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The US fossil fuel industry is vulnerable to opposition from other sectors of the ruling class. Non-fossil fuel capitalists might conclude that climate breakdown jeopardizes their interests. State actors such as judges, regulators, and politicians may come to the same conclusion. However, these other elite actors are unlikely to take concerted collective action against fossil fuels in the absence of growing disruption by grassroots activists. Drawing from the history of the Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies, I analyze the forces determining government climate policies and private-sector investments. I focus on how the climate and Indigenous movements have begun to force changes in the behavior of certain ruling-class interests. Of particular importance is these movements' progress in two areas: eroding the financial sector's willingness to fund and insure fossil fuels, and influencing judges and regulators to take actions that further undermine investors' confidence in fossil fuels. Our future hinges largely on whether the movements can build on these victories while expanding their base within labor unions and other strategically positioned sectors.

To explore the digital landscape, narrowing to Instagram, as a cultural space to advance sociological understanding of elite athlete mother identity meanings and lives.

Relativist narrative inquiry is outlined as a theoretical and methodological approach to expand sociological research on motherhood and sport, by exploring big and small stories on social media sites. Elite athlete mother's mediated self-portrayals on Instagram are theorized as identity stories (re)created and made possible, by cultural narrative resources.

An example of big and small story research is outlined from a larger case study of elite athlete figure skating mothers' self-portrayals on Instagram as they negotiated motherhood, and a professional sport career. Thematic narrative analysis findings include a big story plot in the post-partum period: negotiating intensive mothering and career. Two small stories that fed into fluid meanings of this big story plot are also presented: holding the baby close and working mum/new mumtrepeneur. These findings show nuanced contradictions of contemporary motherhood meanings, within sportswomen's personal and public digital stories.

A big and small story approach grounded in narrative inquiry holds value to learn more about the contemporary digital landscape's shaping of the meanings of sportswomen's identities and lives. Future research is recommended using this approach on additional social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) to expand intertextual understanding of elite athlete mother identities in socio-cultural context, tapping into these underexplored naturalistic data resources.

In recent years, school districts have faced numerous questions surrounding accommodations of transgender students. Strong objections to accommodations have been voiced in public argument and litigation, primarily in the areas of athletics, bathrooms, and dress codes. As younger transgender students express their gender identity at school, however, the existing objections are weakened by considering the context of elementary rather than high school students. Greater numbers of young transgender students will likely encourage accommodation of trans students of all ages, as well as challenge the gender binary unconsciously taught in school.

The Witcher (Netflix, 2019) premiered seven months after Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011–2018) concluded. Given the similarities of genre (historical/high fantasy) and audience (indicated by nudity, violence and profanity), comparisons were quickly drawn. Game of Thrones earned criticism for the ‘sexist’ outcomes for some of its female characters, and so early analysis of The Witcher often evaluated its female representation and feminist values.

This chapter argues that the female representations in season one of The Witcher offers prominent female characters who are imbued with agency, institutional power and well-developed narrative arcs. These representations are somewhat at odds with some initial reaction to the show as sexist. Notably, it uses a dialectic approach to women who are framed by males as villainous (as Stregobor characterizes Renfri in ‘The End's Beginning’). However, the spectator positioning challenges this through devices such as its unrestricted, non-linear narrative structure.

Nevertheless, The Witcher encodes female characters with power as ‘other’, enhancing this otherness through magical abilities. Its archetypal male protagonist further emphasizes the difference of the female deuteragonists, placing him at various times in opposition to characters such as Ciri, Yennefer and Calanthe. This chapter also considers the issues of intersectionality in relation to Yennefer, whose transformative narrative arc has provoked ableist criticism, and how her representation is also impacted by the racial discourse in the series.

Through textual analysis and with reference to relevant folkloric, feminist and media scholarship, this chapter interrogates the representations the significant women of The Witcher through the lenses of gendered authorship, essentialist ‘female’ concerns, such as motherhood, the dynamics of the gaze and the varieties of responses to the female characters evident in online discourse.

The improvement of the agri-food supply chain sustainability plays pivotal role in the planet’s survival and in overcoming of climate disasters. Digital technologies that support the collection of Big Data produced along the agri-food supply chain (SC) emerge as powerful tools to accelerate the ecological transition of the sector. Digital technologies can support the implementation of circular business models by sharing data across the SC, monitoring in real time the materials flow, automatizing some agricultural practices and improving the decision-making through the development of decision support systems. Despite the relevance of these arguments, there is a lack of shared frameworks and guidelines for the effective development of a “data-driven circular economy” in the agri-food SC. In this scenario, this chapter examines how scholars investigate data-oriented strategies to accelerate the ecological transition and the adoption of circular economy (CE) models in the agri-food sector (AFS). To this end, a systematic literature review (SLR) was performed. Twenty-nine papers were selected following a rigorous sampling process. Both bibliometric and descriptive results are provided in the first part of this chapter. According to the analytical framework developed, the selected papers were examined in light of the “reduce, reuse and recycle” (3R) paradigm. Moreover, an additional R was retrieved from the systematic review (i.e., redesign), broadening the analytical perspective. The results indicate that scholars have predominantly provided theoretical contributions concerning the role of digital technologies and big data for the agri-food circular transition from a macro-perspective. The findings are useful for policy-makers and managers, who can promote and implement the big data-oriented approach to facilitate the circular transition. Limitations and future research directions are also provided.

This paper investigates whether individuals’ risk-taking behavior is affected by background risk by analyzing individuals’ choices over a series of lotteries in a laboratory setting in the presence and absence of independent, uncorrelated background risks. Overall, our results were mixed. We found some support for the notion that individuals were more risk averse when faced with the introduction of an unfair or mean-preserving background risk than when no background risk was present, but this finding depends on how individuals incorporate endowments and background gains and losses into their utility functions and how error variance is modeled.

Purpose: Sexual minority youth are more likely than their heterosexual peers to consider and attempt suicide, in part due to victimization experienced within schools. While existing research suggests that rates of school victimization and suicidality among sexual minority students vary by school and community context, less is known about variation in these experiences at the state level.

Methodology: Using data from a large, representative sample of sexual minority and heterosexual youth (2017 Youth Risk Behavior States Data, n = 64,746 high school students in 22 states), multilevel models examine whether differences between sexual minority and heterosexual students in victimization and suicide risk vary by state-level policies.

Findings: Results suggest that disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual boys in bullying, suicide ideation, and suicide attempt are consistently smaller in states with high levels of overall policy support for LGBTQ equality and nondiscrimination in education laws. Sexual minority girls are more likely than heterosexual girls to be electronically bullied, particularly in states with lower levels of LGBTQ equality. Disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual girls in suicide ideation are lowest in high equality states, but state policies are not significantly associated with disparities in suicide attempt among girls.

Value: Overall, findings suggest that state-level policies supporting LGBTQ equality are associated with a reduced risk of suicide among sexual minority youth. This study speaks to the role of structural stigma in shaping exposure to minority stress and its consequences for sexual minority youth's well-being.