scholarly journals The social networks and paradoxes of the opt-out movement amid the Common Core State Standards implementation: The case of New York

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinying Wang
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The United States ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policy Solutions

Opting out of state standardized tests has recently become a movement—a series of grassroots, organized efforts to refuse to take high-stakes state standardized tests. In particular, the opt-out rates in the state of New York reached 20% in 2015 and 21% in 2016. This study aims to illustrate the social networks and examine the paradoxes that have propelled the opt-out movement in New York—the movement’s epicenter with the highest opt-out rate in the United States. Drawing on the conceptual frameworks of social movement theory, social network theory, and policy paradox, this study compiled the opt-out corpus by using the data from 221 press-coverage and 30 archival documents. Social network analysis was performed by examining the relational data that suggest coalition ties between movement actors. Further, to explicate how the movement actors forged coalition ties, all data in the corpus were then coded by Stone’s framework of policy paradox regarding how the movement goals were articulated, how the movement was framed, and what policy solutions were mobilized. In addition to identifying the movement actors and two competing coalitions, it is found that to forge coalition ties, the movement actors in the opposing coalitions articulated contested goals of standardized testing, framed the movement via symbols, numbers, and interests, as well as mobilized policy solutions via inducements, rights, and power. The findings have important and timely implications for policymakers and movement actors as they seek and advance on common ground to make substantive changes in education policy. 

Should New York City Teachers Support Opt Out?: Two Views in the UFT

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (10) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
John C. Antush
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teacher Evaluations ◽  
Common Core State Standard ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Opting Out ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
Union Local

New York State's Opt Out movement was described by the <em>New York Times</em> as "the vanguard of an anti-testing fervor that has spread across the country." The movement consists primarily of parents and students who fought against high-stakes Common Core State Standard (CCSS) tests by "opting out" of taking the exams.&hellip; [However,] this article is not about the massive parent and student-led "Opt Out Spring" of 2015. It is about how Opt Out threw into relief two different ways of thinking about unionism within New York City's UFT [United Federation of Teachers].&hellip; The leadership of&hellip;[the UFT,] the largest union local of any kind in the United States&hellip;. supported the CCSS and standardized testing, including the use of student test scores as part of teacher evaluations, and refused to support Opt Out.&hellip; Meanwhile, rank-and-file UFTers in the MORE-UFT (Movement of Rank and File Educators) caucus and other groups joined the city's Opt Out movement as part of the struggle against "ed deform."<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-10" title="Vol. 67, No. 10: March 2016" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>

scholarly journals Social Networks, Mass Publics, and Democratic Politics

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
American Political Science Review ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Political Networks ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mass Publics ◽  
Group Memberships

The study of social networks as they relate to mass political behavior has roots in foundational social scientific works (e.g., Lazarsfeld, et al. The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1944). Huckfeldt and Sprague ushered in the contemporary era of political networks research (e.g., “Networks in Context: The Social Flow of Political Information” in American Political Science Review 81.4 (1987): 1197–1216, and Citizens, Politics, and Social Communication: Information and Influence in an Election Campaign. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995), picking up on the Columbia scholars’ early efforts to measure interpersonal influence and the consequences of group memberships in the United States. Drawing theoretical and conceptual distinctions between networks and contexts, Huckfeldt and Sprague popularized survey techniques for measuring individuals’ core discussion networks via name generators, and demonstrated relationships between individuals’ social networks and their opinions and perceptions. Subsequent works by these and other scholars have moved beyond community study designs, examining network effects in the areas of vote choice, attitude formation, and political participation. Major debates have focused on the extent to which individuals are exposed to disagreeable information via their social contacts (e.g., Mutz. Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative Versus Participatory Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2006); questions about causality (e.g., McClurg, et al. “Discussion Networks” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Networks. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017); and the identification of mechanisms of influence (e.g., Sinclair. The Social Citizen: Peer Networks and Political Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). Scholars have studied the role of social networks in mass publics around the world (e.g., Gunther, et al. Voting in Old and New Democracies. New York: Routledge, 2016), and how family networks and processes of socialization shape political attitudes. Current work is documenting how factors like gender, personality, emotion, and geography facilitate or hinder social influence; how online and offline worlds intersect; and how scholars can better measure broader patterns of social exposure and interaction.

