Digital Commons Network^™

Contexts Of Exit In The Migration Of Russian Speakers From The Baltic Countries To Ireland, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Recently, Ireland has become a major destination for migrants from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Many of these migrants are members of Russian-speaking minorities leaving a context of restrictive citizenship and language laws and varying degrees of ethnic tension. This paper draws on interviews collected in Ireland to examine the role played by the contexts of exit in decisions to migrate among Russian-speaking minorities from the Baltics. The results suggest that Russian speakers from Estonia migrate because of their experiences as minorities, while those from Latvia and Lithuania migrate to escape low wages and irregular employment. This is so despite equally …

Organizational Life And Political Incorporation Of Two Asian Immigrant Groups: A Case Study, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Civil society is the foundation of a healthy democracy but its immigrant element has received little attention. This paper is a case study of immigrant organizations of highly skilled Asian Indians and Chinese immigrants in a suburban town of Edison, New Jersey. I find that civic participation of Asian Indian immigrants spills over into political incorporation while Chinese immigrant organizations remain margin- alized. I argue that local processes of racialization are central in explaining differences in political incorporation of immigrants. In the local context, the Chinese are seen as successful but conformist model minorities and Asian Indians as invaders and …

Untangling The Relationship Between Libraries, Young Adults And Web 2.0: The Necessity Of A Critical Perspective, Lucia Cedeira Serantes

Publications and Research

Purpose: This paper addresses a gap in the analysis of the dynamic and challenging relationship between libraries, Web 2.0 and young adults, suggesting the relevance of a critical approach.

Methodology/Approach: This paper represents an exploratory literature review with the objective of identifying a possible gap in the way the LIS community is addressing the concept of Web 2.0.

Findings: Findings indicate that the research produced in other fields, such as Communication or Computer Science; the way young adults interrelate with new technologies; and the need for collaboration between practitioners and researchers justify and support the use of a critical perspective …

Cloaked Websites: Propaganda, Cyber-Racism And Epistemology In The Digital Era, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

This article analyzes cloaked websites, which are sites published by individuals or groups who conceal authorship in order to disguise deliberately a hidden political agenda. Drawing on the insights of critical theory and the Frankfurt School, this article examines the way in which cloaked websites conceal a variety of political agendas from a range of perspectives. Of particular interest here are cloaked white supremacist sites that disguise cyber-racism. The use of cloaked websites to further political ends raises important questions about knowledge production and epistemology in the digital era. These cloaked sites emerge within a social and political context in …

Review Of "The Globalisation Of Addiction: A Study In Poverty Of The Spirit" By Bruce K. Alexander, Harry G. Levine

Publications and Research

Book review of "The Globalisation Of Addiction: A Study In Poverty Of The Spirit" by Bruce K. Alexander

The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy And Its Antithesis, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

The now taken-for-granted notion that data lead to information, which leads to knowledge, which in turnleads to wisdom was first specified in detail by R. L. Ackoff in 1988. The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy is based on filtration, reduction, and transformation. Besides being causal and hierarchical,the scheme is pyramidal, in that data are plentiful while wisdom is almost nonexistent. Ackoff’s formulalinking these terms together this way permits us to ask what the opposite of knowledge is and whether analogous principles of hierarchy, process, and pyramiding apply to it. The inversion of the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy produces a series of opposing terms (including misinformation,error, …

Latin America Translated (Again): Roberto BolañO'S The Savage Detectives In The United States, Sarah S. Pollack

Publications and Research

This essay addresses the cultural and political agendas that influence the selection of Latin American novels to be translated by U.S. publishers and the reception of these novels by U.S. readers. Focusing on two Latin American writers who have had enormous success in the U.S., the author traces the shift from the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, to the gritty realism of Roberto Bolaño, and asks what these different paradigms can tell us about stereotypical U.S. notions of Latin American cultural and political realities. Although Bolaño's work ostensibly realigns the coordinates of the …

Suicide Associated With Military Service, Margo R. Genderson, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Mark S. Kaplan, Michael J. Lyons

Publications and Research

Suicide rates among soldiers and veterans of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF) have been steadily growing since 2004, with sharp increases observed more recently. Suicides in the Army are a growing concern on Capitol Hill and in the media. Last month, the Senate Armed Services Committee held hearings on the growing incidence of suicides across the armed forces (Federal city digest, 2009, March 18). The Associated Press (AP) underlined the increasing suicide rates among Army personnel (Army reports sharp rise in suicides in January, 2009, Feb. 5). According to the AP, there were 64 suicides in 2004, and …

Information Literacy And Blind And Visually Impaired Students, Rebecca Schiff

Publications and Research

In the summer of 2007, as part of the City University of New York PeopleTech Summer Institute held at Baruch College, the author taught a class in information literacy to a group of blind and visually impaired students, using assistive technology to access the resources of the college library. Despite considerable preparation and experience, teaching the class presented unexpected difficulties, detailed in this paper. Rapid advances in information literacy technology present unusual challenges for the average student—challenges that are magnified when the intermediate assistive technology is itself not easy to master. The author explores the pertinent literature.

