Distinct Norms Research Articles

Student Reticence in Iran's Academia: Exploring Students’ Perceptions of Causes and Consequences

The nature of silence in classroom is complex with different students possessing distinct beliefs, social norms, and cultural backgrounds. There are several factors that contribute to students’ reluctance to speak up and participate in classroom activities, such as linguistic, psychological, and sociocultural (Harumi, 2010) issues. Awareness of sources of silence on the part of EFL instructors may decrease misinterpretations regarding students’ level of engagement in language classrooms. Despite the available literature on Asian students’ silence (e.g., Littlewood, 2000), studies in the context of Iran are scarce and have mainly focused on exploring teachers’ perspectives in this regard. To help bridge this gap, we interviewed 28 university EFL students exploring their perceptions of the nature of reticence in classroom, its causes, and its consequences. Thematic analysis of the data yielded mixed results. Regarding its causes, silence might be because of students’ personality type and even a legitimate form of classroom participation. In some other cases, it seems to be the result of teachers’ emotionally negative feedback to questions and mistakes or, at a more general level, their authoritarian approach to students. In terms of its outcomes, student reticence was found to sometimes contribute to and sometimes hinder deeper mental engagement in classroom process. Based on the findings, some guidelines were proposed for instructors on how to deal with reticent learners.

Culture on the Rise: How and Why Cultural Membership Promotes Democratic Politics

Selectively using Tocqueville, many social scientists suggest that civic participation increases democracy. We go beyond this neo-Tocquevillian model in three ways. First, to capture broader political and economic transformations, we consider different types of participation; results change if we analyze separate participation arenas. Some are declining, but a dramatic finding is the rise of arts and culture. Second, to assess impacts of participation, we study more dimensions of democratic politics, including distinct norms of citizenship and their associated political repertoires. Third, by analyzing global International Social Survey Programme and World Values Survey data, we identify dramatic subcultural differences: the Tocquevillian model is positive, negative, or zero in different subcultures and contexts that we explicate.

Headscarves, accommodation and the problem of joint costs

A central project of race-conscious progressive thought has been to establish that racial minorities have distinctive norms, perspectives, voices and cultural practices that might contribute to ‘diversity.’ The implicit presumption underlying the accommodationist account of discrimination is that group cultural differences are natural and authentic expressions of individual conscience and identity and that failure to accommodate these differences is a form of tyranny. Here, as in Michel Foucault's account of sexuality, we find a ‘repressive hypothesis’: power is exercised through censorship and repression, justice entails nothing more than the absence of repression, a willingness to let human nature take its course and embrace the mysterious and beautiful forces that already surround and define us. But what if our era is defined less by the repression of group difference than by its production? And what if – as in Foucault's analysis – the repressive hypothesis itself is one of the mechanisms by which this production of group difference is accomplished? Is there evidence for such a counter-hypothesis? In American society, human beings are sorted (and sort themselves) with remarkable comprehensiveness, precision and efficiency into a number of almost canonical social groups. You know what they are (and more importantly, you know who you are). By contrast, I propose that a just society should seek to speed the integration of disadvantaged and socially isolated groups, regardless of whether that requires the accommodation or the suppression of the distinctive practices of minority groups. This suggests a policy that guarantees opportunities for those minorities willing to assimilate: aggressive and comprehensive enforcement of anti-discrimination law with respect to race, ethnicity and religious faith, but not necessarily with respect to conspicuous expressive practices.

