Book Reviews

The Guide to United States Popular Culture. Edited by Ray B. Browne and Pat Browne. The Detective as Historian: History and Art in Historical Crime Fiction. Edited by Ray B. Browne and Lawrence A. Kreiser, Jr. Preface by Robin W. Winks. Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives. Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham, eds. Popular Culture: Cavespace to Cyberspace. Marshall W. Fishwick. Great Cars of the Great Plains. Curt McConnell. Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia. Ed. James L. Watson. The History of Jazz. Ted Gioia. Puppets and “Popular” Culture. Scott Cutler Shershow. Theater and Society: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. Haiping Yan, ed. Armonk Teenage Nervous Breakdown: Music and Politics in the Post‐Elvis Age. David Walley. The Ignorance Explosion: Understanding Industrial Civilization. Julius Lukasiewicz. The Unofficial Encyclopedia of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Nick Talevski. Graphic Novels: A Bibliographic Guide to Book‐Length Comics. D. Aviva Rothschild. Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride. Horace Logan with Bill Sloan. Women Imagine Change: A Global Anthology of Women's Resistance from 600 B.C.E. to Present. Eugenia DeLamotte, Natania Meeker, and Jean O'Barr, eds. We Mean to Be Counted: White Women and Politics in Antebellum Virginia. Elizabeth R. Varon. Gender and American Culture series. Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited. Deirdre Boyle. What Evil Means to Us. C. Fred Alford. A Sense of Place: Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Essays in Honor of William and Margery Vandament. Edited by Russell M. Magnaghi and Michael T. Marsden.     

Travelling from New Spain to Mexico: Mapping Practices of Nineteenth-Century Mexico

James Horn, Adapting to a New World: English Society in the Seventeenth‐Century Chesapeake (1994), xv + 461 (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, $60.50).

Marguerite W. Dupree, Family Structure in the Staffordshire Potteries, 1840–1880 (1995), xx + 405 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £48.00).

David B. Copian, In the Time of Cannibals: The Word Music of South Africa's Basotho Migrants (1994), xxi + 300 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, $55.00, paperback $18.95).

Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism (1995), 300 (Cambridge University Press, London, £35.00).     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: Mary Corey, The World Through a Monacle: The New Yorker at Midcentury Mark A. Lause, The Civil War's Last Campaign: James B. Weaver, the Greenback‐Labor Party & the Politics of Race & Section Denis McNally, A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead Elaine L. Graham, Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens and Others in Popular Culture Kerry Acker, Everything You Need to Know About the Goth Scene Gavin Baddeley, Goth Chic: A Connoisseur's Guide to Dark Culture Paul Hodkinson, Goth: Identity, Style, Subculture Mick Mercer, 21^st Century Goth Timothy Shary, Generation Multiplex: The Image of Youth in Contemporary American Cinema David Simon, Tony Soprano's America: The Criminal Side of the American Dream Sarah A. Leavitt, From Catharine Beecher to Martha Stewart: A Cultural History of Domestic Advice Joseph Stanton, Cardinal Points: Poems on St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Maria Tatar, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales Tim Wolter, POW Baseball in World War II: The National Pastime Behind Barbed Wire     

Evaluating social assistance reforms under programme heterogeneity and alternative measures of success

This article presents an assessment of welfare reforms under a framework of programme heterogeneity and alternative measures of success. The study focused on a specific programme – Madrid's Ingreso Madrileño de Integración (Madrid Regional Government's Welfare Programme) – which comprises heterogeneous sub‐programmes. We tested whether work‐related sub‐programmes performed better than general activities aimed at improving life skills by analysing the effects on different types of outcomes. We also tried to identify which work‐related sub‐programme worked best. Our results show that intensive employment activities yield remarkably better results than general work‐related schemes or life‐skills activities. However, increasing work participation does not automatically lift participants out of material hardship. Key Practitioner Message: ● Strategies to reduce the dependence of low‐income households on government support by improving employment opportunities; ● Evaluation of alternative work‐related sub‐programmes in welfare policies; ● New evidence on approaches that consider heterogeneous sub‐programmes and different types of outcomes might inform and partially shape the future public policy agenda in the welfare reform debate.     

