Contexts

permanently alien in japan

After World War II, 600,000 of Japan’s former Korean colonial subjects remained there and have never been granted automatic citizenship. Nor have their descendants.

Kiyoteru Tsutsui and Hwa Ji Shin (Social Problems, August 2008) suggest that the ongoing struggle of these resident Koreans provides a good test of theories about how local activism and international human rights movements contribute to political change inside a country. The authors examined four different campaigns to decipher the conditions under which resident Koreans won better conditions for themselves.

In the fight over mandatory fingerprinting of resident Koreans and other aliens, for example, a combination of activism at home and international consensus on rights helped finally abolish the law in 1992. In contrast, attempts to achieve the right to Korean ethnic education haven’t made much headway. Infighting among North and South Koreans on the ground over what kind of education they want has stalled the impact of the international pressure in their favor.

Ultimately, this analysis suggests that while international human rights standards is indispensable to the success of local movements, the opposite is also true: without a strong local movement, international standards alone may not be enough to improve the situation on the ground. M.K.

fruit of the non-kosher vine

The Israeli wine industry is booming, yet most new wineries aren’t following the strict laws of kosher vinting. Tal Simons and Peter Roberts (Administrative Science Quarterly, June 2008) argue this is due to the prior “non-local” winemaking experiences of Israeli vinters. Even when the kosher rules of the local industry were well established, winemakers educated or employed in Napa Valley and elsewhere were able to introduce non-kosher wine practices to the region. Kosher winemaking may have been more common, but exposure to new ideas abroad uncorked a new vintage. W.L.

much ado…for nothing

Many Americans were angry about the events of 9/11, but a study by Kraig Beyerlein and David Sikkink (Social Problems, May 2008) finds those with the most anger often fail to put their time, resources, and money where their mouths are.

Past research on civic engagement has revealed that anger is a motivating factor in joining a social movement, while sorrow and empathy drive people to volunteer time and resources to assist in natural disaster relief.

Using data from the 2002 Religion and Public Activism Survey, the authors found that people with personal connections to the events and those who strongly identify with patriotic values were among the most likely to volunteer in 9/11 relief efforts.

People who felt enraged did little to assist in relief efforts, yet those who felt empathy for victims were more likely to help, the authors learned. Those who offered the greatest amount of assistance often developed personal connections to victims through participation in community or religious vigils. Because of their higher levels of religiosity, women and African Americans were more likely to volunteer their time to assist victims, the study showed, and New Yorkers who lived close to the site of the attack were empathetic and drawn to volunteer, regardless of their religious ties. K.H.

muchachas on the move

The last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in the flow of undocumented female migrants from Mexico. Although men and women crossing the border have increasingly similar demographic profiles, there’s significant variation in how they cross and the likelihood they’ll be caught.

Using data from household surveys in 107 communities in Mexico between 1987 and 2004, Katharine Donato, Brandon Wagner, and Evelyn Patterson (International Migration Review, 2008) find women are more likely to attempt clandestine crossings with a paid smuggler, while men are more likely to cross alone.

Crossing with smugglers in high profile areas increases the chances of being apprehended. A woman making her first trip was more likely to be caught than a man, and even seasoned women face a greater likelihood of being caught than men, the study shows.

The estimated 2 million undocumented Mexican women living in the United States represent the changing face of a migrant stream once overwhelmingly composed of men. The task now is to better understand how their gender helps or hinders the journey. S.G.

are you there god? it’s me, a poor teen

Poverty not only affects American teenagers’ self-esteem, educational achievements, and life chances, but it also influences their faith, according to Philip Schwadel (Sociology of Religion, Summer 2008). Poor adolescents differ from their non-poor counterparts in religious beliefs and practices.

