Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy最新文献

Previous literature has demonstrated the positive benefits of Service Learning (SL) participation on college student outcomes. This study explored whether SL participation during the first year of college appeared to be a potentially useful community engagement and pedagogical lever for enhancing college students’ academic achievement, retention, and graduation outcomes. Particular attention focused on college students from groups under-represented in higher education. We used propensity score matching to create comparable treatment (SL participation) and control (non-SL participation) groups. We then examined the role of SL participation in the first-year on college student outcome using four matched samples of college students who were first-years in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014. Overall, we found that participation in SL during the first college year benefits college students' long-term academic outcomes (cumulative GPA, cumulative credits earned, year-to-year retention, and graduation within 4–6 years), particularly for college students from under-represented backgrounds.

We examined how locally situated and transnationally circulated meanings of feminism interact forming implicit cultural meanings, and how these meanings about feminism appear in women's accounts of their own work and identifications. Using twenty-four oral histories, we identified four implicit cultural meanings about feminism: (1) “Mainstream” feminism is/as white and middle-class; (2) Feminists are lesbians; (3) Feminism is/as hostile to men; and (4) Feminism is/as a “western” ideology. In addition, we identified three strategies activists used to respond to these meanings: (1) distancing themselves from the word “feminist/feminism”; (2) explicitly embracing the term and clarifying its meaning; and (3) shifting from an individual to a structural level of analysis. Examining these discourses in a multinational sample with women of various racial-ethnic and indigenous identities, we found that implicit cultural meanings often identified in the US or as western interact with locally found meanings affecting activists in the Majority World. Activists’ use of these implicit cultural meanings complicated prevalent, but often simplistic, narratives about feminists, feminism, and identity.

Despite the need for profound systemic change to deal with environmental issues, this is not happening. At a psycho-sociological level, System Justification Theory has mostly explained environmental inaction by greater environmental denial on the part of individuals motivated to justify the economic system. In this article, and in line with research in political science and sociology, we propose to also take into account the existence of different beliefs concerning the social change needed to deal with environmental problems. While some do advocate for profound transformations of current socio-economic systems, others propose to maintain and adapt them. Moreover, these beliefs have different implications in terms of the pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) to be adopted by individuals. We therefore hypothesized that, independently of environmental denial, individuals who justify the economic system would adhere more to adaptation beliefs (e.g., individualization of responsibility) and reject transformation beliefs (e.g., incompatibility between economic growth and environmental preservation); and that these beliefs would mediate the effects of system-justification on PEBs depending on whether or not they challenge the economic system. A correlational study (N = 277) corroborated our hypotheses. The importance of taking into account the system-challenging (or not) nature of some pro-environmental beliefs and behaviors is discussed.

Researchers in environmental psychology celebrate the potential for state and national parks to inspire civic engagement in the issue of climate change. Yet, prevailing conceptions of nature may reflect ongoing colonial concerns, such that parks may represent a space to avoid thinking about—rather than reckon with—escalating ecological crises. In this paper, we approach the topic of climate change in state parks from a perspective informed by decolonial theory. In particular, we report a mixed-methods study with (N = 51) employees at parks in Kansas and throughout the United States regarding the extra-individual factors that impact their tendency to subjectively attribute extreme weather to climate change. Findings indicate that park employees were less likely to attribute extreme weather to climate change in parks with (1) less institutional support for climate change mitigation, and (2) increased presence of white conservatives. Responses to a question about the purpose of parks and open-ended reflections reveal that employees conceive of parks as a space for recreation wherein their primary role in relation to visitors is to supply “fun” and “natural” experiences for consumption. We reflect on conceptions of parks and nature and discuss a conception of parks better suited to confront the escalating ecological crisis.

Australia Day, celebrated on January 26, is rooted in Australia's colonial history and causes pain for many of Australia's First Peoples. This study was the first to investigate predictors of Australians’ attitudes toward the date, while exploring whether intervention may improve attitudes toward a date-change. An Australian community sample (N = 559) were recruited through social media for an anonymous survey. Participants indicated their support for date-change, and responded to a variety of demographic (e.g., Age) and sociodemographic (e.g., Racism) questions, then being randomly allocated to an intervention statement, indicating their final attitudes post-intervention. Findings suggest sociodemographic factors were more important predictors than demographics, with Racism (b*** = .50), Traditionalism (b** = .18), Patriotism (b* = .13), and Age (b* = .10) significantly predicting participants’ date-change resistance. Racism demonstrated the most predictive strength, underscoring the importance of a date-change, with those open to change often identifying any alternative date should not offend First Peoples. In addition, intervention produced significant improvement in participants’ date-change attitudes, among those who were able to become more open to a date-change; however, differences were not present between intervention conditions. This illuminates the factors predicting Australians’ attitudes toward Australia Day, while demonstrating a potential path toward date-change through intervention.

Polling data show that 69% of Asian American voters favor affirmative action. However, Asian Americans were featured prominently by the organization Students for Fair Admissions, which played a central role in the Supreme Court's decision to overturn affirmative action. This may distort people's estimates of Asian Americans’ support for affirmative action. Two studies (N = 695) found that people, even Asian Americans, underestimated Asian Americans’ support for affirmative action. Three follow-up studies (N = 1,625), where we manipulated perceived Asian Americans’ support for affirmative action or the Supreme Court's decision, found no evidence that such information affected White people's support for affirmative action. In Study 6 (N = 365), however, we found that Asian Americans were more likely to agree with the Supreme Court's decision to overturn affirmative action when they saw that a majority of Asian Americans supported the court ruling (relative to a control condition in which no information was presented). This suggests that the widespread misperception of Asian Americans’ support for affirmative action and their central role in the Supreme Court cases may ultimately create a self-fulfilling prophecy that could shift individual Asian Americans’ own attitude about affirmative action.

This study examines various attitudes to wealth inequality in Czechia and the broader CEE region and provides valuable insights into global research on inequality perceptions. By focusing on this, to date, underexplored region, our research contributes to the current understanding of wealth inequality at the global scale. The findings revealed remarkable similarities between Czech and US respondents in terms of their perceptions and preferences. On average, participants estimated that the top 20% of the population in the Czech Republic holds approximately 48% of total wealth, while expressing a preference for a lower wealth share of around 34% in the ideal scenario. These results are in alignment with previous research that highlighted a prevalent lack of awareness of actual levels of wealth inequality combined with a consistent preference for the reduction of inequality levels. By elucidating these patterns, this study contributes to the growing body of literature in the field.

Despite legal efforts to reduce societal barriers, people with disabilities still face ableist bias, stereotyping, and stigma. According to the social movement hypothesis, people's participation in and identification with activist movements may reduce bias towards social outgroups. Alternatively, people's intergroup attitudes and bias may influence their participation in activist activities. This study used structural equation modeling to investigate whether reduced bias towards people with disabilities is associated with critical activism and/or personal, familial, or work experience with disability. Undergraduates (N = 497) completed an online survey including measures of ableist bias, critical activist orientation, experience with disability, and demographic characteristics. The relation between having a critical activist orientation and lower ableist bias was bidirectional, suggesting reciprocal influences between individual-level attitudes and participation in progressive social movements. Aligning with intergroup contact theory, personal (lived) and familial experience with disability correlated with reduced ableist bias, and familial and work experience with having a critical activist orientation. Male gender correlated with increased ableist bias, and male gender, White race, and higher social class with lower endorsements of a critical activist orientation. The results suggest that disability experience and social status influence critical activist identity, which predicts lower bias.