Infants' Responses to Gender‐Inconsistent Events

Toddlers' knowledge of the stereotyping of traditionally feminine and masculine household activities was examined using the preferential looking paradigm. Seventy‐seven 24‐month‐old infants observed a series of 9 pairs of photographs, each portraying a male and female adult engaged in the same stereotyped or gender‐neutral activity (e.g., ironing, hammering, or reading). Longer looking times were predicted on stimuli inconsistent with gender stereotypes (e.g., looking longer at the man putting on lipstick than at the woman). The results suggested that toddlers have acquired some knowledge of the gender stereotyping of feminine activities by their 2nd birthday.     

Global Visions: Global Civil Society and the Lessons of European Environmentalism

To illuminate the obstacles to the development of a global civil society, the experience of the most developed transnational social movement—the environmental movement—in the most developed supranational political system—the European Union—is considered. National differences are shown to be persistent and there is little evidence of Europeanization. It is argued that the impediments to the development of a global civil society are yet greater and that, despite the advent of antiglobalization protests, global civil society remains an aspiration rather thanan accomplished fact     

IDENTIFICATION AND SEPARATISM: Religious Involvement and Racial Orientations Among Black Americans

Using data from the 1979–1980 National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA), this study investigates the relationships between religious involvement and two sets of racial orientations: identification , or feelings of closeness and commonality of interests among blacks, and separatism , or support for cultural and institutional distance from whites. Both public religious participation and private religious devotion are strong positive predictors of racial identification, net of the effects of sociodemographic factors. However, the positive effects of devotion on identification are diminished sharply among blacks over 60 years of age. In addition, members of tradition black denominations (i.e., Baptists and Methodists) express substantially stronger black identity than do their unaffiliated counterparts. In contrast to models of racial identification, religious involvement bears little consistent relationship to separatism. Relatively strong separatist sentiment is found among (1) frequent churchgoers ages 30–59 and (2) adherents of nontraditional religions (e.g., Muslims). In general, these results cast doubt on the arguments of some critics of the black church, who claim that religion undermines collective identification. Mainstream black religious culture appears to encourage inclusive, but not exclusive, racial solidarity.     

Constituents’ economic interests and senator support for spending limitations

Peltzman [Peltzman, S., 1984. Constituent interest and congressional voting. Journal of Law and Economics 27, 181–210] argues that if constituents’ economic interests have well-defined “winners and losers” and are appropriately measured, then constituents’ economic interests, and not legislator ideology, are the most important determinates of legislator voting. We test Peltzman's theory by examining senatorial voting on three mandated spending limitation bills. We find, consistent with Peltzman's theory, that the ratio of federal spending in a senator's state to federal taxes paid by that state, and not a senator's personal ideology, matters on legislation where there are well-defined economic “winners and losers.” This is particularly important because unlike other constituents’ economic interest measures that only impact a fraction of the constituency, the ratio of federal spending to federal taxes in a state represents the economic interests of all the constituents in a state.     

General Job Satisfaction From a Developmental Perspective: Exploring Choice—Job Matches at Two Career Stages

The authors explored predictions of general job satisfaction at early and middle adulthood and uncovered several findings about developmental processes associated with job satisfaction. Tests of life‐span career theory propositions revealed that neither choice‐job congruence nor gender added significantly to predictions of job satisfaction at 2 career stages. Earlier occupational choice and current job added to predictions of midcareer (modal age 43 years) job satisfaction, especially for men. The predictability of job satisfaction is apparently influenced by the career stage when satisfaction is appraised.     

Neighborhood Structure,Social Organization,and Number of Short‐Term Sexual Partnerships

We examine the relationship between neighborhood structural characteristics, social organization, and the sexual partnering practices of adults. Analyses of 1990 census and 1995–1997 survey‐based data on Chicago neighborhoods and adult sexual activity reveal for men a number of neighborhood influences on sexual partnering practices. First, residential stability is negatively associated with having a short‐term sexual partner in the last year. Second, neighborhood social ties are positively associated with short‐term sexual partnering in neighborhoods with low levels of collective efficacy—the combination of cohesion and shared expectations for beneficial action among neighbors—but this effect is substantially reduced as collective efficacy increases. Moreover, neighborhood collective efficacy and social ties mediate the effect of residential stability on sexual partnering practices. Neighborhood characteristics were not associated with short‐term sexual partnering for women.     

'The Tribunal was the most stressful thing: more stressful than my son's diagnosis or behaviour': the experiences of families who go to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SENDisT)

It is more than 10 years since the Special Educational Needs Tribunal was established in 1994 as an independent panel which arbitrates in disputes between parents of children with the label special educational needs and Local Education Authorities (LEAs) in England. In 2002 the Tribunal began hearing claims for disability discrimination and was re-named the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SENDisT). Since 1994 over 20,000 appeals have been registered. This article, which forms part of my ongoing Ph.D. thesis 'Parents as advocates: the experience of parents who register an appeal with SENDisT', offers an analysis of parents' Tribunal stories. Here, the key question is what affect the process of going to SENDisT has on the social, emotional and financial well-being of the family. Through a process of narrative inquiry the aim is to foreground parents' unheard stories and to reveal their 'hidden' experiences.     

Partner Choice and the Differential Retreat From Marriage

The contemporary retreat from marriage in the United States has had a differential impact across socioeconomic and racial groups. Here, 1990 marriage rates and propensities for Virginia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin are analyzed regarding (a) the likelihood that persons in different groups ever marry and (b) patterns of partner choice with respect to race and educational level. Marriage remains strong in most race‐education groups but is substantially lower among Blacks and among those with less than 12 years of education. Patterns of partner choice have shifted to show greater symmetry between the educational levels of brides and grooms. Changes have been modest with regard to the level and pattern of interracial (Black‐White) marriage. Marriage is increasingly a union of equals, but a union chosen more by Whites than by Blacks and more by the well educated than by the poorly educated.