Controlling the Wilderness: The Work of Wilderness Officers

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene Lawson

AbstractIdeologies having roots in the legal structure of the system of wildlife protection characterize the work culture of the Pennsylvania wilderness officer. This paper examines these ideologies and the characteristically strong social solidarity of the community of wilderness officers. Wilderness officers are both law enforcement agents and conservationists. They mediate between human and animal as well as between what is considered scientific management and what is considered unenlightened and even lawless behavior. In performing this boundary work, wilderness officers participate in the social construction of the science of land management, which views animals as renewable resources. The wilderness officer's job is to insure the continuation of this resource as a part of the natural heritage of Pennsylvania and the United States. The wilderness officer's concept of "animal" becomes a byproduct of this social construction and of the culture of hunting that supports it. The rural upbringing common to many officers suits them ideally to their task.

2021 ◽  
Vol 123 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Jeanne M. Powers ◽  
Kathryn P. Chapman

Background In the past decade, the laws governing teachers’ employment have been at the center of legal and political conflicts across the United States. Vergara v. California challenged five California state statutes that provide employment protections for teachers. In June 2014, a California lower court declared the statutes unconstitutional because they exposed students to “grossly ineffective teachers.” Purpose The purpose of the article is to document and analyze how Vergara was presented in the print news media. It is important to understand how the print news media presents education policy debates to the public, because the print news media shapes the general public's understanding of education and other public policy debates by providing frames and themes for interpreting the issues in question and people associated with them. Research Design Using the social construction of target populations and political spectacle as conceptual lenses, we conducted a content analysis of print news media articles on the Vergara case published between June 2012 and November 2014. We provide a descriptive overview of the full corpus of articles published during this period and a thematic analysis of the 65 unique news articles published in the aftermath of the decision. The latter focuses on news articles because they are intended to provide more objective coverage of the case than opinions or editorials. Findings In the print news media coverage, the word “teacher” was often paired with a negative qualifier, which suggests that Vergara was an effort to change the relatively advantaged social construction of teachers. Similarly, metaphors and the illusion of rationality associated with political spectacle were used in ways that bolstered the plaintiffs’ claims. While Vergara consumed a substantial amount of philanthropic and public dollars, ultimately it did not change the policies that govern teachers’ employment in California. Vergara may have been more successful in shaping the general public's perceptions of teachers and the conditions of teachers’ employment in the period following the trial.


1974 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-197
Author(s):  
David Cairns

This paper proposes to give some account and critique of Peter Berger's thought as contained in a selection of his books. No note will be taken of his witty and mordant critique of the Protestant Churches in the United States, The Noise of Solemn Assemblies (1961), nor yet of The Social Construction of Reality (1966), which is a more technical book than the others which will be dealt with here. These are The Precarious Vision (1961), Invitation to Sociology (1963), The Social Reality of Religion (1967) (more entertainingly entitled in its original American edition, The Sacred Canopy), and A Rumour of Angels (1968).


Author(s):  
Turar Koychuev

The report reviews the search and selection of ideology, concept and models of economic development in the post-Soviet space with account of historical peculiarities, demographic processes, natural resources, scales of country and its economy, new political and legal structure, transition to open and free market economy. It evaluates the current state, defines objectives of development and ways of their implementation for a full-fledged establishment of the social economy, taking a rightful place in the world economy, which is appropriate to its own possibilities and needs, knowledge-intensive and receptive to innovations and in-demand within the international geo-economical space. In the end, must be approved by the inter-state peaceful coexistence, political tolerance, social solidarity, mutually beneficial economic cooperation that ensures a prosperous development of societies and States that Man lived happily ever after.


Author(s):  
Linda J. Lumsden

This essay traces the evolution of scholarship on the role of a broad range of media in the American suffrage movement, including the suffrage press, plays, films, and consumer goods as well as mainstream news representations of the movement. The essay retrieves individual suffrage editors and publications to historical memory and considers the social construction of gender in mainstream media and suffragists’ “self-mediation”; the intersection of race, class, and gender in media accounts of woman suffrage; the marketing of woman suffrage; and insights into related fields, including political science, social movements, journalism history, popular culture, literary studies, and communications studies. The essay traces how scholarship has evolved from casting woman suffrage as a white, middle-class, Northeastern movement dominated by a few leaders to a diverse mix of activists across the United States.


Author(s):  
Erik Jon Byker

The purpose of this chapter is to describe and report the development of an original theoretical work which emerged from comparative and international empirical research. The theory is called, “Technological Play Theory.” In sharing about Technological Play Theory, this study has three purposes. First, the study explains how Technological Play Theory emerged in a grounded theory way (Glaser & Strauss, 1968) from research findings about the social construction of technology among elementary school teacher and students in England, Cuba, India, South Korea, and the United States. Second, the study examines the contours of the Technological Play Theory in relationship to empirical findings. Third, the study examines how Technological Play Theory can be empowering and utilized as an “agent of change” in education and schooling.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document