The Culture of Academic Disciplines and the Sociopolitical Attitudes of Students: A Test of Selection and Socialization Effects*

Objective. Using cross‐sectional and panel data, this article estimates to what extent the association between students' choice of academic discipline and their sociopolitical attitudes is due to socialization and selection effects. Methods. This is done on the basis of seven incoming cohorts of students and one panel of students. Changes in the panel are controlled for contextual influences by comparing them to a control group. Results. Both selection and socialization effects are observed. The first are, however, much stronger than the second. Conclusions. Although the literature, and particularly the more popular literature, highlights socialization effects, these turn out to be very modest. Future research should address the questions of how and why students select academic disciplines in a way that establishes strong relations between those disciplines and their sociopolitical attitudes.     

Education and Public Attitudes toward Science: Implications for the Deficit Model of Education and Support for Science and Technology

Objective . By critically examining the deficit model, this research attempts to grasp the multifaceted relationships between education and public attitudes toward science. Methods .It analyzes a series of nationwide surveys of public attitudes toward science conducted over a decade. Results . First, respondents' levels of education and levels of scientific knowledge make independent contributions to public attitudes toward science. Second, college (and postgraduate) majors have very weak effects on public attitudes toward science. Third, education is a much weaker predictor of public attitudes toward controversial scientific research, compared to its strong influence on science in general. Conclusions . Although education may indeed enhance public support for science in general, it may not help much to reduce tensions around politicized, controversial scientific research. For scientific controversies, gender might be a more important variable than education.     

Constitutions and Public Support for Welfare Policies*

Objectives. This research explores how constitutional designs affect a cross‐national gap in public support for welfare policies. We contend that the constitution's statements regarding the citizens' right to receive welfare services constrain elite discourse on social welfare, which in turn exerts a strong influence on the level of mass support for and ambivalence over welfare policies. Methods. Survey data from 15 consolidated democracies merged with country‐level data are analyzed using a hierarchical linear model. Results. Empirical analysis shows that citizens residing in countries with a more liberal constitution show more supportive and less ambivalent attitudes toward welfare policies. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that the political principles reflected in national constitutions explain the cross‐national gap in mass support for welfare policies.     

Tobacco Farming and Public Health: Attitudes of the General Public and Farmers

The tobacco industry remains a formidable influence in thwarting tobacco control efforts, in part because industry leaders have raised policymaker and public concern about how tobacco control might negatively impact tobacco farmers. In this study, we interviewed a random, stratified sample of 528 tobacco farmers in the Southeast and 991 U.S. residents about issues related to tobacco farmers. We found that a majority of the U.S. public expressed the belief that U.S. taxpayers subsidized tobacco farmers. This belief, combined with the strong opposition to tobacco farmer subsidies (15 percent thought there should be subsidies), likely play a role in public attitudes toward tobacco farmers. At the same time, however, we found reasonably strong public support for efforts to help tobacco farmers transition to new enterprises, although the public underestimates tobacco farmer interest in diversification. For example, two of three Americans believe that the government should help farmers make a living other than growing tobacco and over half thought that taxpayers should help pay for such programs. These data illustrate potential common ground for elected officials to consider as they attempt to concomitantly address the needs of farmers and the interests of the public. Ultimately, if the interests of tobacco farmers can be made clearly to the general public, and vice versa, pro-health and pro-farmer policies might well become a reality     

The Effects of Candidate Gender on Campaign Spending in State Legislative Elections*

Objective. This article will investigate whether candidate gender affects levels of campaign spending in state legislative elections. Methods. The analysis compares men and women candidates running for the state legislature in 20 states over two election cycles. By controlling for a range of contextual factors, the analysis isolates the independent influence of candidate gender. Results. The findings demonstrate that women and men spend similar levels of campaign funding in running for the state legislature. Running as incumbents, challengers, or open‐seat candidates, women are not at a financial disadvantage relative to similarly situated men candidates in the general election. Conclusions. Although women may suffer difficulties at other parts of the electoral process, women are not at a disadvantage relative to men in how much money their campaigns ultimately allocate for the purposes of gaining voter support.     

