Friendship potential: Conversation-based programming and immigrant integration

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 670-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Johnston

Using Contact Theory as a lens, this article presents the results of a case-based study in Norway on language cafes and integration. The methodology includes participant observation and questionnaires for both the programmes’ participants and volunteers. The results show that the programming reduces intergroup prejudice by fostering the following four processes: learning about the out-group, changing behaviour, generating affective ties, and in-group reappraisal, as well as offering a high degree of friendship potential. Thus, the programming supports the expansion of social networks across intercultural lines and, thereby, facilitates integration.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
V. Indu ◽  
Sabu M. Thampi

Social networks have emerged as a fertile ground for the spread of rumors and misinformation in recent times. The increased rate of social networking owes to the popularity of social networks among the common people and user personality has been considered as a principal component in predicting individuals’ social media usage patterns. Several studies have been conducted to study the psychological factors influencing the social network usage of people but only a few works have explored the relationship between the user’s personality and their orientation to spread rumors. This research aims to investigate the effect of personality on rumor spread on social networks. In this work, we propose a psychologically-inspired fuzzy-based approach grounded on the Five-Factor Model of behavioral theory to analyze the behavior of people who are highly involved in rumor diffusion and categorize users into the susceptible and resistant group, based on their inclination towards rumor sharing. We conducted our experiments in almost 825 individuals who shared rumor tweets on Twitter related to five different events. Our study ratifies the truth that the personality traits of individuals play a significant role in rumor dissemination and the experimental results prove that users exhibiting a high degree of agreeableness trait are more engaged in rumor sharing activities and the users high in extraversion and openness trait restrain themselves from rumor propagation.


2021 ◽  
pp. 141-158
Author(s):  
Rubicelia Valencia-Ortiz ◽  
Julio Cabero-Almenara ◽  
Urtza Garay Ruiz

Addictions to online social networks is a problem facing technological societies, and those most affected by this phenomenon are young people and teenagers. Among its effects are the decrease in academic performance and the increase in violent behavior. Given these facts, governments around the world are adopting mechanisms for their prevention. The present work describes the results of research focused on investigating the proposals that would be adopted by the members of the educational community to carry out preventive actions against the addiction and abuse of online social networks. The methodological design has been based on the intensive use of the Nominal Groups technique developed by Delbecq and Andrew in 1971 and which facilitates reaching consensus in a structured group process. The results show the high degree of coincidence among the participants stands out, which validates the usefulness of the measures, and that the addiction to social networks perceives it as a direct consequence of the addition to mobile phones and the Internet. Therefore, it seems necessary that prevention plans should have a generalized perspective that encompasses all three technologies


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 400-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liana Chase ◽  
Ram P. Sapkota

The recent rise in suicide among Bhutanese refugees has been linked to the erosion of social networks and community supports in the ongoing resettlement process. This paper presents ethnographic findings on the role of informal care practiced by relatives, friends, and neighbors in the prevention and alleviation of mental distress in two Bhutanese refugee communities: the refugee camps of eastern Nepal and the resettled community of Burlington, Vermont, US. Data gathered through interviews ( n = 40, camp community; n = 22, resettled community), focus groups (four, camp community), and participant observation (both sites) suggest that family members, friends, and neighbors were intimately involved in the recognition and management of individual distress, often responding proactively to perceived vulnerability rather than reactively to help-seeking. They engaged practices of care that attended to the root causes of distress, including pragmatic, social, and spiritual interventions, alongside those which targeted feelings in the “heart-mind” and behavior. In line with other studies, we found that the possibilities for care in this domain had been substantially constrained by resettlement. Initiatives that create opportunities for strengthening or extending social networks or provide direct support in meeting perceived needs may represent fruitful starting points for suicide prevention and mental health promotion in this population. We close by offering some reflections on how to better understand and account for informal care systems in the growing area of research concerned with identifying and addressing disparities in mental health resources across diverse contexts.


1983 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlene Fingeret

This study explores the social structures illiterate adults create, and their relationship to notions of dependence and independence. In-depth unstructured interviews and participant-observation were used with 43 adults in a medium-sized northeastern urban setting. Analysis shows that illiterate adults create social networks that include readers and are characterized by mutuality. Illiterate adults contribute a range of skills to their networks and see themselves as interdependent. Networks are related to the extent to which illiterate adults are involved in the larger society; this ranges from extensive, for cosmopolitans, to minimal for local adults. Dependent adults have networks that are characterized by asymmetrical relationships. Literacy programs must learn to respond to adults-in-networks.


