Are veterans healthier? Military service and health at age 40 in the all-volunteer era

I explore the relationship between active-duty military service and self-reported health measured at age 40. Based on selectivity, veterans of active-duty service might be expected to have better health than civilians. Using data taken from the NLSY-79, I show that this is not the case. Although veterans of reserve-duty service, and nonveterans who passed the military’s physical exam for entrance into the military report better physical health, active-duty veterans do not. The lower than expected self-reported health of active-duty veterans cannot be explained by differences on confounding variables such as income, education, and marital status. In addition, the lower physical health of these veterans cannot be explained by differences in health-related behaviors such as excessive alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and body mass index.     

Life course transitions in early adulthood and SES disparities in tobacco use

A huge literature has documented adult socioeconomic disparities in smoking but says less about how these disparities emerge over the life course. Building on findings that smoking among adolescents differs only modestly by parental SES, we utilize a life course perspective on social differentiation to help explain the widening disparities in smoking in young adulthood. Our theory suggests that achieved socioeconomic status and the nature and timing of adult role transitions affect age-based trajectories of smoking and widen disparities in adult smoking. The analyses use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which follows a representative national sample over four waves from ages 11–17 in 1994/1995 to 26–34 in 2007/2008. The results show divergent age trajectories in smoking by parental education and that achieved socioeconomic status and life course roles in young adulthood account in good part for differences in the age trajectories. The findings demonstrate the value of the life course perspective in understanding processes of increasing stratification in health behavior and health during the transition to adulthood.     

Parental and adolescent health behaviors and pathways to adulthood

This paper examines associations among parental and adolescent health behaviors and pathways to adulthood. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we identify a set of latent classes describing pathways into adulthood and examine health-related predictors of these pathways. The identified pathways are consistent with prior research using other sources of data. Results also show that both adolescent and parental health behaviors differentiate pathways. Parental and adolescent smoking are associated with lowered probability of the higher education pathway and higher likelihood of the work and the work & family pathways (entry into the workforce soon after high school completion). Adolescent drinking is positively associated with the work pathway and the higher education pathway, but decreases the likelihood of the work & family pathway. Neither parental nor adolescent obesity are associated with any of the pathways to adulthood. When combined, parental/adolescent smoking and adolescent drinking are associated with displacement from the basic institutions of school, work, and family.     

学校心理辅导活动课评价问题探讨

学校心理辅导活动课是学校心理健康教育的主要形式 ,学校心理辅导活动课的特点决定了对其评价的特殊性 ;对学校心理辅导活动的评价需遵循四个原则 ;现有对学校心理辅导活动课评价的经验告诉我们 ,对学校心理辅导活动课的评价必须建构一个有别于一般学科课程标准的指标体系。     

Preferences,constraints, and the process of sex segregation in college majors: A choice analysis

The persistence of horizontal sex segregation in higher education continues to puzzle social scientists. To help resolve this puzzle, we analyze a sample of college entrants in Germany with a discrete choice design that allows for social learning from the experiences of others. We make at least two contributions to the state of research. First, we test whether essentialist gender stereotypes affect major selection mostly through internalization or rather as external constraints that high school graduates adapt their behavior to. Empirically, we find that internalized vocational interests better explain gendered major choices than conformance with friends' and parents' expectations does. Second, we scrutinize whether segregation results from women's anticipation of gendered family roles or from their anticipation of sex-based discrimination, but we find no evidence for either of these hypotheses. As in most previous studies, differences in mathematics achievement fail to explain gendered patterns of selection into college majors.     

Intermediate peer contexts and educational outcomes: Do the friends of students' friends matter?

Sociologists of education have long been interested in the effects of peer relations on educational outcomes. Recent theory and research on adolescence suggest that peers on the boundaries of students' friendship networks may play an important role in shaping behaviors and educational outcomes. In this study, we examine the importance of a key “intermediate peer context” for students' outcomes: the friends of a student's friends. Our findings indicate both friends' and friends' friends' characteristics independently predict students' college expectations and their risk of dropping out of high school (although only friends' characteristics predict GPA). Our models suggest the magnitude of students' friends-of-friends’ characteristics are at least as large their friends' characteristics. Together, the association between the peer context and students outcomes is considerably larger when accounting for both the characteristics of students' friends and the friends of their friends.     

How does gun violence affect Americans’ trust in each other?

This article examines how Americans' actual experience of gun victimization affects their trust in others and how this further connects to the widely-discussed association between gun crime and trust at the place level. Analyzing data from the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS), I find that, regardless when it occurred in life, Americans who were victimized by guns trust much less in others than those who had no such experience. In terms of the size of the effect, repeated gun victimization has the strongest effect, followed by adulthood victimization, and then childhood victimization. I also find that individuals who later achieve higher socioeconomic status are better able to recover from the psychological effect of childhood gun victimization, lending support for the experiential theory of trust that people can update their trust according to changing experiences later in life. Finally, combing the GSS data with data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I also show that higher percentages of nonfatal and fatal gun violence victims lead to lower levels of trust both across and within the U.S. census divisions over time. Findings of this study demonstrate that America's gun violence affects not only just those killed, injured, or present during gunfire, but it can also sabotage the social and psychological well-being of all Americans.     

