Crossing Boundaries: Nativity,Ethnicity, and Mate Selection

The influx of immigrants has increased diversity among ethnic minorities and indicates that they may take multiple integration paths in American society. Previous research on ethnic integration has often focused on panethnic differences, and few have explored ethnic diversity within a racial or panethnic context. Using 2000 U.S. census data for Puerto Rican–, Mexican-, Chinese-, and Filipino-origin individuals, we examine differences in marriage and cohabitation with whites, with other minorities, within a panethnic group, and within an ethnic group by nativity status. Ethnic endogamy is strong and, to a lesser extent, so is panethnic endogamy. Yet, marital or cohabiting unions with whites remain an important path of integration but differ significantly by ethnicity, nativity, age at arrival, and educational attainment. Meanwhile, ethnic differences in marriage and cohabitation with other racial or ethnic minorities are strong. Our analysis supports that unions with whites remain a major path of integration, but other paths of integration also become viable options for all ethnic groups.     

The demography of disability and the effects of immigrant history: Older Asians in the United States

Using data from the 2000 U.S. census, we compare the older Asian population with U.S.-born, non-Hispanic whites with respect to three indicators of disability. Insofar as any Asian "advantage" in health vis-a-vis whites exists among the population aged 65 and over, our evidence suggests that it occurs primarily among the U.S.-born segments of this population. We also investigate how differences in disability levels among Asian immigrant groups are influenced by country of birth and by the combined effects of duration of residence in the United States and life cycle stage at entry. These results highlight the diversity of the older Asian population with respect to the ways in which immigration and origin history are linked to disability outcomes. We conclude that in later life, immigrant status confers few disability advantages among the Asian population in the United States.     

The Contributions of Places to Metropolitan Ethnoracial Diversity and Segregation: Decomposing Change Across Space and Time

Although the trend toward greater ethnoracial diversity in the United States has been documented at a variety of geographic scales, most research tracks diversity one scale at a time. Our study bridges scales, asking how the diversity and segregation patterns of metropolitan areas are influenced by shifts in the racial/ethnic composition of their constituent places. Drawing on 1980–2010 decennial census data, we use a new visual tool to compare the distributions of place diversity for 50 U.S. metro areas over three decades. We also undertake a decomposition analysis of segregation within these areas to evaluate hypotheses about the roles of different types of places in ethnoracial change. The decomposition indicates that although principal cities continue to shape the overall diversity of metro areas, their relative impact has declined since 1980. Inner suburbs have experienced substantial increases in diversity during the same period. Places with large white majorities now contribute more to overall metropolitan diversity than in the past. In contrast, majority black and majority Hispanic places contribute less to metropolitan diversity than in the past. The complexity of the patterns we observe is underscored through an inspection of two featured metropolises: Chicago and Dallas.     

Language usage and fertility in the Mexican-origin population of the United States

This article examines the effects of English proficiency and female education on cumulative and recent fertility within the Mexican-origin population in the U.S. To ascertain whether the cultural or the human capital aspects of linguistic variables have the greater salience for fertility behavior, fertility patterns of bilingual women are compared with those of monolingual women speaking English or Spanish. Using the 1980 U.S. Census 5 percent Public Use Microdata Sample for ever-married Mexican-origin women aged 15-44, we find that for almost all age cohorts, the effects of English proficiency are negative and increase with rising education. The strength of the interaction is greater in younger age groups. Greater English proficiency is also associated with a more negative impact of education for native- than foreign-born women. Overall, the influence of "opportunity cost," as opposed to cultural factors, is more important in shaping the fertility behavior of these women.     

Do statements about desired family size predict fertility? the case of Taiwan, 1967–1970

The predictive accuracy of respondents' statements about their future fertility is examined, using interview data from a longitudinal study conducted in Taiwan. Two measures of preference are found to be highly intercorrelated; and regardless of which one is used, Taiwanese women are shown to predict their subsequent fertility at least as well as U.S. women. The preference measures are also predictive of rates of contraceptive use and abortion. While demographic and social characteristics are correlated with fertility in expected directions, statements about wanting more children prove to be highly predictive of subsequent fertility for both modern and less advanced segments of the population.     

