Exploring neoliberal social-reproduction: a working theoretical framework

This article proposes a working theoretical framework to explain and explore processes of neoliberal social reproduction. I focus on the interplay between neoliberal political-economic discourses and practices, contemporary Western media-culture, and individual agency. I make the case that research concerned with the hegemony of neoliberalism and its effects on culture and subjectivity needs to take an interdisciplinary approach that rejects the longstanding structure and agency dichotomy. To do so, I draw on a diverse set of socio-culture theoretical traditions, as well as concepts and arguments from academics not typically associated with social reproduction work. The article concludes by laying out what such an approach might look like

Modelling opinion misperception and the emergence of silence in online social system

In the last decades an increasing deal of research has investigated the phenomenon of opinion misperception in human communities and, more recently, in social media. Opinion misperception is the wrong evaluation by community's members of the real distribution of opinions or beliefs about a given topic. In this work we explore the mechanisms giving rise to opinion misperception in social media groups, which are larger than physical ones and have peculiar topological features. By means of numerical simulations, we suggest that the structure of connections of such communities plays indeed a role in distorting the perception of the agents about others' beliefs, but it is essentially an indirect effect. Moreover, we show that the main ingredient that generates the misperception is a spiral of silence induced by few, well connected and charismatic agents, which rapidly drives the majority of individuals to stay silent without disclosing their true belief, leading minoritarian opinions to appear more widespread throughout the community.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. To be submitted soo

An examination of the relationships between ego development, Dabrowski\u27s theory of positive disintegration, and the behavioral characteristics of gifted adolescents

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between ego development, Dabrowski\u27s theory of positive disintegration (TPD), and the social, emotional, and behavioral characteristics of gifted adolescents. Literature exploring the experiences of gifted individuals has often focused on asynchronous development, particularly during childhood and adolescence. Also discussed in the literature concerning gifted students are the unique social, emotional, and behavioral characteristics innate to the gifted population. However, there is still an unclear picture concerning the implications of this work as related to the specific counseling needs of gifted students, and little empirical support is provided. This study seeks to build, through a developmental lens, a more comprehensive base from which to conceptualize counseling and teaching approaches with gifted students. One hundred students at Governor\u27s Schools in central and eastern Virginia were contacted for participation in this study. A valid sample of 70 students, well distributed across grade and gender, was obtained. The findings indicated that the ego levels of gifted students, as measured by the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT), were slightly higher than those of typical adolescents. Empirical evidence of the level of development related to Dabrowski\u27s TPD for gifted adolescents was provided, with the majority of respondents (70%) falling within Dabrowski\u27s Level II - Unilevel Disintegration, stage. Results also indicated that gifted students at Governor\u27s Schools were relatively well adjusted, as measured by the Clinical Assessment of Behavior (CAB), and that the behaviors exhibited by gifted adolescents were normally distributed. While a slight positive correlation was found between ego development and level of development as related to Dabrowski\u27s TPD, significance was not achieved. Relationships between ego development and degree of internalizing and externalizing behaviors exhibited were dependent upon a number of different factors, including gender and school attending. The study results are interpreted as indicating that while ego development and Dabrowski\u27s TPD may share similarities, they are different constructs and further investigation is needed to best utilize these theories in designing appropriate and effective counseling and teaching intervention strategies for working with gifted adolescents. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are presented

Conceptual Foundation for Human Resource Accounting

With the current strain on the world's material resources and the increase in their cost, a constant pressure is building to increase the productivity of human resources. Adding, to the strain is the increasing demand of society for a higher quality of life through more meaningful work. Responding to both of these pressures requires decisions that simultaneously meet the goals of organizations and the needs and values of employees. To make the kind of decisions demanded by this dual priority of human effectiveness and improved quality of life, information is needed to: 1. Improve understanding of the nature and scope of human resource expenditures; 2. Improve selection, retention, and motivation of employees; 3. Allocate money spent on human resources; 4. Overhaul the approach to communication among managers, between managers and other employees, and between the organization as a whole and outside parties; 5. Expand the scope of internal and external reports to deal with social as well as financial accomplishments. The ultimate objective of this research is to develop a human resource model and a heuristic for developing empirical support which can be useful to businessmen seeking to increase human effectiveness and improve the quality of life. The model merges several previously unrelated theories dealing with human resources and in the process contributes some new concepts