Science Blogging: Networks, Boundaries and Limitations

ABSTRACTThere is limited research into the realities of science blogging, how science bloggers themselves view their activity and what bloggers can achieve. The ‘badscience’ blogs analysed here show a number of interesting developments, with significant implications for understandings of science blogging and scientific cultures more broadly. A functioning and diverse online community (with offline elements) has been constructed, with a number of non-professional and anonymous members and with boundary work being used to establish a recognisable outgroup. The community has developed distinct norms alongside a type of distributed authority and has negotiated the authority, anonymity and varying status of many community members in some interesting and novel ways. Activist norms and initiatives have been actioned, with some prominent community campaigns and action. There are questions about what science blogging—both in the UK and internationally—may be able to achieve in future and about the fragility of the ‘badscience’ community. Some of the highly optimistic hopes which have been associated with science blogging have not been realised. Nonetheless, the small group of bloggers focused on here have produced significant achievements with limited resources, especially when one considers this in the context of community values as opposed to some of the expectations attached to science blogging within scientific cultures more broadly. While the impacts of this science blogging community remain uncertain, the novel and potentially significant practices analysed here do merit serious consideration.

Science Blogging: Networks, Boundaries and Limitations

ABSTRACTThere is limited research into the realities of science blogging, how science bloggers themselves view their activity and what bloggers can achieve. The ‘badscience’ blogs analysed here show a number of interesting developments, with significant implications for understandings of science blogging and scientific cultures more broadly. A functioning and diverse online community (with offline elements) has been constructed, with a number of non-professional and anonymous members and with boundary work being used to establish a recognisable outgroup. The community has developed distinct norms alongside a type of distributed authority and has negotiated the authority, anonymity and varying status of many community members in some interesting and novel ways. Activist norms and initiatives have been actioned, with some prominent community campaigns and action. There are questions about what science blogging—both in the UK and internationally—may be able to achieve in future and about the fragility of the...

Women's Roles in Irish Political Parties: Continuity and Change

This paper maps the gendered histories of Ireland's main political parties: Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Fein. It shows that women’s representation is not fixed across the party spectrum. As institutions, parties possess their own distinct ideologies and norms, and respond to demands for change in different ways. Though all parties bar Fine Gael have introduced creative measures to place women on the national executive, candidate quotas remain a relatively new phenomenon to party members aside from those in Labour. Despite the propositions of the literature, there is little evidence of a ‘contagion effect’ - whereby one party out of electoral calculation follows another in selecting more women - the Labour Party had gendered conversations and strategies almost two decades before their competitors decided to act. While actions did not fully live up to the rhetoric, the fact Labour possesses the best record of all with regard to women’s representation is testament to this long history. Indeed, the quota legislation enacted by the Irish government in 2012 first emerged within the Labour Party. The key ingredient, it seems, lies with party women’s insistence on equality guarantees, something that was missing in the stories of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and, despite its left ideology, even in Sinn Fein. Overall, the picture is one of male-dominance but is very slowly changing for the better, particularly in parties internally. Quotas should ‘shake up’ the status quo of selections as parties who fail to comply will be hit financially. Although the legislation does not apply to local government, it is crucial parties seek out talented women to take council seats in the 2014 local elections who can then go on to contest Dail elections. Locally, all parties have work to do in ensuring female members are better represented at a branch and constituency level. Meanwhile, though women are increasingly attaining positions in party youth structures, men continued to be overrepresented here, whether as members or elected officers. Better emphasis must be placed on ensuring young women and young men in parties are equal, as they constitute potential candidates of the future.

Supplemental Material for College Men and Alcohol Use: Positive Alcohol Expectancies as a Mediator Between Distinct Masculine Norms and Alcohol Use

Supplemental Material for College Men and Alcohol Use: Positive Alcohol Expectancies as a Mediator Between Distinct Masculine Norms and Alcohol Use

Amici Curiae Brief of Robert P. George, Sherif Girgis, and Ryan T. Anderson in Support of Hollingsworth and Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group Addressing the Merits and Supporting Reversal