Using data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, Schwadel finds poor teens are more likely to have active, but private, religious lives and they’re much less likely to participate in institutional religion. Moreover, poor teens are more likely to see their faith as important to their daily lives, but its salience comes from personal prayer and scripture reading, rather than attending services, Sunday school, or youth group activities. Finally, poor teens are less likely than non-poor teens to believe in life after death, but are significantly more likely to believe there will be a judgment day for God to reward and punish.

Religious faith can help teens through their confusing adolescent years, and whether or not they live in poverty seems to help explain what that religious experience will look like. S.G.

it’s raining demography, hallelujah

Few social science surveys include questions about sexual orientation, making it difficult to track trends about lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations. And because the Census only captures a subset of the sexual minority population who “out” themselves by indicating they cohabit with a partner of the same sex, single and non-cohabiting sexual minorities aren’t included in such analyses.

Christopher Carpenter and Gary J. Gates (Demography, August 2008) recently made a breakthrough on this front, completing the first systematic analysis of same-sex partnership trends in the United States. They use two representative California public health surveys to compare trends among sexual minorities with regard to who couples up, who cohabits, and who seeks relationship recognition from the state.

They find partnership rates for lesbians are nearly the same as those for straight women, but gay men partner at a much lower rate than comparable heterosexual men. Furthermore, partnered gay men and lesbians tend to be older, are more likely to be white, and more highly educated on average than non-partnered gay men and lesbians.

These demographic differences hold even when comparing same-sex couples who choose to have their relationships recognized by the state to those who don’t. 

These results suggest generalizations drawn about sexual minority populations from the 2000 Census paint a rosier picture of the socioeconomic well-being of all sexual minorities than is actually the case. T.O.

jesus and the gang

Pentecostal Christians in Honduras have a little extra security from gang violence, and his name is Jesus.

Based on ethnography and interviews with youth there, Jon Wolseth (Latin American Perspectives, July 2008) found young men have converted in order to deal with the violence that surrounds them.

Pentecostalism offers Honduran men an alternative way of living that gangs respect. Converted men are seen as “domesticated” because their new ethics prohibit drinking, drugs, and dancing. Also, gangs respect “cristianos” because they’re seen as close to God—which means messing with one may result in divine retribution.

Following the path of Christ, then, becomes an opportunity for some men to avoid getting involved in a gang or a valid reason to leave a criminal past behind. It also gives converts newly meaningful lives. By internalizing a new set of values, including a belief in “sanctuary,” they create a protective social space apart from everyday violence.

As long as the adherent continues to demonstrate his religious commitment through action, God will protect him. This belief gives young men a narrative to explain experiences with gang aggression—from narrow escapes to heavenly justice being leveled against perpetrators. R.A.

i do give a damn about my bad reputation

If you’ve ever wondered how high-powered talent agents get their stars to show them the money, Stephen Zafirau has an answer in his recent article on “reputation work” in the Hollywood talent industry (Qualitative Sociology, June 2008).

After spending seven months at a Hollywood talent management company, Zafirau discovered that creating and maintaining a good reputation is a fundamental part of the everyday work of Hollywood agents and managers.

From fine-tuning the layout of their office furniture to practicing a confident and aggressive form of self-presentation, agents spend a great deal of time and energy on seemingly mundane tasks simply in order to meet industry-wide expectations for a “good agent.” How well an agent does these many “little” things, Zafirau’s subjects told him, makes the difference between a successful or mediocre career.

Reputation is important in many industries, of course, but the author argues it’s especially important in fickle and rapidly-changing culture industries, which offer few sure markers of agents’ competency and even fewer guaranteed pathways for client success. Amid this uncertainty, the perception that an agent is competent becomes the surest sign of competency itself and a stabilizing feature in an otherwise volatile business. D.W.

betting on addiction

Millions of dollars have been wagered on whether or not excessive gambling is a problem of neurological proportions. Indeed, drugs like naltrexone—originally used to fight heroin addiction in the 1960s—have become silver bullets for curbing urges to gamble deep inside the brain.

