bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pleiotrophin Induces Transdifferentiation of Monocytes Into Functional Endothelial Cells
Authors: Sharifi Behrooz G. , Zeng Zhaohui , Wang Lai , Song Lei , Chen Haiming , Qin Minghui , Sierra-Honigmann M. Rocio , Wachsmann-Hogiu Sebastian , Shah Prediman K.
Published: April 2006

Objective—

Pleiotrophin (PTN) is a cytokine that is expressed by monocytes/macrophages in ischemic tissues and that promotes neovascularization, presumably by stimulating proliferation of local endothelial cells. However, the effect of PTN on monocytes/macrophages remains unknown. We investigated the role of PTN in regulating the phenotype of monocytes/macrophages.

Methods and Results—

RT-PCR, real-time PCR, and fluorescence-activated cell sorter analysis revealed that the expression of PTN by monocytic cells led to a downregulation of CD68,
c-fms
, and CD14 monocytic cell markers and an upregulation of FLK-1, Tie-2, vascular endothelial-cadherin, platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1, endothelial NO synthase, von Willebrand factor, CD34, GATA-2, and GATA-3 endothelial cell markers. Fibrin gel assays showed that the treatment of mouse and human monocytic cells with PTN led to the formation of tube-like structures. In vivo studies showed that PTN-expressing monocytic cells incorporated into the blood vessels of the quail chorioallantoic membrane. The intracardial injection of PTN-expressing monocytic cells into chicken embryos showed that cells integrated only into the developing vasculature. Finally, the injection of PTN-expressing monocytes into a murine ischemic hindlimb model significantly improved perfusion of the ischemic tissue.

Conclusions—

PTN expression by monocytes/macrophages led to a downregulation of their monocytic cell markers and an upregulation of endothelial cell characteristics, thus inducing the transdifferentiation of monocytes into functional endothelial cells.
Transgenic Mice Overexpressing the 5-Hydroxytryptamine Transporter Gene in Smooth Muscle Develop Pulmonary Hypertension
Authors: Guignabert Christophe , Izikki Mohamed , Tu Ly Ieng , Li Zhenlin , Zadigue Patricia , Barlier-Mur Anne-Marie , Hanoun Naïma , Rodman David , Hamon Michel , Adnot Serge , Eddahibi Saadia
Published: April 2006

One intrinsic abnormality of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PA-SMCs) in human idiopathic pulmonary hypertension (iPH) is an exaggerated proliferative response to internalized serotonin (5-HT) caused by increased expression of the 5-HT transporter (5-HTT). To investigate whether 5-HTT overexpression in PA-SMCs is sufficient to produce PH, we generated transgenic mice overexpressing 5-HTT under the control of the SM22 promoter. Studies in SM22-LacZ+mice showed that the transgene was expressed predominantly in SMCs of pulmonary and systemic vessels. Compared with wild-type mice, SM22–5-HTT+mice exhibited a 3- to 4-fold increase in lung 5-HTT mRNA and protein, together with increased lung 5-HT uptake activity, but no changes in platelet 5-HTT activity or blood 5-HT levels. At 8 weeks of age, SM22–5-HTT+mice exhibited PH, with marked increases in right ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP), right ventricle/left ventricle+septum ratio, and muscularization of distal pulmonary vessels, but no changes in systemic arterial pressure. PH worsened with age. Except a marked decrease in Kv channels, no changes in the lung expression of mediators of pulmonary vascular remodeling were observed in SM22–5-HTT+mice. Compared with wild-type mice, SM22–5-HTT+mice showed depressed hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction contrasting with greater severity of hypoxia- or monocrotaline-induced PH. These results show that increased 5-HTT expression in PA-SMCs, to a level close to that found in human iPH, lead to PH in mice. They further support a central role for 5-HTT in the pathogenesis of PH, making 5-HTT a potential therapeutic target.
Twenty Years of Work and Family at International Business Machines Corporation
Authors: Hill E. Jeffrey , Jackson Andre'a D. , Martinengo Giuseppe
Published: April 2006

Twenty years ago, corporate work and family programs at International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) were seen as a means to accommodate the needs of working mothers. Today, IBM's work/life strategy is seen as a business imperative to attract, motivate, and retain key talent needed to drive success in the marketplace. To intelligently develop work/life strategies that would simultaneously meet business and personal needs, IBM conducted seven work and life issues surveys, beginning in 1986. These surveys provide a wealth of data on which dramatic change has been based. Many initiatives have been implemented related to dependent care, flexibility in when and wherework is done, and management support of employees'work/life needs. This article briefly shares IBM'swork/life experience during the past 20 years. Key results from each work/life survey are enumerated along with the substantive policies that they engendered to make IBM a global corporate work/life leader.
The Avoidance of Bias Against Caregiving
Authors: Drago Robert , Colbeck Carol L. , Stauffer Kai Dawn , Pirretti Amy , Burkum Kurt , Fazioli Jennifer , Lazzaro Gabriela , Habasevich Tara
Published: April 2006

