Jeffrey C Bridger
Biographic Data
| ID | 189132 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jeffrey C Bridger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jeffrey C |
| FAMILY NAME | Bridger |
| SIGNATURE | BRIDGER J C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 168 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Consequential Distortions of Robert Park’s Theory of Human Ecology
This chapter seeks to contribute to the issues in the sociology of knowledge by providing a detailed analysis of Robert Park&s;s perspectives on human ecology and the consequences of the interpretations of his perspective for subsequent work in that area. There are numerous summaries of Park&s;s ecological approach. These summaries contain a general narrative structure in which common events and sequences are reiterated and offered as Park&s;s ac…
Narrative Structures and Social Institutions
One of the more important issues in narrative inquiry and the social sciences pertains to the relations between personal stories and collective stories. This chapter discusses the background of the approach and research to date and presents a comparative analysis of institutional closings in Detroit during the 1980s, on the basis of which author offers a preliminary conceptualization of narrative and social institutions. It also presents the data…
Making Sense of “Making Sense
Community as a mechanism for transcending wellbeing at the individual, social, and ecological levels
Community wellbeing, from a field theoretical perspective, derives from the interaction of three core elements reflecting different levels and units of analysis - individual, social, and ecological. These facets of community, and their related concepts, come together in a powerful way to shape relationships, opportunities for agency, and local adaptive capacities that lead to wellbeing. Unfortunately, much of the extant community literature moves…
Promoting Fair Local Organizing for Broadband Delivery
Are public-private partnerships superior to private-only or public-only broadband initiatives in meeting the needs of the most rural and least served areas? Yes, say the authors, based on data collected from a USDA-funded six-case mixed-methods study that compared examples of the three types of successful rural broadband initiatives. This finding, they say, applies both to residential and business users. Based on these data, they offer six target…
Weighing the universal service obligation
Due to the rise in web-based communication, such as e-mail and declining surface mail volume over the past decade, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has been forced to reconsider its universal service obligation (USO). The USO ensures that all American citizens, regardless of geographic location, receive postal service six days a week. Considerations of postal service reductions have largely been couched in analyses that examine the financi…
Public sociology, public scholarship, and community development
In his 2004 presidential address to the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy called for the creation of a public sociology that would be more relevant and useful to the people whom we study and with whom we work. This vision represents one of many responses to the growing chorus of critics who claim that higher education and the various disciplines that comprise it are out of date, out of touch, and are failing to address pressing s…
An Interactional Approach to Place-Based Rural Development
Rural America is in the midst of the most far-reaching transformation in our history. Globalization and other forces are fundamentally altering the economic landscape and erasing many traditional sources of employment and income; in such an uncertain environment, economic development has become more important and more complicated than ever. Unfortunately, rural policies have not kept pace with the times, and there is growing recognition that what…
The Importance of Subjective Data for Public Agency Performance Evaluation
Evaluating public agency performance has typically been based on objective measurements. However, some researchers contend that evaluation is not complete without considering client perceptions of agency performance. This study supports combining subjective client perceptions with objective data in the evaluation process. Survey results and internal performance data are examined for a state agency charged with investigating citizen disputes with …
Place, Community Development, and Social Capital
Over the past decade, the concept of social capital has become an important component of many community development strategies. In this article we argue that social capital is predicated on assumptions that raise a number of questions about its usefulness in a variety of different settings. The most important features of social capital—trust and norms of reciprocity—emerge from repeated and regularized interactions that are bounded in space and t…
Paradigms, Policies, and People
This article takes a step toward unifying normative and empirical policy analysis by examining the convergence of societal metatheories, public policy models, and empirical data on consumers. It begins with the premise that policies rest on a foundation of normative beliefs or metatheories that, in turn, put boundaries around the possible and give social meaning to the policies and programs that flow from them. The interaction of social metatheor…
Building the Sustainable Community
Over the past decade, environmental sustainability has emerged as a prominent theme in the community development literature. In fact, the concept has become a standard feature of most economic and social development plans. Most models of sustainable community development stress the importance of widespread participation in the decision-making process. Unfortunately, community studies document numerous barriers to broad involvement and the high le…
Toward an interactional approach to sustainable community development
Narrative Structures and the Catholic Church Closings in Detroit
A community systems approach to substance abuse prevention in a rural setting
Rural Community Substance Abuse Prevention and Intervention
The Community Health Demonstration Project (CHDP) was organized to develop, implement, and evaluate substance abuse prevention programming in a resource-poor rural Appalachian area. The goals of the CHDP were to develop new community-initiated and community-based programs and services for the prevention of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use during pregnancy and for the first 2 years after birth by women and their families in the target c…
Mythic Facts and Park's Pragmatism
Robert Park's proposals for the study of human and urban ecology were grounded in pragmatism, but critics of his perspective from the late 1930s through the 1940s totally missed his use of pragmatism and thereby defined four lines of deficiency: dualism (between the biotic and cultural), neglect of the sociocultural, biological determinism, and problems of measurement. These criticisms became reified as fact, out of which came Hawley's 1950 pivot…
