Lynn M. Mulkey

Examining Gender Differences in Ability Group Placement at the Onset of Schooling: The Role of Skills, Behaviors, and Teacher Evaluations

ABSTRACT The authors analyzed the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) national data set to investigate gender differences in ability group placement in American kindergartens. They found that in kindergarten, within-class ability grouping was widely used for reading instruction, with boys being underrepresented in high-achieving reading groups and overrepresented in low-achieving ones. Gender differences in reading group placement were consistent across classrooms and were explained by student-level characteristics. Boys’ underrepresentation in high reading groups was explained by their lower reading skills at kindergarten entry, as measured by the reading test scores available in the ECLS-K. By contrast, boys’ overrepresentation in low reading groups was only partially explained by their lower test scores. Compared with girls of similar social background and reading test scores, boys continued to have higher chances of placement into a low reading group. This remaining gender difference was explained by the lower teacher evaluations of boys’ reading skills and approaches to learning. Boys’ disadvantages in reading group placement at school entry raise concern over their further academic success.

Electronic Governance: Locals and Cosmopolitans “In and As” a Virtual Academic Community

Abstract This investigation revisits Robert Merton’s concepts of “locals” and “cosmopolitans” with respect to academic organizations. It explores the normative structure of electronic governance by analyzing the discourse of a virtual bulletin board. Data from a sample of faculty at a large state university are analyzed to conduct a semi-ethnographic exploratory analysis of the professional role structure and organizational consequences of a virtual academic community. A traditional organizational model used for understanding the public administration of higher education is one of bifurcated governance. In the context of this model, faculty and administration may have separate and conflicting interests. To negotiate and articulate competing interests, members of each constituency organize a formal forum of civil dialogue to initiate and resolve disputes (e.g., faculty meetings; unionized groups such as the American Association of University Professors). Two diverse professional role orientations emerge for airing concerns—locals and cosmopolitans. Formal interactions seem to be a mainstay and vehicle for cosmopolitan interests; locals, who rely more typically on informal discourse, have not found ample outlets for communication. The advent of e-bulletin boards has made possible a virtual community distinguished by norms for both formal and informal discourse, allowing for the clear identification of local and cosmopolitan interests and their competing agenda. The virtual context of discourse was expected to blur the distinctions between locals and cosmopolitans; because of the medium, institutional and local goals become aligned and apparent as opposed to discrepant and inaccessible. But in fact, electronic governance that seems to encourage coalition in the approach to solving tasks makes the demarcation more pronounced, whereupon conflict ensues and the localism and cosmopolitanism professional role structure persists.

The Sociologist as Expert Witness: A Resource for Resolving Injustice in the Case of Personal Injury

This article expands the application of sociology in expert testimony by presenting a case study of personal injury. Experts in this matter are drawn typically from the domains of psychology, medicine, and economics. Reframing personal injury by summoning a sociological analytical framework shifts the analysis from a determination made on the basis of an absolute standard of injury to a relative one based on “cultural injury.” Individual damages are reasoned on the basis of a situational context analogous to the part of a musician in a symphony, whereby behavior cannot be understood apart from its milieu. An extensive literature review of “Machismo” and the ethnic character of Latinos, particularly Costa Rican males, provides the background for inferring the extent of impairment resulting from an automobile collision. Implications are for applied sociologists and for the legal community concerning a reassessment of conventional procedures for assigning monetary compensation to victims injured by liable others.

Individual, organizational and contextual antecedents of perceived conflict among administrators in mental health service delivery systems

Prior exploratory investigation indicates a weak association between conflict and the effectiveness of mental health service delivery systems (MHSS) and suggests the need for a clearer articulation of the nature and causes of conflict in that context. As part of a wider investigation of MHSS effectiveness, this paper separates the effects of individual, organizational, and contextual variables on perceptions of conflict among directors of mental health service organizations. We employ ordinary least squares regression analysis on data collected from a survey of directors of mental health care service organizations in eight counties in the northwest United States to examine the relationship between the previously mentioned measures. Several independent variables seemed to account for some observed variation in perceived conflict: (1) individual attributes (ascriptive [sex, race, age] and achieved [level of education, tenure in job, board memberships]); (2) organizational and interorganizational characteristics (age and size of organization, centrality [in influence networks and patient referral networks], frequency of services provided, relevance of services provided, degree of inclusion, and amount of activity devoted to interorganizational cooperation, contact and client referral); and, (3) contextual factors (urban/rural location) Perceived conflict is observed as