The authors analyze bias avoidance behaviors, whereby employees respond to biases against caregiving in the workplace by strategically minimizing or hiding family commitments. They divide bias avoidance behaviors into productive types that improve work performance and unproductive types that are inefficient. Original survey data from 4,188 chemistry and English faculty in 507 U.S. colleges and universities suggest both types of bias avoidance are relatively common and women more often report both types of behavior. Regression analyses show few disciplinary differences, find supportive supervisors associated with reductions in reports of bias avoidance, suggest low levels of bias avoidance for women are linked to institutional gender equity, and support the possibility that there are subjective components to bias avoidance behaviors.
Policy Failure and Policy Change
Authors: Walsh James I.
Published: April 2006

The failure of a policy to achieve its goals is often an important reason for the decision to replace it. Failure alone, however, is rarely a sufficient explanation of the timing and direction of policy change. Change follows failure when alternative policies exist that are politically viable—that is, able to garner support from powerful actors—and that can explain past failure persuasively, and offer new policy prescriptions. This article evaluates this argument through a case study of British international security policy after the end of the cold war. British decision makers' initial policy was to rely on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as the vehicle through which to organize multilateral responses to “crisis management tasks.” The failure of this policy to deal successfully with the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia led British decision makers to search for and evaluate alternative policies. They concluded that the rival idea of basing more multilateral crisis management on a European rather than North Atlantic institution best explained the failures in the former Yugoslavia. This policywas not politically viable, however, leading the government to continue to rely on NATO for such missions. Only a change in government—the election of the Labor government in 1997 with a large parliamentary majority—allowed decision makers to adopt and implement this new policy.
The Presidential Calculus
Authors: Neto Octavio Amorim
Published: April 2006

This article proposes a decision-theoretic model to explain how cabinets help presidents implement their policy-making strategies. Presidents are assumed to have two policy-making strategies: a strategy based on the use of statutes or a strategy based on executive prerogatives. If the president's preferences and the institutional incentives and economic conditions faced favor a statutory strategy, the president is more likely to appoint a majority cabinet, select more partisan ministers, and distribute portfolios to parties on a proportional basis. Econometric analysis of 106 cabinets appointed in 13 countries of the Americas demonstrates that the determinants of cabinet legislative status are the size of the president's party, extremist presidents, and economic crises. The share of partisan ministers and proportionality in portfolio allocation are affected by the size of the president's party, extremist presidents holding decree powers, the extension of the president's veto powers, and the elapsing of the president's term.
Eighteen Years of the Great Lakes Regional Counseling Psychology Conference
Authors: Delgado-Romero Edward A. , Bowman Sharon L. , Gerstein Lawrence H.
Published: April 2006

The Great Lakes Regional Conference on Counseling Psychology is the only conference to continuously fulfill the 1987 mandate issued by Division 17 for regional counseling conferences. The rationale for regional conferences is reviewed, and the 18-year history of the Great Lakes Regional Conference is examined. The authors conclude by noting the strengths and limitations of regional conferences and recommend that the Society of Counseling Psychology reconsider the issue of regional conferences in counseling psychology.
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
Authors: Strohmer Douglas C. , Arm Jennifer R.
Published: April 2006

The results of the clinical versus statistical prediction meta-analysis support the longstanding finding that statistical methods are superior to clinical methods in making predictions. In this reaction, the authors discuss the findings from the perspective of the context of discovery and the context of justification, the client model-building process, bias in clinician judgment, and evidenced-based practice, and they speculate about why more clinicians have not made statistical methods part of their practice.
Untying the Gordian Knot of Guilt and Shame
Authors: Fontaine Johnny R. J. , Luyten Patrick , de Boeck Paul , Corveleyn Jozef , Fernandez Manuel , Herrera Dora , IttzéS Andras , Tomcsányi Theodora
Published: April 2006

In this study, the structure of guilt and shame reactions are investigated in three cultural groups (Peru, Hungary, and Belgium) using two newly constructed scenario-based inventories. Results show that it is possible to distinguish between a structure of guilt and shame reactions based on person variation and a structure based on situation variation. Moreover, both the person-based and the situation-based structures of shame and guilt are very similar across the three cultural groups, whereas within cultural groups, the two structures are quite different. The dimensions guilt versus shame and interpersonal versus intrapersonal orientation spanned the situation-based structure, whereas the dimensions control versus lack of control and appraisals versus subjective experiences and action tendencies spanned the person-based structure.
Adolescent-Family Connectedness among Arabs
Authors: Dwairy Marwan , Achoui Mustafa , Abouserie Reda , Farah Adnan
Published: April 2006

