Dimensions Of Membership Research Articles

Konstytucyjne prawo do zmiany wyznania

The right to change religion comprises two sub-rights: the right to join a religious community and the right to withdraw from it. The former requires that the consent of the individual and the religious group be a necessary and sufficient condition for establishing membership. Such a right is generally uncontroversial and respected in practice, whereas the right to leave a religious association is sometimes difficult to exercise. This is due to the fact that this matter is left to be determined by the internal laws of religious associations, resulting in fragmented regulation, unequal treatment, and insufficient procedural guarantees. The situation could be significantly improved by regulating the procedure for leaving a religious association in state law. However, a distinction must be made between the spiritual and legal dimensions of membership. The article is based on doctrinal research involving the Strasbourg requirements, national case law, and existing legal scholarship.

HOME-BASED ENTERPRISE AS POTENTIAL CATALYST TO STRENGTHEN THE SENSE OF COMMUNITY IN NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING

This study aims to investigate the association between the sense of community and the new home-based enterprises, which emerged as a mitigation strategy to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, and its implication with neighbourhood planning. A set of questionnaires based on a fourfactor dimension of Sense of Community Index 2 was distributed to the virtual communities called 'Bromo Ladies' in a residential cluster at Lippo Karawaci Tangerang. The results showed that independent variables of shared emotional connection and influence correlated more significantly with the sense of community than needs fulfilment and membership dimensions. The findings were triangulated using an ethnographic approach through participant observation. The thematic discussions under togetherness and care and the COVID-19 pandemic had the highest reoccurrence in the virtual community discussion. This study concluded that the new home-based enterprises acted as catalysts for the neighbourhood's sense of community during the pandemic through communication, participation, and informal involvement among virtual community members. This study highlighted an evidence-based understanding of the home-based enterprise's performance and its potential impacts on a residential neighbourhood's quality of life and well-being during the pandemic. This study offered that integrated home-based enterprises' neighbourhood planning could increase a sense of community.

Community-Building on Bilibili: The Social Impact of Danmu Comments

Danmu commenting is a new feature of the streaming industry, popular in East Asia. Danmu comments are displayed as streams of comments superimposed on video screens and synchronised to the specific playback time at which the users sent them, moving horizontally from right to left. Interestingly, users do not have options such as “replies” to structure their comments; their interactions commonly include poor addressivity, hidden authorship, and unmarked sending time. The ways in which users actually interact with each other and, more importantly, the implications of such danmu-enabled social interactions on building virtual communities are so far understudied. Through a case study centred on Bilibili, a leading Chinese danmu platform, this article argues that in spite of their visually chaotic manner, the social interactive patterns of danmu commenters contribute to community building. Under the theoretical framework of “sense of virtual community,” the study adopts a data-driven methodology to qualitatively analyse such fragmented data. Results show that Bilibili users have discovered various ways to initiate social contact with each other through the creative use of linguistic and semiotic resources. Their ritualised performance in the Bilibili community is centred around the social aims of danmu comments, danmu clusters, and danmu language, all of which strengthen their sense of virtual community on the dimensions of membership, influence, and immersion. This article contributes to the research on this emerging media phenomenon by illustrating a new mode of watching and engaging in a participatory online community of practice that this platform encourages.

Exploring the Experiences of Members of the International Food Safety Authorities Network: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

The International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) is a global network of national food safety authorities from 190 countries, managed jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) that aims to facilitate the rapid exchange of information during food safety incidents. A three-phase study of INFOSAN was launched in 2019 to characterize and examine the network as a functional community of practice and determine its value systematically and rigorously from its members' perspectives. The first two phases of the study involved analyzing the INFOSAN Community Website and surveying of all of its members. The main objective of this third and final phase of the study was to understand the experiences of a small group of INFOSAN members as they relate to various dimensions of membership. A qualitative methodology was used to provide a deeper understanding of members' experiences and supplement the results from the first two quantitative study phases. Interviews were conducted with 10 INFOSAN members from 10 geographic regions, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The results offer an understanding of INFOSAN members' experiences in the context of what participation in this global network means to them and relate to five themes concerning trust, learning, health protection, sense of community, and future potential. The findings suggest that focusing on outreach to sustain personal interest, training to improve technical capacity, and advocacy to obtain political buy-in are ways in which the INFOSAN Secretariat could enable participation and create value at the individual, organizational, and national level, respectively. Such engagement could translate into more effective international communication during urgent food safety incidents and fewer cases of foodborne illness worldwide.