Sustainable Housing in the Urban Context: International Sustainable Development Indicator Sets and Housing

Housing, an essential aspect of quality of life, is also significant for sustainable development (SD). All of the major international statements on SD refer to housing or settlement strategies. However, indicator sets derived from these statements often fail to include good indicators of sustainable housing. This article outlines the conceptualisation of SD and housing from the international statements. It proceeds by describing the international indicator sets which have been constructed based on these policy statements. International organisations such as the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU) have all produced indicator sets. However, this article contends that housing is an underdeveloped indicator and calls for more attention to be paid to the importance of aspects of housing for SD and the measurement of progress towards it via social indicators.

Investigating sexuality discourses in the U.K. secondary English curriculum

This article reports on findings from a small-scale study that investigated sexuality discourses in the U.K. secondary English curriculum. In addition to conducting a critical analysis of English curriculum documents, interviews were also conducted with some English teachers and young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)-identified people who attended, or had recently left, secondary school in Birmingham, U.K. Key findings indicate that issues around sexual diversity are noticeably absent from the curriculum, while other forms of diversity are more visible. This means that teachers are not explicitly encouraged to explore sexual diversity in their teaching, and the effects of this on young LGBT-identified people are overwhelmingly negative.     

Transnational Grannies: The Changing Family Responsibilities of Elderly African Caribbean-Born Women Resident in Britain

This paper explores the role and position of grandmothers in African-Caribbean families resident in Britain. The data used for this paper comes fromm a sample of 180 life-history interviews collected in 1995–1996 from three generations of Caribbean-origin people living in Britain and the Caribbean. Findings from this research suggest that African-Caribbean grandmothers resident in Britain have come to play a less active role within their immediate family compared to earlier historical periods. At the same time however, these grandmothers have come to take on a more a transnational emissary role for their family and kin located throughout North America and Europe. Caribbean-born grandmothers appear to be using more modern means for fulfilling certain traditional tasks like child shifting, story telling or acting as a social safety net. Using their agency African Caribbean-born grandmothers have been able to carve out new niches for themselves despite changes in family structure brought about by migration and settlement patterns in Britain.     

Variations on two themes: Racial and ethnic patterns in the attainment of suburban residence

To investigate racial and ethnic diversity in suburbanization, we draw on two complementary theoretical traditions, which we label "assimilation" and "stratification." Our analytic model is multilevel, and includes variables characterizing individuals, households, and metropolitan contexts. We use it to analyze the determinants of suburban versus central-city residence for 11 racial/ethnic groups. The analysis reveals that family status, socioeconomic, and assimilation variables influence the suburbanization process rather consistently. We take this finding as evidence in favor of the assimilation model. These effects display group variations, however, in a manner predicted by the stratification model. There are also suburbanization differences among metropolitan areas, particularly related to the relative economic status of cities and their suburbs, and between the northeast/north central regions and the south/west. Finally, we conclude that suburbanization is variable across the groups in a way that is not captured by broad categories such as "Asian" or "Hispanic."     

