Search

This study employs data from a mail survey (n=1,114) conducted among public school teachers and educational support professionals in New York State to examine the factors that contribute to individuals' attribution and information seeking about breast cancer risk. The results indicate that mass media use, as well as beliefs about existing information regarding breast cancer risk, influence individuals' causal attributions and seeking of information about breast cancer risk. Concerns about the local environment also positively relate to individuals' association of breast cancer risk with environmental factors. The conclusions argue for bottom-up dialectical health communication strategies that take into account individuals' understandings and perceptions of breast cancer risk and their local environment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed paper will review a project which was undertaken in the North Rockland Central School District in Haverstraw, New York. The project involved the use of computer technology to improve the reading skills of several thousand students enrolled in grades kindergarten through 2. Approximately 80% of those students were from homes in which Spanish was the first language. Students were provided with the opportunity to learn to read with a program which used a balanced literacy approach, enhanced with technology. Students were provided with approximately 30 minutes per day for use of a computer-based literacy program. Once the teachers were trained, they trained the students and the program was largely self-managed, requiring minimal intervention by the teacher, even though the students were quite young. The proposed paper will review the scores which students achieved on standardized tests. Those results showed significant improvement in both reading and writing. The results were most dramatic for second language learners. The paper will also review the comments of faculty members about the program. This project was especially significant because it was largely teacher driven. A short history will review how a pilot study demonstrated the potential of the approach and how the teachers formed an advocacy group that approached the superintendent and the Board of Education. Ultimately, local funds for the project were provided to supplement State funds that were available. The program was enhanced with funding from the United States Department of Education. The paper will also provide follow-up data which show how students have continued to succeed once they have moved on to higher grade levels. Finally, the program also included an important family component which made literacy a ?family affair.? Several other school districts with similar populations have adopted this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent has urban tourism marketing been accompanied by, and itself helped facilitate, deeper political and economic restructuring? Through a case study of New York City over the last 30 years, this paper argues there is a strong interrelationship between these two processes, and indeed that tourism marketing has been instrumental in the shift towards urban neoliberalism. I focus on two pivotal periods of crisis and transformation in contemporary New York City, when new public-private partnerships formed with a similar, dual agenda to save and transform the city. The first period is that of the 1970's fiscal crisis, when this agenda involved behind-the-scenes promotion of "pro-business reforms," and very public branding of New York as a white-collar tourist destination. The second period follows the attacks of September 11, 2001, when the quiet use of lucrative business incentives was accompanied by high-profile efforts to "re-brand New York" for "patriotic tourism." This paper draws in particular on consultants' reports commissioned and acted upon by city and state economic development agencies-documents previously unused by scholars. Thus my research shows different ways in which tourism marketing was employed discursively, politically, and economically to facilitate, and distract attention from, broader neoliberal shifts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a case study of Bryant Park in New York City, this paper analyzes the emergence of incorporated space as a form of social control in contemporary cities. At a time when many public spaces were being closed down-secured with higher walls and greater restrictions to entry-Bryant Park was opened up, as its walls were taken down and the park was rebuilt in order to maximize access and visibility. This was no project for democratizing urban space, however; the renovation of Bryant Park had as its goal the reassertion of control over a space considered to be chaotic and a population cast as "undesirable." This paper investigates the emergence of incorporated space from its surprisingly heterogeneous sources. It examines the process of renovating and re-regulating the park, which entailed the installation of new ruling authorities, new technologies of control and a new conceptual approach to the problems of the public's space in cities. The case of incorporated space suggests that urban scholars may need to rethink the connection between space, power, exclusion and the public. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the effect of the perception of police repression on the diffusion of five direct action tactics from the anti-globalization movement into New York and Toronto activist milieus. The paper considers the spread of black bloc, puppetry, affinity-group/spokescouncil decisionmaking models, blockades, street parties and jail solidarity. The paper focuses on the impact of police repression at five protest events as it examines the ways that activists explain the relationship between their experiences of repression and their tactical decision-making. It argues that the severity, focus and predictability of repression influence the process of deliberation which indirectly impacts the diffusion process. By influencing deliberation, police repression impacted the diffusion of the "Seattle tactics". ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study of recent challenges to welfare-work programs in New York City reveals the complex dynamics of social movements with institutional politics, and reveals continuities and discontinuities between the two. Drawing on Gramscian state theory, political process theory, and recent relational extensions of political process theory, the paper shows the ways in which five mechanisms-path-dependency, institutional spillover, certification/decertification, scale-shift, and time-shift-combine within and across instititutional settings to enable or stymie workfare workers' and their allies' efforts to gain rights under a workfare program that denied them clear rights-bearing status. In showing the operation of these mechanisms-which lie between structure and strategy-in worksite-based organizing, courts, legislatures, and in mass-mediated moral protest, the paper shows the ways in which challengers to workfare were at a structural disadvantage. It argues further that revealing structural disadvantage is the main justification for the study of social movements as distinct from (though embedded in) institutional politics, and is preferable to an analytic strategy that begins with pluralism, and treats movements and interest groups as the same type of entity. Finally, assessments of social movement outcomes should focus on the reconfiguration of policy options and the coalitions that underlie them. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many urban school districts have recently implemented sweeping reforms that alter the ways in which educational services are administered. The environment in which these reforms are embedded is increasingly and more directly tied to core political institutions and business elites. Hence, as this dependence has grown, districts have become more likely to reflect the rational myths regarding both behavior and structure promoted by these proximate political institutions and business elites. This paper explores the process through which conformity to these pressures results in organizations changing their structural arrangements to become isomorphic with institutionally prescribed expectations. Using a subset of the educational field in New York City, this paper focuses on the role of coercive pressures in this isomorphic process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the composition of labor force in the restaurant industry in New York City. The expansion of the restaurant industry in NYC coincides with the changes in the urban form in the post-industrial social order. One of the more prominent features of post-industrial economy is the polarization of labor between high-end and low-end service occupations. In this paper, I explore another type of bifurcation that takes place in the restaurant kitchens. Work at restaurants has a peculiar character as it appeals to different class and ethnic groups. This paper aims to uncover the features of restaurant work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of local racial and ethnic groups and external organizations in creating specific types of charter schools in New York State. Prior work has shown that a combination of minority interests and conservative politics has helped the adoption of school choice policies at the state level. Other research has demonstrated that charter schools are often oriented to promoting local community identities and even specific racial and ethnic identities. This contradicts an historic public school mission—to create a cohesive national cultural identity—and also undermines the historic tendency toward larger, more bureaucratic, and more centrally controlled schools and school districts. This paper argues that the "tribal" character of charter schooling and racial group's reliance on external conservative sponsors are valid descriptions of New York charter schools, but that the specific character of charters is dependent on a complex play between local conditions and the global institutional models that provide organizational scripts for action. This interplay provides the potential foundation for a new institutional framework for public education and suggests how institutionalist theory might be revised to account for this possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both New York and San Francisco maintain high schools that admit students through a selection process that excludes many applicants who must attend other, less elite, high schools. In both cities, this policy has come under attack at times as manifesting discrimination by race, ethnicity, and/or parental economic status. Students admitted to these high schools over-represent white, Asian and middle- and upper-middle-class students while under-representing minority and poor students. This paper examines the attacks on these elite schools and the policies that produce them as well as the defenses of the policies that have been mounted by defenders of their existence. The trajectories of each city's conflict have differed widely, the former largely being played out in the state legislature, while the latter has been in and remains in court. Utilizing path dependency model, the paper seeks to illuminate the forces that turned the conflict in each City as it developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines stories of coerced prostitution voiced in New York City's Court of General Sessions from 1908 to 1915. During these years, the problem of "white slavery," or forced prostitution, received an unprecedented amount of attention from journalists, politicians, and anti-vice activists. Court records provide valuable information about the the gender order wherein sex crimes were perpetrated and prosecuted. Legal documents reveal competing narratives designed to resonate with prevailing sensibilities about proper masculinity and femininity. Using transcripts of compulsory prostitution trials tried in New York City, this paper interrogates the connection between the cultural production of white slavery narratives outside the courtroom and the invocation of those narratives inside the courtroom. The white slavery stories found in the reform literature provided a template for attorneys, complainants, defendants, and other legal actors to articulate and understand the practice of commercial sex. Yet, legal actors often deviated from the standard white slavery script and advanced different stories about life in early urban American. Comparing white slavery narratives with legal testimony about compulsory prostitution demonstrates the embedded relationship between the legal sphere and popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a unique network analysis of co-authored scientific papers, I compare the evolution of knowledge networks in two well-matched rust belt cities: Akron, Ohio and Rochester, New York. I find that local universities in each city attempted to play a larger role in generating innovation in their regions, but took very different approaches to doing so. One employed a "fountain" approach which sought to assert itself as the central hub in the region's knowledge networks thus filling the vacuum left by the decline of the old industry actors who had previously dominated the local economy. The other faced similar circumstances, but employed a "forum" approach which aimed at building relationships among organizations in the region. Evidence from the network analysis suggests the two approaches have shaped the evolution of knowledge networks in the two regions. Qualitative data and descriptive statistics suggest that this, in turn, has influenced the way that knowledge spills over in each community leading to differences in innovative activity among small companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of procedural fairness in determining responses to bureaucratic standardization. I examine