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How does scientific knowledge about specialized research topics develop structurally? Existing literature on knowledge production networks shows the topology of networks in science, but this work often uses sampling frames (disciplines and sub-disciplines) that fail to capture the specific object of inquiry as a key data-generating feature of publication activity. Such work also uses tie indicators (collaborations or co-citations) that poorly approximate the interconnected knowledge embodied by research with ties between actors instead of related content. This paper (1) advances two methodological innovations that could benefit studies of scientific production, (2) demonstrates these approaches in a case study in the biochemical sciences, and (3) discusses the benefits and limitations of this approach. Methodologically, I first argue that network samples defined by shared research objects rather than disciplines, subfields, or common keywords can yield novel insight into how ideas develop in topic-specific networks and reveal both existing and potential opportunities for knowledge exchange across disciplines with different semantic norms. I also propose that structural topic modeling can be used to derive the latent content of journal articles addressing a particular research object, and that such an approach has unique advantages for capturing the broader knowledge structure on a specialized topic over collaboration, co-citation, and shared keyword methods. I then demonstrate the empirical viability of this pair of methodological innovations using research in both chemistry and biomedicine about a specific protein. Results show that topic-specific papers in the chemistry and biomedicine communities are structurally distinct, and that such structural differences are associated with differing research practices in the case study. I discuss these exploratory results and consider the limitations of the novel methods that produce them, then briefly elaborate on how specialized knowledge network dynamics can be studied and tested in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent has urban tourism marketing been accompanied by, and itself helped facilitate, deeper political and economic restructuring? Through a case study of New York City over the last 30 years, this paper argues there is a strong interrelationship between these two processes, and indeed that tourism marketing has been instrumental in the shift towards urban neoliberalism. I focus on two pivotal periods of crisis and transformation in contemporary New York City, when new public-private partnerships formed with a similar, dual agenda to save and transform the city. The first period is that of the 1970's fiscal crisis, when this agenda involved behind-the-scenes promotion of "pro-business reforms," and very public branding of New York as a white-collar tourist destination. The second period follows the attacks of September 11, 2001, when the quiet use of lucrative business incentives was accompanied by high-profile efforts to "re-brand New York" for "patriotic tourism." This paper draws in particular on consultants' reports commissioned and acted upon by city and state economic development agencies-documents previously unused by scholars. Thus my research shows different ways in which tourism marketing was employed discursively, politically, and economically to facilitate, and distract attention from, broader neoliberal shifts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a case study of Bryant Park in New York City, this paper analyzes the emergence of incorporated space as a form of social control in contemporary cities. At a time when many public spaces were being closed down-secured with higher walls and greater restrictions to entry-Bryant Park was opened up, as its walls were taken down and the park was rebuilt in order to maximize access and visibility. This was no project for democratizing urban space, however; the renovation of Bryant Park had as its goal the reassertion of control over a space considered to be chaotic and a population cast as "undesirable." This paper investigates the emergence of incorporated space from its surprisingly heterogeneous sources. It examines the process of renovating and re-regulating the park, which entailed the installation of new ruling authorities, new technologies of control and a new conceptual approach to the problems of the public's space in cities. The case of incorporated space suggests that urban scholars may need to rethink the connection between space, power, exclusion and the public. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to the promotion of consumption, cultural intermediaries produce goods and experiences for sale in the consumer marketplace, and mobilize and motivate others to participate in the reproduction of consumer culture. The paper examines the occupation of personal training as an ideal case study of the characteristics of cultural intermediary work. Based on a discourse analysis of personal training occupational texts from 1990 to 2000, the paper employs a cultural economy perspective to examine how the work of trainers, and cultural intermediaries more generally, is shaped by normative codes of professionalism, an investment of personal resources and aesthetic labor (such as attitude, appearance and belief), and the tension between cultural and economic categories. Personal training is a particularly revealing case because of its explicit tensions between culture (e.g. a professional, service-oriented ethic) and economy (e.g. the entrepreneurial aspects of selling services). Trainers are encouraged to adopt a vocational attitude to reconcile these tensions, suggesting how cultural intermediary work more generally involves particular dispositions, which are the outcomes of negotiating between economy and culture-and the personal and professional-in specific occupational contexts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On college campuses across the nation, a new form of drug use is taking place- the non-medical use of psychostimulants, sometimes referred to as the "casual misuse" of prescription drugs, or "pharming." This paper takes an in-depth look at how biomedicine is approached as a tool for performance enhancement in the lives of contemporary college students. At the core of this issue is the question: How is the "student body" transforming to keep up with the pressures of college life? Drawing on survey and interview data, this paper reveals how some students manage the various pressures of college by literally constructing medically-disciplined bodies with the help of psychostimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall. Such students may believe they are literally embodying performance ideals in the college classroom and the social scene, enhancing focus, self-control, and managing time. On the other hand, students may also see psychostimulants as representative of potentially problematic medicalized worlds. These students value the "natural" body, and express concern about a "diagnosis culture" in which prescription drugs are easy to find, side-effects are real, and medical enhancement creates heightened social and academic expectations for everyone. