The Preference Puzzle: Educational Differences in Racial-Political Attitudes

Education leads to racial liberalism in a great many instances. In this piece, I show that better educated whites are more racially liberal than less educated whites on issues involving minority preferences, with one notable exception. Better educated whites are significantly more opposed to affirmative action in university admissions than less educated whites. This is a puzzle, and my resolution of it is informed by group conflict theory and how university preferences evoke the group interests of better educated whites as they approach the issue. Additionally, I show that the group interests of less educated whites also are engaged by the issue. In the context of the survey I study, the class orientations of the less educated are roused, and, I argue, lower status individuals are encouraged to view university preferences as an opportunity to share the burden of affirmative action, contributing to the puzzling reversal in the relationship of education and racial-political attitudes.     

论萧红小说的修辞特性

萧红是20世纪30年代一位独具风格的作家.在语言方面,她的小说很好地体现了"语言表达应配合一定的语境与情境",在不经意间展现出过人的叙事才能.她的语言存在是现代汉语语言运用的一个个案.她不期然达到的语言高度,是值得探究和借鉴的.     

Britain’s Choice: Polarisation or Cohesion

Britain’s Choice, a report published by More in Common, develops a new segmentation of the British public based on their core beliefs, values and identities. Identifying seven segments, the report aims to better understand the British public, the goal being to work out how to build a more cohesive Britain—the choice facing Britain being a path to further division and polarisation or one to greater solidarity and shared values. The report strikes a broadly optimistic turn and highlights the shared values across the seven groups, but there are warning signs in the data that there are still many issues on which these groups could be divided, the overlap between them, for now, limiting the success of attempts to do so and throwing up a ‘kaleidoscopic’ pattern that changes from issue to issue.     

Poor versus rich countries: a gap in public attitudes towards fiscal solidarity in the EU

Abstract

Existing research has primarily focused on the role of utility and identity in shaping individuals’ European Union (EU) preferences. This article argues that macroeconomic context is a crucial predictor of attitudes towards transnational financial assistance, which has been omitted from previous analyses. Using data from the 2014 European Election Studies (EES) Voter Study for 28 EU member states, this article demonstrates that citizens living in poorer EU countries are less willing to support fiscal solidarity than their counterparts in more affluent countries. Country affluence serves as a heuristic, moderating the relationship between individual-level utility and identity considerations and willingness to show solidarity to member states with economic difficulties. When a country does not fare well economically, citizens’ views on providing help to others remain negative, irrespective of individual-level utilitarian and identity considerations. Our findings have implications for understanding the decision-making calculus underlying preference formation.     

解读利玛窦“由僧到儒”的身份转换

在中国近30年时间里，作为传教士的利玛窦，为了掩盖传教之目的，竟然一直不敢以“神父”身份自称，而是前十几年以“僧人”自称，后十几年以“儒者”自居。无疑，对于一个公众人物而言，这种身份上的转换不仅需要一种巨大的勇气与魄力，而且还存在稍有不慎就会使自己陷入更为难堪的风险境地。然利玛窦为何在异地竟敢“由僧到儒”进行身份上的转换？其实，对于此举，不仅利玛窦，乃至整个东方耶稣会都是经过缜密思考与反复衡量才决定的。因为，对利玛窦而言，无论是“僧人”，还是“儒者”，都不过是他掩盖自身真实身份的权设而已，并无特大之差别。但两者相较而言，僧人身份不仅没能促进传教事业的发展，反而带来重重困难与障碍，而儒者身份则既可弥补僧者身份上所导致的一些缺陷，而且还可推动上层传教路线的实施，以及化解传教过程中所遇到的一些困难与挫折。     

Mapurbe Identity and Admapu in David Aniñir's Poetry

This article proposes a reading of David Aniñir's poetry that examines how he resignifies elements pertaining to admapu or Mapuche norms and practices in the metropolis. Aniñir is an urban Mapuche poet who lives in Santiago, Chile and displays interest in recovering his roots. While he defies preconceptions about indigenous peoples in his poetry, he includes Mapuche culture in his depiction of mapurbe identity. In his writing, Aniñir incorporates Mapuche key concepts and social roles such as yeyipun (prayer), pewma (dreams), werken (messenger), ngenpin (ritual speaker) and machi (spiritual authority and shaman), giving them new meanings within the urban context.     

Motivations behind citizen aid: Norwegian initiatives in The Gambia

Abstract

Little is known about citizen aid initiatives originating in Norway, and they are not recognised as part of the official Norwegian development aid. Citizen aid initiatives are personal and small, and by themselves they do not raise large sums of money, nor do they individually have a large-scale development impact. But collectively, their influence on sponsors in Norway and on aid beneficiaries in the Global South might be substantial. Through qualitative interviews, this study explores the motivations of Norwegian founders of citizen aid initiatives, who run small development projects in The Gambia. The study finds that they are motivated by the very characteristics of these citizen aid initiatives which set them apart from formal development organisations. These include the initiatives’ small size, which allows for a personal closeness to and control over the projects. These features are often interconnected with motivations stemming from the founders’ personal experiences. The study finds that, inasmuch as the founders see the need for beneficiaries to be supported, they also experience a need to help themselves. The founders’ identities, as helpers and givers, are both formed and continually reinforced by their personal involvement in this specific type of aid work.     

歧视知觉对社区矫正对象社会疏离的影响机制研究——基于身份认同整合和社会支持的中介效应

社区矫正对象的社会疏离关乎个体发展和社会稳定，是推进平安中国建设的重 要内容。基于2019年S市社区矫正对象的调查数据，从身份认同整合和社会支持视角，探究歧视知觉对社区矫正对象社会疏离的影响机制。研究发现，歧视知觉对社区矫正对象的社会疏离既存在直接影响，也通过身份认同整合和社会支持两个中介变量产生间接影响。身份认同整合和社会支持在歧视知觉与社会疏离之间起到自我转化和外在保护的作用。因此，在外在歧视无法完全消除之下，为了缓解社区矫正对象的社会疏离，应注重提升个体的自我身份认同整合，增强社区矫正对象的有益支持，从而促进其顺利回归社会。     

Suits and Frocks: Dressmakers and the Making of Feminine Identity in Postwar Australian Society

In a context of heightened domestic ideology post–World War II, self-employed dressmakers contributed significantly to the making of the identity of Australian women. Through the skilled work of interacting with their clients and sewing their clothes, dressmakers both supported individual women’s presentation of “self” and operated at the intersection of gender and class relations. Working at home, they were not only making women’s clothes but also producing the social world. Drawing on interviews with thirteen women, this paper explores how such dressmakers’ work constructed a visual representation and interpretation of a feminine identity particular to their time, place, and local cultural context.     

Colonial Existence,Home and Nationalism in the Narratives of British Cameroons’ Exiles in the United States

This article explores the personal meanings and public expressions of colonial existence, home and nationalism among exiles of British Cameroons from the standpoints of 11 biographies of British Southern Cameroons’ first-generation exiles living in the United States. Examining their narratives reveals why the exiles actively resist a public categorisation as being Cameroonians. This article provides a new type of research regarding British Cameroons’ exiles and their vision of the restoration of the statehood of British Cameroons, a former United Nations trust territory deserving its separate sovereignty and independence in accordance with the UN Trusteeship Agreement (1946) and UN Resolution 1514 of 1960 on the independence of colonial people. Significant about this study of the narratives of British Cameroons’ exiles is its focus on biography for portraying particular facets of nationalist resistance, including questions relating to the processes that surround the right to define the community one calls home.