Educational expectations and the rise in women’s post-secondary attainments

This study examines the gender difference in educational expectations among black, white, and Hispanic high school seniors in 1972 and 1992. We link gender-related changes in expectations to students’ perceived parental encouragement for higher education and access to college-preparatory coursework, and then examine the influence of expectations on subsequent educational attainments. In contrast to 1972, girls in 1992 perceived their parents to be equally or more encouraging of their pursuit of higher education than did boys, and girls were more likely to be enrolled in college preparatory coursework. The changes were most dramatic among white students, and the rise in expectations among high school girls independently contributes to their recent advances in higher education.     

Family structure and the intergenerational transmission of educational advantage

I examine whether the effect of parents’ education on children’s educational achievement and attainment varies by family structure and, if so, whether this can be explained by differential parenting practices. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, I find that as parents’ education increases, children in single mother families experience a lower boost in their achievement test scores, likelihood of attending any post-secondary schooling, likelihood of completing a 4-year college degree, and years of completed schooling relative to children living with both biological parents. Differences in parents’ educational expectations, intergenerational closure, and children’s involvement in structured leisure activities partially explain these status transmission differences by family structure. The findings imply that, among children with highly educated parents, children of single mothers are less likely to be highly educated themselves relative to children who grow up with both biological parents.     

The socioeconomic consequences of dropping out of high school: Evidence from an analysis of siblings

There is widespread belief that dropping out of high school leads to economic hardship. This belief rests on tenuous evidence. High school dropouts likely face an increased risk of economic hardship because of differences beyond a high school diploma. In particular, dropouts are more likely to come from disadvantaged backgrounds and thus face an elevated risk of economic hardship. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 Cohort, I estimate the consequences of dropping out by comparing dropouts to their siblings who completed high school. I also present OLS regression estimates using the same data. OLS regression estimates are consistently higher than sibling fixed effects estimates with the largest discrepancy occurring between estimates of the effect of dropping out on income-to-poverty ratio. However, the sibling fixed effect estimates reveal that dropping out has an effect on economic hardship net of unobserved background characteristics that are shared by siblings. I conclude with a discussion of how recent policy shifts affect the economic standing of low-ability students and suggest avenues for future research.     

Foreign-born health integration during the transition to adulthood: The case of weight

Nativity differences in youths’ health in the United States are striking—the children of foreign-born parents often have healthier outcomes than those of native-born parents. However, very little is known about how immigrant-native differences evolve within the same individuals over time, or about life cycle aspects of the health-related integration of youth with migration backgrounds. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, I examine nativity differences in trajectories of weight gain during adolescence and early adulthood, as well as the degree to which temporal patterns are stratified by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. I examine whether nativity differences converge, diverge or remain stable over time, and whether patterns are socially stratified within and across nativity groups. I find that first-generation adolescents begin at a lower weight than their third generation peers and gain weight at a significantly slower pace, resulting in meaningful differences by early adulthood. More complex examination of the relationship between nativity and weight gain reveals additional differences by ethnicity: the foreign-born advantage over time does not extend as strongly to Hispanic adolescents. The findings demonstrate how the health-related integration of foreign-born youth is tied to race/ethnicity and socioeconomic circumstances, and suggest the need to examine the ways in which social circumstances and health change together.     

大学校园暴力行为的分析与教育对策探究

当今大学校园十分突出的暴力事件多少折射和暴露了当今教育中存在的学校教育与家庭教育脱节、学校教育体制不健全等问题。为此,教育所应作出的对策是构建学校、家庭与社会三位一体的教育体系,树立以人为本的教育理念,加强重视大学生的心理健康以及关注、关心贫困大学生的生活现实。     

Offspring education and parental mortality: Evidence from South Asia

Decades of research show that education not only confers individual health benefits, but it also spills over to advantage subsequent generations. More recently, research has confirmed that the intergenerational health benefits of education can also flow upward: aging adults with more highly educated children experience better health and higher survival. Research has documented this finding in high-income settings, and also in select low- and middle-income contexts, raising questions about how having an adult child who attended relatively low levels of education can benefit aging parents' well-being. In this study, we use multilevel, long-term panel data on a cohort of older adults from the Chitwan Valley Family Study in rural Nepal to establish whether the association between offspring education and parents' survival is observable in this extremely poor, agrarian context. Extending past studies, we then leverage additional data on older adults to examine the association between offspring education and two theorized mechanisms: older adults' better health behaviors and their greater support in later life.     

