Stigmatising beliefs about people in poverty in cross-national perspective

LSE Sociology doctoral candidate, Daniel McArthur, describes his MSc research Open any edition of the most widely read British newspapers and you will see viciously stigmatising stereotypes about those suffering the hardships of poverty. Editorials decry ‘scroungers’ and ‘shirkers’, and accompany reports on the supposed criminality, immorality, and benefit fraud of those living in deprived housing estates. Politicians from across the ideological spectrum characterise poverty as the result of the laziness or poor life choices of the poor, and use this to justify deep cuts to welfare. Support for spending on the poor and unemployed in the UK is at its lowest point since the early 1980s (Taylor-Gooby, 2013). The stigma associated with poverty reduces support for the welfare state, as well as contributing to the shaming and humiliation that people in poverty experience in interactions with neighbours, employers, and public services

Review of The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations

Book reviews in this journal usually proceed by considering the value of the book in question for Dewey scholarship. In this case I would rather say that this book is of interest to Dewey Scholars. Jackson\u27s general project is heavily informed by Dewey\u27s pluralistic brand of pragmatism. As Jackson notes “Dewey\u27s Logic... stand[s] firmly in the tradition leading to this book” (216). Dewey scholars will greet Jackson\u27s extension of this approach to the study of international relations warmly

Identification of an Unknown Intracellular Organism in \u3ci\u3eKarenia brevis\u3c/i\u3e

The dinoflagellate K. brevis is a mixotrophic marine alga that is of ecological importance in coastal waters especially along the Gulf of Mexico. They are one of a few species of algae responsible for the production of “harmful algae blooms” or HABs in which they release neurotoxins called brevetoxins which negatively impact fishing industries, local wildlife, tourism, and coastal health. Because of the danger these algae pose their lifecycle and characteristics merit intensive study. During a previous experiment in Dr. McLean’s lab involving salinity stressing cultured K. brevis, the stressed cultures exhibited an unusual data pattern when having their ribosomal RNA profile bioanalyzed. The rRNA pattern for these stressed cultures showed an additional set of rRNA bands that were absent in all healthy non-shocked cultures, one smaller than the K. brevis small ribosomal subunit and one larger than the K. brevis large ribosomal subunit. Cultures of K. brevis that were bioanalyzed before shocking and after shocking clearly showed the anomalous rRNA bands appearing directly after stressing. Looking at the stressed cells under a light microscope revealed that the stressed cells had their membranes pinching off in small bubbles with what looked like small motile agents moving about within. Because intracellular organisms are known to inhabit other dinoflagellates we believe that the second set of rRNA signals and movement within stressed cells could be explained by an intracellular parasite or mutualistic symbiote that remains dormant until its host begins to die. In order to test if an intracellular organism was actually the source of the abnormal rRNA data a variety of tests were applied to stressed K. brevis cultures. Lugol staining, DAPI staining, PCR amplification, microscopy and cloning were all used in an attempt to find any indication of a candidate organism. Despite all initial observations and data being consistent with an intracellular organism these later tests effectively disproved the initial hypothesis. Because the new data makes the intracellular organism explanation unlikely the source of the anomalous rRNA bands during stressing remains unknown

NASA Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle Upper Stage Overview

By incorporating rigorous engineering practices, innovative manufacturing processes and test techniques, a unique multi-center government/contractor partnership, and a clean-sheet design developed around the primary requirements for the International Space Station (ISS) and Lunar missions, the Upper Stage Element of NASA's Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV), the "Ares I," is a vital part of the Constellation Program's transportation system

Individual advantage, economic context, and stigmatising stereotypes about the poor and welfare recipients