Time matters: civic engagement and the development of anti-immigrant attitudes among adolescents

A recurring claim in the literature is that civic engagement in voluntary associations is crucial for the formation of a variety of interpersonal attitudes, such as social trust, tolerance, and intolerance. In this article, we study the role of membership in voluntary associations and volunteer work in the development of anti-immigrant attitudes among adolescents. Using a four-wave longitudinal design with a target sample comprising approximately 2000 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 16 at the first measurement occasion, this study contributes to previous research by analysing the impact on anti-immigrant attitudes of different dimensions of membership in voluntary associations and volunteer work. The results showed that membership in voluntary associations and volunteer work over several years serve to decrease anti-immigrant attitudes among adolescents over time. In addition, volunteering over several years seems to have a somewhat stronger impact on anti-immigrant attitudes than do various aspects of membership in associations. Our study also shows that anti-immigrant attitudes become more firmly established with age and that membership in only certain types of voluntary associations relates to attitudes toward immigrants. In sum, this study contributes to previous research focusing on the role of civic engagement in the development of interpersonal attitudes.

EU Membership: Formal and Substantive Dimensions

AbstractMembership is central to the EU, as it is to any other international organisation. Withdrawal has assumed centre-stage through Brexit. While there is literature that is relevant to membership, most notably through academic discourse on differentiated integration, there is little more general inquiry concerning membership, the concept of which has importance and implications over and beyond more particular avenues of scholarship. This article examines the formal and substantive dimensions of membership and withdrawal in the EU.

Sense of Community and Migration Intentions among Rural Young Professionals

AbstractThis mixed‐methods study examines rural young professionals' migratory intentions in relation to sense of community. The most significant difference we found in migratory intentions was between two groups, which we call stayers and seekers. Both groups highly valued sense of community but they reported dramatically different experiences related to the dimensions of membership and emotional connection to the particular focal community of this study. We find that, in addition to commonly cited factors of age, importance of family, traditional cultural tastes, and achieved sense of community, the experience of disconnection between desired and experienced sense of community represents a distinct influence on respondents' intentions to leave within the next 5 years. The qualitative data suggest that the practices of granting greater access to local stocks of knowledge, offering direct invitations to participate in community life, and providing greater responsibilities in the service of the community cultivate emotional connection and sense of membership, and therefore may be critical to better retaining those people who feel the greatest sense of disconnection. This study examines the dynamics underlying these results and outlines practical implications for other communities hoping to combat local manifestations of brain drain.

Dimensions of Informal Sector Association Membership: Experiences from Jua Kali Associations in Western Kenya

This article explores the various dimensions of membership of informal sector entrepreneurs in business associations they ostensibly formed to pursue their needs and strategic interests. It is based on a case study of Jua Kali Associations (JKAs) in Homa Bay Town in Western Kenya using Hirschman's concept of exit, voice and loyalty as the theoretical frame and data generated and analysed through a qualitative research design. The broad spectrum of membership dimensions ranging from active membership, to dormant membership and non-membership are being examined. The analysis points to certain factors that influence decisions of informal sector entrepreneurs to what degree they engage in their associations. The study further shows that there are jua kalis who decided not to join any association in the first place. Only very few jua kalis took the conscious decision to exit their associations (often due to disappointment and frustration) leading to ‘open exit’. The study concludes that exit is multifaceted and that this experience merits attention since it contributes to the fact that only a very small number of all informal sector entrepreneurs operating in Homa Bay Town were JKA members utilizing the associations in pursuit of their organized voice.