Support for Income Maintenance Benefits: Attitudes of a Group of Non-Recipients Toward Three Benefits

This paper compares attitudes of a small sample of people not in receipt of income support benefit recipients in the Melbourne metropolitan area towards three benefits: the aged pension, unemployment and sole parent benefits. From 159 responses to telephone interviews, attitudes are analysed as to availability of benefit by family support, availability on the basis of need, amount of benefit level, and on a self—interest dimension including preparedness to pay additional tax to increase benefit and expected future use of benefit by the respondent. Results indicated strong support for aged pension and weak support for unemployment benefit. Self—interest factors coupled with age and gender characteristics influenced responses. Further research into the relationship between present and future expectations regarding pension/benefit costs and benefits is indicated.     

科技创新的公共金融支持机理研究

科技创新活动具有高风险性和长期性,科技创新成果究竟何时能投入市场,实现明显效益,具有较强的不确定性,此外,即使有相关产出,但产出的大小也具有不确定性,能否抵偿相关投入也是难以确定的,为此,市场金融在科技创新的某些阶段介入的积极性不高,需要公共金融强有力的支持。文章针对科技创新活动风险高的特点,从公共金融的资本集中、风险管理、信息揭示以及项目治理等四个方面,分析了科技创新公共金融支持的机理,以对研究公共金融支持科技创新活动提供内在研究基础。     

中国强制隔离戒毒的法律定位及制度完善

劳动教养制度的废除,表明这种不经司法裁判而限制人身自由的行政强制措施在制度层面的终结,这一政策倾向使得当前继续存在的强制隔离戒毒措施必然遭受类似的质疑.在形式上与劳动教养相似的强制隔离戒毒措施,在法律地位上能否获得相应的位置,以及在制度功效上能否契合当前社会管理的目标,这些都是值得研讨的问题.若强制隔离戒毒制度不能在法律正当性上得到合理的解释,在可预期时限内又不易解决,那么,探讨其在适用当中的缺陷并有针对性地对其措施手段或运行方式进行优化,就具有一定实践意义.     

An Experimental Test of the Effects of Fictional Framing on Attitudes*

Objectives. Most studies of media effects in political communication focus on news media. A smaller body of work extends theories of news media effects to fictional entertainment media. Just as news media engage in priming and agenda setting, these studies suggest that fictional media do as well. In this study, we deal with fictional media's framing of issues. No research has sought to test the effects of framing in explicitly fictional media on political opinions. We develop the outlines of a theory we call “fictional framing” and test it in an experiment. Methods. Participants in our treatment group watched the film Cider House Rules. The movie frames the issue of abortion in the case of incest in a pro‐choice way, and frames morality in terms of following one's own conscience. Results. The film influenced opinions in ways consistent with the framing of these issues. Conclusions. Since abortion opinions and moral values tend to be entrenched, we consider this a strong first test of the effects of fictional framing.     

Three Models of Conflict Resolution: Effects on Intergroup Expectancies and Attitudes

Gordon Allport (1960) once noted that there are many different approaches to conflict resolution, but that few empirical studies have been conducted to examine their effectiveness. This experiment was designed to evaluate the distributive bargaining, integrative bargaining, and interactive problem solving models of conflict resolution, using intergroup expectancies and attitudes as dependent measures. Jewish and Arab students were paired into mixed-ethnicity dyads to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian dispute about Jerusalem according to one of the three models. It was hypothesized that dyad members using the interactive problem solving model would become the least pessimistic about the conflict, and would show the greatest positive change in their attitudes toward members of the other ethnic group. The results support these predictions, and help to make up for the paucity of research on the assessment of conflict resolution strategies.     

