SAGE Podcast

Mary Ann Hazen interviews Gelaye Debebe about her article, "Creating a Safe Environment for Women's Leadership Transformation."

This article examines the social representations of water in urban cultures of Argentina, placing the subject as a matter of academic and practical interest. Some questions have guided this investigation-What is water for the urban dweller? What are the actions that a citizen is willing to exercise? A qualitative research was conducted (according to Yin's case analysis methodology) in Gualeguaychú and Buenos Aires. Following the collected data, the authors reconstructed the dominant paradigm in both cities, which was the ecocentric model. However, the acceptance of ecological values and beliefs is not an indicator of the exercise of proecological behavior concerning water. Empirical findings have guided the authors to inquire the degree of relationship between social representations and attributes of Andrew Dobson's model of ecological citizenship.

In the United States, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have enacted statutes that allow police officers to make warrantless arrests for domestic violence given probable cause; however, state laws differ from one another in multiple, important ways. Research on domestic violence warrantless arrest laws rarely describe them as anything more than discretionary, preferred, or mandatory, either within their analyses or within the texts of their publications; researchers, and their audiences, may not be aware of the vast and potentially important differences among these laws. In this article, we list the domestic violence warrantless arrest laws for each state, and discuss them in terms of five common elements: the phrasing of the arrest authority; whether additional factors to domestic violence are required to trigger the arrest authority; qualifications to the arrest authority; time limits for warrantless arrest to occur; and whether police officers are required to report why they made a dual or no arrest. We then analyze the common elements of the laws, paying particular attention to how they may encourage or discourage the arrest of alleged domestic violence perpetrators. It is critical that researchers, advocates, and policymakers are aware of these variations in state statutes when conducting or interpreting research or making policy recommendations.

Rik Grobbee, Editor in Chief of European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation discusses the recent decision to change the title of the journal to European Journal of Preventive Cardiology which will take effect from January 2012.

Standard English Learners (SELs) are ethnic minority native speakers of English whose mastery of the "standard English language" used in the curriculum of schools is limited due to their use of ethnic-specific nonstandard dialect. Research in language development highlights language as a tool that allows the individual access to basic civil rights and opportunities in the area of politics, economics, and education. A correlation exists between proficiency in the use of Standard English and academic achievement, thereby highlighting the importance of validating the intangible language heritage that these students bring to the school environment while they are schooled in the use of Standard English.

To coincide with ECTRIMS in October, Professor Alan Thompson, Director of the Institute of Neurology at UCL and Editor in Chief of the journal discusses significant developments in the field over the 17 years since the journal launched, and the new debates and topical reviews sections published in the journal from October.

Shaianne Osterreich interviews Susan A. Newman about her article, "Financialization and Changes in the Social Relations along Commodity Chains: The Case of Coffee."

David Barkin interviews Patrick Bond about his article, "What is Radical in Neoliberal-Nationalist South Africa?"

In this podcast, Professor Neil Humphrey discusses his work published in Autism (2011; volume 15, issue 4) on peer interaction amongst teenagers with autism in mainstream schools (hosted by Dr Laura Crane).

JMI: Six Degrees Brenda Lautsch interviews Sandra Robinson about her life and career.

This article examines the transition to adulthood among 1.5-generation undocumented Latino young adults. For them, the transition to adulthood involves exiting the legally protected status of K to 12 students and entering into adult roles that require legal status as the basis for participation. This collision among contexts makes for a turbulent transition and has profound implications for identity formation, friendship patterns, aspirations and expectations, and social and economic mobility. Undocumented children move from protected to unprotected, from inclusion to exclusion, from de facto legal to illegal. In the process, they must learn to be illegal, a transformation that involves the almost complete retooling of daily routines, survival skills, aspirations, and social patterns. These findings have important implications for studies of the 1.5- and second-generations and the specific and complex ways in which legal status intervenes in their coming of age. The article draws on 150 interviews with undocumented 1.5-generation young adult Latinos in Southern California.

Circles of Support & Accountability (COSA) started 15 years ago in Ontario, Canada, as an alternate means of social support to high-risk sexual offenders released at the end of their sentences without any community supervision. The pilot project in South-Central Ontario has since assisted almost 200 offenders. Projects based on this model are now in place in the United Kingdom, several jurisdictions in the United States, and throughout Canada. Initial research into the efficacy of the COSA pilot project showed that participation reduced sexual recidivism by 70% or more in comparison with both matched controls and actuarial norms. The current study sought to replicate these findings using an independent Canadian national sample. A total of 44 high-risk sexual offenders, released at sentence completion and involved in COSA across Canada, were matched to a group of 44 similar offenders not involved in COSA. The average follow-up time was 35 months. Recidivism was defined as having a charge or conviction for a new offense. Results show that offenders in COSA had an 83% reduction in sexual recidivism, a 73% reduction in all types of violent recidivism, and an overall reduction of 71% in all types of recidivism in comparison to the matched offenders. These findings suggest that participation in COSA is not site-specific and provide further evidence for the position that trained and guided community volunteers can and do assist in markedly improving offenders' chances for successful reintegration.

The article investigates the interdisciplinary nature of research in adult education and suggests interactive research guides and other interactive resources for fostering collaboration and interdisciplinary inquiry. The purpose is to foster the development of a more functional literacy for information seeking as expressed across disciplines and the thoughtful integration of such information into academic and practical research projects within the field of adult education. Studies of researcher behavior are utilized to suggest some techniques and resources that could be employed more widely in conducting literature searches, including the creation and use of interactive resource guides. Some trends in libraries that offer promise for knowledge discovery and sharing, such as federated searching, customizable workspaces, and user-generated content, are also explored. Finally, tools and resources currently available to promote collaboration and interdisciplinary research are also noted.

Gordon Meyer, Associate Editor for JME, interviews Lisa M. Amoroso and Denise Lewin Loyd about their article.

Scholars have long argued that civic organizations play a vital role in developing members' civic capacity. Yet few empirical studies examine how and the extent to which civic skills transfer across distinct and separate civic contexts. Focusing on Latino immigrant members of a Los Angeles janitors' labor union, this article fills a void by investigating union members' involvement in an independent civic arena-their children's schools. Analyses of random sample survey and semi-structured interview data demonstrate that labor union experience does not simply lead to more civic engagement, as previous research might suggest. Rather, conceptual distinctions must be made between active and inactive union members and between different types of civic engagement. Results show that active union members are not particularly involved in plug-in types of involvement, which are typically defined and dictated by school personnel. Instead, active union members tend to become involved in critical forms of engagement that allow them to voice their interests and exercise leadership. Furthermore, findings suggest that the problem solving, advocacy, and organizing skills acquired through union participation do not uniformly influence members' civic engagement. Experience in a social movement union serves as a catalyst for civic engagement for some, while it enhances the leadership capacity of others.