Competing notions of social justice and contradictions in special education reform

In the past three decades, special education has been subjected to extensive critique and reform of practices. These critiques have been based on notions of social justice and equity. However, the field has suffered from inadequate attention to assumptions about social justice. Social justice is essentially a contested concept. Rather than representing a unitary and universally shared concept, social justice has variable meanings. Differing views of social justice can be seen to underlie apparent contradictions in continuing practice in response to pressures for reform. Reforms predicated on individual rights have been undermined by deep commitments to meritocratic practices in U.S. schools. Reforms based on more communitarian principles, however, ignore the need for structure and the tendency for communal values to marginalize people with disabilities. Special education reform today requires a different basis in a relational definition of the self, structures to support the qualities of relationships, and a belief in the mutability of social justice.

Lo-Fi matchmaking: A study of social pairing for backpackers

It is technically feasible for mobile social software such as pairing or ‘matchmaking’ systems to introduce people to others and assist information exchange. However, little is known about the social structure of many mobile communities or why they would want such pairing systems. While engaged in other work determining requirements for a mobile travel assistant we saw a potentially useful application for a pairing system to facilitate the exchange of travel information between backpackers. To explore this area, we designed two studies involving usage of a low-fidelity role prototype of a social pairing system for backpackers. Backpackers rated the utility of different pairing types, and provided feedback on the social implications of being paired based on travel histories. Practical usage of the social network pairing activity and the implications of broader societal usage are discussed.

Examining the effects of work externalization through the lens of social identity theory

This study examines whether dissimilarity among employees that is based on their work status (i.e., whether they are temporary or internal workers) influences their organization-based self-esteem, their trust in and attraction toward their peers, and their altruism. A model that is based on social identity theory posits that work-status dissimilarity negatively influences each outcome variable and that the strength of this relationship varies depending on whether employees have temporary or internal status and the composition of their work groups. Results that are based on a survey of 326 employees (189 internal and 137 temporary) from 34 work groups, belonging to 2 organizations, indicate that work-status dissimilarity has a systematic negative effect only on outcomes related to internal workers when they work in temporary-worker-dominated groups.

Adolescents' perceptions of social status: Development and evaluation of a new indicator

Objective. Eliminating health disparities, including those that are a result of socioeconomic status (SES), is one of the overarching goals of Healthy People 2010. This article reports on the development of a new, adolescent-specific measure of subjective social status (SSS) and on initial exploratory analyses of the relationship of SSS to adolescents' physical and psychological health. Methods. A cross-sectional study of 10 843 adolescents and a subsample of 166 paired adolescent/mother dyads who participated in the Growing Up Today Study was conducted. The newly developed MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status (10-point scale) was used to measure SSS. Paternal education was the measure of SES. Indicators of psychological and physical health included depressive symptoms and obesity, respectively. Linear regression analyses determined the association of SSS to depressive symptoms, and logistic regression determined the association of SSS to overweight and obesity, controlling for sociodemographic factors and SES. Results. Mean society ladder ranking, a subjective measure of SES, was 7.2 ± 1.3. Mean community ladder ranking, a measure of perceived placement in the school community, was 7.6 ± 1.7. Reliability of the instrument was excellent: the intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.73 for the society ladder and 0.79 for the community ladder. Adolescents had higher society ladder rankings than their mothers (µteen = 7.2 ± 1.3 vs µmom = 6.8 ± 1.2; P = .002). Older adolescents' perceptions of familial placement in society were more closely correlated with maternal subjective perceptions of placement than those of younger adolescents (Spearman's rhoteens