Unsettling Universities' Incongruous,Gendered Bureaucratic Structures: A Case‐study Approach

Recent research shows that women faculty members in academia continue to face systemic barriers to opportunity and advancement and that these barriers are particularly strong in science and engineering, and in university administration. University administrators and faculty members, however, have been slow to recognize that systemically gendered barriers will have to be reduced or eliminated in order for women faculty to advance in their careers. One key problem is that many, if not most, leaders in powerful decision‐making roles in universities continue to embrace women‐centred explanations for gender disparities in advancement through the academic ranks. University leaders' lack of recognition of institutionalized gender barriers suggests the need for greater dissemination of research findings (and training) about how systemic barriers operate and why these barriers disproportionately disadvantage women. In this article I first theorize universities as incongruous, gendered bureaucratic structures. I then outline an intervention strategy for enabling university faculty members and administrators to see incongruous, gendered bureaucratic structures and to then use this knowledge to develop strategies for addressing the problem of women's underrepresentation among science and engineering faculty. The strategy described is a case‐study approach recently implemented at a mid‐sized research‐intensive university in the US Midwest. The workshop was part of a broader university programme aimed at transforming the university's cultures, practices and structures in ways that help to enhance the recruitment, retention and promotion of women scientists. I conclude by discussing the benefits and limitations of the case‐study approach as a method for unsettling accepted knowledge about the gendered structures and normative practices of the university.     

Perceived Relational Support in Adolescence: Dimensions,Configurations, and Adolescent Adjustment

The perceived relational support from four key providers (father, mother, special sibling, and best friend) on five provisions (quality of information, respect for autonomy, emotional support, convergence of goals, and acceptance) was examined for 2,262 adolescents (aged 12 – 18 years). In a variable‐centered approach, factor analyses yielded five dimensions of support: three specific to providers (parent, friend, and sibling support) and two specific to provisions (convergence of goals and respect for autonomy). Only parental support was found to change (decrease) across age. In a person‐centered approach, five types of adolescents with different configurations of perceived support were identified. The first three types differed in overall level of support (high, average, and low) for all of the five dimensions; the fourth type represented extremely low support from parents with above‐average support from best friends; the fifth type consisted of adolescents with no best friend. These configurations were significantly related to different patterns of adolescent adjustment in various domains (psychological well‐being, delinquency, substance use, and peer‐group functioning).     

Family Loyalty and Adolescent Problem Behavior: The Validity of the Family Group Effect

Erratum . Journal of Law and Society Volume 32 Issue 3 The present study examined the relation between perceived justice and trust within family relationships and adolescent internalizing and externalizing problem behavior. Data were gathered from the father, the mother, and two of their adolescent children in 288 families. The social relations model was used to assess perceived justice and trust at the family level and the individual level. Adolescent internalizing and externalizing problem behavior turned out to be best predicted at the family level. Adolescents from families with less just or trustworthy climates showed more of these problem behaviors. Also associations between adolescent problem behavior and individual characteristics of the adolescents were found: adolescents who were generally viewed as less just/trustworthy were reported to have more problems. Our findings suggest that processes at different levels of family functioning (i.e., individual, whole‐family) should be taken into account when investigating associations between family characteristics and children's outcomes.     

SELLING TIME: SITUATED TRANSACTIONS IN A NONINSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT*

Salespeople are well known for their artful constructions of strategies. They use these strategies to encase the sales transaction and assume that their success is somehow dependent on presentation of self and product. In this article we examine salespeople who sell time shares on vacation properties and assume that success in selling is related to: (1) the creation of a theatrical stage designed to entice pairs of customers (married couples) to listen to a sales pitch; (2) control of the interaction processes within the sales encounter so as to “divide and conquer” the dyad; and (3) the creation of incremental sequences of action extending from acknowledgment of the product validity to the purchaser's decision. We discuss how these particular processes relate to a sociological examination of situated transactions in general; and suggest that control of these processes does transform reluctant dyads into agreeable parties to pay relatively large sums of money for time sharing property “on the spot.”     

Two simplified proofs for Roberts’ theorem

Roberts (Aggregation and Revelation of Preferences. Papers presented at the 1st European Summer Workshop of the Econometric Society, pp. 321–349. North-Holland, 1979) showed that every social choice function that is ex-post implementable in private value settings must be weighted VCG, i.e. it maximizes the weighted social welfare. This paper provides two simplified proofs for this. The first proof uses the same underlying key-point, but significantly simplifies the technical construction around it, thus helps to shed light on it. The second proof builds on monotonicity conditions identified by Rochet (J Math Econ 16:191–200, 1987) and Bikhchandani et al. (Econometrica 74(4):1109–1132, 2006). This proof is for a weaker statement that assumes an additional condition of “player decisiveness”. Supported by grants from the Israeli Ministry of Science and the Israeli Academy of Sciences.     

Similarity and Complementarity of Behavioral Profiles of Friendship Types and Types of Friends: Friendships and Psychosocial Adjustment

This study investigated different types of friendships and the behavioral profiles of different types of friends in relation to individual adjustment. In 102 classes with preadolescents (mean age 11), 737 independent friendship dyads, and in 149 classes with adolescents (mean age 14), 1,102 friendship dyads were identified. At each age group, cluster analyses on the behavioral profiles of the dyads yielded three friendship types, with two types of friends within each friendship type: Socially Withdrawn friendship (Victimized Withdrawn and Prosocial Withdrawn friends), Prosocial friendship (High Prosocial and Less Prosocial friends), and Antisocial friendship (Bullying Antisocial and Antisocial friends). The behavioral profiles of the two friends in Prosocial friendships were marked by similarity and in the other two types by complementarity. Both Victimized Withdrawn and Bullying Antisocial friends were less adjusted than participants without friends while Prosocial friends were more adjusted.