Community Imagery and the Built Environment
This article explores the relationship between the collective representations and rhetoric that residents use to make sense of their communities and changes in the built environment. I draw on data from a case study of land-use discourse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to explore the ways in which imagery shapes the rhetoric available for land-use debate and how this, in turn, affects changes in zoning. Of particular importance in this process…
Empowering Rural Sociology
Theoretical and methodological approaches to rural social change are explored, especially those that give visibility to the range of heterogeneous experiences and perspectives that often are overlooked or ignored. Theoretical developments in postmodern, narrative, and feminist theory are described as are the methodological approaches they imply. Examples of research on rural social change that attempt to integrate theory and methods in ways that …
Assessing rural tourism efforts in the United States
Industrialization as an Agent of Social Change
Ideology and growth promotion
Toward an interactional approach to sustainable community development
Place, Community Development, and Social Capital
Over the past decade, the concept of social capital has become an important component of many community development strategies. In this article we argue that social capital is predicated on assumptions that raise a number of questions about its usefulness in a variety of different settings. The most important features of social capital—trust and norms of reciprocity—emerge from repeated and regularized interactions that are bounded in space and t…
An Interactional Approach to Place-Based Rural Development
Rural America is in the midst of the most far-reaching transformation in our history. Globalization and other forces are fundamentally altering the economic landscape and erasing many traditional sources of employment and income; in such an uncertain environment, economic development has become more important and more complicated than ever. Unfortunately, rural policies have not kept pace with the times, and there is growing recognition that what…
Mythic Facts and Park's Pragmatism
Robert Park's proposals for the study of human and urban ecology were grounded in pragmatism, but critics of his perspective from the late 1930s through the 1940s totally missed his use of pragmatism and thereby defined four lines of deficiency: dualism (between the biotic and cultural), neglect of the sociocultural, biological determinism, and problems of measurement. These criticisms became reified as fact, out of which came Hawley's 1950 pivot…
Building the Sustainable Community
Over the past decade, environmental sustainability has emerged as a prominent theme in the community development literature. In fact, the concept has become a standard feature of most economic and social development plans. Most models of sustainable community development stress the importance of widespread participation in the decision-making process. Unfortunately, community studies document numerous barriers to broad involvement and the high le…
Empowering Rural Sociology
Theoretical and methodological approaches to rural social change are explored, especially those that give visibility to the range of heterogeneous experiences and perspectives that often are overlooked or ignored. Theoretical developments in postmodern, narrative, and feminist theory are described as are the methodological approaches they imply. Examples of research on rural social change that attempt to integrate theory and methods in ways that …
Narrative Structures and the Catholic Church Closings in Detroit
Community Imagery and the Built Environment
This article explores the relationship between the collective representations and rhetoric that residents use to make sense of their communities and changes in the built environment. I draw on data from a case study of land-use discourse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to explore the ways in which imagery shapes the rhetoric available for land-use debate and how this, in turn, affects changes in zoning. Of particular importance in this process…
Assessing rural tourism efforts in the United States
Community as a mechanism for transcending wellbeing at the individual, social, and ecological levels
Community wellbeing, from a field theoretical perspective, derives from the interaction of three core elements reflecting different levels and units of analysis - individual, social, and ecological. These facets of community, and their related concepts, come together in a powerful way to shape relationships, opportunities for agency, and local adaptive capacities that lead to wellbeing. Unfortunately, much of the extant community literature moves…
Public sociology, public scholarship, and community development
In his 2004 presidential address to the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy called for the creation of a public sociology that would be more relevant and useful to the people whom we study and with whom we work. This vision represents one of many responses to the growing chorus of critics who claim that higher education and the various disciplines that comprise it are out of date, out of touch, and are failing to address pressing s…
Ideology and growth promotion
Making Sense of “Making Sense
Weighing the universal service obligation
Due to the rise in web-based communication, such as e-mail and declining surface mail volume over the past decade, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has been forced to reconsider its universal service obligation (USO). The USO ensures that all American citizens, regardless of geographic location, receive postal service six days a week. Considerations of postal service reductions have largely been couched in analyses that examine the financi…
Ideology and growth promotion
Industrialization as an Agent of Social Change
Assessing rural tourism efforts in the United States
Empowering Rural Sociology
Theoretical and methodological approaches to rural social change are explored, especially those that give visibility to the range of heterogeneous experiences and perspectives that often are overlooked or ignored. Theoretical developments in postmodern, narrative, and feminist theory are described as are the methodological approaches they imply. Examples of research on rural social change that attempt to integrate theory and methods in ways that …
A community systems approach to substance abuse prevention in a rural setting
Rural Community Substance Abuse Prevention and Intervention
The Community Health Demonstration Project (CHDP) was organized to develop, implement, and evaluate substance abuse prevention programming in a resource-poor rural Appalachian area. The goals of the CHDP were to develop new community-initiated and community-based programs and services for the prevention of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use during pregnancy and for the first 2 years after birth by women and their families in the target c…
