Encounters with Authority: Tactics and negotiations at the periphery of participatory platforms

Digital participatory platforms like Wikipedia are often celebrated as projects that allow anyone to contribute. Any user can sign up and start contributing immediately. Similarly, projects that engage volunteers in the production of scientific knowledge create easy points of entry to make contributions. These low barriers to entry are a hallmark feature in digital participatory labor, limiting the number of hoops a new volunteer has to jump through before they can feel like they are making a difference. Such low barriers to participation at the periphery, or edges of participatory platforms, have presented a problem for organizational scholars as they wonder how such projects can achieve consistent results when opportunities to train and socialize newcomers are constrained by a need for low barriers. As a result, scholarship has focused on answering the question of newcomer learning and socialization by examining how newcomers make sense of their new digital workspaces rather than focus on how institutional constraints are imposed. In this research, I draw on a growing body of scholarship that pushes against the perception of openness and low barriers on digital participatory platforms to unpack the constraints on participation that newcomers confront and, in particular, to show how such constraints resemble characteristics of institutionalized newcomer onboarding tactics. To approach this question, I conducted 18 months of participant observation and conducted 36 interviews with experts, newcomers, and project leaders from the crowdsourced citizen science platform Planet Hunters and the peer produced encyclopedia, Wikipedia. I analyzed my data using a grounded theory research design that is sensitized using the theoretical technology of Estrid Sørensen’s Forms of Presence as a way to pay attention to the sociomaterial configurations of newcomer practice, attending to the actors (both human and nonhuman) that play a part in the constraints and affordances of newcomer participation. By drawing on Sørensen’s Forms of Presence, the analytical focus on the newcomer experience shifts from looking at either top-down institutional tactics of organizations or bottom-up individual tactics of newcomers to thinking about the characteristics of relationships newcomers have with other members and platform features and the effects of these relationships as they relate to different opportunities for learning and participation. Focusing on the different ways that learning and participation are made available affords the exploration of how the authority of existing practices in particular settings are imposed on learners despite the presence of low barriers to participation. By paying attention to the sociomaterial configuration of newcomer participation, my findings unpack the tactics that newcomers encounter at the periphery, or edges of participatory platforms, as well as how they find their work being included or excluded from the platform. I use the findings to develop a taxonomy of encounters that describes how newcomers can participate in a self-guided experience as the existing literature describes, but also experience moments of guided and targeted encounters. What this taxonomy of encounters suggests is that the periphery of participatory platforms can be at once an open space for exploration and experimentation but also a well-managed space where, despite low barriers to initial participation, a newcomer must negotiate what I describe as the guardrails of participation that define the constraints and affordances that shape their experience

Transforming Perception: Black Men and Boys

While there has been progress in the U.S. in terms of racial attitudes and opportunities, black men and boys continue to face challenges. This report presents original research, along with current studies in social psychology and neuroscience, offering an empirically grounded analysis of how emotions and fears about race shape behaviors and biases

Expanding Learning, Enriching Learning: Portraits of Five Programs

These "Stories From the Field" describe five Wallace-funded programs working to expand learning and enrichment for disadvantaged children, so they can benefit from the types of opportunities their wealthier counterparts have access to, from homework help to swimming classes. The report details each program's approach, successes and challenges, offering a well-rounded picture of the effort nationally to expand learning opportunities for low-income children -- and the work that remains

What is Probable Cause, and Why Should We Care?: The Costs, Benefits, and Meaning of Individualized Suspicion

Taslitz defines probable cause as having four components: one quantitative, one qualitative, one temporal, and one moral. He focuses on the last of these components. Individualized suspicion, the US Supreme Court has suggested, is perhaps the most important of the four components of probable cause. That is a position with which he heartily agree. The other three components each play only a supporting role. But individualized suspicion is the beating heart that gives probable cause its vitality

Theorizing Digital Journalism: The Limits of Linearity and the Rise of Relationships

For more than 50 years, our understanding of journalism drew on theories that emerged in an environment in which the components of a mediated message could be isolated well enough to measure and track. Yet today we live in a media world that is simultaneously immersive and interconnected, instantaneous and iterative, and individualized to an extent unimaginable a generation ago. In this environment, theories positing ‘media effects’ are considerably less practical or meaningful than they once were, a topic explored in the first half of this chapter. Some of the ways that contemporary journalism scholars are actively recontextualizing the field are then outlined, followed by consideration of the proposition that our best hope for understanding the “effects” of digital journalism may be to focus on the diversity of relationships it engenders. Looking at connections and interactions can profitably guide our study of this fluid, holistic media world

