Peer Harassment: A Weapon in the Struggle for Popularity and Normative Hegemony in American Secondary Schools

This paper addresses two of secondary education’s most serious problems—peer abuse of weaker socially unskilled students and a peer culture that in most schools discourages many students from trying to be all that they can be academically. We have documented the two problems by reviewing ethnographies of secondary schools, by interviewing students in eight suburban high schools and by analyzing data from questionnaires completed by nearly 100,000 students at Educational Excellence Alliance schools. Grounded in these observations, we built a simple mathematical model of peer harassment and popularity and of the pressures for conformity that are created by the struggle for popularity and then tested it in data from the Educational Excellence Alliance. Students entering middle school learn its norms by trying to copy the traits and behaviors of students who are respected and by avoiding contact with those who are frequently harassed. Peer norms are enforced by encouraging ‘wannabes,’ aspirants for admission to popular crowds, to harass those who visibly violate them. Consequently, one can infer the norms by noting who gets harassed and who doesn’t. Traits that in EEA data led to higher risks of being bullied and harassed were: being in a special education, being in gifted programs, taking accelerated courses in middle school, tutoring other students, enjoying school assignments, taking a theatre course, not liking rap-hip hop music and liking instead musicals, heavy metal, country, or classical music. The relationship between harassment and academic effort was curvilinear; both the nerds and the slackers were harassed. To some degree these norms are, as Kenneth Arrow suggests, trying to internalize externalities. But why are music preferences such good predictors of harassment? Why are the student tutors victimized? We propose that norms also have a “We’re cool, Honor us” function of legitimating the high status that the leading crowds claim for themselves. As a result the traits and interests that members of leading crowds have in common tend to become normative for everyone. The norms that prevailed were: “Spend your time socializing, do not “study too hard.” Value classmates for their athletic prowess and their attractiveness, not their interest in history or their accomplishments in science.

An Economic Theory of Academic Engagement Norms: The Struggle for Popularity and Normative Hegemony in Secondary Schools

[Excerpt] Why and how do groups create norms? Kenneth Arrow proposed that “norms of social behavior, including ethical and moral codes, ….are reactions of society to compensate for market failure”. This internalize the real externalities explanation for norms is also standard among rational choice theorists in sociology. The situation becomes more complex when we recognize some actions create positive externalities for some individuals and negative externalities for others. Often this results in no norm being established. However, sometimes one segment of a social system has normative hegemony and enforces norms that enhance their power and prestige at the expense of other groups. Norms regarding caste in India, for example, were functional for Brahmins but humiliating for Harijans. Caste and status norms of this type will also be referred to as “Honor us; Not them” norms. Such norms arise when one group is much more powerful (has greater ability to enforce their preferred social norm) than other groups and it imposes its will on others. An additional requirement is that the people who oppose the norm established by the dominant group must be unable or unwilling to leave the social system in which the norm operates

A Framework for Analyzing Attorney Liability Under Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5

[Excerpt] “Lawyers who make their living representing securities issuers face a myriad of challenges. Securities lawyers must navigate and master an intricate body of statutory, regulatory, and case law at both the state and the federal level and ensure that their clients comply with the law. The compliance requirement, however, is not limited to the issuer clients. Defrauded investors will often seek recovery of their losses from both the issuer of the failed investment securities and from the lawyers who represent the issuer, which only exacerbates the complexity of the securities lawyer’s work. These securities fraud actions against lawyers raise serious questions about the proper scope of liability under the federal securities laws. Just as lawyers strive for clarity, consistency, and predictability in advising their clients on securities compliance issues, lawyers seek the same level of precision regarding their own compliance. … The Court has never directly addressed the issue of attorney liability under section 10(b) of the 34 Act and Rule 10b-5. However, the Court’s recent pronouncements on primary liability of secondary actors under Rule 10b-5 indicate that the standard for such liability is increasingly becoming one that attorneys acting in the traditional role of adviser and draftsperson to securities issuers will not satisfy. This development does not give lawyers unbridled freedom or authority to commit securities fraud without fear of sanction, nor does it undermine the 34 Act’s purpose of insuring fairness and honesty in the securities markets. On the contrary, protecting lawyers who lend their expertise to the issuers and sellers of securities is consistent with insuring such fairness and honesty. Moreover, existing rules and standards governing attorney conduct and the concomitant penalties for violation of those rules provide the appropriate level of regulation for lawyers, and this article does not suggest otherwise. The article argues only that section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 are inappropriate and, in most cases, inapposite means of redressing attorney misconduct in connection with a fraudulent securities transaction. Part II of this article will provide some background on section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 and will discuss how section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 have been applied in the area of liability of outside service providers such as lawyers and other secondary actors. In addition, part II will review the most recent developments of the law in this area and discuss how these developments provide an increased level of protection for securities lawyers. Part III of this article will examine how other areas of federal and state law have addressed the issue of attorney liability and suggest that the concepts can be applied to the section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 analysis. Part IV will briefly discuss the role of the securities lawyer and the influence of the market for legal services on the manner in which these lawyers sell their services to potential clients. The article will then argue that the potential liability of any person under section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 must be defined in terms of conduct and not in terms of the person’s role in the particular transaction giving rise to the claim. That framework will permit the securities lawyer to more effectively fulfill his or her role because the standard for attorney liability in a private action under section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 will be clearer.

Analyzing the security of an existing computer system

Most work concerning secure computer systems has dealt with the design, verification, and implementation of provably secure computer systems, or has explored ways of making existing computer systems more secure. The problem of locating security holes in existing systems has received considerably less attention; methods generally rely on thought experiments as a critical step in the procedure. The difficulty is that such experiments require that a large amount of information be available in a format that makes correlating the details of various programs straightforward. This paper describes a method of providing such a basis for the thought experiment by writing a special manual for parts of the operating system, system programs, and library subroutines

Proceedings of the Workshop on Government Oil Spill Modeling

Oil spill model users and modelers were brought together for the purpose of fostering joint communication and increasing understanding of mutual problems. The workshop concentrated on defining user needs, presentations on ongoing modeling programs, and discussions of supporting research for these modeling efforts. Specific user recommendations include the development of an oil spill model user library which identifies and describes available models. The development of models for the long-term fate and effect of spilled oil was examined

Translationally-invariant coupled-cluster method for finite systems

The translational invariant formulation of the coupled-cluster method is presented here at the complete SUB(2) level for a system of nucleons treated as bosons. The correlation amplitudes are solution of a non-linear coupled system of equations. These equations have been solved for light and medium systems, considering the central but still semi-realistic nucleon-nucleon S3 interaction.Comment: 16 pages, 2 Postscript figures, to be published in Nucl. Phys.

Unambiguous determination of gravitational waveforms from binary black hole mergers

Gravitational radiation is properly defined only at future null infinity (\scri), but in practice it is estimated from data calculated at a finite radius. We have used characteristic extraction to calculate gravitational radiation at \scri for the inspiral and merger of two equal mass non-spinning black holes. Thus we have determined the first unambiguous merger waveforms for this problem. The implementation is general purpose, and can be applied to calculate the gravitational radiation, at \scri, given data at a finite radius calculated in another computation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, published versio