Should a Question on ‘Religion’ be Asked in the 2001 British Census? A Public Policy Case in Favour

For the first time since the voluntary census in 1851, a question on religion will be asked in the 2001 Census for England and Wales and for Scotland. The justification given in the White Paper is that the information will enhance output from the ethnicity question, especially for groups originating from the Indian subcontinent. The decision has attracted criticism on the grounds that religion is a private and sensitive matter not suitable for a census and that the information yielded by the question will be of limited or no value. This paper contends that a question on religion should be asked and presents the main arguments in favour. In addition to enabling ethnic minority subgroups to be identified, it will provide counts for groups like Muslims and Jews that are currently invisible in ethnicity classifications. Information on religions will meet government needs arising from the increasing involvement of faith communities as collaborators in urban regeneration and health improvement and statutory requirements relating to such matters as standing advisory councils on religious education and local authority obligations under the Children Act 1989. It will also provide an evidence base for facilitating the identification of discrimination on religious grounds. However, the utility of the category 'Christian' in the question for England and Wales—in contrast to the broad subdivisions of Christianity in the Scotland question—is questioned, given that for some ethnic groups 'Catholic' and 'Protestant' are important cultural markers of difference. These developments merit critical review by professionals and the wider society.     

Individual Differences in Infant Skills as Predictors of Child-Caregiver Joint Attention and Language

Current research suggests that the extent to which child-caregiver dyads engage in interactions involving episodes of joint or coordinated attention can have a significant impact on early lexical acquisition. In this regard it has been recognized that individual differences in early developing child communication skills, such as capacity to follow gaze and early infant language, may contribute to these child-caregiver interactional patterns, as well as to subsequent language development. To address this expectation, 21 infant-parent dyads were recruited for participation in a longitudinal study. Early infant language, responding to joint attention skill, and cognitive development were assessed at 12 months of age. Child-caregiver joint attention episodes, as well as responding to joint attention skill and child language, were assessed at 18 months of age. Developmental outcome, using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II, was assessed at 21 and 24 months of age. Consistent with previous findings, results indicated that individual differences in child-caregiver episodes of joint attention were related to language at 18 months. In addition, though, 12 month vocabulary and responding to joint attention skill were associated with some aspects of 18 month child-caregiver interaction, as well as subsequent language development. In general, 12 month child measures and 18 month child-caregiver interaction measures appeared to make unique contributions to language development in this sample. These results suggest the need to further consider the role of infant skills in the connections between child-caregiver joint attention episodes and language development.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Editorial

     

Grouped zero-inflated count data models of coital frequency

Various count data models are applied to data collected from a sample of Norfolk young persons, who were asked how many times they had had sexual intercourse during the previous two-week period. The models take account of the fact that the data are “grouped”, meaning that for some observations, the count is not known exactly but is known to fall in a particular range. Using a formal testing procedure, we find overwhelming evidence of the presence of excess zeros, and this we attribute to the fact that, at any time, a certain proportion of the population are sexually inactive. Our final model contains two equations, the first being the participation equation which determines whether an individual is sexually active, and the second being the frequency equation which determines the count, conditional on being active. Age, gender, salary, occupational status, marital status and type of living environment all have interesting effects on either participation or frequency. Since a significant proportion of the original sample declined to reveal coital frequency, we address the potential problem of selection bias by including a Heckman-type correction term during the model selection process. Received: 27 November 1998/Accepted: 19 May 1999     

Nesting Monte Carlo EM for high-dimensional item factor analysis

The item factor analysis model for investigating multidimensional latent spaces has proved to be useful. Parameter estimation in this model requires computationally demanding high-dimensional integrations. While several approaches to approximate such integrations have been proposed, they suffer various computational difficulties. This paper proposes a Nesting Monte Carlo Expectation-Maximization (MCEM) algorithm for item factor analysis with binary data. Simulation studies and a real data example suggest that the Nesting MCEM approach can significantly improve computational efficiency while also enjoying the good properties of stable convergence and easy implementation.     

Endurance performance in masters athletes

Masters athletes are typically older than 35 years of age and systematically train for, and compete in, organized forms of sport specifically designed for older adults. They are motivated to participate in masters sport for a wide variety of reasons. Age-related declines in endurance performance are observed across the endurance sports of running, orienteering, rowing, and swimming. These declines are curvilinear from age 35 years until approximately age 60–70 years and exponential thereafter. The decline in endurance performance appears primarily due to an age-related decrease in VO_2max secondary to an age-related decrease in HR_max and possible age-related declines in stroke volume and arteriovenous oxygen difference. While performance velocity at lactate threshold decreases with age in masters endurance athletes, it appears to increase relative to VO_2max while exercise economy is maintained. There also appears an age-related decrease in active muscle mass, type II muscle fiber size, and blood volume that contribute to decreased endurance performance. However, research suggests that maintenance of training intensity and volume into older age may mediate the rate of age-related decline in VO_2max, stroke volume, arteriovenous oxygen difference, blood volume, and muscle mass in masters endurance athletes.