Publication Type: Session Presentation
Abstract: This AATF sponsored session introduces participants to intercultural telecollaborative exchange for beginning and intermediate French classes. Various collaborative activities, supported by technology (webcams, blogs, chat, email, podcasts) will be showcased. Participants will gain insight into establishing their own intercultural program and determine how different technologies can enhance an exchange. Detailed handouts provided.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Neo-institutionalists often take the organizational field as the unit of analysis, examining clusters of organizations that interact while engaged in a common venture (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). While the components of the structuration process that leads to field emergence have been well articulated, less research attends to the specific mechanisms through which the process takes place. I suggest that the concept of collective action frames (Snow et. al. 1986) from social movement theory is of use in understanding these processes. As an illustration, I offer the case of feminist bookstores in the United States.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Over the last twenty-years, the concept of social capital has become one of the most popular means for analyzing the long-standing sociological claim that involvement and participation in groups positively affect individuals. However, despite a shared understanding of what social capital is, scholars continue to disagree about what network mechanisms make one “better connected.” My research is thus an attempt to define the specific social contexts in which closure and brokerage-based forms of social capital are most efficacious. Drawing from recent research on the immigrant assimilation process, I use ego-centric network data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to compare the high school graduation and college matriculation rates of both second and third generation Mexican-American and Chinese-American immigrants. By comparing these groups’ educational outcomes, I show that closure-based mechanisms are not as influential as brokerage-based ones in determining positive educational outcomes. I also show that both immigrant groups have similarly structured social networks and are equally as likely to employ closure and brokerage-based network mechanisms. I conclude by offering an alternative model for analyzing the effects of social capital: one that better elaborates the relationships between the efficacy of network structures and social context.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The idea of meeting half-way, of overcoming otherwise insuperable divides, forms the conventional essence of the bridge as metaphor. To the extent that this interpretation is contested, the bridge is often posited as a fragile, contingent construct, to be destroyed in retreat, or as a conquering vehicle for hegemonic desires. This paper argues that these approaches have the consequence of overemphasising and essentializing difference and division. Insofar as it is considered a benevolent endeavour, bridge-building is usually seen as taking place between static pre-existing identities. This paper questions the way social scientists in general, and international theorists in particular, use metaphors of bridges and bridge building. It posits a more nuanced and complex understanding of the processes at work via an engagement with the symbolic possibilities of the bridges of Venice.The topography of Venice presents us with a rich vein of metaphor. The bridge can be seen as lying at the very root of Venetian identity, raising islands out of the swamp waters of the lagoon, and providing a haven when the waters periodically rush back over the streets, threatening to reclaim the city. In the rich tapestry of daily life, the bridge provides a crucial public space, a site of commerce or romance, a view point to make sense of a confusing labyrinth. As such, the bridge simultaneously underpins and situates Venetian identity. At first glance the metaphor of the bridge does more traditional work in the context of the confident projection of Venetian naval power towards the East. Yet even here, as is becoming increasingly well-documented, bridges towards the East underpinned much of the rich, blended cultural heritage of the city we see today, notably in buildings and paintings.This paper will look first at how metaphors of the bridge explicate Venice’s identity as a city-state. Then it will develop the metaphor of bridge-building in the context of Venetian foreign policy at the height of Venice’s power in the late middle ages and early renaissance. Finally, it will build on this historical reworking to draw out how a better understanding of the views both from and of the bridge can help us to situate both the origins of our discipline, and the fruitful paths it might travel in the future. It thus aspires to help IR see itself as a discipline with an identity permanently negotiated, constructed and deconstructed by the manifold bridges that span its troubled waters.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper studies Britain's support for NATO and EU rapid reaction forces. Emphasizing the interoperability of these forces, Britain seeks to bridge the widening strategic divide between America and Europe.