This Spring 2011 (IX, 2) issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, entitled “Learning Transformations: Applied Sociological Imaginations from First Year Seminars and Beyond,” includes nine UMass Boston undergraduate student papers: seven from two sections of the first year seminar, Soc. 110G: “Insiders/Outsiders,” one from the course “Youth and Society” (Soc. 201), and another from the course “Elements of Sociological Theory” (Soc. 341), all taken during the 2010-2011 academic year at UMass Boston. The authors cultivate their sociological imaginations of the link between their personal troubles and broader public issues by exploring topics such as: difficulties with writing; struggles with overachievement; adolescent depression; pessimism; obsession with body self-image; pornography and love; drunken driving; feminine identity formation; and coping with personal traumas amid parental, sibling, and societal dysfunctions. The editor points to the significance of publishing undergraduate scholarships of learning and their sociological self-studies, highlighting the extent to which the origins of the present journal entitled “human architecture” can itself be traced to his own “student selves” and early undergraduate education in architecture at U.C. Berkeley, and specifically to a seminar he took with his undergraduate teacher and advisor, the late “professor of design” and renowned painter, Jesse Reichek. Contributors include: Thanh D. Pham, Iris M. Rivas, Melissa Mejia, Ryan J. Canillas, Michaela Volpe, Rose Bautista, Jennifer Cervantes, Ann Barnes, Melanie Maxham, and Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (also as journal editor-in-chief). Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge is a publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics). For more information about OKCIR and other issues in its journal’s Edited Collection as well as Monograph and Translation series visit OKCIR’s homepage.

Entrepreneurship, Institutional Framework and Support Mechanisms in the EU sheds light on the important and yet crucially under-explored interactions between entrepreneurship, institutions and support mechanisms within the EU.

The responsibility for college success has historically rested with the student, but since the 1980s, educators have taken increasing ownership of this, designing structures that increase the likelihood of learning, success, and retention. These efforts have included a variety of initiatives--first year seminars, learning communities, writing-intensive courses, common intellectual experiences, service-learning, undergraduate research, and senior capstones among others--that have come to be known as high-impact practices. Although first year seminars have been widely accepted as a high impact educational practice leading to improved academic performance, increased retention and acquisition of critical 21st Century outcomes, first-year seminars tend to be loosely defined in the literature. National explorations of course structure and administration demonstrate the diversity of the curricular initiatives across various campuses. In order to determine the attributes that all of these varied courses share in common that contribute to their effectiveness, the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina invited contributions for a book exploring effective educational practices within the first-year seminar. This collection of case studies represents a wide variety of institutional and seminar types. The authors describe the structure, pedagogy, and assessment strategies that lead to high quality seminars and they offer abundant models for ensuring the delivery of a high-quality educational experience to all entering students. The table of contents includes the following: (1) Structural Supports for Effective Educational Practices in the First-Year Seminar (Tracy L. Skipper); (2) The American University of Rome (Jenny Petrucci); (3) Cabrini University (Richard Gebauer, Michelle Filling-Brown, and Amy Perischetti); (4) Clark University (Jessica Bane Robert); (5) Coastal Carolina University (Michele C. Everett); (6) Durham Technical Community College (Kerry F. Cantwell and Gabby McCutchen); (7) Florida South Western State College (Eileen DeLuca, Kathy Clark, Myra Walters, and Martin Tawil); (8) Indiana University--Purdue University Indianapolis (Heather Bowman, Amy Powell, and Cathy Buyarski); (9) Ithaca College (Elizabeth Bleicher); (10) LaGuardia Community College, CUNY (Tameka Battle, Linda Chandler, Bret Eynon, Andrea Francis, Preethi Radhakrishnan, and Ellen Quish); (11) Loyola University Maryland (Mary Ellen Wade); (12) Malone University (Marcia K. Everett, Jay R. Case, and Jacci Welling); (13) Montana State University (Margaret Konkel and Deborah Blanchard); (14) Northern Arizona University (Rebecca Campbell and Kaitlin Hublitz); (15) Southern Methodist University (Caitlin Anderson, Takeshi Fujii, and Donna Gober); (16) Southwestern Michigan College (Christi Young, Jeffrey Dennis, and Donald Ludman); (17) St. Cloud State University (Christine Metzo); (18) Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi (Rita A. Sperry, Andrew M. Garcia, Chelsie Hawkinson, and Michelle Major); (19) The University of Arizona (Marla Franco, Jessica Hill, and Tina Wesanen-Neil); (20) University of Kansas (Alison Olcott Marshall and Sarah Crawford-Parker); (21) University of Maryland Baltimore County (Lisa Carter Beall); (22) University of New Hampshire (Neil Niman, Tamara Rury, and Sean Stewart); (23) University of North Carolina Wilmington (Zachary W. Underwood); (24) University of Northern Iowa (Deirdre Heistad, April Chatham-Carpenter, Kristin Moser, and Kristin Woods); (25) University of Texas at Austin (Ashley N. Stone and Tracie Lowe); (26) University of Texas at San Antonio (Kathleen Fugate Laborde and Tammy Jordan Wyatt); (27) University of Wisconsin-Madison (Susan Brantly and Sorabh Singhal); (28) Virginia Commonwealth University (Melissa C. Johnson and Bety Kreydatus); and (29) Conclusion: What Does It Mean to Be High Impact? (Tracy L. Skipper). (Individual chapters contain references.).