Portraits of Protest in Florida: How Opt-Out Makes the Personal Political

2021 ◽  
Vol 123 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Currin ◽  
Stephanie Schroeder ◽  
Todd Mccardle
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Opting Out ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis ◽  
Background Context

Background/Context Opting out of high-stakes standardized tests, a phenomenon so widespread in the United States as to be regarded as a movement, is nevertheless a misunderstood and often maligned force in educational politics. Purpose This article offers a counternarrative of opt-out activism—a more thorough and vivid account of what we view as an unfairly maligned movement with tremendous potential for improving and preserving our nation's schools. Participants In-depth portraits introduce three members of the Opt Out Florida Network: Cindy Hamilton, an unabashed leader whose children have graduated; Sandy Stenoff, her partner in protest whose children remain in the system; and Susan Bowles, who grapples with conflicting roles of pedagogue and protester. Research Design As a critical ethnography, this study uses a qualitative approach to expose and challenge the unjust treatment of the opt-out movement, guided by the following research questions: 1) How do opt-out activists understand and explain their journeys to activism? 2) What experiences, concerns, and commitments guide them in their daily fight against high-stakes standardized testing? Data Collection and Analysis Using transcript data from focus group and 1-on-1 follow-up phone interviews, the research team composed and analyzed narrative portraits, which offer models of resistance to neoliberal education reform. Conclusions Contrary to their portrayal as passive, anti-test, anti-accountability parents solely focused on their own children, the opt-out movement is an active community of highly informed individuals dedicated to effecting positive change in education. The nuance of narrative captures the messy realities of activism, illustrating how parents and teachers must work together, guided by a view of citizenship as shared fate, to fight for more equitable and educative schools.

Cross-space Consumption among Undocumented Chinese Immigrants in the United States

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Zhou ◽  
Xiangyi Li
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Chinese Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Currency Exchange ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Migrants

We consider cross-space consumption as a form of transnational practice among international migrants. In this paper, we develop the idea of the social value of consumption and use it to explain this particular form of transnationalism. We consider the act of consumption to have not only functional value that satisfies material needs but also a set of nonfunctional values, social value included, that confer symbolic meanings and social status. We argue that cross-space consumption enables international migrants to take advantage of differences in economic development, currency exchange rates, and social structures between countries of destination and origin to maximize their expression of social status and to perform or regain social status. Drawing on a multisited ethnographic study of consumption patterns in migrant hometowns in Fuzhou, China, and in-depth interviews with undocumented Chinese immigrants in New York and their left-behind family members, we find that, despite the vulnerabilities and precarious circumstances associated with the lack of citizenship rights in the host society, undocumented immigrants manage to realize the social value of consumption across national borders and do so through conspicuous consumption, reciprocal consumption, and vicarious consumption in their hometowns even without being physically present there. We conclude that, while cross-space consumption benefits individual migrants, left-behind families, and their hometowns, it serves to revive tradition in ways that fuel extravagant rituals, drive up costs of living, reinforce existing social inequality, and create pressure for continual emigration.

Emotive Trending And Tracking of Tweets

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Sanjay Chhataru Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Network ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Complex Events

Popularity of the social media and the amount of importance given by an individual to social media has significantly increased in last few years. As more and more people become part of the social networks like Twitter, Facebook, information which flows through the social network, can potentially give us good understanding about what is happening around in our locality, state, nation or even in the world. The conceptual motive behind the project is to develop a system which analyses about a topic searched on Twitter. It is designed to assist Information Analysts in understanding and exploring complex events as they unfold in the world. The system tracks changes in emotions over events, signalling possible flashpoints or abatement. For each trending topic, the system also shows a sentiment graph showing how positive and negative sentiments are trending as the topic is getting trended.

The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Computational Social Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Diverse Field ◽  
The Rich

Social networks fundamentally shape our lives. Networks channel the ways that information, emotions, and diseases flow through populations. Networks reflect differences in power and status in settings ranging from small peer groups to international relations across the globe. Network tools even provide insights into the ways that concepts, ideas and other socially generated contents shape culture and meaning. As such, the rich and diverse field of social network analysis has emerged as a central tool across the social sciences. This Handbook provides an overview of the theory, methods, and substantive contributions of this field. The thirty-three chapters move through the basics of social network analysis aimed at those seeking an introduction to advanced and novel approaches to modeling social networks statistically. The Handbook includes chapters on data collection and visualization, theoretical innovations, links between networks and computational social science, and how social network analysis has contributed substantively across numerous fields. As networks are everywhere in social life, the field is inherently interdisciplinary and this Handbook includes contributions from leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and information science among others.

