A Pilot Assessment of How Muslim Scientists Perceive Inclusion in the Scientific Workplace

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-130
Author(s):  
Jauhara Ferguson ◽  
Elaine Howard Ecklund
Keyword(s):  
Science Literature ◽  
Religious Discrimination ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Context Shapes ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Much of the social science literature on how religious and scientific communities relate to one another is focused on the relationship Christian communities have to science in the US and to a lesser extent the UK. Our pilot research begins to address this gap by studying Muslim scientists, a key group of actors who are important to understanding the social implications of global discussions about religion and science. We ask: How do Muslim scientists in non-Muslim majority national contexts perceive the relationship between religion and science and the connection between their faith and their work? In this pilot study, we analyze 13 in-depth interviews with Muslim scientists from three non-Muslim majority national contexts—France, India, and the United Kingdom. We find that Muslim scientists in our sample generally view their faith as compatible with their identities as scientists. Despite this connection, Muslim scientists do not consider the scientific workplace to be a supportive environment for their faith expression and believe the visibility of Muslim identity creates the potential for religious discrimination in science. Initial findings contribute to our understanding of how national context shapes religious experiences and highlights potential challenges to facilitating more religiously plural workplace environments.

scholarly journals A Pilot Assessment of How Muslim Scientists Perceive Inclusion in the Scientific Workplace

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Jauhara Ferguson ◽  
Elaine Howard Ecklund
Keyword(s):  
Science Literature ◽  
Religious Discrimination ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Context Shapes ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Much of the social science literature on how religious and scientific communities relate to one another is focused on the relationship Christian communities have to science in the US and to a lesser extent the UK. Our pilot research begins to address this gap by studying Muslim scientists, a key group of actors who are important to understanding the social implications of global discussions about religion and science. We ask: How do Muslim scientists in non-Muslim majority national contexts perceive the relationship between religion and science and the connection between their faith and their work? In this pilot study, we analyze 13 in-depth interviews with Muslim scientists from three non-Muslim majority national contexts—France, India, and the United Kingdom. We find that Muslim scientists in our sample generally view their faith as compatible with their identities as scientists. Despite this connection, Muslim scientists do not consider the scientific workplace to be a supportive environment for their faith expression and believe the visibility of Muslim identity creates the potential for religious discrimination in science. Initial findings contribute to our understanding of how national context shapes religious experiences and highlights potential challenges to facilitating more religiously plural workplace environments.

Toward a Critical Refugee Study: The Vietnamese Refugee Subject in US Scholarship

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 410-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yêên Lêê Espiritu
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Vietnamese Americans ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Vietnamese American ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Vietnamese Studies ◽  
Vietnamese Refugee

This review of the field of Vietnamese refugee studies in the United States first assesses the social science literature that dominated Vietnamese studies during the 1970s and 1980s, showing how this scholarship produces Vietnamese Americans as the desperate-turned-successful. Then it reviews the current range of Vietnamese American scholarship, foregrounding the promising studies that situate the diversity and vibrancy of Vietnamese lives within a critical global context. The paper concludes by suggesting that we imbue the term "refugee" with social and political critiques that call into question the relationship between war, race, and violence, then and now.

scholarly journals Campaigning for sustainable food: sustainably certified consumer communities

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Discetti
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Consumer Activism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Roles ◽  
Longitudinal Approach ◽  
Consumer Movements ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Managerial Perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between consumer movements and sustainability certification bodies in the development of food-related consumer campaigns.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts a longitudinal approach to the study of an empirical case, the Fairtrade Towns (FTT) movement in the UK. It combines netnographic analysis on the FTT’s online forum with interviews with members of the community and of the certification body coordinating the movement.FindingsThe author conceptualises Sustainably Certified Consumer Communities (SCCC) as a distinct sub-group of consumer movements whose identity coalesces around a sustainable certification and that mobilises supporters with the purpose of promoting social change through the marketplace. The longitudinal approach allows the identification of definitional elements, main practices and unresolved tensions of this concept.Originality/valueResearch addressing the social movement dimension of contemporary food-related sustainability certification is limited. The present study advances consumer research through the conceptualisation of SCCC and contributes to a new understanding of the political roles that market-oriented certification bodies can play in consumer activism. From a managerial perspective, it provides valuable insights into practitioners interested in fostering community engagement.

