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UCI Social Sciences 
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Welcome

Welcome to the March 2012 issue of the Social Sciences
eNews




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Upcoming Events

The Global Diffusion of Law: Transnational Crime and the Case of Human Trafficking
March 1, 2012

Ethnicity, Social Capital, and Immigrant Education: Neighborhood-Based Institutions and Embedded Social Relations in Los Angeles' Chinatown and Koreatown
March 2, 2012

Self-Enhancing Transmission Bias and Active Investing
March 5, 2012

Bye Bye Kitty or Bye Bye Little Boy? Representing Japanese Contemporary Art Internationally
March 6, 2012

Perceptual Sampling: Evidence from Object Tracking
March 7, 2012

Offshoring, Unemployment and Wages: The Role of Labor Market Institutions
March 12, 2012

Bridging the Gap Between Cultures in Conflict through Information and Communication Technology
March 13, 2012

Neural Mechanisms of Perception in a "Cocktail Party"
March 14, 2012

The Camera Rolls: Using Video Records to Study the Police
March 16, 2012


Event Calendar



Social Sciences
in the Media

Waiting for the 'Twitter election?' Keep waiting

Gas prices: Inland average hits $4.21

Beyond 9/11: Changing the perception of Muslim Americans

Costa Mesa teen seeks Miss Fountain Valley title

Minimum wage rise, jobs fall

How commerce fostered ethnic identity

Will health care reform keep its cost reducing promise?

This new report proves Obamacare just might work

Occupy movement regroups, preparing for its next phase

Total health care costs fall when poor are provided insurance: Study

Romney makes Pete Wilson his honorary California chairman

Tune in to KPFK Sunday to hear David Smith discuss inequality in America

Occupying the nation's attention, if not its cities


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UCI Lauds & Laurels 2012

Gottfredson earns Extraordinarius award; three social sciences recipients among the 20 honorees

Michael Gottfredson, executive vice chancellor and provost at UC Irvine, will receive the Extraordinarius award May 17 at the 42nd annual Lauds & Laurels ceremony, sponsored by the UCI Alumni Association. He is among 20 campus faculty, staff and students who will be honored. Social sciences recipients include David Snow, Distinguished Professor of sociology, with the Faculty Achievement award; James Weatherall, logic & philosophy of science graduate student, with the Outstanding Graduate Student award; and Nadia Bermudez, political science '98, with the Social Sciences Distinguished Alumni award.

Read on...



A love/hate relationship

As election season heats up, a new book by political scientist Russell Dalton examines the dichotomous relationship between political parties and the constituencies they court

If the relationship between voters and big-party politics was "Facebook official," the status would be: "It's complicated." "People today are more interested in politics, care about more diverse issues and are more assertive," says Russell Dalton, UC Irvine professor of political science and founding director of the UCI Center for the Study of Democracy. "These factors make it difficult, if not impossible, for parties to satisfy all their possible supporters at the same time." In the recently published Political Parties & Democratic Linkage, he and his co-authors explain that despite rising cynicism and voter discontent, political parties are still vital in uniting disparate segments of government and in connecting citizens' preferences to policies. Here, Dalton discusses this love/hate relationship, how the media exacerbate it, and why political parties still dominate the electoral process.

Read on...



Ethics in an age of terror

New book by political scientist Kristen Monroe looks into causes of and reactions to genocide

What causes genocide? Why do some stand by, doing nothing, while others risk their lives to help the persecuted? In her new book, Ethics in an Age of Terror and Genocide, political scientist Kristen Renwick Monroe sought answers to these questions through interviews with bystanders, Nazi supporters, and rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. What she found provides strong evidence that self-image and identity, rather than logical reasoning, play a greater role in shaping our moral being and the manner in which we treat others.

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Healthcare costs decrease over time when low-income uninsured are provided coverage, study finds

Study co-authored by economist David Neumark published in Health Affairs

Enrollment of uninsured patients in a program with benefits comparable to those offered under the Affordable Care Act of 2010 resulted in significant healthcare cost savings, a new study finds. Published in the February issue of Health Affairs, the research sheds light on the potential outcomes of newly enacted healthcare reforms. "In a case study involving low-income people enrolled in a community-based health insurance program, we found that use of primary care increased but use of emergency services fell, and - over time - total healthcare costs declined," said study co-author David Neumark, UC Irvine Chancellor's Professor of economics and director of UCI's Center for Economics & Public Policy.

Read on...



Stereotype promise

New research by sociologist Jennifer Lee finds positive stereotypes reinforce and boost performance

In a new study posted on the Russell Sage Foundation's RSF Review blog, UCI sociologist Jennifer Lee finds evidence that being viewed through the lens of a positive stereotype can reinforce and actually boost performance. Coined as "stereotype promise," the finding is based on data collected between 2008 and 2010 as part of the UCI-led Immigration and Intergenerational Mobility in Metropolitan Los Angeles (IIMMLA) project.

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An untapped mobile money market

Domestic payments in developing countries have been unduly neglected in policy discussions, says a new study by anthropologist and IMTFI director Bill Maurer

A new study by Bill Maurer, anthropologist and director of the Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion, finds an untapped service market in Africa's domestic mobile payment industry. While more attention is often given to international remittances by the payments industry, his findings show that domestic payments in developing countries have been unduly neglected in policy discussions - and as a line of business. The full study, "Tips for 2012: Understanding Payment Behavior of African Households - A Vast and Untapped Market," is featured online at PYMNTS.com.

Read on...



New study ties Mexican American educational attainment gap to grandparent legal status

Findings presented at international immigration conference in D.C.