Promoting the Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE) [CFDA 84.418P]

Over the past two decades, New York State (NYS) has been actively and collaboratively engaged in systems change across three primary domains: 1) to develop a comprehensive employment system to reduce barriers to work and improve employment outcomes of individuals with disabilities; 2) to enhance the post-school adult outcomes of youth with disabilities, by collaboratively advancing evidence-based secondary transition practices at the regional, school district and individual student levels; and, 3) to support the return-to-work efforts of individuals with disabilities who receive Social Security Administration (SSA) disability benefits under the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). These domains have been supported by numerous federal and state initiatives including: the US Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS)-sponsored Transition Systems Change grant; the SSA-sponsored State Partnership Initiative (NYWORKS); two Youth Transition Demonstrations (YTD); the Benefits Offset National Demonstration (BOND); and, three cycles of funding for the National Work Incentives Support Center (WISC); the US Department of Labor (DOL)-sponsored Work Incentive Grant, Disability Program Navigator Initiative, and Disability Employment Initiative; three rounds of funding from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) for Medicaid Infrastructure Grants (MIG, NY Makes Work Pay); the NYS Education Department (NYSED) sponsored Model Transition Program (MTP); and three multi-year cycles of the statewide Transition Coordination Site network. Most recently, NYS has sponsored the Statewide Transition Services Professional Development Support Center (PDSC); the NYS Developmental Disability Planning Council (DDPC)-sponsored Transition Technical Assistance Support Program (T-TASP), NYS Work Incentives Support Center (NYS WISC), and NYS Partners in Policy Making (PIP); the NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH)-sponsored Career Development Initiative; and others. The growing statewide and gubernatorial emphasis on employment for New Yorkers with disabilities developed over the past two decades stemming from these initiatives, supported by service innovations and shared vision across state agencies and employment stakeholders, establishes a strong foundation for implementing and sustaining a research demonstration to “Promote the Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income” (PROMISE). The NYS PROMISE will build upon NYS’ past successes and significantly support NYS in removing systems, policy and practice barriers for transition-age youth who receive SSI and their families. The NYS OMH through the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene (RFMH), with their management partners the New York Employment Support System (NYESS) Statewide Coordinating Council (SCC) and Cornell University Employment and Disability Institute, along with the proposed research demonstration site community, join the NYS Governor’s Office in designing and implementing a series of statewide strategic service interventions to support the transition and employment preparation of youth ages 14-16 who receive SSI

A Comparative Analysis of Applied Behavior Analysis and the Montessori Method

The Montessori method is a multi-sensory curriculum design based on Dr. Maria Montessori’s observations of the positive outcomes a multi-sensory educational approach had when working with children with disabilities; however, there is little empirical data to support the outcomes of using the Montessori method to teach children with disabilities. Despite the limited amount of quantitative research on the Montessori method and early childhood special education, studies suggest Montessori educators are open to professional development on working with children with disabilities and are willing to implement other methods to provide support for those children while still maintaining the integrity of the Montessori philosophy (Danner & Fowler, 2015; Long, Ferranti, & Westerman, 2022). Applied Behavior Analysis is a scientific approach to understanding behavior and serves as part of the foundation for developmentally appropriate practice in special education behavioral interventions; however, despite the evidence-based practices in ABA there are misconceptions about this approach among those in the Montessori community that impact its accessibility and use as an evidence-based practice to instruct children with disabilities in Montessori early childhood classrooms. This research examines the Behavior Analyst Certification Board’s BCBA Task List, the Association of Montessori International\u27s position statement on the Montessori method’s core components, and the Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education’s position statement on core components of Montessori practice to identify similarities in practice between ABA and the Montessori method. Identifying similarities in practice could serve as a potential foundation for further investigation on (a.) the efficacy of implementing ABA interventions in a Montessori early childhood setting, and (b.) the efficacy of incorporating elements of a Montessori prepared environment into ABA clinical settings and self-contained special education classrooms

Lloyd A. Fry Foundation - 2003 Annual Report

Contains mission statement, board chair's and executive director's messages, program information, grantee profiles, grants list, financial statements, grant guidelines, and lists of board members and staff

The Faculty Notebook, April 2020

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost

Transforming the Educational Experience of Young Men of Color

The first of a four-volume series on the role of school counseling in the education of young men of color, this report includes short essays, student-produced artwork, and an interview on the topic