Cooperative-waqf model: a proposal to develop idle waqf lands in Malaysia

Purpose Waqf (Islamic endowment) in the form of cash is important to address the problem of developing idle waqf lands. Although there are various existing models of cash waqf, there is still a need for innovative cash waqf models. This paper aims to offer an alternative mode of financing for developing idle waqf lands using the concepts of cooperatives and waqf. Design/methodology/approach The present study first evaluates relevant literature on financing issues faced by waqf institutions in developing idle waqf lands as well as existing models of cash waqf. Based on the prevailing gap in cash waqf models, the study proposes a hybrid model of cooperative-waqf to finance idle waqf lands in Malaysia. Findings The proposed model is unique owing to the new dimension of membership being embedded into the waqf project. It considers donors as members of the waqf project, which is funded through the cash waqf collected, and thus, donors are given the privilege to receive benefits from the commercialised projects that are developed on the waqf lands. The existing models of cash waqf use traditional methods in which donors merely contribute cash waqf without any awareness of how the contributions are utilised. Usually, this problem occurs due to the lack of reciprocal communication between cash waqf donors and waqf institutions. Research limitations/implications The present study examines the case of waqf land development in the context of Malaysia only. Secondly, the paper does not contain any empirical analysis, and the development of the paper is based on existing literature that discusses various models of cash waqf practised in Muslim-majority and -minority countries. Future research can conduct surveys of donors and other stakeholders on the practicality of the model. Practical implications It is expected that the proposed cooperative-waqf model will be able to create a synchronised relationship between cash waqf donors and waqf institutions and hence boost participation in developing waqf lands. Originality/value The present study adds to the existing literature in the area of waqf and cash waqf models, especially the application of this instrument in the context of Malaysia. It also offers a new hybrid model to the State Islamic Religious Councils (SIRCs) – Malaysia’s sole trustee of waqf assets management – such that the implementation of the proposed model could boost the collection of cash waqf in developing commercial projects on idle waqf lands.

Young people’s experiences of political membership: from political parties to Facebook groups

ABSTRACTIn contemporary democracies, citizens’ political memberships are undergoing significant changes. Particularly young people are described as being less interested in long-term commitments in conventional political collectives, instead preferring to engage in cause-oriented activism in loosely organised groups, often sustained by online media. However, behind these general trends, there is a diversity of collective activities, where people are typically part of several ones. The shifting forms of memberships have rarely been investigated as such from the perspective of young citizens. Using a qualitative multi-method approach, this article investigates how young people with an interest in civic and political issues experience and reflect upon their involvements in various collectives. The analysis focuses on two aspects: the explorations that characterise the participants’ political memberships, and the meanings and motives of joining political collectives. On the whole, the participants’ involvement can be described as shifting and tentative. This can be related to the idea of adolescence as a formative period of life, where explorations of memberships constitute important processes in young people’s development of values, beliefs and identities. As for meanings and motives, three themes were found to be central: perceived efficacy, self-identity and peer relationships. The study suggests that political membership is multidimensional and usefully analysed as a process rather than a dichotomous category. As such, it involves explorations and changes over time. The study highlights the reflexive dimensions of membership, where affiliations to collectives is something that youth try out, work on, account for and reconsider in relation to their self-identities.

Autoestima personal y colectiva: asociación con la identidad étnica en los brasileños

People evaluate themselves from the successes and failures everyday with others in social comparisons and comparisons with their own internal parameters, as well as to the evaluation by the individual, and the perception of evaluation what, others do about these groups, thus presenting the personal nature (PSE) and collective (CSE) of self-esteem. The main objective of this study is to explore the differences in ethnic identity in Brazil, as well as contrast the relations between PSE and CSE. A total of 255 people completed the PSE Rosenberg (1965), CSE of Crocker and Luhtanen (1990) and Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney, 1992) scales. The results show that PSE is associated with the CSE, especially in the dimension of perceived social support in their group. Achievement of ethnic identity and linguistic practices, is related the Blacks to PSE although Mulattos show significant specificities. Finally, CSE of is a source of PSE, especially in its dimension of membership or perceived social capital within the group, particularly in heterogeneous societies like Brazil as well as possible derivations and improvements of the study. Some implications for future research are discussed.

Regulating Membership

In many European countries, family migration polices have grown increasingly restrictive in the past decade. At the same time, family migration rights are often highly stratified—for instance, depending on the nationality and also the occupation of the sponsor or the incoming family members, more or fewer conditions have to be fulfilled for reunification. This article maps out a framework for the analysis of family migration policies focusing on the concept of “membership.” Policies requiring certain levels of income, integration, or “attachment” all assess the membership of applicants in various ways. The stronger one’s membership and belonging to the community is considered to be, the stronger the claim to family migration rights. Different dimensions of membership, such as legal, socioeconomic and ethnocultural membership can thus be useful lenses of analysis to grasp how and why restrictive and stratifying family migration policies are conceptualized, justified, and implemented across Europe.

