Sociology Commons^™

Gender-Based Perceptions Of The 2001 Anthrax Attacks: Implications For Outreach And Preparedness, Christopher Salvatore, Brian J. Gorman

Christopher Salvatore

Extensive research dealing with gender-based perceptions of fear of crime has generally found that women express greater levels of fear compared to men. Further, studies have found that women engage in more self-protective behaviors in response to fear of crime, as well as have different levels of confidence in government efficacy relative to men. The majority of these studies have focused on violent and property crime; little research has focused on gender-based perceptions of the threat of bioterrorism. Using data from a national survey conducted by ABC News / Washington Post, this study contrasted perceptions of safety and fear in …

Findings Of An Effect Of Gender, But Not Handedness, On Self-Reported Motion Sickness Propensity, Ruth E. Propper, Frederick Bonato, Leanna Ward, Kenneth Sumner

Ruth Propper

Discrepant input from vestibular and visual systems may be involved in motion sickness; individual differences in the organization of these systems may, therefore, give rise to individual differences in propensity to motion sickness. Non-right-handedness has been associated with altered cortical lateralization of vestibular function, such that non-right-handedness is associated with left hemisphere, and right-handedness with right hemisphere, lateralized, vestibular system. Interestingly, magnocellular visual processing, responsible for motion detection and ostensibly involved in motion sickness, has been shown to be decreased in non-right-handers. It is not known if the anomalous organization of the vestibular or magnocellular systems in non-right-handers might alter …

Effective Communication In Public Services In A Diverse Language And Cultural Landscape: A Challenge For Teaching And Training., John R. Fisher, Halil Asllani

Dr. John R. Fisher

Push Comes To Shove: Supporting Patrons Of Color In Your Institution, Kristyn Caragher, Aisha Conner-Gaten, Tracy Drake, Tonyia Tidline

Aisha Conner-Gaten

Workplace Dignity In A Total Institution: Examining The Experiences Of Foxconn’S Migrant Workforce, Kristen Lucas, Dongjing Kang, Zhou Li

Kristen Lucas

In 2010, a cluster of suicides at the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group sparked worldwide outcry about working conditions at its factories in China. Within a few short months, 14 young migrant workers jumped to their deaths from buildings on the Foxconn campus, an all-encompassing compound where they had worked, eaten, and slept. Even though the language of workplace dignity was invoked in official responses from Foxconn and its business partner Apple, neither of these parties directly examined workers’ dignity in their ensuing audits. Based on our analysis of media accounts of life at Foxconn, we argue that its …

Socializing Messages In Blue-Collar Families: Communicative Pathways To Social Mobility And Reproduction, Kristen Lucas

Kristen Lucas

This study explicitly links processes of anticipatory socialization to social mobility and reproduction. An examination of the socializing messages exchanged between blue-collar parents (n=41) and their children (n=25) demonstrate that family-based messages about work and career seldom occur in straightforward, unambiguous ways. Instead, messages take several paths (direct, indirect, ambient, and omission). Further, the content of messages communicated along these paths often is contradictory. That is, sons and daughters receive messages that both encourage and discourage social mobility. Ultimately, these individuals must negotiate the meanings of family-based anticipatory socialization communicated to them through a mix of messages.

The Working Class Promise: A Communicative Account Of Mobility-Based Ambivalences, Kristen Lucas

Kristen Lucas

In-depth interviews with 62 people with working class ties (blue-collar workers and adult sons and daughters of blue-collar workers) reveal a social construction of working class that imbues it with four core, positively valenced values: strong work ethic, provider orientation, the dignity of all work and workers, and humility. This constellation of values is communicated through a ubiquitous macrolevel discourse—which I coin the Working Class Promise—that elevates working class to the highest position in the social class hierarchy and fosters a strong commitment to maintain a working class value system and identity. However, this social construction is only a partial …

Blue-Collar Discourses Of Workplace Dignity: Using Outgroup Comparisons To Construct Positive Identities, Kristen Lucas

Kristen Lucas

People generally possess a strong desire to construct positive, dignified work identities. However, this goal may be more challenging for some people, such as blue-collar workers, whose occupations may not offer qualities typically associated with workplace dignity. Interviews with 37 people from a blue-collar mining community reveal three central identity discourses about workplace dignity: All jobs are important and valuable; dignity is located in the quality of the job performed; and dignity emerges from the way people treat and are treated by others. Participants communicated these themes by backgrounding their own occupations and drawing comparisons between two outgroups, low-status, low-paid …