Teachers' Theory‐of‐mind Coaching and Children's Executive Function Predict the Training Effect of Sociodramatic Play on Children's Theory of Mind

Theory of mind (ToM), the ability to interpret one's own and others' mental states, is essential for social interaction; thus, it is important to promote the early development of ToM. The current study investigated (1) whether sociodramatic play (SDP) promotes the development of ToM in kindergarten children; (2) whether teachers' ToM coaching, as well as children's individual differences in language and executive function (EF), may influence how children benefit from SDP; and (3) whether SDP improves children's development in language and EF. Seventy‐one kindergarteners (M age = 60.2 months, SD = 5.7) divided into 12 groups were randomly assigned to three conditions: free play, SDP, or SDP + ToM coaching. Each condition included four weekly sessions, 45 min per session. Before and after the training, children's ToM, language and EF were measured. The results showed that after children's individual differences in ToM were considered, (1) SDP positively predicted children's post‐test ToM; (2) teachers' ToM‐related guidance during SDP and children's pretest EF positively predicted the training effect of SDP on children's ToM; (3) teachers' ToM‐related guidance during SDP, but not SDP alone, predicted children's post‐test language; and (4) neither SDP nor teachers' ToM‐related guidance during SDP predicted children's post‐test EF.     

Dialogic literary gatherings and out‐of‐home child care: Creation of new meanings through classic literature

Research on out‐of‐home child care has revealed that foster care programmes focused on educational attainment and reading have the potential to improve the academic outcomes of children in care. However, no studies have examined which elements of these programmes positively benefit children's emotional well‐being. This article presents evidence of the positive effects of implementing a successful educational action, dialogic literary gatherings, in a children's residential care institution. A qualitative study using a communicative‐oriented methodology was conducted and involved five participant observations and eight daily life stories with children in out‐of‐home care in Catalonia (Spain). The children's reflections demonstrated that reading classic books, such as Dickens' Oliver Twist, deeply influenced their feelings and self‐conceptions and created new and exciting meaning in their lives.     

Maternal and paternal reactions to child sadness predict children's psychosocial outcomes: A family‐centered approach

Parents' reactions to children's emotions shape their psychosocial outcomes. Extant research on emotion socialization primarily uses variable‐centered approaches. This study explores family patterns of maternal and paternal responses to children's sadness in relation to psychosocial outcomes in middle childhood. Fifty‐one families with 8‐ to 12‐year‐old children participated. Mothers and fathers reported their reactions to children's sadness and children's social competence and psychological adjustment. Cluster analyses revealed three family patterns: Supportive (high supportive and low non‐supportive reactions from both parents), Not Supportive (low supportive reactions from both parents), and Father Dominant (high paternal supportive and non‐supportive reactions, low maternal supportive and non‐supportive reactions). Supportive families had children with higher social competence and more internalizing symptoms whereas Father Dominant families had children with lower social competence and fewer internalizing symptoms. Not Supportive families had children with average social competence and fewer internalizing symptoms. Findings are discussed in relation to the “divergence model” which proposes that a diverse range of parental responses to children's sadness, rather than a uniformly supportive approach, may facilitate children's psychosocial adjustment.     

The mediating role of coping self‐efficacy beliefs on the relationship between parental conflict and child psychological adjustment

