bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Business information from library co-operatives
Authors: Edmonds Diana
Published: March 2007

There are currently some 30 local library co-operatives in the U.K., most of which aim to improve the level of information available to local industry. The British Library Research and Development Department has recently funded a survey of these co-operatives, which was undertaken by Capital Planning Information. The co-operatives are by no means uniform in structure and operate a wide range of charging policies. Almost all answer enquiries and provide inter-loans for members: a user survey revealed that the majority of members regard inter-loans and document delivery as the most important facility made available. The opportunity of making local contacts through the co-operative is also highly valued by participants. Some of the co- operatives are most successful, while others are inactive, and many are operating at a fairly low level. The researchers suggested that some of the co-operatives take measures to improve their performance, where necessary redefining the objectives of the organisation, to provide, in just one or two areas, a demonstrably better service than an individual participant can achieve alone.
From the Persian Gulf to Kosovo — War Journalism and Propaganda
Authors: Nohrstedt Stig A. , Kaitatzi-Whitlock Sophia , Ottosen Rune , Riegert Kristina
Published: March 2007

The article reports findings from a pilot study of the discourse on Kosovo in four leading dailies from four countries: Greece, Norway, Sweden and the UK. A combined discourse and propaganda analysis approach is applied to the first three days' coverage of the NATO bombing campaign, with the aim of studying how the various national/local contexts influenced the media discourse's relationship to the propaganda discourse in the conflict. This problematic is relevant for the current discussion on globalization and superpower dominance in connection with transnational war journalism.
Satellite Television and Media Research
Authors: Lund Sissel
Published: March 2007

This article examines the new competitive setting caused by satellite television and its impact upon traditional public service broadcasting. The internationalization of broadcasting calls for a clarification of the role to be played by national broadcasters. This implies that there now is a demand for more theoretical and philosophical media research. Broadcasting researchers, however, are under heavy pressure from the measurement industry which is introducing expensive methods that draw attention even further towards empirical research.
Instrumental Actualization: A Theory of Mediated Conflicts
Authors: Kepplinger Hans Mathias , Brosius Hans-Bernd , Staab Joachim Friedrich
Published: March 2007

Mediated conflicts are controversies between at least two parties who exchange information and arguments indirectly by the mass media. The discourse in mediated conflicts is influenced by its public character. By forwarding information and arguments to the media, conflict parties attempt to gain support from their constituencies and persuade their opponents. This raises the question of the role the media plays in selecting news about such conflicts. Events which support the position of either one of the protagonists in a conflict are called instrumental. The publication of information on these events is called instrumental actualization. It may be regarded as one of the major goals of the conflicting parties and one important activity of journalists. The relevance of instrumental actualization in news selection is analysed with a survey of 213 print and broadcast journalists, and a content analysis of their news reporting about the dispute concerning the 35-hour working week. The results indicate that instrumental actualization plays a significant role in mediated conflicts.
Democracy Comes to Leipzig, GDR: Political Communication in the First Free Local Election After the Fall of the Communist Regime
Authors: Schulz Winfried , Scherer Helmut , Lutz Brigitta , Kecke Anita , Wagner Helga
Published: March 2007

The article focuses on the first free local elections in the German Democratic Republic in May 1990. At that time the GDR was undergoing the transition from a totalitarian state to a democracy. In this situation of upheaval the reciprocal relationships of the political actors — voters, parties, media — as well as the respective self-assessment of each, were investigated. To accomplish this, a survey of voters and party representatives was carried out together with a content analysis of local newspapers. The study is limited to the city of Leipzig where, in October 1989, the peaceful revolution began. A comparison of the issue agendas of the three political subsystems revealed significant differences in the issue priorities. Above all, the emphases in the newspaper election coverage differed greatly both from those of voters and the parties. Within the respective voters' and parties' subsystems, by contrast, a remarkable homogeneity was demonstrated which was not confined by ideological boundaries.
Home Satellite TV Reception in Bulgaria
Authors: Bakardjieva Maria
Published: March 2007

This article examines recent changes in the media situation in Bulgaria, particularly in the field of television supply and consumption. It focuses on the problem of how changed social conditions have influenced the adoption of home satellite TV reception equipment. The growing pluralization of Bulgarian society and the increasing differentiation of personal information and entertainment needs are indicated as major prerequisites for the diffusion of the new communication medium. The results of an in-depth study of the motivation of early adopters are reported. An attempt at a typology of satellite television use patterns is made.
Adolescent Media Use in a Changing Media Environment
Authors: Bonfadelli Heinz
Published: March 2007

