Cultural capital or relative risk aversion? Two mechanisms for educational inequality compared1

In this paper we empirically examined two explanatory mechanisms for educational inequality: cultural reproduction and relative risk aversion, using survey data taken from secondary school pupils in Amsterdam. Cultural reproduction theory seeks to explain class variations in schooling by cultural differences between social classes. Relative risk aversion theory argues that educational inequalities can be understood by between-class variation in the necessity of pursuing education at branching points in order to avoid downward mobility. We showed that class variations in early demonstrated ability are for a substantial part cultural: cultural capital - measured by parental involvement in highbrow culture - affected school performance at the primary and secondary level. However, relative risk aversion - operationalized by being concerned with downward mobility - strongly affects schooling ambitions, whereas cultural capital had no effect. Thus, we conclude that 'primary effects' of social origin on schooling outcomes are manifested through cultural capital and not through relative risk aversion (in addition to other potential sources of class variations such as genetics). Relative risk aversion, and not cultural capital, affects schooling ambitions, which is relevant for our understanding of secondary effects.     

Sometimes Words Just Ain't Enough – Enhancing the Contribution of Children in Therapy through Creative Expression

The meaningful inclusion of children in family therapy is an ideal that therapists readily align with and yet struggle to implement effectively. Within a practice that relies heavily on verbal expression, young children provide a unique challenge for therapists, who require developmentally appropriate opportunities for the child to express, document, and share his or her experience in all its richness and colour. In this paper the author utilises art therapy to support greater inclusion of children in family therapy by capitalising on their creative talents and facilitating the child's visual story within the family dialogue. This can assist in the formulation and treatment of systemic issues.     

Socially Anxious Children at Risk for Victimization: The Role of Personality

This study examines whether Big Five personality traits affect the extent to which a socially anxious child will be victimized. A total of 1814 children participated in the study (mean age = 11.99 years). Children completed self‐reports and peer reports of victimization, which were aggregated, and self‐reports of social anxiety and Big Five personality traits. A regression analysis was performed to study the moderating effect of personality traits on the relation between social anxiety and victimization. Socially anxious children scoring high on extraversion are less at risk for victimization than socially anxious children scoring low on extraversion. In addition, socially anxious boys scoring high on agreeableness were less at risk for victimization than socially anxious boys scoring low on agreeableness. Conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience did not moderate the relation between social anxiety and victimization.     

Sense of belonging in secondary schools: a survey of LGB and heterosexual students in Flanders

This study focuses on differences in sense of belonging between lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) and heterosexual students. Data from 1,745 secondary school students were collected with an online survey. Step-wise multiple regression analyses was used to investigate the relationship between sexual orientation and sense of school belonging. The results show that sexual orientation has an impact on sense of belonging for girls, but not for boys. Perceived discrimination and LGB friendliness of the school appeared to be important indicators of sense of belonging for all the respondents, irrespective of their sexual orientation.     

The Global Street: Making the Political

This article explores key vectors in the uprisings of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region from an urban perspective. The aim is to open up a larger conceptual field to understand the complex interactions between power and powerlessness as they get shaped in urban space. I argue that the city makes visible the limits of superior military power and, most importantly, that cities enable powerlessness to become complex, not simply elementary. In this complexity lies the possibility of making history and remaking the political. The question of public space is central to giving the powerless rhetorical and operational openings. But that public space needs to be distinguished from the concept of public space in the European tradition. This leads me to the concept of The Global Street.

Este artículo explora los vectores claves en los levantamientos de la región del Medio Oriente y África del Norte (MENA, por sus siglas en inglés) desde una perspectiva urbana. El objetivo es abrir un campo conceptual mayor para entender las interacciones complejas entre el poder y la impotencia, a medida que se forman dentro de un espacio urbano. Sostengo que la ciudad expone los límites del poder militar superior y más importante aún, que las ciudades permiten que la impotencia se vuelva compleja y no simplemente elemental. En esta complejidad reside la posibilidad de hacer historia y rehacer la política. El asunto del espacio público es primordial para darle a los impotentes una apertura retórica y operacional. Pero ese espacio público necesita distinguirse del concepto del espacio público en la tradición europea. Esto me conduce al concepto de la Calle Global (The Global Street).

本文从一个城市的视角探究了中东和北非（MENA）地区起义的关键向量。文章旨在开辟一个更加广泛的概念领域,以便理解强权与无权势之间复杂的互动,正如它们在城市空间中被塑造的那样。我认为,城市使得优势军事权力的限度显现,更重要的是,城市使得无权势变得复合化,不单单是不可再分。在这种错综复杂中存在着创造历史和重塑政治的可能。公共空间问题对于为无权势者提供言辞和操作机会来说至关重要。然而,这一公共空间需要与欧洲传统中的公共空间概念区别开来。这导致我确立了“全球街”的概念。     

New frontiers facing urban sociology at the Millennium

The article examines some of the major challenges facing urban sociology at century's end given its traditions and lineages. These challenges arise out of the intersection of major macrosocial trends and their particular spatial patterns. The city and the metropolitan region emerge as one of the strategic sites where these macrosocial trends materialize and hence can be constituted as an object of study. Among these trends are globalization and the rise of the new information technologies, the intensifying of transnational and translocal dynamics, and the strengthening presence and voice of specific types of socio‐cultural diversity. Each one of these trends has its own specific conditionalities, contents and consequences for cities, and for theory and research. Cities are also sites where each of these trends interacts with the others in distinct, often complex manners, in a way they do not in just about any other setting. The city emerges once again as a strategic lens for the study of major macrosocial transformations as it was in the origins of sociology. Can urban sociology address these challenges and in so doing once again produce some of the analytic tools for understanding the broader transformation?     

Contemporary Political Communications: Audiences, Politicians and the Media in International Research

Research into political communication has grown rapidly in the past three decades, shifting from specific, quantitative and utilitarian studies to include a broad variety of research questions, methods and theoretical frameworks. Interdisciplinary work in political communication takes audiences, political actors (such as governments and politicians), and media content and media institutions as central foci. Research has traditionally focused on election campaign-specific studies within national contexts. Emerging research, however, is now addressing broader questions about media texts and organisations and also about representations and power. This research is working to trace technological changes and developments in an era of globalised media and political communication and developing new, complex conceptions of audience agency and reception.     

Eintages-Coaching Standortbestimmung einer Pflegedienstleiterin

One-day-coaching. Position finding of a head nurseIn a one-day-coaching, a head nurse prepared for her new position in a second hospital. Using the Bochum Professional Personality Inventory a potential analysis was conducted. Her new range of responsibility was compared with the outcomes of this analysis, with theoretical aspects concerning ?managing managers“ and with her present co-operation with colleagues and superiors. Basing on new insights regarding her abilities and resources, she developed a plan of actions.