Is the Corporate Elite Fractured, or is there Continuing Corporate Dominance? Two Contrasting Views

This article compares two recent analyses of continuity and change in the American power structure since 1900, with a main focus on the years after World War II. The first analysis asserts that the “corporate elite” has fractured and fragmented in recent decades and no longer has the unity to have a collective impact on public policy. The second analysis claims that corporate leaders remain united, albeit with moderate-conservative and ultra-conservative differences on several issues, and continue to have a dominant collective impact on public policies that involve their major goals. After comparing the two perspectives on key issues from 1900 to 1945, the article analyzes the fractured-elite theory’s three claims about the postwar era: an activist government constrained the corporate elite, the union movement negotiated a capital-labor accord; and bank boards created policy cohesion among corporations. Finally, it compares the two perspectives on tax issues, health-care policies, and trade expansion between 1990 and 2010

Thoroughly modern Mannheim and the postmodern Weltanschauung.

There are a number of features of Mannheim’s method for the interpretation of weltanschauung that laid the foundations for his later sociology of knowledge and that could be considered as prefiguring the methodological principles of a postmodern world-view. Like postmodernists he stresses the significance of culture, and addresses the role of ideas and meaning in the form of society. His tripartite theory of meaning moves away from a determination of meaning by authorial intentions and towards the indeterminacy of documentary meaning. His theory of ‘relationism’ follows a similar pattern to the postmodernist concept of ‘difference’ and ultimately relies on immanent criteria of validity. Despite these continuities with postmodern perspectives I argue that Mannheim cannot be turned into a postmodernist because he seeks a foundation for meaning and its interpretation in historicism. Moreover, while his method analyses material objects and social subjects in the same way, he nonetheless maintains an ontological distinction between objects and subjects that distinguishes his approach from the hyperrealist perspective of postmodernism. If Mannheim cannot be claimed as a postmodernist before its time, his approach to analysing world-views reveals the modernist pretensions of theories that describe a postmodern weltanschauung as if the current epoch could be characterised in a unitary and coherent way

Controlling the influence of stereotypes on one’s thoughts (Preprint title: Controlling implicit bias: Insights from a public health perspective)

Research on reducing or controlling implicit bias has been characterized by a tension between the two goals of reducing lingering intergroup disparities and gaining insight into human cognition. The tension between these two goals has created two distinct research traditions, each of which is characterized by different research questions, methods, and ultimate goals. We argue that the divisions between these research traditions are more apparent than real and that the two research traditions could be synergistic. We attempt to integrate the two traditions by arguing that implicit bias, and the disparities it is presumed to cause, is a public health problem. Based on this perspective, we identify shortcomings in our current knowledge of controlling implicit bias and provide a set of recommendations for future research

Buffalo Niagara - How Are We Really Doing

There has been a lot of good news lately in Buffalo: Harbor Center and Canalside, RiverBend and Solar City, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus expansion, new hotels and restaurants, even an uptick in employment and population. But most of this good news is economic, and there is much more to our region than just economic activity. These positive developments have prompted reactions such as “rebirth” and “resurgence.” But perspectives on Buffalo vary widely, depending in part on how long you have lived here and where you live. People who came of age or moved here in the 1970s experienced the rock bottom in Buffalo’s trajectory. From that perspective everything looks like up. But for those of us who were here in the 1950s, during Buffalo’s heyday, well, we are not back to that yet–back to the times when there were pedestrians crowding the streets of downtown Buffalo and stores open every night of the week on every block. And for people living in many neighborhoods, concentrated poverty and blight have been getting worse in recent years, not better, and jobs are still hard to find. So, Buffalo Niagara, how are we really doing

Carsey Perspectives: Children in United States, Both White and Black, Are Growing Up in Dramatically Smaller Families

In this perspectives brief, author Tony Fahey presents novel findings on how much smaller family sizes are among children in the United States today, particularly African American children, than they were fifty years ago. Using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series from the U.S. Census and the Current Population Survey, he reports that the average African American child was one of 6.53 siblings in 1960 and today is one of 3.18. Because smaller families may enable parents to devote more resources to each child, these trends raise the so-far unrecognized possibility that the fall in children’s family size, especially among the less well-off, may have been a positive and egalitarian transformation in their lives. The trend toward smaller families potentially offsets some of the negative effects on children of the transition from two-parent families to single-parent families. The loss of family resources caused by the absence of one parent is paired with a smaller number of siblings who need support. To better understand how family change has affected children’s well-being, the hidden story of children’s family size and how it relates to other aspects of children\u27s changing family circumstances needs to be recognized and explore

Pit latrines and their impacts on groundwater quality: a systematic review.

