Identity practices, ingroup projection, and the evaluation of subgroups: a study among Turkish-Dutch Sunnis

This research focuses on religious subgroup evaluations by examining the attitude of Turkish-Dutch Sunni Muslims towards Alevi and Shiite Muslims. Following the Ingroup Projection Model, it was expected that Sunni participants who practice Islam will project their self-defining subgroup practices on the superordinate Muslim category, which will be related to more ingroup bias towards Alevis, a Muslim subgroup that performs different religious practices. Two studies yielded consistent evidence that practicing Islam increased ingroup bias towards Alevis. Furthermore, in Study 2, we found evidence that the effect of practicing Islam on ingroup bias was mediated by relative ingroup prototypicality (RIP). Moreover, practicing Islam did not affect RIP in relation to Shiites who perform the same religious practices that we examined. These findings support the Ingroup Projection Model.     

Power and Gender Influences on Responsibility Attributions: The Case of Disagreements in Relationships

Abstract

In a sample of 156 college students (74 men and 82 women), the authors examined the influences of power status and gender on responsibility attributions and resolution choices during disagreements in personal relationships. The participants read vignettes in which relationship partners disagreed; then the participants placed themselves in the situations depicted and reported their perceived responsibility and resolution choices. The participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 power-status conditions (you have/your partner has greater power in the situation). Power status was based on resource power (i.e., a monetary inheritance) or on perceived power (i.e., financial knowledge). The authors tested 2 alternative power-status hypotheses (justified benefits/rights and ability/accountability) and 1 gender hypothesis. The results supported both power-status hypotheses. In addition, the men's and the women's responsibility attributions and resolution choices (i.e., adhering to their own wishes or deferring to their partner's wishes) revealed differential dependence on the type of power held by the person with greater situational power. The authors suggest issues further research concerning how situational differences in socially based expectations (e.g., power status and gender) may affect conflicts within relationships.     

Nature et significations des échanges entre domaines de vie : l’exemple des nouveaux cadres de l’Action Sociale

Accessing to a management position for the first time implies, for professionals, reflecting on their commitments in different fields and times of their socialization, on their articulation, and on their compatibilities. Referring to the model of an active socialization – active because plural and then conflicting – which rejects a dichotomous approach of the “work/non work” relations, the meaning people give to the relations between their different life spheres, communicating with others, orientates the organization of exchanges between life domains. Content analysis of interviews conducted with new social work managers brought us to distinguish six types of exchanges: temporal, informational, relational, emotional, axiological, ideological and symbolic.     

Unruly grasses: Affective attunements in the ecological restoration of urban native grasslands in Australia

This paper explores affect as an ‘angle of approach’ for re/considering the work of ecological restoration in urban spaces. My focus is on the more-than-human affective dimensions of the reintroduction of native grasses in Melbourne's (Australia) urban parklands. Sara Ahmed suggests that ‘affect is what sticks or sustains or preserves the connection between ideas, values and objects’ (2010, 29), and here I extend this notion to think about the restoration of grasslands not as primarily material transformations (to which we might react), but as the recomposition of the 'ideas, values and objects' that constitute urban park naturecultures. The paper highlights the role of affective relations in the inheritance of landscapes that do not attract widespread positive affection. It employs Sara Ahmed's concept of the affect alien as a figure of nonconformity, to uncover how the affective resonances of grasslands might open new possibilities for attuning to the complex and multiple naturecultures of postcolonial lands.     

Creating hospitable space to nurture children’s spirituality-possibilities and dilemmas associated with power

This article considers the idea of hospitable space and raises questions about what this entails in nurturing children’s spirituality in both religious and non-religious contexts. In particular, dilemmas associated with the use and abuse of adult power and authority and systemic forms of power are explored. It is argued that hospitable space is open, inclusive and reciprocal, with mutual learning. Adults must help to set the boundaries within which open exploration can take place, empowering children without overcontrolling activities or outcomes or coercing children into particular responses. The difficulty of creating hospitable space and the dangers related to power and control, even in activities intended and widely perceived as benign, are illustrated in relation to play and school classrooms. Structural issues such as a demand for conformity and a culture of competition and pace militate against creating and sustaining hospitable space to nurture children’s spirituality. High-stakes assessment and accountability mechanisms make this especially difficult in formal school settings.     

The Potentiality of the Embryo and the Somatic Cell

Recent arguments on the ethics of stem cell research have taken a novel approach to the question of the moral status of the embryo. One influential argument focuses on a property that the embryo is said to possess—namely, the property of being an entity with a rational nature or, less controversially, an entity that has the potential to acquire a rational nature—and claims that this property is also possessed by a somatic cell. Since nobody seriously thinks that we have a duty to preserve the countless such cells we wash off our body every day in the shower, the argument is intended as a reductio ad absurdum of the claim that the embryo should be afforded the same moral status as a fully developed human being. This article argues that this argument is not successful and that it consequently plays into the hands of those who oppose embryonic stem cell research. It is therefore better to abandon this argument and focus instead on the different argument that potentiality, as such, is not a sufficient ground for the creation of moral obligations towards the embryo.     

The effects of SES on infant and maternal diurnal salivary cortisol output

The present study directly compared diurnal salivary cortisol output and maternal-infant synchrony in low and high socio-economic status (SES) mother–infant dyads. Saliva cortisol samples were collected from 32 6–12-month-old infants and their mothers on the same day in the morning, afternoon and evening, and assayed for free cortisol concentration. Low-SES infants and mothers exhibited higher average salivary cortisol output, without dysregulation, compared to high-SES infants. Low-SES infants and mothers also showed reduced synchrony in cortisol output compared to high-SES infants and mothers. Results are discussed with respect to maternal sensitivity and early stress reduction interventions.     

Globalization Shuffles Cards of the World Pack: In Which Direction is the Global Economic-Political Balance Shifting?

The article offers forecasts of the geopolitical and geo-economic development of the world in the forthcoming decades. One of the main accusations directed toward globalization is that it deepens the gap between the developed and developing countries dooming them to eternal backwardness. The article demonstrates that the actual situation is very different. It is shown that this is due to the globalization that the developing countries are generally growing much faster than the developed states, the World System core starts weakening and its periphery begins to strengthen. At the same time there is a continuing divergence between the main bulk of developing countries and the group of the poorest developing states. The article also explains why the globalization was bound to lead to the explosive rise of many developing countries and the relative weakening of the developed economies. In the forthcoming decades this trend is likely to continue (although, of course, not without certain interruptions). It is also demonstrated that this convergence constitutes a necessary condition for the next technological breakthrough. This has important implications for the hegemony debates. A rather popular theory of hegemony cycles implies that the eclipse of the global hegemony of the United States should be followed by the emergence of a new global hegemon. This generates the dichotomy of the two main current points of view—either the United States will continue the global leadership in the forthcoming decades, or it will be replaced by China in this capacity. We do not find the study of the future within this dichotomy fruitful. We believe that in a direct connection with the development of globalization processes the hegemony cycle pattern is likely to come to its end, which will lead to the World System reconfiguration and the emergence of its new structure that will allow the World System to continue its further development without a hegemon.