Remembering Gregory Stone

This interview with David Franks, professor emeritus of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, was recorded at the ASA meeting in Boston on August 2, 2008. Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, after which Dr. Franks corrected the transcripts and gave his approval for posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information appears in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”. The interviewer’s questions are shortened in several places

Political Polarization in College Students

Political engagement in the United States has been increasing over the last several years and with it a seeming rise in political polarization. Specifically, recent research supports that there has been a significant increase in affective polarization, which is characterized by strong negative emotions and impressions of one’s political opponents. Political science surveys have found that individuals rate their political opponents as being less intelligent and more selfish in recent years and individuals open to inter-party marriages have drastically declined in recent years compared to decades past. This study explored the relationship of personality, as understood in the Big Five model, religiosity, social media use, and college student political party favorability. Participants were also asked to rate their economic and social political values as being either liberal or conservative. Among the study’s participants (undergraduate college students from a private, faithbased institution), economic and social political attitudes were the best predictors of party favorability. Liberals appeared to be influenced by their economic and social views as well as their social media use. However, for conservatives, Republican favorability was only predicted by their economic values and Democrat unfavourability was only predicted by their social values

Development of the Concept of Inferential Validity

An argument is valid if its conclusion necessarily follows from its premises, regardless of whether the premises and conclusion are empirically true or false. This research tested the hypothesis that understanding validity of inference (including its differentiation from empirical truth) is a relatively late development. Students in Experiment 1 were asked to sort sets of deductive arguments. None of the fourth graders used validity as a basis for distinguishing arguments, while 45% of the seventh graders and 85% of the college students did so. Experiments 2 and 3 explored whether the dramatic age difference could be narrowed by (a) varying the types of arguments used, (b) explaining the concept of validity and instructing students to use it, and/or (c) providing feedback after each trial. Fourth-grade performance remained poor, while seventh-grade performance increased to nearly the level of the college students. It was concluded that the concept of validity typically develops between ages 10 and 12 but that application of that competence continues to increase over a much longer age span. Students not understanding validity commonly evaluated arguments on the basis of empirical truth of component propositions, though even fourth graders revealed an implicit awareness of logical form

Goodbye to Projects? Briefing Paper 1: An Overview: Projects and Principles.

YesThis briefing paper reports on research exploring ten detailed case studies of livelihoods-oriented interventions operating in Tanzania, Lesotho, South Africa and Uganda. Analysing these interventions through an audit of sustainable livelihood `principles¿ (as a proxy for best practice) revealed general lessons both about the practical opportunities and challenges for employing sustainable livelihoods approaches to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development interventions and also about the changing format of development interventions.Department for International Developmen

Goodbye to Projects? Briefing Paper 2: The Application of the SL Principles.

YesThis briefing paper reports on research exploring ten detailed case studies of livelihoods-oriented interventions operating in Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda and Lesotho. As a proxy for best practice, these interventions were analysed through an audit of sustainable livelihood `principles¿. This revealed general lessons about both the practical opportunities and challenges for employing sustainable livelihoods approaches to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development interventions and also about the changing format of development interventions.Department for International Development

Goodbye to Projects? - Briefing Paper 3: The changing format of development interventions.

yesThis briefing paper reports on research exploring ten detailed case studies of livelihoods-oriented interventions operating in Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda and Lesotho. As a proxy for best practice, these interventions were analysed through an audit of sustainable livelihood `principles¿. This revealed general lessons about both the practical opportunities and challenges for employing sustainable livelihoods approaches to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development interventions and also about the changing format of development interventions.Department for International Development

Goodbye to Projects? - Briefing Paper 4: Lessons for the community-based planning interventions.

YesThis briefing paper compares two approaches to community-based planning in Tanzania, South Africa and Uganda. Analysing these interventions through an audit of sustainable livelihood `principles¿ (as a proxy for best practice) reveals general lessons about both the practical opportunities and challenges for employing sustainable livelihoods approaches to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development interventions and also about the changing format of development interventions.Department for International Developmen

Goodbye to projects? The institutional impact of sustainable livelihoods approaches on development interventions

The research goodbye to projects grew out of the increasing interest in sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLA) and growing disillusion with projects as mechanisms for addressing the development needs of the poor. Its aim was to investigate the implication of the adoption of SLA on the management of development interventions and in particular of the future of development projects. The underlying research questions were: a) How are elements of the sustainable livelihoods principles being applied in practice b) What are the problems and challenges for managing livelihoods-oriented development interventions? c) What is the future for development projects, given the increase in direct budget and sectoral assistance?Livelihoods, Projects, Economic development, EPRC, Muhumuza, Sustainable development, Financial Economics, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Relations/Trade, Labor and Human Capital, Livestock Production/Industries, Political Economy,

The moss family Octoblepharaceae A.Eddy ex Menzel in Australia

This is the first treatment of the family Octoblepharaceae for Australia. The sole Australian species, Octoblepharum albidum Hedw., is described and illustrated, and a map of its known and potential distribution in Australia is included