Corey J. Colyer

Innovation and Discretion The Drug Court as a People-Processing Institution

Drug courts emerged in the late 1980s as a solution to the mutual person-processing needs of the criminal justice and substance abuse treatment systems. In this article, the author draws on a rich body of observational data gathered during a 2-year period to illustrate the ways in which drug courts process program participants. I focus on the challenges faced by a drug court work group in shepherding new program participants into treatment. Specific processing activities include (a) locating appropriate eligible participants, (b) discovering an adequate diagnosis, (c) aligning resources necessary for placement, and (d) monitoring placements. The article identifies ways in which the interdisciplinary drug court model is optimally designed to address people-processing objects and simultaneously limited by conceptual and organizational ambiguities. The author concludes with a discussion of the unintended policy consequences of the drug court model and suggestions for future research.

Student Accountability in Team-Based Learning Classes.

Team-based learning (TBL) is a form of small-group learning that assumes stable teams promote accountability. Teamwork promotes communication among members; application exercises promote active learning. Students must prepare for each class; failure to do so harms their team’s performance. Therefore, TBL promotes accountability. As part of the course grade, students assess the performance of their teammates. The evaluation forces students to rank their teammates and to provide rationale for the highest and lowest rankings. These evaluations provide rich data on small-group dynamics. In this paper, we analyze 211 student teammate assessments. We find evidence that teams consistently give the lowest evaluations to their least involved members, suggesting that the team component increases accountability, which can promote learning. From these findings we draw implications about small-group dynamics in general and the pedagogy of TBL in particular.

Contextualizing the Drink-Spiking Narrative That “Everyone Knows”:

Accounts of drink tampering and subsequent sexual assault are commonly shared among students on college campuses, with more than a third of college students in one study claiming to know someone who has been drugged without their knowledge. This phenomenon has produced two schools of thought. A risk mitigation approach attempts to isolate and measure the risks of drink-spiking as a real problem, whereas a social constructionist approach treats drink-spiking as a cultural narrative, even a myth, that symbolizes broader social anxieties. This article critically assesses both arguments and proposes a theoretical middle ground that attempts to contextualize drink-spiking narratives as a site for critical inquiry. We argue that researchers are hampered by an unwillingness to see drink-spiking as both a cultural phenomenon and a problem of consequence. In our critical discussion, we propose a theoretical framework that contextualizes drink-spiking narratives that “everyone knows” as learned, shared, and reified within select social spaces, namely, “party scenes” rife with ambiguity and conflict. Within these contexts, narratives of drink-spiking are constructs that have both utility and consequence. As such, drink-spiking narratives present a problem worth inquiry.

Constructing Christianity’s “Clear Voice”: The Creation of Christianity Today Magazine

ABSTRACT Elites play a significant role in the life of social and intellectual movements. This article draws on archival materials and the theory of Scientific and Intellectual Movements to present a case study of the founding of Christianity Today magazine in 1956. Christianity Today was a key intellectual resource used by elites in the evangelical movement to promote a new version of Protestant Christianity in the mid-20th century. The author argues that the magazine functioned as a distribution mechanism for the flow of evangelical ideas. The movement leaders who founded the magazine drew upon their dense networks to obtain cultural, political, and financial resources, as well as to legitimize the new publication. Administrative records and correspondence left behind by these leaders allows us to reconstruct their institution building process.

Reviving the Demographic Study of the Amish

The Amish exhibit distinctive demographic patterns, notably high fertility. While scholars have studied Amish population dynamics for more than a half century, recent research in this area is limited. We believe the time is ripe to reverse this trend. This article reviews data collection methods, points to a variety of accessible sources of new data, presents some preliminary results from the analysis of one such source (the McKune dataset for Holmes County, Ohio), introduces the research agenda and work of the newly formed Amish Population Research Group, and reviews past demographic findings to situate our agenda. An invitation is extended to demographers, social scientists, health researchers, and others to enter into collaborations with APRG.

Country Road Bureaucracy: The Challenges of Social Service Delivery in an Economically Disadvantaged Rural State

The devolution of state authority embedded in the 1996 federal welfare reform law (since reaffirmed in the 2006 reauthorization of this law) has enormous implications for economically disadvantaged adults and their families as well as those responsible for the local management and delivery of these welfare services. Although over a decade of welfare reform “impact” research currently exists, the majority of this literature focuses primarily on welfare clients in urban areas. This study identifies service delivery processes in rural areas in an Appalachian state with high levels of poverty and unemployment, limited economic resources for investment and development, and inadequate administrative capacity. Welfare reform affects urban and rural beneficiaries differently. This article highlights (1) the challenges faced by TANF caseworkers who implement welfare reform policies on a daily basis in West Virginia, (2) how these daily practices are heavily influenced by cultural and organization practices, and (3) the “chaining of social problems” found within welfare reform. The data used in this research come from focus groups with approximately eighty caseworkers in West Virginia. Implications for service delivery and public policy are discussed.