Race and Gender Differences in Workplace Autonomy: A Research Note

While many studies have focused on race and gender differences in monetary labor market rewards, few studies have used national samples to examine race and gender differences in nonmonetary labor process rewards. Utilizing multivariate analysis on data from the 1993 and 1997 National Employee Survey, the present study examines how race and gender interact in shaping workplace autonomy. We regress an index of autonomy on human capital, structural level variables, and race and gender interaction terms. Findings show that black and white females, relative to white males, fare worse net of controls for human capital and structural level variables. Black males fare worse than white males when controlling for human capital but this disadvantage fails to retain its significant effect when controlling for structural level variables. We conclude that contrary to some beliefs that black females have experienced greater success in the labor market as a result of affirmative action policies, black females remain hindered by the double jeopardy of race and gender.     

Social Capital and Participation in Community Improvement Activities by Elderly Residents in Small Towns and Rural Communities*

Abstract This study critically reviews theoretical concepts and measurements of social capital and tests hypotheses that elaborate how four dimensions of social capital (informal social ties, formal social ties, trust, and norms of collective action) and sense of community are related to participation in community improvement activities for elderly residents in small towns and rural communities. Mail surveys of 2,802 elders in 99 small towns and rural communities in Iowa reveal that many elders are actively involved in their community. Social capital and sense of community are very important in predicting elderly participation in community improvement activities, but they relate differently to elderly community involvement. Formal ties and sense of community have much stronger relationships with community involvement than informal ties and norms of collective action. Generalized trust is not significantly related to elderly community involvement.     

Community Support for a Gold Cyanide Process Mine: Resident and Leader Differences in Rural Montana*

Abstract Previous studies have established that community residents and leaders differ in their support for hazardous waste facility siting in rural areas (Spies et al. 1998). We examine whether these same differences exist in rural communities that face other high‐risk development decisions by analyzing resident and leader support for a proposed gold cyanide process (GCP) mine in Montana. Compared to proposed hazardous waste facilities, a much stronger predictor of both resident and leader support in the GCP mine context is recreancy, or distrust in institutions and outside interveners. However, perceived economic benefits remain key differences between residents and leaders in both the GCP mine and hazardous waste facility cases.     

Training Camp on Safe Motherhood in Rural India: A Research Note

ABSTRACT

The Center for Women Studies at the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani (Rajasthan), India made an effort to combine theory and practice by implementing some of the discussions of an international conference that the center had organized on safe motherhood. A clinic was set up as a medical training camp in a village near Pilani. Measures to ensure safe motherhood included check-ups, interventions, advocacy, and counseling at the grassroots level. As a follow-up, the center has adopted the 12 by 12 initiative of the Government of India to ensure that each child has a percentage hemoglobin of 12 grams by the age of 12 years with special focus on adolescent girls.     

The Making and Breaking of Food Preservation Practices in a Rural Albertan Community

Amid growing concerns over nutrition, food safety, and the relationship between health and environment, anxiety about the general deskilling around food‐related activities has garnered significant public interest and academic inquiry. Mainstream agriculture commodity and retail food chains are failing to meet the concerns citizens are expressing about their food. This has contributed to a relearning of skills of procuring, preparing, and preserving food. This qualitative study looks at the practice of home preserving in a rural Albertan community through a social practice theory framework. I test two premises set out by Shove, Pantzar and Watson (2012): First, social practices consist of three elements (materials, competencies, and meanings) that are integrated when practices are enacted; second, that practices emerge, persist, and disappear as links among these defining elements are made and broken. I demonstrate how the integration of the elements enabled canning as a practice to flourish during a certain period. I then explore how the disintegration of the elements contributed to the decline of the same practice in later years. By examining the connections and breakages in the links between materials, meanings, and competencies, I illustrate the essentiality of integration of elements in order for practices to exist.     

Gender Differences in Job Challenge: A Matter of Task Allocation

Challenging job experiences are considered important prerequisites for management development and career success. Several researchers have suggested that women are given fewer challenging assignments than their male colleagues. To test this idea we performed two studies. The first examined possible gender differences in challenging job experiences at middle job levels. The results indicated that female employees had fewer challenging experiences in their jobs than their male counterparts. The second explored the proposition that differential assignment of challenging tasks to male and female subordinates underlies gender differences in job challenge. The results indeed suggest that supervisors' task allocation decisions are not gender‐blind and may result in women having fewer challenging job experiences than men.     

