Power,Intergroup Conflicts and Social Stratification in the United States: What has the Global Crisis Taught us?

Abstract

Drawing on early sociological analyses of how power and intergroup conflicts can affect the development of modern economies, this paper investigates how the recent Global Crisis (GC) has affected the stratification of the US society. The paper argues that the consumerist society has reinforced the historical stratification of social identities with white men in high-paid, high-social status managerial and financial occupations at the top, and black women in low-paid, low-status service occupations at the bottom. This paper calls for a deconstruction of the neoliberal individual into a unique combination of identities in a stratified capitalist society in order to reveal how social stratification has evolved during the GC. The paper finally concludes on the importance of heterogeneous identities in reflecting the diversity of societal and economic interests in order to address the issues of financial stability and sustainability at the corporate and societal levels.     

中职学校数学层次目标教学探析

层次目标教学是针对学生现有的知识基础、智力水平、非智力因素和学习成绩等差异,因材施教,制定出不同的教学目标,提出不同的教学要求,授以不同的教学内容,以最大限度地调动每一位学生的学习积极性,充分促进学生智能发展的一种教学方式。它能充分调动学生学习的主动性,强化学习动机,使各类学生在各自的“最近发展区”内得到充分的发展,并充分挖掘各类学生的潜能,有效地促进学科教育向素质教育转化。文章对构建符合中职学生生源和学科特点的教学模式提出了看法,并讨论了相关的实施办法。     

The language of Japanese tourism

This paper discusses the way in which language is used in contemporary Japanese travel brochures. What concepts do travel agencies use to attract tourists? What themes continually recur in the advertising literature? Many of these concepts and themes are the same as those important to tourism in the Western world, but there are certain cultural themes or ways of treating tourist attractions which are peculiar to Japanese tourism. A second aim is to consider the “keywords” of Japanese tourism: those stressed in the advertising for domestic tourism and those stressed for international tourism. The relation between these two possibly antagonistic sets of keywords is discussed in terms of the ideological principles around which Japanese society is organized, and it is hypothesized that keywords for international tourism portend great and long-term changes in the fabric of Japanese society.     

中国户籍制度：基本价值、异化功能与改革取向

户籍管理本质上属于民事登记和人口动态统计的一部分。新中国的户籍制度以严格限制公民自由迁移和设置城市准入资格为鲜明特征,是政府发展经济和调控社会的政策手段。改革开放以后,户籍制度在限制人口迁移方面有所松动,但户口归属仍然是城市外来人群的隐痛,并成为影响社会分层的隐性力量。新中国的户籍制度一直与社会公共产品的分享体制有紧密的联系。户籍改革与社会公共产品分配是"牵一发而动全身"的关系。户籍改革不可能一蹴而就,而应有相应的远期、中期和近期目标。     

Towards a cohesive curriculum tourism: The case for a distinct discipline

This paper addresses a controversial topic in tourism scholarship which is simultaneously a problem and an opportunity in tourism education: the philosophical issue of academic disciplines and specifically, the question of a distinct discipline in tourism studies. It is argued that the orthodox approach to tourism education, multi-disciplinary studies, has become an impediment. It is suggested that a new discipline can be created by organizing the existing body of knowledge and that such a discipline can become the core of an inter-disciplinary approach. Certain characteristics of an embryonic discipline are outlined and innovations in this area at Sydney Technical College are discussed.     

桂林市居民品牌消费状况与社会分层研究

消费不仅仅是一个经济的实用过程,而且是涉及文化符号和象征意义的表达过程,品牌消费集中体现了符号消费的特点.文章选取广西桂林市居民品牌消费状况为研究视角,试图通过对各个阶层居民品牌消费状况的分析来探讨社会阶层分化的现状和趋势.     

(Non-)Existence of Equilibria in Multicommunity Models

This paper reconsiders equilibrium existence in models with migration and voting over local public goods. We show that under some straightforward assumptions on preferences and income distributions, the basic structure of multicommunity models (i.e., perfect mobility, majority rule, single crossing property) implies that no equilibrium with jurisdictions conducting different policies can exist. Stratification equilibria—with sorting of the population according to income classes—are therefore not as natural as is sometimes suggested. Mechanisms that can serve to support stratification (i.e., tight housing markets, returns to scale in the provision of publicly consumed goods) are discussed.     

La valeur économique de l’audit et son efficacité dans le fonctionnement de l’école publique

Les auteurs examinent l’incidence de l’audit sur le fonctionnement de l’école publique en poursuivant deux objectifs : déterminer si les audits procurent des avantages économiques aux parties prenantes et définir l’incidence de la complexité des règles à observer sur l’efficacité de l’audit. Utilisant des données relatives au temps consacréà l’audit et profitant de l’occasion unique offerte par la Quality Basic Education Act en Georgie, les auteurs estiment le rendement relatif des activités des arrondissements scolaires au moyen d’une méthode stochastique d’estimation des frontières. Ils constatent que l’audit produit de véritables avantages économiques pour les parties prenantes en atténuant le manque d’efficience de l’utilisation des ressources scolaires. Ils constatent également que la rigueur des règles à observer réduit l’efficacité de l’audit mais que l’expérience des auditeurs peut contribuer à surmonter ce problème. Le fait que les coûts d’audit ne soient pas communiqués entrave la réalisation d’une analyse coûts‐avantages des nouvelles exigences. L’analyse des auteurs vient confirmer la thèse selon laquelle l’audit est indispensable à l’établissement de mécanismes de gouvernance et la communication des coûts d’audit est importante dans l’évaluation adéquate d’une nouvelle politique. Les données pertinentes peuvent être obtenues auprès des sources publiques indiquées dans le texte.     

农业信息化的系统分层和协同整合——以杭州龙井茶为例

现有的农业信息化系统构架是围绕产-供-销的供应链模式为主体,相对忽视农业产业化发展的规模化特点以及农业金融化的特征.较为全面解读农业信息化的视角应该立足农业生产的时间和空间特征,贯穿生产加工全过程,体现服务-生产-服务的新哑铃型系统分层结构.通过构建不同环节的系统接口,有效对分属不同领域和产业的信息化环节进行有效整合,真正发挥农业生产型服务业的整合效应.本文以杭州龙井茶为例,对上述理论进行了分析.     

Differentiation Among US Colleges and Universities

Colleges and universities in the US differ markedly in their access to economic resources. National data are used here to describe the resulting hierarchy that's reflected in schools' spending on their students, the prices those students pay, and the subsidies they get in consequence. Both historical data and projections based on recent institutional saving suggest that economic disparities among institutions and their students are increasing. In a final section, the paper asks what to make of this: what we can say about the right degree of institutional disparity – whether we have too much, too little, or about the right amount of differentiation.