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Presents observations on the conference papers on cultural systems and organizational processes in the U.S. Basis for descriptive precision; Identification of the most basic empirical questions regarding culture; Distinct formalization of social systems.

Civic science (involving citizens as researchers) expands opportunities for learning among citizens, scientists, and managers. Citizens have knowledge that often is inaccessible using traditional research methods. How we think about places - be they communities, forests, or a forest site - frames and often limits what we can discover. This is especially true when we are interested in learning about the relations between people and places that are important to them. Limiting ourselves to traditional research methods results in incomplete knowledge and limited understanding. This paper reports on a study that used nontraditional research methods to actively involve citizens in a community assessment process. The paper (1) demonstrates that researchers can gain a more complete understanding of social systems using nontraditional methods; (2) illustrates how people can reconnect with their community and gain a new understanding of themselves and others through engagement in a self assessment process; and (3) describes one example of civic science used in community assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the benefits of a community of practice (CoP) approach to graduate education in engineering and examines guidelines for implementation. Community of practice theory and applications to practice are presented. Journal clubs, groups of faculty and students who meet regularly to discuss literature, are identified as one specific tool to improve engineering graduate education by building a community. Although the benefits of a journal club are implicit, few empirical studies validate these claims or tie them to theory. Therefore, we undertook an observational study of a long-standing journal club at a large university in the eastern USA. The findings demonstrate that principles of community found in the theory are present in the journal club. Thick description of specific interactions further defines the benefits of (1) knowledge accumulation, (2) problem solving and creativity, and (3) collaboration and peer-learning. Additionally, specific guidelines are given for the practical implementation of CoPs in engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia we have become preoccupied with the potential adverse impact of our ageing population on our health and social systems. The projected cost of having increasing proportions of our population in the over 70s, retired, chronically ill category of the demographic profile is emerging as a major challenge for governments and private insurers: so much so in fact that the government is now urging older people to stay at work longer. In America, new approaches to the management and self-management of chronic diseases have been invoked to encourage and support older people to improve their quality of life and reduce their recourse to and dependence upon health care technologies, clinical interventions and health care management systems. Unless this is achieved, it is argued, the cost of looking after this emerging ‘bubble’ of elderly people will become increasingly unsustainable as fewer and fewer (proportionately) younger people work to pay the taxes that support ageing, retired, sick and dependent populations. This paper argues that we are at real risk of having our economic wealth and productivity impeded and truncated by the financial burden of looking after high demand and high cost dependants at the aged end of the social demographic. This paper offers an alternative view of our ageing population, as well as highlighting some of the assets we have in our elderly populations, and providing suggestions as to an alternative view of the phenomenon of ageing that incorporates elements such as flexible working arrangements and the application of new, enabling technologies. This approach to our ageing population dilemma is predicated on a concept of lifelong learning and social participation along with better preventive and early intervention systems of health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws upon Richard M. Goodwin Archive papers at Siena University to examine Goodwin's early philosophical formation at Harvard in the years 1932 to 1934 and the influence then exerted upon his ideas by Alfred N. Whitehead, and through him, by the Harvard philosophical and scientific community. It is shown how this early philosophical formation bears a close relation with Goodwin's lifelong interest in the causes and effects of novelty generation in social systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an academic, I grapple with the role of private foundations in higher education; on the one hand, as a critical scholar-activist committed to radical social and economic change, and on the other hand, as a participant in foundation-funded academic projects. I recognize the contradictory position I occupy within an institution that has historically served the status quo. In this paper I attempt to deal with the question of whether foundation funds, historically made possible by our unjust social system, have the capacity to contribute to the systemic social and economic changes I - alongside like-minded colleagues - strive to realize. Specifically, I look at the role of foundations in American higher education for the purpose of agitating hegemonic ideas and challenging us to ask difficult questions about our day-to-day practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the tendency to convert to Islam is common among African American male inmates, Islamic conversion among African American female inmates does not commonly occur. Educated estimates and telephone interviews with chaplains of major female correctional institutions in Florida and Alabama, indicate that Islamic conversion among African American female inmates is extremely low. Why is there such a stark contrast between the religious practice of incarcerated African American men and women? This research takes a social context approach to explore several reasons why African American women do not convert to Islam to the same degree as African American men while incarcerated. The paper gains insight into this disparity through considering several factors: (1) Lack of familiarity/comfort; (2) Social support and church involvement; (3) Female inmate social system; and (4) Islamic prison ministry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The American carpet industry experienced a revolution in the 1950s. At the beginning of that decade, carpets and rugs produced by American companies were almost exclusively woven; by 1960 a new process, tufting, dominated the marketplace. In 1950 the total volume of carpet shipments totalled about 100 million square yards. By 1963, manufacturers shipped more than 250 million square yards of carpeting, more than 80% of it tufted. The growth and southernization of the carpet industry transformed life and labor in the small communities of northwest Georgia-towns like Dalton, Chatsworth, Calhoun, and others. Textile workers in the post-World War II period have received relatively little scholarly attention. Robert Zieger noted in 1994 that "until the 1980s, southern textile workers were the neglected stepchildren of social and labor historiography." This scholarly neglect was corrected during the 1980s as "an outpouring of vigorous scholarly literature" addressed the problems of southern textile labor. The focus of almost all these new analyses was the mill village and its attendant cultural baggage, generally embodied in the term "paternalism."

