Collaborative Sociological Practice: the Case of Nine Urban Biotopes

This paper examines the socially engaged art project Nine Urban Biotopes (9UB), an international exchange between European and South African cultural organisations. Two artist residencies offer case studies of collaborative arts and research practice. The ways that these case studies are read as ‘failures’ and ‘successes’ illustrate the complexities of North-South collaborations. This project, the partnership that sustained it and the residencies that were central to it, exemplify, in modest ways, how public sociology can be realised in modest ways in a global context. This paper shows, with examples, that whilst partnership and collaboration are emphasised in institutional and policy discourse, in practice these arrangements are filled with tension and unequal power relations between partners. An evaluative methodology premised on sociological practice allows the tensions that are inherent in partnership and collaboration to be recognised and productively interrogated. It also allows us to reimagine what ‘success’ and ‘failure’ looks like in research partnerships by working with the antagonisms that are integral to collaboration.     

Caste System and Resistance: The Case of Untouchable Hindu Sweepers in Bangladesh

This paper studies Hindu untouchable sweepers of Bangladesh, using a case study of two sweeper communities in Dhaka city. Due to their untouchability, Hindu sweepers in Bangladesh have historically been subjected to discrimination and marginalisation, and are deprived of choices such as free selection of occupation, access to housing, education and other benefits. Contending with the conventional notion that Hinduism maintains social order by caste hierarchies and divisions of labour, this shows how the sweepers of Dhaka city respond to the notion of untouchability and show resistance to caste discrimination. This paper also argues that it is not only a Hindu religious ideology but also historical, colonial, economic, political and social aspects of caste-based discrimination that can explain construction of the notion of Dalit and the marginalisation and resistance of Bangladeshi sweepers.     

From Communal Patriotism To City-State Chauvinism: Transformation of Collective Identities in Northern Italy, 1050–1500

At the turn of the first millennium, the rise of autonomous communes and city-states in northern Italy coincided with the development of a particular sense of attachment to land and city, which is widely labeled as civic patriotism. Neither the transformation of these collective identities across time nor the macrostructural dynamics behind this transformation has received much attention. Through an examination of these communes and city-states from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, this paper unpacks different forms of collective identities that prevailed in northern Italy in different periods of time, all of which have previously been labeled as “patriotism” in the literature. The differentiation I propose between “communal patriotism,” “civic nationalism,” and “city-state chauvinism” presents a more nuanced picture which highlights the differences in the ways these collective identities are produced, reproduced, and transformed. My analysis also discusses the role played by macrostructural dynamics (e.g., changing climate in the macropolitical economy as well as inter-city-state system in the peninsula) in transforming these collective identities. Alongside a longue durée evolutionary transformation, there were two conjunctural moments which created ruptures in the transformation of collective identities in northern Italy: The first took place during the territorialization of the communes and the conquest of the contado in the mid-twelfth century and the second occurred in the aftermath of the crisis of the fourteenth century.     

Protective Families in High- and Low-risk Environments: Implications for Adolescent Substance Use

This study used data from a sample of 6th to 12th grade students (N = 48,641, 51% female), nested in 192 schools, to determine if the influence of family-based protective factors varied across different school contexts. Hierarchical logistic regression models were used to examine the effects of individual-level family protective factors, relative to school-level aggregates of the same factors, on recent (past 30 days) use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. Cross-level interactions indicated that the effect of the student’s level of family protection, relative to other students in their school, differed depending on the aggregated school level of family protection. The results suggested that the benefit of belonging to a well-functioning family was more influential for students attending schools characterized by higher-than-average aggregated levels of protection compared to students attending schools of lower-than-average protection. Thus, family-level factors offered less protection for students in relatively high-risk school contexts. These results were consistent with a protective–reactive interaction and suggest that a thorough understanding of adolescent substance use must consider the complex interplay among adolescents, their families, and their social environments.     

Exploring Gender-Specific Trends in Underage Drinking Across Adolescent Age Groups and Measures of Drinking: Is Girls’ Drinking Catching Up with Boys’?

Underage drinking is among the most serious of public health problems facing adolescents in the United States. Recent concerns have centered on young women, reflected in media reports and arrest statistics on their increasing problematic alcohol use. This study rigorously examined whether girls’ alcohol use rose by applying time series methods to both arrest data, Uniform Crime Reports, and self-report data from Monitoring the Future, a nationally representative long-term survey gathered independently of crime control agents. All self-reported drinking behaviors across all age groups show declining or unchanged female rates and no significant change in the gender gap, while the official source displays a steady narrowing gender gap and some increase of female arrest rates for liquor law violations. Results indicate that social control measures applied to underage drinking have shifted to target young women’s drinking patterns, but their drinking has not become more widespread/problematic. Girls’ increased alcohol use and abuse is a socially constructed problem, rather than the result of normalization of drinking or more strain in girls’ lives. Future underage drinking policies and practices that apply legal intervention strategies to less chronic adolescent drinking behaviors will increase the visibility of girls’ drinking.     