At stake in these cases is not who is and is not eligible to marry but what marriage is. Today’s debates offer rival answers to that question, two substantive marriage definitions. This Court’s task is not to judge the desirability of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) and California Proposition 8’s definition, but only to decide whether citizens and legislators may embody in law the belief in marriage as a conjugal union, as they have historically done.There are excellent reasons from philosophy and social science to think that marriage is a conjugal relationship — the type of union that only a man and woman can form — rather than just the sort of emotional union that any two (or more) adults can form. And recognizing marriage as such serves important public interests.Indeed, the most important free community, on which all others depend, is the marriage-based family. But to thrive, it requires a supporting framework of understandings and expectations. A main purpose of marriage law in any society is to promote such a culture. Sound marriage policy therefore serves the common good (especially the institutions of civil society) and helps keep government limited.Redefining civil marriage can cause corresponding social harms. It weakens the rational foundation (and hence social practice) of the stabilizing marital norms on which social order depends: norms such as permanence, exclusivity, monogamy. Conferring benefits on same-sex relationships itself does not do this, but redefining marriage in the public mind does. And undermining the norms of marriage will in turn damage the many cultural and political goods that draw the law into the marriage business. We list them in summary form here.Real marital fulfillment. To form a true marriage, one must freely choose it, which requires at least a rough idea of what it actually is. Redefining marriage will harm people (especially future generations) by distorting their idea of what marriage is. It will teach that marriage is essentially about emotional fulfillment, without any inherent connections to bodily union or procreation and family life. As people internalize this view, their ability to realize genuine marital union will diminish.Child and spousal well-being. Marriage tends to make spouses healthier, happier and wealthier. And it is marriage itself — conjugal marriage — that does this, especially through its distinctive norms of permanence, exclusivity and orientation to family life. As the state’s redefinition of marriage makes these norms harder to understand, cherish, justify and live by, spouses will benefit less from the advantages of stability.Moreover, if marriage is redefined, no civil institution will reinforce the notion that men and women tend to bring different gifts to child-rearing. In all these ways, redefinition will lower the pressures and incentives for men and women to stay with their spouses and children, or for couples to marry before conceiving. This would harm children’s development as children do best when raised by their married biological mother and father. The welfare and correctional state will have to expand to fill the developmental vacuum.Leading LGBT scholars and activists increasingly agree that redefining marriage would undermine its norms.Religious liberty. If marriage understood as the union of man and woman comes to be seen as irrational (“bigotry”), freedom to express and live by this idea will be eroded. Individuals and institutions who espouse the conjugal view have been denied government licenses, or educational and professional opportunities, for living by (or even publicizing) their views. The consequences for observant Christians, Jews, Muslims and others are clear.Moreover, none of these harms is caused by recognizing infertile (opposite-sex) marriages, which cohere with the conjugal view. And finally, enshrining this view of marriage in law is fully consistent with this Court’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas.Because there are good reasons for citizens and lawmakers to conclude that marriage is a union of man and woman — even before considering the harms that redefinition might bring — this Court should uphold DOMA and Proposition 8 as constitutional exercises of policy-making power by Congress and the citizens of California, respectively.

IT Cultural Enclaves and Social Change: The Interplay Between Indian Cultural values and Western Ways of Working in an Indian IT Organization

Globalization has been associated with opportunities for economic development through the establishment and growth of information technology (IT)-related industries in developing countries, which have been criticized, though, for offering only a skewed development trajectory, with little or no connections to the local economy. The term “export enclaves” has been used to refer to such activity. We adopt this term in another sense, that of communities that develop distinct cultural norms from those in the wider communities of which they are part, and use it as a metaphor to describe the development of “working” cultures within such export enclaves. We use a case study of an Indian IT technology firm to illustrate how these enclaved working cultures develop. The findings illustrate that there is a complex interplay between Western value systems and traditional Indian socio-cultural values which is shaping the direction of work-based values in the IT enclave discussed in the case study. The contributions to existing research illustrated by this perspective are discussed.

