Minority View Research Articles

She Was Born in a Small Town: The Advantages and Disadvantages in Political Knowledge and Efficacy for Rural Girls

ABSTRACTRecent work suggests that girls learn more about politics and are more efficacious in places with less conflict and greater homogeneity. Given that rural communities are often more homogeneous than metropolitan areas across several dimensions, this article asks whether young girls growing up in rural communities have higher levels of political knowledge and efficacy than those in more urban, diverse communities. It argues that the average girl benefits from the stronger social bonds between residents in smaller places, but young women who hold minority views about the importance of equality are likely to suffer in their levels of knowledge and efficacy. Being in the minority seems to be particularly difficult for girls in smaller places. This article raises questions about the ways in which gender gaps vary across different places and the varying effects of minority status.

Applying Cynefin Complexity Theory to Mediation

La version anglaise de ce document peut etre trouve a l'adresse http://ssrn.com/abstract=2859264Cynefin is a Welsh word that means we are influenced by multiple factors in our environment that we can never fully understand. It is a good way to describe the complex world we are experiencing in this early part of the 21st century. The Cynefin framework is a practice-based management system that seeks to modulate complexity rather than trying to constrain it. It challenges the command and control style of alpha leaders particularly in a complex environment. It requires leaders who can manage the flow of networks between people in a way that allow for a safe space for minority views, diverging opinions, conflict and internal disruption. This is the best pathway to creating strategic surprises and opportunities. Complexity theory and the Cynefin approach is an insightful way of thinking that has direct application to mediation, conflict resolution in general and peace building practices. ADR theorists and academics point to at least five models of mediation. However from a practice perspective there are only two models. The model that involves the parties working together in a joint session and the model that does not (caucused or shuttle mediation). The caucused mediation model is often conducted by alpha mediators (retired judges and senior lawyers) using a command and control approach.Mediating with the parties in the joint session requires mediators who can allow a fresh interaction between the parties in real time. It is a way of moving the focus away from the past and the future and on to the immediacy of the present. This is in harmony with complexity theory and the Cynefin approach of understanding and managing from the present rather than drawing from the past or hypothesising a future goal and trying to close the gap. It is managing for emergence rather than outcome. This paper examines the guiding principles behind the Cynefin approach and its application to management practices and applies them to the two practice models of mediation, the joint session approach and the caucused approach.

Memory Laws: An Escalation in Minority Exclusion or a Testimony to the Limits of State Power?

The article addresses the tension between nation-state memory and the law through “memory laws.” In contrast to laws that ban genocide denial or a positive perception of a violent past, I focus on laws that ban a negative perception of a violent past. As I will show, these laws were utilized for a non-democratic purpose in the last decade or more: They were proposed in order to limit public debate on the national past by banning oppositional or minority views, in contrast to the principles of free speech and deliberative democracy. Their legislation in such cases also stands in opposition to truth-telling efforts in the international arena. I compare two cases of memory legislation, in contemporary Russia and Israel, and evaluate their different impacts on democratic public debates in practice. A third case of “failed legislation” in France compliments the analysis by demonstrating not only the capacity but also the limitation of state power to silence or control public debate using the law. Although national laws often reflect majority culture and memory, I propose that memory laws in Russia, Israel, and France present an escalating degree of minority exclusion—from omission to active banning.

Minority statuses and positive views of the country in the United States: an investigation of nativity/immigrant status, and racial/ethnic and religious backgrounds

ABSTRACTUsing a nationally representative sample of adults in the US, this study examines the majority and minority’s positive views of the country in terms of nativity status, race and ethnicity, and religion. The results suggest that the majority–minority differences vary by demographic characteristics and attitudes examined. Although non-US citizens have a lower level of regard for the US as the best country in which to be a citizen than their counterparts, they have no less favourable views in other respects. Among ethnic minorities, only blacks have more negative views of the US than whites do. While religious minorities also have less regard for the country than the majority, individuals with no religious affiliation hold lower levels of most national attitudes. These findings suggest that the associations between minority status and views of the country go beyond race and ethnicity, which previous research has overlooked.