This article deals with the various empirical research projects on mass media use by adolescents, carried out in the German-speaking countries of Europe in the 1980s. It provides an overview of the development and the present state of youth-oriented media research, outlining the underlying theoretical perspectives, research designs and methods. It also summarizes some of the important research findings concerning the changing electronic media environment and its consequences on quantitative and qualitative aspects of adolescents' media use.
The Press Subsidy System in Norway
Authors: Skogerbø Eli
Published: March 2007

The article discusses the origins, functions and future of one particular national regulatory regime, the Norwegian press subsidy system, and asks what the prospects are for this type of specific national policies? The press subsidies were introduced in 1969 with the rather vague intention of maintaining a diverse newspaper structure. Despite the fact that the system is politically controversial and has only partly worked to secure the existence of economically weak newspapers, it has been protected by an alliance of political parties until the present day. Nevertheless, political controversy around the subsidy system is increasing, both because the political justifications of the system need revision, and because the existing regulations are being undermined by the development of the newspaper structure, by the development of the media market and the media economy, and by technological developments.
Public/Private Service
Authors: Eide Martin , Knight Graham
Published: March 2007

This article discusses service journalism — the way the news media provide their audiences with information, advice and help about the problems of everyday life — in light of the theory of the public sphere and the growth of subpolitics fostered by reflexive modernization. Service journalism addresses two main types of everyday problem — grievances and risks — but it tends to subsume the former under the latter due to the effects of promotionalism as an increasingly dominant logic shaping the popularization of media formats and content. Apropos the public sphere debate, we argue that service journalism addresses a hybrid social subject — part citizen, part consumer and part client. Moreover, despite the fact that service journalism tends to individualize problems, it is amenable to politicization inasmuch as it shares common ground — the problems of everyday life — with the social movements and advocacy/activism groups that are the collective, motive force of subpolitics. Subpolitics politicizes the problems of everyday life in the way that it tends to subsume risk under grievance and break with the exclusionary, binary logic of mediational politics. This allows plural identities, individualistic and collectivistic, to coexist in an ambivalent and fluid way.
JUSTICE NORMS AND GROUP DYNAMICS: THE CASE OF THE FAMILY
Authors: Kellerhals Jean M. , Coenen-Huther Josette , Modak Marianne
Published: March 2007

This article examines the way in which norms of distributive justice depend on the type of interaction in the family group and on its position in the socio-economic hierarchy. Based on a family typology constructed around notions of `internal cohesion', `mode of regulation', and `style of integration in the environment', the authors first show that these types of interaction are closely associated with the socio-economic category to which families belong. They then examine the correlation between these types and the principles of distributive justice judged legitimate, the place occupied by procedural justice in the decision, and the modes of comparison between actors.
AN OPERATIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENON OF THE OTHER UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN THE ARAB WORLD AND IN THE THIRD WORLD
Authors: Dhaouadi Mahmoud
Published: March 2007

Our analysis here of the `Other Underdevelopment' is based on the premise that interaction between unequal partners tends to underdevelop the self-possessed resources and capacities of the dominated parties. Contemporary Western domination of the Third World is a classical case in point. This domination has not only led to the socio-economic underdevelopment of the African, Asian and Latin American countries, but it has also created among them a psycho-cultural underdevelopment: the `Other Underdevelopment'. The latter consists of two components: (1) cultural underdevelopment, and (2) psychological underdevelopment. Two examples are sufficient for illustration here. The widespread use of English and French during and after the British and French colonisation in the Third World has replaced or reduced (underdeveloped) the use and the promotion of native languages. The inferiority complex syndrome (self-esteem deterioration) toward the West has become a common feature among various groups of the developing nations. Thus, Third World underdevelopment is a multi-dimensional phenomenon of which the `Other Underdevelopment' is an integral part. In spite of this, both liberal and Marxist modern social scientists of underdevelopment have remained silent on this crucial issue of underdevelopment.
THE PEACE MOVEMENT: SOME ANSWERS CONCERNING ITS SOCIAL NATURE AND STRUCTURE
Authors: Mattausch John
Published: March 2007

In his discussion of the peace movement, Artur Meier ( International Sociology 3: 77-87) put forward a number of interesting sociological arguments and outlined a programme for future research. Using CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) as a case study and drawing upon an accumulation of British research, this paper follows Meier's research recommendations and attempts to answer some of Meier's questions. It is shown that, contrary to Meier's beliefs, CND is a remarkably homogeneous and class-bound mass social movement. It is argued that a focus on the component parts of the peace movement necessarily leads to the political sociology of nation-states.
RACISMS: THE REACTIONS TO CHINESE MIGRANTS IN CANADA AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
Authors: Satzewich Vic
Published: March 2007