Creating And Responding To The Gen(D)Eralized Other: Women Miners’ Community-Constructed Identities, Kristen Lucas, Sarah J. Steimel

Kristen Lucas

An analysis of interviews with mining families reveals that gender identity construction is a collaborative process that draws upon broader community discourses. Male miners and non-mining women created a generalized other for women as "unfit to mine" (i.e., women are physically too weak to mine, are easy prey, and are ladies who do not belong in the mines). Female miners responded with gendered discourses that distanced themselves from and linked themselves to the generalized other.

Algorithmic Legal Reasoning As Racializing Assemblage, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román, Ama Nyame-Mensah, Allison R. Russell

Ezekiel J Dixon-Román

Taking Care, Kelly A. Dorgan

Kelly A. Dorgan

Excerpt: It’s July 26, 2010, late. I’ve sunk onto the edge of the bed in my childhood home. The bedroom reminds me of one of those cozy, pretty Valentine’s Day shoeboxes I made back in elementary school: small, pink, white, flowery.

The Truth About The Surrender Of My Foster Child, Kelly A. Dorgan

Kelly A. Dorgan

Excerpt: My best efforts at parenting weren’t enough to make him stay. My son no longer wanted to call me “Mom.”

Mothered, Mothering & Motherizing In Illness Narratives: What Women Cancer Survivors In Southern Central Appalachia Reveal About Mothering-Disruption, Kelly A. Dorgan, Kathryn L. Duvall, Sadie P. Hutson, Amber E. Kinser

Kelly A. Dorgan

Informed by a mothering-disruption framework, our study examines the illness narratives of women cancer survivors living in Southern Central Appalachia. We collected the stories of twenty-nine women cancer survivors from northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia using a multi-phasic qualitative design. Phase I consisted of women cancer survivors participating in a day-long story circle (n=26). Phase II consisted of women cancer survivors who were unable to attend the story circle ; this sample sub-set participated in in-depth interviews (n=3) designed to capture their illness narratives. Participants' illness narratives revealed the presence of: (1) mothering-disruption whereby cancer adversely impacted the mothering role …

Big Mama And The Uncertain Leap, Kelly A. Dorgan

Kelly A. Dorgan

Excerpt:I live in a place that evokes fear, a place deformed by layers and layers of pulse-racing images, of intoxicating whiskey-dark stories.

Holding On By Letting Go: Personal Agency As Maternal Activism, Amber E. Kinser

Amber E. Kinser

Despite the efforts of maternal advocates and feminists through 150 years or more, a great many mothers today feel dissatisfied, shortchanged, and/or inadequate in their own lives. Even those who have reckoned with the fact that standards for mothering are absurdly out of synch with the real lives that families are living in contemporary times, or have carved out comfortable personal and familial space for themselves just beyond, or far beyond, the margins of mainstream motherhood ideologies, often struggle nevertheless with a needling sense of unrest and lack of personal agency. Further, women who agree that maternal empowerment is an …

Mothered, Mothering & Motherizing In Illness Narratives: What Women Cancer Survivors In Southern Central Appalachia Reveal About Mothering-Disruption, Kelly A. Dorgan, Kathryn L. Duvall, Sadie P. Hutson, Amber E. Kinser

Amber E. Kinser

Informed by a mothering-disruption framework, our study examines the illness narratives of women cancer survivors living in Southern Central Appalachia. We collected the stories of twenty-nine women cancer survivors from northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia using a multi-phasic qualitative design. Phase I consisted of women cancer survivors participating in a day-long story circle (n=26). Phase II consisted of women cancer survivors who were unable to attend the story circle ; this sample sub-set participated in in-depth interviews (n=3) designed to capture their illness narratives. Participants' illness narratives revealed the presence of: (1) mothering-disruption whereby cancer adversely impacted the mothering role …

Book Review Of Mothers And Daughters: Complicated Connections Across Cultures, Amber E. Kinser

Amber E. Kinser

Excerpt: As both a daughter to a mother and a mother to a daughter, I have lived, and pushed against, and been formed by, the profound truth about mother-daughter relationships suggested by this book's title: it's complicated.

