Punit Dadlani’s research while affiliated with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and other places

This paper presents selected findings from current research being undertaken by the Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL) at Rutgers University that examines the research and writing processes of high school students undertaking a group research task in a New Jersey High school library. The purpose of this task was for students to produce a co-constructed product that represents the group’s understanding of their chosen curriculum topic. The study involved 42 grade 9 students undertaking an accelerated English Language Arts curriculum unit focusing on examining a wide range of challenging literature in the genres of short story, novel, drama, nonfiction, and poetry. The course includes independent reading assignments, and stresses critical thinking and speaking skills, study skills, and research strategies. The learning environment was supported by a Wiki/ Google documents digital environment that tracked the group dynamics, student-to-student interactions, resource use patterns, and knowledge building processes, as well as classroom teacher and school librarian interactions with the students, as groups and as individuals. This paper reports specifically on cognitive, personal and interpersonal dynamics reported by students as they worked in groups.

Some organizations and their members use, or limit the use of, technologies to conceal their identity. This study explores, from a receiver perspective, the perceived appropriateness and effectiveness of concealment technologies and how different motivations to conceal affect those assessments. A survey of 120 adults reveals that various technologies are similarly effective at concealing organizations, but differ in terms of appropriateness. Protecting one’s identity consistently relates to judgments regarding acceptability of using concealment technologies. This research adds to theories about communication technologies and extends work related to the receiver model and motivations for anonymity.

Social capital has been considered a cause and consequence of various uses of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). However, there is a growing divergence between how social capital is commonly measured in the study of ICTs and how it is measured in other fields. This departure raises questions about the validity of some of the most widely cited studies of social capital and ICTs. We compare the Internet Social Capital Scales (ISCS) developed by Williams [2006. On and off the 'net: scales for social capital in an online era. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), 593-628. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00029.x] - a series of psychometric scales commonly used to measure 'social capital' - to established, structural measures of social capital: name, position, and resource generators. Based on a survey of 880 undergraduate students (the population to which the ISCS has been most frequently administered), we find that, unlike structural measures, the ISCS does not distinguish between the distinct constructs of bonding and bridging social capital. The ISCS does not have convergent validity with structural measures of bonding or bridging social capital; it does not measure the same concept as structural measures. The ISCS conflates social capital with the related constructs of social support and attachment. The ISCS does not measure perceived or actual social capital. These findings raise concerns about the interpretations of existing studies of 'social capital' and ICTs that are based on the ISCS. Given the absence of measurement validity, we urge those studying social capital to abandon the ISCS in favor of alternative approaches.

PurposeTo understand the relationship of social justice ideas to the role of a public library and its organizational members, particularly in terms of how information services are developed to meet the needs of patrons. Additionally, this research also examines the relationship between public library organizational rhetoric and the social justice ideas used by organizational members. Methodology/approachUses a single case study, mixed-method approach informed by Yin (2013) with semi-structured interviews of library staff, text analysis of organizational rhetoric (mission statement and strategic plan), observation of the library’s Board of Trustees and an emic-etic content analysis method developed in Dadlani and Todd (2014, 2016a, 2016b). FindingsSome findings include that both utilitarian and egalitarian distributions of service were used, sometimes one replacing the other based on the supply-demand of the situation. In terms of what is meant by equality, there is a utilitarian idea to the use of resources, those geographically closer are given more benefits, at the same time, the library fulfills needs based on something like an equality of capabilities approach, where the basic functionings of the community are central. Unexpectedly, a tension was observed between the ideas of the library as an unbiased and neutral information conduit and the library as a community hub that also espouses particular cultural/public values. Importantly, it was found that social justice ideas, like equality, had significantly different meanings across members of the library staff, thereby highlighting the contestable nature of social justice concepts. Originality/valueThis research provides a methodological example of how the extant philosophical literature on social justice concepts can be used to analyze libraries. It also provides a structured approach to understanding the role of social justice in different forms of librarianship and may be applicable in other types of information intensive organizations (government agencies, corporate information centers, for example).