Chinese migration to the province of British Columbia, Canada, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries occurred in the context of a shortage of labour. Two classes of Chinese migrated to Canada: unfree wage labourers and petit bourgeois traders, merchants and commodity producers. Both classes were the subjects of a process of racialisation to the extent that social significance was attached to patterns of phenotypical variation. But `white' people of different class backgrounds articulated different racialised representations of the Chinese in Canada. This paper roots these differential processes of racialisation, some of which also entailed an ideology of racism, in the lived experiences and contradictions which different classes of `white' people in British Columbia faced. It suggests that racism is not a homogeneous ideology which is imposed on the working class by a ruling class, but rather an ideology which comes `from below' and which is an attempt on the part of class actors to make sense of and interpret the world. The paper calls for an examination of the various racisms which have accompanied the process of capitalist development both historically and cross-culturally.
THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF RACISM AND RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
Authors: Banton Michael
Published: March 2007

Since 1971 United Nations resolutions have referred to racism without distinguishing it from racial discrimination. Racism is presented as historically and geographically specific, and as pathological, whereas discrimination is universal and normal. The concept of racism has been of great rhetorical power in mobilising international action for political change in Southern Africa. It has helped induce more than three-quarters of UN member states to become parties to the `International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination'. Antidiscrimination laws are designed to protect particular classes of people in particular social spheres from actions which have either the purpose or the effect of impairing the exercise of their human rights. These laws have developed rapidly in the last twenty-five years, but their relevance to sociological analysis is not yet appreciated. Since policies to reduce discrimination are based on diagnoses, implicit or explicit, of the causes of the behaviour that is to be modified, it is important to improve communication between sociologists and human rights lawyers.
MACRO-DYNAMICS: AN APPLICATION TO ISRAELI POLITICS
Authors: Lotan Michael
Published: March 2007

The paper attempts to tackle some basic problems regarding sociological theory construction, especially for modern societies. The proposed approach is methodological, although it touches on some basic philosophical problems. On the basis of two assumptions (difference from the natural sciences and narrow coverage), five methodological theses are proposed: 1. observation through linguistic signs; 2. explanation by macro-elements; 3. qualitativity; 4. dynamical explanations; 5. partial explanations. The paper deals with combinations of these theses with their implications. A case is briefly described to illustrate the application of the proposed approach.
SITTING IN OBLIVION AS A TAOIST PRACTICE OF POSITIVE ALIENATION: A RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE ALIENATION IN THE TANG DYNASTY
Authors: Liao Tim Futing
Published: March 2007

Changing, especially deteriorating, social conditions may engender (negative) alienation. Common strategies of de-alienation include social movements. Alienation takes on a positive form when actively practised. In this paper I briefly review how positive alienation is reflected in Taoist thought, and use it as a starting point to examine in greater detail how this form of alienation can be achieved, as discussed in Zuowanglun or Discourse on Sitting in Oblivion, a Taoist work by Sima Chengzhen who lived in the late eighth and early ninth century during the Tang dynasty. The social background and historical moment in which the Taoist work was produced are analysed. To grasp the Tao, seven steps - respect and faith, interception of karma, taming the mind, detachment from affairs, true observation, intense concentration, and realising the Tao - are discussed in Zuowanglun. These seven steps are examined here in the light of positive alienation. Through the seven stages, a process of double forgetting is carried out sequentially - the forgetting of social affairs and relationships and that of the very method of meditation and forgetting. In parallel, the forgetting of the dialectical processes between society and the individual and between the socialised and non-socialised components of the self - a form of positive alienation - is achieved. As an alternative to social movements, practising positive alienation served as a response to negative alienation in the second half of the Tang dynasty. Recent Chinese interest in qi gong, a breathing exercise influenced by Taoism and its contemporary relevance are also discussed.
THE PROTEST CYCLE OF PERESTROIKA:
Authors: Duka A. , Kornev N. , Voronkov V. , Zdravomyslova E.
Published: March 2007

This article describes the protest cycle of perestroika (1985-1991) in the city of Leningrad. The political and economic reforms of democratisation were the subject of this protest. The bipolarisation of the protest movements and authorities, on the one hand, and of opposing political movements, on the other, is conceived as the developing mechanism of the protest cycle. The authors distinguish four phases of the protest cycle that correspond to the shifting political opportunities on the country and local levels.
Clinical Analysis in the Social Sciences
Authors: Houle Gilles
Published: March 2007