But like any good casino game, things aren’t what they seem. According to Scott Vrecko (Economy and Society, February 2008), irresponsible gambling didn’t become a medical problem until the gaming industry itself stepped up to the table.

With start-up money from the gambling industry, the National Center for Responsible Gambling (NCRG) was established in 1996 to sponsor research on pathological gambling addictions. Since then, researchers funded by the center have churned out hundreds of articles on the subject; at Harvard, NCRG even financed an institute on pathological betting and related disorders.

As more research is conducted on pathological gambling, thinking about gambling in non-medical terms becomes harder. Too many casinos, the lack of will power, and more sociological factors aren’t the problem—it’s the brain. This study reminds us that moral problems can become medical ones when vested interests step in. W.L.

old churches never die

The national mortality rate for U.S. religious congregations—just 1 percent since 1988—is among the lowest ever observed for any type of organization, according to Shawna Anderson and colleagues (Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, June 2008).

Sociologists have long been interested in when and why organizations decline, dissolve, and die. They’ve looked at the demise of everything from volunteer service organizations (which close at a rate of 2.3 percent) and California wineries (5 percent) to peace movements (9 percent) and chapters of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (7 percent). But few studies examine the rate at which congregations close their doors.

Based on data from the 1998 National Congregations Study, Anderson and her colleagues argue religious groups are so resilient because these “minimalist organizations” cost very little to start and maintain, and they remain flexible in the face of obstacles. A congregation doesn’t have to be a thriving, suburban mega-church with a large membership and huge budget to survive. In fact, a small, rural congregation with six members and a volunteer rabbi can also stay alive—and be well—in the American religious landscape. D.W.

good corruption, bad corruption

The bribes and payouts orchestrated by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his cronies were extraordinary, even for Washington.

But while Abramoff’s exploits hinted at a government in disarray, plenty of governments function just fine with high levels of bribery and embezzlement. According to Keith Darden (Politics and Society, March 2008), corruption in the right context can actually build loyalty among officials and uphold public order.

Darden analyzed publicly available (secretly) taped conversations between former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma and his underlings to understand how one of the most corrupt states in the world was still effective at collecting taxes and fighting crime.

When officials used graft to buy compliance from subordinates, it reinforced the established state hierarchy, thus ensuring a high level of performance. Kuchma encouraged officials to take a “second salary” from their own departments, and they complied, recognizing that keeping their job (and avoiding prison) meant obeying Kuchma and keeping his accountants happy.

To some, this was corruption of the worst kind. However, it clearly facilitated governance when the rule of law was weak. Of course, widespread corruption only lasts as long as the general public will take it. As Darden points out, the Orange Revolution in 2004 led to the overthrow of the decade-long Kuchma regime. Perhaps it was too much corruption—even for Ukraine. W.L.

psst, you taking calculus next year?

Even as the differences in math proficiency between the sexes seem to be disappearing, differences between the math courses taken by girls and boys in American high schools remain.

According to Kenneth Frank and his co-authors (American Journal of Sociology, May 2008), we can look to girls’ classmates for clues about why they sign up for more advanced math courses.

Previous research has shown that teenagers are pretty secure in their friendships and therefore peer pressure from friends holds little sway. The authors argue the more relevant group for peer pressure is the kids with whom a teen takes many courses in common.

Because these classmates are a teen’s most likely potential pool of friends, the researchers theorized that their choice of math courses would be influenced by an attempt to fit in with the kids they wanted to be friends with, rather than those who are already their friends.

The results of the study show this peer influence had an effect on girls, but not boys. Although the research couldn’t necessarily explain why this would be so, the result is troublesome for those hoping the gap between girls and boys will continue to narrow. M.K.

foster care not as bad as we thought

Deciphering whether something is the cause of a social problem or its effect is the stuff of good sociology, and despite the prevailing assumption that foster care sets kids up to fare worse during adulthood, a new study challenges whether it’s actually true.