Norms for the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) in a Large Dutch Community Sample

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) is a widely used instrument that provides information about the presence and severity of depressive symptoms. Although the BDI-II is a psychometrically sound instrument, relatively little is known about norm scores. This study aimed to develop reliable norms for the BDI-II in a Dutch community sample. Gender, age, and education were hypothesized to predict BDI-II scores. A total of 7,500 respondents from a community sample in The Netherlands completed the BDI-II. It was investigated by means of multiple regression analysis whether distinct norms for genders, education levels, and age group are appropriate. BDI-II scores depended on gender and education level, but not on age. BDI-II norms were computed based on the final regression model. These BDI-II norms can be used for diagnostic purposes, clinical decision making, or the evaluation of treatment effects.

Managing cultural diversity in healthcare partnerships: the case of LIFT

The National Health Service (NHS) Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) programme was launched in 2001 as an innovative public-private partnership to address the historical under-investment in local primary care facilities in England. The organisations from the public and private sector that comprise a local LIFT partnership each have their own distinctive norms of behaviour and acceptable working practices - ultimately different organisational cultures. The purpose of this article is to assess the role of organisational culture in facilitating (or impeding) LIFT partnerships and to contribute to an understanding of how cultural diversity in public-private partnerships is managed at the local level. The approach taken was qualitative case studies, with data gathering comprising interviews and a review of background documentation in three LIFT companies purposefully sampled to represent a range of background factors. Elite interviews were also conducted with senior policy makers responsible for implementing LIFT policy at the national level. Interpreting the data against a conceptual framework designed to assess approaches to managing strategic alliances, the authors identified a number of key differences in the values, working practices and cultures in public and private organisations that influenced the quality of joint working. On the whole, however, partners in the three LIFT companies appeared to be working well together, with neither side dominating the development of strategy. Differences in culture were being managed and accommodated as partnerships matured. As LIFT develops and becomes the primary source of investment for managing, developing and channelling funding into regenerating the primary care infrastructure, further longitudinal work might examine how ongoing partnerships are working, and how changes in the cultures of public and private partners impact upon wider relationships within local health economies and shape the delivery of patient care. To the authors' knowledge this is the first study of the role of culture in mediating LIFT partnerships and the findings add to the evidence on public-private partnerships in the NHS.

Social Norms, Self-identity, and Attention to Social Comparison Information in the Context of Exercise and Healthy Diet Behavior

Social norms research has identified a range of distinct norms based on different referent groups that confer influence across a number of behaviors. The current survey study extends social norms research in two ways. First, this research tests the distinctiveness of four types of social norms: distal peer descriptive, distal peer injunctive, proximal peer descriptive, and proximal peer injunctive norms. Second, the current study examines the relationship between social norms and intentions to exercise and maintain a healthy diet, and includes self-identity and attention to social comparison information as moderators of the social norms and intention relationship. Results revealed the distinctiveness of the four types of social norms. Proximal peer descriptive and proximal peer injunctive norms were related to intention to exercise and intention to maintain a healthy diet, while distal peer injunctive norms were related only to intention to have a healthy diet. Additionally, self-identity was a significant moderator. Results are discussed within the context of implications for social norms campaigns.

Travellers and substance use in Ireland – Recommendations for drug and alcohol policy

The Traveller community was traditionally protected from drug use by distinct traditional anti-drug norms and potent family networks within their ‘separateness’ from the ‘settled’ community. Estimations of Traveller substance use remain clouded due to lack of ethnic monitoring in drug reporting systems, and poor service utilization by Travellers. This article draws on a Traveller and substance use regional needs analysis in Ireland, comprising 12 Traveller focus groups and 45 interviews with key stakeholders. Drug activity in terms of both drug dealing and drug use among Travellers is increasing in recent years [Van Hout, M.C. (2009a). Substance misuse in the traveller community: A regional needs assessment. Western Regional Drug Task Force. Series 2. ISBN 978-0-9561479-2-9]. Traditional resiliency factors are dissipating in strength due to increased Traveller housing within marginalized areas experiencing drug activity and increased levels of young Travellers encountering youth drug use within school settings, by way of their attempts ‘to fit in’ and integrate with their ‘settled peers’ [Van Hout, M.C. (2009b). Irish travellers and drug use – An exploratory study. Ethnicity and Inequalities in Health and Social Care, 2(1), 42–49]. Fragmentation of Traveller culture is occurring as Travellers strive to retain their identity within the assimilation process into modern sedentarist Irish society. Treatment and outreach policies need to protect Traveller identity by reducing discriminatory experiences, promoting cultural acceptance with service staff and addressing literacy, implementing peer led approaches and offering flexible therapy modalities.