Some definitions of the clinical approach are examined in order to explore the basic structural elements of this methodological perspective. The relation of the social researcher to the situation and people she or he is studying follows a dialectical movement from involvement in the subjectivity of the Other to constructing distance - an involvement-distanciation relation. This clinical stand is a necessary condition to the production of scientific knowledge. It can be related to similar methodological approaches or techniques, such as the case study, life histories (or stories) and field journals. In this way, clinical sociology constitutes an important epistemological practice.
Coping with Persecution
Authors: Tomka Miklós
Published: March 2007

Religiosity in the postwar period and de-Christianization afterwards reached especially great proportions in Central Europe, whereas the religious revival in Central Europe after 1978 is unparalleled. Another distinguishing feature is the adaptation of church structure to conditions of totalitarianism by the `underground church'. Different interpretations of these features are examined. Secularization theory does not offer sufficient explanation, partly because totalitarianism counteracted sociocultural differentiation. The rational choice approach does not fit either, because both premodern attributes and the social confrontation with totalitarianism and the resulting bipolar arrangement of the sociocultural system contradicted market conditions. The best explanatory concept is found in acculturation which produced distinct patterns of religiosity in different age cohorts.
Global Environmental Change and Global Inequality
Authors: Redclift Michael , Sage Colin
Published: March 2007

Global environmental change (GEC) carries serious implications for developing countries and for North/South relations. The article argues that global inequalities need to be understood against the background of structural adjustment and indebtedness that characterized the 1980s. Environmental policy priorities are largely concerned with livelihood sustainability in the South, rather than the longer-term risks usually associated with GEC. However, the `global' agenda of climate change, biodiversity loss and deforestation is intimately linked to the everyday livelihood concerns of poor people in developing countries. Looked at from the perspective of the South there are serious difficulties in agreeing to take measures to reduce atmospheric emissions when the `problem' was not one of their making. The authors conclude that, for this reason alone, a real global contract will need to address underlying `development' issues, principally poverty, before the global concerns of the North can be successfully met.
Unfulfilled Systemic Functions of Social Mobility: II. the Polish Case
Authors: Wesolowski Wlodzimierz , Mach Bogdan
Published: March 2007

Using the theoretical framework developed in the first paper ('Unfulfilled Systemic Functions of Social Mobility: A Theoretical Scheme'), we analyse the Polish case. We argue that the contribution of collective mobility to politico-revolutionary legitimation processes has been minimal and the contribution of individual mobility to the economic development and to economico-reformist legitimation processes has also been negligible. Our research strategy has been to demonstrate that many aspects of mobility processes taking place in Poland are incompatible with conditions that we have listed in the first paper as conducive to the formation of legitimation beliefs and the sustenance of economic efficiency. Specifically we demonstrate that (1) because collective mobility of the working class and the peasantry encompassed several changes in their economic and cultural positions but did not include major changes in their political position, it could not contribute to the politico-revolutionary legitima tion and (2), because individual mobility did not occur according to the qualificational/occupational principle of allocation, promotion and remuneration, it could not contribute to the economico-reformist legitimation nor could it sustain effective utilisation of human resources in economic development. We conclude that the chance to use mobility for the systems's benefit has been wasted.
Rethinking Durkheim's Intellectual Development Ii: Working Out a Religious Sociology
Authors: Alexander Jeffrey C.
Published: March 2007

In the first part of this paper I established Durkheim's intense dissatisfaction with the materialism of his earlier work. I demonstrated also how the series of critical reviews of this work embarrassed Durkheim and crystallized his desire to revise his theory. Finally, I showed how a much more subjectivist theory emerged in the 1893- 1896 period. In this second part, I argue that these developments were themselves transitional. Beginning in the published work of 1896, there emerges a much more subjectivist theory still Durkheim calls this his 'religious sociology' With it, he felt, he could finally present the alternative to matenalism he had always sought, and through it he argued with his critics that he had never been 'materialist' at all! The 'spiritual programme of Durkheim's later writings' has never been appreciated. In the last twenty years of life he sought to rethink and rewrite every aspect of his theory of society. Properly understood, this theory, though badly one-sided, offers a precious legacy to contemporary studies of cultural life.
The Renaissance of Historical Orientation in Sociology
Authors: Sztompka Piotr
Published: March 2007

In the last decade one may observe an important reorientation of theoretical thinking in sociology. It is marked by the emphasis on social processes, human agency and the dimension of time. These aspects of social reality become central foci of 'new historism' or 'historical sociology'. With the ascendance of this new trend the relationship of sociology and history enters a third phase: after initial hostility and mutual stereotyping through attempts at external integration, it reaches a phase of immanent integration. From ahistorism typical of early nineteenth century European sociology, as well as early American sociology, our discipline moves gradually toward the recognition of the historical coeflicient of social phenomena, and accordingly the necessity of historical perspective in social studies. Historical orientation is recon structed as a set of six ontological and six methodological assumptions, and it is suggested as a fruitful approach not only to traditional macro-structural problems, but also to the domain of micro-structures and micro-processes.
Encounter Between Ethnology and Sociology: the Case of Joking Relationships
Authors: Coenen-Huther Jacques
Published: March 2007