In this thesis I investigate how an individual’s economic position and the context they live in affects their sympathy for the poor. Poverty and welfare receipt are stigmatised across high income countries; such attitudes reduce support for redistribution and exacerbate the negative impact of poverty on wellbeing. Across three empirical chapters, I use attitudinal data from the UK and Europe to investigate the relationship between individual advantage, broader economic context, and the prevalence of stigmatising stereotypes about welfare recipients and the poor. I apply an innovative perspective combining qualitative research on the experiences of people in poverty and comparative political economy work on inequality and redistribution to address neglected topics in the study of deservingness perceptions. In the first empirical chapter I argue that those in more disadvantaged economic positions have more sympathetic attitudes towards welfare recipients. However, this relationship is counteracted by the role of social status and authoritarian attitudes, which can make the disadvantaged hold less sympathetic views. The second chapter uses survey data from twenty-seven European countries to show that individuals in more unequal nations are more likely to believe that laziness rather than injustice is the cause of poverty. I argue that a plausible explanation of this relationship is status anxiety among disadvantaged individuals. In the third chapter I conduct the first longitudinal analysis of the association between area level unemployment and attitudes towards the unemployed, finding little evidence of a meaningful effect of exposure on stigmatising stereotypes. Overall, this thesis argues that status anxiety plays a major role in shaping stigmatising stereotypes, explaining why people are less sympathetic towards the poor in high inequality contexts, and why disadvantaged individuals often hold especially negative attitudes

Social mobility at the top: how elites in the UK are pulling away

The link between geographic mobility and the reproduction of social class advantage is having a powerful effect in British society, write Katharina Hecht, Daniel McArthur, Mike Savage, and Sam Friedman. Based on an original study of changing social and geographical mobility into elite occupations, they explain why the tensions between London and the English and Welsh 'provinces' have deep roots

The rhetoric of recessions: how British newspapers talk about the poor when unemployment rises, 1896–2000

Recessions appear to coincide with an increasingly stigmatising presentation of poverty in parts of the media. Previous research on the connection between high unemployment and media discourse has often relied on case studies of periods when stigmatising rhetoric about the poor was increasing. We build on earlier work on how economic context affects media representations of poverty by creating a unique dataset that measures how often stigmatising descriptions of the poor are used in five centrist and right-wing British newspapers between 1896 and 2000. Our results suggest stigmatising rhetoric about the poor increases when unemployment rises, except at the peak of very deep recessions (e.g. the 1930s and 1980s). This pattern is consistent with the idea that newspapers deploy deeply embedded Malthusian explanations for poverty when those ideas resonate with the economic context, and so this stigmatising rhetoric of recessions is likely to recur during future economic crises

Controls at the Fermilab PIP-II Superconducting Linac

PIP-II is an 800 MeV superconducting RF linear accelerator under development at Fermilab. As the new first stage in our accelerator chain, it will deliver high-power beam to multiple experiments simultaneously and thus drive Fermilab's particle physics program for years to come. In a pivot for Fermilab, controls for PIP-II are based on EPICS instead of ACNET, the legacy control system for accelerators at the lab. This paper discusses the status of the EPICS controls work for PIP-II. We describe the EPICS tools selected for our system and the experience of operators new to EPICS. We introduce our continuous integration / continuous development environment. We also describe some efforts at cooperation between EPICS and ACNET, or efforts to move towards a unified interface that can apply to both control systems.Comment: 19th Intl Conf Accel Large Exp Phys Cntrl Systems (ICALEPCS

‘GETTING CANED?’ ASSEMBLAGE THEORY AND THE ANALYSIS OF CANE MATERIAL FROM CALIFORNIA

Assemblage Theory proposed by DeLanda (2006) argues that an assemblage is made up of the specific interaction of components and the combination of these components is how agency is expressed. Agency is determined by capacity; the potential a component has. Assemblages should be viewed as multiscaled. Recent calls by Normak (2010) argues that Assemblage Theory needs to be operationalised into a robust method that archaeologists can use. This paper outlines an experimental method that focuses around a capacity analysis while proposing a Multi Scale Capacity Analysis Model. To test this model a case study of carrizo cane used by the Chumash of Southern California is examined. Recent discoveries from a Californian cave system called Cache Cave has found an abundance of this material. Combined with other carrizo Chumash artefacts, the aim of the study is to establish if Assemblage Theory can be used to understand the carrizo in Cache Cave. The study found that by using the model it was shown that carrizo was being stored and processed in Cache Cave in part as a response to technical attributes of the carrizo itself which offers a wide range of possible uses, but also due to complex environmental effects. This indicates a certain level of social organisation, understanding of the landscape, and possibly the means to have social standing through the control of raw and semiprocessed resources