this question in the context of drug formularies in hospitals. Drug formularies are a list of drugs available to physicians in a healthcare organization, and represent a standardization of the drug choices available to physicians. While some advocate the use of formularies as a cost-effective means of managing drug benefits, critics see them as an infringement on physicians' clinical autonomy, and as potentially harmful to patients, ultimately contributing to higher costs of providing care. Drawing on organizational justice theory, I look at the role of procedural fairness in shaping the effectiveness of bureaucratic standardization, and argue that the payoff from drug formularies depends on whether the process of setting and implementing formulary policies is fair. To examine this, Inpatient Discharge Data for 2002 from Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas, combined with an original survey of 243 hospital pharmacy directors, were analyzed using the hierarchical linear modeling technique. I found that the cost effectiveness of drug standardization depends on the procedural fairness of the standardization process, controlling for patient, hospital, and hospital market factors. Theoretically, this paper contributes to a partial reconciliation of conflicting predictions from the standardization literature by considering procedural fairness. Given the ubiquity of standardized rules in organizations, the findings also have practical implications for how to manage bureaucratic standardization without alienating organizational members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a novel type of social network data to analyze the changes in the informal organization of New York?s Internet industry from 1996 to 2002. This six-year period encompasses the rise and fall of the industry. The data used are constructed from weekly social events reporting that appeared in an online newsletter about the Internet industry. Over 9,000 participants (people at events) are included in this data. This paper focuses on the data at the beginning of the industry (1996-June 1999) which is comprised of nearly 3,000 participants at 365 events. Using this data, I argue that the informal social ties created at social networking events--ranging from industry-related conferences to company ?launch? parties to private gatherings ? defined and bounded the industrial field of New York?s Internet industry, a field that was comprised of different kinds of businesses, business models and industry sectors. Social events reporting is an under-used source of rich network data that captures the best and widest net over a field actors, especially in industries that are rapidly changing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing ethnographic research methods, this paper provides a description and reflection on my fieldwork with a group of men working as day laborers at a casual work site in Brooklyn, New York City. The participants are diverse across various characteristics, in particular nationality, race, and ethnicity. This paper focuses on the interactions between the fieldworker and one of the different groups working at this intersection influenced by social positions of nationality, ethnicity, race, and gender. As significant as are the persons and social action that are the focus of study in fieldwork, there are also the participants? own interpretations of the fieldworker. I consider the participants? conceptions and thus, their social construction of the ethnographer and then go onto reflect how this experience informed and contributed to the interpretation of social meaning in the field. The overall project attempts to advance our understanding of the incorporation of new immigrants into American society, by considering the factors shaping these processes and the effects on American culture. And in this paper, the ethnographer?s work in interpreting meaning reflects the multiple realities and shifting identities of the various actors, including the researcher herself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents research on in-depth, qualitative interviews (N=100) conducted with former and current drug users, in New York City in the months immediately following the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC). Most of those in the study sample were regularly users of cocaine and/or heroin. After the 9/11 attacks, participants reported intense sadness, fear and anxiety. Contrary to expectations, most did not increase their use of heroin or cocaine to cope with their feelings. Rather many coped, at least in part, by increasing their use of other ?- legal -- substances, such as alcohol and prescription medication. This paper explores the emotional impact of the WTC attacks on a vulnerable population and how decisions about the use of heroin, cocaine, prescription medications, alcohol and cigarettes were related to the aftermath of the WTC disaster. The subjective experiences of substance users presented in their own words lend insight into the complicated nexus of post-traumatic stress, substance use and poly-drug use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is considering the process of occupational gender segregation in an informal economic niche. The study sample is 50 informally self-employed workers in the East Village of New York City. This paper then looks at how certain characteristics of the informal sector help to solidify the gender typing of work within the East Village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harlem and Bronzeville, two of the most historic and culturally significant urban African- American communities in America, are currently experiencing major economic transformations. After a middle-class flight and years of economic abandonment, these urban areas are seeing an influx of commercial and residential investment, rapidly changing these communities from low to more mixed-income environments. Although there has been a substantial amount of positive media attention concerning the economic developments in Harlem and Bronzeville, there is little community consensus about the type of development that is occurring, since this development threatens to displace a large amount of current residents. Through a comparative ethnographic approach, this study explores how distinct political landscapes in New York City and Chicago relate to the proliferation of protest politics concerning displacement and redevelopment in these communities. In this paper I argue NYC's diverse political system facilitates contested politics while in comparison Chicago's monolithic party machine is associated with limited community led opposition to redevelopment. This paper contributes to the notion that African-American community politics is, in part, influenced by structural forces emanating from the city level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The day labor market in New York City is growing fast partly due to the number of immigrants who are eager