Ethnology and sociology have a long tradition of reciprocal contributions Radcliffe-Brown's classic analysis of the 'joking relationship' between the maternal uncle and the nephew on the sister's side in certain South African tribes provides a useful point of departure for studying joking relationships in our modern societies. Inversely, observations on this subject made in our everyday environment help us to understand the psycho-social processes underlying certain habits, which otherwise seem confusing at first glance, in traditional societies This interdisciplinary encounter points out the possibility of extracting general properties of social life if the appropnate level of abstraction is selected. Subsequently, we are faced with the problem of the relationship between model and reality. Here the theoretical intention of Lévi-Strauss approaches that of Simmel as expressed in modern terms by Boudon.
Resisting the Revival of Relativism
Authors: Archer Margaret S.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines a new radical relativism, epitomised in David Bloor's 'strong programme', which asserts the social character and social causation of all knowledge. It thus stakes an explanatory claim for the sociology of knowledge to the entire cultural domain. Traditionally resistance to relativism rests on counter-asserting (a) the necessary universality of logical principles before any mode of life can be intelligible, (b) the unicity of 'human nature' as axiomatic to cross-cultural mtelh gibility, and (c) the necessity of translatabihty for ascribing beliefs to others and making them intelligible to us. Here all three points are reaffirmed as essential to the social sciences. Specifically it is argued that radical relativism cannot (i) dislodge the invariance of logic, or (ii) dispose of the possibility and necessity of translation, upon which the 'strong programme' is predicated.
Provincialism and Internationalism in Contemporary American Sociology
Authors: Armer J. Michael
Published: March 2007

This study examines the relative degree of culture-boundedness in mainline American sociological research in 1985 compared with British research at the same time and with American research two decades earlier Culture-boundedness is defined in terms of two dimensions: (a) the extent to which data are included from societies other than the local society (non-localism) and (b) the extent to which the possibilities of international influence and of variations in other societies are acknowledged (conditionalism). Cross-classification of dichotomies of these dimensions yields four types of research: provincialist (local, unconditional), contextualist (local conditional), generalist (non-local, unconditional) and internationalist (non-local, conditional). Classification of all substantive articles in the top two sociological journals in both countries indicates almost twice as much provincialist research in the United States than in the United Kingdom and little reduction in US sociology provincialism from the level in 1965. The implications of these findings and the importance of incorporating international data and perspectives in sociological research are discussed.
The Exclusionary Logic of the Welfare State
Authors: Rosenhek Zeev
Published: March 2007

This article examines the ways in which exclusionary practices with regard to Palestinian citizens were institutionalized in one of the most central components of the Israeli welfare state: the child allowance scheme. Different child allowance programmes are studied in a historical perspective, analysing patterns of implicit and formal exclusion. Following theories which refer to the political economy of the welfare state, the article focuses on the connection between exclusionary practices and the shaping of the stratification structure in advanced capitalist societies. It is argued that the partial exclusion of Palestinian citizens has been patterned by the interaction between two analytically distinct logics: the Zionist logic of the Israeli state, and the inner logic of the welfare state as a stratificatory mechanism.
Structural and Symbolic Centers
Authors: Chan Elaine
Published: March 2007

This article makes a distinction between the symbolic and the structural centers of the nation-state. Whereas the structure center connotes state power, the symbolic center is closer to the concept of the nation and is vital to the creation of a sense of nationhood. The symbolic center contains values, symbols, rituals and myths that define nationhood. Since it is fundamental to the delineation of a nation, it is sacred. Although the two centers are analytically separate, being in command of one does not necessarily entail command of the other. However, claiming representation of the symbolic center is tremendously important for the legitimation of the structural center. The 1989 Chinese student movement is used to illustrate that students displaced the Chinese Communist Party to become the center of symbolic power. The crackdown reasserted the party's structural control over society only; it therefore had to introduce various measures to purify itself and cleanse society so as to regain its place as the occupant of the symbolic center.
Chapter 9 Financing of Research, Invention, and Innovation
Authors: Maybury Robert , Kamenetzky Mario
Published: March 2007

A country must develop skills for managing the financial resources that are needed to support scientific and technological activities. With proper financial support and policy guidance, these activities can increase the stock of accumulated human resources and means that contribute to income and the satisfaction of needs.
Educational Technology and the National Information Infrastructure: Critically Historicizing Policy Pasts and Presents
Authors: Arafeh Sousan
Published: March 2007

