Suchergebnisse

Community development tends to focus on large-scale, government-funded transformations or on small-scale, grassroot initiatives. In the US, the financial resources, available infrastructure, and broad-based civic support to implement large-scale community transformations are frequently lacking. In contrast, niche interventions, while often locally successful, tend to be unscalable. Accordingly, many community development programs either do not go beyond an ideational stage, or they are unscalable or unsustainable in the long run. In this qualitative case study, we analyze the Eastern Market in Detroit, Michigan, a local institution that contributes considerably and in several ways to the sustainability of multiple communities. Using Content Configuration Analysis (CCA), we conduct a bottom-up exploratory analysis of fieldwork notes, nonparticipant observations, as well as audio, visual, and written materials including policy and strategy documents from the City of Detroit, Wayne County, and the State of Michigan, academic publications, strategy and annual reports, websites, blogs, vlogs, social media outlets, newspapers, podcasts, and interviews along two lines of inquiry: first, to examine how the market contributes to sustainable community development and, second, to explore the systemic underpinnings that facilitate such development. Specifically, we focus on the Eastern Market to identify system-relevant actors, interests, relations, interventions, and outcomes that illustrate an institution which operates well beyond the ideational confines of a conventional farmers market. In the process of exploring the adaptive nature of the Eastern Market within its financial and infrastructural constraints, we also exemplify with this case that a well-established institution, a farmers market, can reinvent itself to serve multiple needs of larger, heterogeneous communities, and that the successful adaptations associated with this reinvention reimagine the community in which it is embedded.

Oh, wonder! [...]

Dieser Tagungsbericht verfolgt eine doppelte Intention: zum einen über eine Tagung zu ethnographischen Organisationsstudien zu informieren, die jüngst in St. Gallen stattgefunden hat, und zum anderen – hiervon ausgehend – mögliche Defizite bzw. Entwicklungsbedarfe in diesem Forschungsfeld zu identifizieren. Hierzu gehört eine unzureichende Konzeptualisierung des Organisationsbegriffs sowie – in geringerem Ausmaß – eine teilweise fehlende methodische Reflexion in epistemologischer und forschungspraktischer Hinsicht. Trotz dieser Einschränkungen war ein wesentlicher Erfolg der Tagung, dass die Breite, die Flexibilität und der wissenschaftliche Wert der Ethnographie für die Sozial- und Politikwissenschaften verdeutlicht werden konnte. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0301233 ; The aims of this essay are twofold: to review a recent conference on ethnographic organisational studies in St. Gall and, based on this, to examine some shortcomings of ethnographic approaches to organisational studies. Such shortcomings include the non-specificity of the conceptualisation of organisations and, to a lesser extent, the relative lack of reflection on epistemological and procedural issues of the empirical method. Nevertheless, the conference was a success in that it highlighted the variety, flexibility, and scientific value of ethnography for the social and political sciences. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0301233 ; El objetivo de este ensayo es doble: reseñar una conferencia reciente que tuvo lugar en el evento Estudios de Etnografía Organizacional, en St. Gall y, a partir de ella, examinar algunos defectos sobre la aproximación etnográfica a los estudios organizacionales. Esos defectos hacen referencia a la no-especificación de la conceptualización sobre las organizaciones y, en menor grado, la relativa carencia de reflexión acerca de los aspectos epistemológicos y procesuales del método empírico. Con todo, la conferencia fue un éxito en cuanto resaltar la variedad, flexibilidad, y valor científico de la etnografía en las ciencias sociales y ...

Dieser Tagungsbericht verfolgt eine doppelte Intention: zum einen über eine Tagung zu ethnographischen Organisationsstudien zu informieren, die jüngst in St. Gallen stattgefunden hat, und zum anderen – hiervon ausgehend – mögliche Defizite bzw. Entwicklungsbedarfe in diesem Forschungsfeld zu identifizieren. Hierzu gehört eine unzureichende Konzeptualisierung des Organisationsbegriffs sowie – in geringerem Ausmaß – eine teilweise fehlende methodische Reflexion in epistemologischer und forschungspraktischer Hinsicht. Trotz dieser Einschränkungen war ein wesentlicher Erfolg der Tagung, dass die Breite, die Flexibilität und der wissenschaftliche Wert der Ethnographie für die Sozial- und Politikwissenschaften verdeutlicht werden konnte.