BackgroundPit latrines are one of the most common human excreta disposal systems in low-income countries, and their use is on the rise as countries aim to meet the sanitation-related target of the Millennium Development Goals. There is concern, however, that discharges of chemical and microbial contaminants from pit latrines to groundwater may negatively affect human health.ObjectivesOur goals were to a) calculate global pit latrine coverage, b) systematically review empirical studies of the impacts of pit latrines on groundwater quality, c) evaluate latrine siting standards, and d) identify knowledge gaps regarding the potential for and consequences of groundwater contamination by latrines.MethodsWe used existing survey and population data to calculate global pit latrine coverage. We reviewed the scientific literature on the occurrence of contaminants originating from pit latrines and considered the factors affecting transport of these contaminants. Data were extracted from peer-reviewed articles, books, and reports identified using Web of ScienceSM, PubMed, Google, and document reference lists.DiscussionWe estimated that approximately 1.77 billion people use pit latrines as their primary means of sanitation. Studies of pit latrines and groundwater are limited and have generally focused on only a few indicator contaminants. Although groundwater contamination is frequently observed downstream of latrines, contaminant transport distances, recommendations based on empirical studies, and siting guidelines are variable and not well aligned with one another.ConclusionsIn order to improve environmental and human health, future research should examine a larger set of contextual variables, improve measurement approaches, and develop better criteria for siting pit latrines

Roll a Hard Six: Losing Your Noodle in Raymond Federman’s Double or Nothing

Raymond Federman’s Double or Nothing is a convoluted representation of the mentallyunstable mind existing as a series of six characters that are at once separate and conjoined: the horrors and traumatic events of the narrative past dismantle the unified subject into a series of schizophrenic sub-personalities, parts of the destabilized Author’s psyche, existing as separate fragments that eventually collide. Further, the imaginary room emerges as the Fifth Person, promising, but failing, to be a central stabilizer of the other fractured selves. Finally, the design of the text echoes the patterns of the traumatized mind, illustrating the inability of a narrative to construct a stable, unified subject and demonstrating the inadequacy of traditional narrative forms. The text, with its obliterations, cropped phrases, and pictorial manifestations, becomes the Sixth Person. However, in the end, the text shows that the past cannot be erased, explained, or reversed; neither can the experimental nature of the novel reach beyond the traumatized, schizoid subject to represent the horrors of the past that caused the Author’s psychotic breach. Federman has rolled a hard six that will repeatedly fragment and unite, just as the traumatic past continues to repeat itself as one that defies representation

'They're battle scars, I wear them well': A phenomenological exploration of young women's experiences of building resilience following adversity in adolescence

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journal of Youth Studies, 13(3), 273 - 290, 2010 [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13676260903520886.This phenomenological study explored young women's accounts of building resilience following chains of adverse life experiences in adolescence. Six participants were interviewed, aged 20–25 years. Most had, or were receiving, a university education. They described their recovery from adversity as starting with certain pivotal moments, followed by both short-term and longer-term strategies. Short-term strategies tended to offer respite from distress and emotional comfort, increased clarity about their experiences and social affirmation. Recovery involved gaining new perspectives on their adverse situation and recovering a positive self-image through three longer-term strategies. These involved making visible progress in their education, rebuilding relationships with family and friends, and participating in the ‘normalizing’ activities and developmental projects of adolescence. Participants believed that they were stronger and more compassionate although positive achievements co-existed with some regrets. Most perceived the adversity as catalyzing personal growth. These accounts of resilience revealed the complex psychosocial processes and resources available to some adolescents

‘The Oceans are Rising and So Are We’: exploring utopian discourses in the school strike for climate movement

This article offers some provisional analyses of the discourses presented by participants in the School Strike for Climate movement, which (since it began in 2018) has been organised variously under the banners Fridays for Future, Youth for Climate and School Strike 4 Climate.1 This paper contends that the movement goes beyond just presenting a vision of an inescapable future, or a simple request for adults to listen to science.2 Instead, their vision is constructive of a better world, as participants challenge the failures of politicians and arguably the adult public, demanding to play an active role in policymaking when it comes to the climate crisis. This movement is constructed upon a critical utopian discourse, expressed through complex temporalities, which define the role of resistance as anticipation. This article also considers how the anxiety in the School Strike movement creates a militant optimism, and how its narratives are demonstrative of an open-ended utopian process