Sociology Commons^™

Importance Of Community Connections: Strategies For Intervention & Prevention, Teresa Taylor, Jamie Branam Kridler, Mary Langenbrunner

Jamie Branam Brown

The importance of community connections is vital for successful at risk youth strategies. Collaboration allows for inclusion, fosters trust and the potential for greater success. A holistic community approach provides support, resources and can draw needed parental involvement. Areas for developing collaborative action will be addressed such as community readiness, conflict resolution, diversity, sustainability, and measuring impact. Service-Learning will be defined along with its positive impacts. Research indicates that service-learning can contribute to academic achievement, reduction of risky behaviors, civic responsibility and provides opportunities for career exploration. A strong component of both is that the “true experts” are involved in …

Paranormal Activity In West Virginia, Marty Laubach

Marty Laubach

Follow the Mountain State Spirit Seekers Society as they hunt ghosts at Moundsville State Prison; bigfoot hunters in Dolly Sods with Virginia Sasquatch Watch; and Point Pleasant's mysterious Mothman.

Social, Cultural, Spiritual, And Psychological Barriers To Pain Management, Kenneth J. Doka

Kenneth J. Doka

No abstract provided.

Grief: A Companion On An Uncertain Journey, Kenneth J. Doka

Kenneth J. Doka

No abstract provided.

Christian Evangelicals: The Challenge For Hospice And Palliative Care, Kenneth J. Doka

Kenneth J. Doka

No abstract provided.

Landscape Ideology In The Greater Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt Plan: Negotiating Material Landscapes And Abstract Ideals In The City's Countryside, K. Cadieux, Laura Taylor, Michael Bunce

K. Valentine Cadieux

We analyze the role of landscape ideology in the recent Ontario Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) Greenbelt Plan. Focusing on the “Protected Countryside,” the major land-use designation in the Plan that structures the Greenbelt framework, we explore tensions between abstract ideals of countryside used by policy makers to elicit support for the Plan and people's lived experience of material landscapes of the peri-urban fringe. Approaching “countryside” from the combined perspectives of landscape studies and political ecology, we show how the abstract ideals used to build support for the protection of countryside in the high-level political arena are in tension with existing …

Conceptualizing Communication Capital For A Changing Environment, Leo Jeffres, Guowei Jian, Sukki Yoon

Guowei Jian

With rapidly evolving technologies, boundaries between traditional modes of communication have blurred, creating an environment that scholars still describe from viewpoints as researchers in interpersonal, organizational or mass communication. This manuscript looks at the social capital literature and argues for conceptualizing “communication capital” to help understand the impact of communication phenomena in a changing environment. The literature has treated interpersonal communication variables as components of social capital and mass communication variables as factors affecting social capital, but scholars long ago recognized their reinforcing nature, leading us to develop a concept of communication capital merging symbolic activity across domains in its …

Understanding Employees' Willingness To Contributeto Shared Electronic Databases: A Three-Dimensional Framework, Guowei Jian, Leo Jeffres

Guowei Jian

Work organizations increasingly adopt shared electronic databases. However, employees' unwillingness to contribute to shared resources undermines the utility of such technologies. Current research is limited to either a utilitarian or normative perspective. To advance understanding in this area, this study proposes a three-dimensional framework. It includes the utilitarian and normative perspectives as two complementary dimensions in addition to a third collaborative dimension. Based on this framework, the study identifies three key organizational processes and advances an additive model to predict employees' willingness to contribute to shared electronic databases. An empirical test was conducted to assess the model in a large …

Spanning The Boundaries Of Work: Workplace Participation, Political Efficacy, And Political Involvement, Guowei Jian, Leo Jeffres

Guowei Jian

Based on the political spillover theory, this study examines the boundary-spanning aspect of workplace participation—the association between participation at work and in politics. A telephone survey was conducted using a regional probability sample. Results indicate that decision involvement at work is positively associated with political voting while work community participation is positively associated with involvement in local communities and political party and campaign activities. The study reveals that internal political efficacy mediates the relationship between job autonomy and political participation.

Understanding The Wired Workplace: The Effects Of Job Characteristics On Employees' Personal Online Communication At Work, Guowei Jian

Guowei Jian

As organizations increasingly embrace Internet technologies in daily work activities, an unintended consequence is the growing personal Internet use by employees. This study examines the association between job characteristics and a particular form of personal Internet use at work, personal online communication (POC). The study analyzes data of the 2008 Networked Workers Survey sponsored by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The results demonstrate that job characteristics explain a large, significant portion of the variance of POC at work. The findings suggest that for jobs with high knowledge intensity, managing POC could be approached from a work–life balance perspective. …

Unpacking Unintended Consequences In Planned Organizationalchanges: A Process Model, Guowei Jian

Guowei Jian

The author develops a process model of the unintended consequences in planned organizational change that draws on the structuration, organizational change, and organizational tension literatures. The model depicts the communicative actions of both senior management and employees and reveals the dynamic through which unintended consequences unfold. The model extends theoretical understandings of planned organizational change and discusses how future research can build a dialectic and dialogic model of planned change focused on employee participation. The author illustrates the model with a case study of organizational change and its unintended consequences. The article concludes with insights on change management for practitioners …

