The Cafeteria as Great Equalizer

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy L. Best
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
School Lunch ◽  
The United States ◽  
System Of Care ◽  
Social Value ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Public System ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face

This chapter examines the lunch menu at Thurgood High School, focusing on the work of food director Brenda, with the aim to deepen our understanding of the complexity of school lunch as a high-stakes public good. Brenda had a no-nonsense style about her; she rarely minced words, but was warm in her demeanor, knowledgeable, and accessible. She made the best of what she was given but hoped for a better food future and in this sense was both pragmatic and aspirational. She held her ground in the face of outside scrutiny, and acknowledged the social value in her work and its link to a public system of care. She recognized that a larger number of students she fed each day were part of the growing number of those who are food insecure in the United States, and her efforts to prepare food that kids wanted to eat expressed a deep commitment to addressing both health and hunger.

scholarly journals The emotion-valuation constellation: multiple emotions are governed by a common grammar of social valuation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Sznycer ◽  
Aaron Lukaszewski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Social Emotions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Valuation ◽  
Common Architecture ◽  
Substantial Degree

Social emotions are hypothesized to be adaptations designed by selection to solve adaptiveproblems pertaining to social valuation—the disposition to attend to, associate with, and aid atarget individual based on her probable contributions to the fitness of the valuer. To steerbetween effectiveness and economy, social emotions need to activate in precise proportion to the local evaluations of the various acts and characteristics that dictate the social value of self and others. Supporting this hypothesis, experiments conducted in the United States and India indicate that five different social emotions all track a common set of valuations. The extent to which people value each of 25 positive characteristics in others predicts the intensities of: pride (if you had those characteristics), anger (if someone failed to acknowledge that you have thosecharacteristics), gratitude (if someone convinced others that you have those characteristics), guilt (if you harmed someone who has those characteristics), and sadness (if someone died who had those characteristics). The five emotions track local valuations (mean r = +.72) and even foreign valuations (mean r = +.70). In addition, cultural differences in emotion are patterned: They follow cultural differences in valuation. These findings suggest that multiple social emotions are governed (in part) by a common architecture of social valuation, that the valuation architecture operates with a substantial degree of universality in its content, and that a unified theoretical framework may explain cross-cultural invariances and cultural differences in emotion.

Identity and Institutions: The Social Construction of Trade Unions in Nineteenth-Century Germany and the United States

1993 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Herrigel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Functional Adaptation ◽  
Character Structure ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Face

The aim of this research note is to begin to develop the idea that trade unions are historically constructed as much through considerations of social identity as they are through calculations of economic self-interest, market power, or functional adaptation in the face of changes in the division of labor. By social identity, I mean the desire for group distinction, dignity, and place within historically specific discourses (or frames of understanding) about the character, structure, and boundaries of the polity and the economy. Institutions such as trade unions, in other words, are constituted through and by particular understandings of the structure of the social and political worlds of which they are part. In making this argument, it should be immediately said that I in no way intend to claim that trade unions are only to be understood through the lens of identity or that they do not engage in strategic calculation either in labor markets or in the broader political economy. The point is that action along the latter lines presupposes some kind of commitment on, and even resolution of, issues concerning the former. The discussion below focuses on the emergence of trade union movements in the United States and Germany during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It Attempts first to develope the two cases as constituting a paradox and then, second, explains the paradox with an argument about identity.

scholarly journals The politics of platform power in surveillance capitalism: A comparative case study of ride-hailing platforms in China and the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 205943642110467
Author(s):  
Ngai Keung Chan ◽  
Chi Kwok
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Business Practices ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
Behavioral Predictions

This article uses a comparative case study of two ride-hailing platforms—DiDi Chuxing in China and Uber in the United States—to explore the comparative politics of platform power in surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism is an emerging economic system that translates human experiences into surveillance assets for behavioral predictions and modifications. Through this comparative study, we demonstrate how DiDi and Uber articulate their operational legitimacy for advancing their corporate interests and visions of datafication in the face of legal uncertainty. Although DiDi and Uber are both “sectoral platforms” in urban mobility with similar visions of datafication and infrastructuralization, we highlight that they deploy different discursive legitimation strategies. Our study shows that Uber adopts a “confrontational” strategy, while DiDi employs a “collaborative” strategy when they need to legitimize their data and business practices to the public and regulatory authorities. This study offers a comparative lens to examine the social and political dynamics of platform firms based in China and the United States and, therefore, contributes to understanding the various aspirational logic of platform thinking in different political contexts.

scholarly journals The Critique of American Racism in Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 57-67
Author(s):  
Danica Čerče
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Whiteness Studies ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
American Racism

Written in the light of critical discourse about the social value of literary sympathy and against the backdrop of critical whiteness studies, the article deals with John Steinbeck’s non-fiction book Travels with Charley in Search of America. Framed by an interest in how the writer responded to the racial separation in the United States, the article demonstrates that this work, which is often dismissed as a “charming portrayal of America,” is a serious intervention in all sites of discrimination and domination.  

scholarly journals Collecting and Archiving Asian American Stories During COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-344
Author(s):  
Kevin Chu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Chinese Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dramatic Rise ◽  
The Face

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a dramatic rise in anti-Asian sentiment in the United States.  The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in New York has been trying to document the experiences of Chinese Americans as they navigate through this tumultuous time.  While the collecting effort started out strong, they began to falter when an unforeseen event caused the social priorities of the country to shift dramatically.  This shift has also cause cultural institutions like MOCA to rethink their responsibilities in the face of social change and how they can use their platform as thought leaders.   

Verán ustedes las chozas más humildes. El discurso de pobreza en la diplomacia pública cardenista dirigida a Estados Unidos

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dümmer Scheel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
Lazaro Cardenas ◽  
The New Deal

El artículo analiza la diplomacia pública del gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas centrándose en su opción por publicitar la pobreza nacional en el extranjero, especialmente en Estados Unidos. Se plantea que se trató de una estrategia inédita, que accedió a poner en riesgo el “prestigio nacional” con el fin de justificar ante la opinión pública estadounidense la necesidad de implementar las reformas contenidas en el Plan Sexenal. Aprovechando la inusual empatía hacia los pobres en tiempos del New Deal, se construyó una imagen específica de pobreza que fuera higiénica y redimible. Ésta, sin embargo, no generó consenso entre los mexicanos. This article analyzes the public diplomacy of the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, focusing on the administration’s decision to publicize the nation’s poverty internationally, especially in the United States. This study suggests that this was an unprecedented strategy, putting “national prestige” at risk in order to explain the importance of implementing the reforms contained in the Six Year Plan, in the face of public opinion in the United States. Taking advantage of the increased empathy felt towards the poor during the New Deal, a specific image of hygienic and redeemable poverty was constructed. However, this strategy did not generate agreement among Mexicans.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document