Structure and process in occupational mobility

The distinction between structure and process in occupational mobility has been a dominant theme in contemporary research. While successive attempts to “solve” the structure/process dilemma have typically focused on new methodological procedures, we emphasize the conceptual issues underlying the distinction as a basis for further analysis. We introduce a simple two-stage model for the specification of mobility structure and process and use this model to evaluate current methodological “solutions” to the analysis of mobility.     

Race,Rural Residence,and Wildland Visitation: Examining the Influence of Sociocultural Meaning1

Abstract Previous studies have shown that African Americans have less favorable impressions about wildlands and recreate on wildland areas less frequently than do whites. However, most of these investigations have been conducted on non-rural populations. Rural perceptions of wildlands and visitation to such areas have received relatively little attention. In this exploratory study, we propose that race operates on wildland recreation visitation through the different meanings rural blacks and whites attribute to wildlands. We examine this hypothesis with a structural model which specifies wildland meaning as an intervening factor between race and visitation. Single equation results show blacks visit wildlands less, and have less favorable definitions of wildlands, compared to whites. However, when wildland meaning is included in the structural model, racial differences become insignificant. This suggests that the meanings different racial groups attach to wildlands help explain visitation. Both sex and age are also significant predictors of both wildland meaning and visitation.     

The Status Attainment Paradigm: An Application of a Kuhnian Perspective*

A Kuhnian approach to the structure of scientific research is used to examine the historical development of the status attainment paradigm in sociology. A content analysis of applications, critiques, and alternatives to the status attainment model over the last decade illustrates the “life-cycle” phases of a scientific research area that are suggested by Kuhn. The analysis reveals an extension or elaboration of the paradigmatic research effort throughout early years of the decade. However, the perception of “anomalies” by critics of the research tradition, coupled with the increasing exploration of alternative approaches, suggests the onset of a crisis stage for status attainment research.     

Survey of manufacturing curricula from around the world

In the manufacturing organization cost or more specifically cost reduction is an everyday obsession with managers and engineers. To compete globally and win new contracts, manufacturing firms need to learn how to be responsive, lean and efficient. On the other hand, in order to retain and motivate workers, improve systems efficiency and conform to various regulations including health, safety and the environment, manufacturing firms need to continuously invest. Both opposing pressures create a challenging environment for manufacturing managers and engineers. This paper introduces research into how the manufacturing environment is changing and in particular the type of issues that manufacturing managers and engineers need to learn. The paper presents the first results of a study being conducted by a number of academic institutions and industries from around the world into manufacturing education issues. The principle aim of the research consortium is to anticipate the needs of manufacturing organization of the future and to provide a framework for curriculum development within universities that meet these needs. This paper specifically outlines the results of a study of existing manufacturing curricula from around the world and takes an in-depth look at four recently developed masters programmes.     

‘A moral millstone'?: British humanitarian governance and the policy of liberated African apprenticeship, 1808–1848

Between 1808 and 1848, under the terms of the Abolition Act, thousands of liberated Africans were distributed as apprentices to private citizens in the colony of Sierra Leone. In 1847, Governor Fergusson described apprenticeship, by that date primarily of children, as ‘a moral millstone round the necks’ of the colony's population. The Liberated African Department in particular was singled out by many contemporary European critics as unable or unwilling to monitor the whereabouts of apprentice children and to police the welfare obligations placed on apprentice-holders. This article explores a policy that was identified with widespread patterns of abuse, neglect and re-enslavement, and considers contemporary critiques in terms of underlying anxieties regarding the efficacy of humanitarian governance and the possibility of a post-slavery world.     

A Randomized Clinical Trial of Online Stress Inoculation for Adult Children of Divorce

Interventions for helping young adults cope with the stress produced by their parents’ divorce are rarely described or evaluated. Transitions, derived from a stress inoculation framework, was designed to foster stress-coping and parent–young adult relationship skills via the Internet. Participants (95 young adult college students who had experienced parental separation or divorce within the past year) were randomly assigned to experimental and delayed-treatment control conditions. Intervention modules included psychoeducation, relaxation, mindfulness meditation, cognitive restructuring, and communication skills. A multivariate analysis of variance yielded a significant treatment-by-repeated-measures interaction; univariate follow-up analyses of variance showed improvement on stress but not on relationship variables measuring quality of relationship with mother or father. Neither moderator nor intent-to-treat analyses altered this outcome pattern.