The effect of parental conflict on children's psychological adjustment is variable. Coping self‐efficacy refers to a person's perceived ability to self‐motivate and access the required cognitive resources to take control of, or exert their coping efforts in a stressful situation. This study investigated the mediating role of children's coping self‐efficacy beliefs between parental conflict and children's psychological adjustment (internalizing, externalizing, anxiety, and prosocial behavior). The participants were 663 school students in grade 5 (M = 10.17 years, SD = .53) and grade 7 (M = 12.11 years, SD = .52). The ethnic composition of the sample was approximately 72% White, 20% Asian, 4% Middle Eastern, and 4% from other ethnic groups. Coping self‐efficacy for avoiding maladaptive cognitions mediated the effect of parental conflict on children's internalizing symptoms longitudinally. The higher the level of parental conflict, the lower the level of children's coping self‐efficacy for avoiding maladaptive cognitions and in turn the higher their levels of internalizing. These findings support the mediational role of children's coping self‐efficacy beliefs in the context of parental conflict. It is proposed that these beliefs should be considered in designing and implementing preventative interventions for children in the context of parental conflict.     

Extremely Poor Neighborhoods and Homicide*

Objective. This study explores the wide variation in homicide rates among extremely poor neighborhoods. Methods. Using cross‐sectional Census tract data for New York City (N= 2,042), the present analysis employs robust regression techniques to estimate the relationship between community resource deprivation and homicide for a subsample of 227 neighborhoods with poverty rates 40 percent and greater. Results. The main finding is that even at extreme levels of neighborhood poverty, variation in disadvantage is positively associated with variation in homicide rates. Moreover, the disadvantage‐homicide relationship appears especially strong in extremely poor areas (and in predominately African‐American neighborhoods). Conclusion. Consistent with W. J. Wilson's perspective on inner‐city disadvantage, the results imply that reducing the concentration of poverty will reduce overall homicide rates.     

Reminiscing Style During Conversations About Emotion‐laden Events and Effects of Attachment Security Among Italian Mother–Child Dyads

Previous research has established that mothers' and children's elaborative/evaluative styles during conversations about emotion‐laden events are associated with a range of social‐cognitive accomplishments, and this has prompted researchers to identify factors that predict stylistic differences in conversation styles. The study explored whether patterns and variations in reminiscing styles reported in other cultures would be observed in an Italian sample (N = 40 dyads). Attachment security, assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview for mothers and the Q‐Sort for children, were tested as possible sources of variation in conversation style. The two reminiscing styles identified through a clustering procedure were consistent with those displayed by dyads from other cultural groups; moreover, these were significantly related to both mothers' and children's attachment security. These results extend knowledge on reminiscing conversations during early childhood to a different cultural context and contribute to an understanding of how individual differences in attachment affect partners' participation in such conversations.     

What Hindu Sati can teach us about the sociocultural and social psychological dynamics of suicide

By leveraging the case of Hindu sati, this paper elucidates the ways in which structure and culture condition suicidal behavior by way of social psychological and emotional dynamics. Conventionally, sati falls under Durkheim's discussion of altruistic suicides, or the self‐sacrifice of underindividuated or excessively integrated peoples like widows in traditional societies. In light of the fact that Durkheim's interpretation was based on uneven data, nineteenth century Eurocentric beliefs, and a theoretical framework that can no longer resist modification and elaboration, by reconsidering sati it is possible to sketch a new model that strengthens Durkheim's theory by making it more robust and generalizable. The following model is built on five principles. First, integration and regulation are not distinct causal forces, but overlapping contextual conditions. Second, to better explain the variation in suicidality across time and space, we must also pay attention to culture as it provides the underlying meanings of suicide that can increase the odds a person or class of persons become suicidal or are protected against suicidality. Third, structure still matters, but in many cases, the role power and power‐differentials play must be considered. Fourth, understanding why and how people choose suicide depends on incorporating identity and status processes. Fifth, because the expression of social emotions like shame are patterned by structural and cultural conditions, to understand how suicidality is socioculturally patterned we must further explore the link between identity/status, social emotions, and structure and culture.     