to work, but who lack official documentation. Employing ethnographic research methods, this paper provides a description of a group of men working as day laborers at a casual work site in Brooklyn, New York City, with whom I’ve been visiting since late August 2001. The participants are diverse across various characteristics, in particular nationality, race, and ethnicity. This paper attempts to advance our understanding of the incorporation of new immigrants into American society, by considering the factors shaping these processes and the effects on American culture. There is a focus on the interactions between the different groups working at this intersection and also a discussion of the effects on opportunities for employment and social mobility influenced by social positions of nationality, ethnicity, race, gender and age. And in a multicultural setting of a Brooklyn street corner, this paper explores an important social action that occurs between the diverse actors that is meaningful. The overall project explores how and why these men, of whom many are undocumented, seek employment in the informal economy. This paper enables an analysis of the situations, beyond employment, as they are informed by positions of nationality, race, and ethnicity. At a time when the politics of immigration is active in policy agenda, this paper offers a dynamic sociological exploration of immigration, labor, identity, and culture in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents how using smartphones can enrich classic, ethnographic studies of youth and social problems by extending the scope of a case using everyday communication. Two study models in the field of children and media inform the proposed, methodological intervention. I demonstrate how and why to conduct case studies on and off the phone and across settings to capture interaction more accurately and robustly. To illustrate the smartphone case method, I walked through my collaborative fieldwork with JayVon, an eighteen-year-old from Harlem (New York, NY). The fieldwork uses network analysis of contacts and trace ethnography of activity logs and text-message content in the course of a traditional, ethnographic study. I show how the ecology of a case opens up naturally by analyzing smartphone data ethnographically. I then discuss the significant, ethical challenges that accompany networked access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid increase in inter-modal competition in telecommunications markets has resulted in traditional local exchange telephone companies facing significant financial pressures. The increasing acceptance of wireless as a substitute for traditional voice services, combined with the more recent roll out of digital phone service by cable companies operating in rural areas has brought the need to deal with these financial pressures to the forefront. This paper examines the cost structures of New York State's incumbent local exchange telephone companies and in doing so, sheds light on possible operational improvements which could aid the incumbent companies in managing the competitive transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past ten years at Pace University we have been using real-world student projects in capstone computing courses. These courses have been essentially online for the last five years. Appropriate team management changes facilitated the transition from co-located to distributed teams, and peer evaluations and other remote assessment techniques made it possible to assess the work of students. Additionally, this paper updates information over that previously reported on the number of projects, project categories, and the resulting list of publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines non-traditional notions of masculinity among young men in an alternatives-to-incarceration program in New York City by analyzing focus group data collected from 38 men. The paper utilizes urban ethnographic studies of masculinity and theory on progressive masculinities and crime as a framework for analysis of findings. Men in this study define their own masculinity primarily as supporting family, but emphasize caretaking and maintenance of the household as part of "being a real man," skills they learn from women in their families. They also discuss roles of fathers and children, being there for kids emotionally, physically, and recognizing children's autonomy. Finally the men in this study talk about masculinity in terms of love received and love given. The findings from this study illustrate to some degree notions of a progressive masculinity. This paper concludes by providing suggestions for improving outcomes for young men involved in alternatives-to-incarceration programs. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines two distinct types of racial discrimination perceived by the immigrant second generation in the United States and Britain. Afro-Caribbeans report experiencing racial discrimination outside school, from adults, while Indians tend to report experiencing racial discrimination in school, from peers. These findings move theories of racial discrimination beyond a black-white paradigm, and also shed light on theories on the impact of perceived discrimination. If Afro-Caribbeans don't report school-based racial discrimination, then reactions to racial discrimination in school cannot explain an oppositional orientation towards school among Afro-Caribbean students, as suggested by some scholars. In the paper I integrate the literatures on racial discrimination and immigrant incorporation for a deeper understanding of experiences of racial discrimination among the second generation. The paper is based on an ethnography in two multiethnic schools, one in London and one in New York, and 90 in-depth interviews with second generation Indian, Afro-Caribbean, and Indo-Caribbean teens in New York and London. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a group of working-class men who breed and fly pigeons from their rooftops in New York City. It shows how the flyers experience their neighborhoods through their animal practices, and how ethnic whites transmitted this practice to nonwhites. It also documents their gatherings at a pet shop, where the flyers campaign for status based on their birds' performance. Rooftop and pet shop observations demonstrate that the men form a distinct collective that is strongly rooted in their solitary animal practices but is given meaning largely through social interactions. Most community studies find conflict among working-class ethnic groups who share urban neighborhoods, but this paper illustrates how pigeon flying is a unique mechanism that fosters solidarity among Italian, Hispanic, and black New Yorkers of varying ages. These findings highlight how animal practices can organize social relationships and connections to the environment, and how shared everyday activities can be as vital as ethnicity or class in primary group