2000 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
Annie Mundeke

During 1997 and 1998 I did field work on the influences of social networks on the school experiences of children of Haitian immigrants in the Tampa Bay Area. I had many opportunities to interact regularly with children and their caregivers. Rather than living in one neighborhood, the Haitian community was dispersed in the Tampa Bay area. Welfare reform was not my research topic per se, but still I had opportunities to hear about welfare and gathered some data on the issue. Observation, participant-observation, and ethnographic interviews, mainly through visits and socializing, were strategies used to collect data. The study used social network analysis as tool for research. While I was studying participants' social networks, I met many people and made friends, even fictive kin. Perhaps especially because I am an African woman, the Haitians received me as a sister, a cousin, a daughter, an aunt, and a friend.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Rezvani ◽  
Mojtaba Rezvani

Abstract Recent studies have shown that social networks exhibit interesting characteristics such as community structures, i.e., vertexes can be clustered into communities that are densely connected together and loosely connected to other vertices. In order to identify communities, several definitions have been proposed that can characterize the density of connections among vertices in the networks. Dense triangle cores, also known as $k$-trusses, are subgraphs in which every edge participates at least $k-2$ triangles (a clique of size 3), exhibiting a high degree of cohesiveness among vertices. There are a number of research works that propose $k$-truss decomposition algorithms. However, existing in-memory algorithms for computing $k$-truss are inefficient for handling today’s massive networks. In this paper, we propose an efficient, yet scalable algorithm for finding $k$-trusses in a large-scale network. To this end, we propose a new structure, called triangle graph to speed up the process of finding the $k$-trusses and prove the correctness and efficiency of our method. We also evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms through extensive experiments using real-world networks. The results of comprehensive experiments show that the proposed algorithms outperform the state-of-the-art methods by several orders of magnitudes in running time.


Author(s):  
Renata Soares Martins ◽  
Suely Aparecida do Nascimento Mascarenhas ◽  
Gisele Cristina Resende

This article invites us to reflect on oversharenting and family life that, owing to the proliferation of communications technology and the internet, is intersected by digital cyberculture. The research was carried out on the social network, using the method of searching by hashtag. The results showed that during 2018 in two weeks, 20,781 posts were made using the hashtag “minidiva” and 1,679 with the hashtag “miniblogger”, from which three posts were collected each day. Netnography was used to analyze the images and categorize them: (1) oversharenting and family life, (2) social media and child consumption, (3) child adultization. It was concluded that online social networks (Instagram) are spaces where interpersonal relationships; it was seen that the act of consuming gained relevance in the family and that the child’s exposure occurs without awareness, which can cause a high degree of exposure and consequently have adverse effects for everyone.


2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 509-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assaf Lev ◽  
Sima Zach

For many amateur long-distance runners the marathon is not merely an event – it is a demanding activity, both physically and mentally. While being immersed in this activity they enter the running social world and undergo a process of identity transformation. This process encompasses immersion into a ‘zone’ that is often outside the partnership of marriage and includes absorption into social networks that are unlimited in time and place. In this study, an ethnographic research design was utilized, employing a combination of participant observation, interviews, and website analysis. Key findings illustrate both the complexity and the fragility regarding the encouragement of the non-running partner. It is suggested that, even if the non-running partner is supportive, embracing a serious marathon identity by the running partner can jeopardize the marriage. In other words, the partnership may crumble due to the identity transformation of one of the partners when the other doesn’t play an active part in the new social world.


2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-160
Author(s):  
Kristian Larsson

AbstractNo systematic investigations of Elfriede Jelinek’s authorial positioning within the hierarchies of the literary field exist. Previous research has nevertheless noted that the authorship is distinguished by a high degree of reflexivity in relation to the power structures it confronts. Studies on the very earliest phase of establishing herself in the Austrian literary field in the years 1966–1969 have, however, emphasized two characteristics: social isolation and literary imitation. Both aspects suggest authorial immaturity if not inferiority, which seems oddly anachronistic and normative given the astonishingly rapid literary success of Jelinek in this period. This article relates the early success to a shift of values in the literary field at the end of the 1960 s, which allowed for new forms of provocative and experimental expressions to generate literary capital. Jelinek’s transgressive authorial dispositions accumulate symbolic capital using a combination of eclectic texts and strategies of self-fashioning within quite diverse contexts, drawing on social networks, media outlets, and literary publications. The theoretical framework primarily draws on concepts developed by Pierre Bourdieu, most notably habitus and symbolic capital.


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