Teaching children to save: What is the best strategy for lifetime savings?

We study the effect of alternative parental teaching strategies on the propensity to save and the amount saved during adulthood. Using a panel dataset from the Dutch DNB Household Survey we find that parental teaching to save increases the likelihood that an adult will save by 16%, and the saving amount by about 30%. The best strategy involves a combination of different methods (giving pocket money, controlling money usage, and giving advice about saving and budgeting). The effect of parental financial socialization is persistent with age, but decays at elder age for the propensity to save.     

Can Cool Japan save Post‐Disaster Japan? On the Possibilities and Impossibilities of a Cool Japanology

This article considers Cool Japan in light of catastrophe, first theoretically through a phenomenological analysis of Cool Japan and Cool Japanology, suggesting that the study of Cool Japan itself is way of uncooling the object of inquiry, itself a reaction to the apocalyptic realities of everyday life since the dawn of the modern world. The article finishes with a sociological reflection on current events through a détourner of the sekai kei genre in Summer Wars' inclusion of two sociological types in its rendition of catastrophe. This article then is intended as a preliminary step to understanding the specificity and commonalities of Japanese cool power through an understanding of the phenomenon of cool and the contents to which cool often refers.     

What motivates adolescent bystanders to intervene when immigrant youth are bullied?

Pathways to bystander responses were examined in both generalized and bias-based bullying incidents involving immigrant-origin victims. Participants were 168 (M_age = 14.54, 57% female) adolescents of immigrant (37.5%) and nonimmigrant backgrounds, who responded to their likelihood of intervening on behalf of either an Arab or Latine victim. Models tested whether contact with immigrants and one's desires for social contact with immigrant-origin peers mediated the effects of individual (shared immigrant background, and discriminatory tendencies) and situational (inclusive peer norms) intergroup factors on active bystander responses. Findings indicated that desires for social contact reliably mediated effects across both victims; however, contact with immigrant peers was only associated with responses to Latine victims. Implications for how to promote bystander intervention are discussed.     

What to Do with the Informal Sector?

Almost all informal firms in the Kenyan manufacturing sector are managed by Kenyans of African origin. Formal enterprises are run by Kenyans of both African and Asian origin. These three groups are distinct in terms of experience, productivity and access to finance. Asian formal firms are the most efficient, while there is no significant productivity difference between informal and formal African firms. There are thus weak incentives for African informal firms to become formal. At the same time, Kenya needs higher investments and larger exports to achieve economic take‐off, and this can only be achieved through an efficient formal sector. Therefore policy should aim to integrate the sectors by improving infrastructure, capacity‐building, credit delivery, and supporting networks.     

What Does the Medina Bring to Children?

Respect or Idolatry? SOME call today's children television children. They are the generation surrounded by media, television, radio, newspaper, and electric games--all have become close pals during their early years. More and more facts and surveys indicate the media's influence on children's moral development, their modern concepts and socialization.     

What,to the law,is the former slave?

This essay examines a subset of Reconstruction-era cases decided in Southern appellate courts that dealt with the legacies of slavery. Drawing on suits that either described emancipation as legal death or considered black civil rights, it argues that judges placed freedpeople into a distinct legal category – the former slave – in order to preserve the antebellum legal status quo. Opinions differentiated free-born citizens from those who acquired rights after emancipation, and marked freedpeople with stains of their previous servitude, which limited their potential for the equal enjoyment of newly acquired civil rights.     

Gender and Value Orientations—What’s the Difference!? The Case of Japan and the United States

This paper analyzes gendered social identity in Japan and the United States, countries with comparable postindustrial economic systems but distinct cultural traditions. Using national surveys (1995), we find gender differences in value orientations to be neither systematic nor consistent. They often disappeared after controlling for demographic and human-capital variables, though not so often for Japan. Other variables proved more important predictors of values than gender, although in different ways in Japan and the United States. We conclude by reassessing the use of the term gender in social research and the cultural meaning of gender relations by addressing the feminist concerns with issues of gender location.

What is the right way to protest? On the process of justification of protest,and its relationship to the propensity to participate in different types of protest

This study explores how citizens in Spain perceive different tactics employed in anti-austerity protests in 2011–2013, and tests the model of the process of justification of protest. This model combines the elements of Gamson’s collective action frames theory (effectiveness, anger and grievances, operationalized as appraisal of harm) with the concept of legitimacy. It also links justification to the intention to participate. We empirically differentiate between three protest tactics: normative demonstrations, non-normative peaceful strategies, and non-normative violent actions. We find that demonstrations are perceived to be more legitimate, but less effective than non-normative peaceful protests. Violent strategies, on the other hand, are seen to be more effective than legitimate. We postulate and find that legitimacy and effectiveness partially or fully mediate the impact of political ideology, anger, and appraisal of harm on the probability of participation in non-normative protest. Finally, we establish meaningful differences in the predictors of the likelihood of joining normative, non-normative peaceful, or non-normative violent protests. Overall, our results suggest that the study of justification of collective action and especially, the inclusion of the notion of legitimacy, enriches our understanding of the popular approval of and propensity to participate in different forms of collective protest.     