Person × Context Effects on Anticipated Moral Emotions Following Aggression

We investigated person (sex, aggression level), context (witness type, victim reactions), and person × context effects on children's anticipated moral emotions following hypothetical acts of aggression against a peer. Children (N = 378, mean age = 11.3 years) were presented a series of hypothetical vignettes in which the presence of witnesses (no witnesses/most liked classmates/all of the class) and victim's reactions (neutral/ sad/ angry) were manipulated. The results indicated several person effects (e.g., girls anticipated more guilt and shame but less pride than boys; aggressiveness was related to less guilt and shame), as well as context effects (e.g., anticipated shame depended on who witnessed the situation and the emotional reactions of the victim). However, person × context effects predominated. The overall pattern of results indicated that girls and low‐aggressive children were more sensitive to contextual cues than boys and high‐aggressive children. The findings support the importance of a person × context approach to understanding the emotional reactions of different children in different situations.     

Aggressive and Prosocial Peer Group Functioning: Effects on Children's Social,School, and Psychological Adjustment

This study examined the effects of aggressive and prosocial contexts of peer groups on children's socioemotional and school adjustment. Data on informal peer groups, social functioning, and different aspects of adjustment were collected from multiple sources in a sample of elementary school children (149 boys, 181 girls; M age = 10 years). Multilevel analyses indicated that group aggressive and prosocial orientations made direct contributions to children's social, school, and psychological functioning. Group contexts also moderated the individual‐level relations between social behavior and self‐perceptions; prosocial behavior was associated with social or scholastic self‐perceptions more evidently in low prosocial and high aggressive groups. The results suggest that the peer group is an important context for children's performance and adjustment in various domains.     

Measuring Anti‐Americanism in Editorial Cartoons*

Objective. Anti‐Americanism has been subjected to minimal statistical analysis. Further, scant attention is paid to what constitutes anti‐Americanism for Americans. The objective of this article is to measure Americans' perceptions of anti‐Americanism. Methods. Using a range of quantitative methods, including Pearson's correlation coefficient, Shannon's entropy measure, and Cohen's d statistics, we measure students' evaluations of editorial cartoons after 9/11. Twin measures of message and equity, along with participant and cartoon variables, are used to calibrate anti‐Americanism in Spanish and U.S. editorial cartoons. Results. Our results indicate that message ratings, that is, anti‐ or pro‐American, were more dependent on the nature of the cartoons than of the participants. White males rated these editorial cartoons as more equitable than other participants. The study shows that Spanish cartoons were rated significantly more anti‐American. Conclusion. The article concludes that the use of U.S. icons is key to seeing anti‐Americanism, along with gender, race, and origin of cartoon.     

Development of Ego‐resiliency: Relations to Observed Parenting and Polymorphisms in the Serotonin Transporter Gene During Early Childhood

We used observed parenting behaviors, along with genetic variants and haplotypes of the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4), as predictors of children's ego‐resiliency during early childhood (N = 153). The quality of mothers' parenting was observed at 18 months of age, and mothers' reports of ego‐resiliency were collected at six time points from 18 to 84 months. Genetic data were collected at 72 months. Observed parenting was positively associated with initial levels of children's ego‐resiliency. Furthermore, although individual genetic variants of the serotonin transporter gene (LPR, STin2) were not associated with ego‐resiliency, the S10 haplotype (that combines information from these two variants) was negatively associated with initial levels of ego‐resiliency. Both parenting and serotonin genetic variation uniquely predicted children's ego‐resiliency, suggesting an additive effect of genetic and parental factors.     

The RSA (Revenu de solidarité active) and back‐to‐work incentives in France

Using an inventory of local and/or non‐statutory transfers (droits connexes) in 13 French towns and cities, the article first measures the gains from returning to work for recipients of national, statutory means‐tested benefits (Revenu minimum d'insertion— RMI, and Allocation parent isolé— API) by type of household before 2009. The reforms of national, statutory benefits carried out during the 2000s, especially those affecting the working tax credit (Prime pour l'emploi— PPE), failed to ensure that the recipients of means‐tested benefits always stood to gain financially from returning to work. The effects of the reforms were offset by the effects of other measures. The article then simulates the effects of the introduction of the Revenu de solidarité active (RSA) in place of the RMI in 2009, and takes into account the way that local and/or non‐statutory transfers are modified by increases in national, statutory transfers. We observe that the RSA eliminates the financial disincentives to returning to work for almost all localities and types of household. The article shows that the marginal tax rate of 38 per cent chosen by the government is very close to the upper limit compatible with a back‐to‐work incentive.     

