To provide readers with a summary and appraisal of the book, Educating Citizens: Preparing America's Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility.
Abstract
Purpose
To provide readers with a summary and appraisal of the book, Educating Citizens: Preparing America's Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility.
Design/methodology/approach
After a thorough examination of the text, its value is considered from the perspective of a university faculty member who is interested in the development of citizen education programs.
Findings
Educating Citizens: Preparing America's Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility provides a thought‐provoking case for the development of civic and moral learning programs at undergraduate institutions. Using their research at 12 diverse higher learning institutions, the authors highlight the importance of and impediments to developing citizen education programs and go further to define and establish goals for such programs. Detailed strategies on how to incorporate civic learning into the classroom, curriculum programs, extracurricular activities, and the institution at large are also evaluated.
Research limitations/implications
This review is written from the perspective of a faculty member at a large US public university. While there are many commonalities between perspectives from the diversity of higher learning institutions, there are likely to be some differences.
Practical implications
This review provides the reader with insight into Educating Citizens: Preparing America's Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility and will aid in the decision to examine this text.
Originality/value
Given that citizen education initiatives are gaining international recognition, the reader is likely to gain further understanding into how colleges and universities are approaching the increasing demand for civic learning.
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Kamesha Spates, Na’Tasha Evans, Jordan Smith, Richa Gairola, Rebecca Jindra, Parishma Guttoo, Cedric Mubikayi Kabasele, Chelsey Kirkland and PraiseGod Aminu
The prevalence of Congolese refugee women seeking asylum in the USA has recently garnered substantial attention. Many women have fled the Democratic Republic of Congo due to…
Abstract
Purpose
The prevalence of Congolese refugee women seeking asylum in the USA has recently garnered substantial attention. Many women have fled the Democratic Republic of Congo due to trauma and loss. Likewise, the resettlement process, particularly acculturative stress, may exacerbate mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. By recognizing the centrality of family within Congolese culture, this study aims to investigate cultural beliefs about family among Congolese refugee women in the USA, using acculturative theory as an interpretative lens.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors’ study centered on understanding the resettlement experiences of 20 Congolese refugee women living within an urban area of Midwest America after their arrival in America since 2011. Through using convenient sampling methods, the authors chose these particular activists as they could provide insight into their stories concerning their journey from Congo to settling down as refugees within Northeast America. During interviews, semi-structured questioning was used to gather responses from participants which were later analyzed through implementing a thematic interpretation process.
Findings
Three themes emerged encapsulating cultural beliefs about family: supporting one another; the importance of togetherness; and disciplining our children. These findings provide culturally tailored resources to support Congolese refugee women and their families upon resettlement optimally.
Research limitations/implications
The authors’ work provides health equity researchers with an opportunity to better understand cultural beliefs among Congolese refugee women. Findings from this study provide an increased understanding of how to provide culturally specific tools to better aid Congolese refugee women and their families upon arrival.
Practical implications
The authors’ research offers insights for health equity researchers seeking to understand the cultural beliefs of Congolese refugee women. The findings contribute to an enhanced understanding of how to provide culturally specific resources better to support Congolese refugee women and their families upon arrival.
Originality/value
The authors verify that, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper was written completely independently, and neither the entire work nor any of its parts have been previously published. The authors confirm that the paper has not been submitted to peer review, nor is in the process of peer reviewing, nor has been accepted for publishing in another journal. The authors confirm that the research in their work is original.
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Helen Jefferson Lenskyj and Ali Durham Greey
This chapter investigates resistance initiated by trans athletes and their allies and evaluates developments in policies and practices at the international, national and local…
Abstract
This chapter investigates resistance initiated by trans athletes and their allies and evaluates developments in policies and practices at the international, national and local levels of sport. The limitations of liberal approaches to trans inclusion are identified, and examples of radical, transformative approaches grounded in intersectional feminism are presented, together with an analysis of the crucial roles of solidarity work provided by allies and accomplices. The potential offered by boxing as a route to empowerment for trans and nonbinary participants is examined. An overview of recent media coverage of trans athletes suggests that global resistance is having an important impact on mainstream journalism. Finally, this chapter outlines how a successful campaign challenging a trans-exclusive Sport Canada's 2022 opinion survey and a recent report by Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport provide further evidence of effective resistance to trans exclusion in sport.