The Multigenerational Interconnectedness Scale was administered to 2,893 Arab adolescents in eight Arab societies. Results show that adolescent-family connectedness differs significantly across the Arab societies. Arabs scored higher in emotional, financial, functional, and total connectedness than Americans. Female adolescents were more connected than male adolescents in all three kinds of connectedness. A low but significant effect of urbanization was found on emotional and financial connectedness. First-born adolescents scored higher in financial connectedness. Further studies that employ additional tools such as interviews, observations, and parents' self-report are needed.
Perceived Discrimination, Social Support Networks, and Psychological Well-being Among Three Immigrant Groups
Authors: Jasinskaja-Lahti Inga , Liebkind Karmela , Jaakkola Magdalena , Reuter Anni
Published: April 2006

The authors addressed the specific role of and contradictory results previously obtained regarding ethnic versus host support networks in influencing directly and/or buffering the impact of perceived discrimination on the well-being of immigrants. A nationwide adult probability sample ( N= 2,360) included Finnish repatriates and Russian and Estonian immigrants in Finland from Russia, Estonia, and other countries of the former Soviet Union. Perceived discrimination had a significant impact on psychological well-being. The results demonstrated the importance of distinguishing between available and activated social support. In the total sample, strong evidence was obtained for the direct and the buffering effect of host support networks on well-being. In addition, social support provided by ethnic networks abroad was generally beneficial for the psychological well-being of the immigrants. Under some conditions, ethnic support networks were also beneficial for psychological well-being.
Biculturalism and Group Identification
Authors: Verkuyten Maykel , Pouliasi Katerina
Published: April 2006

This article discusses a study that examined cultural frame switching among bicultural Greek participants living in the Netherlands. The research demonstrated that self-evaluations, self-stereotypes, and attitudes toward family integrity and friendship were affected by cultural framing. Experimentally primed bicultural participants and monocultural comparison groups in the Netherlands and Greece were used. Activating Greek culture especially, in comparison to activating Dutch culture, led to a less positive evaluation of the personal self, stronger Greek self-stereotyping, and stronger endorsement of family integrity and friendship. Similar differences were found when comparing monocultural Dutch and monocultural Greek participants. In addition, cultural priming affected group identification, which was found to be associated with perceptions and attitudes. The pattern of results suggests that group identification, in part, mediates the relationship between cultural framing and perceptual and evaluative responses. It is concluded that social identity principles are important for understanding the experiences of bicultural individuals.
Happiness in the Eye and the Heart: Somatic Referencing in West African Emotion Lexica
Authors: Dzokoto Vivian Afi , Okazaki Sumie
Published: April 2006

Although many theories about the structure of emotion have been developed, none of them seem to adequately explain the African experience. This study examined the folk emotion lexica of two indigenous West African languages. Fifty monolingual Fante speakers and 50 monolingual Dagbani speakers from rural and semirural Ghana participated in focus groups to generate words in their native language that they use to describe experiences that involve emotions. Qualitative analysis of the emotion lexica generated by the focus group participants revealed frequent somatic referencing in the emotion talk of Fante and Dagbani, although there were differences in the specific body parts mentioned in references to various emotional experiences. The ubiquity of somatic referents in the expression of African emotions suggests that future theories of emotion structure may need to incorporate the concept of embodiment.
Africentric Cultural Values: Their Relation to Positive Mental Health in African American Adolescent Girls
Authors: Constantine Madonna G. , Alleyne Vanessa L. , Wallace Barbara C. , Franklin-Jackson Deidre C.
Published: April 2006

The primary purpose of this study was to test a path model exploring the relationships among Africentric cultural values, self-esteem, perceived social support satisfaction, and life satisfaction in a sample of 147 African American adolescent girls. This investigation also examined the possible mediating effects of self-esteem and perceived social support satisfaction in the relationship between adherence to Africentric cultural values and life satisfaction in this sample. Although no significant mediating effects were found, results indicated that greater adherence to Africentric cultural values among African American adolescent girls was predictive of higher levels of both self-esteem and perceived social support satisfaction. Higher levels of self-esteem were then significantly predictive of greater life satisfaction. However, perceived social support satisfaction was not significantly predictive of life satisfaction in this sample of girls. Future research directions are identified.
Interpersonal Identity and Social Capital: The Importance of Commitment for Low Income, Rural, African American Adolescents
Authors: Kerpelman Jennifer , White Lloyd
Published: April 2006