In the mid-2000s, the United States Army was embroiled in counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan that required deeper understanding of local social systems. The Army turned to systems thinking and design thinking to model and understand the world, define problems, and develop approaches to strategic and operational challenges. However, the Army's approach as expressed in publications and doctrine encourages the development of complicated, unsupported, and unfalsifiable hypotheses. The risk is that the Army will act on incorrect assumptions and develop plans that are fragile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article consists of three parts. In the first part we describe a short history of cybernetics and an effort, which has been undertaken by a group of scientists in the United States and Europe in recent years, to expand the conception of science so that it more successfully encompasses the social sciences. The intent is to aid communication among disciplines and improve our ability to manage social systems. The second part of the article presents an effort in Russia to develop reflexivity theory into a general theory of purposeful, self-developing systems, thus improving our understanding and management of social systems. Understanding Western and Eastern approaches to cybernetics can be difficult because of the very different histories and intellectual traditions of cybernetics in the United States and Russia. The article ends with a comparison of the two approaches to cybernetics, comparing their features side by side. The differences suggest a great potential for ideas from Russian and Western scientists to enrich the further development of cybernetics and science in East and West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everyday life is where the results of the social, economic and political systems in which we live are manifest and directly experienced—where the societal shapes and is shaped by the individual. The everyday exploitation, oppression and discontent created by the prevailing system meet many forms of progressive, system-challenging resistance. Most can be absorbed from above by the system, using both formal repression and a pervasive acquiescence-inducing manipulation of everyday life. The present economic crisis and the failure of traditional liberal responses open a crack in the efficacy of this manipulation through which new and dangerous resistance might emerge. One defensive response of the system to that danger is displacement: turning that resistance into neo-conservative, right-wing 'family values'-oriented actions that counter system challenges from below. The tea parties in the USA are a prime example. The displacement operates both at the societal and ideological level and at the individual everyday and psychological level. If the displacement could be countered and redirected towards its actual causes, it might strengthen rather than conflict with progressive resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, many indicators of civic involvement in the United States have declined. The decline is political engagement has been especially pronounced, although signs of renewed interest evident in the 2006 elections may represent a reversal of long-established trends. Trust in government and most major social institutions remains low, although young adults seem somewhat more favorably disposed than others to the public sector. While volunteering is up, charitable contributions have fallen as a percentage of GDP. Despite large increases in formal education, measures of political knowledge have remained flat for decades. Renewed attention to civic education may help moderate some of these adverse developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the concept of the New Atlanticism from 1989, when it was proposed by then Secretary of State James Baker, to the present, when a number of European and American leaders are calling for the creation of a transatlantic political institution that would be empowered to address global problems ranging from humanitarian crises to socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental concerns. Because the objectives of the New Atlanticism transcend the overarching objective of security that NATO was established to acheive, they require a new institution formed specifically to ameliorate or resolve a number of interrelated problems manifest in the world. In its advocacy of a New Atlanticism, this article raises the fundamental question designed to determine whether a new Atlantic Partnership will be formed: Is Europe willing and able to act on the knowledge that it is in its own interests to help the United States resolve crises in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, where the national interests of the United States are at stake? In other words, will Europe become America's indispensable partner? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For most developed countries, the study of the long-term trend of government size has become a major issue. This study employs advanced time-series techniques to investigate the long-run properties of the government size series for the US. By applying the persistence measures developed by Campbell and Mankiw (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 102, 857-80, 1987) and Cochrane (Journal of Political Economy, 96, 893-920, 1988), this study finds big long-term persistence in government size at all levels of the US government. The finding, indeed, explains the fact that the US has gradually taken steps to control the size of government in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine and compare two distinct forms of social deviance which have emerged in two western societies. The United States has been the home of the street gang while Great Britain since World War II has produced several waves of national subculture. We examine the history, geography, educational experience, structure and implicit ideologies of gangs and subcultures in relation to their host countries. United States gangs sprang historically from ethnic ghettos where they provided an opportunity network from recently arrived immigrants. They continue to embody many traditional mainstream values (consumerism, patriotism, elitism and competitive success) recreating them in a distorted form on the street. British subcultures emerged as a response to a class-based society and represent a ritual resistance to the status quo, forcefully rejecting mainstream values. We argue that the form which social deviance takes depends intimately upon the society which gives rise to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines former U.S. senator Horace Mann's views on education as the balance wheel of social machinery. Respect for the power of speech; Potential of education for improving society economically and morally; Mann's use of figurative and literal analogies; Development of a plea for better teacher training by a series of comparisons to other professions.