formation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the development of activists' ecological consciousness about New York City's Jamaica Bay and surrounding estuary. Using mixed methods, including an environmental history of Jamaica Bay, oral histories from activists, participant observation, and interviews, the paper explores the role of sensory experience in developing ecological consciousness and in shaping subsequent political activism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neighborhood of Long Island City in the borough of Queens sits directly across the East River from the island of Manhattan. In the last decade and a half, Long Island City witnessed a redevelopment project intended to draw in higher income residents. Long Island City remains ethnoracially segregated. I use U.S. Census data to present the ethnoracial composition of Long Island City by zip code. This paper describes the neighborhoods that make up Long Island City in historical and sociological perspective. I then explain when, how, and why Long Island City grew. The paper concludes with social observation field notes to function as a guided walking tour through the many neighborhoods that make up Long Island City. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature on the contemporary American labor movement generally portrays the (neoliberal) state and community in diametrically opposed terms, with the state seen as monolithically negative while community figures as unambiguously positive. Drawing upon ethnographic and interview data from three labor struggles in New York's retail sector, this paper challenges this view, arguing that labor's relationship to both the (neoliberal) state and community is contradictory. This paper thus offers a challenge to scholars of "social-movement unionism" regarding the need to pay more attention to the positive and negative features of labor's relationship to 1) the neoliberal, or post-PATCO state, with the NLRB seen as hostile, while the New York State Attorney General serves as a positive resource for labor; and 2) community-based worker centers, which though they may serve, through labor-community alliances, as crucial allies for labor, also involve tensions with labor unions.Through the use of dynamic, process-centered analysis, this paper also entails a methodological challenge to the predominance of more "static" forms of analysis within most sociological literature, including that focused on labor and other social movements. By examing the interactions between the campaigns I analyze, instead of merely focusing on what distinguishes the campaigns, I argue for the need to see labor not (only) as an inert collection of discrete variables but (also) as a set of dynamic, interconnected social processes, in short, as a movement. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony is best understood as describing the coalitional constitution of various degrees and types of consent in a political system. As such, there are several forms that hegemony may take, which can be specified in formal terms as combinations of actors, political claims, and institutional settings. In this paper, I draw together Gramsci's understanding of hegemony with more formal analyses in the sociology of social movements in order to reveal otherwise-difficult-to-discern developments in a decade-long policy debate. The paper illustrates, on one hand, the utility of Gramscian approaches to socio-cultural processes in social movement contexts, and on the other, the potential value added of a modified version of McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly's Dynamics of Contention (2001) approach to describing mechanisms and processes of structural change. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the cultural history of several 1960s music styles, all referred to as "boogaloo." In unpacking that history, boogaloo emerges as one of the most compelling sites of cross-racial/cross-cultural exchange amongst African and Latin Americans in the 1960s, especially in New York City, but also expanding throughout the larger Afro-Antilles world. The history of boogaloo engages with traditions of cultural dialogue between Black and Brown musicians as well as predicts future collaborations in the worlds of salsa, hip-hop and reggaeton. This paper uses boogaloo as a means to explore how communities of color find ways of dialoguing with one another through expressive forms, especially in times of significant social change and turmoil. Boogaloo first appears in popular form within the R&B world in 1965 but by 1966, has jumped over to both the New York Latin music scene, as well as into African American jazz circles. My paper specifically explores boogaloo's popularity as a Latin music fad that gains footing from East Harlem down to Peru and examines its conspicuous choice to blend African American R&B rhythms with Latin music traditions. I argue that boogaloo's distinctive evolution out of a jointly Black/Brown context is reflective of the ethnic identities of the Puerto Rican American musicians who were key to the style's development, especially within the context of 1960s New York. A special focus will be on Joe Bataan, one of the major boogaloo figures, who - as half-Filipino/half-African American - emerges as a compelling icon who (literally) embodies some of the cross-cultural idealism of the times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper primarily examines the historical background of a recent attempt by the New York Bicycle Messenger Association (NYBMA) to organize messengers along nontraditional lines. This attempt faltered after approximately a year (it took place between March 2004 and March 2005). To contextualize this organizational endeavor, I explore the more general dynamics at work in the messenger industry, as well as those forces' relations to messenger culture more generally. After laying out those aspects of messenger labor that create desires for organization, I offer an overview of both the factors within the messenger world that contribute to organizing, as well as those that detract from it. Towards the end of that overview, I present a brief history of two other (also failed) attempts to organize within the industry in New York City since the mid-90s, looking at those cases primarily in terms of the ways that their failures inflect the present. Having collected all those contexts together as the general setting (or mise en scène) that frames messenger organizing, the paper delves into the problems that the NYBMA encountered as well as its successes; finally, I consider the implications for future organizing attempts within the messenger community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents early results from a random assignment evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) in New York City, a highly-regarded employment program for former prisoners. The evaluation is being conducted by MDRC, a nonprofit research organization, along with the