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The participation of trans people is increasingly being framed as a defining issue for women's sport. A dominant narrative, promoted by various newly formed feminist organizations…
Abstract
The participation of trans people is increasingly being framed as a defining issue for women's sport. A dominant narrative, promoted by various newly formed feminist organizations located in the Global North, is that (cisgender) women's sport will be forever changed – and negatively so – by the increased recognition and sports participation of trans athletes. The message is the following: first, that biological sex is fundamentally binary; second, that the place of ‘females’ in sport depends on the recognition of this biological ‘truth’; and third, that sports policymakers must choose between advancing the rights of interests of (cisgender) women or those of trans athletes, but can't do both. I call this phenomenon biofeminism: the wielding of scientific knowledge and expertise to claim binary, biological sex difference as the ‘true’ basis of (cisgender) women's experience and her rights. In this chapter, I offer an exploratory, empirical account of this variety of feminist mobilization by analyzing an awareness-raising event held in the United Kingdom in 2019. I approach this event as an opportunity to better understand how biofeminist actors are organizing, their epistemic strategies and the political frames they rely upon to give meaning to ideologies of binary sex difference and impact policy and legislation. Given the unfinished business of realizing gender equity within the institution of sport, I reflect on how women's sports organizations might counter biofeminist mobilization and pursue allyship between cis and trans women.
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Will Kalkhoff, Shane R. Thye and Edward J. Lawler
This volume begins with two chapters that draw on evolutionary sociology to advance our understanding of interpersonal processes and their role in social organization. In “The…
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This volume begins with two chapters that draw on evolutionary sociology to advance our understanding of interpersonal processes and their role in social organization. In “The Biology and Neurology of Group Processes,” Jonathan H. Turner and Alexandra Maryanski draw on three areas of evolutionary sociology (cladistic analysis, comparative neuroanatomy, and ecological analysis) to show how understanding the selection pressures acting on the brain over millions of years can help us get a better grasp on the biologically based capacities and propensities that are involved in group processes such as role-taking and role-making. An improved understanding of these processes means better explanations of how humans create, sustain, and change social structures and culture – topics that lie at the core of sociological inquiry. At the same time, Turner and Maryanski's chapter will give sociologists much to think about and debate, as one of the main conclusions of their argument is that neurology explains human capacities to develop non-kin groups more than culture. The next chapter entitled “Sacrifice, Gratitude, and Obligation: Serial Reciprocity in Early Christianity,” by Richard Machalek and Michael W. Martin, may be seen as giving more equal explanatory weight to culture and biology in a theoretical analysis that combines a focus on cognitive processes (historically unique meanings and ideas) with evolutionary sociological insights about emotions in order to generate better explanations of complex socio-historical developments. Specifically, Machalek and Martin extend Rodney Stark's analysis of how ideas contributed to the rise of Christianity by showing how the evolved features of human emotionality related to “paying it forward” (or serial reciprocity in more formal terms) may have also played an important role in this historical process. Both chapters provide excellent examples of the value of combining multiple theoretical perspectives and paying attention to the interplay of social and biological forces.