Neuroimaging and neurophysiology of neurodevelopmental disorders

It has become increasingly clear over the last half century that there are multiple important changes in children’s abilities taking place at around age 4. These changes span social, emotional, and cognitive domains. While some researchers have argued that a domain-general development explains some of the changes, such a position is a minority view. In the current article, we provide some evidence for the development of an age 4 domain-general enabling constraint on children’s ability to reflect. In turn, the development of reflection is argued to enable the transitions that we see within and across developmental domains. The model of reflection being offered is part of a broader action-based model of cognition and mind – interactivism (Bickhard, 1973, 1978, 2009a,b). The empirical part of the article presents a new object reasoning task. This task was derived from theoretical constraints on the interactivist models of knowing and reflection. Results indicated that most children responded to the task incorrectly until age 4 which was interpreted as evidence that they lacked the ability to explicitly reason about relations between objects. Correlations between our new task and standard false-belief tasks were explored. Collectively, these results provide empirical support for the claim that children undergo a domain-general development in their ability for epistemic reflection at around age 4.

The Salafi Mystique: The Rise of Gender Segregation in 1970s Egypt

In this article, I trace the emergence of gender segregation within contemporary Salafism, focusing on Egypt as a case study to examine the interaction between textual hermeneutics, ideological cross-pollination and political competition. Drawing on two Egyptian Salafi magazines, alongside a variety of pamphlets and lay-oriented works by Salafi and non-Salafi authors alike, I challenge a majority view that claims gender segregation as a long-established religious principle and practice, while historically contextualizing a minority view that gender segregation arose out of contemporary political calculations. Specifically, although the core anxieties of women’s presence in public were not new, the attempt to comprehensively regulate women’s presence in state institutions and on mass transportation was a response to contemporary intellectual trends, particularly the project of State Feminism and leading Muslim Brotherhood thinkers during the Nasser period (1952–1970), and to political competition with the Brotherhood during the 1970s.

Assessing citizen views of interest group alliances

How do members of the public view collaboration among organized interests and what factors contribute to attitudes about working in coalition? Interest groups frequently must decide whether to partner formally in pursuit of a shared objective while minimizing potential losses of revenue, reputation, and issue ownership. Using a nationally representative survey with an embedded experiment, we consider the potential ramifications of group collaboration from the perspective of potential members. Results show that, while a substantial minority views group collaboration negatively, most do not, and experimental exposure to a collaborating group yields positive evaluations and higher prospective contributions. The results reinforce the essentially pluralist public perceptions of interest groups that are supportive of their existing collaborative efforts.

Evaluation of the psychometric properties of the nursing students’ attitudes toward mental health nursing and consumers instrument

The present study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the instrument “Nursing Students’ Attitudes Toward Mental Health Nursing and Consumers” for use among Nursing students in Brazil. The subjects were 91.3% female and 8.7% male and their ages ranged from 18 to 58 years, with a mean (M) of 21.9 years and a standard deviation (sd) of 3.88 years. The study included students from the undergraduate course in Nursing of five higher public education institutions, with a total of 393 students. Of these, 365 answered the questionnaires at their two application times, resulting in 92.87% full participation in the study. Regarding the school year, 23.9% were from 2013 and 76.1% from 2014. The data were entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program, v.21, to be analyzed by descriptive exploratory analysis, correlations analysis, means comparison and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with the exploratory factor analysis technique and oblique rotation. Convergent validity was used as the form of validation, using the Authoritarianism and Minority View dimensions of the Opinions about Mental Illness (OMI) Scale. After generating the structure of the instrument to be tested, the Confirmatory Factor Analysis technique (CFA) was used, through the Structural Equation Modeling technique (SEM), with AMOS/SPSS, v.22, to identify and specify the model, through Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation. The fit was given by the X2 model, and the absolute, incremental and parsimonious fit indices.

Health Care Spending: Changes in the Perceptions of the Australian Public.

BackgroundIncreasing demand for services and rising health care costs create pressures within the Australian health care system and result in higher health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs for consumers.ObjectiveTo measure changes in consumer views on the quality of the Australian health care system, contributors to rising costs and attitudes towards managing these costs.MethodsTwo computer-assisted telephone interviews were conducted in 2006 (533 respondents) and 2015 (1318 respondents) and results compared.ResultsMore respondents in 2015 rated the Australian health care system ‘very adequate’ than in 2006 (22.3% vs 8.3%; Odds Ratio OR 3.2, 99% CI 2.1, 5.1) with fewer ‘concerned’ or ‘fairly concerned’ about the health care costs (69.0% vs 85.7%; OR 0.37, 99% CI 0.25, 0.53). The 2015 respondents were more likely to identify new treatments for cancer (77% vs 65.7%; OR 1.75, 99% CI 1.30, 2.35) and community expectations for access to the latest technologies (73.8% vs 67%; OR 1.39, 99% CI 1.04, 1.86) as contributors to rising health care costs. While more 2015 respondents agreed that patients should pay a greater part of the health care costs, this remained a minority view (37.9% vs 31.7%; OR 1.32, 99% CI 0.99, 1.76). They were less likely to agree that doctors should offer medical treatments regardless of the cost and chance of benefit (63.6% vs 82.9%; OR 0.36, 99% CI 0.25, 0.50).ConclusionsSatisfaction with the Australian health care system has increased over time. Consumers recognise the cost pressures and have lower expectations that all services should be provided regardless of their costs and potential benefit. Public consultation on the allocation of health care resources and involvement in health care decision-making remains important. There should be community consultation about the principles and values that should guide resource allocation decisions.

