Immigrant Latino Families Saving Against Great Odds: The Case of CSAs and the Prosperity Kids Program

Children’s savings account programs are interventions that seek to engage disadvantaged children and their families in early college saving, cultivate college-saver identities, and reduce disparities in educational and economic outcomes. Existing research has revealed positive effects of CSAs on children’s outcomes, but questions remain about how and for whom CSAs facilitate these outcomes. This study uses account data from 493 accountholders and findings from interviews with 50 participants to examine asset accumulation and savings experiences among mostly low income, Latino families in New Mexico’s Prosperity Kids CSA program. One-third of the families made a deposit into their child’s account designated as “savers” with a median total contribution of $123 and a median account balance, including initial seed deposit, of $345. Longer duration of program enrollment and fewer number of unexcused absences predicted savers status. Qualitative findings highlight emerging college-saver identities, viewed through the framework of identity-based motivation, understood to include salience, normalization of difficulty, and group congruence. Qualitative interview data further suggest that initial seed money, deposit incentives, and withdrawal restrictions were important influences on participants’ saving. These findings suggest CSA features that may encourage positive savings outcomes for economically disadvantaged households and, then, that may have implications for future CSA policy development.     

A Qualitative Analysis of College Women's Leaving Processes in Abusive Relationships

Abstract

Objective: This study assessed the process of leaving an abusive dating relationship utilizing a qualitative design. Methods: Participants included 123 college women in abusive dating relationships who participated at the beginning and end of a 10-week academic quarter. Results: Qualitative content analyses were used to analyze the transcribed responses to an open-ended question about women's leaving processes over the interim period. A variety of categories and themes emerged for women in different stages of the leaving process, consistent with the Transtheoretical Model of Change and Investment Model. Data also underscored women's lack of acknowledgment, minimization, and normalization of abuse. Conclusions: These data demonstrate the importance of dating violence intervention and prevention programming on college campuses and offer information that may be useful to college health providers who assist women in abusive dating relationships.     

Potential Selective Responding in a Parent Questionnaire Study of Post-Institutionalized Children

This study assesses selective responding in a single wave of data collection and a four-wave study. Participants were 121 parents of post-institutionalized children, identified as “never responders,” “previous responders,” or “wave 4 responders.” Parents evaluated their adopted child's family, school, peer, and behavioral adjustment. Children (47% male) were 2 to 20 years old (M = 10.79, SD = 4.59) and adopted between 5 and 54 months of age (M = 15.49, SD = 9.94). Within a single wave of data collection, no evidence suggested that selective responding contributes much bias. Over a multi-wave study, however, results may under-represent adjustment difficulties.     

The social context of hoarding behavior: Building a foundation for sociological study

This paper aims to build a foundation from which sociologists can effectively address hoarding as a social problem embedded in a wider economic, cultural, and historic context. By focusing on practices of consumerism, interior design, collecting and waste disposal, we can see how socially constructed attitudes toward objects are linked with three primary hoarding behaviors: the acquisition of objects, clutter within the home, and difficulty discarding items. The transformation of shopping into a leisurely pastime has created a cultural context in which the acquisition of objects is normal and expected. Arrangement of objects within the home can be used to create of a sense of class membership, and collecting as a hobby and a lifestyle has been socially and economically encouraged since the late 1800s. Finally, a look at disposal practices reveals that the way we get rid of objects can be just as socially dictated as the way we use them. The behaviors associated with hoarding have been historically developed and are actively encouraged in contemporary western society. By examining the social context of hoarding behaviors, we can move toward an understanding of the ways that hoarders and nonhoarders alike navigate the social and economic landscape using material culture.     

Getting Out and About: The Relationship Between Urban Form and Senior Travel Patterns

As the overall U.S. population expands outward from the central city and core suburbs and as people age in place, more seniors will reside in suburban and exurban locations. This research seeks to determine whether older adults who live in areas with differing urban forms experience travel pattern variations under controls for other factors related to travel. We analyzed data from a telephone survey of a random sample of seniors aged 75 years and older and we employed a unique approach for establishing the urban form of their residential settings. The results show that urban form does influence travel patterns, including the number of trips and transportation mode, and suggest that the construction of compact, mixed-use communities where today's older adults can age in place may be part of the solution to addressing the mobility needs of our aging population.     

“I've been independent for so damn long!”: Independence, masculinity and aging in a help seeking context

This paper draws on semi-structured interviews conducted with 36 older men to examine how older men's understandings of independence relate to their help seeking behaviours and health service use. We argue that discourses of masculinity and successful aging are both represented in men's talk about independence. Recognising that these discourses are intertwined is important for understanding how older men seek help and use health services. We outline the practice and policy implications of viewing older men's help seeking behaviours in this way, and how it might be useful for promoting older men's health.     

The search for sustainable communities

Community Voices: Creating Sustainable Spaces, edited by Sally Paulin. Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2006. 256 pp., $35.95 paper.     

Investigating the Acquisition,Generalization, and Emergence of Untrained Verbal Operants for Mands Acquired Using the Picture Exchange Communication System in Adults With Severe Developmental Disabilities

This study compared the total amount of training time and total number of trial blocks for individuals with severe developmental disabilities to acquire mands under control of unconditioned establishing operations and mands under control of transitive conditioned establishing operations for manual sign and for the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS). Also examined was the generalization of mands across settings and communicative partners, as well as the emergence of untrained tacts and intraverbals for mands acquired using PECS. Mands for preferred items and for items needed to complete a chained task were acquired more rapidly and in fewer training blocks for PECS than for manual sign. Moreover, mands established using PECS generalized across settings and communicative partners. Finally, untrained tacts and intraverbals using PECS were shown to emerge for some of the participants following PECS training. These results suggest that PECS may be a viable alternative communication system for adults with severe developmental disabilities who have little or no history of systematic instruction and limited imitative repertoires.     

The changing importance of white women's economic prospects for assortative mating

Given recent changes in the labor force participation and economic standing of women, we ask whether a woman's position in the labor market has become a more important determinant of her position in the marriage market. Unlike much prior research on trends over time in assortative mating, we take an individual‐level approach to the analysis and rely on improved measures of labor market position, such as measuring wives' wages before marriage and considering multiple indicators of husbands' longer term economic standing. Our analysis relies on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women (N = 759) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 767). Our results are consistent with growth over time in the importance of women's earnings potential in determining their marriage prospects.     

What Difference Does Difference Make? The Persistence of Inequalities in Healthcare Delivery

Scholars across many disciplines have amassed a mountain of research documenting how social differences along lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality shape how those who need medical attention are cared for in the US healthcare system. Here, we aim to succinctly review a selection of studies that have considered the many ways both patients' and healthcare providers' social identities can impact care delivery. After establishing how these differences influence patient–provider interactions and patient diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes, we argue that a critical sociological perspective can help us to better understand why these inequities persist despite decades of research calling attention to them. Specifically, we suggest that research guided by symbolic interactionist and intersectional frameworks can generate more comprehensive analyses of inequality in healthcare delivery and help researchers delve deeper into the complex interactional processes undergirding disparities in care provision. We conclude by highlighting recent work that illustrates the value of this approach.