Tribal-Federal Collaboration in Resource Management

The increase in collaborative projects involving American Indian tribes and natural resource management agencies in the United States reflects two emergent trends: 1) the use of collaborative approaches between agencies and groups in managing natural resources; and 2) the concurrent increased recognition of American Indian rights, institutionalization of consultation processes, and a general movement of Indian self-determination. This article focuses on institutional mechanisms that bring together tribes and natural resource management agencies in collaborative processes to achieve mutually desired resource management objectives. Using qualitative analysis of data from ten collaborative projects across the United States, we identify attributes of collaborative arrangements emerging from tribal–federal collaboration: decision-making authority; transfer of funds from agency to the tribe(s); the level of mutual dependency; the sharing or transfer of various forms of knowledge, including scientific and cultural; and responsibility for conducting management field work. Examining the similarities and differences across the attributes, we characterize the projects into five types (co-management, contractual, cooperative, working relationship, and conservation easement), and find that considerable variation exists in the forms and functions of tribal–federal collaborative arrangements. We explore two types of collaborative arrangements in more depth to better understand what factors influence the integration of traditional ecological knowledge. Comparing gray wolf (Canis lupus) recovery in Idaho and forest restoration in northern California, we find that traditional ecological knowledge was a key factor in initiating both collaborative projects, but also that the application of traditional ecological knowledge on-the-ground differed. Donoghue et al. / Tribal–Federal Collaboration Forests (Lesko and Thakali 2001), the Navajo hogan project (KenCairn 2002), and Yakama Nation huckleberry management on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest (Fisher 1997). Contracts, memoranda of understanding, and partnership agreements define the collaborative processes and rules for many types of natural resource projects. Although mechanisms provide structure to collaboration, many aspects of stakeholder participation are not formally defined, including how mutual objectives are identified, how information is shared, how work is done on-the-ground, how financial and human resources are used, and how knowledge is respected, shared and transferred. Norms and culture shape the roles and responsibilities of participants in collaborative processes. Resource management agencies have rules and procedures and a culture of management; American Indians have distinct norms, beliefs, values and traditions related to the environment and resource management. Although there are many definitions and forms of traditional ecological knowledge, for many American Indian tribes, traditional ecological knowledge is the reflection of cultural norms and practices that influence how tribal members steward and coexist in natural environments. Traditional ecological knowledge is important in collaborative arrangements because it brings other forms of knowledge and practice to solve resource management problems, and creates opportunities for mutual learning and building respect for different ways of knowing. Given that these collaborative arrangements tend to explicitly define roles and responsibilities, this research asks the question to what extent do formal institutions, such as contracts and partnership agreements, limit or facilitate the integration of traditional ecological knowledge in collaborative resource management projects? And, does this vary depending on the type of institutional arrangement that governs the col-

Large-scale Research and the Goal of Health: Doable Problem Construction in 'New' Nutrition Science

Contemporary science can be characterized by large-scale multi-sited interdisciplinary co-operation. This kind of co-operation is thought necessary for solving complex scientific problems and, by doing so, to reach the social and normative goals of science, for instance, the promotion of public health. In this paper, we present an analysis of a large-scale multi-sited scientific practice questioning the latter assumption. Do the strategies to solve scientific problems indeed contribute to the normative goals of large-scale science? To be able to analyse problem solving in multi-sited scientific practice, first we introduce the concept of doability, and we amend this notion to make it suited for multi-sited research practices. Second, we will demonstrate the fruitfulness of this conceptual frame by presenting an analysis of the field of nutrigenomics, in which large-scale research is organized to contribute to 'health for all'. Third and finally, we will show that the strategies to make research problems in the large-scale multi-sited research practice of nutrigenomics doable do not necessarily contribute to a public health aim. In fact, making the study of nutrigenomic problems doable implies that the goal of health has to be fragmented into many distinct norms for health.