Priorities for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research: The Views of Minority and Underserved Communities.

To learn how minority and underserved communities would set priorities for patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR). Sixteen groups (n=183) from minority and underserved communities in two states deliberated about PCOR priorities using the simulation exercise CHoosing All Together (CHAT). Most participants were minority, one-third reported income <$10,000, and one-fourth reported fair/poor health. Academic-community partnerships adapted CHAT for PCOR priority setting using existing research agendas and interviews with community leaders, clinicians, and key informants. Tablet-based CHAT collected demographic information, individual priorities before and after group deliberation, and groups' priorities. Individuals and groups prioritized research on Quality of Life, Patient-Doctor, Access, Special Needs, and (by total resources spent) Compare Approaches. Those with less than a high school education were less likely to prioritize New Approaches, Patient-Doctor, Quality of Life, and Families/Caregivers. Blacks were less likely to prioritize research on Causes of Disease, New Approaches, and Compare Approaches than whites. Compare Approaches, Special Needs, Access, and Families/Caregivers were significantly more likely to be selected by individuals after compared to before deliberation. Members of underserved communities, in informed deliberations, prioritized research on Quality of Life, Patient-Doctor, Special Needs, Access, and Compare Approaches.

From Left to Rights: Civil Liberties Lawyering Between the World Wars

In the formative years of the modern First Amendment, civil liberties lawyers struggled to justify their participation in a legal system they perceived as biased and broken. For decades, they charged, the courts had fiercely protected property rights even while they tolerated broad-based suppression of the “personal rights,” such as expressive freedom, through which peaceful challenges to industrial interests might have proceeded. This article focuses on three phases in the relationship between the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the courts in the period between the world wars: first, the ACLU’s attempt to promote worker mobilization by highlighting judicial hypocrisy; second, its effort to induce incremental legal reform by mobilizing public opinion; and third, its now-familiar reliance on the judiciary to insulate minority views against state intrusion and majoritarian abuses. By reconstructing these competing approaches, the article explores the trade-offs – some anticipated and some unintended – entailed by the ACLU’s mature approach.

The dynamics of workplace relationships in a diverse internationally staffed organisation: a qualitative ethnographic assessment

The primary aim of this article is to explore and analyse the experiences of foreign Muslim workers in a diverse internationally staffed organisation. The specific objectives are threefold: (i) to understand the major triggers and consequences of negative stereotypical views towards Muslim workers, (ii) to identify institutional and external forces that shape Muslim workers’ experiences at work and (iii) to uncover the ways in which Muslim workers respond to the existing multi-level organisational challenges faced at work. It adopts a qualitative ethnographic methodology to examine the dynamics of workplace relationships in a large diverse internationally staffed organisation with operations in recruitment services for both individual (private) and commercial clients. The inductive analysis of the qualitative data suggests that negative stereotypical views of religious minority results in both implicit and explicit forms of job discrimination against ethnic minorities and that the latter is largely perceived to cause their undesirable experiences and economic disadvantages. One concrete outcome of undesirable experiences of Muslim minority workers is reported to be their definite willingness and strong inclination towards ‘silence’ and ‘inward integration’. The article concludes with several working propositions and discusses the practical implications of the findings for HR diversity management.

Who are the traffic offenders among ethnic groups and why?

