THE IMPLICATIONS OF CHOOSING "NO RACE" ON THE SALIENCE OF HISPANIC IDENTITY: How Racial and Ethnic Backgrounds Intersect among Hispanic Adolescents

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative sample of youth from 7th to 12th grades, we examined how racial and ethnic identification overlap among Hispanic adolescents. We evaluated the relative proximity between race and ethnic identifiers among Hispanics. Empirical analyses suggest that the racial identification of other students at school has a significant impact on the odds of choosing particular racial identifiers. Both Hispanic and non-Hispanic schoolmates' racial identification is related to the racial identification of Hispanic adolescents. We also find evidence that both ethnicity and race are distinct stratifiers among Hispanics. Overall, our findings support the notion that Hispanic may be a more meaningful "racial" identity than black, white, or other, but we also find that racial identification and ethnic background are still important and meaningful dividers among Hispanic youth.     

Household debt and financial assets: evidence from Germany, Great Britain and the USA

Summary.  We explore the determinants of debt, financial assets and net worth at the household level by using survey data for Germany, Great Britain and the USA. To identify which households are potentially vulnerable to adverse changes in the economic environment, we also explore the determinants of a range of measures of financial pressure: the probability that a household has negative net worth; the debt-to-income ratio; mortgage income gearing; the saving-to-income ratio. Our empirical findings suggest that the poorest and the youngest households are the most vulnerable to adverse changes in their financial circumstances.     

How Welfare Policies Affect Adolescents' School Outcomes: A Synthesis of Evidence From Experimental Studies

Using data from 8 random assignment studies and employing meta‐analytic techniques, this article provides systematic evidence that welfare and work policies targeted at low‐income parents have small adverse effects on some school outcomes among adolescents ages 12 to 18 years at follow‐up. These adverse effects were observed mostly for school performance outcomes and occurred in programs that required mothers to work or participate in employment‐related activities and those that encouraged mothers to work voluntarily. The most pronounced negative effects on school outcomes occurred for the group of adolescents who had a younger sibling, possibly because of the increased home and sibling care responsibilities they assumed as their mothers increased their employment.     

Transnational Migration: Bringing Gender In

This article aims to bring gender into an even tighter transnational migration focus by broadening and deepening our original framework of “gendered geographies of power,” linking it more directly to existing and emerging scholarship. We examine and highlight previously neglected areas such as the role of the state and the social imaginary in gendering transnational processes and experiences. We identify topics that remain under‐appreciated, under‐researched, and/or under‐theorized. Finally, we initiate a discussion of how a gendered analysis of transnational migration can help bridge this particular research to other gendered transnational processes under study that do not privilege migration.     

Preparing Parents for Adoption: An Agency Experience

To prepare for the complexities of family formation, 78 prospective adoptive parents participated in Pre-Adopt, a psychosocial educational orientation program offered by one private nonprofit agency. The five-session curriculum included an overview of adoption policies and procedures, discussion of the child placement process, exploration of couples' adoption concerns and expectations about child characteristics, information about adoption laws and birth-parent/child searches, and examination of anticipatory fantasies about birth parents. Program evaluation yielded statistically significant and clinically meaningful findings about changes in emotional readiness to adopt, parenting knowledge, and satisfaction with group participation, adoption policies and agency practices. Practice implications are considered.     

Dose-Response and Risk Assessment of Airborne Hexavalent Chromium and Lung Cancer Mortality

This study evaluates the dose-response relationship for inhalation exposure to hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] and lung cancer mortality for workers of a chromate production facility, and provides estimates of the carcinogenic potency. The data were analyzed using relative risk and additive risk dose-response models implemented with both Poisson and Cox regression. Potential confounding by birth cohort and smoking prevalence were also assessed. Lifetime cumulative exposure and highest monthly exposure were the dose metrics evaluated. The estimated lifetime additional risk of lung cancer mortality associated with 45 years of occupational exposure to 1 microg/m3 Cr(VI) (occupational exposure unit risk) was 0.00205 (90%CI: 0.00134, 0.00291) for the relative risk model and 0.00216 (90%CI: 0.00143, 0.00302) for the additive risk model assuming a linear dose response for cumulative exposure with a five-year lag. Extrapolating these findings to a continuous (e.g., environmental) exposure scenario yielded an environmental unit risk of 0.00978 (90%CI: 0.00640, 0.0138) for the relative risk model [e.g., a cancer slope factor of 34 (mg/kg-day)-1] and 0.0125 (90%CI: 0.00833, 0.0175) for the additive risk model. The relative risk model is preferred because it is more consistent with the expected trend for lung cancer risk with age. Based on statistical tests for exposure-related trend, there was no statistically significant increased lung cancer risk below lifetime cumulative occupational exposures of 1.0 mg-yr/m3, and no excess risk for workers whose highest average monthly exposure did not exceed the current Permissible Exposure Limit (52 microg/m3). It is acknowledged that this study had limited power to detect increases at these low exposure levels. These cancer potency estimates are comparable to those developed by U.S. regulatory agencies and should be useful for assessing the potential cancer hazard associated with inhaled Cr(VI).