Comparing the social networks of service users with long term mental health needs living in community with those in a general adult in-patient unit

2021 ◽  
pp. 002076402110175
Author(s):  
Roberto Rusca ◽  
Ike-Foster Onwuchekwa ◽  
Catherine Kinane ◽  
Douglas MacInnes
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Patient Group ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Practical Support ◽  
The Social

Background: Relationships are vital to recovery however, there is uncertainty whether users have different types of social networks in different mental health settings and how these networks may impact on users’ wellbeing. Aims: To compare the social networks of people with long-term mental illness in the community with those of people in a general adult in-patient unit. Method: A sample of general adult in-patients with enduring mental health problems, aged between 18 and 65, was compared with a similar sample attending a general adult psychiatric clinic. A cross-sectional survey collected demographic data and information about participants’ social networks. Participants also completed the Short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale to examine well-being and the Significant Others Scale to explore their social network support. Results: The study recruited 53 participants (25 living in the community and 28 current in-patients) with 339 named as important members of their social networks. Both groups recorded low numbers in their social networks though the community sample had a significantly greater number of social contacts (7.4 vs. 5.4), more monthly contacts with members of their network and significantly higher levels of social media use. The in-patient group reported greater levels of emotional and practical support from their network. Conclusions: People with serious and enduring mental health problems living in the community had a significantly greater number of people in their social network than those who were in-patients while the in-patient group reported greater levels of emotional and practical support from their network. Recommendations for future work have been made.

scholarly journals The switching mechanisms of social network densification

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Teruyoshi Kobayashi ◽  
Mathieu Génois
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Regime Switching ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Social ◽  
Switching Property ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractDensification and sparsification of social networks are attributed to two fundamental mechanisms: a change in the population in the system, and/or a change in the chances that people in the system are connected. In theory, each of these mechanisms generates a distinctive type of densification scaling, but in reality both types are generally mixed. Here, we develop a Bayesian statistical method to identify the extent to which each of these mechanisms is at play at a given point in time, taking the mixed densification scaling as input. We apply the method to networks of face-to-face interactions of individuals and reveal that the main mechanism that causes densification and sparsification occasionally switches, the frequency of which depending on the social context. The proposed method uncovers an inherent regime-switching property of network dynamics, which will provide a new insight into the mechanics behind evolving social interactions.

Social Networks, Their Basic Factors, as Well as Their Role in Society and the State in the Context of Digital Transformation

2020 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 26-35
Author(s):  
Rem V. Ryzhov ◽  
◽  
Vladimir A. Ryzhov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Life Support ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The State ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Organizational Models ◽  
Control Center ◽  
The Social ◽  
Single Strategy

Society is historically associated with the state, which plays the role of an institution of power and government. The main task of the state is life support, survival, development of society and the sovereignty of the country. The main mechanism that the state uses to implement these functions is natural social networks. They permeate every cell of society, all elements of the country and its territory. However, they can have a control center, or act on the principle of self-organization (network centrism). The web is a universal natural technology with a category status in science. The work describes five basic factors of any social network, in particular the state, as well as what distinguishes the social network from other organizational models of society. Social networks of the state rely on communication, transport and other networks of the country, being a mechanism for the implementation of a single strategy and plan. However, the emergence of other strong network centers of competition for state power inevitably leads to problems — social conflicts and even catastrophes in society due to the destruction of existing social institutions. The paper identifies the main pitfalls using alternative social networks that destroy the foundations of the state and other social institutions, which leads to the loss of sovereignty, and even to the complete collapse of the country.

Factors Affecting Individual Level ERP Assimilation in a Social Network Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luan Gao ◽  
Luning Liu ◽  
Yuqiang Feng
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Interactive Learning ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social

Prior research on ERP assimilation has primarily focused on influential factors at the organizational level. In this study, the authors attempt to extend their understanding of individual level ERP assimilation from the perspective of social network theory. They designed a multi-case study to explore the relations between ERP users' social networks and their levels of ERP assimilation based on the three dimensions of the social networks. The authors gathered data through interviews with 26 ERP users at different levels in five companies. Qualitative analysis was used to understand the effects of social networks and interactive learning. They found that users' social networks play a significant role in individual level ERP assimilation through interactive learning among users. They also found five key factors that facilitate users' assimilation of ERP knowledge: homophily (age, position and rank), tie content (instrumental and expressive ties), tie strength, external ties, and centrality.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document