Marginalized populations, particularly ethnic minorities, are often at a higher risk of being involved in traffic crashes and committing traffic violations. Prominent explanations for this “ethnic traffic risk gap” include cultural and socioeconomic factors, usually measured at an aggregate level. In particular, it has been hypothesized that ethnic minorities commit traffic violations as a form of social resistance to what they perceive to be an oppressing regime. The current study examined the mechanisms underlying traffic violations at the individual level within a single ethnic minority, Israeli-Arabs. The study sample (n=231) included a group of known offenders (n=60) and non-offenders (n=171), all of which completed the Traffic Violation Questionnaire. The results show that offenders and non-offenders tended to have different types of occupations, although these did not translate into significant differences in level of income. Offenders reported significantly lower levels of trust in some hegemonic institutions (the police, government ministries) but not others (parliament, the juridical system). However, offenders displayed remarkably different daily activity patterns, including much higher exposure to traffic (3h/day vs. 0.75) and more complex trip patterns. Our results find little support for the social resistance hypothesis, as it fails to explain the differential treatment of hegemonic institutions. Daily activity patterns stand out as a central mechanism influencing the risk of violations. These results suggest policymakers should adopt a holistic approach for traffic safety interventions but avoid monolithic views of ethnic minorities which may lead to an inefficient use of resources.

Economics, Neuroeconomics, and the Problem of Identity

This paper reviews the debate in economics over neuroeconomics’ contribution to economics. It distinguishes majority and minority views, argues that this debate has been framed by mainstream economics’ conception of itself as an isolated science, and argues that this framing has put off the agenda in economics issues such as individual identity that are increasingly important in connection with the social and historical context of economic explanations in a changing complex world. The paper first discusses how the debate over neuroeconomics has been limited to the question of what information from other sciences might be employed in economics. It then goes on to the individual identity issue, and discusses how economics’ top-down, closed character generates a circular individual identity conception, while bottom-up, open character of psychology and neuroscience, and their continual concern with the changing relation between theory and evidence, has produced four competing individual identity conceptions in neuroeconomic research. <italic>JEL Codes: A12, B41, D03, D87</italic>

The impact of wind farm visibility on property values: A spatial difference-in-differences analysis

Today's investment decisions in large-scale onshore wind projects in Germany are no longer determined only by the investment's economic benefit, but also by concerns associated to social acceptance. Despite a mostly positive attitude towards the expansion of wind power, local public concerns often stem from the belief that the proximity to large-scale wind farms may lead to a decrease in property prices. In particular, the change in landscape caused by the construction of a wind farm may have an adverse impact on the view from some properties, and thus may negatively affect their price. To investigate the potential devaluation of properties in Germany due to wind farms, we use a quasi-experimental technique and apply a spatial difference-in-differences approach to various wind farm sites in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. We adopt a quantitative visual impact assessment approach to account for the adverse environmental effects caused by the wind turbines. To properly account for spatial dependence and unobserved variables biases, we apply augmented spatial econometric models. The estimates indicate that the asking price for properties whose view was strongly affected by the construction of wind turbines decreased by about 9–14%. In contrast, properties with a minor or marginal view on the wind turbines experienced no devaluation.

“WITHOUT THINKERS … NO THEORIES OF THE WORLD”

ABSTRACTTim Crane's books Aspects of Psychologism and The Objects of Thought present a perspective on human intentionality based on internalism about mental contents. Crane understands intentionality as the defining aspect of the mental. The theory of intentionality that he formulates is similar to that of John Searle when it comes to ontological commitments, but it is also marked by a more traditional approach that retains the concept of intentional objects as its central aspect. In this review I examine the implications of Crane's internalism for the philosophy of history, by comparing his views with some well‐known arguments in favor of externalism about mental contents, such as Hilary Putnam's “Twin Earth” and Tyler Burge's “arthritis” mental experiments. Although internalism about mental contents such as Crane's is a minority view among contemporary analytic philosophers, I argue that it has significant advantages when it comes to the philosophy of history, because it is much better aligned with standard interpretive procedures in historical research. At the same time, externalism about mental contents typically results in inappropriate contextualizations and approaches that most practicing historians will find awkward. More generally, it is possible to argue that over decades, analytic philosophers’ externalist tendencies have significantly contributed to the reduced interest in their views among philosophers of history. The final section of the article reviews the implication of Crane's views on nonconceptual contents of human perception for art historiography.