In U.S. national policy, K-12 education is slated to play a significant role in the development and deployment of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). Analysis of legislation, policy documents, and histori cal narratives about attempts to use communications technologiesfor K-12 education shows, that these texts and discourses construct knowledge about, and allowable domains for, education in communications and national policy contexts such as the NII. This article fashions a counternarrative of policy pasts and presents that constructs new knowledge about the NII and education and questions the many relations that have structured, and continue to structure, the process and practice of education relative to communications- based technologies. By briefly drawing attention to such counternarratives, the author encourages communications and educational policy makers to consider how education's position might be constructed and envisioned differently as they design policies for current and future uses of telecommunications-based educational technology and the NII.
The Effects of Service-Learning on Middle School Students’ Social Responsibility and Academic Success
Authors: Scales Peter C. , Blyth Dale A. , Berkas Thomas H. , Kielsmeier James C.
Published: March 2007

The effects of service-learning on social responsibility and academic success were investigated among a large, racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of students in Grades 6 through 8 in three middle schools. Over the school year, service-learning students maintained their concern for others’ social welfare, whereas control students declined on those concerns. Service-learning students, especially girls, also declined significantly less than did controls in their frequency of talking with parents about school. Compared with other students, students with substantial hours of service-learning, a lot of reflection, and a high degree of motivation attributed to service-learning, significantly increased their belief in the efficacy of their helping behaviors, maintained their pursuit of better grades and their perception that school provided personal development opportunities, and decreased less in their commitment to classwork. The results indicate that service-learning can positively affect students’ social responsibility and academic success.
Setting Effects in Mathematical Reasoning of Early Adolescents: Findings from Three Urban Schools
Authors: Pulos Steven , Stage Elizabeth K. , Karplus Robert
Published: March 2007

Three mathematical reasoning tasks (proportions, reasoning with an unknown, and a spatial reasoning task), and an attitude interview were individually administered to 260 8th grade students from three predominately minority urban schools. The three schools and neighborhoods varied in educational advantages as well as in socioeconomic characteristics. An additional 60 students, from a middle class and predominately white school in which a similar study had been conducted previously, was included in some comparisons. A battery of groupadministered cognitive tasks and attitude scales was also administered to the students. The results showed a significant effect for site on all three tasks; however, the variance accounted for by site was slight for the spatial reasoning task and reasoning with unknowns (approximately 5%) while it was substantially larger for porportions (21%). Other characteristics that differed across sites were: (a) solution strategies for reasoning with unknowns and in the simple proportion problems; (b) cognitive correlates for each task; and (c) attitude regarding perceived competence and need for mathematics as well as for the perceived amount of effort expended on mathematics. The results are interpreted to indicate the need for an ecological approach to research on adolescent reasoning. Multiple tasks should be examined in multiple settings, and the relationship between attitudes and cognition should be considered.
Identity Formation During Early Adolescence
Authors: Adams Gerald R. , Montemayor Raymond
Published: March 2007

A special issue of the Journal of Early Adolescence has been prepared to address theoretical and research issues concerning identity formation during early adolescence. The issue has been designed to help direct and stimulate interest in research on identity formation during early adolescence. In these introductory comments the major tenets of Erikson's psychosocial theory of identity formation are outlined, the contribution of each Special Issue author is highlighted, and shortcomings to the general research area of identity development are reviewed.
Friendship and its Implications for Mental Health or Social Competence
Authors: Reisman John M.
Published: March 2007

A review of the theoretical and research literature indicates having few or no friends is a major diagnostic criterion for a number of psychiatric disorders and is presumptive evidence of some disturbance in development. Adolescents do value friends, but it is not clear if the functions of friendship are unique or whether they might be served in other human relationships. There is much concern about the mental health implications of males having less intimate friendships than females, yet little data to clarify this issue. There is growing evidence to indicate poor peer relationships in adolescence are predictive of social incompetence and maladjustment in adulthood. There is increasing attention being given to the complexity of what is involved in peer acceptance, peer rejection, the selection of friends, social incompetence, and the negative and positive consequences of friendship. Research and theoretical implications are discussed.
Gender and Computer Experience as Factors in the Computer Attitudes of Middle School Students
Authors: Loyd Brenda H. , Loyd Douglas E. , Gressard Clarice P.
Published: March 2007