Stephanie Cosner Berzin (Social Service Review, August 2008) argues the social and family environments many foster kids come from, and not foster care itself, are to blame for the poverty, low educational attainment, and high rates of incarceration many foster kids face as adults.

To test this for the first time, Berzin used a sophisticated statistical technique known as propensity score matching to simulate an experiment on a nationally representative sample of young adults. Comparing the transitions of 120 foster kids to a “matched” sample of comparable kids who were never in foster care, Brezin found few differences.

According to the analysis, kids from comparable social backgrounds (in terms of neighborhoods, socioeconomic status, and other factors) fare no better during their transition to adulthood than their counterparts in foster care. Though foster care certainly didn’t improve the outcome, it also didn’t hurt foster kids’ futures, Berzin found. A.B.

risks of the rich and pregnant

Being wealthy and with-child has its own unique dangers, according to a new study in the Journal of Epidemiology (August 2008).

Mélissa Généreux and colleagues took the novel approach of analyzing how indirect exposure to traffic-related pollution may lead to preterm births and/or low birth weight in newborns. They claim that soon-to-be-mothers are impacted differently depending on their socioeconomic status (SES) and the neighborhoods they live in, but not in the expected ways.

In poorer neighborhoods there are no significant birth risks of living within 200 meters of a highway. But in wealthy neighborhoods, this same distance increases the odds of a preterm birth by 58 percent and low birth weight by 81 percent.

Researchers speculate that low SES mothers are exposed to so many other hazards in their environments that living near a highway is mostly irrelevant. Conversely, high SES women significantly undo the health benefits of living a high-SES lifestyle if they live near a highway. A.B.

rolling the dice with capitalist market reform

In a capitalist market, the winners and losers are clearly marked by their financial status, but they may be separated by their stress levels as well. Wei-Hsin Yu (Social Problems, August 2008) uses a nationally representative survey of urban Chinese residents to find out how the transition from a state-organized to a market economy is affecting their mental health.

Yu finds the transition has a positive impact on the psychological well-being of those in provinces that have the highest levels of private employment. However, since this holds true for individuals across a variety of income levels, positive mental health may result not from improvements brought about by a market economy, but rather by a belief in the possibilities such a change brings.

This points to the idea that the higher wages (or possibility thereof) in the private sector offsets the stress brought on by job insecurity. However, those in the formerly collectivized sector, now open to the whims of the market, had significant decreases in their psychological well-being.

It turns out in the craps game of free-market capitalism, winning or losing affects more than just your pocketbook. J.W.

Letters. We get letters—or, actually, emails and voicemails and blog posts.

Some can be a bit edgy, others are insightful and often amusing. But all are passionate and reaffirm our belief that we have as dedicated a following as any academic publication out there.

One of our current favorites is from a loyal reader who told us about how, instead of stacking back issues on a shelf in his office, he leaves them in choice locations—the coffee shop magazine rack, the gym, the waiting room at the doctor’s office—for others to pick up and peruse.

This small act of guerilla marketing is a wonderful reminder of Contexts’ overarching mission and goal: to bring sociology to broader, previously untapped audiences and public attention. With the help of the American Sociological Association’s media folks, in fact, we’ve had some successes recently on this front.

Robin Simon, for example, was featured in Newsweek, among other media outlets, after her piece on the stresses of parenting—also excerpted in the Utne Reader—appeared in these pages last spring. We were similarly gratified to see media using Jen’an Read’s contribution to our fall issue to help inform public understandings of Muslims in America. And we don’t think it was coincidental that David Brooks used the phrase “self-immolation express” in his syndicated New York Times column not long after our article on the topic (by Michael Biggs) appeared in the same issue in which Brooks himself was interviewed by Jerry Jacobs.

We like to think our new website, contexts.org, has played a role here as well. Our various blogs now get thousands of hits each day. And these online readers also practice guerilla marketing, linking to Contexts sites to spread the sociological word. If you haven’t had a chance yet, visit contexts.org to check out the Contexts Crawler, which tracks sociology in the national and inter national media, the popular Sociological Images blog, or one of our new podcasts.

