Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Sociologists have debated the components of legitimation at lest since the time of Weber's Economy and Society, and both Marx and Habermas have noted that one of the key challenges for capitalistic societies is to develop unequal distributions of resources that are nevertheless accepted as legitimate. Still, even in the process of reaching differing conclusions about the factors that are argued to support legitimation – tradition, expertise, prosperity, and more – most work to date has paid little attention to a complementary set of factors, namely the skillful use of discursive techniques that can help even questionable distributions of resources to escape from question. Two techniques appear to be particularly important. First, like the professional magicians who have learned to make even physical objects disappear from view, professional politicians often have considerable skill in diverting public attention, using a set of techniques that magicians call “misdirection.” Second, much as might be predicted by the literature on risk and technological controversies, many of the topics and techniques that are most effective in drawing attention away from questions of one's own legitimacy are those that involve risk or fear, and in particular those that raise concerns about the legitimacy of others. In this paper, we summarize the available evidence and invite our colleagues to join us in focusing on “what is not there” – in learning to see what is so often not seen, and in making more visible the ways in which the issue of legitimation is made to disappear from view.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper reflects on some of the contours and paradoxes of feminist methodologies as they have manifested in the discipline of International Relations over the last two decades or so. The practice and metaphor of "distraction" is employed as a methodological device; one informed by work on "haunting and the sociological imagination" along with the "methodology of getting lost" and the thinking strategies of Luce Irigaray.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: To the degree the media contributes to the public's addiction to distraction, in the form of reporting on all kinds of comparisons, competitions, dramas, etc., to that degree the news is the "drug (distraction) pusher".What is needed is educational information on how to become aware that tolerance( AKA impartiality) is really addiction to apathy. When one becomes aware of ones' unique priorities(that is ones' unique priorities AFTER lifes basic needs are met) one is then pre and post limitations of time and space, and as a result all news is seen forwhat it is, namely relative, for ones' priorities are whatever it takes to be uniquely human (namely awareness of ones vulerability) by sharing an (almost ) organic part of the solution (overcoming the addiction ro the oblivion of distraction from ones vulnerability) via becoming proactively vigilant in avoiding being part of the problemof defensiveness, etc. which is the inevitable result when we are addicted to distractions from our human essence. Uniqueness,"flow", "onliness, provides paradoxical immunity form addictions of all kinds.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: We used a distraction task with the intention of interfering with subjects’ involvement in crime-drama programs to examine relations among counterarguing, transportation, enjoyment, and perceived external and internal realism. Subjects in the distraction condition reported higher levels of transportation, enjoyment, perceived the program to be more internally realistic (coherent), and had fewer critical thoughts than participants who were not distracted. Results are interpreted in light of audiences processing of filmic narratives and media effects.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: As scholars continue to make significant contributions to educational research, two specific findings remain salient. Studies indicate that children’s experiences during first grade help establish educational trajectories that eventually shape their life chances. Scholarship also shows that student attentiveness in the classroom is integral to learning and later academic achievement, with low-income, students of color running a greater risk of “attentional difficulties.” Joining these two strands of research, this project charts the social conditions that shape (in)attentiveness in the first grade classrooms of “at-risk” students. Using participant-observation, interviews, and videotape, my dissertation research explores first graders’ experiences in order to investigate the role of school culture in the social production of student attentiveness.

In this paper, I illuminate how first graders and their teachers collectively construct “distractions” during everyday interactions at school. Specifically, I examine what behaviors indicate that a child is “distracted,” what prompts the so-called distraction, and what adults at school do to prevent distractions and handle them, once they occur. I conclude my analysis by exploring what constitutes an “acceptable” distraction and how teacher expectations, judgments, as well as student identities, can all mitigate perceptions of inattentive behavior. In all, I reveal that “distractions” are dynamic and inattention in first grade classrooms often has social underpinnings. By illustrating this, my research begins to shed new light on the popular and often medicalized concept of inattentiveness, especially as it applies to low-income, underrepresented children, whom both researchers and teachers deem the most “at-risk” for attentional difficulties and subsequent school failure.