Waverly Duck

“Fractured Reflections” of High-Status Black Male Presentations of Self: Nonrecognition of Identity as a “Tacit” Form of Institutional Racism

ABSTRACT This article examines the effects of “tacit” expectations about race, which are institutionalized in an Interaction Order that frames how we “see” high-status occupational identity. There is an essential moment in presenting Self before Other(s) when it is the turn of the Other(s) to recognize, respond to, and ratify that presentation. The Self is a social accomplishment that requires mutual cooperation from others. Failure to recognize and ratify competent presentations of self, reported frequently by black men, can strip those presentations of the social identity they claim and the dignity, power, and authority associated with that identity. We argue that these “tacit” expectations about identity follow black men wherever they go—no matter how successful they are. Using accounts drawn from interviews, we examine the persistent failure of Others to recognize and ratify high-status black male identities and the legitimate authority they carry.

Becoming a Drug Dealer: Local Interaction Orders and Criminal Careers:

This article reports on an ethnographic study of the process by which a young man became a drug dealer in a in a small northeastern US city. Drug dealing was the principal occupation in his predominantly black neighborhood. This process is treated as an initiation into a criminal career that involved not only the mastery of specific steps of drug dealing but also learning the expectations of the local interaction order framing the space where he lives. Approached in this way, one young man’s story offers a window into the local interaction order of a drug-dealing space: a set of local social practices that must be routinely mastered in the area where he grew up. The pervasiveness of drug-dealing practices in the local interaction order offers valuable insight into how and why male youth in this locale would enter the drug trade and are at considerable risk of arrest.

NEIGHBORHOODS, RACE, AND HEALTH: EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NEIGHBORHOOD DISTRESS AND BIRTH OUTCOMES IN PITTSBURGH

ABSTRACT: One of the major challenges in researching neighborhoods and birth outcomes today concerns access to neighborhood-level data. The present study combines local data from the Pittsburgh Neighborhood and Community Information System with data from the national American Community Survey to examine the relationship between adverse birth outcomes (i.e., low birth weight, preterm birth, and infant mortality) and neighborhood distress. We examine racial differences in neighborhood distress using the census-based measure of socioeconomic disadvantage as well as measures of abandonment from local data sources, including vacancy, violence, tax delinquency, property sales, and property conditions. Results reveal significant differences in neighborhood distress by race for every aspect examined. Furthermore, findings show that abandonment-related measures explain a substantial portion of variation in adverse birth outcomes, with tax delinquency explaining more variation than socioeconomic disadvantage. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research and for strategies to reduce racial disparities in birth outcomes.

Children’s Use of “I Don’t Know” During Clinical Evaluations for Autism Spectrum Disorder: Responses to Emotion Questions

This study investigated ways children with autism spectrum disorder respond to questions about emotions on the ADOS-II (Autism Diagnostic and Observation Schedule). Specifically, Stickle et al. examined the children’s I don’t know (IDK) utterances as responsive to these questions, questions designed to tap into the children’s capacity for abstract thinking. Findings revealed that the children’s use of IDK was not haphazard but rather revealed four distinct interactional patterns. Stickle et al. also documented clinicians’ formulations of questions that seem to create difficulty for children to respond to and clinicians’ practice that works to encourage the production of valid responses from children. Overall, this research broadens our understanding of the abilities of children given the diagnosis of autism that lies outside of what is officially being tested.

Living the Drama: Community, Conflict and Culture Among Inner-City Boys, by David J. Harding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. 336 pp. ISBN: 978-0-226-31665-9 (

Mortgage redlining, the rejection of mortgage loan applications solely on the basis of place, is normally seen as a form of social exclusion unique to the United States. In Place, Exclusion, and Mortgage Markets, Manuel Aalbers shows that place-based exclusion does not only happen in the ghettos of America but also shapes life in the European banlieues (France), quartieri periferici (Italy), and achterstandswijken (Netherlands). Aalbers uses the concept of mortgage redlining to get at the broader process of social exclusion and argues that treating redlining simply as an outcome misplaces our attention on distribution. Instead, viewing redlining as a process places the focus on relational issues like inadequate social participation, lack of social interaction, and lack of power. Redlining, therefore, should be seen as part of the broader process of social exclusion. In contrast to “blaming the victim” or other cultural explanations of individual deficiency as causes for redlining, the idea of social exclusion hinges more upon structural forces that help guide human relations. Using a sociospatial approach, Aalbers refutes studies that see urban change as the result of a natural process. Instead, he sees redlining as a practice that emphasizes the power of private actors influencing government policy, the structure of the real estate industry, and the development of place. His emphasis on agency brings people back into the analysis and emphasizes the centrality of social action and conflict in determining the shape of the built environment. Social exclusion becomes an active process of intervention that shapes market practices. The social exclusion framework, therefore, goes beyond the analysis of resource allocation mechanisms and includes power relations, agency, culture, and social identity. By viewing institutions as “general normative patterns of social action” (p. 55), Aalbers takes “redlining out of the realm of econometrical analysis and into the realm of agency and structure; that is, the realm of sociology” (p. 53). This framework “puts institutional processes at the heart of the redlining debate” (p. 18). Aalbers employs a comparative case study of redlining practices in the US, Italy, and the Netherlands to probe the decisions by banks to segment portions of the mortgage market based on location. Because lending outcomes do not always capture the actions and practices of lenders, these contrasting case studies provide a solid research