Food Justice Youth Development: Using Photovoice To Study Urban School Food Systems, Krista Harper, Catherine Sands, Diego Angarita, Molly Totman, Monica Maitin, Jonell Sostre Rosado, Jazmin Colon, Nick Alger

Catherine Sands

The Public Sphere As Site Of Emancipation And Enlightenment: A Discourse Theoretic Critique Of Digital Communication, David Ingram, Asaf Bar-Tura

David Ingram

Habermas claims that an inclusive public sphere is the only deliberative forum for generating public opinion that satisfies the epistemic and normative conditions underlying legitimate decision-making. He adds that digital technologies and other mass media need not undermine – but can extend – rational deliberation when properly instituted. This paper draws from social epistemology and technology studies to demonstrate the epistemic and normative limitations of this extension. We argue that current online communication structures fall short of satisfying the required epistemic and normative conditions. Furthermore, the extent to which Internet-based communications contribute to legitimate democratic opinion and will formation depends …

Transfiguring Desire: Divining The Origin Of Species, Sonny Nordmarken, Samuel Ace

Sonny Nordmarken

Uri Professor Launches Online Journal About Sexual Exploitation, Violence, Slavery, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Analysis Of The Supporting Websites For The Use Of Instructional Games In K-12 Settings, Mansureh Kebritchi, Wendi M. Kappers Phd, Atsusi Hirumi, Renee Henry

Wendi M. Kappers, PhD

This article identifies resources to be included in a website designed to facilitate the integration of instructional games in K-12 settings. Guidelines and supporting components are based on a survey of K-12 educators who are integrating games, an analysis of existing instructional game websites, and summaries of literature on the use of educational software in K-12 settings and teacher technology training. The results indicate that educators face three main challenges when integrating games, including: (a) technical and logistical requirements, (b) curriculum integration, and (c) teacher training. To overcome these challenges, K-12 educators should be provided with: (a) curriculum resources, (b) …

Play Education Video Games On Their Terms, Wendi M. Kappers

Wendi M. Kappers, PhD

It is imperative when utilizing educational video games in K-12 classrooms that student preferences with regard to game play, purpose, and design be considered in order to maximize game play efficiency for learning. As Web 2.0 content infiltrates our educational medium, student customization is key. This manuscript intends to share customization requests gleaned during an 18-week experimental study examining educational video game effects upon 7th graders enrolled in Mathematics and Mathematics 2 courses.

Dignity, Table Of Contents, Vol 2, Issue 2, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

No abstract provided.

Dignity, Table Of Contents, Special Issue, Freedom From Sexploitation, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

No abstract provided.

Surfing The Revolutionary Wave 2010-12: A Social Theory Of Agency, Resistance, And Orders Of Dissent In Contemporary Social Movements, Athina Karatzogianni, Michael Schandorf

Athina Karatzogianni

Workplace Incivility And Bullying In The Library: Perception Or Reality?, Shin Freedman, Dawn L. Vreven

Shin Freedman

Welcome To Dignity, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

No abstract provided.

Narratives Of Workers On The Crisis Line: Dialogic Conversations About Domestic Violence, Elizabeth A. Curry

Elizabeth Curry

This paper is my exploratory study of the interpersonal communication between domestic violence workers who answer crisis calls and the callers who seek help. I am focusing on the perception of those who answer the crisis lines. This is part of my on-going research into the meaning and experiences of the women who work against domestic violence. There are approximately 1,900 local domestic violence programs and state coalitions in every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This paper is based on the experiences of women working in one local program, CASA. I will briefly compare the CASA advocates …

Voices Of Engaged Scholarship: Relationships & Research In University-Community Project, Elizabeth A. Curry

Elizabeth Curry

This paper is about engaged scholarship and a university-community initiative as an example of research collaboration. It addresses the negative perceptions community activists hold concerning researchers, the development of the research relationship with the community organization and the reactions of academic researchers within the research team. The paper covers the first four months of developing a partnership between the University of South Florida (www.usf.edu) and an organization that works against domestic violence, CASA (www.casa-stpete.org). Using narratives, I explore issues such as incentives and barriers for the community agency to collaborate with the university and for university faculty to pursue a …