Nonknowledge: The Bibliographical Organization Of Ignorance, Stupidity, Error, And Unreason: Part One, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Starting with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom paradigm in information science it is possible to derive a model of the opposite of knowledge having hierarchical qualities. A range of counterpoints to concepts in the knowledge hierarchy can be identified and ascribed the overall term “nonknowledge.” This model creates a conceptual framework for understanding the connections between topics such as error, ignorance, stupidity, folly, popular misconceptions, and unreason by locating them as levels or phases of nonknowledge. The concept of nonknowledge links heretofore disconnected discourses on these individual topics by philosophers, psychologists, historians, sociologists, satirists, and others. Subject headings provide access to the categories …

Writing Across The Curriculum: Professional Communication And The Writing That Supports It, Andrea Mcardle

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Judicial Deference To Legislative Fact-Finding, Caitlin Borgmann

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Inviting Trouble: The Subversive Potential Of The Outsider Within Standpoint, Jane Hindman

Publications and Research

Jane E. Hindman’s “Inviting Trouble” makes the case for the collection of disparate approaches to critical disruption by reinforcing critical reflection as a generative practice that challenges subordinating silence. Hindman asserts “inviting troublesome questions enhances a healthy system” (100). She argues that anger, as a part of the trouble provoked by critical introspection, has a useful function in the struggle against the silencing of colonial influence.

Broken Lives From Broken Windows: The Hidden Costs Of Aggressive Order-Maintenance Policing, K. Babe Howell

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Trust, Rebecca Bratspies

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Potential Of Twitter As A Research Tool, Steven Ovadia

Publications and Research

The article reviews the web site Twitter, and discusses its research applications, including the concept of hashtags as subject headings to organize Twitter content.

A Reflective Teaching Journal: An Instructional Improvement Tool For Academic Librarians, Elizabeth K. Tompkins

Publications and Research

This paper explores the practice of keeping a reflective teaching journal to improve classroom instruction. Reflective practice and journaling have a rich tradition in the teacher education field. Accordingly, the teacher education literature provides the starting point for this case study of keeping a reflective teaching journal for library sessions given to first semester freshmen enrolled in a learning community. The journaling process proved useful by helping to improve instruction while also providing a mechanism to link theory with practice.

Playing With A Different Sex: Academic Writing On Women In Rock And Pop, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

This annotated bibliography of academic writing on women in rock in pop should provide an overview of most of the scholarly literature on the topic and reflects my personal interest in methodology. When I returned to graduate school in the late 1990s to study American studies and popular culture, I discovered that academe had changed considerably from my undergraduate days when I studied history of art. Although traditional academic disciplines continue, I found that in the humanities and social sciences, there were no longer neat categories for disciplines and disciplines no longer were isolated from each other.

The topic of …

Métodos Qualitativos E Quantitativos Na Pesquisa Sobre Stress Ocupacional, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Edwin Farrell

Publications and Research

O presente artigo examina as formas pelas quais os métodos qualitativos e quantitativos se apóiam mutuamente na pesquisa sobre o stress ocupacional. Os métodos qualitativos incluem (a) obtenção de informações a partir de descrições livres de vivências no trabalho, (b) observações diretas, cuidadosas no local de trabalho e (c) observadores participantes que descrevem uma determinada experiência de trabalho a partir do local onde ela ocorre. Mostra, também, como a pesquisa qualitativa estimula o desenvolvimento de teorias, a geração de hipóteses e a identificação de estressores no trabalho e de respostas de coping. As limitações da pesquisa qualitativa, especialmente na área …

Qualitative And Quantitative Methods In Occupational-Stress Research, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Edwin Farrell

Publications and Research

The paper examined the ways in which qualitative and quantitative methods support each other in research on occupational stress. Qualitative methods include (a) eliciting from unconstrained descriptions of work experiences, (b) careful first-hand observations at the workplace, and (c) participant‑observers describing “from the inside” a particular work experience. The paper shows how qualitative research stimulates theory development, hypothesis generation, and the identification of job stressors and coping responses. The limitations of qualitative research, particularly in the area of verification, are also described.