店口样本:小城镇发展的新路径

2010年,浙江省在全国率先开展小城市培育试点,作为首批27个小城市培育试点之一的店口因小城镇建设效果显著而备受关注,本文从钱、地、人、权四个关键方面对小城镇建设的"店口样本"进行综合观察,在此基础上总结店口特色的城镇化经验,为浙江省制定相关城镇化的改革政策以及各地未来新型城镇化的推进提供有益的启示和借鉴。同时,本文还探讨了在店口小城市培育试点新三年行动计划的突破口上,如何实现人口集聚、产业、城市管理的全面整体升级,高质高效的实现向新城的跨越。     

Community Resiliency in Declining Small Towns: Impact of Population Loss on Quality of Life over 20 Years

This analysis seeks to understand why some small towns have improved quality of life (QoL) over the past 20 years despite sizable population losses. Using a longitudinal data set of small towns in Iowa collected every 10 years since 1994, I measure the resiliency or vulnerability of declining towns based on change in subjective QoL, and then model the socioeconomic correlates along a resilient‐decline index. Community resiliency is enhanced by the process of creating bridging social capital, not the quantity available for use. By contrast, the quantity of both internal and external linking social capital promotes resiliency by linking residents to local and outside power structures, but the growth of these linkages has no impact. Bonding social capital indirectly helps resiliency by increasing internal linkages that foster local participation, but hinders it by decreasing external ones that limit access to outside resources. Jobs in goods‐producing industries like manufacturing directly promote resiliency by providing more secure employment, plus indirectly promote it by increasing bridging ties and external linkages. Growing poverty and income disparities make declining places more vulnerable by reducing QoL and external linkages. I discuss local strategies promoting resiliency and QoL.     

Community Attachment in a Rural Setting: A Refinement and Empirical Test of the Systemic Model1

Abstract As they examine the complex issues currently facing rural America, rural sociologists draw increasingly on studies of community attachment. Because this research tradition has established the superiority of the systemic model, recent studies in rural and urban settings have focused on the conceptualization and operationalization of its components. We introduce four operational refinements to this model, and we test our refined model with data from one geographic area in south-west Louisiana. We find that, although our operational refinements improve our understanding of community attachment, additional refinements are necessary. We conclude by exploring the implications of community attachment studies for attempts to revitalize community in rural settings.     

Linking Community Context to Quality of Parenting: A Study of Rural Families1

Abstract Virtually all past studies of the effect of community context on families and children have focused on large metropolitan communities. Using a sample of divorced women living in small, Midwestern communities, the present study tests a model of the processes whereby community structure influences parenting practices. Results obtained through structural equation modeling supported the hypotheses. High concentrations of disadvantaged people within a community were indirectly related to parenting through community social disorganization. Community social disorganization had a direct effect on quality of parenting, as well as indirect effects through negative events, access to social support, and depressed mood. The various methodological and theoretical implications of these findings are considered.     

Economic Restructuring,Gender, and Informal Work: A Case Study of a Rural County1

Abstract This paper combines three issues that have previously been considered separately: economic restructuring, gender, and participation in the informal economy. Drawing on two complementary data sets of interviews with the residents of a rural county, the paper first suggests that the participation in the informal economy is extensive. The second major finding is that households whose members have held on to “good” work in the formal economy participate in the informal economy in a different way than do households whose members are less fortunate. Third, the paper demonstrates that participation in the informal economy is highly differentiated by gender. Finally the intersections among location in the formal economy, gender, and informal economic activities are discussed.     

Cognitive Mapping: Gender Differences in the Perception of Community

The concept of cognitive mapping as drawn from sociological phenomenology is used to clarify the complexity of the concept of community. Fifty residents of a Midwestern rural area were asked to drawn maps of their community. The maps reveal individual differences in the perception of a community and a tendency for the perception of community to vary by gender. Where the activities within a community tend to be segregated, there will also tend to be different viewpoints or cognitive maps of the community.     

Intimate Partner Violence in Small Towns,Dispersed Rural Areas,and Other Locations: Estimates Using a Reconception of Settlement Type

Current understanding of victimization of those in rural settlements compared to other types of settlements is limited by inadequate classifications of settlement types. The typical approach—one based on the incorrect use of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s classification of metropolitan areas—may mask important variations in the incidence of violent victimization, and in part explain mixed results related to this issue. To investigate this, we detail problems with following the typical approach, and then describe an alternative measure of settlement type. We next use this alternative settlement type measure to estimate the incidence of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women from 1992–2015 National Crime Victimization Survey data. Over the period examined, the incidence of IPV was highest for women living in small towns (11.4 per 1,000). In contrast, women living in dispersed rural settlements (7.9 per 1,000) shared rates with those in suburbs (7.9 per 1,000) and exurbs (7.1 per 1,000) while reporting rates lower than those of women residing in the urban core (9.7 per 1,000). These results provide clarity to earlier research on the incidence of IPV across settlement types and they call into question the salience of geographic isolation as a determinant of IPV in nonmetropolitan locales.     