Psychosocial environments of black colleges: A theory-based assessment

Holland's theory of person environment interactions has considerable potential for helping to integrate environmental psychology with personality social psychology. This study applied measures based on his theory to the environments of black colleges. Compared to the U.S. labor force as a whole, blacks are over represented in social service careers and under represented in technical and managerial careers, and it is possible that the environments provided by black colleges may help cause or perpetuate this distribution of blacks among careers. Accordingly, the faculties of predominantly black colleges and of a representative sample of U.S. postsecondary institutions were classified in terms of Holland's six types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. Compared to U.S. colleges as a whole, the faculties of black colleges are relatively more concentrated in Social fields and relatively less concentrated in Realistic and Enterprising fields. Thus the environments of black colleges and universities resemble the distribution of blacks among careers. These results imply that efforts to improve black colleges might emphasize recruitment of faculty members in Realistic and Enterprising fields. Implifications for environmental psychologists working in other contexts are considered.Recently, a number of writers have pointed to a growing rapprochement between environmental psychology and the field of personality social psychology (Canter & Craik, 1981; Little 1983). This trend suggests that Holland's (1966a, 1985) theory of person environment interactions may have considerable utility for environmental psychology. This theory has received little attention from environmental psychologists, perhaps because it grows out of counseling and educational psychology and therefore is outside the experience of many environmental psychologists (Richards, 1974a). It offers major advantages, however, in that it explicitly views personality and environments in terms of a common conceptual framework, and that it predicts the consequences of personality environment interactions.One of the major applications of this theory has involved the assessment of the environments provided by institutions of higher education. More specifically, the theory has been applied successfully to two-year and four-year colleges and universities in the United States (Astin, 1963; Astin & Holland, 1961; Richards, Bulkeley, & Richards, 1972; Richards, Seligman, & Jones, 1970), to Japanese universities (Richards, 1973, 1975), and to universities in the British Commonwealth (Richards, 1974b, 1975). The present study used measures derived from the theory to compare the environments of black colleges and universities with the environments of U.S. colleges and universities in general.This comparison was deemed important because of the possibility that black colleges may be playing a role in causing or perpetuating an occupational distribution in which blacks are over represented in low status social service occupations (Hodge & Hodge, 1965; Treiman & Terrell, 1975) and under represented in technical and managerial occupations (Gottfredson, 1978a, 1978b). Colleges that are traditionally black have produced the majority of past black college college graduates and still appear to be the most important means of access to afour-year college education for blacks (National Advisory Committee on Black Higher Education and Black Colleges and Universities, 1979). At the same time, the distribution of students among majors in traditionally black institutions is generally consistent with the relative representation of blacks in different types of work (Morris, 1979).     

Students Mobility: Assessing the Determinants of Attractiveness Across Competing Territorial Areas

A central question for education authorities has become “which factors make a territory attractive for tertiary students?” Tertiary education is recognised as one of the most important assets for the development of a territory, thus students’ mobility becomes a brain drain issue whenever there are prevalent areas that attract students from other territories. In this paper, we try to identify the most important factors that could affect student mobility in Italy. In doing that we analyse students’ flows across competing territorial areas which supply tertiary education programs. We will consider a wide range of determinants related to the socio-economic characteristics of the areas as well as resources of the universities in the territories in terms of variety and quantity of the degree programs there available, financial endowments provided by Central Government, and services available to students. The Bradley–Terry modelling approach based on pair comparisons has been adopted to define the attractiveness of competing territories and assess how much the detected divergences can be attributed to factors directly related to the considered characteristics of the universities in the territory and how much is ascribable to inherent characteristics of the areas where the universities are located such as the labour market conditions. Furthermore, the adopted approach allows us to consider uncertainty in defining territorial attractiveness and making comparisons. In this way, we would like to provide some evidences to assess if the rules currently used by the Central Government to finance public universities on the basis of their capabilities to attract students really reward the efforts made by the university system in the area to improve their standard of quality or, on the contrary, reward the territorial features.     

Non-Farm Rural Ontario Residents’ Perceived Quality of Life

This paper presents a study of Ontario non-farm ruralresidents perceived quality of life. The researchsought to understand residents perceived quality oflife both in absolute and relative terms. Measurementfocused on indicators of satisfaction with personallife, community and environment and quality of life incomparison to others. A pre-tested questionnaire wasmailed to a random sample of non-farm rural residentsin Brock and Uxbridge Townships, which lie within onehours drive northeast of metropolitan Toronto. Nearly forty-two (41.8) percent of the residentsreturned completed questionnaires. The majority ofrespondents indicated they were satisfied with mostaspects of the quality of their lives. The demographiccharacteristics that were consistently found to havesignificant associations with indicators of absolutequality of life and relative quality of life wereincome, length of residency, presence or number ofchildren in the home and township. Other demographiccharacteristics almost as consistently found to besignificantly associated with indicators of absoluteand relative quality of life were gender, followed byage, marital status, amount of land surrounding thehome and education. Comparing objectively-baseddemographic characteristics and more subjectivelyderived indicators of absolute and relative quality oflife provided a useful way of understanding quality oflife perceptions of Ontario rural non-farmresidents.     