On-Air and Online: Social Media and Local Radio Production in the UK

MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Anna Zoellner ◽  
Stephen Lax
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Broadcast Media ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
The Social ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Media Practices ◽  
The Relationship

Digitalisation and the emergence of online media in particular have led to intense debates about its effects on what is now often called “traditional media” including broadcast media such as radio. Our paper investigates how radio stations’ expansion into online space has transformed radio production. Focusing on the relationship between station and listeners, it discusses the social media practices of radio producers and explores whether these new digital tools contribute to a shift towards a more participatory production culture. The paper draws on data from a multi-method case study investigation of local British radio stations that combined programme analysis, expert interviews and web analysis. The study highlighted a shared belief among producers in the importance and value of social media for achieving audience loyalty and engagement. Nevertheless –not least due to a lack of additional resources –their use of social media is mainly an extension of traditional journalistic and promotional tech niques. Its potential for listener involvement in the production process is not met and exchanges with the audiences remain in the digital realm without impact on the on-air listener experience.  

Liberal hospitality

The Athenaeum ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 133-156
Author(s):  
Michael Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
New Members ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Social Backgrounds

This chapter assesses the Athenæum's 'hospitality' towards a wide range of ideologies and social backgrounds among candidates and members. Non-partisan politically, it accommodated both sides in the Reform debates of the 1830s, with members engaging in pamphlet wars rather than calling for resignations, as happened at the political clubs. Similarly, the pattern of early Rule II elections indicates a willingness to introduce new members of outstanding ability in science, literature, and the arts who were known to be the chief antagonists of equally prominent existing members. The chapter looks at some of the flashpoints in the club's history between 1860 and 1890, when liberal opinion in politics, religion, and science assumed the ascendancy in Britain, and the Athenæum strove to maintain its tradition of tolerance and balance. It is at these flashpoints, and at times when conservative sexual mores influenced public life, that the relationship between national developments and the life of the club, conducted on the margins between the private and the public, is most revealing.

Contested Britain

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fundamental Cause ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Cultural Constraints ◽  
The Relationship

This book offers a powerful and distinctive analysis of how the politics of the UK and the lived experience of its citizens have been reframed in the first decades of the 21st century. It does so by bringing together carefully articulated case studies with theoretically informed discussion of the relationship between austerity, Brexit and the rise of populist politics, as well as highlighting the emergence of a range of practices, institutions and politics that challenge the hegemony of austerity discourses. The book mobilises notions of agency to help understand the role of austerity (as politics and lived experience) as a fundamental cause of Brexit. Investigating the social, economic, political, and cultural constraints and opportunities arising from a person’s position in society allows us to explain the link between austerity politics and the vote for Brexit. In doing so, the book goes beyond traditional disciplinary approaches to develop more interdisciplinary engagements, based on broad understandings of cultural studies as well as drawing on insights from political science, sociology, economics, geography and law. It uses comparative material from the regions of England and from the devolved territories of the UK, and explores the profound differences of geography, generation, gender, ‘race’ and class.