The relationship between organisational culture, values and need systems.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban Westville, 1998.The purpose of this study was to determine the Personal Values, Perceptions of Culture and Achievement Motivation levels of employees in an organisation. Employees were classified according to differences in job grade, race and gender. The influence of Length of Service, Educational Level and Age as biographical variables was also considered. Respondents were drawn from an organisation which provides a service at harbour terminals. Services include loading and off-loading ships and storing freight and bulk cargo. The co-operation of all managers employed in the organisation, classified into f lower, middle and senior categories, was solicited through the offices of the Human Resources Executive. Sets of questionnaires were distributed to the population of 430 managers in the organisation. From the returns, 169 usable sets of questionnaires were processed. Personal Values and Perceptions of Culture were assessed using instruments based on Graves' (1970) "Open System Theory of Values", while Achievement Motivation was measured using the Achievement Motivation Questionnaire (PMV). Analysis of the data was done descriptively as well as by using Pearson's product moment correlations, t-Tests and analysis of variances. Findings indicate there are significant relationships between some factors on the Personal Values Questionnaire and those on the Perceptions of CuIture Questionnaire. Absolutistic/Conformist Personal Values were held most strongly whilst Egoistic values were ranked lowest. The most strongly held perception was the organisation had a Passive Hierarchy culture and the weakest was that it had an Empire culture. Overall Achievement Motivation was at the average level for all managers. There are significant differences in the Personal Values, Perceptions of Culture and Achievement Motivation levels of managers classified by race and job grade. While Achievement Motivation levels were influenced by gender, Personal Values and Perceptions of Culture were not. Age appears to have an influence on Personal Values but not on Perceptions of CuIture and Achievement Motivation. Significant differences were found in Personal Values and Achievement Motivation levels but not in Perceptions of Culture among managers with varying lengths of service. Education level seems to influence managers' Personal Values and Achievement Motivation levels but not their Perceptions of Culture. Construct validity coefficients for the Personal Values and Perceptions of Culture Questionnaires were established and existing coefficients for the Achievement Motivation Questionnaire were analysed. Results of the current study must be regarded as tentative due to limitations in the sampling procedure, the possibility of changes in the meaning of the Achievement Motivation construct as measured on the PMV, as well as shifts in the meanings of the factors on the Personal Values and Perceptions of Culture Questionnaires (all three instruments were designed in the early 1980's). These . movements in. meanings could render existing reliability and validity coeffients suspect

Not Quite Grown Up: The Difficulty of Applying an Adult Education Model to Legal Externs

Using andragogical theory developed by Malcolm Knowles as a foundation as well as a counterpoint, this article presents a new framework for teaching clinic students. Frustrated by tensions they encountered in teaching students whom they expected to have all the qualities of “adult learners,” the authors developed a new theory that blends humanistic as well as developmental theory. The article describes this new theory and evaluates why it works in clinical teaching

Online and Offline Dynamic Influence Maximization Games Over Social Networks

In this work, we consider dynamic influence maximization games over social networks with multiple players (influencers). The goal of each influencer is to maximize their own reward subject to their limited total budget rate constraints. Thus, influencers need to carefully design their investment policies considering individuals' opinion dynamics and other influencers' investment strategies, leading to a dynamic game problem. We first consider the case of a single influencer who wants to maximize its utility subject to a total budget rate constraint. We study both offline and online versions of the problem where the opinion dynamics are either known or not known a priori. In the singe-influencer case, we propose an online no-regret algorithm, meaning that as the number of campaign opportunities grows, the average utilities obtained by the offline and online solutions converge. Then, we consider the game formulation with multiple influencers in offline and online settings. For the offline setting, we show that the dynamic game admits a unique Nash equilibrium policy and provide a method to compute it. For the online setting and with two influencers, we show that if each influencer applies the same no-regret online algorithm proposed for the single-influencer maximization problem, they will converge to the set of $\epsilon$-Nash equilibrium policies where $\epsilon=O(\frac{1}{\sqrt{K}})$ scales in average inversely with the number of campaign times $K$ considering the average utilities of the influencers. Moreover, we extend this result to any finite number of influencers under more strict requirements on the information structure. Finally, we provide numerical analysis to validate our results under various settings.Comment: This work has been submitted to IEEE for possible publicatio