Search results

The following interview took place in Urbana, Illinois on October 27, 1978 and was recorded on an audiotape.

While much of the existing research regarding moral exemplarity has focused on living individuals, examination of the lives of historical figures can also prove invaluable in understanding moral motivation. Consequently, this paper sought to apply Frimer and Walker’s (2009) reconciliation model and methodology in examining themes of agency and communion in the motivation of Miep Gies. Frimer and Walker’s (2009) Self-Understanding Interview and the VEiN coding method (Frimer, Walker, & Dunlop, 2009) served as guides for examining published and audio-recorded interviews, biographical and autobiographical information, as well as video-recorded speeches given by Gies. Aspects of an integrated moral identity appeared evident in the personality of Miep Gies as indicated in statements reflecting an overlap of both agency and communion. The study was limited in its reliance on publically available documents about or by Gies. Further, reliance on these documents, as opposed to a “live” interview, limited the ability of the author to identify responses to all questions included in Frimer and Walker’s (2009) interview or fully utilize the VEiN coding method (Frimer et al., 2009). Exploration of life narratives of historical figures can provide insight into an integrated moral identity as well as examples of developmental crossroads Frimer and Walker (2009) cited as essential in their reconciliation model. Comprehension of this reconciliation process is critical to understanding what lies at the heart of moral motivation and action as well as the ability to promote such growth in the lives of others.

History helps us to better understand current practices, struggles, and potential solutions. This chapter provides a look back at the long, rich history of child development laboratory programs in the U.S. over almost 80 years. In particular, it explores the original vision of those involved in the early days of “child study” and the evolution over time of a sample of three child development laboratory programs. The struggles of today’s child development laboratory programs in the areas of funding, collaboration, research, training, and service are not unique to our times. Many of these same issues have plagued child development laboratory programs in the past. The historical perspectives were developed using a range of data sources: some period pieces (primary sources), some historical accounts, oral history interviews, and records of activity at various sites, with the intention of developing the historical foundation of the child development laboratory program in order to understand better the challenges we face today.

Nine months later, after four days and nights on a bus, I was dropped off on El Camino Real, walked into campus with my backpack, and navigated my way to the Sociology Department, temporarily housed in three residential buildings, a volleyball net outside. Wow, now this is laid back, which was totally fine with me as a then legal resident of ski area. So I thought, until I started talking in more depth to Larry Wu, with whom I was rooming for the first few days. Larry had come from Harrison White's group at Harvard. Like others from that group (e.g., David Strang), he already had essentially completed a math major, along with several math-social science courses. My heart sank. Lucky, I thought, that Stanford is willing to give a Master's degrees to those who want to leave Ph.D. program!

The paper adopts an organizational perspective to explore the conditions of possibility of the recent re-emergence of overt class-based discourse on one hand, epitomized by the ‘We are the 99%’ movement, and the rise on the other hand of a populist, nativist and sometimes overtly fascist right. It is argued that these phenomena, reflecting the increasingly crisis-prone character of global capitalism, the growing gap between rich and poor and a generalized sense of insecurity, are rooted in the dismantling of socially embedded organizations through processes often described as ‘financialization’, driven by the taken-for-granted dominance of neoliberal ideology. The paper explores the rise to dominance of the neoliberal ‘thought style’ and its inherent logic in underpinning the dismantling and restructuring of capitalist organization. Its focus is upon transnational value chain capitalism which has rebalanced power relations in favour of a small elite that is able to operate and realize wealth in ways that defy and often succeed in escaping the regulation of nation states.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, a growing number of cities around the world have been looking to invest in extensive city-reimaging and place-marketing initiatives in efforts to announce themselves or to raise their profiles on the tourism market. In either case, the objective is to facilitate economic growth in times of rising importance of the service sector, of which tourism is widely seen as one of the most lucrative areas since it helps attract new investors, generate more revenue, and create additional jobs. It is in pursuit of such economic benefits that government officials, policy-makers, urban-planning agencies, land developers, and other private stakeholders have been coming together to identify potential urban precincts within cities, before transforming these precincts into art and cultural districts, often home to at least one visually striking art museum or a performing arts center – almost always designed by an elite band of celebrity architects. Fully or partially funded by taxpayer money, these signature art museums and performing arts centers are conceptualized and built as icons of the city, and as objects of the tourist gaze, with little or no interest in the physical and environmental peculiarities of place and with little or no regard for local residents including local artists and cultural producers. Traveling from Bilbao in Spain to Bhopal in India, this chapter expands on some of the events that led to an outburst of formally overstated and spatially exclusive venues of art and culture in the last two decades, before sharing some thoughts and restarting conversations on reclaiming and reimagining these venues as open, inclusive, and pulsating public spaces embedded in the actual fabrics of cities, at once accessible to locals and tourists.

In this issue of Studies in Symbolic Interaction, I am pleased to announce the publication of the first set of papers in our newly created “blue-ribbon paper” series. The series is dedicated to publishing cutting-edge papers done from a broadly defined interactionist's perspective. We particularly want to publish the works of new and seasoned scholars that display not only a creative, but also a humanistic bent. We want our series to provide scholars who think “outside the box” about the human condition with a chance to “push the envelope” in their special areas of expertise and interest without fear of having their work rejected for being too avante grade. Thus, our main objective is to help beginning and veteran interactionists whose work “breaks the mold” carve out or expand their niche in the research literature. In the immortal words of Robert Park, the journalist turned sociologist and early interactionist, we want to help scholars who fall into this category find their “spot in the sun.”

This chapter critically evaluates the role of creative identity and how this shapes entrepreneurial identity. The main driver for creative practitioners is one of being ‘creative’, but this is in combination with the factors that support entrepreneurial behaviours, and it provides the narrative for their entrepreneurial identity. The quest to operate successfully as a creative practitioner in the creative industries drives entrepreneurial behaviour. The research examines the relationship between creative identity and entrepreneurial identity and how these two identities intertwine. To respond to this question, the study critically evaluates the concept of creative identity and entrepreneurial identity with fourteen creative practitioners in the UK, working as either chartered architects or freelance photographers. The research employed a qualitative approach and interpretivist ontology. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with the participants. The key finding that highlights the driver for entrepreneurial identity is the quest to operate successfully as a creative practitioner in the creative industries. This quest is underpinned by the desire to be able to express their creative identity, often referred to as a creative ‘voice’. Entrepreneurial identity and entrepreneurial behaviours function as conduits in which creative practitioners channel their primary driver of creative identity. This chapter contributes to the knowledge about creative practitioners’ entrepreneurial identity and creative identity and how these two identities relate to each other.