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Case studies and ethnographies of markets often observe the existence of a -market community'. This paper investigates whether three features often associated with market communities (common language, social interaction amongst market participants, and a collective identity) increase market efficacy. Examining a sample of auctions listed on eBay, I find that auctions in markets with a more widely shared common language are more likely to end with a sale, controlling for structural characteristics of markets. Analyses of the interaction of structural resources of sellers and the communal characteristics of markets show that sellers with lower reputation scores benefit more from the existence of a common language. Moreover, markets where a greater proportion of participants identify with the market are more efficacious at resolving value uncertainty. The paper concludes with a discussion of how to pursue future analyses to better establish these preliminary results. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the gap in both family and international migration literature regarding the study of transnational families using exploratory inquiry on the internal processes of immigrant families and kin networks operating within a transnational context. The case study for this paper is augmented and contextualized by recent survey data for Afro-Caribbean respondents (n=1600+) from the National Survey of American Life. The theoretical perspective of kinscripts (Stack and Burton 1993) is combined with concepts from family and international migration literature on the gendered division of labor, gendered social networks, transnationalism, and literature on Caribbean families to create a lens to analyze the case study and survey data. Survey data suggest that gender differences in contact with family and perceptions of family closeness. The case study suggests that certain women in the family [kin-scription] seem to take leadership in initiating contact and planning events with other family members [kin-work], that family closeness is a result of frequent contact and visits, and that gender and birth order may influence the family prioritization of contact and relations [kin-time]. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and urban sprawl in China. This paper argues that in China, the urban area tends to sprawl before real FDI inflow, due to Chinese local state's entrepreneurial behavior intended to attract more FDI in local competition. The research is both qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative part involves a case study of Kunshan.Quantitative data include a time series analysis of all 278 prefecture and above cities in China across 7 years (1996-2002). It is found that urban sprawl is a significant positive predictor of next year's actual FDI inflow. The result supports the argument of an advanced urban sprawl before FDI inflow. We also found regional effect, that is, urban sprawl can most effectively attract FDI in Coast North and Coastal South rather than Coastal East, the most attractive place for FDI in China; also it attracts FDI for the least favored place, the West. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper creates a four-category typology of U.S. responses to globalization in challenge to Samuel Huntington's "dead soul" essay. Huntington asserts that cosmopolitanism, or support of a global over a nationalist identity, is the exclusive perspective of elites and in direct opposition to the majority of U.S. citizenry. Using a sociological analysis of case studies of organizations and authors writing about globalism, important differences emerge not along an elite/citizenry dichotomy. Instead, social movements' and authors' perspectives differ based on the power analysis deployed (hierarchical/vertical vs egalitarian/horizontal) as well as attitudes towards global integration (supporter/skeptic). The paper concludes that even as U.S. public opinion has been circumscribed in a post-9/11 political climate, a variety of citizens exercise oppositional as well as hegemonic identities vis-à-vis economic globalization and imperialism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social dimensions of microfinance programs which are credit and savings programs targeted at fostering financial self-sustainability of the poor. Such programs have become the most popular development strategy since the 1990's and microfinance groups are to be found in developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. These groups are rural neighborhood based groups composed almost exclusively of women in most cases. One of the central premises of these programs is that giving credit to women rather than men leads to their empowerment by giving them greater control over household economic resources. However, I find that there are also non-economic ways in which such group membership leads to women's empowerment. In this paper I will use the case study of one such group to demonstrate how social capital gained by the women through such group membership plays a key role in their empowerment. Enhanced social capital in this case finds expression through group based collective action for acquiring public goods. This in turn leads to a positive change in the public perception of women's collective power. This results in a "virtuous cycle" of a change in women's self-perception of their power which is reflected in greater agency. This calls for a more sociologically informed analysis of such financial programs and more attention to the social dimensions of economic interventions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the "standard human" of biomedical sciences has come under considerable scrutiny from various interests groups, who argue that human differences, such as race, sex/gender and age, must be accounted for in clinical health and drug trials. Implying that social categories may be medically and scientifically significant, proponents of including racial minorities in clinical health and drug trials contradict the standard notion in the social sciences that race is a socio-cultural artifact that has no biological meaning. This political mobilization has resulted in federal regulations that require, among many things, clinical trial populations to be racially diverse. This paper explores the controversy resulting from the findings of the phase III clinical trials of the AIDSVAX HIV vaccine that racial minorities experienced higher rates of protection from HIV. The paper shows how the new experimental set-up ushered in by diverse clinical trails makes possible the generation and affirmation of the controversial and politically loaded claim, that race is bio-medically and scientifically significant. The case study of AIDSVAX, more generally, demonstrates the possible repercussions and ramifications of the presumption, which has persisted throughout recent history and is now implicit under new federal regulations, that racial and ethnic identities may be medically and scientifically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and analyzes four approaches to the use of participatory action research (PAR), a form of experiential learning, in the university classroom. Two of the courses described could fairly be classified as service learning, while