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A luminescent purple glow expands, refracting holographic light in the background. As the perspective shifts, each color of the rainbow appears and disappears along multiple axes of a prismatic spray. Our Diva, Carolyn Ellis, sits alone on a stool in the midst of the purple glow, extending her hand, palm up, with outstretched tapered fingers, beckoning us to join her. “Don’t be afraid,” she smiles, “we are all the same.”

Approximately 120 million children under the age of 14 labor full time, according to recent estimates by the International Labor Organization (ILO) (U.S. Department of Labor, 2002, 2001; UNICEF, 2000). If those for whom work is a secondary activity are included, the number of working children rises to 250 million. The majority of child laborers live in Asia, although Africa has a higher rate of child labor. The ILO estimates that 40% of African children between the ages of five and fourteen years of age, work. (U.S. Department of Labor, 2002, 2001) Although the majority of the 120 million full time working children labor in the commercial agricultural sector, child labor is not confined to any particular economic sector. Children work as domestic servants, in mining, as divers in deep-sea fishing, in construction, as prostitutes, in toy, shoe and garment factories, as cigarette makers, as rug weavers, in charcoal making, in glass and ceramics factories, as sports equipment and surgical instrument makers, in the match and fireworks industries and in many other jobs.

This paper investigates, theoretically and empirically, differences between blacks and whites in the United States concerning the intergenerational transmission of occupational skills and the effects on sons’ earnings. The father–son skill correlation is measured by the correlation coefficient (or cosine of the angle) between the father’s skill vector and the son’s skill vector. The skill vector comprises an individual’s occupational characteristics from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT). According to data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), white sons earn higher wages in occupations that require skills similar to those of their fathers, whereas black sons in such circumstances incur a wage loss. A large portion of the racial wage gap is explained by the father–son skill correlation. However, a significant unexplained racial wage gap remains at the lower tail of the wage distribution.

As sociologists we all try to make a contribution to our field. Having completed our comprehensives and dissertations we have read in depth in several areas, have focused on an area that interests us, and have learned the research process whether it uses quantitative or qualitative methodology. We all make our contributions available to the field, but occasionally one among us makes a startling discovery, has an unusual idea or a way to approach a problem, starts examining a new problem at just the right moment, or has an insight into a specific conceptual problem with unusual alacrity. A few among us combine all that skill and happenstance and lead the way into new sociological insights, new areas of research and provide a notable foundation or advancement to an area of knowledge. Saad Nagi is one of those contributors with vision, insight, and skill to see ahead of his time. This paper attempts to bring together in one place his major contributions to the disability knowledge base in sociology.

The approach used in this paper is an in depth review of all of Nagi’s published works in the area of disability. The published literature is grouped into the five areas in which Nagi made major contributions, including major research of the Social Security Disability Insurance process; development of a framework for the disability process; epidemiological definitions and research; development of a coherent set of disability measures; and an examination of the social problem, policy, and program process as developed and practiced in this country.

Nagi made a large and significant contribution in all the areas listed above and much of the measurement, and process examination is still relevant and useful in current research. His framework is still the basis for the very newest models of disability which dominate disability research today.

Researchers need to go back to find Nagi books and articles written in the 60s, 70s, and 80s to ground their work in the originals rather than to take the interpretations of others on this material. The ICF and the Social Model did not originate in Europe alone, but much of the work began in the states in the early 60s with the work of Nagi, Haber, and others and should not be overlooked or ignored.

The early childhood education classroom space is intrinsic to developing localized youth culture. Through a four-month-long qualitative research project in a space that focused on meeting the most rudimentary child needs due to staffing and fund restrictions, young children’s creativity through the arts was stunted. In a classroom setting focused on structure and strict routine at the forefront, children’s creative expression was observed through independent action and creative twists on order, instead of through activities deliberately designed to nurture creativity and expression. Since the children at the site did not seem to regularly participate in any kind of art making, or unstructured creative expression, my focus instead became the fundamentals of creativity and how young children in the classroom demonstrated choice making and agency. The objective of this study was how to understand the space from a child-centered approach to better project how to include art making, creative education, and creative expression within early childhood education sites that do not currently employ it in their curriculum. This chapter aims to situate how young children created a culture of creative expression within the boundaries of a structured early education classroom when top-down teacher interaction was at a minimum, and open-ended, non-directive materials were provided.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to be as comprehensive as possible about what is known about mirror neurons at this time.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter offers a comprehensive critique including Churchland's hesitations about findings on mirror neurons (2011) which are balanced by Ramachandran's conviction that much of the research on mirror neurons is valid (2011). Following this is a summary of the results of the Mirror Neuron Forum (2011) wherein leading mirror neuron researchers exchange their views and conclusions about this subject.

Findings – The few single cells measures that we have show that they are much wider distributed throughout the brain than we have previously imagined. It should be stressed that single measures of mirror neurons have occurred albeit in limited situations. This establishes once and for all their relevance to humans.

Originality/value – The work on mirror neurons is a critical contribution from neuroscience to bringing the social brain into sociology and refining our understandings of intersubjectivity and of our biologically driven connections with others.