According to new research by Frank D. Bean, sociology Chancellor's Professor and Center for Research on Immigration, Population and Public Policy director, pathways to legalization and citizenship appear to take on greater significance for overcoming disadvantages in Mexican American educational attainment than previously thought. "Many of the grandparents of third generation Mexican Americans start their lives in the country as unauthorized residents," he says. "While previous work has focused on how immigrant legal status might impact the second generation, our study assesses the degree to which this is the case and extends the inquiry into the third generation, showing that the drag on grandchildren educational attainment is significant." The work is based on a study he conducted with Susan K. Brown, UCI sociology associate professor, and Mark Leach, UCI sociology doctoral alumnus '07 and currently a rural sociology assistant professor at Pennsylvania University.

Read on...



Revolution and counter-revolution in Egypt

Post-January 2011 Egypt surveyed in new online forum co-edited by anthropologist Julia Elyachar

January 25 marked the one-year anniversary of the "official" start of the Egyptian Revolution, an event the journal Cultural Anthropology recognized with the launch of "Hot Spot on Egypt," an online forum co-edited by UCI anthropologist Julia Elyachar. The collection brings together diverse analytic perspectives on revolution and counter-revolution in Egypt through commentaries, essays, imagery, video links and a bibliography of publications on Egypt since the revolution began.

Read on...



Social sciences welcomes two new faculty in winter quarter

Additions will help school meet critical course needs in impacted majors

The School of Social Sciences welcomed the arrival of two new faculty members this winter. Yingying Dong, economics assistant professor, and Glenda Flores, Chicano/Latino studies assistant professor with an affiliate appointment in sociology, will be filling critical teaching needs in the highly impacted economics and sociology majors, helping the school reduce class sizes and increase course offerings. At the same time, their scholarly interests in economics of labor, health and education (Dong) and race and social inequality (Flores) will further expand the diversity and interdisciplinary research strengths for which the School of Social Sciences is known. Learn more about their research interests online.

Read on...



Jeremy Heis, logic & philosophy of science assistant professor, receives inaugural Rogers Prize

Honor recognizes best paper published in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy in 2011

Jeremy Heis, logic & philosophy of science assistant professor, is the inaugural recipient of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy Rogers Prize. Established in honor of John Rogers, the journal's founding editor who retired in 2011 after an 18-year term, the honor recognizes the best paper published in the journal in the preceding year. Heis' winning paper, "Ernst Cassirer's Neo-Kantian Philosophy of Geometry," earned him 1000 British pounds, funded jointly by the British Society for the History of Philosophy and the journal's publisher, Taylor & Francis.

Read on...



Feliciano and Castellanos recognized for commitment to Latinos in higher ed

American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education will honor the UCI leaders at annual awards luncheon

Cynthia Feliciano, Chicano/Latino studies and sociology associate professor, and Jeanett Castellanos, Social Sciences Academic Resource Center director, are being honored by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) for their efforts in support of Latinos in higher education. Fecliciano, who both studies and teaches courses on race, ethnicity and education, has been named as the Outstanding Latino/a Faculty in Higher Education at a Research Institution. Castellanos is one of two recipients of the Outstanding Support of Hispanic Issues in Higher Education Award. Both women will receive their awards at the annual AAHHE national awards luncheon Saturday, March 10, 2012 at the Hilton Hotel in Costa Mesa.

Read on...



Brilliant disguise

UCI alumnus Al Valdez has gone from undercover cop who infiltrated dangerous street gangs to college instructor

Al Valdez was looking for sprinkler parts at a discount store when he sensed somebody was watching him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a security guard peeking at him from the next aisle. Valdez had run to the store after working in his yard and was wearing grubby gardening clothes. "I looked like a homeless person," he says. "When I walked in, two women who greet customers in the front looked at me and turned their backs." Suspecting that they'd profiled him as a shoplifter, Valdez decided to have a little fun.

Read on...



Fortunate son

Daniel Do-Khanh, political science '93, is behind an effort to collect the stories of Vietnamese refugees who escaped their homeland after the fall of Saigon

Daniel Do-Khanh '93 has come a long way since he and his parents fled Vietnam during the fall of Saigon in April 1975, leaving behind their home and all of their belongings. Today he's a successful attorney working out of a spacious Irvine office with a sweeping view of the Orange County coast, but Do-Khanh has not forgotten what his family endured to get here - and he doesn't want the experiences of other Vietnamese refugees to be forgotten either.

Read on...



UCI undergrad baskin' in glory after inventing new ice cream flavor

Economics major Kelsey Lien's "Nutty Cream Cheese Brownie" will be Baskin-Robbins' November flavor of the month

Third-year economics major Kelsey Lien has won a national Baskin-Robbins contest to create a new ice cream flavor, beating out a reported 40,000 fellow applicants with her "Nutty Cream Cheese Brownie" concoction, which will be next November's "Flavor of the Month." Lien won a year's supply of free ice cream and a trip to Boston, where she helped chefs mix up the first batch of her winning flavor at Baskin-Robbins headquarters.

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WANTED: 2012 Undergraduate Social Sciences Commencement Speakers

Applications due by Friday, March 23, 5:00 p.m.

The School of Social Sciences is currently seeking undergraduate applicants interested in being a keynote speaker at the school's 2012 commencement exercises to be held Friday, June 15 at the UCI Bren Events Center. Qualified applicants must be graduating seniors during the 2011-12 academic year (fall 2011, winter 2012, spring 2012 or summer 2012) with a minimum cumulative grade point average of 3.5 from a School of Social Science major.

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Undergraduate Career Panel Discussion

February 29 @ 6:00 p.m., Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Room 1517

Join the School of Social Sciences in a career panel discussion to learn about the most important skills employers today are seeking and how social sciences grads can gain a competitive edge in the job market.

Read on...





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