Urban Institute. In 2004 and 2005 nearly 1000 Individuals were randomly assigned and their employment and recidivism outcomes are being tracked for three years. Recent findings showed that the early impact results were very different for the group that reported to CEO shortly after release compared to the group that came later. Among those who reported to CEO shortly after their release, program group members were significantly less likely to have their parole revoked, be convicted of a felony, and to be reincarcerated. However, for the group that reported to CEO later there were no significant impacts on recidivism outcomes. This paper presents one year results from the evaluation and examines CEO's differential effects in detail. This evaluation is the first random assignment study of a transitional employment program for ex-prisoners in many years and early results suggest a pattern of effects on recidivism outcomes that is rarely seen in rigorous evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at workers' experiences in consumer services in post-industrial cities. Taking the proliferation of dining out with the expansion of the restaurant industry in New York City as its background, the paper argues that the burgeoning of consumer services built around particular cultural practices creates new risks and opportunities for the urban service workforce. The paper looks at the social organization of a restaurant kitchen from an ethnographic lens and highlights how different positions in the kitchen experience work. Of particular interest are the notion of 'celebrity chef' and how most immigrant labor experiences kitchen work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the link between the lack of a widespread posttraumatic stress anniversary effect in the ranks of the NYPD and the quasi-primary relationships experienced by members of the New York City Police Department living in suburban and outer city communities. The paper provides a sound research based sociological theory using the framework of suburban relationships envisioned by Herbert Gans to explain the absence of an anniversary effect in the NYPD's first responders on an organizational level. To arrive at a conclusion, the researcher, a retired NYPD officer, gathered ethnographic data using non-traditional methods including internet instant messaging services to conduct interviews with the police first responders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the results from a six-month survey of the use of WiFi hotspots in New York, Budapest and Montreal. This paper makes the following arguments based on the survey data: first, WiFi is an important factor in attracting people to specific locations; second, the use of WiFi highly localized in that it is often used to search for information relevant to one's geographic location; third, there are significant differences in the way that WiFi is used across a variety of locations including cafes, parks and other public spaces; fourth, at present, WiFi users are, for the most part, young, male and highly educated displaying the characteristics of early adopters of technology; and, fifth, there is a convergence in the ways in which WiFi is used internationally in some respects, however there are also important differences in the reasons for these uses as well divergence in other respects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the need to consider deliberative discussions as cultural phenomena and to discern participants' understandings of deliberation. It features an ethnographic account of a deliberative discussion on the topic of humanity's impact on environment that was organized by a group called New York Table Society. It finds that most participants did not engage in the dialectic questioning of each other's premises. Rather, the majority listed points that expanded the predominant lines of the discussion, characterized the opponent, or asked for clarification. The paper conceptualizes these reactions as an orientation to abstract opponents, rather than to the opponents immediately present in the room. It hypothesizes that this may be due to a contemporary domination of print argumentation as opposed to actual deliberations. Cross-cultural and historical comparisons of conventions of public talk are suggested in order to explain observed deliberative behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes Central Park East Secondary School (CPESS), a New York City public alternative high school, and its positioning as an innovative educational institution at the forefront of a national social movement for educational reform. For many supporters, CPESS represented an example of successful education for low income and racialized students. However, despite wide acclaim in the ten years after its founding, the school began to decline in 1995. Although CPESS was unable to sustain itself, the school became the inspiration for dozens of schools and created a framework for alternative public educational institutions across the country. The CPESS legacy and the schools it inspired outlived and continue to survive the original institution. This paper will apply social movement and organizational frameworks to analyze the development, decline and continuing legacy of CPESS, and its implications for public education and for racialized students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important aspect of postindustrial cities has been the development of large nighttime economies as downtown regeneration strategies. With this has come a shift in how urban nighttime spaces are regulated. This paper uses the case of the Lower East Side of Manhattan's nightscape to examine this shift in nightlife regulation. The nightscape first developed through a deregulation of liquor licensing that permitted a dense concentration of bars resulting in economic growth for as well as negative quality of life conditions within the area such as noise and litter. Rather than deal with these disorderly conditions as other forms of "broken-windows"-style urban regulation do, the new flexible nightlife regulation permits and effectively co-opts them as integral aspects of nightscapes and contemporary urban culture. In this paper I examine how the Lower East Side's nightscape was constructed through deregulation and how its current conditions are shaped by flexible regulation. The new nightlife regulation serves as a window for understanding the complex ways in which cities construct nightscapes and provides a new insight into the regulation of public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two opposing forces reshaped knowledge networks in mature industrial (a.k.a., 'rust belt') communities during the 1980s and 1990s. On the one hand, large industrial companies which stood at these places' economic social and intellectual cores restructured their innovation processes by reaching out beyond parochial boundaries of home localities to tap into global knowledge flows. But for the communities they inhabited, these actions posed a threat. Already stung by massive job losses, community leaders developed strategiesâ?”often linked to local universitiesâ?”intended to maintain and reinvigorate local processes of knowledge capture and exploitation. This paper examines university strategies for engaging local industry in two well matched places that were subject to these forces simultaneously: Akron, Ohio and Rochester, New York. Drawing on both historical matched-pair comparisons and a network analysis of co-authored scientific patents and publications, this paper explores how local economic development policies have shaped the divergent trajectories of knowledge networks and how this has shaped the possibilities for post-industrial economic change. The results suggest that an approach focused on building communityâ?”and network tiesâ?”among remaining actors produces better results that an approach centered on universities' attempting to fill the void left by exiting firms with their own research output. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates the factors that shaped the recent immigration and integration of Dominican and Mexican women in NYC during the 1990s. It lends comparative insights on how gender and economic structures combine to mediate the immigration process as well as the initial work integration of two Latina women groups within the host society. The paper is based on both ethnographic and structured interviews data collected during the fall of 1999 and the summer of 2003 among 86 women and 30 informants, including employers. Comparative analysis of the women's class, gender and household structures before and after the immigration offers insight on the causes of the immigration and exposes the mediating yet unstudied role of spouses and male partners' networks and their significance in the immigration and the initial integration of women in NYC. Finally, the paper seeks to contribute knowledge to the immigration and gender literatures by incorporating the importance of gender, class and race within immigration research and their implications for the social positioning of immigrant women within the host society. The paper argues that changes in the service sectors of New York City now limit the ethnic integration of Dominicans more than Mexicans and the life chances women now face contribute to the larger marginalization and racialization of the groups in 1990s in New York. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the social construction of order in the informal economy. The case study involves two very large and successful flea markets in the New York metropolitan area and their source of successful acquisitions of goods and services in the informal economy or as I call it - the cash underground economy. It demonstrates the socio-cultural influences on economic behavior from an interactionist perspective. As such, it seeks to demonstrate Durkheim's axiom: there can be no economics without pre-established cultural norms, the concepts of contract, and the moral sentiments and social understandings as underpinnings for economic action. Concepts as trust, reciprocity, mutual dependencies, cooperation, common agreements that are embedded in culture, are explored from a human centered approach. Lastly, it allows for a re-examination of some of the fundamental postulates of neoclassical economic theory such as an economy and business transactions as being separate from society and 'outside influences', consisting of atomistic individuals relating as lone individuals coldly calculating and maximizing their own utility. Quite the contrary view is described here. The rich, contextual, multifaceted, interpersonal qualities of exchange are established. How these recurrent expectations and concerns of economic actors get organized into roles and relationships is the focus of this paper. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on 17 months of ethnographic research in three New York City high schools, this paper examines the interaction of two current policy trends, school choice and accountability. To date, studies of school choice construct the family, rather than the school, as the agent empowered with choice. Diverging from this tradition, this paper examines the role of the school as an actor in shaping its student intake. I ask how administrators constitute the "right" parent or student for their school, how they navigate the confines of the system to achieve the intake that they desire, and how these decisions are associated with the need to achieve outcome targets. Once the school year commences, I examine how pressure to achieve targets influences principals' decisions to counsel out those students who are considered liabilities. To explain variation in these schools' management of choice, I show how principals' understandings of environmental demands and opportunities shape their approaches to the choice process, and how principals' embeddedness in local networks facilitates or inhibits their access to information. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the social structure of the Underground Railroad (UGRR) Network of New York State. Viewing entrepreneurialism as a "calling" (Weber 1922) and as "an attempt to envision a future and then to realize it" (Chell 2000), we present theoretical argument that views the UGRR as a social movement, and insurgency as a socially-constructed entrepreneurial effort. Specifically, we argue that enslaved African Americans relied on embedded network contacts and bridged structural holes to identify, recognize, and formulate a series of entrepreneurial social movement organizations (ESMO's) that would aid in their management of the UGRR. We suggest that the insurgent efforts of enslaved African Americans were partly successful by transferring network contacts between UGRR conductors. We conclude our essay with a discussion of the broader implications of our research for future work in entrepreneurship, social capital, and the role of insurgency for changing the human condition in similar circumstances. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how New Yorkers reshaped the public sphere as they engaged in a series of self-organized, loosely coordinated efforts to collectively make sense of the challenges they faced in responding and recovering from the attack of 9/11. We explore how technologies of deliberation, representation, and demonstration were mobilized to widen the scope and diversify the organizational strategies enabling public participation. Drawing on Dewey's philosophy of pragmatism and the social studies of science, we focus on how disparate socio-technologies of assembly offered different affordances that both enabled and inhibited particular discursive practices and forms of collective inquiry. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of fashion modeling draws attention to the connections between gender and economic forces. Drawing from participant observation in the New York City modeling industry, this paper explores the process through which women are converted into model "looks." They are subject to surveillance, infantilization, and uncertainty in a disciplinary regime that reproduces gender and power relations. Modeling is also constrained by "floating norms" of a cultural production market. The modeling market-as a site of economic activity and simultaneously a site for the display and production of gender-offers ways of thinking about how economic relations are fundamentally gendered. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of social capital in explaining neighborhood variation in health. Holding poverty, race, ethnicity, population turnover, and other variables constant, this ecological study assesses the impact of several local social capital indicators on eighteen health outcomes in New York City. We find that nonprofit organizational density in a neighborhood reduces rates of mortality, self-reported health status, and nine specific conditions. The violent crime rate, which has been shown to be related to collective efficacy, is strongly related to self-reported health and a few other conditions (asthma, heart failure, AIDS). Linguistic isolation, which is imperfectly related to the size of the Latino population, is associated with less mortality and illness, as the "Latino paradox" would predict. However, linguistically isolated neighborhoods have higher rates of disability and tuberculosis, as might be expected among new immigrants. These social capital indicators do not appear to mediate the associations between poverty, race, and ethnicity and health. Other pathways may account for social disparities in health across New York neighborhoods. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a descriptive study of information networks among homeless men in a private New York City shelter. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at All Angels’ Church on West 80th Street in Manhattan, I examine how homeless men exchange mental-health information. I employ the theoretical perspective or approach of social network analysis (SNA) to investigate these information networks. The approach originated with British anthropologist J.A. Barnes who found, in the early 1950s, that structural functionalism could not explain certain aspects of social interaction in urban settings. J. Clyde Mitchell introduced concepts of what occurs in networks: information, transactions, and expectations. The research will show four things. First, information exchange, particularly mental-health information exchange, occurs among homeless men in New York City through places and people. Some of these people include specific social actors known as “brokers” or “street lawyers.” Second, this exchange takes place in an overt, named “network.” Third, this information network has a horizontal organization. Finally, these aspects of the network produce mixed results in the quality of mental health care received by homeless men. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methamphetamine remains a major drug of abuse throughout the United States, yet occupies a peculiar place in the Northeast in that it remains a club drug rather than street drug. The drug has yet to diffuse beyond the confines of club subcultures in New York City. Club subcultures differ from the street economy in their organization, their placement within the class structure, and the social networks involved. The varying contexts of club subcultures have varying epidemiological implications for the use of methamphetamine, other club drugs, and assorted additional health issues. In this paper, the authors use data from the Club Drugs & Health project, a mixed-methods study aimed at further understandings of club drug use among club-going young adults (18-29), to explore methamphetamine use in club subcultures. They provide estimates of the rates of methamphetamine use as it varies across the diverse range of the club going population. In-depth assessments provided qualitative data on methamphetamine use in club subcultures. The areas described include the initiation into methamphetamine use amongst this population, transitions to other patterns of use, and the role of methamphetamine within club subcultures. Ultimately, the diversity of club subcultures provides insights to the crucial role of context in the use of illegal drugs and its associated risks. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of social capital in explaining neighborhood variation in health. Holding poverty, race, ethnicity, population turnover, and other variables constant, this ecological study assesses the impact of several local social capital indicators on eighteen health outcomes in New York City. We find that nonprofit organizational density in a neighborhood reduces rates of mortality, self-reported health status, and nine specific conditions. The violent crime rate, which has been shown to be related to collective efficacy, is strongly related to self-reported health and a few other conditions (asthma, heart failure, AIDS). Linguistic isolation, which is imperfectly related to the size of the Latino population, is associated with less mortality and illness, as the "Latino paradox" would predict. However, linguistically isolated neighborhoods have higher rates of disability and tuberculosis, as might be expected among new immigrants. These social capital indicators do not appear to mediate the associations between poverty, race, and ethnicity and health. Other pathways may account for social disparities in health across New York neighborhoods. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that the democracy-mined citizen-professionals who founded and led four key post-9/11 civic renewal organizations that aimed to promote healing and hope by creating real opportunities for citizen participation in rebuilding Lower Manhattan have continued to be motivated by a three-leveled call to leadership; they have been sustained by community fellowship as well as multiple layers of effectiveness of their efforts: civic, professional and personal. The collective behavior and motivation of the principal leaders of: The Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown for Rebuilding Downtown New York, New York/New Visions, Imagine New York, and Rebuild Downtown New York, started reaching out to their broad network of citizen and professional stakeholders to begin advocating for a voice in the Lower Manhattan healing and rebuilding process shortly after the terrorist attacks on 9/11; each utilizing their formidable civic, professional and personal social capital. The key leaders of these new civic renewal movements are comprised of individual principal actors who have a highly developed professional orientation and scientific knowledge of the planning, architecture, and legal processes in New York City, in addition to considerable political and economic capital. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]