Relationship between Career Motivation and Perceived Spiritual Leadership in Health Professional Educators: A Correlational Study in Iran

Background and Aims:Career motivation in university educators through efficient ways and appropriate with the educational system, is considered one of the important factors affecting education of students and their competence. This study aimed to determine the relationship between career motivation and spiritual leadership among a university of medical sciences in the west, Iran.Methods:This descriptive, cross-sectional correlation study was conducted among the university educators of medical sciences in the west, Iran in 2012. All of the educators (N=230) were selected and recruited according to census method. The data were collected by two established self-completed questionnaires on spiritual leadership (SL) and career motivation.Data were analyzed statistically by parametric tests:Pearson correlation, independent student t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA).Results:The Pearson correlation test identified a significant relationship between educators’ career motivation and vision, altruistic love, hope/faith, meaning/calling and membership dimensions of spiritual leadership (p<0.05). The independent t-test detected a significant relationship between the ‘hope/faith’ (p=0.04) and organizational commitment (p=0.004) dimensions and the gender of educators. ANOVA revealed significant differences in educators’ years of work experience and their overall career motivation (p=0.003) and the dimension of ‘membership’ (p<0.04). A significant relationship was found in ‘altruistic love’ and ‘Hope/faith’, and the educators’ academic rank place in the university (p=0.03). Also a significant relationship was found in ‘vision’ (p=0.03) and ‘altruistic love’ (p=0.002) and ‘membership’ (p=0.04) dimensions, and the type of faculty.Conclusion:The results indicate that the dimensions of existence of spiritual leadership may have a positive relationship with educators’ career motivation.

THE ROLE OF SENSE OF COMMUNITY AND CONFLICT IN PREDICTING CONGREGATIONAL BELONGING

This investigation extends research on religious congregations by examining how a sense of community and congregational conflict predict a sense of belonging to one's religious congregation. Based on a national random sample of 86,863 individuals nested in 424 congregations, we used multilevel logistic regression to test individual, congregational, and cross‐level interactive effects. Findings revealed that sense of community dimensions of membership, influence, and emotional connections positively predicted belonging at the individual level, whereas fulfillment of spiritual needs positively predicted belonging at both individual and congregational levels. Conflict also predicted belonging; however, conflict negatively predicted belonging at the individual level and positively predicted belonging at the congregational level. Congregational conflict also moderated two associations between (a) belonging and influence and (b) belonging and emotional connection such that associations were stronger and more positive in the presence of greater conflict. Implications for future research and partnership with religious congregations also are discussed.

Area variations in health: A spatial multilevel modeling approach

Both space and membership in geographically-embedded administrative units can produce variations in health, resulting in geographic clusters of good and poor health. Despite important differences between these two types of dependence, one is easily mistaken for the other, and the possibility that both are at work is commonly ignored. We fit a series of hierarchical and spatially-explicit multilevel models to a U.S. county-level life dataset of life expectancy in 1999 to demonstrate approaches for data analysis and interpretation when multiple sources of area-clustering are present. We demonstrate the methods to detect, interpret, and differentiate evidence of spatial and geographic membership effects and discuss key considerations for analyzing data with spatial or/and membership dimensions. We find evidence that life expectancy is driven by both within-state geographic process, and by spatial processes. We argue that considering spatial and membership processes simultaneously yields valuable insights into the patterning of area variations in health.