Social capital may be particularly important for the well-being and future opportunities of African American adolescents living in low income families. In this study, linkages between interpersonal identity formation and adolescents’ perceptions of social capital quality were examined in a cross-sectional study of 374 low income, rural, African American adolescents (161 males, 213 females), ranging in age from 12 to 19. It was argued that adolescents who have stronger commitments to their interpersonal identities will report better social capital quality. Analysis of variance results indicated that adolescents classified as foreclosed (high commitment/low exploration) in identity status never differed in their perceptions of social capital quality from those classified as achieved (high commitment/high exploration) in identity status. Furthermore, results of structural equation modeling indicated that identity commitment mattered most for explaining variability in social capital quality. Implications for African American adolescent identity formation and future research directions are discussed.
African American Adolescents’ Discrimination Experiences and Academic Achievement: Racial Socialization as a Cultural Compensatory and Protective Factor
Authors: Neblett Enrique W. , Philip Cheri L. , Cogburn Courtney D. , Sellers Robert M.
Published: April 2006

This study examines the interrelationships among racial discrimination experiences, parent race socialization practices, and academic achievement outcomes in a sample of 548 African American adolescents. Adolescents’ racial discrimination experiences were associated with a decrease in academic curiosity, persistence, and student self-reported grades. Racial pride, self-worth, egalitarian, and negative messages and racial socialization behaviors emerged as unique predictors of various academic outcomes, but did not appear to modulate the impact of racial discrimination experiences on academic outcomes. The present findings provide preliminary evidence that parents’ messages to their children about race may compensate for or counteract racial discrimination, as opposed to moderating its influence on academic achievement outcomes. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of motivation and other key developmental factors that may influence academic achievement outcomes in African American adolescents.
The Battle of Jena
Authors: Heckart Beverly
Published: April 2006

Jena, as a medium-sized city within the German Democratic Republic, confronted the socialist regime’s determination to build a massive skyscraper within the intimate urban core in 1968-1969. Functionally planned as a research facility for the VEB Zeiss, the central government in Berlin also intended the “tower” to symbolize architecturally the victory of socialism in Germany. Townsfolk, who identified collectively, professionally, and individually with the historic town, mobilized as best they could to save as much of their familiar inner city as possible. They could not prevent the construction of the skyscraper, but they did succeed in limiting some of the regime’s other urbanist plans. In the process, they experimented with a variety of oppositional forms that protestors later used in other cities. This article suggests that the existing urban environment symbolically presented an alternative to the socialist revolution and became a rallying point for opponents of the regime.
Transportation Beautiful
Authors: Hess Daniel Baldwin
Published: April 2006

Several innovative transportation concepts were critical components of the early twentieth-century City Beautiful reconfiguration of built environments: orderly public places, suitable for important civic buildings; clear hierarchies of streets, avenues, and boulevards, organized in rational patterns with orchestrated vistas; and new terminals that housed improved intercity rail facilities and enhanced intracity travel through improved multimodal surface transportation connections. The City Beautiful aesthetic approach to conceiving urban circulation networks was an important and often overlooked contribution to transportation planning, and improving urban transportation was an important goal for City Beautiful reformers. A review of historical planning documents and project descriptions suggests that civic leaders’ approaches to improving urban circulation during the City Beautiful era are enduring contributions of the movement’s integrated approach to land use and transportation planning and its desire to transform cities into more beautiful places.
The Real Color of Money
Authors: Leonard David J.
Published: April 2006

Amid a backlash against the influence of hip-hop within professional basketball, exacerbated by the 2004 brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills, NBA executives, media pundits, and fans have denounced the influx of Black high school players. This article argues that the establishment of a policy preventing high school players from the NBA is neither a pure business decision nor a hypocritical move by a league that has long profited off the contributions of young Black males and the popularity of hip-hop. Instead, it links this discourse to the larger societal moves to police and put Black male bodies under surveillance. It specifically examines the ways in which calls for an age restriction within the NBA and those efforts to send young men and women of color into America's expanding prison system reflect the same White supremacist logic that necessitates the control, regulation, and punishment of Black and brown bodies.
Pitchers and Catchers
Authors: Butterworth Michael L.
Published: April 2006

This essay identifies the recent discursive formation that has emerged about gay players in the “American game.” In particular, media reports speculating that New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza could be gay spotlight the tensions that historically have been part of baseball culture. The author's argument suggests that Piazza's on-field performances of gender shifted to rearticulate his identity in terms of hegemonic masculinity. In this specific case, Piazza as a catcher metaphorically embodied and resisted the receptivity and passivity often assigned to gay men. Piazza's behavior and the discourse surrounding gay identity in baseball call attention to the ways gender is used to mark bodies in sport, to perpetuate normative standards of masculinity, and to discipline those who do not adhere to these norms.
Rethinking Sports-Based Community Crime Prevention
Authors: Hartmann Douglas , Depro Brooks
Published: April 2006