Intention rationality

The practical thought of planning agents is subject to distinctive rationality norms. In particular, there are norms of intention consistency and of means–end coherence. I discuss the normative significance of these norms and their relation to practical reasons. I seek a path between views that see these norms as, at bottom, norms of theoretical rationality, and views that see the idea that these norms have distinctive normative significance as a ‘myth’. And I seek to distinguish these norms from principles about the transmission of practical reasons. In the end, my view draws on claims about what is involved in being a self-governing planning agent.

Episcopal Measure of Faith Tradition: A Context-Specific Approach to Measuring Religiousness

Precise measurement of religiousness remains a vexing problem. In addition to relying almost exclusively on self-report, existing measures of religiousness pay little attention to the specific context of religious belief, and this may override distinctive norms of particular faith traditions and potentially confound the conclusions drawn from such research. To address these limitations, the authors describe a modified form of narrative content analysis that could eventually sort respondents into distinct theological traditions. A pilot test among Episcopalians demonstrates encouraging reliability (kappa 0.74, 95% LCI 0.47, P < 0.0002), and tests for convergent and discriminate validity suggest that the context of religious belief is both relevant and insufficiently assessed by the existing paradigm of religious measurements. If validated in a religiously diverse sample, this approach could be combined with existing, context-free measures of religiousness to generate more meaningful findings.

On a conjecture of Schmutz

In this work we discuss Schmutz’s conjecture that in dimension 2 to 8 the distinct norms that occur in the lattices with the best known sphere packings are strictly greater than those in any other lattice of the same covolume. We see that the ternary conjecture is not true. However, it seems that there is but one exception: one lattice, where for one length the conjecture fails.

Race-contingent aftereffects suggest distinct perceptual norms for different race faces

Faces of one's own race and of other races are thought to be located in different regions of face space (Valentine, 1991). Here we investigated whether faces of different races (Caucasian and Chinese faces) have dissociable neural coding and distinct norms. We used adaptation techniques to alter perceptions of normality (aftereffects) for faces. Caucasian and Chinese participants adapted to distorted faces of one race (e.g., Chinese contracted faces—Experiment 1), or oppositely distorted faces of both races (e.g., Chinese contracted and Caucasian expanded faces—Experiment 2). We then tested for aftereffects in Chinese and Caucasian test faces. In Experiment 1 aftereffects were reduced when a change in race between the adapt faces and test faces occurred. In Experiment 2 aftereffects occurred in opposite directions for the two races. These results demonstrate that dissociable neural populations code faces of different races and suggest the existence of race-specific face norms.

Observing the Breach: Dignity and the Limits of Political Theology

This paper draws together a number of debates concerning ‘dignity’. It points to reasons for the endurance of the concept of dignity, and thereby indicates some limits to analysis via political theology. Dignity is incongruous in law and ethics: it is naturalised theology illicitly augmenting liberal and postmodern theory. At the same time, phenomenologies of dignity suggest that it is something ‘observed in the breach’ when we encounter the diminution of the individual. Political theology would encourage us to treat this appearance of diminution as a point of aporia in ethics and closure in law, ostensibly articulating the loss of ‘humanity’ but in fact revealing nothing more than the reduction of all norms to sovereign decision. However, deconstructive counter-arguments to political theology are possible. First, the persistence of dignity hinges upon perception of loss rather than on any distinctive norms. Second, language games invoking dignity should be seen as performing solidarity. Third, there is a productive instability in the languages of dignity and human dignity. Together, these qualities mean that dignity, despite its theological genealogy, can justifiably play some role in both liberal and postmodern ethics.