the other two entail the use of (PAR) primarily as an object of teaching and secondarily as a pedagogical vehicle for the learning of sociological concepts, theories, and investigative methods. After reviewing the empirical and pedagogical literature on experiential learning and PAR, the authors present their respective courses as case studies distinct points on an ideal type continuum of experiential learning. Following this, they elucidate common challenges and resources in the development and implementation of PAR courses. Finally, they reflect on their experience generating intended and unintended (and unfavorable) outcomes using PAR in the classroom. A discussion of how PAR advances ?public sociology? concludes the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks how organizations for girls construct the relationship between girls and the public sphere. Drawing upon document research and two intensive case studies, one at a Girl Scout camp and the other at a community based organization, I argue that there are two primary types of girls? organization: normative and transformative. Normative organizations, such as the Girl Scouts, rely upon a psychological understanding of the problems facing girls and avoid issues of race and class differences amongst girls. They imagine the public as a space of threat that girls must be protected from and full of barriers that girls must learn to overcome. When they do involve girls in their communities, it is only in the form of service. Transformative organizations engage girls in a more sociological analysis of the conditions of their lives, including analyses of the intersections of race, class and gender. They also believe that girls can and should have public authority and voice and encourage girls? involvement in a wide range of social change projects and political activities. Given growing social concern with youth civic engagement, this paper highlights these two models divergent implications for girls? public and political identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service learning in higher education has a well-documented and robust history in expanding outcomes and experiences for both students and community organization. This research paper discusses a case study of a service learning project where undergraduate students in an independent study, following a semester in a Medical Sociology course, assisted a local hospital as it transitioned to "Baby-Friendly" status. Five students performed a variety of duties, including data entry and analysis, creating data collection tools, and interviewing staff and patients about hospital experiences. The goals of the project on the students' end were to provide experience in a career setting, encourage students to problem solve, and encourage independent connections with non-academic supervisors. The hospital benefitted from having students perform interviews with patients and staff, develop an interview tool, and develop a global spreadsheet to collect, organize, and analyze data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explanations for issue framing by movements and movement opponents often externalize opportunities for issue framing. In this paper, I draw attention to the endogenous processes through which opportunities for issue framing can unfold. I do this through a case study analysis of counter-movement framing of network neutrality policy in the United States, from 2005 to 2015. Drawing primarily from an original dataset of Congressional hearings concerning network neutrality policy, I argue that network neutrality opponents activated new framing opportunities through non-discursive activity in institutional venues. Specifically, I show how the 'regulatory authority' frame that came to characterize later discussions of network neutrality in Congress became available only after counter-movement opponents challenged early regulatory rules in court, thereby legitimizing - partly through the court's proceedings, and partly by instigating a response from the regulator - an alternative conceptualization of network neutrality policy as a threat to constitutional principles of governance. In doing so, I articulate a view of framing opportunities as (at times) latent within institutional contexts, dependent on non-discursive activity by movement and counter-movement actors to be brought into play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents how using smartphones can enrich classic, ethnographic studies of youth and social problems by extending the scope of a case using everyday communication. Two study models in the field of children and media inform the proposed, methodological intervention. I demonstrate how and why to conduct case studies on and off the phone and across settings to capture interaction more accurately and robustly. To illustrate the smartphone case method, I walked through my collaborative fieldwork with JayVon, an eighteen-year-old from Harlem (New York, NY). The fieldwork uses network analysis of contacts and trace ethnography of activity logs and text-message content in the course of a traditional, ethnographic study. I show how the ecology of a case opens up naturally by analyzing smartphone data ethnographically. I then discuss the significant, ethical challenges that accompany networked access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diaspora mobilization and immigrant activism promote political incorporation in the hostcountry. Yet, few have examined the nexus between these types of mobilization or the effects of transnational diaspora activism on domestic immigrant resistance. This paper fills these gaps by investigating Syrian and Yemeni mobilization from the US and Britain in response to the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions. Based on the analysis of 167 original interviews, I demonstrate how home-country conditions impeded the mobilization of Yemenis and Syrians as diasporas and as immigrants before the Arab Spring. I then show how the 2011 rebellions changed these conditions and spurred anti-regime diaspora members into action, which simultaneously empowered activists to combat illiberalism at home and abroad. As Syrian activists formed or converted associations for home-country rebellion and relief, they built an organizational field with the dual capacity to contest host-country discrimination. Intra-community divisions and resources shortages in the Yemeni community prevented activists from forming or converting associations to political causes, but leaders nevertheless worked to import the principles of the Arab Spring abroad through protests and brokerage. In all, the study demonstrates the importance of diaspora mobilization in shaping the voice and visibility of immigrant groups, especially those targeted by xenophobic and Islamophobic host-country policies such as the "Muslim Ban" in the Trump era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational support for indigenous movements and indigenous rights raises two important questions about the relationships between identity, solidarity, political claims and place. First, what are the consequences for transnational organizing for groups whose identity is solidly place-based? Second, can a cross-border movement, operating on behalf of the "same