Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Though the term is widely used by social scientists, theory and research on social capital has an ad-hoc quality, i.e., social relationships “matter” but it is unclear which aspects of relationships matter for what types of outcomes. I use research on social networks and social control norms to examine how, when and why members of micro-credit borrowing groups use social control to create social capital. Using unique ethnographic, survey and loan data from approximately 100 borrowing groups operating in the U.S., I examine the conditions under which group members use social relationships in micro-credit borrowing groups. I find that peers do actively evaluate and screen fellow members before approving them as borrowers, though not always effectively. Moreover, different aspects of social relationships lead to social control, which provides members with adequate social capital to increase their financial capital through micro-credit.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The literature on China English available seems to focus mostly on the attitudes toward English, the use of English, or the EFL industry in this country. Lexical borrowing as part of nativization has rarely been investigated. This paper presents a data-based analysis of 59 borrowed lexical items as found in 84 articles from two English newspapers in China, including both loanwords and loan translations. On the whole these items do not seem to be in widespread use. Additionally, the findings show that the loanwords tend to be culture-specific lexical items, nonce borrowings, and necessary borrowings. The loan translations may be more foreign than they appear, because of the underlying facets of Chinese culture. Also discussed in the paper are two linguistic factors that may decide if a lexical item may be borrowed as a loanword or a loan translation, as well as the existence of pairs and sets of synonymous loanwords and/or loan translations, found among Chinese-English bilingual communities in and outside China.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Human interpersonal relations, especially marriage, are used as metaphors to better understand the union between a public sector organization and creativity. The paper uses several life stages, e.g. courtship, marriage, divorce, and child rearing to better understand the stages organizations go through as they grapple with becoming more creative and innovative.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In 1956, Elvis Presley recorded a hit “cover” of the song “Hound Dog,” which had been first recorded in 1952 by the rhythm and blues singer Big Mama Thornton. This is often reported as a textbook example of white appropriation of African-American music. Indeed, Presley gained more money and recognition than Thornton. Yet in this and many other cases of 1940s and 1950s “cover songs,” racial and musical dynamics are more complicated than commonly acknowledged. “Hound Dog” was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Jewish songwriters who admired African-American music. It was first recorded by an African-American woman for the rhythm and blues market, which catered to African-American consumers. Several cover versions of the song were released by white men in the “hillbilly” (or country-western) market, which was pitched toward rural white consumers. And when Presley released his version of the song, it became a number-one hit on the rhythm and blues, hillbilly, and general popular music Billboard charts. “Hound Dog” crossed barriers of race and genre several times over just a few years.
In the 1940s and 1950s popular music market, cover songs were a crossroads of musical exchange across genre and racial boundaries. I propose to offer a paper about the ways musicians, audiences, and record executives used cover songs. Through cover songs, musicians exchanged lyrics, tunes, styles, and ideas. Hillbilly musicians recorded songs from the African-American-centered rhythm and blues chart, as I have already described with “Hound Dog.” The opposite often occurred too—for example, the rhythm and blues musician (and ex-jazzman) Wynonie Harris recorded Hank Penny's hillbilly song “Bloodshot Eyes.” Oftentimes several covers of the same song were touted in a single record company advertisement. Pop musicians like Ray Charles remade Gospel songs with unchanged music but rewritten lyrics. Rhythm and blues musicians borrowed from jazz, adopting Illinois Jacquet's saxophone honking technique, pioneered in Lionel Hampton's band in 1942. Some musicians released cover songs faithful to the original (Ruth Brown's version of Little Miss Cornshucks’s “So Long”). Musicians reinvented musical material through cover songs in the rhythm and blues era, mixing innovation with pre-existing songs and themes.
The cover song was a site of musical and cultural exchange that fueled the development of rhythm and blues and rock and roll. The songs provided a basis for musical innovation. At the same time, the prevalence of cover songs began to erode the genre demarcations of the prewar period. Audiences participated in this exchange, as record sales became less correlated to race over the 1940s and 1950s. In my paper, I analyze what unites and differentiates different versions of songs. Cover songs help us understand the era’s emerging musical genres, the historical importance of popular music, and racial interaction through the realm of culture. By sharing music, lyrics, and ideas, musicians communicated across musical markets and across the American racial divide. Most cover songs were intended as entertainment for dancing teenagers. Yet cover songs were also an important—and understudied—crossroads of musical culture and race relations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Over the past decade Colombia and Chile have been prominent in the Latin American context for their efforts to revive citizenship education in the school curriculum. Both countries have addressed this issue through a series of national policy strategies that hint to a common set of assumptions about the role of curricular reform and assessment in the provision of quality education. This apparent convergence of means and ends has supplied the foundation for a Regional System for the Assessment and Development of Citizenship Competencies in Latin America, connected to the new International Civic and Citizenship Education Study planned for 2009.
This paper seeks to compare the ways in which the recent national policies on citizenship education have been operationalized in Colombia and Chile, and provide grounds for interrogating the ways in which convergence and culture-specification occur. By examining the ways in which citizenship education is defined, inserted in the curriculum, and assessed, as well as the strategic appeals to external referents, I claim that, beyond apparent regional convergence, there are important differences that encompass both practices and uses of the discourse of internationality, and that those differences are context-bound.