Diverging Demography: Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Contributions to U.S. Population Redistribution and Diversity

The substantial growth and geographic dispersion of Hispanics is among the most important demographic trends in recent U.S. demographic history. Our county-level study examines how widespread Hispanic natural increase and net migration has combined with the demographic change among non-Hispanics to produce an increasingly diverse population. This paper uses U.S. Census Bureau data and special tabulations of race/ethnic specific births and deaths from NCHS to highlight the demographic role of Hispanics as an engine of new county population growth and ethnoracial diversity across the U.S. landscape. It highlights key demographic processes—natural increase and net migration—that accounted for 1990–2010 changes in the absolute and relative sizes of the Hispanic and non-Hispanic populations. Hispanics accounted for the majority of all U.S. population growth between 2000 and 2010. Yet, Hispanics represented only 16 % of the U.S. population in 2010. Most previous research has focused on Hispanic immigration; here, we examine how natural increase and net migration among both the Hispanic and non-Hispanic population contribute to the nation’s growing diversity. Indeed, the demographic impact of rapid Hispanic growth has been reinforced by minimal white population growth due to low fertility, fewer women of reproductive age and growing mortality among the aging white population America’s burgeoning Hispanic population has left a large demographic footprint that is magnified by low and declining fertility and increasing mortality among America’s aging non-Hispanic population.     

“非正规”老年教育与老年人社会参与

如何促进老年人广泛而有效的社会参与,提高老年人口的生活质量是老龄化社会必须要面临的挑战。老年教育作为实现积极老龄化的重要途径正在引起普遍关注。相对于我国"正规"的老年大学而言,"非正规"老年教育是指除"正规"老年大学以外的多种形式的老年教育,主要包括社区老年教育、大众传媒中老年教育和老年人自发组织的老年教育。"非正规"老年教育以其灵活性、参与性和低成本等特性契合了中国老年人口的特点,能够更有效地适应老年人的教育需求,是促进中国老年人社会参与的重要途径。在大力发展适应中国国情的"非正规"老年教育的同时,应加强国家和政府的支持、推动参与主体的社会化、提升教育服务水平与服务质量。     

The categorical generation of organizational inequality: A comparative test of Tilly's durable inequality

This paper develops a theoretical and methodological application of Tilly's [Tilly, C. (1998). Durable inequality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press] assertions that inequalities are inherently relational and categorical. We focus on the specific proposition that inequalities are exaggerated when categorical social distinctions are mapped onto positional distinctions internal to organizations. Using samples of Australian and U.S. organizations we examine the influence of sex and other status distinctions upon between-class wage inequality. In both countries class inequality is exaggerated when workers are women and managers men. These between-class inequality producing processes are also present for other categorical distinctions available in the data we use (education, permanent vs. temporary worker, dominant vs. marginal linguistic group in Australia, permanent vs. temporary worker and white vs. non-white in the U.S.). In the U.S. the coefficients for relational sex composition are twice as large as in Australia, suggesting historical–institutional differences between the countries enables gender to exert a stronger influence on between-class inequality in the U.S. We further examine the institutional differences in these categorical bases for inequality by examining the extent to which they vary within the two countries as a function of two historically relevant institutional distinctions in wage setting regimes—formalization in the U.S. and centralized wage awards in Australia. As expected these institutional differences shape the extent and type of between-class wage inequality. We conclude that researchers should move methodologically towards observing relations within organizations to reflect the theoretical advances of the past two decades.     