What Can Interactionism Contribute to the Study of Inequality? The Case of Marriage and Beyond

The equality/inequality dichotomy is a central concept in sociology and in the study of marriage. Almost all researchers, though, use their own preconceived definitions and measurement strategies to identify equal and unequal states of affairs. An alternative approach, one that better accords with interactionist principles, is to privilege people's interpretations of equality over analysts' Drawing on interviews with individuals who define their own marriages as equal or unequal, I compare people's stories about marital equality with scholars' depictions. While some narratives resonate (in part) with the themes propounded by scholars, others do not. If people's experiences of equality and inequality are to be taken seriously, then it is important to listen to what they have to say on the subject, as well as to how they say it. This is the distinctive contribution symbolic interactionists can make to the study of inequality.     

What Affects the Happiness of Adopted Children in South Korea? Does the Adoption Matter to Their Happiness?

Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal - Since the ultimate goal of adoption is to provide children a happy life in a stable family environment, our major concern is children’s happiness...     

Representing the interests of the public?: the case of the local health council in Scotland

The statutory function of local health councils in Scotland (and of community health councils in England and Wales) is to represent the interests of the public in the health service. This article, based on data from a four-year research project financed by the Scottish Office, examines official and participants' assumptions and claims about the legitimacy of health councils, as at present constituted, to carry out this function. Clarification of the basis of their legitimacy would assist, it is argued, in the resolution of a central dilemma: How are councils to represent the interests of the public? The conclusion is reached that inadequate thought was given to developing theoretically sustainable arrangements. Several interpretations of representation are admixed in the rationale for the present system and they cannot be aggregated to produce a coherent defence of it.     

What Makes People Hot? Applying the Situational Theory of Problem Solving to Hot-Issue Publics

Using a controversial issue that has drawn massive media coverage in South Korea, the government decision to resume imports of US beef, this study tested the applicability of the Situational Theory of Problem Solving (STOPS) to the rise of a hot-issue public. A survey of 300 respondents explored the perceptual, cognitive, and motivational antecedents of active information behaviors. Results suggest that the STOPS applies well to this unique sociopolitical situation, and that the theory works cross-culturally not only in the United States, but also in South Korea. In addition, we examined the role of cross-situational characteristics in detail, looking at whether political interest, prior experience in protest, and other sociodemographics could affect situational perceptions and cognitive frames. Theoretical and practical implications for future research and practices are discussed.     

What Is Different about the Profile of the Social Entrepreneur?

In recent years, the term social entrepreneur has become increasingly common in academic and business circles. Social entrepreneurs engage in a variety of activities, but always with the intention of solving social problems. Social entrepreneurs are not merely people who perform acts of charity; they have an evident desire to improve social well‐being and develop projects with long‐term vision. The creation of sustainable social value is a key characteristic that differentiates them from well‐meaning individuals who simply engage in charitable works. There are, however, significant gaps in our understanding of social entrepreneurs and few empirical studies on the subject. This present study attempts to identify the characteristics of more socially oriented entrepreneurs, using sociodemographic variables and the theory of universal values toward work. Analysis of a sample of approximately 400 people shows that more than half of entrepreneurial orientation can be explained through the possession of the values of self‐enhancement (with an inverse relationship in this case), self‐transcendence, and conservation. The theory of universal values has proved extraordinarily useful for studying the characteristics of social entrepreneurs.     

What to do instead of significance testing? Calculating the ‘number of counterfactual cases needed to disturb a finding’

This brief paper introduces a new approach to assessing the trustworthiness of research comparisons when expressed numerically. The ‘number needed to disturb’ a research finding would be the number of counterfactual values that can be added to the smallest arm of any comparison before the difference or ‘effect’ size disappears, minus the number of cases missing key values. This way of presenting the security of findings has several advantages over the use of significance tests, effect sizes and confidence intervals. It is not predicated on random sampling, full response or any specific distribution of data. It bundles together the sample size, magnitude of the finding and the level of attrition in a way that is standardised and therefore comparable between studies.     

What happens if you single out? An experiment

We present an experiment investigating the effects of singling out an individual on trust and trustworthiness. We find that (a) trustworthiness falls if there is a singled out subject; (b) non-singled out subjects discriminate against the singled out subject when they are not responsible of the distinct status of this person; (c) under a negative frame, the singled out subject returns significantly less; (d) under a positive frame, the singled out subject behaves bimodally, either selecting very low or very high return rates. Overall, singling out induces a negligible effect on trust but is potentially disruptive for trustworthiness.     

Do the rich save more in Latin America?

This paper reports evidence that the savings rate of the rich is higher than that of the poor in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Peru. On average, the difference between the fifth and fourth income quintile groups is 7 percentage points. No differences between income groups are found in Uruguay and the results for Argentina and Colombia are not robust to estimation alternatives. The key methodological step is to construct a measure of lifetime income. Current income is not a good proxy since it is affected by phases of the life cycle and transitory shocks. We implement a two-stage procedure based on the education level of the household head and the education level of his/her partner. Several robustness exercises are reported for different age groups, inclusion/exclusion of outliers and for a wealth index based on homeownership, home appliances and other household owned assets.