Robot teachers: The very idea!

Insufficient attention has been paid to the use of robots in classrooms. Robot "teachers" are being developed, but because Kline ignores such technological developments, it is not clear how they would fit within her framework. It is argued here that robots are not capable of teaching in any meaningful sense, and should be deployed only as educational tools.

Categories and organizational status: the role of industry status in the response to organizational deviance.

Extant research in organizational and economic sociology posits that organizations derive status from their prior demonstrations of quality, as well as their affiliations with high-status alters. Yet there are also indications that organizations may acquire status by virtue of their membership in salient social categories that are themselves status valued. In this article, the author explicitly theorizes and measure the concept of categorical status among organizations and test whether it influences the evaluation of organizational actions.

Reciprocity on the hardwood: passing patterns among professional basketball players.

Past theory and research view reciprocal resource sharing as a fundamental building block of human societies. Most studies of reciprocity dynamics have focused on trading among individuals in laboratory settings. But if motivations to engage in these patterns of resource sharing are powerful, then we should observe forms of reciprocity even in highly structured group environments in which reciprocity does not clearly serve individual or group interests.

The eldercare factory.

Rapid advances in service robotics together with dramatic shifts in population demographics have led to the notion that technology may be the answer to our eldercare problems. Robots are being developed for feeding, washing, lifting, carrying and mobilising the elderly as well as monitoring their health. They are also being proposed as a substitute for companionship.