This article examines perceptions of social justice among a set of students undertaking a group research task in a New Jersey high school library. The purpose was for students to produce a coconstructed product that represented the negotiated understanding of their curriculum topic. The study involved 42 grade nine students in a language arts class focused on independent reading tasks emphasizing critical/reflective thinking, speaking, and independent learning skills as well as the effective use of research/knowledge construction strategies. The study used openended reflections and an asynchronous Google Docs–based environment to capture perceptions of the students’ collaborative processes and to examine collaborative knowledge-building dynamics and outcomes. This article proposes an action-level typology that maps the collective strategies used by students to negotiate socially just conditions during the collaborative process. The study also provides suggestions for and a methodological example of how social justice principles can be examined in information-intensive organizations.

Differences arise in macro-activities, such as the production of energy, food, and healthcare, where the management of these differences happens in polylogues as many actors pursue scores of positions on a variety of issues in numerous venues. Polylogues are essential to the large-scale practices that organize macro-activities but present significant challenges for argumentation theory and research. Key to the challenge is conceptualizing the variety of argumentative roles that go beyond the classic normative definition of protagonist and antagonist. A macroscope is devised for identifying argumentative roles in the communicative work of organizations, and the communicative work of the network of organizations, related to the production of gas from shale in the Marcellus region of the Northeastern United States. The macroscope scaffolds a design thinking inquiry into the variety of argumentative roles in the communicative work of organizations in a polylogue and finds: (1) innovation and entrepreneurialism in the design of organizations as devices for managing disagreement; (2) argumentative roles as services specializing in particular aspects of argument; and (3) networks of organizations with prominent types of specialized roles that give shape to the disagreement space around a large, complex practice. It is proposed that the varieties of argumentative roles in polylogue are not random or arbitrary but derive from more general pragmatic principles about how disagreement is organized and how methods of disagreement management emerge within communication relative to a macro-activity.

This research takes an emergent approach to data analysis (Charmaz, 2008) through the use of an emic/etic data coding process, and proposes a typology for understanding the connection between social justice principles and the provision of information technology services in school libraries. The study used data from seven school libraries in the state of New Jersey, obtained from focus groups consisting of forty-eight teachers, eighteen librarians, ten department supervisors, eleven principals/assistant principals, four district directors, and three librarian-teachers. The emergent process and typology employed in this research can aid school libraries in assessing how particular factors of the school/school library environment influence the provision of IT services to school library users. This study confirmed that school librarians and teachers rely on several social justice principles, such as distributive justice, utilitarianism, and egalitarianism, in making decisions regarding how to provide information technology services within the school environment. In particular, it was found that the type of social justice principle used in the school environment depended on the school librarians’ and teachers’ perceptions of the information competencies of their constituents and the availability of resources within the school environment. This research contributes to the study of social justice in the library and information science (LIS) professions in the following ways: first, by expanding ideas of “social justice” in LIS beyond traditional notions of “disenfranchised groups”—such as people having lower socioeconomic status, racial/ethnic or sexual minorities, and individuals with physical or mental disabilities—to include any group that may experience injustice in the context of information, such as school teachers, librarians and students; second, by portraying how social justice principles are enacted as strategies in school librarianship and pedagogy that advance student information-seeking and learning objectives; third, by highlighting the value of social justice to both practice and scholarly research in school and school library environments; and fourth, by proposing a methodology for studying social justice in a library environment.

Social capital has been considered a cause and consequence of various uses of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). However, there is a growing divergence between how social capital is commonly measured in the study of ICTs and how it is measured in other fields. This departure raises questions about the validity of some of the most widely cited studies of social capital and ICTs. We compare the Internet Social Capital Scales (ISCS) developed by Williams (2006) – a series of psychometric scales commonly used to measure “social capital” – to established, structural measures of social capital: name, position, and resource generators. Based on a survey of 880 undergraduate students (the population to which the ISCS has been most frequently administered), we find that, unlike structural measures, the ISCS does not distinguish between the distinct constructs of bonding and bridging social capital. The ISCS does not have convergent validity with structural measures of bonding or bridging social capital; it does not measure the same concept as structural measures. The ISCS conflates social capital with the related constructs of social support and attachment. The ISCS does not measure perceived or actual social capital. These findings raise concerns about the interpretations of existing studies of “social capital” and ICTs that are based on the ISCS. Given the absence of measurement validity, we urge those studying social capital to abandon the ISCS in favor of alternative approaches.