Of course, there’s still a good deal of work left to do before we achieve total media saturation. But now that we have our feet under us, we will continue to spread the Contexts gospel, one strategically placed piece of sociology at a time.

In a recent episode of the Contexts Podcast, we discussed the relationship between teaching, research and blogging with ThickCulture founder, Jose Marichal. This exchange is an edited version of our conversation.

Listen to the podcast interview with Jose!

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My parents adopted my brother Carl from Thailand six years before I was born.

When I was young I never questioned the make-up of our family, and for many years wasn’t even aware of how we were different. Then one summer while home from college I went through a family photo album and came across the first pictures taken of my parents with my brother. The photographs were breathtaking. I sat in tears as I thought about this spectacular event in my family’s history that I knew very little about.

Seeing these images opened up a whole new world for me and sparked a curiosity that has kept me asking questions ever since. From that summer on I have photographed adoptive families and had the privilege of documenting international, interracial, single, and gay- and lesbian-parent families. With each project I find another piece to the puzzle and I learn more about myself, my family, and what it means to become a family.

In 2006 I experienced the other side of the adoption equation during the nine months I spent in Ethiopia as a Lewis Hine Documentary Fellow through the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Placed with an organization called Hope for Children, which supports children whose families have been affected by HIV and allows them to stay within their own communities, I saw the efforts Ethiopians are making to support as many children as they can.

But, too, I saw the pain developing countries feel when they have no choice but to send their children abroad. In addition to being a life-changing experience, this exposure was essential in my quest to understand adoption. Having only seen adoption from the perspective of the adoptive family, I hadn’t seen the entire picture. Although I spent time in only one country and one community, seeing these harsh realities helped me gain a more critical eye and realize the circumstances and pressures felt by communities worldwide.

Upon returning from Ethiopia I met Alison Aucoin. After surviving Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans she was starting her life over again in Durham, N.C., and was in the early stages of adopting from Ethiopia. Soon after we were introduced we decided to collaborate to document her adoption experience.

During the 14 months that followed we used audio and photographs to record the preparations and adjustments Alison was making for her baby and her life as a mother. In July 2008 we traveled to Ethiopia to bring home one-year old Edelawit, which means “the lucky one” in Amharic.

Alison has experienced a range of emotions, from intense joy to grief to sorrow. Because she had to remove Ella, as she is now called, from her caretakers and culture in order to start their life together, the happiness that Alison feels has been tempered by sadness.

Through her own feelings of loss after Hurricane Katrina, Alison has an intense awareness of the pain created by sudden displacement and disconnection from home. The experience of going to Ethiopia also made her conscious of the sadness the entire country feels as they are forced to seek help from abroad for their children.

The photographs in this essay illustrate a small part of the journey Alison, Ella, and I have taken together and offer a glimpse of the complexity of international adoption.

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One thing I know is the United States isn’t producing enough college graduates to compete in the global economy

About 30 percent of today’s young people will earn a bachelor’s or higher degree. That just barely exceeds the 27 percent of baby boomers who earned a B.A. And while our country slowed higher education to a crawl, the rest of the world vastly increased their investments. Several small countries have passed the United States in college graduation rates, and now big competitors like Japan, France, and the United Kingdom are closing in.

Don’t blame the young people. Sure the temptations of sex, drugs, and video games fell some promising high schoolers. But most graduates are ready, willing, and able to go on. Rising tuition keeps some out. Cost turns out to be far from the most important impediment, though. Financial aid and loans could solve the higher education problem if cost were the only problem.

Admissions and enrollment are deeper and more difficult problems. America’s colleges and universities turn away millions of applicants every spring. Universities that once had “restrictive” admission rates in the neighborhood of 30 percent now admit 10 percent of applicants. State universities that used to take all high school graduates who had a C or C+ average now reject one-third or more of their applicants.