Explaining Public Support for the Environmental Movement: A Civic Voluntarism Model*

Objective. The literature on environmentalism includes many more studies of environmental concern than of the public's practical support for the environmental movement. This article develops several categories of predictors of such support from the civic voluntarism model of Verba and associates. Methods. These predictors are tested with data from the 2000 General Social Survey, which included a special module of items on environmental attitudes and activities. Results. Findings generally suggest the utility of the civic voluntarism model for explaining public support for the environmental movement. Additional analysis attempts to untangle reasons for gender and racial differences in the level of this support. Conclusion. This study elucidates several predictors of practical support by the U.S. public for the environmental movement that merit further attention. Such research should pay attention to the proper operationalization of the kind of movement participation studied here.     

The Great Cut: The Support for Private Modes of Social Evasion by Public Policy

The counterpart city represents an attempt to conceptualize the hidden spaces inhabited by social problems and ‘problem’ people who are counter to the mainstream, or included, modes of contemporary urban social life. This ‘opposite’, or negative, space comprises the spatially withdrawn and socially excluded who are largely outside the purview of the comfortable classes of the same cities. Not only has residential segregation been sustained over recent decades, so too have mobile circuits of mutual exclusion been created, which enable higher‐income groups to avoid the associated negative externalities of poverty (visibility, disorder, aggression and so on). As responsibility for dealing with social risks has become devolved to the level of the household, the desire for social evasion, as politicians, media systems and welfare patterns mark out threatening territories, has become more evident. The counterpart city is shunned in ever more elaborate ways and with the support of public policies. As the ‘spatial’ social policies, housing and urban, have become increasingly criminalized in the focus of their agendas, such interventions expend energy to facilitate this separation between affluent and poor. Traditional imperatives for public intervention are diminished as poverty has become more concealed from affluence – its costs and impacts evaded by technologies, socio‐spatial circuits and policies that skirt those who are locked into places of poverty and abject marginality, a constellation of social forces and effects I term the great cut.     

Environmental Vulnerability in Public Perceptions and Attitudes: The Case of Israel's Urban Centers

Objective. This article investigates how urban environmental vulnerability to hazards reflects in the perceptions and attitudes of the public in three major cities in Israel: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. Our central argument is that the differences between the residents' perceptions and attitudes toward environmental issues are related mostly to the actual hazard levels of their communities, whereas individual differences in socioeconomic characteristics are of lesser importance in this regard. Methods. The research was based on survey data of representative samples of the adult residents in the three cities. The differences in attitudes and perceptions among the three samples were statistically assessed by means of analysis of variance. Results. We found relatively strong and consistent relationships between actual environmental vulnerability to hazards in the three cities and their residents' attitudes toward environmental issues. The relationships with socioeconomic characteristics, such as education and income, were considerably weaker and less consistent. Conclusions. The results of this research indicate that environmental concern is not exclusive to groups and individuals characterized by postmaterialist values. Rather, the urban public in general is responsive to the environmental vulnerability of its community. This conclusion supports the argument that attitudes toward the environment are mainly affected by instrumental considerations of objective environmental problems rather than by subjective values.     

The Effects of Computerization on Public Child Welfare Practice

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impact of a new and promising case-based management information system on child welfare case management practices in two California counties. The objectives were to measure the extent to which computerization affected casework practices and to identify factors that influenced the effects of computerization. An exploratory longitudinal one-group pre-post design was used. Contrary to expectations, few differences were found, although workers spent more time alone after implementation of the system. A key finding is that the amount of time that caseworkers spent with clients was not reduced by the computer system.     

铸就公共财政利器破解北京三农困境

破解中国“三农”困境,发展农村经济,提高农民收入,消除城乡二元经济结构,缩小城乡差别,农村城市化是至关重要的手段。可是,在城市化快速扩张的同时,“三农”问题却并未随之消失,反而更加突显,成为制约经济进一步发展的瓶颈。本文探讨的即是诸如北京、上海这样一些城市化高度发达地区“三农”问题的成因及破解途径。