AbstractThis theoretical note examines the concepts attitude, opinion, and value. It is argued that such acquired behavioral pre‐dispositions are re‐lated but have different conceptual foci and tend to address different phenomena. Although it is important to recognize their interconnected‐ness, their indiscriminate use is likely to lead to messy theoretical ar‐guments and misleading interpretations of empirical findings. This ar‐ticle discusses key‐aspects that need to be considered in the study of at‐titudes, opinions, and values, as well as the relations between these.

The aim of this project is to investigate the influence of significant others on the desired occupations and the actual occupations of young women. Young women between the years 1983 and 1989 were interviewed regarding their desired occupations and their actual occupations. Qualitative content analysis identified four groups of actors who had different influences on the young women. The results show that gender is particularly noticeable in families, especially mothers. While mothers are perceived as emotionally supportive, fathers are more likely to be the point of contact for the financing of further education. Typical female occupations such as (kindergarten) teacher are often considered in early childhood as a dream job, which can already be understood as a gender-setting point.

Since the early 1990s, new forms of referendum campaigns have emerged in the Swiss political arena. In this paper, we examine how referendum campaigns have transformed in Switzerland, focusing on a number of features: their intensity, duration and inclusiveness (i.e., the variety of actors involved). These features are assumed to change in the long run in response to societal changes and in the short run as a function of variations in elite support. We further argue that public knowledge of ballot issues depends on the characteristics of campaigns. To formally test our hypotheses, we draw on advertisement campaigns in six major Swiss newspapers in the four weeks preceding each ballot from 1981 to 1999 and develop a structural equation model. We indeed find that the duration of referendum campaigns has increased over time, while their inclusiveness has decreased. Most importantly, we find that pub­lic knowledge is strongly related to the characteristics of campaigns.

Since the early 1990s, new forms of referendum campaigns have emerged in the Swiss political arena. In this paper, we examine how referendum campaigns have transformed in Switzerland, focusing on a number of features: their intensity, duration and inclusiveness (i.e., the variety of actors involved). These features are assumed to change in the long run in response to societal changes and in the short run as a function of variations in elite support. We further argue that public knowledge of ballot issues depends on the characteristics of campaigns. To formally test our hypotheses, we draw on advertisement campaigns in six major Swiss newspapers in the four weeks preceding each ballot from 1981 to 1999 and develop a structural equation model. We indeed find that the duration of referendum campaigns has increased over time, while their inclusiveness has decreased. Most importantly, we find that public knowledge is strongly related to the characteristics of campaigns. Adapted from the source document.

Fragen der Qualität spielen eine wesentliche Rolle in allen Phasen des qualitativen Forschungsprozesses – vom Stellen der Forschungsfrage über die Datenerhebung bis zur Analyse und Interpretation. Dabei kann z.B. das Instrumentarium, das zur Erhebung von Daten zum Einsatz kommt, entlang von Qualitätskriterien bewertet werden, die sich von denen unterscheiden können, die für die Evaluation der Daten herangezogen werden, die mittels dieses Instrumentariums erhoben wurden. Beides wiederum mag zusätzlich anders sein als die Kriterien, die dann zur Bewertung der qualitativen Datenanalyse herangezogen werden. Ein nationales Servicezentrum kann wesentlich zur Etablierung und zum Erhalt spezifischer Qualitätsstandards beitragen. Wir werden deshalb in diesem Beitrag unterschiedliche Qualitätskriterien diskutieren und zu zeigen versuchen, wie diese mittels eines nationalen Servicezentrums für qualitative Forschung etabliert und vermittelt werden können.