Women’s Cultures and Social Movements in Global Contexts

This article examines the role that women’s cultures and communities have played in political protest and social change. We argue that women’s cultures, which form around the reproductive roles, labor, and emotional expectations placed on women, have been used to express femininity and as cultural resources or “toolkits” to transform male‐dominated spheres of society. We begin by defining women’s cultures, emphasizing that there is no universal women’s culture because the structural arrangements and cultural meanings of gender vary by race, ethnicity, class, nationality, and political context. We then review research that demonstrates the significance of women’s cultures for the collective identities and tactics deployed in social movements and protest, demonstrating how the study of women’s cultures and gender processes in social movements has contributed empirically and theoretically to understanding social movements. We examine women’s cultures and collective identities in communities as wide ranging as self‐help groups, lesbian communities, feminist organizations, and anti‐feminist groups. We then draw on prevailing theories of cultural change in globalization studies (cultural differentialism, cultural convergence, and cultural hybridization) to understand how women’s cultures have contributed to social change. We conclude by identifying future directions for the study of women’s cultures and social movements.     

STUDENT RESPONSIVENESS TO EARNINGS DATA IN THE COLLEGE SCORECARD

Using the universe of SAT score sends to colleges and the exact date on which these scores are sent, we estimate how students responded to the release of the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard in September 2015. We find that data on annual cost and graduation rate, both of which were previously available, did not impact the volume of score sends received by colleges. By contrast, we estimate that each 10% increase in reported earnings resulted in a 2.4% increase in score sends. The impact is driven almost entirely by well‐resourced high schools and students. We find little evidence that the count or composition of enrolled students changed as a result of the Scorecard information shock with the exception of a slight increase in academic preparedness, as measured by SAT scores, among enrollees at colleges with higher reported earnings. (JEL I2, I23, I26, I28, L15)     

The Indoor Radiological Problem in Perspective

Measures to tighten homes to conserve energy, as are being encouraged and subsidized by federal and state governments, may reduce air infiltration by 20% or more. Standard prudent risk-assessment methodologies predict that, due to increased levels of indoor radon caused by this reduction in ventilation, the added lifetime lung cancer risk to members of the public is of order 200/million people exposed. In situations where the radon source term is unusually high, or extreme reductions in ventilation are made, the added risk can be more than an order of magnitude greater. While these imputed risks are far outside the range that is normally tolerated, no systematic efforts are in progress to mitigate or limit the risk in any way. Furthermore, efforts to determine better the variations in radon source term and the health effects of indoor radon are being deemphasized. The technical background is presented in some detail, and implications with regard to management of risks to the public are discussed.     

THIS PROTEST WILL BE TWEETED

This article examines the use of Twitter at protests surrounding the G20 meetings held in Pittsburgh, PA in September 2009. Based on work on information communication technologies and protest, and on more recent work on Twitter usage at protests, we develop several hypotheses about the content of tweets during protests. Most significantly, we argue that Twitter is a widely available mobile social networking tool that can be used to reduce information asymmetries between protesters and police. Examining the content of 30,296 tweets over a nine-day period, we find that protesters frequently used Twitter to share information, including information about protest locations, as well as the location and actions of police, which is information that was formerly monopolized by the police. Twitter use may be creating a new dynamic in protester and police interaction toward information symmetries. We conclude by identifying implications for policing practices and for protesters.     

Playing the Race Card in the Post-Willie Horton Era: The Impact of Racialized Code Words on Support for Punitive Crime Policy

To date, little is known about the precise impact of raciallycoded words and phrases. Instead, most of what we know aboutracialized messages comes from studies that focus on pictorialracial cues (for example, the infamous "Willie Horton" ad) oron messages with an extensive textual narrative that is lacedwith implicit racial cues. Because in a "post-Horton" era strategicuse of racially coded words will often be far more subtle thanthose explored in past studies, we investigate the power ofa single phrase believed by many to carry strong racial connotations:"inner city." We do so by embedding an experiment in a nationalsurvey of whites, where a random half of respondents was askedwhether they support spending money for prisons (versus antipovertyprograms) to lock up "violent criminals," while the other halfwas asked about "violent inner city criminals." Consistent withthe literature on issue framing, we find that whites’racial attitudes (for example, racial stereotypes) were muchmore important in shaping preferences for punitive policieswhen they receive the racially coded, "inner city" question.Our results demonstrate how easy it is to continue "playingthe race card" in the post–Willie Horton era, as wellas some of the limits of such framing effects among whites withmore positive racial attitudes.