Peter J. Collier

Role Theory and Social Cognition: Learning to Think like a Recycler

While the interactionist tradition of sociological role theory has been recognized as a promising conceptual framework for linking theories of social structure and social cognition, there remains little empirical research that examines the link between cognitive structure and role behavior. Our study tests the fundamental assumption that commitment to role behavior is associated with the development of a corresponding cognitive structure, through an analysis of a six-week field experiment designed to produce commitment to the role of “recycler.” We propose that intervention program participation resulted in recycler role-identity development, as well as corresponding changes in cognitive structure—i.e., the development of cognitive schemata—linked to the emergence of a new role-based view of self.

Early Career Mentoring for Translational Researchers: Mentee Perspectives on Challenges and Issues

Background: The education and training of early career biomedical translational researchers often involves formal mentoring by more experienced colleagues. Purposes: This study investigated the nature of these mentoring relationships from the perspective of mentees. The objective was to understand the challenges and issues encountered by mentees in forming and maintaining productive mentoring relationships. Methods: Three focus groups (n = 14) were conducted with early career researchers who had mentored career development awards. Thematic analysis identified, categorized, and illustrated the challenges and issues reported by mentees. Results: The range of mentee challenges was reflected in five major categories: (a) network—finding appropriate mentors to meet various needs; (b) access—structuring schedules and opportunities to receive mentoring; (c) expectations—negotiating the mechanics of the mentoring relationship and its purpose; (d) alignment—managing mentor–mentee mismatches regarding interests, priorities, and goals; and (e) skills and supports—developing the institutional supports to be successful. Conclusions: Mentoring relationships created for academic training and career development contend with tasks common to many other relationships, namely, recognizing compatibility, finding time, establishing patterns, agreeing to goals, and achieving aims. Identifying challenges faced by mentees can facilitate the development of appropriate trainings and supports to foster mentoring relationships in academic and career settings.

Why peer mentoring is an effective approach for promoting college student success

Both hierarchical (e.g. student-faculty member or student-adviser) and peer (e.g. student-student) mentoring are recognized as best-practice strategies for promoting college student success. Formal mentoring programs utilizing both approaches can be found on many campuses. In the current institutional context of scarce or stagnant resources, college and university presidents and administrators face the challenge of determining which mix of programs to support even though little comparative research on the effectiveness of these approaches exists. This article examines three characteristics of a peer mentoring approach that encourage its greater use. The first two characteristics, cost and the availability of a larger number of potential mentors, relate to concerns about the efficient use of resources. The third characteristic, development of a common perspective, relates to questions concerning the relative effectiveness of different mentoring approaches. Peer mentors and mentees are more likely than participants in hierarchical mentoring relationships to share a common perspective with regards to how they understand and enact the college student role. Differences in perspective impact the process of student identity acquisition, perceived mentor credibility, and the likelihood of mentees following their mentors’ advice. Higher education researchers are urged to conduct studies exploring the relative effectiveness of both approaches and how to best combine approaches in complimentary ways to help administrators make informed decisions.

Peer mentoring: A tool for serving the diverse needs of 21st century college students

Higher education is changing even as it stays the same. What has stayed the same is the immense value of a completed college degree on both societal and personal levels. For society, increasing the percentage of the population with advanced educational credentials is associated with increased work skills, a stable economy, stable national, state, and local tax revenue streams, decreased needs for a range of social services, increased citizen participation, and perhaps most importantly, an informed citizenry capable of understanding and synthesizing complex information and critically thinking about important social issues. On a personal level, increasing the percentage of individuals with completed college degrees should be associated with higher standards of living, better health, and higher levels of feelings of self-efficacy and self-worth for a greater number/ percentage of Americans.

Book Reviews : Martin King Whyte, Dating, Mating, and Marriage. Hawthorne, N.Y.: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1990, pp. x + 325,

best handled by a divisionalized structure. Here the reader will find not only an assumption of economies of scale, but an alternative elaboration of the notions of &dquo;pecuniary&dquo; and &dquo;non-pecuniary&dquo; (positive) externalities as other firms enter an industry. The discussion of divisionalization is a natural prelude to the discusion of the nature and determinants of relationships between legally-distinct organizations. This revolves around the extensive literature on &dquo;contract-vs.-hierarchy&dquo; found in organizational theory but largely lacking in contemporary economics. Stinchcombe’s view is that these relationships are not in fact exclusive, but can be seen as the ends of a (conceptual) continuum for dealing with uncertainty. At one end is the hierarchical form which he has argued as evolving specifically for coping with uncertainty through routinization; and at the other end, the abstract contractual form which specifies precisely the parties’ obligations, and countenances no uncertainties (changes in conditions). Using a wealth of illustrative material Stinchcombe is persuasive that in fact contracts typically have many features for dealing with changed conditions, and that organizations typically have many contract-like relationships, such that the line of demarcation between interand intra-firm relationships is very blurred. Stinchcombe then turns his attention to a quintessentially sociological topic: the evolution of (labor) class-consciousness within the organizationalspecifically, the Fordist-system of production. In one sense this issue arises out of the previous discussion of contractual and hierarchical relationships, and in another harks back to the beginning argument. In essence, and without doing justice to the author’s involved discussion (citing E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (1963) throughout), he argues that the right of management to define what work is to be done and how it is to be done-all codified and embodied in the labor contract-creates con-