people" in two different nation-state contexts achieve more than solidarity? Drawing on theories of transnational activism and identity, this paper seeks to investigate these questions, using transnational Mapuche indigenous activism in Chile and Argentina as a case study. In doing so, it looks at both the connections between Mapuche activist organizations and transnational solidarity groups and the cross-border pan-Mapuche transnational networks between Chile and Argentina. Using these two examples, the paper proposes that while transnational advocacy networks give indigenous actors greater agency and opportunities to leverage international support, they do not always lead to the achievement of indigenous political goals because of the very local, place-based processes through which indigenous identity is constructed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the emergence and contradictions of labor force dualism and changing labor regime in Post-reform China through a case study of the automobile industry. It finds labor force dualism by deploying both formal contract workers and temporary workers side by side on production lines has become widespread practice in the Chinese automobile industry. Hegemonic relations were established between management and formal workers based on high wages, generous benefits, and relatively secure employment; while despotic labor control characterizes the situation of temporary workers with lower wages, few benefits and little job security. However, labor force dualism as a mode of labor control has its inherent contradictions and limits. While it has kept formal workers relatively quiescent, it has radicalized temporary workers to fight against discrimination and management despotism. Labor unrest among temporary workers has been, in turn, forced management to pull back from such dualism and make compromise with temporary workers. These shopfloor dynamics are conditioned by global processes. Hegemonic relations with formal workers are premised on certain privileges in wages and job security; however, intense competition in the world automobile production has driven management to reduce these privileges. Shop-floor and global processes are themselves conditioned by national level political processes. The bottom-up pressure from widespread labor unrest since the 1990s has forced the central government to modify its relationship with labor and capital through pro-labor legislation. This paper unravels how shop-floor, local, national and global processes interact in complex ways to produce the contemporary labor regime in China. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how intercessory prayer has been conceptualized and measured by a small group of scientists and medical researchers who have conducted double blind clinical trials of intercessory prayer since the mid-1960s. While individual studies, like the STEP (Study of Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer) study published in 2005 by Herb Benson and colleagues, generate significant debate when published, I view these studies not individually but as a body of work through which shifting epistemologies about "science" and "religion" can be traced over time. Specifically, I analyze how religion in the form of intercessory prayer is imagined, conceptualized, and measured in intercessory prayer studies, and how and why it changes over time. Additionally, I chart shifting epistemological discussion taking place amongst scientists on the pages of the medical journals where these studies are published about whether intercessory prayer studies should or can be conducted. This case study contributes to thinking in sociology and religious studies a pointed example of how the epistemological lens through which aspects of religion, in this case prayer, are conceived influences how they are conceptualized and what kinds of scientific knowledge is viewed as possible, reliable, and valid.[This paper is being submitted for the panel on religion and science Elaine Howard Ecklund is organizing.] ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines social structure of immigrant transnational advocacy network after World War II. It analyzes immigrant's social position in the host society and its relation to the formation and transformation of the network. This paper also pays attention to state institution and international non-governmental organizations which play a part in configuring the network. The case study is Taiwanese American advocacy network for self-determination and human rights. The primary data come from the long-term fieldwork in the Taiwanese American communities and interview; the secondary data are from archives, community newsletters and published works by activists themselves. The findings are as follows: in the 1950s and 1960s, Taiwanese activists were mainly graduate students and their political activities were local in scale and mobilized through campus network and social clubs; in the 1970s, human rights became a goal of US foreign policy, which prompted Taiwanese activists to work with US congress and international non-governmental organizations like Amnesty international. Taiwanese activists also built coalitions with American Christians which were a great help in soliciting support from general public and Christians all over the world. In the 1980s, Taiwanese activists solidified their political influence in the island through their participation in modernization project. Their professional/activist' scientific report was viewed with authority and value, and its production and circulation strengthen their advocacy network. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines consumption spaces and the nighttime economy of the postindustrial city through an analysis of bars and bar landscapes. It is part of a larger parallel case study on consumption spaces and cultural production that shows the dynamics of the contemporary nighttime economy in contrasting urban contexts- a changing downtown area (the Lower East Side, in Manhattan) and a residential middle- and working-class neighborhood (Kensington, in Brooklyn). In examining the nightscapes of these contrasting urban contexts this paper will illustrate key processes of gentrification and urban change and examine the integral nighttime economy of the contemporary city. Furthermore, this paper also discusses shifts in urban culture and the social use of bars as public gathering places, emphasizing the importance of consumption spaces in the contemporary urban environment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the social construction of order in the informal economy. The case study involves two very large and successful flea markets in the New York metropolitan area and their source of successful acquisitions of goods and services in the informal economy or as I call it - the cash underground economy. It demonstrates the socio-cultural influences on economic behavior from an interactionist perspective. As such, it seeks to demonstrate Durkheim's axiom: there can be no economics without pre-established cultural norms, the concepts of contract, and the moral sentiments and social understandings as underpinnings for economic action. Concepts as trust, reciprocity, mutual dependencies, cooperation, common agreements that are embedded in culture, are explored from a human centered approach. Lastly, it allows for a re-examination of some of the fundamental postulates of neoclassical economic theory such as an economy and business transactions as being separate from society and 'outside influences', consisting of atomistic individuals relating as lone individuals coldly calculating and maximizing their own utility. Quite the contrary view is described here. The rich, contextual, multifaceted, interpersonal qualities of exchange are established. How these recurrent expectations and concerns of economic actors get organized into roles and relationships is the focus of this paper. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of spaces and places has been making marked inroads into the realm of sociological investigation in the recent past. And though much of this work has been theoretical in nature, the goal of this paper is to show how some of these principles are actually embodied in our physical environments. In particular, this paper shows how the principles of enchantment that Ritzer (1999) has outlined in his study of consumption settings are applicable to one specific location: an IKEA store located in College Park, Maryland. As such, this paper is a case study in spatial enchantment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP) funds a variety of basic and applied research on the remediation of contaminated sites. Universities that receive SBRP grants are also required to conduct community outreach and research translation activities. There is, however, scant discussion of how outreach and translation should be defined and evaluated. This paper reports on a recent project by the Brown University SBRP, in which academic researchers and state agency personnel collaborated with community activists on a legislative initiative to mitigate the financial impact of contamination on homeowner property values. This paper situates this case study in a wider context of social science research on contaminated communities and in a longer tradition of community-based participatory research (CBPR); highlights the need for a more rigorous approach to evaluation of community-based advocacy and consultancy activities; and suggests ways that sociology can contribute to this discussion. Theoretical tools and concepts from the study of social movements and collective action, in particular, may illuminate discussions about the partnerships formed through programs such as the SBRP, and SBRP alliances provide a ripe field of case studies that could advance the theoretical tools for assessing coalitions among academic researchers, community groups, and state actors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surprisingly perhaps, given the immense attention paid to civil rights and women's changing roles, the life course field has paid relatively little attention to variations in life patterns by race, ethnicity, and gender - other than differences in status or rank. This paper asks what else might be discovered if functional and qualitative categories were used to assess outcomes rather than those that can be ranked. Following a review of what has turned up so far, this paper argues for conceptualizing outcomes and antecedents along functional as well as hierarchical lines. Case studies and other individualized methods are best suited to such questions, but care must be taken to compare demographic groups that are relatively similar in status and rank. In research on black and white educated women and their orientation to home or career, life pattern differences do emerge between black and white women and homemakers and career women. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our purpose in this paper is to examine the role leadership plays in collective action through an application of ideas from Michels (1915). In order to conduct this examination we review collective action focusing on the first and second order free-rider problems. Following this review, we present the relevant ideas of Michels (1915) regarding leadership and collective interests. Based on these ideas, we suggest a connection between Michels' work and collective action, which poses a solution to the second order free-rider problem. Finally, we end with a discussion of the ramifications of this solution, pertinent case studies, the relevance of group size and social identity to leadership and collective action, and possibilities for future research in this area of study. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (2002) was touted as a major legislative achievement in President George W. Bush's first term, which emphasizes a neoclassical economic based model that assumes that markets and competition will produce a competitive education system. This paper offers a case study of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School (CMS) District in Charlotte, North Carolina to test both the efficacy and assumptions of NCLB (2002). Utilizing hierarchical linear modeling of population data for all public elementary schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district, this research explores whether race-gender achievement gaps are ameliorated or exacerbated following a unitary court declaration and whether neoclassical theoretical assumptions are supported or not. Contrary to neoclassical assumptions, findings suggest that school choice resulted in increased segregation in CMS and greater inequality. In addition, this research found that both black male and female students had lower achievement scores and white females had lower achievement scores in racially segregated black schools after choice was implemented. The result is that, as school choice increased racial isolation in schools and black students are at risk of having lower scores on their end of grade tests. This result directly contradicts the stated goal of No Child Left Behind, which seeks to increase test scores, performance and accountability. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The case study has gained widespread acceptance beyond its original use as an ethnographic tool, and is now considered a staple of sociological analysis in general. The use of case studies to generate sociological knowledge deserves and requires close scrutiny as it gathers a number of key and recurrent issues in theory and method, issues with which ethnography, and the discipline more generally, struggles, and must incorporate at every level. The prevalence of the case study and the variety of uses to which it has been put by sociologists raises a number of questions. Can a case be more than mere anecdote? Is the use of a case the attempt to render the world from the proverbial grain of sand? Is the use of a case an account of the social world? A theoretical shorthand? An assertion of the veracity of local knowledge? This paper will tackle these questions by examining the methodological grounds that underpin the case study, and will investigate the epistemological consequences of the use of the case study as an example. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delineates the legal, ethical, professional, and moral dilemmas encountered during ethnographic research in New York City. The ethnographer obtained a Certificate of Confidentiality and followed professional guidelines approved by the Institutional Review Board. These guidelines were understood by the African-American research subjects prior to beginning interviews. Subculture patterns of transactional sexuality and drug distribution were often at odds with these professional standards. Three case studies highlight the various types of dilemnas. Fruit Loops concealed her early (age 11-15) sexual experiences with adult men (e.g. childhood sexual abuse and statutory rape). Borace was probably killed by a key respondent, and John reported killing another person. Each case raised different but serious dilemmas for the professional ethnographer about whether to report such cases to appropriate authorities or not. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was argued that fertility and migration are not independent demographic phenomena (Singley&Landale, 1998). For the context of Eastern Europe, some authors considered that the measures of fertility are biased due to the shrinking populations through migration (Philipov, 2001). In this paper, using data from a community based survey on migration (2002) and various aggregated level statistics on fertility, we tried to see of there is any relationship between migration and fertility decline in Romania, an Eastern European country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of children from China by American families represents a fertile case study for an expanding sociological literature on boundaries: it brings to life many of our most salient borders while it highlights their very permeability. This paper represents one aspect of a larger research project on parents' efforts to bridge perceived ethno-cultural boundaries within the China adoptive family. Through participant observation and interviews, I examine parents' interpretations of and participation in Chinese cultural events organized by and for China adoptive families. These events are rich sites for social research on boundaries because they: 1) appear to assume permeable ethno-cultural borders; and 2) bring previously incoherent individuals together as a bounded group. Drawing on classic and contemporary theories of ethnic identification and collective identity, I reveal how parents activate existing symbolic boundaries and create new symbolic boundaries in their efforts to construct community. In particular, I demonstrate how previously incoherent parents cohere as a bounded community by actively distinguishing themselves from 'authentic' Chinese/Chinese American referents and the "imagined community" of biological families. Likewise, I reveal how the community's boundaries and cultural events both mask and alienate a growing percentage of the China adoption contingent: African-American and Asian-American China adopters, as well as families with adopted Chinese sons. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents written and visual data about play with the author's companion dog. The research is an in-depth single case study employing the methods of ethnography, autoethnography and videography. The attempt is to display the intricacies and nuances of a common, mundane practice-playing with one's dog. Data are reported about the routine of play, the structures (or motifs) of play, the inner states of players, the playing field(s), the contingencies of play and the use of language and vocalization during play. An ethnomethodological approach is used to explicate play as practices. The data are part of a larger study to be published later this year in book form. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the theoretical and analytical resources of critical theory to explore the processes and conflicts over efforts to present tragic events as spectacles, focusing on a case study of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent government response have intensified uncertainty and unpredictability, disclosed a new vulnerability in U.S. cities, and showed how a predicted disaster could wreck havoc within the U.S. economy and political system. I first examine the ways in which the logic of spectacle and entertainment permeate a major disaster like Katrina. Next, I investigate how media coverage and political commentary on Katrina insinuates its own immanent critique of racial and class divisions in U.S. society. Finally, I draw attention to how critical tendencies are immanent to the commodification process itself, in the form of disaster tourism and the production of Katrina souvenirs that embrace spectacle to criticize federal policy and build global awareness of New Orleans's plight. Overall, my goal is to show how the category of immanent critique can play an important role in drawing out the implications of disaster-as-spectacle, illustrating the intersection of race and class in U.S. society, and highlighting the multidimensional, conflictual, and contradictory character of spectacles. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michelle Bachelet's recent victory as president of Chile in many ways marks the end of the transition to democracy period, since she herself was a survivor of torture, directly suffering the brutality of the dictatorship (including the murder of her father). Even prior to her victory, the Lagos Administration moved towards national narrative closure over the past by commissioning the 2004 Valech Report, which provided detailed case studies of more than 30,000 survivors. This report opened the possibility for a forum on the national past that had been largely confined to alternative public spheres, except perhaps for the 1991 Rettig Commission and the 1998 National Roundtable for Dialogue. One example of this alternative public sphere, which has kept social memory alive is public testimonial and also the visual arts. This paper analyzes the cultural politics of Guillermo Nuñez's art and testimony, as a survivor of torture, to suggest the persistent and lasting encounter with traumatic memory. Unlike the figure of Michelle Bachelet, as someone who has 'integrated' the violent past into her own life, and therefore into the public sphere of the nation, Guillermo Núñez, his art and testimonial, refuses narrative closure, instead insisting on the persistence of individual and social trauma, elucidating the structural spaces where a dissociated memory of the disappeared and tortured persists. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a case study of New Orleans to develop a critical theory of urban spectacles that highlights both progressive and negative attributes. I identify the conflicts and struggles over meanings of local celebrations, highlight the irrationalities and contradictions of converting cities into tourist spectacles, and address wider issues concerning the relationship between tourism and local culture. My aim is deploy the ideas of Guy Debord and Henri Lefebvre to build a multidimensional critical theory that locates the production and consumption of spectacles within the larger political economy of consumer capitalism, especially the shift to tourism and entertainment consumption in recent decades. Many theories of tourism present it as either primarily negative, a destroyer of cultures and local traditions, or positive, as bringing a wealth of new products, ideas, and economic opportunities to people. Rather than denouncing tourism-oriented spectacles as inauthentic or engaging in praise and endorsement, I argue that tourism is a conflictual and contradictory process that disempowers localities at the same time it creates new pressures for local autonomy. From this perspective one should avoid one-sided and reductive explanations in favor of a view that theorizes urban spectacles as embedded within a highly complex and ambiguous set of institutions and social relations that involve capitalist markets, state policy, and flows of commodities, technology, cultural forms, and people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the following paper we argue that the conventional "Introduction to Sociology" survey course should be restructured because such courses try to survey an unsurveyable body of knowledge and they do not teach the application of sociological research. The conventional intro course should be replaced with an intro course that surveys the types of social dynamics that sociologists typically research and the methods they use to do so. We propose a semester-long intro course with four case study learning-units that are chosen for their coverage of the underlying sociological dynamics, methods, and core concepts. We contend that case study learning-units which concentrate on topical issues and core sociological concepts are better suited for an introduction course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US-Mexico border has received increased attention after the events of September 11, 2001. This paper examines the impact of border security implementation on local populations, as well as local perceptions of increasing security in the region. Using information from various secondary sources, participant observation, and informal interviews conducted in the El Paso del Norte region, I explore the ways in which the construction of border security as an essential part of the war against terrorism has real effects on established border communities. I first present a discussion of racial and ethnic categorization and the ways in which the idea of citizenship has become racialized in the United States in general and specifically in the Southwest. The second section focuses on identity construction in the border region and how local social actors categorize both themselves and others in terms of belonging and nation-state affiliation. Finally, I examine the ways in which these socially constructed categories could affect the lives of Mexican-origin border residents in their interactions with law enforcement officials, especially in the post-September 11th environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a report on a case study at a Midwestern grain handling facility. Key emergent concepts were danger and safety. The plant workers have an excellent safety record that I attribute not to formal safety programs, but to the workers' opposition to those formal safety programs. An in-depth analysis of the informal workers' relations with their bureaucratic employers and the development of an oppositional culture of safety explain how this came to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current research considers that new organizational forms derive from the interplay of agency and structure. Building on a case study on the creation of two organizations that pioneered microfinance in Bolivia, this paper offers the concept of social bricolage to explain how organizational processes mediate this interplay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents one written Finnish illness narrative, collected through an autobiographic writing competition, called "The Back Bone in Your Life, arranged in 1999 in Finland. A case study present a woman who suffered intesen back pain that altered her life and identity. The central questions are; how she experienced the Finnish health care system and why it was unable to care for and understand her long-lasting pain, and how her suffering gradually became a moral issue in her interaction with the health care system. Since pain is difficult to diagnose and treat, the protagonist’s interaction with the health care system can be elaborated as a three stages process. First, a dialogue, characterized the doctor-patient relationship. When the time passed and the patient did not recover, the medical focus shifted from pain to person. Thirdly, doctors’ referral for a psychiatric evaluation of an individual’s ability to work, for example, transformed a devaluated condition to invalidation. Only paralysis brought her appropriate medical care. The physicians’ medicalized model of science was saturated with Finnish cultural values of work and autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decoupling is an emerging area of empirical work in organization theory. To date, however, it is been difficult to establish how decoupling may be conducted both consciously and strategically by organizational leaders. To study this phenomenon, this paper develops a case study of remedial education policy in Massachusetts during the late 1990s. Extended interviews and analysis of both confidential and public archival data found that policymakers engaged in strategic decoupling behavior in order to gain legitimacy with important external constituents. The following years have revealed this effort to be largely successful. The implications for studying policymaking and organizational theory are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State crimes are crimes committed by the state in violation of their own criminal laws or public international law. However, states engage in behaviors that do not violate their own criminal laws, but may still violate human rights principles embodied in international law or treaty. These practices would be classified as state sanctioned social harm - activities enacted by state agencies that cause harm to its citizens. Around the world, many state agencies engage in violent or discriminatory practices towards LGBT persons that qualify as state harm, from the most severe activities, such as capital punishment for engaging in same-sex sexual relations, to less violent activities, such as sanctioning practices that prevent LGBT persons from the rights that justifiably belong to every person. This paper analyzes the ways different state approaches to social harm influences LGBT victimization by comparing the practices of the Russian Federation and Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Use an empirical case study of the pension disputes of the state workers in central China, this paper attempts to explore the circular feature of the Chinese state and how this circular teature helps to prevent the large scale labor movements from organizing out of the intense labor conflicts. This state is composed of three intersecting circles -- the circle between different petition offices, the circle between petition offices and courts, and the circle between the local and the center. Circulation of the state workers' case in this circular bureaucratic field for ten years domesticated the radical collective actions of the state workers and turned them into obdient citizens defending their rights through legal procedures and petition processes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into for profit organizations provides