Policing “Domestic Disturbances” in Small Towns and Rural Communities: Implications for Officer and Victim Safety

Drawing on Canadian police data on homicide involving domestic dispute calls from 1960 to the present (n = 20), as well as on in‐depth interviews with police officers (n = 33) working in rural and remote communities, the authors reexamine the argument that police attendance at domestic disturbance calls can pose a special threat to officer safety. Although some scholarship suggests that purported risks have been overstated, the authors argue that location may be a critical factor in reducing or heightening not only risks to officers, but also to victims. Although intended as an exploratory work, situated within the context of cultural support for domestic violence in rural communities, the authors raise both interesting policy implications, as well as potential avenues for future research. En partant de données de la police canadienne sur les homicides impliquant des disputes familiales de 1960 à nos jours (n = 20), ainsi que sur des entrevues en profondeur avec des agents policiers (n = 33) travaillant dans des régions rurales et des communautés éloignées, les auteurs ré‐examinent l'argument voulant que les interventions policières lors d'appels liés à des problèmes domestiques posent un risque spécial pour les agents policiers. Même si certains spécialistes suggèrent que ces risques sont exagérés, les auteurs affirment que le lieu pourrait être un facteur important par rapport au niveau de risque pour les agents policiers, ainsi que les victimes. Même s'il s'agit d'une recherche exploratoire, se situant dans le contexte du soutient culturel de la violence domestique dans les communautés rurales, les auteurs s'intéressent à la fois aux implications en termes de gestion et aux directions possibles en termes de recherches futures.     

小城镇建设的资金困境与出路——以浙江省小城市培育试点镇为例

在小城镇建设过程中,由于历史欠账较多,城市建设资金匮乏是一个非常普遍的问题。本文以浙江省小城市培育试点镇为例,重点分析试点镇的建设资金来源和资金用途,资金匮乏的主要原因是城市建设资金来源的单一性和投资需求过大。解决试点镇城市建设的资金问题必须坚持"开源节流",不仅要拓宽融资渠道,而且更要注重城市建设资金的利用效率,降低城市建设的费效比,避免城市建设过热,让小城市建设回归理性。     

Brokerage in the Sacred Sphere: Religious Leaders as Community Problem Solvers in Rural Malawi1

Religious leaders in Sub‐Saharan Africa do not just deal with the spiritual needs of members but are also heavily engaged in dealing with social problems and material needs. Although true elsewhere, the realities of limited state infrastructure and an increasingly diverse religious landscape make it crucial for religious entrepreneurs to deal with material problems if they hope to gain adherents. This article applies the concepts of problem solving and brokerage ( Burt, 2005 ; Knoke, 1990 ) to a case study of religious leaders in Balaka, a small town of rural Malawi. I argue that religious leaders solve problems in three major areas—material infrastructure, activities and organization, and healthcare—and that they are able to do so at least partly because of their connections to various overlapping secular and religious networks. I focus both on the provision of material resources and the facilitation of effervescent experiences in order to advance a fuller understanding of the experience of poverty and the ways leaders in poor communities work to solve problems.     

Migration,Livelihood Strategies,and Agricultural Outcomes: A Gender Study in Rural China

In this study we examine whether the gender composition of migrants from rural households affects household economic strategies and agricultural productivity, which is the fundamental economic activity for rural Chinese. Using data from the 2010 and 2012 Chinese Family Panel Studies, this study treats households as the unit of analysis. Our results show that households with migrants are less likely to engage in agricultural activities or operate small businesses than households with no migrants. However, households with female migrants are less likely to engage in agricultural activities to a greater extent than those with male migrants, whereas the latter pose an obstacle to running small family businesses. This suggests that women may have to shoulder the burden of agricultural work when men migrate, whereas having male migrants from the households hampers households from engaging in local nonagricultural activities. Finally, although having male migrants who have left does not significantly discourage households from continuing agricultural activities, it does reduce agricultural productivity.