Contents:-Editor?s Note: Sociology of Self-Knowledge: Course Topic as well as a Pedagogical Strategy-Deborah D?Isabel: The ?Difference? A Red Face Makes: A Critical Sociology of Bullying in Capitalist Society-Claudia Contreras: The Tension of Opposites: Issues of Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in My Identity Formation-Katherine Heller: My Choice of a Lifetime: ?Finding True Love? in a Sociological Imagination-Rebecca Tink: Beyond Bifurcation: Femininity and Professional Success in a Changing World-Caitlin Farren: A Different Voice, A Different Autobiography: Letting My Authentic Voice Speak-Charles Chear: The Overdose of Shame: A Sociological and Historical Self-Exploration-Harold Muriaty: My Life So Far: A ?Work? in Progress-Rachel A. DeFilippis: Intersections of My Lesbian, Feminist, and Activist Identities: Problems and Strategies in Everyday Impression Management-Lee Kang Woon: Socialization of Transnationally Adopted Korean Americans: A Self Analysis-N.I.B.: ?Housing Project? In Comparative Perspective: Opportunity or Stigma?-Sharon Brown: Religion, Gender, and Patriarchy: Awakening to My Self-Conscious Resocialization-Jennifer Lambert: Beyond the ?Goods Life?: Mass Consumerism, Conflict, and the Latchkey-Kid-Anonymous: Hooped Dreams: Internal Growth, External Stagnation, and One Man?s Search for Work-Jorge Capetillo-Ponce: Contrasting Simmel?s and Marx?s Ideas on Alienation-Mohammad Tamdgidi: Working Outlines for the Sociology of Self-KnowledgeMacalester College Symposium:-Khaldoun Samman: Sociology of Self-Knowledge at Macalester College-Ellen Corrigan: The ?Out? Crowd: Resisting the Stereotypes of High School and Teen Culture-Jeremy Cover: My Performed Identity-Jesse Mortenson: Identity Resistance and Market-based Political Culture at a Small Liberal Arts School-Khaldoun Samman: Go West Young Turk: Personal Encounters with Kemalism-Jessica Sawyer: Confessions of a Maine-iac: The Family, Academia, and Modernity

This book takes readers through a series of guided writing exercises that help them explore their feelings about difficult experiences. Each chapter begins with an introduction that explains how to proceed with journal exercises and what they are structured to help accomplish. The exercises leave readers with a strong sense of their value in the world.

This Spring 2003 (II, 1) issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge include student papers from coursework completed at SUNY-Oneonta. The creative efforts students display in advancing their sociological imaginations demonstrate the extent to which the best pedagogical strategies are those that rely on teaching their subject matter by encouraging students to draw upon the reality of their own lives in an applied way to learn various concepts and theories taught in class. Topics are: “Editor’s Note: Social Theories, Student Realities,” “Why I Smoke: Sociology of a Deadly Habit,” “The Drinking Matrix: A Symbolic Self Interaction,” “Theoretical Reflections on Peer Judgments,” “It’s Worth Living in the World,” “My Image Struggles in Capitalist Society,” “”It’s Not My Fault”: Overcoming Social Anxiety through Sociological Imagination,” “Treading Water: Self-Reflections on Generalized Anxiety Disorder,” “Sociology of Shyness: A Self Introduction,” “”Let Me Introduce Myself”: My Struggles with Shyness and Conformity,” “Religion in an Individualistic Society,” “A Precarious Balance: Views of a Working Mother Walking the Tightrope,” “Links in the Chain: Untangling Dysfunctional Family Ties,” and “Marx, Gurdjieff, and Mannheim: Contested Utopistics of Self and Society in a World-History Context.” Contributors include: Emily Margulies, Neo Morpheus, M. Goltry, James McHugh, Anna Schlosser, Charles (pen name), Megan Murray, Colin Campbell, Jillian E. Sloan, Jillian E. Sloan, Jennifer S. Dutcher, Ira Omid (pen name), and Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (also as journal editor-in-chief). Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge is a publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics). For more information about OKCIR and other issues in its journal’s Edited Collection as well as Monograph and Translation series visit OKCIR’s homepage.

How can social theory help us all design solutions to address the social, political and ecological challenges that confront us, and build more sustainable communities? Design professions have typically been associated with intervention and action, while social science has long been associated with thought and reflection. Design and social thought are too frequently considered distinct in terms of how theories can be applied in practice. Design and the Social Imagination brings together the creative, action-oriented sensibility of design with the reflective, analytical capacities of the social sciences to offer models, ideas and strategies for shaping the future of the world we live in. In a world of global economic inequality, racism, and environmental degradation, designing with an understanding of our social reality is increasingly crucial to our survival. Matthew DelSesto explores current practices and discourses in areas of urban design, design for social innovation, environmental design, co-design, service design, and more, illustrating how thoughtful design can contribute in a more productive way. Drawing on a range of theory and practice from radical social thinkers C. Wright Mills, Patrick Geddes, Jane Addams and W. E. B. Du Bois, his book shows us how design and the social sciences can interact in order to intervene in the crises we face today.

Placing an emphasis on global perspectives and current research, this wide praised and adopted sociology textbook introduces the reader to the field of sociology. & John Macionis, like many people, took a college course that shaped his life. His first sociology course helped him make sense of the world. John shares his enthusiasm, excitement, and teaching experience through a clear and engaging writing style and emphasis on sociology's relevance to everyday life.