The authors conducted a preliminary empirical test of the claim—dismissed by most scholars—that midnight basketball programs lower city-level crime rates. Results show cities that were early adopters of officially sanctioned midnight basketball leagues experienced sharper decreases in property crime rates than other American cities during a period in which there was broad support for midnight basketball programs. Although likely associated with a variety of confounding factors, these rather-surprising results suggest the need to reevaluate the deterrent effects of popular sports- and recreation-based prevention programs with a new emphasis on more diffuse, indirect mechanisms such as positive publicity and community trust. Further substantiation and refinement of these ideas could significantly reshape how these popular and wellestablished initiatives are implemented and evaluated.
Emotional Labor and Organized Emotional Care
Authors: Lopez Steven H.
Published: April 2006

Based on qualitative comparison of three nursing home facilities, the idea of organized emotional care is proposed as a complement to the concept of emotional labor for understanding care work. It is argued that emotional labor and organized emotional care are distinguished primarily by the presence or absence of organizational feeling rules and affective requirements. Care organizations can be plotted on a continuum with emotional labor at the coercive end and organized emotional care at the other. The proposed distinction restores a positive vision of organizational management of emotion to the sociology of work.
Gender Differences in Taking Vacation Time
Authors: Maume David J.
Published: April 2006

This article contends that the use of vacation time reveals one's relative weighting of work and family obligations and examines gender differences in taking vacation time. Using data from the National Study of the ChangingWorkforce, this study finds that in the presence of familial and work-related controls, women are less likely than men to have unused vacation time. In gender-specific analyses, men's work schedules, supervisory duties, and concerns about job security significantly reduce the duration of their vacations. Even though familial factors have no impact on women's vacation use, women's concerns about the success of their family lives increase with the number of unused vacation days. These findings suggest the endurance of traditional expressions of work-family priorities. The research and policy implications of these findings are briefly discussed.
Dominant Themes and New Directions in Work Stress Research
Authors: Knudsen Hannah K.
Published: April 2006

Handbook of Work Stressoffers a series of essays concerned with the sources of work stress, how experiences of work stress vary across specific populations, the consequences of work stress, and interventions to mediate its negative effects. The chapters on specific work stressors cover a wide range of topics, including role-related, interpersonal, and justice-related stressors. Fewer chapters are devoted to cohesive examinations of the consequences of work stress and possible mechanisms for ameliorating its effects on individuals and organizations. This volume offers a useful survey of key developments in the field over the past forty years while also including essays on new directions in work stress research.
Transnational Media Literacy
Authors: Vargas Lucila
Published: April 2006

Transnational Latina teens use media as key cultural resources to manage their passage to womanhood while building identities as U.S. citizens. This article examines the challenges of media literacy within the transnational context of working-class Latinas. It presents findings of an action-research project with 12 Latina teens, which was grounded on Freire’s (1999) pedagogy and Willis’s (1981) insights about class culture. The study found that the hybridity of the teens’ media practices came not only from the mainstream and the Latino and Latina media but also from the Black media. The article suggests that media education can further English and Spanish literacy and that curriculum design must take into account that immigrant teens act as cultural brokers for their parents.
Mexican Immigrants and the Use of Cognitive Assessment Techniques in Questionnaire Development
Authors: Agans Robert P. , Deeb-Sossa Natalia , Kalsbeek William D.
Published: April 2006

The aim of this article is to identify the measurement challenges involved in obtaining sensitive health outcomes from Mexican women in both settled and unsettled segments of the United States population and to suggest how cognitive assessment techniques might be better employed to construct culturally and linguistically appropriate survey instruments. These objectives will be illustrated through a project with recent Mexican immigrants in North Carolina that constructs items to measure last menstrual period—an important indicator in gauging the gestational age of a fetus. Guidelines for conducting focus groups and cognitive interviews with this population are emphasized.
The Role of Cognition, Motivation, and Emotion in Explaining the Mathematics Achievement Gap Between Hispanic and White Students
Authors: Stevens Tara , Olivárez Arturo , Hamman Doug
Published: April 2006

The authors investigated the relationships between cognitive, motivational, and emotional variables across Hispanic and White students to predict mathematics performance. A theoretically based structural model fit a total sample of 666 4th- to 10th-grade students well, supporting that self-efficacy, sources of self-efficacy, and emotional feedback were all stronger predictors of mathematics performance than general mental ability. Tests of the structural model across ethnicity suggested a good fit for the White sample but not for the Hispanic sample. However, the majority of the associations in the White model were not significant. Because the model positing relationships among motivational and cognitive variables has been well established, the findings indicated that the inclusion of emotional feedback made it more complicated.
A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Oddi Continuing Learning Inventory (OCLI)
Authors: Harvey Bart J. , Rothman Arthur I. , Frecker Richard C.
Published: April 2006

