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This study presents findings leading to the conclusion that cyberbullying in massively multiplayer online (MMO) games can be conceptualized, measured and at least partially explained as a normative phenomenon, similar to Latane & Darley's (1970) bystander inaction hypothesis. An overall sample of N=372 respondents to an online survey provided information on their daily amount of Internet use and daily amount of time engaged in playing in MMO games. Scales for the assessment of both cyberbullying victimization and bullying itself were developed. Victims of cyberbullying appear more sensitive to bullying incidents albeit no more likely than game players who have engaged in bullying to intervene in preventing it. Perpetrators of cyberbullying, however, also appear to be heavily invested in both Internet use and MMO game play and that could amplify an individual's aggressiveness as a player in turn making it more likely they will engage in cyberbullying. The study concludes with a qualitative examination of MMO game player narrative self-explanations for nonintervention in cyberbullying that parallels Latane and Darley's explanation of bystander nonintervention in face-to-face threatening or emergency contexts.

Angela Baldasare, Ph.D. currently serves as the divisional manager for assessment and research in the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs. Working in the public health sector over the past 8 years, she has overseen the evaluation of more than 150 programs, addressing issues of sexual health and teen pregnancy, domestic violence, child welfare, substance abuse, mental health, and disability.

This study investigated the skill development of academic reference librarians. It has been assumed that skill develops over time through experience, yet workplace competencies are currently described without reference to level of expertise. Drawing on the literature of occupational sociology, the Dreyfus model is an experiential, developmental model rather than a trait or talent model, allowing the holistic exploration of skill change through analysis of reference situations as contextualized and social phenomena. Three aspects of change in skill level were investigated: the shift from reliance on rules and abstract principles to the use of real experience to guide action; the growth in ability to discern relevant information from noise in complex situations; and the increase in engaged, involved performance out of initial detachment. Analysis of interview narratives with 17 reference librarians and two reference assistants suggests that the Dreyfus model is applicable to reference skill development with some differences. Skill characteristics were discerned at four levels: beginner, competent, proficient, and expert. Observed skill criteria in the narratives were used to reorganize the mixed skill levels presented in the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) Professional Competencies for Reference and User Services Librarians.

Learning gain – the attempt to measure the different ways in which students benefit from their learning experience – is now a core part of government plans for higher education across many countries. A focus on student outcomes is a key strand of enquiry for judging quality and assessing value for money. New approaches to quantifying learning gain and new metrics were developed through 13 pilot projects across England. Evaluation of the projects explored the theoretical underpinnings of the metrics including behavioural, cognitive and affective approaches, as well as progress and outcome measures, and identified challenges to measuring learning gain. In this chapter policy implications of the global accountability agenda are discussed, including the use of metrics to drive enhancement, rank excellence and ensure quality and standards.

Universities are increasing hubs of digital activity; much commendable, some reprehensible. It is dismaying that in some learners' minds the divide between them is murky rather than clear. Today's students are largely digital natives born into computing and its venues. In many colleges, during orientation the preponderance of incoming students use their new college e-mail accounts to enable in Facebook, etc., easy online communication with others in the institution. Unlike past decades when a student might be handed flyers or read postings on poles and walls, today's students are in a maelstrom of social media, and other new technologies that students are socially pressed to use. In her book Ruling the Waves, Debora Spar suggested that cyberspace is like a frontier town, a place where there are “not a lot of rules or marshals in town” (Spar, 2001). People online often feel relatively unconstrained, creative, and innovative. At the same time, chaos, disorder, nefariousness, and just plain “bad behavior” are rife. New technologies foster the sense of a new normality. Yet just because it is now possible to act in new ways through new technologies does not make those ways acceptable.

Intergenerational relations imply dealing with ambivalences. This thesis is what the contributions to this volume have in common. Yet, critics may claim that it is not a new insight. Among them are those who recall that some of the greatest sagas in Greek mythology depicted what we now refer to as ambivalence. Others may argue that the experience of ambivalence pervades everyday life. Adult children, for example, feel ambivalent about placing their elderly father or mother in a nursing home. Parents have mixed feelings about their child’s living with a partner without an intention to marry and have children. A son’s or a daughter’s “coming out” as gay or lesbian is fraught with ambivalence on both sides.

The study of markets encompasses a number of disciplines – including anthropology, economics, history, and sociology – and a larger number of theoretical frameworks (see Plattner, 1989; Reddy, 1984; Smelser & Swedberg, 1994). Despite this disciplinary and theoretical diversity, scholarship on markets tends toward either realist or constructionist accounts (Dobbin, 1994; Dowd & Dobbin, forthcoming).¹ Realist accounts treat markets as extant arenas that mostly (or should) conform to a singular ideal-type. Realists thus take the existence of markets as given and examine factors that supposedly shape all markets in a similar fashion. When explaining market outcomes, they tout such factors as competition, demand, and technology; moreover, they can treat the impact of these factors as little influenced by context. Constructionist accounts treat markets as emergent arenas that result in a remarkable variety of types. They problematize the existence of markets and examine how contextual factors contribute to this variety. When explaining market outcomes, some show that social relations and/or cultural assumptions found in a particular setting can qualify the impact of competition (Uzzi, 1997), demand (Peiss, 1998), and technology (Fischer, 1992). Constructionists thus stress the contingent, rather than universal, processes that shape markets.