Exploring the Fear of Birth Scale in a mixed population of women of childbearing age—A Swedish pilot study

Aim

The aim of this pilot study was to explore the Fear of Birth Scale in a mixed sample of women of childbearing age, by investigating the levels of childbirth fear and the content of women’s thoughts when completing the scale.

Healthy Grandparenthood: How Long Is It,and How Has It Changed?

Healthy grandparenthood represents the period of overlap during which grandparents and grandchildren can build relationships, and grandparents can make intergenerational transfers to younger kin. The health of grandparents has important implications for upward and downward intergenerational transfers within kinship networks in aging societies. Although the length of grandparenthood is determined by fertility and mortality patterns, the amount of time spent as a healthy grandparent is also affected by morbidity. In this study, we estimate the length of healthy grandparenthood for the first time. Using U.S. and Canadian data, we examine changes in the length of healthy grandparenthood during years when grandparenthood was postponed, health improved, and mortality declined. We also examine variation in healthy grandparenthood by education and race/ethnicity within the United States. Our findings show that the period of healthy grandparenthood is becoming longer because of improvements in health and mortality, which more than offset delays in grandparenthood. Important variation exists within the United States by race/ethnicity and education, which has important implications for family relationships and transfers.     

Teaching queer theory at a Normal School

This article presents a case study of the ongoing struggle to queer West Chester University at the level of the institution, the curriculum, and the classroom. Part of that struggle includes an effort to establish a policy for free speech that accommodates the values of the institution toward diversity. Another part involves attempts to introduce LGBT Studies into the curriculum, and the resulting debates over whether the curriculum should be "gayer" or "queerer." I discuss the personal struggle to destabilize ready-made categories and encourage non-binary thinking, while honoring the identities we live, and perform, in the classroom. In the last four years, WCU has hired half a dozen out gay or lesbian faculty members, some of whom identify as "queer." In many ways, those faculty members have entered a climate open to new ideas for adding LGBT content to the curriculum and to queering the structure and curriculum of the university. But as faculty, staff, and students engage this cause-along with the broader cause of social justice at the University- we have found that our enemies are often closer than we might have guessed. Detailing the tensions that have characterized the landscape at WCUduring my three years and half years there, this essay elaborates on the epistemological and pedagogical issues that arise when queer Theory meets LGBT Studies in the process of institutional, curricular, and pedagogical reform. I argue that questions about content and method, inclusion and exclusion, and identity and performance can be answered only with a concerted effort and continued attention to the cultural tendency to re-assert binaries while simultaneously learning from them. What is true of West Chester, I argue, is true of the larger social system where the contested terrain of the queer has implications for the choices we make as both stakeholders and deviants in the systems we chronicle and critique.     

An evaluation of socially responsive planning in a new resource town

New resource towns on the Canadian frontier have presented planners with opportunities to experiment with innovative planning ideas which attempt to resolve the persistent problems of such communities. In the planning of Tumbler Ridge, a new coal mining town in British Columbia, socially responsive planning was an attempt to develop a town using principles derived from social science research. In this paper the reactions of residents to selected attributes which reflect the application of these principles are examined five years after settlement began. Ratings of community attributes offer an indication of aspects of residential satisfaction, while the results of a principal components analysis suggest the dimensionality of residents' evaluative structures and provide a useful framework within which to consider planning issues. Issues examined are: the association between employment and the community environment; the suitability of the environment for children; and the social environment. While social aspects of the new community are judged as satisfactory, less positive elements reflect the underlying influence of the economic well-being of the mining company on overall community satisfaction. When compared to indicators of community satisfaction in other western Canadian resource towns, ratings for Tumbler Ridge tend to be fairly low. It is concluded that the inability of planners to adequately control implementation or dontinuity of their ideas has resulted in a community not distinctly different from other resource towns. Efforts have been further hampered by a lack of adequate models of the distinctive dynamics of resource communities.