Where Do I Stand? The Interaction Of Leader–Member Exchange And Performance Ratings, Hassan Baker, Guowei Jian, Gail Fairhurst

Guowei Jian

The congruence model of leader–member exchange (LMX) quality predicts that agreement between leader and members regarding relationship quality is associated with follower performance. However, questions remain over how cultural relational norms influence congruence. This study, based on a government-linked international joint venture in Malaysia, investigates cultural relational norms in relation to leader–member agreement on relational quality and leader evaluation of member performance. Our findings revealed that LMX quality agreement was related to in-role and extra-role performance among dyadic relationships conforming to Malaysian cultural norms. This study contributes to understanding how cultural relational norms provide conditions to the congruence model of …

Viewing The Public Sphere With Influentials And Citizens, Leo Jeffres, Guowei Jian, Jae-Won Lee, C. Connally, Josie Seikali

Guowei Jian

The currently popular emphasis on democratic discussion in the “public sphere” often is critically viewed by observers commenting on issues of participation, empowerment, and efficacy without input from influentials, whose voices often are the content of public debates. Habermas was critical of the quality of democratic discourse, arguing for an “ideal speech situation” where participants are free to question all proposals; introduce proposals; and express their attitudes, wishes, and needs. This article examines perceptions of the climate of communication in the public sphere by influentials and the general public of a major urban area.

Exploring Demographic, Structural, And Behavioral Overlap Among Homicide Offenders And Victims, Lisa Broidy, Jerry Daday, Cameron Crandall, David Sklar, Peter Jost

Jerry K. Daday

Criminologists tend to focus their attention on the dynamics of offending, paying limited theoretical and empirical attention to the well-established relation between offending and victimization. However, a number of criminological theories predict similarities in the correlates and etiology of victimization and offending, suggesting substantial overlap across offender and victim populations. Empirical research confirms this overlap across offender and victim populations, at least among those involved in nonlethal incidents. This research explores whether similarities between offender and victim populations extends to homicide, using criminal justice, health care, and U.S. Census data linked to homicide offenders and victims in Bernalillo County, New …

Physician Orders For Life-Sustaining Treatment Form: Honoring End-Of-Life Directives For Nursing Home Residents, Judy Meyers, Crystal Moore, Alice Mcgrory, Jennifer Sparr, Melissa Ahern

Crystal Moore

The Physician Orders for LifeSustaining Treatment (POLST) form provides choices about end-of-life care and gives these choices the power of physician orders. The POLST form assures end-of-life choices can be implemented in all settings, from the home through the health-care continuum. The use of the POLST form was evaluated in a pilot study in nursing homes in two eastern Washington counties. Chart reviews and template analysis of interviews revealed the POLST form accurately conveyed end-of-life wishes in 19 of 21 cases. An informed consent process was evidenced in 16 of 21 cases, and the POLST form was congruent with residents' …

Myth: Hard Work And Credentials Determine Employment Opportunities

Alev Dudek

"So Long As I Can Read": Farm Women's Reading Experiences In Depression-Era South Dakota, Lisa Lindell

Lisa R. Lindell

During the Great Depression, with conditions grim, entertainment scarce, and educational opportunities limited, many South Dakota farm women relied on reading to fill emotional, social, and informational needs. To read to any degree, these rural women had to overcome multiple obstacles. Extensive reading (whether books, farm journals, or newspapers) was limited to those who had access to publications and could make time to read. The South Dakota Free Library Commission was valuable in circulating reading materials to the state's rural population. In the 1930s the commission collaborated with the USDA's Extension Service in a popular reading project geared toward South …

Intersection Theory: A More Elucidating Paradigm Of Quantitative Analysis, Marla Kohlman

Marla Kohlman

Intersection theory, a theoretical paradigm which calls attention to the interlocking forces of race, class, and gender, among other master status characteristics, is used to predict that respondents report having been targeted for sexual harassment under circumstances that are quite different from one demographic group to another. Sexual harassment is interpreted as primarily a power relation such that workers in less powerful positions are expected to be more vulnerable to targeting. This study may be distinguished from most studies utilizing intersection theory as a theoretical paradigm because it is a quantitative analysis of a broad, national set of data, the …

Exploring Barriers To Home Gardening In Ohio Households, Justin Schupp, Rebecca Som Castellano, Jeff Sharp, Molly Bean

Justin Schupp

Scholars have noted that race and ethnicity, socio-economic status (SES) as well as other socio-demographic factors may limit participation in local food systems based on the historic and structured patterns of inequalities that remain in communities promoting alternative agriculture and food (agrifood) activities. However, few empirical studies have examined the barriers which prevent people from participating in local food system activities. This paper uses survey data from the 2008 Ohio Survey of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Issues to consider whether barriers such as interest, time, financial resources, geography and space impact the participation of households in home gardening. Results from …