Once inside the college gate, students bump up against enrollment restrictions. Very few colleges and universities have a reliable system of tying their course offerings to admissions. As a consequence, many freshman end up being denied enrollment in the entry-level courses they’ll need to start working on a major.

My oldest son had that experience. He went to San Francisco State University and told anyone who would listen he was “majoring in left-overs.” He persisted to graduation and is currently putting his creative writing degree to good use working as an accountant in New York City. But many of his cohort didn’t stick it out. After two years of acquiring five-figure debt and left-over courses, they left college for “a semester” to take a job and pay down their debt. Many never made it back. The registrar’s office calls it “stopping out.”

To solve its admissions and enrollment crisis, America needs to reinvigorate public investment in higher education. The private sector charts its own course and responds to market forces too slowly, if at all. Total enrollment at private four-year colleges has grown 0.9 percent per year since 1945 without waver or fluctuation. The privates aren’t keeping up with population growth, let alone responding to the nation’s need for more college graduates.

And why should they? They’re prospering mightily under the present system. Tight admissions hurt young people and the national economy, but the endowments of private universities bloom like never before.

Public investment worked like a charm for the baby boom. In the late 1960s states dramatically created new opportunities by building new campuses and raising enrollment quotas on old ones. The college graduation rate, already rising, accelerated despite unprecedented population growth. The engine of opportunity was running on all cylinders.

Suddenly, in the late 1970s, public four-year institutions stopped growing. Tax revolts, prison-building booms, and unfunded federal mandates for programs like Medicaid eliminated governors’ discretionary spending. Since then we have seen retrenchment and recovery but precious little growth. The engine of opportunity sputtered.

Nobody questions the fact that public investment in higher education pays off for taxpayers. Big studies in Texas and California show each dollar invested in higher education yields between $3 and $5 of returns in the form of future taxes or savings on welfare, prison, and social service spending.

The annual spring panic over college admissions and ever-rising tuition are symptoms of a broken higher education system. The deep source is under-investment. The private sector marches on impervious to outside influences like economic conditions or national priorities. The public sector is shackled by 30 years of anti-tax activism. A few bright spots exist at places like the University of Florida and Arizona State. For the American economy to compete in the 21st century, the rest of the nation will need to expand higher education opportunities.

Family planning programs in sub-Saharan Africa haven’t succeeded in reducing population growth as elsewhere in the world. The authors argue this is because a central driver of high fertility has been consistently disregarded: men, who have significant control over childbearing in Africa. The marriage process itself, in which men give gifts and money to the families of their future wives through bridewealth payments, fundamentally shapes gender norms and determines power relations between men and women.

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future projections

Interested in what the populations of some of the countries mentioned in Frost and Dodoo's article are projected to be in 40 years? Then check out these population pyramids from the census bureau for Ghana, and Kenya.

the population boom around the world

The population boom in developing nations is not just restricted to the African continent. According to the 2008 World Population Data Sheet, nearly all of the world's population growth is now concentrated in the poorest countries.

the u.n. and unesco

Check out the websites for the U.N. Millennium Development Goals and UNESCO’s Education for All programs mentioned in this article.

The role prisons play in the spread of infectious disease among prisoners is well appreciated. But the health problems of prisoners extend far beyond prison walls. As former inmates return home to their families and communities, so too do the health risks to which they’re exposed. Taken together, the health problems that flow between prisons and communities create an incarceration-health link that threatens inmates and non-inmates alike.

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Urban Institute-Health and Reentry Reports

The Urban Institute is a research and advising organization that aims to inform social and economic policy decisions. One of UI’s focus areas is crime and justice, within this division they have conducted a number of research projects on prison health and its implications for prisoner reentry. This brief overview highlights main findings and provides links to reportsconcerning health and reentry in Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, and Maryland.