Backing Barack Because He's Black: Racially Motivated Voting in the 2008 Election*

Objective. If racial considerations influenced the outcome of the 2008 presidential election, then how did they shape the campaign, why did race matter, and for whom were such considerations important? I hypothesize that various racial attitudes exert unique influences on voters' support of Obama and that the effects of these attitudes differ by race. Methods. Using a Time Magazine poll, I distinguish between “attitudes regarding Obama's ‘Blackness’” and “opinions about race relations,” and I examine such sentiments among White and African‐American respondents. Results. Regardless of race, Obama support was highest among voters who were “comfortable” with Black candidates. However, increased optimism with racial progress had no effect on Blacks' voting intentions, and it actually lowered Obama support among Whites. Conclusion. The conventional wisdom is that African Americans “backed Barack because he is Black”; I demonstrate that Obama's race mattered more to White voters than it did to Blacks.     

Mothers' interoceptive knowledge predicts children's emotion regulation and social skills in middle childhood

Interoception, often defined as the perception of internal physiological changes, is implicated in many adult social affective processes, but its effects remain understudied in the context of parental socialization of children's emotions. We hypothesized that what parents know about the interoceptive concomitants of emotions, or interoceptive knowledge (e.g., “my heart races when excited”), may be especially relevant in emotion socialization and in supporting children's working models of emotions and the social world. We developed a measure of mothers' interoceptive knowledge about their own emotions and examined its relation to children's social affective outcomes relative to other socialization factors, including self‐reported parental behaviors, emotion beliefs, and knowledge of emotion‐relevant situations and non‐verbal expressions. To assess these, mothers (N = 201) completed structured interviews and questionnaires. A few months later, third‐grade teachers rated children's social skills and emotion regulation observed in the classroom. Results indicated that mothers' interoceptive knowledge about their own emotions was associated with children's social affective skills (emotion regulation, social initiative, cooperation, self‐control), even after controlling for child gender and ethnicity, family income, maternal stress, and the above maternal socialization factors. Overall, findings suggest that mothers' interoceptive knowledge may provide an additional, unique pathway by which children acquire social affective competence.     

Book Reviews

I'll Take You There: An Oral and Photographic History of the Hines Farm Blues Club. Matthew A. Donahue. Forward through the Rearview Mirror: Reflections on and by Marshall McLuhan. Paul Benedetti and Nancy DeHart John Jakes: A Critical Companion. Mary Ellen Jones. The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Poe to the Internet. Shawn James Rosenheim. The Archaeology of Ancient Arizona. Jefferson Reid and Stephanie Whittlesey. Entertaining Tsarist Russia. James von Geldern and Louise McReynolds, eds. The Language of Landscape. Anne Whiston Spirn. Hunting the Wren: Transformation of Bird to Symbol. Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence. The Lost Works of William Carlos Williams: The Volumes of Collected Poetry as Lyrical Sequences. Robert J. Cirasa. For the Time Being: Ethnography of Everyday Life. Richard Quinney. Britannia's Children: Reading Colonialism through Children's Books and Magazines. Kathryn Castle. A Taste for Pop: Pop Art, Gender, and Consumer Culture. Cecile Whiting. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life. Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen. Who Is Andy Warhol? Colin MacCabe, ed. Coming of Age in Cyberspace. David S. Bennahum. Masculinities, Spectatorship, and Contemporary Consumption. Sean Nixon. Ministry and Theology in Global Perspective. Don Pittman, Ruben Habito, Herry Much, eds. Fearless Girls, Wise Women and Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World. Kathleen Ragan, ed. Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning. Ien Agn, Ruth Barcan, Helen Grace, Elaine Laly, Justine Lloyd, and Zoe Sofoulis, eds.