The Nature and Causes of Regressive Movements in Reading

Ninety-six Wisconsin school district administrators and sixty-six AERA members responded to a tripart survey instrument on the question of access to public schools to do research. The three topics were: (1) a critical incident report form, (2) a Likert-type attitudinal scale, and (3) three separate rank-order questions. Administrators appear to make decisions on access requests on a personal basis. Other considerations in access granting appeared to be the value of the research to the district, the amount of upset the research would cause to district routines, tacit policies on district accessibility, the extent of local control possible in the research, and the financial implications for the district. Researchers agree with administrators on academic questions concerning research access but appear to be misperceiving salient signals concerning research access granting.     

Sociology of a scandal: the emergence of ‘FIFAgate’

This article examines the social forces underlying FIFAgate. Why do corrupt practices, which are often highly consolidated or even institutionalized, suddenly become scandalous? What is a scandal? Why did FIFA fall into crisis in 2015 and not before? To answer these questions, it is necessary to look at the sequence of thrusts and parries between all the parties involved. Our analysis embraces the notion that social processes are based on relationships in order to provide insights into why and how denunciations can lead to long-tolerated corrupt practices suddenly becoming compromising enough to force an organization’s leaders to implement measures that would have previously been unimaginable. We use multiple sources to examine the emergence of FIFAgate and the way FIFA overcame previous critical situations, describing how FIFA neutralized earlier allegations and developed a remarkable ‘resilience’ to scandal. Finally, we analyse the successive mobilizations whose domino effect led to the emergence of FIFAgate and the measures FIFA took to contain the scandal. Our research enabled us to draw up a new theoretical model for analysing corruption scandals.