Regimes of Ethnicity: Comparative Analysis of Germany, the Soviet Union/Post-Soviet Russia, and Turkey

How do state policies that regulate the relationship between ethnicity and nationality change? This article examines the dynamics of persistence and change in state policies toward ethnicity. In order to better comprehend the nature of political contestation over these state policies, the author first develops a new typology, “regimes of ethnicity,” and categorizes states as having monoethnic, multiethnic, and antiethnic regimes. These regimes are defined along dimensions of membership and expression. Second, he develops a theory of ethnic regime change. He explains the persistence and change in policies related to ethnicity and nationality in Germany, the Soviet Union/post-Soviet Russia, and Turkey since the 1950s by reference to the presence or absence of three independent variables: counterelites, new discourses, and hegemonic majority. He argues that if counterelites representing constituencies with ethnically specific grievances come to power equipped with a new discourse on ethnicity and nationality and garner a hegemonic majority, they can change state policies on ethnicity. These three factors are separately necessary and jointly sufficient for change. Reform in the German citizenship law, removal of ethnicity from Russian internal passports, and the beginning of public broadcasting in Kurdish and other minority languages on state television in Turkey are examined as major changes in state policies.

Behavioral enculturation and acculturation, psychological functioning, and help-seeking attitudes among Asian American adolescents.

The study examined behavioral enculturation to Asian culture and behavioral acculturation to the dominant European American culture and their possible relations to positive psychological functioning among Asian American adolescents. Positive psychological functioning was operationalized using measures of general self-efficacy, cognitive flexibility, collective self-esteem, and attitudes toward seeking help. Based on data from 112 Asian American high school students in Hawaii, the results did not support the hypothesis that both high behavioral enculturation and acculturation would be related to positive psychological functioning. However, post hoc examination of the results revealed that enculturation was positively associated with general self-efficacy, cognitive flexibility, and the collective self-esteem dimensions of membership, private, and importance-to-identity. Also, acculturation was negatively associated with the importance-to-identity dimension. Implications for research and practice with Asian American adolescents are discussed.

A Human Family: Commentary on Paper by Elisabeth Fivaz-Depeursinge, Chloé Lavanchy-Scaiola, and Nicolas Favez

In discussing the paradigm shifting work of Fivaz-Depeursinge and her colleagues, I illustrate how developmental conceptions have shifted from a narrative centered on the discovery of “an Other” to narratives emphasizing what these authors term “collective intersubjectivity.” In this latter view, humans simultaneously share affect and intention with multiple others from birth, and subsequently continue to develop increasingly sophisticated means for doing so thorough out their lives. I situate this phenomenon in philosophy, nonlinear dynamic systems theory and evolutionary biology in order to highlight the species specific, phenomenologically given, and ecologically situated aspects of our intersubjective condition. Intersubjectivity from the perspective of Fivaz-Depeursinge and her group opens us to this collective dimension of membership in a human family.

Two hypotheses about the emergence of a post-national European model of citizenship

Citizenship is not just a status (defined by a set of rights and obligations), it is also an identity that expresses membership in a political community. It also has a substantive political dimension of active participation in the public sphere. Traditionally, collective identity and the membership dimensions of citizenship have been seen as intrinsic to the nation-state. The processes of globalization that have undermined the sovereignty of the nation-state make it necessary to reconceptualize citizenship in light of a ‘post-national’ framework. At the same time, however, the ‘culturalization’ of the social and the ‘multiculturalization’ of societies are putting into question the homogeneity of a collective identity. According to a recent hypothesis, a new post-national model of citizenship is emerging, one of European construction. In seeking to explore this position, the paper advances two additional hypotheses: (i) EU policy-making and governance are likely to foster a post-national European civil society with multi-level citizenship participation; and (ii) European anti-discrimination regulations are likely to accelerate the emergence of an alternative model to multiculturalism that can address differences within a universal framework of rights.

Canadian Federalism and Disability Policy Making

This article examines two types of collaboration in Canada between the federal and provincial governments in the disability policy sector and assesses their implications for the citizenship rights of persons with disabilities. One type of collaboration is across the levels of order in Canada and notable examples are the 1997 multilateral framework agreement on Employability Assistance for People with Disabilities and the 1999 Social Union Framework Agreement. The Provincial/Territorial Council on Social Policy Renewal, a structure established in 1995, illustrates the second type. This study suggests that each intergovernmental arrangement has a particular working model of citizenship associated with it. Contrary to the conventional view in the literature, the article argues that, for disability groups, the first form of federalism is enhancing political rights of citizenship along with the economic and social dimensions of membership in society. Further, the second kind of intergovernmental relations is more than just a fleeting movement of provincialism; it exhibits the potential to play a greater sustained role in shaping Canada's welfare state.