Bureaucracy and Entrepreneurship: Workplace Effects on Entrepreneurial Entry

2007 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesper B. Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activity ◽  
Nascent Entrepreneurs ◽  
Entrepreneurial Entry ◽  
Individual Traits ◽  
The Social ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Sociological Approaches ◽  
Context Shapes ◽  
The Relationship

Using a study of the relationship between bureaucratic work environments and individual rates of entrepreneurship, I revisit a fundamental premise of sociological approaches to entrepreneurship, namely, that the social context shapes the likelihood of entrepreneurial activity, above and beyond any effects of individual characteristics. Establishing such contextual effects empirically is complicated by the possibility that unobserved individual traits influence both the contexts in which people are observed and their likelihood of becoming entrepreneurs. This paper presents the first systematic study of the effects of bureaucracy on entrepreneurship that accounts for such unobserved sorting processes. Analyses of data on labor market attachments and transitions to entrepreneurship in Denmark between 1990 and 1997 show that people who work for large and old firms are less likely to become entrepreneurs, net of a host of observable individual characteristics. Moreover, there is strong evidence to suggest that this negative effect of bureaucracy does not spuriously reflect self-selection by nascent entrepreneurs into different types of firms. An important implication of this finding is that the structure of organizational populations affects the supply of nascent entrepreneurs, as well as the availability of entrepreneurial opportunities.

scholarly journals THOSE LEFT BEHIND

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Alexis C. Dennis
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Psychological Distress ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Working Age ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract While the socioeconomic status (SES)–psychological distress gradient is well-documented in the social science literature, less attention has been devoted to how this relationship varies within sociodemographic subgroups. I contribute to this small but growing literature by first examining the relationship between multiple dimensions of SES and two measures of psychological distress (depression and anxiety) among working-age African Americans. I then test whether three social mediators explain the SES–psychological distress relationship, and whether gender modifies these associations and/or the social mediators that shape them. To address these aims, I analyze two waves of population-representative data from the Detroit Neighborhood Health Study (N=685). Data were collected between 2008 and 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession. I utilize structural equation modeling with latent variables to assess these relationships, and test indirect and conditional effects to detect the presence of mediation and/or moderation, respectively. Findings revealed associations between higher total household income and lower levels of depression/anxiety, as well as unemployment and increased depression/anxiety among working-age African Americans. Furthermore, higher educational attainment was associated with reduced anxiety, but not depression, in this population. Gender moderated these findings such that unemployment was associated with higher levels of depression/anxiety among women but not men. I also found that trauma mediated the relationship between unemployment and depression/anxiety as well as educational attainment and anxiety. Gender, however, moderated the association between unemployment and depression/anxiety via traumatic events such that the relationship was stronger among women than men. Collectively, these findings contribute to our limited understanding of African Americans’ mental health and underscore the importance of how both socioeconomic forces and life course experiences with traumatic events contribute to poor mental health among this population.

scholarly journals A legacy of silence: the intersections of medical sociology and disability studies

2021 ◽  
pp. medhum-2021-012198
Author(s):  
Gareth Martin Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Medical Sociology ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Interdisciplinary Dialogue ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

Disability remains on the margins of the social sciences. Even where disability is foregrounded as a category of analysis, accounts regularly emerge in silos, with little interdisciplinary dialogue acknowledging the potential intersections and points of convergence. This discord is particularly acute within medical sociology and disability studies, yet there is mostly a legacy of silence about the relationship between the two disciplines. Drawing upon data from a qualitative study with parents of disabled children in the UK, I show the value of meshing ideas and tropes from medical sociology and disability studies to make sense of parents’ lived experiences. They described the challenges of living with 'impairment' and a need to readjust expectations. At the same time, parents were keen to not align with a deficit framing of their lives. They talked in affirmative terms about their children as sources of joy and vitality, perceived themselves as ‘normal’, and described convivial, even unremarkable, interactions in public spaces. Yet, parents encountered difficulties when navigating institutional settings and bureaucratic arrangements, or what was commonly referred to as ‘the system’. Their troubles were not located in their children’s bodies, but in—as per a disability studies sensibility—cultural and structural systems preventing their capacity to live well. I argue that both disability studies and medical sociology offer something to the analysis, thereby recognising the gains of not simply buying into the tradition of one worldview. I conclude by imploring for more concrete conversations between both disciplines.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document