Oddi's 24-item Continuing Learning Inventory (OCLI) is an instrument that has been used frequently to measure self-directed learning. Although three previous studies have assessed OCLI's underlying dimensions, the conflicting results of those studies prompted this further investigation that used a series of factor analyses of the 250 responses from University of Toronto undergraduate medical students. Although exploratory factor analyses yielded results consistent with Oddi's empirically derived three-factor model, further analyses of the student responses suggested that OCLI's underlying dimensions are better described by four factors. This four-factor model was also identified through confirmatory factor analyses. These four underlying OCLI dimensions—Learning With Others, Learner Motivation/Self-Efficacy/Autonomy, Ability to be Self-Regulating, and Reading Avidity—provide further specificity and insights for examining and better understanding students' self-directed learning.
What's the Matter with Social Class?
Authors: Nesbit Tom
Published: April 2006

Social class is a major determining factor of accomplishment in most educational, employment, and social arenas and still one of the best predictors of who will achieve success, prosperity, and social status. Yet, despite its continued significance, social class is rarely as well considered as the related analytic vectors of gender and race, particularly within U.S. adult education. So why do scholars so significantly acknowledge class less than its counterparts and why is it so underrepresented in adult educational theory? This article explores the development of social class and its relationship to several different arenas of adult education practice. It highlights the links between adult education, the material and social conditions of daily and working lives, and the economic and political systems that underpin them. The article also reaffirms the salience of class in shaping the lives we lead and the educational approaches we develop.
Learning About the “Real World” in an Urban Arts Youth Program
Authors: Larson Reed W. , Walker Kathrin C.
Published: April 2006

To make the transition to adulthood, youth must learn to function in the complex and unpredictable “real world” of adult life. This is an intensive case study of an urban arts program that sought to provide youth with experiences that prepared them for the real world of arts careers. We conducted 75 interviews with 12 youth and their adult leader over three cycles of engagement with the real world. Analyses suggest that participants experienced a developmental process that entailed experiences of dissonance and challenge followed by active adaptive learning. The adult leaders played a critical role in supporting this developmental process through balancing to maintain an approximate fit between the challenges youth experienced and their abilities to respond to these challenges.
Latino High School Students’ Perceptions of Gangs and Crews
Authors: Lopez Edward M. , Wishard Alison , Gallimore Ronald , Rivera Wendy
Published: April 2006

Controversies around definitions and perceptions of gangs are heightened by the scarcity of research on crews. In an open-ended interview, 77 Latino 10th graders from a random longitudinal sample provided information about gangs and crews. Although less than 10% reported having been in gangs or crews, 84% reported having personal contact with them. Sixty three percent reported that gangs were more negative than crews. Crews tag and claim territory but do not have initiation rituals or engage in extreme violence. Although there were no significant gender differences, very low achievers had closer interactions and were more often asked to join gangs and crews. This study informs educators, juvenile justice personnel, and intervention programs how to distinguish and better serve these peer groups.
The Potential of Youth Participation in Planning
Authors: Frank Kathryn I.
Published: April 2006

The field of planning is increasingly recognizing youth as an important stakeholder group, and there are calls to directly involve youth in planning processes. Because youth are in many respects different from adults, the practice of youth participation needs special consideration. This article summarizes the findings from empirical studies of youth participation in terms of the impacts on the young participants and their communities, the capacity of youth to participate, and five lessons for effective practice. The literature review will help planners create meaningful opportunities for youth to have a voice in community and environmental affairs.
Reeducating the Hearts of Bosnian Students: An Essay on Some Aspects of Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Authors: Bozic Gordana
Published: April 2006

The article looks into the present education system in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the influence of politics in the creation and maintenance of segregated schools. It analyzes the concept of “educational protectionism,” which underlines the difference between “ethnically correct education” and “adequate education,” the latter being embedded in the human rights for group minorities to have education that reflect their language, culture, history, and religion. The article presents a preliminary case study of a multiethnic schoolin Popov Most, Eastern Bosnia, analyzing parents’ attitudes toward controversial educational issues such as language, religious teaching, and history.
Establishing Indicators to Evaluate Brownfield Redevelopment
Authors: Bacot Hunter , O’Dell Cindy
Published: April 2006

In this research, the authors identify and assess economic and environmental criteria useful for analyzing local government brownfield programs. Based on their results, the authors suggest that property values, private investment, public investment, and grant funding are common constituents of local government brownfield programs. After settling on criteria for these program features, the authors apply these to a case example in Charlotte, North Carolina, to assess their usefulness for a local program. The authors recommend several indicators be recognized as common, practical, and valid measures for assessing the viability of local brownfield programs. To institutionalize standard measures, however, states must require such data collection through Brownfield Agreements with private developers. To standardize indicators, there must be federal leadership to ensure uniformity and comparability across levels of governments and programs. The Environmental Protection Agency must direct the collection of useful factors for assessing successful brownfield conversion.
Development of Online Suites of Social Science–Based Resources for Health Researchers and Practitioners
Authors: Card Josefina J. , Kuhn Tamara
Published: April 2006