Students' attitudes toward computers are important to success in implementing computer-related programs in school curricula. This study of 561 seventh and eighth grade students examines the effects of gender and amount of computer experience on the attitudes (computer anxiety, confidence, and liking) as measured by the Computer Attitude Scale. Greater amounts of computer experience were found to be significantly related to less anxiety and greater liking of computers. Gender was also found to be a statistically significant effect, with female students exhibiting more positive attitudes than male students toward the use of computers.
Girls and Mathematics: The New Math Program
Authors: van der Werf Margaretha
Published: March 2007

Currently, in the Netherlands, the subject of mathematics is a topic of great interest. There has been a mathematical curriculum change in general secondary education at the highest level (grammar school). The new curriculum consists of two programs, math A and math B. Pupils can choose one or both of these programs. Math A is designed to make mathematics more appealing and life-like thus attracting more students, especially girls, to choose math and to acquire more positive attitudes toward the subject. Math A prepares students for study in humanities and economics. Math B is a traditional math program that prepares students for study in science, technics, agriculture, and medicine. This paper reports the first results of the effect of the new curriculum on both boys' and girls' choices of mathematics programs and on their attitudes toward math.
Adolescent-Parent Interactions in Relation to Adolescents' Gender and Ego Development Pathway
Authors: Leaper Campbell , Hauser Stuart T. , Kremen Adam , Powers Sally I. , Jacobson Alan M. , Noam Gil G. , Weiss-Perry Bedonna , Follansbee Donna
Published: March 2007

Family communication patterns were examined in relation to adolescents' gender and ego development pathways using sequential analysis techniques. Thirty-two adolescents from a suburban Boston high school participated in a discussion of moral dilemmas with both their mothers and fathers. The family discussions were scored with the Constraining and Enabling Coding System. During the following 4 years, the adolescents' levels of ego development were assessed with the Loevinger Sentence Completion Test. Sequential and nonsequential analyses revealed variations in family communication patterns associated with adolescent gender, parent gender, and adolescent ego development pathway. Family communication patterns that suggest separation occurred more often with conformist pathway sons and post conformist pathway daughters, while communication patterns that suggest closeness occurred more often with conformist pathway daughters and post conformist pathway sons. The results are discussed in terms of recent work on gender-role socialization and adolescent psychosocial development.
Social Cognitive Influences on Early Adolescents' Decisions to Copy Software in Hypothetical Situations
Authors: Bear George G.
Published: March 2007

The relationship between sociomoral reasoning and social problem-solving (SPS) skills in the prediction of decisional choice was investigated. The criterion behavior involved hypothetical decisions of whether or not students, 53 seventh graders, would violate a school rule prohibiting the copying of computer software. Using written interviews, decisional choices were evoked in three different contexts: an ambiguous situation, a situation with clear rules, and an interpersonal dilemma. Significant positive correlations were found between sociomoral reasoning, a quantitative measure of problem sensitivity, and a qualitative measure of problem sensitivity. Each of these three measures was found to be predictive of decisional choice, but only in the ambiguous context. A Roy-Bargmann stepdown analysis showed that the sensitivity measures explained variance in decisional choice beyond that accounted for in knowledge of computer ethics and sociomoral reasoning.
School-Age Children's Time Alone with Fathers in Single- and Dual-Earner Families
Authors: Crouter Ann C. , Crowley M. Sue
Published: March 2007

This study examined (a) the extent to which father-child dyadic involvement varies as a function of parental earner status, father s work-related availability, and child's gender and (b) the connectionts between father-child involvement and children's assessments of their fathers and their feelings of closeness to their fathers. Total involvement and involvement in "quality time" were assessed via seven daily telephone interviews with 147 children, age 9 to 11 years. Children reported on the extent to which they had engaged in each of 32 activities during the day of each call and with whom they had engaged in each activity. In separate home interviews, fathers reported their work schedules, and children completed two measures assessing their relationship with their fathers. Results indicated that fathers in single-earner families spent significantly more time in dyadic activities with sons than with daughters; dual-earner fathers spent equal amounts of time with sons and daughters. Controlling for family size, girls with greater dyadic involvement felt closer to their fathers than did girls with less dyadic involvement; boys' feelings of closeness were not linked to levels of one-to-one involvement with their fathers.
A Process Model of Family Economic Pressure and Early Adolescent Alcohol Use
Authors: Conger Rand D. , Lorenz Frederick O. , Elder Glen H. , Melby Janet N. , Simons Ronald L. , Conger Katherine J.
Published: March 2007

