Diani, M. (1997). Social movements and social capital: a network perspective on movement outcomes. Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 2(2), 129-147.

Pages:  19

Selected Quotations:  "By "social capital" I mean ties which, while they do not necessarily imply the presence of collective identity, are however based on sentiments of mutual trust and mutual recognition among actors involved. The broader the range of social capital ties that emerge from a period of sustained mobilization, the greater a social movement's impact is expected to be."

"In other words, social movements do not merely rely upon existing social capital: they also reproduce it, and sometimes create new forms of it (Sirianni and Friedland 1995). We can regard their performance in this regard as an indicator of their social and political impact. This implies that we move our focus away from causality, which we have seen can be properly addressed only at the cost of restricting our investigations to specific movement organizations or protest campaigns, and concentrate instead on the preconditions of success, i.e., on the structural position occupied by movement actors after phases of sustained political and/or cultural challenge."

"On the other hand, movement actors' chances to be influential will also depend on the extent and strength of their linkages to their environment, in particular to political and cultural elites. In this perspective, social movement impact will be higher when the conclusion of a wave of collective action will see a greater integration of movement leaders and activists within elite circles (both nationally and locally), or simply within the associational networks of their societies, than was the case before collective action started. Movement impact will be similarly higher the stronger the ties of movement intellectuals to the social circles (mass media, corporate cultural operators, intelligentsia) where dominant interpretations of reality are generated."

Click here to read "Diani, M. (1997). Social movements and social capital: a network perspective on movement outcomes. Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 2(2), 129-147."
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Click here to watch "Mario Diani. Logic and Method of Social Network Analysis in Social Movement Research (NetGloW2014)"

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Small Changes in Teaching: The First 5 Minutes of Class (2016) by James M. Lang

Pages:  6

Selected Quotations:  "Another favorite education writer of mine, the cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham, argues that teachers should focus more on the use of questions. "The material I want students to learn," he writes in his book Why Don’t Students Like School?, "is actually the answer to a question. On its own, the answer is almost never interesting. But if you know the question, the answer may be quite interesting."

"Take advantage of that fact in the opening few minutes of class by asking students to "remind" you of the key points from the last session. Write them on the board — editing as you go and providing feedback to ensure the responses are accurate — to set up the day’s new material. Five minutes of that at the start of every class will prepare students to succeed on the memory retrieval they will need on quizzes and exams throughout the semester."

"Asking students to tell you what they already know (or think they know) has two important benefits. First, it lights up the parts of their brains that connect to your course material, so when they encounter new material, they will process it in a richer knowledge context. Second, it lets you know what preconceptions students have about your course material. That way, your lecture, discussion, or whatever you plan for class that day can specifically deal with and improve upon the knowledge actually in the room, rather than the knowledge you imagine to be in the room."

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Review: Dead Aid (By Dambisa Moyo) By Madeleine Bunting

Pages:  2

Selected Quotations:  "The danger is that this book will get more attention than it deserves. It has become fashionable to attack aid to Africa; an overdose of celebrity lobbying and compassion fatigue have prompted harsh critiques of what exactly aid has achieved in the past 50 years. Not all of the criticism has been unjustified - $300bn of aid has gone to Africa since 1970, yet average incomes across much of the continent have stagnated or fallen. Dead Aid offers a disastrous history of how aid was used as a tool of the cold war.

The problem is that this kind of analysis (much of which is now only of historical relevance) provides ammunition for those who are sceptical of international responsibilities and always keen to keep charity at home. And here they have the perfect protagonist to advance their arguments: an African woman who speaks their language."

Click here to read Review: Dead Aid (By Dambisa Moyo) By Madeleine Bunting

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The Death of International Development (2014) by Jason Hickel

Pages: 4

Selected Quotations:  "This crisis of confidence has become so acute that the development community is scrambling to respond. The Gates Foundation recently spearheaded a process called the Narrative Project with some of the world's biggest NGOs - Oxfam, Save the Children, One, etc. - in a last-ditch attempt to turn the tide of defection. They commissioned research to figure out what people thought about development, and their findings revealed a sea change in public attitudes. People are no longer moved by depictions of the poor as pitiable, voiceless "others" who need to be rescued by heroic white people - a racist narrative that has lost all its former currency; rather, they have come to see poverty as a matter of injustice."

Click here to read The Death of International Development by Jason Hickel

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Drummond, R., & Stoddard, A. (1991). Job satisfaction and work values. Psychological reports, 69(3f), 1116-1118.

Article pages: 3

"Summary. - The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship of work values with job satisfaction. 69 graduate and undergraduate female education majors working in the helping professions were administered the Work Values Scale and the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale. Scores on five values scales, measuring instrinsic values, were correlated significantly with scores on job satisfaction. The correlations indicated a negative relationship. Way of Life, Altruism, and Achievement were rated the highest work values by the group."

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