‘Christ-Faith’ as an Eschatological Event (Galatians 3.23-26): A ‘Third View’ on Πίστις Χριστοῦ

The meaning of πίστις Χριστοῦ in Paul (Gal. 2.16, 20; 3.22; Rom. 3.22, 26; Phil. 3.9) continues to be the subject of controversial debate in Pauline scholarship. Should the genitive construction be understood objectively as ‘faith in Christ’ or subjectively as ‘the faith(fulness) of Christ’? The prevalent either/or character of the discussion is increasingly proving to be an impediment to finding a solution to this issue. A minority view, the so-called ‘third view’, seeks to move beyond the subjective-objective dichotomy by accounting for the intrinsic complexity of the Greek genitive and pointing to the event-character of πίστις in Paul. The primary reference text for this ‘third view’ is Gal. 3.23-26, which exhibits an altogether remarkable language of faith and envisages πίστις as ‘coming’ (ἔρχεσθαι) and as ‘being revealed’ (ἀποκαλύπτεσθαι). This article reviews the exegetical status quaestionis and argues that Paul does not regard πίστις Χριστοῦ as an individual disposition or character (either Christ’s or that of the believer), but rather as an eschatological event. The aim is not to offer a comprehensive analysis of the verses in question, but to advance exegetical and theological support for the ‘third view’ and to point to its considerable explanatory power in our effort for a more nuanced appreciation of Paul’s language of faith.

The origin and evolution of chordate nervous systems.

In the past 40 years, comparisons of developmental gene expression and mechanisms of development (evodevo) joined comparative morphology as tools for reconstructing long-extinct ancestral forms. Unfortunately, both approaches typically give congruent answers only with closely related organisms. Chordate nervous systems are good examples. Classical studies alone left open whether the vertebrate brain was a new structure or evolved from the anterior end of an ancestral nerve cord like that of modern amphioxus. Evodevo plus electron microscopy showed that the amphioxus brain has a diencephalic forebrain, small midbrain, hindbrain and spinal cord with parts of the genetic mechanisms for the midbrain/hindbrain boundary, zona limitans intrathalamica and neural crest. Evodevo also showed how extra genes resulting from whole-genome duplications in vertebrates facilitated evolution of new structures like neural crest. Understanding how the chordate central nervous system (CNS) evolved from that of the ancestral deuterostome has been truly challenging. The majority view is that this ancestor had a CNS with a brain that gave rise to the chordate CNS and, with loss of a discrete brain, to one of the two hemichordate nerve cords. The minority view is that this ancestor had no nerve cord; those in chordates and hemichordates evolved independently. New techniques such as phylostratigraphy may help resolve this conundrum.

Interparty Judicial Appointments

Empirical studies of judges’ ideological voting call for a theory according to which the ideology of the judges can be measured. This article calls into question the assumption that undergirds the measure that currently dominates the legal, economic, and political science literature—the assumption that the ideology of a lower federal court judge is largely predicted by the ideologies of the nominating president and the relevant state's senators who are of the same political party as the president. The article relies on a natural experiment to examine this question empirically. Between 1977 and 1998, New York was represented in the Senate by one Democrat and one Republican who had an agreement to divide appointments to the district courts in the state: the senator who shared party affiliation with the president would be allocated three of every four appointments, while the “out‐of‐party” senator would be allocated the rest. The article employs a novel data set—consisting of all federal district judges appointed to the federal bench in New York during the time period in question, and the senator who recommended each nominee to the nominating president. If the dominant theory—that the party of the recommending senator affects judicial decision making—holds, then one would expect the theory's explanatory power to be at its apex where senators of different parties recommend judges at the same time to the same president. Yet, using median prison sentence length as a proxy for ideology in decision making, the empirical analysis finds no evidence that senatorial ideology has a statistically significant effect on district judge decision making. At the same time, it finds that, indeed, the nominating president's ideology does have a statistically significant effect. The findings are instead consistent with the minority view of lower federal court judges’ ideological leanings—that a lower federal court judge's ideology is in large part a function solely of the nominating president's ideology.

The role of the private sector in Japan’s recovery from the Great Depression

Japanese economic thought includes a long debate on the driving forces behind the country’s early and rapid recovery from the Great Depression. Most previous studies attribute the Japanese recovery to expansionary policy measures, but a minority view emphasizes the role of the private sector. This paper, while considering the contribution of the private sector, reassesses the impact of the policy measures on real output and, in turn, on the upswing in the 1930s. The analysis reveals that neither fiscal policy nor monetary policy had a consistent or potent effect on real output, but the private sector, specifically private sector consumption, accounted for a large part of output fluctuations. However, in contrast to previous studies, the response of export shock on output is unclear. The study also shows that the depreciation of the yen had a partly significant effect on output and price levels.