Honor, Ritual And Violence In Ice Hockey, Kenneth Colburn

Kenneth D. Colburn

This paper examines the symbolic or expressive dimension to illegal assaults among players in ice hockey. Based upon the author's qualitative field research in Toronto and Indianapolis, a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate violence is proposed to account for the fact that players distinguish the fist-fight in ice hockey from other violent acts. The fist-fight is formulated as a social ritual involving respect and honor among players to explain this fact, qualities which are absent in other types of assaults. Some of what has been labeled by previous researchers as hockey violence, it is suggested, should be viewed as an …

The Clinical Sociologist As Family Therapist: Utilizing The Strategic Communication Approach, Gary Voelkl, Kenneth Colburn

Kenneth D. Colburn

This article acquaints the clinical sociologist with the sociodynamic model underlying the family therapy approach associated with the "Palo Alto" group and referred to here as the strategic communication approach to family therapy (SCAFT). It establishes the relevance and compatibility of this form of therapy to sociological theory and practice. The basic features of the field of family therapy are described through a selected treatment of several prominent contributors. The authors illustrate the utility of SCAFT for the clinical sociologist by drawing on case studies from their private practice. In the conclusion they emphasize the continuity between SCAFT and sociological …

Advancing Community Engaged Scholarship And Community Engagement At The University Of Massachusetts Boston: A Report Of The Working Group For An Urban Research-Based Action Initiative, Mark Warren, John Saltmarsh, Patricia Krueger-Henney, Lorna Rivera, Miren Uriarte, Donna Friedman, Richard Fleming, Diana Yadira-Salas, Luciano Ramos

Lorna Rivera

The University of Massachusetts Boston has a rich history of mission-driven commitments that engage the campus with local, state, regional, national, and global communities. In the context of a public urban research university, a mission of community engagement is most clearly expressed through community-engaged scholarship. The University is positioned to build upon its strengths in community engagement and strengthen its community-engaged scholarship to become an international model for community engagement.

Creating An Academic Culture That Supports Community-Engaged Scholarship, John Saltmarsh, Mark Warren, Patricia Krueger-Henney, Lorna Rivera, Richard Fleming, Donna Friedman, Miren Uriarte

Lorna Rivera

An increasing number of campuses are working to build systems of incentives and supports for faculty who undertake community-engaged scholarship. Recognizing that the policies and cultures that shape faculty behavior for career advancement have not kept pace with changes in knowledge production and dissemination, many campuses are at some stage in the process of reconsidering and revising their reward structures to provide recognition for new forms of scholarship, including community-engaged, digital, and interdisciplinary scholarship.

Changing Women: An Ethnographic Study Of Homeless Mothers And Popular Education, Lorna Rivera

Lorna Rivera

This article discusses ethnographic research conducted between 1995 and 1998 that studied the impact of popular education on the lives of fifty homeless and formerly homeless mothers. Data collection involved indepth interviews and participant observation in a family shelter located in one of Boston's poorest neighborhoods. The article argues that popular education increased the women's self-esteem, they were inspired to help other low-income women, they learned to advocate for their rights and they became more involved in their children's education. The findings suggest that popular education can best address the academic, personal, and community goals of very poor women.

Opening Address: Mark Ensalaco, University Of Dayton Human Rights Center, Mark Ensalaco

Mark Ensalaco

No abstract provided.

Chicle: The Chewing Gum Of The Americas, From The Ancient Maya To William Wrigley, Jennifer Mathews, Gillian Schultz

Jennifer P Mathews

Although Juicy Fruit® gum was introduced to North Americans in 1893, Native Americans in Mesoamerica were chewing gum thousands of years earlier. And although in the last decade “biographies” have been devoted to salt, spices, chocolate, coffee, and other staples of modern life, until now there has never been a full history of chewing gum. Chicle is a history in four acts, all of them focused on the sticky white substance that seeps from the sapodilla tree when its bark is cut. First, Jennifer Mathews recounts the story of chicle and its earliest-known adherents, the Maya and Aztecs. Second, with …

Jungle Rails: A Historic Narrow-Gauge Railway In Quintana Roo, Jennifer Mathews, Lilia Lizama-Rogers

Jennifer P Mathews

Whereas much of this volume is focused on the ancient Maya, this chapter will highlight the historic chicle industry; the associated railway that traversed the northern corner of Quintana Roo, Mexico; and the recent documentation of the feature through archaeological fieldwork. We believe this to be an important slice of history in Quintana Roo because the lives of the modern Maya often lie in the shadow of their ancient ancestors. Since 1997, members of the Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project have been studying the 40 km railway, which runs between the modern pueblos of Leona Vicario and Puerto Morelos (Mathews …

Cosmopolitan Living? Examining The Sugar And Rum Industry Of The Costa Escondida, Quintana Roo Mexico, Jennifer Mathews, John Gust

Jennifer P Mathews

No abstract provided.

El Proyecto Regional De Ecología Humana Yalahau: Una Introducción A Las Investigaciones Y Los Resúmes De Estudios Llevados Acabo Desde 1993-2000, Scott Fedick, Jennifer Mathews, Bethany Morrison

Jennifer P Mathews

No abstract provided.

The Value Of Things: Commodities In The Maya Region From Prehistoric To Contemporary, Jennifer Mathews, Thomas Guderjan

Jennifer P Mathews

No abstract provided.