Search

Our paper focusses on an important political problem - the tension between a necessary degree of political tolerance and too much tolerance towards groups who would like to abandon basic democratic and human rights. Using public opinion data collected in more than three dozen countries in 2004 and 2014, we consider political tolerance in the form of accepting public assemblies of religious extremists; people, who want to overthrow the government; and groups who are prejudiced against any racial or ethnic group. Our analysis shows that the US public is the most accepting among the societies compared. Even more, US respondents have become more accepting from 2004 to 2014. At the same time, however, our analysis shows that the US public is divided in their views and has become more polarized from 2004 to 2014. We thus conclude that the categorization of the US as the most tolerant society holds true only for a part of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper starts from the assumption that inequality within countries is a very important topic for research also in the area of globalization. Data show that there exist huge differences between countries and world regions (continents) in this regard. Neither sociological nor economic research have theorized and investigated this issue systematically. Two general hypotheses are developed and tested empirically in this paper: Economic inequality is lower in ethnic homogeneous countries and higher in ethnic heterogeneous countries; it is particularly high in countries with a history of ethnic exploitation in the form of slavery. For a test of these hypotheses, a new aggregate data file has been produced, including characteristics about the ethnic structure and history, the socio-demographic and economic structure (population, level of development etc.), and the political system (democracy, federalism, welfare spending) of about 130 countries around the globe. Two methods of analysis are applied: A linear regression analysis and a qualitative comparison. Regression analysis shows that both ethnic diversity and a history of slavery are significant determinants of income inequality; the same is true for land distribution, democracy and welfare spending. Qualitative comparative analysis confirms and supplements these findings: First, it shows in addition that a combination of actual ethnic heterogeneity and a history of slavery leads to high inequality while ethnic homogeneity and no history of ethnic exploitation lead to high equality. Second, it confirms the outstanding importance of a strong welfare state for an equal society. Third, it finds that the effect of democracy is ambiguous being compatible with high inequality in societies with historic slavery and no welfare state today. In the conclusion, some implications of these findings for further research and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the difficulty of understanding the concept of Object Orientation in turning something from the real-world in object, differentiating what object class and object is, which is to instantiate an object, this article proposes a possibility to facilitate the teaching-learning of this paradigm. It was created so the game Gaia ABstraction Game contributes to this learning in a dynamic and attractive way. This article is based on research by authors who discuss the importance of games as a mechanism to facilitate learning. The main contributions of this article is: highlight that the game Gaia ABstraction Game may be important in the wake of student interest; make lessons interactive, dynamic and attractive; create a rewarding and attractive environment, serving as a stimulus for the whole development of the student. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will present the proposal of a process model for developing learning objects. It will describe in detail the entire life cycle of the proposed methodology, outlining how the pedagogical context operates into the development process. In addition, it will present a case study of a learning object to assist the skills development of spatial cognition and perception, which was developed using the proposed methodology. The developed learning object also introduces the Leap Motion®, a motion sensing technology for human-computer interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategies of Adult Gossip How do adults gossip? To answer this question this paper analyzes video data from teacher-administrator meetings collected as part of a larger, two year ethnographic study of an urban elementary school (Hallett 2003). Using this data, we fill three gaps in the literature: (1) we direct attention to the form of gossip and its relation to its content, (2) we focus on adults as compared to adolescents, and (3) we do so by analyzing recordings of naturally occurring gossip episodes. By focusing on how teachers in the meetings talk about non-present others, we find that adult gossip is more complex than its adolescent counterpart (Eder and Enke 1991). Despite this complexity, we identify two broad strategies used by adults in gossip episodes: indirectness and avoidance. We also identify different modes of interaction through which these strategies are accomplished, and we discuss how these strategies alter gossip and conversational outcomes. We argue that understanding the form of adult gossip provides a richer understanding of its content: the strategies used by adults in gossip episodes both reflect and constitute the micro-politics of a social order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]