evidence that the implementation of particular human resource management (HRM) practices results in low turnover rates. The other way around, the lack of such practices, or the incorrect implementation thereof, leads to increased turnover rates. In this paper we explore whether this conclusion also holds for the non profit sector, which is organized by different principles than the for profit sector. Based on signaling theory we expect that negative employee perceptions of HRM practices contribute to turnover decisions. We explore this expectation by means of an exploratory case study of expatriate project turnover in an international humanitarian non governmental organization. In this organization, we selected 30 cases of project turnover and analyzed the performance evaluations and associated documents of those employees in order to detect the literal reasons mentioned for return, as well as the perceptions of employees and their line managers about HRM, the job, the context and the individual. Our analysis provides preliminary evidence that (perception discrepancies regarding) HRM issues are of relatively more importance than context, job or individual characteristics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's 1989 student-led pro-democratic movement presents a case study for framing processes in a repressive setting. Existing literature explores the trajectories of the movement based on the characteristics of China's civil society and political structure, for instance, Confucianism (Perry 1992, Berstein 1999), student organization and mobilization (Zhao 1998, 2000, Wright 1999), state-society relationship, and the power-elite's involvement in movement (Zhao 2000, 2001, Deng 1997). The 1989 movement literature differs significantly from western social movement literature, in which the activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are usually the centerpieces, and soul of the mainstream countermovement analysis (Thomas 2000, Meyer 1990, Snow et al. 1986, Ginsburg 1998, Mottl 1980, Meyer and Staggenborg 1996). Quite a few pieces of 1989 movement studies emphasizes on the power-elite involvement in the movement, an area that is usually neglected in the western social movement literature (Pichardo 1995: 21). In this study, I argue that the state-society relations in China function as linkages between the state discourse and movement participation, and was central to CCP's discrediting strategies. This paper discusses frame and counter-frame strategies employed by the students, most importantly the state, in the hope to expand frame alignment theory to also explain power-elites' involvement in the movement. In addition, I argue that within China's specific political culture, the keynotes of the student movement, "democracy" and "freedom" ironically compromised student's mass mobilization effort by facilitating state's discrediting strategies which resulted in the failure of the movement. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding of the dramatic shifts in authority experienced by the U.S. medical profession in the nineteenth century is limited by arguments that appeal solely to efficacy of treatment or macro cultural causes (i.e. the anti-intellectual Jacksonian Era and later the rise of the expertise-friendly Progressive Era). This paper reorients the analysis toward cultural practice to illuminate the way in which epistemic authority - recognition as a legitimate knower - is contested and captured. Through the case study of legislative struggles in nineteenth century medicine, I examine the rhetoric employed by Homeopathists and orthodox practitioners, and the different epistemologies of scientific medicine underlying these rhetorics. By embedding this analysis within the institutional culture of the New York State legislature, I argue that the Homeopaths' success can be attributed to the resonance that its public vision of science had in the legislatures. This public epistemology is manifest in their rhetorical appeal to transparent statistical knowledge. Contests over epistemic authority are thus heavily embedded within institutional cultures of knowing; to be successful, actors' rhetoric must conform to the relevant audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Empowerment Zone (EZ) Program, launched in 1994, works through local governments and community-based organizations to revitalize distressed communities. The EZ initiative is embedded in a theoretical framework of the community development model for grassroots organizing and community enhancement. This paper explores the community development model and considers how the EZ program developed, looking at the political economic situation in which it began. The author examines Knoxville, TN (designated as an Empowerment Zone city by HUD in 1999) as a case study, exploring what types of programs have been funded through the Empowerment Zone and how these have affected not only the area designated, but the people living within this "distressed" area. Utilizing theoretical conceptions of empowerment while incorporating the Empowerment Zone Initiative, the researcher explores empowerment in relation to U.S. policy, asking whether the U.S. government, embedded in the current political-economic system, can truly aid in community and/or individual empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the birth of the first 'test-tube babies' thirty years ago, new reproductive technologies (NRT) have rapidly become a standard medical treatment. In Germany, the success of NRT coincides with a larger recent tendency to individualize risks and the responsiblity for the maintenance of one's own health before the background of a neoliberal restructuring of the welfare state.In my paper, I argue that bodies are more than just mute witnesses of these changes. In two ethnographic case studies in a conventional and an alternative clinic, I analyze the everyday practice of infertility treatment as an example of how new "reflexive self and body technologies" are mediated and put into practice within a medical setting.My results show that the body has an ambiguous role in infertility treatment: On the one hand, bodies are objectified through medical interventions and adoption of the medical gaze. At the same time, however, patients are now "experts responsible for themselves". Many aspects of everyday life which concern dealing with oneself and one's body - such as diet, movements, stress, and sexuality - come to be understood as medical problems. Patients become integrated into a "growing field of reflexive self technologies", which contains new uncertainties and new responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I present empirical findings of a historical case study on political developments in Poland since 1968, and discuss the implications of those findings for (historical) sociology. Specifically, I will focus on the debate on the potential of a pragmatist problem-solving model of action initiated, amongst others, by Hans Joas and which was recently discussed in „Remaking Modernity..." by Richard Biernacki. I show that a pragmatist problem-solving model allows to identify continuities and breaks that are overlooked if the dominating means-end model is applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]