This study examines the utility of a process model which links economic pressure and adolescent use of alcohol in a sample of 76 rural families from a midwestern state. A series of path analyses trace the empirical relations from perceived economic problems through parents' feelings of depression/hostility and their observed hostile/irritable behaviors to the problematic use of alcohol and the antisocial behavior of early adolescents. The findings suggest that parental hostility directed toward children is associated with adolescent antisocial behavior through a process of social learning that leads to deviant friends and alcohol use. Conflict in the marriage is directly related to adolescent drinking as a possible coping response to family stress and, perhaps, through the disruption of parents' ability to function as effective agents of social control.
Coaching Socially Rejected Early Adolescents Regarding Behaviors Used by Peers to Infer Liking
Authors: Murphy Kevin , Schneider Barry
Published: March 2007

In an experimental manipulation, 24 socially rejected children, two from each of 12 different Grade 5 classes, were coached on the importance of displaying behaviors known to be used by peers in making inferences of liking. These children were then encouraged to communicate these behaviors toward selected friendship targets within their own classroom groups. Significant treatment-related improvements were found in these friendships, and targets reported liking of the children who participated in the intervention. There was also a significant increase in the friendship targets' impressions of how much the intervention participants liked them. Finally, friendship targets' reports of social transactions with children in the experimental group indicated a moderate positive relationship between the treatment-related changes and those behaviors used at this age to infer liking.
The Relation of Sociocultural Factors to Eating Attitudes and Behaviors among Middle School Girls
Authors: Levine Michael P. , Smolak Linda , Hayden Helen
Published: March 2007

Three hundred and eighty-five girls ages 10 through 14 years were surveyed about eating behavior, body satisfaction, concern with being slender, and cues from parents, peers, and magazines in regard to weight management techniques and the importance of slenderness. A majority reported receiving a clear message from fashion magazines and peers or family members that slenderness is important and attainable through dieting and other methods. Two strong correlates of drive for thinness and disturbed patterns of eating were (a) reading magazines that contain information and ideas about an attractive body shape and about weight management, and (b) weight/shape-related teasing and criticism by family. This study indicates that body dissatisfaction and weight concerns reflect adoption of a socially approved female role. It also raises the possibility that some young adolescent girls live in a subculture of intense weight and body-shape concern that places them at risk for disordered eating behavior:
Rose-Colored Glasses:
Authors: Nelson David A. , Crick Nicki R.
Published: March 2007

The social information-processing (SIP) model has generated significant knowledge concerning the social cognitions of rejected and aggressive children. However, the model rarely has been applied to the cognitions and behavior of prosocial children or adolescents. This study examined SIP patterns of prosocial young adolescents (10 through 12 years of age). Hypothetical situation instruments were used to assess the intent attributions, feelings of distress, and response-ecision processes (for relational and instrumental provocation situations) of fourth- through sixth-grade young adoles-cents (N = 675). Results revealed that, in contrast to their comparison group peers, pro-social young adolescents (a) were less likely to attribute hostile intent or feel distressed in provocation situations (i.e., a benign attributional bias), (b) gave relatively more negative evaluations of aggressive responses and relatively more positive evaluations of prosocial responses to provocation, and (c) were more likely to endorse relational rather than instrumental goals in dealing with provocation. Implications for prosocial development and intervention are discussed.
Judging the Behaviors of Friends and Unfamiliar Peers:
Authors: Flannagan Dorothy , Bradley Lorena
Published: March 2007

This research was designed to examine age-related and gender-related patterns in the judgments of children and early adolescents about hypothetical behaviors of friends and unfamiliar peers. Thirty-eight children, 43 younger early adolescents, and 31 older early adolescents were presented with eight scenarios that portray an actor whose behavior affects the respondent. Scenarios varied according to the status (friend or unfamiliar peer) and intention (good or neutral) of the actor and the outcome (good or bad) of the actor’s behavior for the respondent. Participants were asked to recall each scenario and to rate the appropriateness of the actor’s behavior in each. Recall both of intentions and of outcomes was associated with ratings. Significant differences in ratings related to actors’status and intentions were found for girls but not for boys. The strongest positive bias toward friends was found in the ratings of younger early adolescent girls.
Course Participation: An Active Learning Approach Employing Student Documentation
Authors: Peterson Robert M.
Published: March 2007

Documenting student participation is not an easy task, for the professor or the student. The purpose of this article is to (1) offer an approach for getting students to take responsibility for documenting their level of course participation and (2) explore the active learning framework to teaching that might best support this approach to participation documentation. Student examples are offered as an illustration of what can transpire when students are required to be the center of their learning and must document their own participation in a course. The assignment of having the students document their own learning behavior often meets with resistance and bewilderment from students. Thus, common failures and student perceptions are also highlighted.
Conducting a Business College Image Study through a Marketing Research Class Project
Authors: Dean Michael L.
Published: March 2007

This paper discusses an example of applying the classroom marketing research experience to an area of mutual student-administration concern—a college image study.