The burgeoning of the Internet has enormous potential for bringing scientific research into the hands of both health practitioners and health researchers to enhance their job performance. In this article, the authors give two examples of how carefully developed and organized online resources can leverage the engaging multimedia formats, ubiquitous access, and low cost of the Internet to address this goal. The article describes two newonline suites of social and behavioral science-based resources designed for those in the HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy prevention fields: HIV Research and Practice Resources and Teen Pregnancy Research and Practice Resources. Each online suite includes research data, survey instruments, prevention resources, and evaluation-related publications and tools that can enhance prevention research and practice. The article ends by peering into the future at how the field of health-related prevention and research might be further advanced using the Internet.
Dynamics of Internet Dating
Authors: Lawson Helene M. , Leck Kira
Published: April 2006

This study examined the world of Internet dating. It explored the motivations of daters, their styles of courtship, and how they negotiated problems of trust and deception. The authors employed in-depth interviews and participant observation with men and women who met online. Internet daters sought companionship, comfort after a life crisis, control over presentation of themselves and their environments, freedom from commitment and stereotypic roles, adventure, and romantic fantasy. The authors also studied the development of trust between daters, the risks they assume, and lying online. Most participants in the study eventually met, which sometimes resulted in abrupt rejection and loss of face, but other times ended in marriage.
Web-Based Questionnaires and the Mode Effect
Authors: Denscombe Martyn
Published: April 2006

Most methodological evaluations of web-based questionnaires have focused on the issues of sampling and response rates. Some have considered the issues of privacy and ethics. Relatively few have addressed the question of whether people provide different information depending on the mode of questionnaire delivery. This article contributes to this relatively overlooked aspect of the evaluation of web surveys. It presents initial findings from a survey that was designed to enable near-identical groups to respond to near-identical questionnaires delivered in different modes. Web-based questionnaires and paper-based questionnaires, used as part of a schoolbased study of young people's health-related behavior, are compared in terms of (a) completion rates and (b) data contents. Issues surrounding the quality of data and the reliability of webbased questionnaires are discussed. It is concluded that, on the basis of the quantitative data from this survey, there is little evidence of a mode effect linked to web-based questionnaires.
Communication and Information Technologies
Authors: Blank Grant
Published: April 2006

The American Sociological Association section on Sociology and Computing, as it was named from 1995 to 2002, faced repeated challenges during the decade of the 1990s. This article traces changes in the sociological audiences concerned with computing during that decade and discusses how they influenced the way the section coped with the routinization of computer use in sociology, the rise of MicrosoftWindows, the increasing use of computers in teaching, and the rise of the Internet.
Neither Honor nor Compensation
Authors: Jaeger Audrey J. , Thornton Courtney H.
Published: April 2006

Land-grant institutions that are also research extensive may face the unique position of asking faculty to fulfill a historical mission with low consideration of public service in the reward structure. This paradox between mission and reward results in the socialization of many faculty away from participation in public service. This article discusses a study of faculty perception of values regarding public service at a large, land-grant, and research extensive institution. Results from the study support the notion that both tenure and pay rewards may be inaccessible to faculty who perform public service at land-grant institutions with research emphases.
Cost-Effective School Inputs
Authors: Normore Anthony H. , Ilon Lynn
Published: April 2006

The current debate about class size is not centered on whether smaller class sizes are desirable. Rather, the debate is whether the costs involved are the best ways to spend taxpayers’ monies. This analysis addresses this question for the state of Florida. Using the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test as a measure of educational achievement, a state data set containing information on all elementary schools was used to examine which government-funded inputs were most cost effective. Using a three-step methodology leading to a cost effectiveness analysis, this article finds that reducing class sizes is the most expensive of state inputs that affect achievement scores. Varying the mix of school personnel (administrators, teachers, and teacher aides) and investments in teacher quality (training and experience) are shown to produce the same results (raising test scores) at a lower cost than the reduction of class sizes.
Narrating Injustice
Authors: Singh Bhrigupati
Published: April 2006

As a theoretical starting point, this article suggests a shift from media-as-text to media object-as-utterance (in the sense of the term as worked out by Bakhtin and Voloshinov). This is done to move away from the production/consumption dichotomy, a framework on which most media studies analyses are predicated. From here, the story is told of Injustice, a documentary that found itself in unusual circumstances at the time of its release in Britain in July/ August 2001, with the local police attempting to block the screening of the film at various venues. Attempts to place this narration in relation to an existent cultural studies tradition of writing on the media lead us to consider relations of power/knowledge between British cultural studies and the media it comments on. In conclusion, this article attempts to set out a terrain within which a dialogic anthropology of media can work as a critical knowledge practice.
Gay-Themed Television and the Slumpy Class
Authors: Becker Ron
Published: April 2006