James Shein, Rebecca Frazzano and Evan Meagher
The case briefly describes the history of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) under Ross Perot and GM before turning to the beginning of a tumultuous decade in the late 1990s. As the…
Abstract
The case briefly describes the history of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) under Ross Perot and GM before turning to the beginning of a tumultuous decade in the late 1990s. As the turn of the century approached, EDS made critical strategic missteps such as missing opportunities in the Internet space, overlooking the onset of client-server computing, and failing to obtain major Y2K-related projects. The company attempted a turnaround by replacing the CEO with Dick Brown, whose leadership helped streamline the sprawling company. Despite initial successes, Brown's tenure ultimately ended in failure, due largely to his failure to recognize the growing Indian market and his willingness to buy business at the expense of the company's margin. The disastrous multibillion-dollar Navy & Marine Corp Intranet contract typified the type of high-profile transactions that Brown pursued, often boosting EDS's stock price in the short term while eroding its cash flow short term and its profitability over the long term. EDS management went through several stages of the turnaround process: the blinded phase, the inactive phase, and the faulty action phase, until Michael Jordan replaced Brown as CEO and enacted a three-tiered operational, strategic, and financial turnaround.
EDS's near-decade of turnaround efforts takes students through every phase of the turnaround process and demonstrates that even initially successful turnaround efforts can become distracted, rendering them ineffective. The case will show both a failed turnaround and a subsequent successful one, while adding an international component with respect to EDS's overlooking an important, growing Indian market.
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Jeannette Waegemakers Schiff, Eric Paul Weissman, Deborah Scharf, Rebecca Schiff, Stephanie Campbell, Jordan Knapp and Alana Jones
This paper aims to discuss the challenges of conducting research with homelessness services frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss the challenges of conducting research with homelessness services frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
Between 2015 and 2019, the research team surveyed frontline staff in three cities about their psychosocial stressors and needs. In 2020, the authors replicated the previous study and expanded data collection to seven cities across Canada to determine the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the well-being of frontline staff. This report describes how the authors adapted the research methodologies to continue work throughout the pandemic, despite various restrictions.
Findings
The original studies had very high participation rates because of several methodological approaches that minimized barriers, especially in-person data collection. During the pandemic, distancing requirements precluded replication of these same methods. Research strategies that enabled staff participation during working hours, with designated time allotted for participation, was key for ensuring high participation rates, as access to technology, availability of free time and other factors frequently make online survey research a hardship for these staff. Restrictive interpretation and regional variations of COVID-19 guidelines by some research ethics boards were also a challenge to rapid and responsive data collection.
Originality/value
Few studies describe the experiences of frontline workers in the homelessness sector, and quantitative reports of their experiences are particularly scant. Consequently, little is known about specific methodologies that facilitate large-scale data collection in the homelessness services sector. The present research advances the field by providing lessons learned about best practice approaches in pre and post COVID-19 front line worker contexts. A strength of this research is the well-controlled design. The authors collected data within several of the organizations that had previously participated. This fortunate baseline provided opportunity for comparison before and during the pandemic; the authors can highlight factors that might have had influence during the pandemic.
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David Punter and Glennis Byron note how the Gothic novel has been divided into two categories: the ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ Gothic. Where the former emphasizes violence and ghosts, the…
Abstract
David Punter and Glennis Byron note how the Gothic novel has been divided into two categories: the ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ Gothic. Where the former emphasizes violence and ghosts, the latter focuses on female representation and the disavowal of the supernatural. The Hollywood Gothic films of the 1940s can be said to translate this aspect of the Female Gothic onto the cinema screen: Rebecca (1940), Gaslight (1944) and Secret Beyond the Door (1947) all feature narratives stressing the haunting nature of domestic spaces but there are no actual ghosts present. Robert Zemeckis’s What Lies Beneath (2000) breaks this convention. The film clearly draws on the Female Gothic lineage, situating Claire as a Gothic heroine, and yet there is an important difference: the supernatural is now an integral – and acknowledged – part of the story. This chapter explores this twenty-first century change, arguing that whilst the inclusion of the supernatural can be said to break with previous definitions of the Female Gothic, What Lies Beneath’s depiction of a ghost actually re-imagines and re-emphasizes the concerns at the centre of this tradition: the dramatization of marital and domestic experiences; an interrogation of feminine perception; and the reality of male violence against women.