Acculturation and Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Latina Adolescents Transitioning to Young Adulthood

Latinas in the United States are at a disproportionate risk for STDs and sexual risk behaviors. Among Latinas, acculturation has been found to be one of the most important predictors of these behaviors. Therefore, this study examined the longitudinal association between Latina adolescents’ level of acculturation and multiple sexual risk outcomes, including self-report STD diagnosis, four or more life-time sex partners, regret of sexual initiation after alcohol use, and lack of condom use during young adulthood. Based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study includes a nationally representative sample of 1,073 Latina adolescents (ages 11–20 at Wave 1) transitioning into young adulthood (ages 18–27 at Wave 3). Our findings indicate that more acculturated Latinas who spoke English at home were more likely to have STDs and to exhibit sexual risk behaviors than Latinas who were foreign-born and did not use English at home. Interventions that aim to promote sexual and reproductive health among young Latinas should take into consideration their different levels of acculturation. This approach holds greater potential for reducing health disparities among Latinas.     

Adolescents’ Response to Parental Efforts to Influence Eating Habits: When Parental Warmth Matters

Previous findings have shown both beneficial and adverse effects of parents’ attempts to influence adolescents’ eating habits. The current study examined the differential effect of parents’ persuasion (e.g., encouragement, giving information) and pressure tactics (e.g., guilt induction, ridicule) and the moderating influence of parental warmth on older adolescents’ emotional and behavioral responses. An ethnically diverse sample of 336 older adolescents (M age = 18.6; SD = 1.1; 58.0% female) were surveyed. Adolescents who reported higher levels of pressure tactics by parents reported more negative affect and behavioral resistance. Perceived parental warmth moderated the influence of persuasion tactics, but not pressure tactics. For adolescents with low parental warmth, high levels of persuasion were associated with more negative emotional and behavioral responses; persuasion had the opposite associations for adolescents with high parental warmth. These results suggest that parental warmth plays an important role in how older adolescents respond to parents’ persuasion tactics. However, when parents use more forceful pressure tactics to influence eating habits, adolescents react negatively regardless of the overall quality of the parent–adolescent relationship.     

Links Between Adolescents’ Expected Parental Reactions and Prosocial Behavioral Tendencies: The Mediating Role of Prosocial Values

The purpose of the present study was to examine relations between adolescents’ social cognitions regarding parenting practices and adolescents’ prosocial behavioral tendencies. A mediation model was tested whereby the degree to which adolescents perceived their parents as responding appropriately to their prosocial and antisocial behaviors was hypothesized to predict adolescents’ tendencies toward prosocial behavior indirectly by way of adolescents’ prosocial values. Adolescents (N = 140; M age = 16.76 years, SD = .80; 64% girls; 91% European Americans) completed measures of prosocial values and of the appropriateness with which they expected their parents to react to their prosocial and antisocial behaviors. In addition, teachers and parents rated the adolescents’ tendencies for prosocial behaviors. A structural equation model test showed that the degree to which adolescents expected their parents to respond appropriately to their prosocial behaviors was related positively to their prosocial values, which in turn was positively associated with their tendencies to engage in prosocial behaviors (as reported by parents and teachers). The findings provide evidence for the central role of adolescents’ evaluations and expectancies of parental behaviors and of the role of values in predicting prosocial tendencies. Discussion focuses on the implications for moral socialization theories and on the practical implications of these findings in understanding adolescents’ prosocial development.     

Revisiting Parental Monitoring: Evidence that Parental Solicitation Can be Effective When Needed Most

Studies using valid measures of monitoring activities have not found the anticipated main effects linking greater monitoring activity with fewer behavioral problems. This study focused on two contexts in which monitoring activities may be particularly influential. Early adolescents (n = 218, M age = 11.5 years, 51% female, 49% European American, 47% African American) reported their unsupervised time, beliefs about the legitimacy of their parents’ authority, and their own involvement in antisocial behavior. Mothers and adolescents reported their perceptions of adolescent disclosure and parental solicitation and control. Adolescents’ perceptions of greater parental solicitation at age 11 were associated with less antisocial behavior at age 12 (when controlling for age 11 antisocial behavior) among adolescents reporting large amounts of unsupervised time and weak legitimacy beliefs. Perceived parental solicitation may be an effective deterrent of antisocial behavior when adolescents spend a lot of time unsupervised and for adolescents who are likely to challenge the legitimacy of their parents’ authority.