of different interest groups in defining risk expectations and thereby redefining the ash crisis as a regulatory crisis.     

Ditching the Desks: Kinesthetic Learning in College Classrooms

In this article we argue that social science instructors at all levels should openly embrace kinesthetic learning as an everyday pedagogical tool. The standard model of instruction at the college level relies on lecture, perhaps with special alternative activities (e.g., simulations) scattered throughout each semester. We argue that students benefit from alternative instruction styles incorporated into their everyday classes. We outline several alternative instruction techniques we have used in our classrooms centered on kinesthetic learning. The kinesthetic activities that we present require little to no additional work on behalf of the instructor but allow the students to engage more fully with the given material and with each other. Furthermore, these simple examples allow instructors to remain relevant in physical classrooms, offering a straightforward counterpoint to the recent trend toward MOOCs (massive open online courses) in higher education.