Experiences of families with relatives with intellectual and developmental disabilities in a consumer-directed support program

The current study explores the experiences of families with relatives with intellectual and developmental disabilities participating in a consumer-directed support program in the USA. The Illinois Home Based Support Services Program provides a limited budget to purchase and manage services. However, within recent years the program has faced cuts and changes. This context provided a rich environment to explore the benefits of the program, as well as oppressive forces creating barriers to the control of financial resources by individuals with disabilities and their families. Financial benefits, benefits from respite and personal assistance services and prevention of undesirable institutional placements were major themes that emerged and triangulated with previous research. The following themes emerged concerning barriers to the control of financial resources: provider and professional control, disability as a deserving group, fraud and abuse perceptions and familism. These themes appear to fit well within a social model of disability applied to the family.     

Glass ceilings or sticky floors? A model of high-income law graduates

Minorities and females are underrepresented in the top-income quintile of law school graduates. Employing a binary logistic regression model, I examine whether this is due to a“glass ceiling” (an invisible barrier erected by third parties) or a“sticky floor” (self-imposed limitations regarding employment). My major finding is that being female, a minority, or disabled did not significantly reduce one's probability of making the top-income quintile once hours of work, experience, and other factors are taken into account. My findings directly contradict the large body of glass-ceiling literature and support the sticky-floor model. I thank the Law School Admission Council for funding this research. Helpful comments and suggestions were received from Robert Nelson of Northwestern University and the American Bar Foundation, Steven Conroy of the University of West Florida, and R. Kim Craft and Douglas Bonzo of Southern Utah University. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions or persons listed above.     

Formalization of grievance procedures: A multi-firm and industry study

This study examines how two aspects of formalization of grievance procedures affect grievance procedure effectiveness: written versus oral presentation of grievance and the level of union and management authorized to resolve grievances at the first step. Several demographic variables were controlled for: size of bargaining unit, percentage of organization represented, number of grievances filed, and industry. A sample of 46 firms, representing a broad cross-section of unionized companies in the private sector, was obtained with the help of the American Arbitration Association. Results indicate that more formal grievance procedures (e.g., written presentation) are positively related to resolution rates at the first step. The number of grievances field and the size of the bargaining unit were positively related to total resolution rates prior to arbitration. We thank the American Arbitration Association for making this study possible.     

Gambling Behavior of Student-Athletes and a Student Cohort: What are the Odds?

This study investigated the prevalence of gambling, gambling related NCAA violations, and disordered gambling in student-athletes (n = 736) with a comparison cohort of students (n = 1,071) at four universities. Student-athletes reported similar rates of gambling frequency, use of a bookmaker, and disordered gambling as students. After accounting for demographic differences, student-athletes were less likely to engage in sports wagering than students. Several risk factors for disordered gambling were identified, including being male and reporting at least one parent with a history of gambling problems. These findings suggest that problems associated with gambling are a university-wide issue with student-athletes meriting additional attention because of implications for the integrity of intercollegiate sports. Improved prevention and intervention efforts for collegiate gambling are recommended.     

#BlackLivesMatter: Innovative Black Resistance

Since 2013, extrajudicial police killings of black people have captured the attention of U.S. and international media, substantially because of the work of leaders in the Black Lives Matter (#BLM) movement. #BLM is simultaneously a group of localized organizations and a broad online social movement. In this article, we examine the #BLM movement in detail, with particular emphasis on the following aspects of the movement: (1) its innovative organizational practices and social media use; (2) its accent on black perspectives (counterframing) of systemic racial oppression, heteronormativity, and capitalism; and (3) its broad emphasis on oppressed Americans, including black women and LGBTQ people. We also situate the #BLM movement within the surrounding system of racial oppression, including the historical role of racialized policing in maintaining social control of blacks. We detail the long tradition of black social movements, especially black feminist organizing, against systemic racial oppression. In doing so, we intend to contribute social movement theorizing that more fully considers powerful counterframed perspectives of black activists in U.S. social movements. Although the #BLM movement reflects black feminism and past civil rights movement struggles, it is a uniquely twenty‐first‐century social movement that uses new technologies for innovative social protest.