Tertius iungens brokerage is unique within the dominant brokerage conceptualizations in sociology. While most brokerage research finds that brokers reap rewards from mediating relationships in ways that keep actors apart, iungens research finds that brokers can have an interest in joining previously disconnected actors and sustaining these relationships. This paper expands the explanatory potential of iungens brokerage by building a multidimensional theoretical framework that explains transnational connecting processes, generating insights beyond the traditional focus on network structures into the under-researched area of brokerage across institutions. The paper synthesizes streams of brokerage research that have developed in relative isolation from each other to elucidate how organizational brokers and their staffs create transnational structural and cognitive connections that draw actors together into intersectoral networks that cross two or more nationally organized regulatory regimes and cultural systems in order to cooperate on complex public good problems. The paper's case study of public health cooperation on the United States-Mexico border advances the argument that iungens brokerage is necessary to counter the divisive effects that state institutions tend to exert on transnational networks over time.
This study of sociology faculty in twelve private colleges and universities compares teaching with textbooks and textbook alternatives in undergraduate classes. Faculty explain that textbooks provide a breadth of material that is organized and streamlined in a way that promotes consistency across instructors, facilitates content delivery to students with a range of abilities, and reduces course preparation time. Despite these benefits, faculty have a strong preference for textbook alternatives. Faculty argue that readings, like monographs and journal articles, develop students' critical reading and thinking skills. Additionally, when instructors design courses with alternative readings they engage their own critical reading and thinking, as they critique and synthesize the literature in their discipline in order to curate texts for the syllabus. We argue that teaching courses with alternative readings creates course experiences where students and faculty engage with a discipline together.Texts are essential to course design. They shape how professors organize units, structure lectures, and assess learning. Despite the importance of choosing texts, systematic research concerned with why instructors choose textbooks or choose alternative readings is scarce. We surveyed thirty-six sociology professors at twelve small and medium private institutions to bring the pedagogy of choosing texts to the fore. This research asks, why do instructors choose textbooks, monographs, or other types of readings? How do instructors understand how the choice of one form of text or another shapes teaching and learning?Our inductive qualitative analysis of open-ended survey interview questions, revealed that faculty view textbooks and their alternatives as fundamentally different. Faculty noted that textbooks had particular strengths, like providing a breadth of material that is organized and streamlined in a way that promotes consistency across instructors, ensuring that departmental learning objectives are achieved with a variety of instructors. They explained that the books facilitate content delivery to students with a range of abilities, and that textbooks reduce course preparation time for faculty. Still, the faculty in our study had a strong preference for teaching without textbooks.Instructors saw alternatives to textbooks, like monographs and articles, as time-intensive to teach, but the best way to advance students' critical reading and thinking skills, a finding congruent with the academic literacy literature. In addition, instructors viewed the task of finding textbook alternatives as a way to engage their own critical reading and thinking skills in their teaching, a benefit rarely discussed in the literature. We argue that teaching courses with alternative readings creates a course experience where both students and faculty engage in evaluative reading and creative reasoning. Unfortunately, according to our participants, the conversations regarding course design around textbook alternatives are lacking on campus. The overwh...
This study examines reader responses to opinion editorials about women in combat and contributes to the literature on women in the military by explaining how contests over sex–gender essentialism and diversity underlie public debates about individual rights and military effectiveness. Comments in favor of women’s ground combat exclusion use a logic of averages to promote essentialist thinking about men and women. They categorize women as inferior soldiers and argue that desegregation puts individual soldiers and the nation at risk. Conversely, comments in favor of integration advance a view of sex–gender diversity that places men and women along a continuum with overlapping qualities, suggesting further that giving exceptional women the freedom to serve in ground combat will advance both equality and military readiness. We argue that public commentary about women in combat concerns more than the military, underlying this discourse are distinct conceptions and expectations of men and women.
This study problematizes generalized patterns in Latino diet and health after reviewing obesity and food consumption patterns by race and ethnicity gleaned from the social science and health science literature comparing Mexican-origin American, European-origin American, and African-American food consumption patterns, and summarizes data from the 2009/2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The data from these surveys describes the quantity of fruit, vegetables, grains, meat, and other foods consumed. We review the literature on social determinants of diet to study whether food environments, socioeconomic status, culture, nativity, and globalization shape dietary practices.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is an international public health agency that leads collaborations among member states and other partners to promote health equity, combat disease, and improve the quality and length of the lives of the peoples of the Americas. The organization strives to eliminate health disparities within and between countries by promoting shared interests, responsibilities, and cooperation among members. PAHO's view is that good health is central to the well‐being of families, communities, and the region.
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