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We explore the impressions and meanings of gangs and violence among Latino students in a New York City middle school and as they transition into high school. Our concern is to further contextualize the specific social vulnerabilities of the first and second-generation children of immigrant families within the range of identities and trajectories open to them. Rather than infer any shared collective identity characteristics based on comparable activities, we are measuring one group's sense of identity and association by speaking with them about it. In so doing, we reevaluate theories explaining immigrant adolescent identity formation in order to raise questions about the value and use of the segmented assimilation perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the assumption that some sort of rational discourse, as an ideal-type, is approachable if not absolutely achievable, and the assumption that some segments of society are more practiced in the kinds of language that allows such a discourse, and, finally, the assumption that particular subjects are often disinterested in universal understanding, I ask whether we can identify and situate "uncivil" discourse strategies within the context of civil discourse. This analysis is concerned with one obstacle to democratic pluralism, the tendency for participants in public discussions to frame both issues and other participants in competitive terms. I posit that there will be discernable patterns to how, when and by whom such strategies are invoked, and that a significant use of these strategies will be to defend and reify as universal the particular perspective that is most closely associated with both modernist thought. To test this thesis, I analyze the content of online discussions linked to stories appearing in Inside Higher Ed, an online journal for higher education professionals. Relative to the population at large, IHE reader/participants are, on average, more practiced in effective communicative action and more privileged by the modernist value system that endorses civil society as an ideal. Thus, participants often get to choose between enacting civil discourse and defending their own positions. This paper examines uncivil discourse strategies in light of theories of civil society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how new immigrant and American-born minority students in one city high school negotiate their commitment to education in a disturbed school environment. The research was conducted in an inner-city school located in New York City. Students' behaviors reflect a broader social reality of their experiences in school than the theories of education would suggest. The concept of street ethos addresses the issues of misbehavior associated with low academic performance without recourse to resistance as a cultural trait of students in inner city schools. Resistance refers to cultural models that define student misbehavior or conflict as an indicator that a student has rejected the norms and values associated with formal education.

The failed Irish nationalist revolution of 1798 was spearheaded by the underground organizing activities of the Society of United Irishmen. This society, which began meeting in 1791 in Dublin and Belfast, had operated mostly as a open, aboveground political club dedicated to parliamentary reform and ?relief? for the Catholics of the country from the oppressive penal laws. When and how the Society moved from legitimate politics to insurrection is an open question that historians can only approach without final resolution. In this paper, I will contribute to this question by tracing and interpreting a single idea, Dr. William Drennan?s ?benevolent conspiracy,? through the life of the organization. I present evidence that an element of the Society had been organized for revolutionary change ?by any means necessary? from the start, but that the majority of the Society had been unaware of this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceptions of HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s, for those who were interested in it at all, were shaped predominately by scant scientific data. Community organizing initially followed the criteria established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), generating new organizational efforts for each new crisis area only after it was officially identified. Later, as the community groups gained experience and expertise, they began to define the contours of the problem themselves, and to export their definitions and priorities to the public health sector. The purpose of this paper is to examine the interorganizational conditions that allowed a community of political outsiders to define the agenda in a policy domain that required both community and state participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the ways in which participants at San Francisco's needle exchange program (NEP) extended the net of service provision through collective, or secondary, exchange. We report findings from our National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded three year process evaluation of the needle exchange program, completed in September of 1995. We interviewed a total of 244 study participants recruited from eight needle exchange sessions. Fifty percent of all "primary exchangers" exchanged for one or more injecting drug user(s) (IDUs). We identified three general routes of needle distribution between primary and secondary exchangers: between close friends and lovers; for people who lived in close proximity to them (e.g., neighbors in residence hotels); and with customers who bought drugs from them. We demonstrate these client-provided exchanges enable the NEP to overcome injection drug users' obstacles to program attendance, thereby reaching even hard to access members of IDU populations. Our analysis of secondary exchanges revealed barriers to the use of needle exchange programs, demonstrates participant innovations to overcome those barriers, and suggests program improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]