Mythic Facts and Park's Pragmatism
Robert Park's proposals for the study of human and urban ecology were grounded in pragmatism, but critics of his perspective from the late 1930s through the 1940s totally missed his use of pragmatism and thereby defined four lines of deficiency: dualism (between the biotic and cultural), neglect of the sociocultural, biological determinism, and problems of measurement. These criticisms became reified as fact, out of which came Hawley's 1950 pivot…
Community Imagery and the Built Environment
This article explores the relationship between the collective representations and rhetoric that residents use to make sense of their communities and changes in the built environment. I draw on data from a case study of land-use discourse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to explore the ways in which imagery shapes the rhetoric available for land-use debate and how this, in turn, affects changes in zoning. Of particular importance in this process…
Narrative Structures and the Catholic Church Closings in Detroit
Toward an interactional approach to sustainable community development
Paradigms, Policies, and People
This article takes a step toward unifying normative and empirical policy analysis by examining the convergence of societal metatheories, public policy models, and empirical data on consumers. It begins with the premise that policies rest on a foundation of normative beliefs or metatheories that, in turn, put boundaries around the possible and give social meaning to the policies and programs that flow from them. The interaction of social metatheor…
Building the Sustainable Community
Over the past decade, environmental sustainability has emerged as a prominent theme in the community development literature. In fact, the concept has become a standard feature of most economic and social development plans. Most models of sustainable community development stress the importance of widespread participation in the decision-making process. Unfortunately, community studies document numerous barriers to broad involvement and the high le…
Place, Community Development, and Social Capital
Over the past decade, the concept of social capital has become an important component of many community development strategies. In this article we argue that social capital is predicated on assumptions that raise a number of questions about its usefulness in a variety of different settings. The most important features of social capital—trust and norms of reciprocity—emerge from repeated and regularized interactions that are bounded in space and t…
An Interactional Approach to Place-Based Rural Development
Rural America is in the midst of the most far-reaching transformation in our history. Globalization and other forces are fundamentally altering the economic landscape and erasing many traditional sources of employment and income; in such an uncertain environment, economic development has become more important and more complicated than ever. Unfortunately, rural policies have not kept pace with the times, and there is growing recognition that what…
The Importance of Subjective Data for Public Agency Performance Evaluation
Evaluating public agency performance has typically been based on objective measurements. However, some researchers contend that evaluation is not complete without considering client perceptions of agency performance. This study supports combining subjective client perceptions with objective data in the evaluation process. Survey results and internal performance data are examined for a state agency charged with investigating citizen disputes with …
Public sociology, public scholarship, and community development
In his 2004 presidential address to the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy called for the creation of a public sociology that would be more relevant and useful to the people whom we study and with whom we work. This vision represents one of many responses to the growing chorus of critics who claim that higher education and the various disciplines that comprise it are out of date, out of touch, and are failing to address pressing s…
Promoting Fair Local Organizing for Broadband Delivery
Are public-private partnerships superior to private-only or public-only broadband initiatives in meeting the needs of the most rural and least served areas? Yes, say the authors, based on data collected from a USDA-funded six-case mixed-methods study that compared examples of the three types of successful rural broadband initiatives. This finding, they say, applies both to residential and business users. Based on these data, they offer six target…
Weighing the universal service obligation
Due to the rise in web-based communication, such as e-mail and declining surface mail volume over the past decade, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has been forced to reconsider its universal service obligation (USO). The USO ensures that all American citizens, regardless of geographic location, receive postal service six days a week. Considerations of postal service reductions have largely been couched in analyses that examine the financi…
Making Sense of “Making Sense
Community as a mechanism for transcending wellbeing at the individual, social, and ecological levels
Community wellbeing, from a field theoretical perspective, derives from the interaction of three core elements reflecting different levels and units of analysis - individual, social, and ecological. These facets of community, and their related concepts, come together in a powerful way to shape relationships, opportunities for agency, and local adaptive capacities that lead to wellbeing. Unfortunately, much of the extant community literature moves…
Consequential Distortions of Robert Park’s Theory of Human Ecology
This chapter seeks to contribute to the issues in the sociology of knowledge by providing a detailed analysis of Robert Park&s;s perspectives on human ecology and the consequences of the interpretations of his perspective for subsequent work in that area. There are numerous summaries of Park&s;s ecological approach. These summaries contain a general narrative structure in which common events and sequences are reiterated and offered as Park&s;s ac…
Narrative Structures and Social Institutions
One of the more important issues in narrative inquiry and the social sciences pertains to the relations between personal stories and collective stories. This chapter discusses the background of the approach and research to date and presents a comparative analysis of institutional closings in Detroit during the 1980s, on the basis of which author offers a preliminary conceptualization of narrative and social institutions. It also presents the data…
Political science (18 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Social science (10 works) · Economics (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Business (6 works) · Economic growth (6 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Community Health and Development (5 works)