Opposition to Solid Waste Incineration: Pre- Implementation Anxieties Surrounding a New Environmental Controversy*

Despite sociopolitical controversy surrounding the solid waste crisis, little sociological attention has focused on this crucial environmental issue. Drawing on research from the technological controversies, environmental concern, and solid waste literatures, this study examines the pre-implementation anxieties of a Louisiana community faced with a proposal to build an incinerator in its backyard. Utilizing survey data, a causal path model is developed in which the perceived advantages of the technology, general environmental concern, and support for recycling initiatives are identified as explanatory variables of incinerator opposition. Implications of these findings for the study of technical controversies and the larger solid waste crisis also are suggested.     

Developing and Maintaining Foster Family Identity Through Foster Parents’ Identity Work

There are hundreds of thousands of children in foster care in the United States, nearly a majority of whom are placed with nonrelative foster parents (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2015). Few scholars (e.g., Nelson, 2014) have explored the communicative process through which a sense of family is created and maintained in foster families, despite the potential positive impact that developing a foster family identity may have on foster family functioning. The purpose of the present study was to understand the communicative strategies that foster parents use to create family identity. Data from interviews with 18 current and former foster parents revealed that through their talk inside and outside of the family, foster parents engaged in integrating biological and foster families, ritualizing, explaining, labeling family roles, and reframing. I discuss the importance of these findings for foster families.     

Criteria families use to select nursing homes

The study is conducted to determine families' rankings of characteristics they consider most important when selecting a nursing home. Friedman's two-way analysis of variance is used to test for differences in the rankings. In response to a mailed survey, 231 families rank the characteristics in the following order: quality of care, appearance, atmosphere, location, reputation, building safety, quality of food, cost, and activities. Relationships are also found between the rankings and the demographic characteristics: gender, marital status, education, income, number of homes available, patient/respondent relationship, and distance respondent lived from the chosen home.     

Institutional Change and Coproduction of Public Services: The Effect of Charter Schools on Parental Involvement

Recent discussions of school choice have revived arguments thatthe decentralization of governing institutions can enhance thequality of public services by increasing the participation ofintended beneficiaries in the production of those services.We use data from the Schools and Staffing Survey to examinethe extent to which the decentralization of authority to charterschools induces parents to become more involved in their children'sschools. We find that parents are indeed more involved in charterschools than in observationally similar public schools, especiallyin urban elementary and middle schools. Although we find thatthis difference is partly attributable to measurable institutionaland organizational factors, we also find that charter schoolstend to be established in areas with above-average proportionsof involved parents, and we find suggestive evidence that, withinthose areas, it is the more involved parents who tend to selectinto charter schools. Thus, while the institutional characteristicsof charter schools do appear to induce parents to become moreinvolved in their children's schools, such characteristics areonly part of the explanation for the greater parental involvementin charter schools than in traditional public schools.     

Erotic pedagogies

This article considers the role of Audre Lorde's notion of the erotic as transformative pedagogical practices that can empower teachers and students to passionate learning and community formation. I argue that the erotic has been contained within the private sphere under neoliberalism through its articulation to heterosexuality, Whiteness, and U.S. exceptionalism. Neoliberalism contains the transformative potential of queer, feminist, and antiracist movements through circumscribing the transformative power of the erotic. When the erotic appears within the realm of the public sphere, it is articulated through the pornographic-as against the seemingly progressive agenda of neoliberalism-in order to contain its transformative effects. I then consider what it may look like, as well as what pitfalls we may face, if we engage in erotic pedagogy. I argue that the healing of the mind/body split goes beyond an intellectual exercise. Therein lies transformative power to heal both the political and the spiritual body.     

The solid waste crisis and support for recycling: A research note

The American waste stream is quickly reaching crisis proportions. According to Environmental Protection Agency estimates, municipal solid waste has increased 80% since 1960 and will increase another 20% in the next 10 years. Despite the sociopolitical and ecological importance of the solid waste crisis, little research exists examining public opinion and behavior toward this issue. Using survey data from a study of 290 residents in St. Tammany parish, Louisiana, this article examines attitudes regarding the parish's own impending solid waste crisis and its level of support for various recycling and source reduction programs. As suggested by recent national polls, residents show an increasing concern about waste‐disposal issues and a willingness to support initiatives that reduce the waste stream. Some political and ecological implications of these data for future research are suggested.     

Toward Mutual Support: A Task Analysis of the Relational Justice Approach to Infidelity

Gender, culture, and power issues are intrinsic to the etiology of infidelity, but the clinical literature offers little guidance on how to work with these concerns. The Relational Justice Approach (RJA) to infidelity (Williams, Family Process, 2011, 50, 516) uniquely places gender and power issues at the heart of clinical change; however, this approach has not been systematically studied. Therefore a qualitative task analysis was utilized to understand how change occurs in RJA. The findings indicated four necessary tasks: (a) creating an equitable foundation for healing, (b) creating space for alternate gender discourse, (c) pursuing relational responsibility of powerful partner, and (d) new experience of mutual support. Therapists' attention to power dynamics that organize couple relationships, leadership in intervening in power processes, and socio‐cultural attunement to gender discourses were foundational to this work. These findings help clarify the processes by which mutual healing from the trauma of infidelity may occur and offer empirically based actions that therapists can take to facilitate mutual support.