The Strengthening Offenders and Families While Promoting Community Health and Safety report put out in 2001 by the UI focuses more on how the health problems of offenders can negatively impact the families and communities they return to following completion of their sentence. The report notes how communities could benefit from investing resources in support and treatment services for ex-prisoners and their families.

Health Care in Wisconsin Prisons

A forty minute presentation by David E. Burnett, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Medical Director. Burnett discusses common health problems, healthcare availability, and issues associated with follow-up care after release from prison in the state of Wisconsin:

US dept. of Justice-Corrections and Public Health Collaboration

A 2003 U.S. Department of Justice report (PDF Download) about providing health care in prison, but also discusses health issues upon reentry and the effect for larger population and community. Discusses how and why public health organization should be deeply involved in the transition from prison to community and highlights different forms this collaboration can take.

Council on Crime and Justice

The Council on Crime Justice is an independent non-profit organization working in Minnesota to address causes and consequences of crime. The CCJ conducts research on crime and incarceration and offers outreach support services to prisoners and their families. The Healthy Educational Lifestyles Project aims to improve the health of offenders both in and out of prison. This program focuses its efforts on educating inmates of color about behaviors related to HIV/STDs/Hepatitis C transmission, violence and relationship building, and basic life needs, in order to impart the knowledge and skills necessary to reduce recidivism and maintain and manage personal health. The Family Strengthening Project works with parents and children on building and maintaining healthy relationship during and after incarceration. The program offers family counseling and marriage, family, parenting, and financial education classes. The FSP can closely work with incarcerate fathers and their families to create a detailed reentry plan which aims to build and strengthen healthy family relationships and economic self-sufficiency.

A Bill of Rights for Children of Prisoners

The San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Project presents a “Bill of Rights” for children whose parents have been incarcerated. Considers how the health and lives of children and families are impacted by a parent’s incarceration, while health is not the primary focus, proper care in a parent’s absence is one of a child’s “rights.”

Most metropolitan growth is occurring in cities of the global south, where the populations are expected to double over the next three decades. It’s imagined that these “world cities” will be the sparkplug needed to kickstart national economies and catapult them into the global marketplace. Yet, in Bangalore, India, and many other world cities like it, these idealized conceptions can overshadow the challenges residents have, and the real place of these cities in the new global economy.

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Michael Goldman vs. Thomas Friedman

Thomas Friedman: It's a Flat World, After All.

Watch Michael Goldman's talk in Bangalore, "Social Justice and Prosperity in a World City? Rethinking the 'Flat World' Thesis in Bangalore India"

The Borders of Freedom. Is the "globalized" world flat or just a slippery slope? Michael Goldman, along with a human geographer, a historian, and a political scientist weigh in.

Bangalore's Transformation in Images

My Own Private Bangalore: a photo essay documenting the transformation of Bangalore over the past decade. The photos on the “wiring of Bangalore” are particularly interesting.

Not since the civil rights movement has community organizing been so central to our political psyche. However, there’s a great deal more to community organizing than Barack Obama and ACORN. Community organizing’s democratic, and fundamentally sociological, impulses—understanding how power works and using that understanding to build the power of all people—bring a sense of reward and satisfaction unmatched by other forms of political practice.

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realizing the promise

On December 4th, 2,500 community leaders from thirty-two states and two countries came together in Washington D.C. to shape the future of the U.S. by influencing the agenda of the next administration. Watch videos from the event.

behind the acorn controversy

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! conducts a fascinating interview with Bertha Lewis, Chief organizer of ACORN and Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer specializing in election law and who has represented the National Rifle Association and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The conversation explores many of the accusations and rebuttals concerning the work of ACORN.

COMM-ORG

COMM-ORG’s mission is to link academics and activists, and theory and practice, toward the goal of improving community organizing and its related crafts. See the COMM-ORG website for links to papers, syllabi, and various resources.

servicelearning.org

Interested in bringing “community organizing into your home or classroom? Check out servicelearning.org which hosts information for parents and teachers (kindergarten to college) about how to involve young people in creating social change.