美国教师专业发展学校对我国教育发展的经验与启示

产生于20世纪80年代末期的美国教师专业发展学校(Professional Development School,简称PDS)是由大学与中小学合作,以中小学为基地,融职前教师培养、在职教师培训和学校改革为一体的教师教育新模式,强调学校是教师专业发展的场所,关注大学与中小学的有效合作。本文主要新解美国教师专业发展学校(PDS)的成功经验并反思其教育性启示。     

Student misbehavior during senior year: A comparison of immigrants and the native-born

Prior research has increasingly shown that the length of time in the U.S. and acculturation may have negative effects on a variety of immigrant outcomes, including academic performance, health, and occupational attainment. However, much of the research on the educational outcomes of immigrants focuses primarily on their academic achievement but neglects another factor that affects educational success—behavior at school. Using data from a sample of high school seniors in several Pacific Northwest school districts, I examine whether more time in the U.S. increases school misbehavior by testing the effects of immigrant generation and indicators of acculturation on three measures of disciplinary problems during the senior year of high school—attending class unprepared, getting in trouble for breaking school rules, and being put on suspension. First and one-point-five generation immigrants attend class more prepared and get into less trouble for breaking the school rules than do third or higher generation students during their senior year of high school. High academic performance and indicators of acculturation explain only part of this beneficial effect of immigrant generation on behavior at school. Additional analyses show that second generation Asian immigrants are more similar to first and 1.5 generation immigrants from all racial and ethnic groups than they are from other second generation racial and ethnic groups in regards to moderate and intermediate behavior.     

师范生心理健康教育问题与对策研究

师范生作为一类特殊的学生群体,承载着社会和家庭的双重期望和压力,他们的心理健康对社会教育工作具有重要影响。文章阐述了师范生心理健康教育的重要性,找出了目前师范高校心理健康教育存在的问题及原因,在此基础之上提出了相应的对策,并建议高校从自身实际情况出发,加大经费投入,拓展师范生心理健康教育的新途径。     

Vocational education and employment over the life course using a new measure of occupational specificity

Vocational education is seen as beneficial for the labor market allocation of young people. However, recent studies point to disadvantages later in the life course, where the specific skills that are obtained from vocational education decrease employability. This paper re-evaluates this hypothesis for the Netherlands with an improved measure for the vocational specificity of educational programs, utilizing both vertical (level) and horizontal (field) information on education. More specifically, we use a gradual measure for the linkage strength between education and occupation to predict employment over the life course. Using data from the national Dutch labor force surveys, we show that there is considerable heterogeneity in occupational specificity within the categories of vocational and general educational programs that is masked when using a dichotomous classification of general versus vocational education. In the life course analyses we find that the large early benefits of having vocational education disappear later in the career and turn into a small disadvantage before retirement.     

The long reach of parental incarceration: The case of institutional engagement

Vast surveillance, especially of those with criminal justice contact, is a key feature of contemporary societies. As a consequence of this surveillance, formerly incarcerated individuals both avoid and are excluded from institutions, and this dampened institutional engagement may extend to offspring of the incarcerated. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we examine the relationship between parental incarceration and young adult institutional engagement in different settings, including financial institutions, medical institutions, school and work, volunteer organizations, and religious institutions. We find parental incarceration is associated with diminished institutional engagement in young adulthood. This association is partially explained by reduced parental institutional engagement during adolescence in addition to young adult's impaired health, lack of trust in government, and criminal justice contact. Our findings highlight a subtle and pervasive way that parental incarceration influences the transition to adulthood.     

How do they do it? The immigrant paradox in the transition to adulthood

How do children of immigrants consistently outperform children of native-born U.S. parents, in spite of lower familial resources? Using the Transition to Adulthood Study of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, children of immigrant and native-born parents completing high school in 2005–13 are followed as they move into the young adult years. Children of immigrants are more likely to enroll in college, be employed or in school, and less likely to have a criminal record as young adults or to have a child than children of nonimmigrants. This is not a result of immigrant parentage but due primarily to greater parental educational expectations; immigrants enjoy a differential return to parental expectations for boys' college enrollment as well. Reading skills and activity patterns in the secondary school years also contribute to better outcomes. Children of immigrants are better able to translate their reading comprehension skills to college or employment later on.     

Measuring students' school context exposures: A trajectory-based approach

Studies of school effects on children's outcomes usually use single time-point measures. I argue that this approach fails to account for (1) age-based variation in children's sensitivity to their surroundings; (2) differential effects stemming from differences in the length of young people's exposures; and (3) moves between contexts and endogenous changes over time within them. To evaluate the merits of this argument, I specify and test a longitudinal model of school effects on children's academic performance. Drawing on recent advances in finite mixture modeling, I identify a series of distinct school context trajectories that extend across a substantial portion of respondents' elementary and secondary school years. I find that these trajectories vary significantly with respect to shape, with some students experiencing significant changes in their environments over time. I then show that students' trajectories of exposure are related to their 8th grade achievement, even after controlling for point-in-time measures of school context.