This article links the success of gay-themed programming in the 1990s to the sensibility of an emerging class of Socially Liberal, Urban-Minded Professionals (the “Slumpy” class). In the era's neoliberal climate where multicultural celebrations of diversity mixed with calls for fiscal responsibility, being socially liberal and fiscally conservative became the political position of choice for a growing number of well-educated and upwardly mobile baby boomers and Generation Xers. As it came to be articulated in the ’90s, homosexuality fit conveniently into this delicate balance. Highly visible political battles over gay rights gave homosexuality a cutting-edge allure dulled just enough by its assimilationist goals. Meanwhile gays and lesbians, reported to be well educated with a disproportionate amount of disposable income, seemed to be economically self-sufficient. For those looking for an affordable politics of social liberalism, supporting gays and lesbians fit the bill, and consuming gay-inclusive television offered members of the Slumpy class a convenient way to affirm their openmindedness.
Volunteer Phone Calls Can Increase Turnout
Authors: Nickerson David W.
Published: April 2006

Gerber and Green argue that get-out-the-vote phone calls do not increase turnout based upon field experiments testing nonpartisan professional phone banks. This article argues that the quality of the phone calls matter and that brief, nonpartisan phone calls can raise voter turnout if they are sufficiently personal. To test this hypothesis, a series of eight volunteer nonpartisan phone campaigns to mobilize voters were studied using randomized, controlled experiments. The campaigns targeted voters across six different cities in 2000 and 2001. Contra Gerber and Green, the phone calls are found to boost turnout 3.8 percentage points. Based on these estimates, volunteer phone calls produce one vote for every $26 per vote, which is cost competitive with door-to-door canvassing. Differences between the professional phone banks previously studied by Gerber and Green and the volunteer phone banks herein are also discussed.
The Daily Show Effect
Authors: Baumgartner Jody , Morris Jonathan S.
Published: April 2006

We test the effects of a popular televised source of political humor for young Americans: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. We find that participants exposed to jokes about George W. Bush and John Kerry on The Daily Show tended to rate both candidates more negatively, even when controlling for partisanship and other demographic variables. Moreover, we find that viewers exhibit more cynicism toward the electoral system and the news media at large. Despite these negative reactions, viewers of The Daily Show reported increased confidence in their ability to understand the complicated world of politics. Our findings are significant in the burgeoning field of research on the effects of “soft news” on the American public. Although research indicates that soft news contributes to democratic citizenship in America by reaching out to the inattentive public, our findings indicate that The Daily Show may have more detrimental effects, driving down support for political institutions and leaders among those already inclined toward nonparticipation.
Disagreement on the Rehnquist Court
Authors: Way Lori Beth , Turner Charles C.
Published: April 2006

Scholarship on Supreme Court opinions has tended to focus on outcomes and majority opinions. This research examines the themes of justices' concurrences. The authors first ask what goals are repeatedly pursued in concurrences? The authors suggest that concurrences pursue at least one of the following activities: ground laying, weakening, signaling, or preserving. After establishing this typology of concurring behavior, the authors next ask, under what conditions do justices illustrate these behaviors? The authors code the 547 concurrences written by Rehnquist Court justices between the 1991 and 2001-2002 terms and hypothesize that a number of institutional and attitudinal variables may contribute to variation in concurring behavior. Applying logistic regression, the authors conclude that several factors, most notably citations to previous cases, the number of justices joining the concurrence, judicial ideology, workload, and the extent to which the author joins the majority opinion, are important predictors and correlates of the content of concurrences.
Electoral Institutions and the Evolution of Partisan Conventions, 1880-1940
Authors: Harvey Anna , Mukherjee Bumba
Published: April 2006

This article examines variation in partisanship levels across the United States between 1880 and 1940 and suggests that the introduction of three electoral laws in this time period—party registration, primaries and secret ballots—can explain the geographic variation in partisanship levels across the United States during this era. Specifically, the article argues that the introduction of party registration increased the observability of partisan behavior; and this, in turn, increased partisanship strength in the states in which party registration was introduced. Conversely, primaries and secret ballots reduced the observability of partisan actions, which consequently weakened the level of partisanship. The authors test their theoretical predictions on aggregate levels of split-ticket voting across the United States between 1880 and 1940. The authors find considerable support for their predictions in time-series cross-section (TSCS) estimates of the effects of electoral institutions on levels of partisanship across states, support undiminished after corrections for endogeneity and selection bias.