It Takes Two: The Interplay Of Individual And Group Theology On Social Embeddedness, Christopher P. Scheitle, Amy Adamczyk

Publications and Research

Prior research argues that religious homophily in social networks is a product of overlapping interests and activities unintentionally leading to relationships or the intentional seeking of relationships with people of similar religious beliefs. This article advances research on religious homophily by including the role that exclusive theological beliefs play in explaining religious homophily among friends. We lay out three propositions for individual-, congregational-, and cross-level effects on the relationship between exclusive theology and embeddedness within one's congregation. Using multilevel models and data from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey (USCLS), we find support for our three propositions. We discuss our findings …

Shaping Attitudes About Homosexuality: The Role Of Religion And Cultural Context, Amy Adamczyk, Pitt Cassidy

Publications and Research

Across the globe, the debate over homosexuality continues, with great variation in public opinion about the acceptability of homosexuality, laws regulating same-sex unions and penalties for homosexual sex behaviors. Religion is often seen as an important predictor of attitudes about homosexuality. However, cross-national differences in cultural orientations suggest that the role religion has in explaining homosexual attitudes may depend on a nation’s cultural context. In this study, we merge ideas from cultural sociology and religious contextual effects to explain cross-national variation in public opinion about homosexuality. Using data from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey and Hierarchical Modeling …

Shaping One's Own Destiny: Global Economy, Family, And Women's Struggle In The Taiwanese Context, Anru Lee

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Cookie Monsters: Seeing Young People’S Hacking As Creative Practice, Gregory T. Donovan, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

This paper examines the benefits and obstacles to young people’s open-ended and unrestricted access to technological environments. While children and youth are frequently seen as threatened or threatening in this realm, their playful engagements suggest that they are self-possessed social actors, able to negotiate most of its challenges effectively. Whether it is proprietary software, the business practices of some technology providers, or the separation of play, work, and learning in most classrooms, the spatial-temporality of young people’s access to and use of technology is often configured to restrict their freedom of choice and behavior. We focus on these issues through …

Synergies And Tensions Between Rural Social Movements And Professional Researchers, Marc Edelman

Publications and Research

This essay outlines approaches to analysing and managing relations between rural activists and academic researchers. It suggests (a) that contemporary social movements engage in knowledge production practices much like those of academic and NGO-affiliated researchers and (b) that the boundaries between activists and researchers are not always as sharp as is sometimes claimed. These blurred boundaries and shared practices can create synergies in activist– academic relations. The essay then examines tensions in the relationship, including activists’ expectation that academic research will be immediately applicable to their struggles and researchers’ expectation that movement participants will accommodate their needs. The final section …

Methodology Appendix: On The Craft Of Sociology In The Digital Era, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

An appendix to the book that explores the methodology of studying the Internet.

Combating Global White Supremacy In The Digital Era, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

This chapter explores both the ability of white supremacists to connect globally through Internet technologies, and considers international efforts to combat white supremacy. The United States is not a willing partner in fighting white supremacy online due to certain interpretations of the first amendment. However, absolutist views of free speech contradict the Supreme Court of the US which has ruled that there is a burning cross is not protected by the first amendment. Failing to take action against white supremacy online, the US functions as a global haven for hate speech.

Workplace Electronic Privacy Protections Abroad: The Whole Wide World Is Watchin, William A. Herbert

Publications and Research

Legal and public policy ideas and concepts are known to traverse national borders. The rapidity of this multinational exchange of ideas has been substantially enhanced through the technological revolution over the past two decades. How a nation adopts or rejects particular ideas and concepts reflects on its particular history, culture and priorities. The establishment of legal protections for privacy against intrusions by governments, employers, companies and individuals represents a concept that has been adopted in different ways by other nations. This article will focus on how the European Union and certain Western countries have approached the issue of protecting individual …

Hiv/Aids: An Opportunistic Infection Of Globalization?, David H. Lee

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

New Breast Milk In Old Bottles, Barbara Katz Rothman

Publications and Research

This paper identifies how the different ideologies of patriarchy, technology, capitalism, race and feminism shape how we see breastfeeding and the breastfeeding mother with child. Ultimately, while we can make good strong arguments for breastfeeding from the perspective of health, of outcome, of good scientific data, we need to appreciate that they are only rationalizations for a shared belief that the image of the breastfeeding woman with baby represents something precious and valuable. So while it may be important to make arguments that draw on what is valued in society, we need to think hard about what it is that …