Rethinking Families and Community: The Color,Class, and Centrality of Extended Kin Ties1

Although a focus on marriage and the nuclear family characterizes much sociological research and social commentary, this article suggests that this focus ignores the familial experiences of many Americans, particularly those on the lower end of the economic spectrum for whom extended kin are central. African Americans and Latinos/as are more involved with kin than whites, but class trumps race in this regard: African Americans, Latinos/as, and whites with fewer economic resources rely more on extended kin than do those more affluent. The emphasis on marriage and the nuclear family may actually promulgate a vision of family life that dismisses the very social resources and community ties that are critical to the survival strategies of those in need. In contrast to those who have argued that marriage is the foundation of the community or even, in that overused phrase, the “basic unit of society,” this article suggests that marriage actually detracts from social ties to broader communities just as an emphasis on marriage and the nuclear family, to the exclusion of the extended family, distorts and reduces the power and reach of social policy.     

Nuclear fetishism,the fear of the ‘Islamic’ bomb and national identity in Iran

The paper's focus is the concurrence in the Islamic Republic of Iran between the state's enrichment of uranium, internationally feared as a potential Islamic atomic bomb, and the identification of the radio-active material by many Iranians as a national cultural object. In contrast to the Islamic virtues imposed by the state that had created an autarkic image of Iranians in the global context, nuclear technology offered them the opportunity to become cosmopolitan consumers of nuclear energy, a global product that also represented the ‘excellence’ of Iranian scientists’ and engineers’ competence. Instrumental in this re-invention of national identity outside the political space was a reified (fetishised) conception of the nuclear object as a utility – nuclear energy. The enhanced utilitarian use of nuclear material mystified (metamorphosed) both the oppressive relation of Iranian people with their Muslim rulers and their incongruous relation with the rest of the world. The mystifying impact of nuclear production on their national and international relations served Iranians to draw on their role as internationally recognised bourgeois agents (burghers) by subsuming (neutralising) their brutalised relation with the Muslim rulers within the instrumental relation of producers/consumers of the nuclear product. Thus, in their exclusive demand for the right to emulate the non-Iranian producers/consumers of nuclear energy as a global product, Iranians acted in their capacity as burghers. A burgher is defined here, following Hegel, as the agent of civil society whose primary concern is to pursue his/her own interest by using the needs of others as the means to satisfy his/her own. The rationality that governs the action by burghers is ‘the suitability of means to their ends’. By adopting the rationality of a burgher, Iranians abandoned their quest for citizenship. The rights of citizen, in contrast with the cosmopolitan right of burgher to emulate producers/consumers, were geared to the exercise of individual autonomy within the political space, as a domain of contested representations. The paper examines the inadequate mediation of modern institutions that has historically postponed the nationalisation of Iranian society and has delayed the emergence of the Iranian nation as a political community. Looked at from this standpoint, nuclear production offered to Iranians the opportunity to avoid a hazardous route of taking part in a political construction of Iranian identity by acting as citizens and instead draw on their fragmented bourgeois identity to define the nuclear product as ‘national’. This identification matched their Muslim rulers’ interest to represent the enriched uranium internationally as a national, as opposed to Islamic, achievement without having to face the Iranian nation as a political community. The consequence was the Iranians’ failure to deal with nuclear technology and the question of public safety both as a national and international issue which could only be addressed if Iranians had acted in their capacity as citizens.     

Does Fairness Matter in the Context of Anger About Nuclear Energy Decision Making?

Several recent studies have questioned whether nonoutcome forms of fairness matter in decision-making situations where individuals feel strongly engaged by the issue at hand. This survey-based study focuses on perceptions about a decision-making process related to a proposal to expand a nuclear power plant in the U.S. Southeast. It finds that anger moderates the impacts of outcome and procedural fairness on willingness to accept a decision process as satisfactory and legitimate. The more anger a person said he or she would feel if a decision were to contradict that person's point of view, the more perceived outcome and procedural fairness mattered. The study also finds that interpersonal fairness is also moderated by anger, but in the opposite direction. Interpersonal fairness had less of an impact on willingness to accept a decision for those who said they would feel angry if the decision did not go their preferred way.     

对我国企业核心竞争力发展的思考

基于我国企业与国际企业竞争力的差距 ,适合我国企业核心竞争力的发展战略应是先管理能力 ,后技术能力。基于我国企业的特殊经历 ,提高管理能力要与改革和转换机制相结合     

基于前景理论的核电厂作业行为监管演化博弈研究

为提高对核电厂作业行为安全监管的效果,减少运行事件的发生概率,文章考虑参与主体的风险偏好,基于前景理论构建核安全监管机构、操纵员和核电营运单位三方的作业行为监管演化博弈模型,并对影响因素进行模拟仿真。结果表明,监管机构和核电营运单位的风险敏感系数的减小,会使得三方博弈最终不能稳定在最优策略上,而操纵员的价值感知系数使得其策略演化速度减慢,但并不影响最终策略选择。     

后冷战时代的欧盟中东战略与伊朗核问题

伊拉克战争结束后,伊朗核问题成为又一个国际社会广泛关注的中东热点问题。作为一个在中东拥有重要政治经济利益的实体,欧盟在这一问题上表现出了比二战以来任何时 候都更加积极主动的立场。这种立场,正是后冷战时代欧盟中东战略在中东国际关系发生重大变化的实践。     

应用型本科教学实践模式初探

应用型人才对我国国民经济的发展具有关键性的意义 ,培养应用型本科人才的定位决定了应用型本科和研究型本科在教学实践模式上的不同。本文对应用型本科教学实践作了探索性研究 ,提出了应用型本科教学实践的可行思路。     

论核工业精神及其弘扬

核工业精神是民族精神的继承和弘扬,是时代精神的彰显。在新时期,弘扬核工业精神不仅有利于核工业的发展壮大,也有利于综合国力的增强和人们精神境界的提升,更有利于美好"中国梦"的实现。在全面建成小康社会的伟大征程中,我们需要培养爱国情怀、强化责任意识、追求科学精神和发扬创新精神,将核工业精神进一步发扬光大。     

双薪核心家庭子女照顾方式及满意度研究——以广州为例

通过对广州市一至三年级小学生（6～10岁）家庭的调查发现,低龄儿童大多数由家人接送,托管服务的社会化和市场化并未普及,双薪核心家庭父母照顾子女的负担较重,既没有时间陪伴孩子,也缺乏一定的育儿知识和技巧。家长最为关注孩子的身体健康,其希望政府在育儿的经济补助、育儿假期、儿童心理健康以及育儿技巧指导方面给予更多支持。