Why fewer women become physicians: Explaining the premed persistence gap

Previous research indicates that the answer to the question of why fewer women become physicians lies in the premed persistence gap. Women are no less likely than men to enter undergraduate premed programs, but they are less likely to complete the program and apply to medical school. This article presents data from a study designed to test four plausible explanations of the persistence gap that are consistent with the structural barriers, normative barriers, and cognitive differences theories of gender inequality. The findings do not support the perception of discrimination hypothesis, the discouragement hypothesis, the self-derogation hypothesis, and the anticipated role conflict hypothesis. Rather, the evidence suggests another explanation — the normative alternatives approach. This approach holds that contemporary gender norms offer women fewer disincentives to changing or lowering their high-status career goals when encountering hardship, self-doubt, and the possibility of failure.An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, Atlanta, August 1988.     

Why is there no agrarian capitalism in Nigeria?

Abstract It is widely assumed that the development of commodity production in agriculture will necessarily lead to the displacement of peasant producers by more strictly capitalist forms of production. I argue that no such transition can be assumed in general, nor can it be shown to be occurring in Nigeria. The first section identifies the various ways in which the peasantry are said to be transformed along capitalist lines. The second section examines conditions under which agrarian capitalism has been established, both in Europe and in Africa. It discusses attempts by governments and capitalists to subordinate peasant producers in Africa to their direction. The third section examines attempts to establish plantations, capitalist farms and state farms in Nigeria and considers what light evidence of inequalities among peasant households sheds on the possible emergence of capitalist producers from among the peasantry. It discusses whether rural development projects are likely to transform peasant production along capitalist lines and/or subordinate peasants to the requirements of capital and the state. I conclude that state support has provided niches for capitalist farming, but that Nigerian agriculture is not being transformed along capitalist lines and that both capital and the state have found it difficult to subordinate peasant producers to their direction     

Why nonprofit organizations are ripe for total quality management

This article reviews the core philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM) and argues that TQM can enhance the accountability of nonprofit organizations to their many constituencies. A case study of TQM in the United Way of Allegheny County illustrates applications and results.     

Why we are bored: towards a sociological approach to boredom

Abstract

The experience of boredom is strongly connected to our well-being. It can be a powerful driver toward a meaningful life and a great source of creativity. However, it can also pose a severe risk to our health. In recognition of its importance, in recent years, more and more researchers have begun to investigate the topic of boredom. However, while the psychological factors influencing boredom have been studied extensively, its social conditions are still poorly understood. The article aims to fill this research gap by providing a synthesized literature review of explicitly sociologically-inclined boredom research as well as implicit sociological ideas in the interdisciplinary field of boredom studies. On the basis of this data, we argue that boredom is not an interpersonal state, but a social emotion which is influenced by (1) cultural and (2) organizational norms/rules, (3) the individual’s position in the social structure, and (4) interaction processes.     

Students at St. Joseph's College: Why they are Survivors

Abstract

The 1985–86 academic year was the year of the ACHA Task Force on AIDS, and it also was the first year in which the Northwestern University mental health staff conducted psychotherapy with students wherein AIDS was an issue. We might consider this a “baseline year.” In order to document the first step along what is certain to become a long road ahead, the author reviews the 21 out of 800 cases where the issue of AIDS was discussed, even minimally. Seven cases were summarized to illustrate the spectrum of AIDS concerns and therapist interventions. The review of cases revealed a tendency to split the knowledge of risk from the apprehension of the meaning and emotional significance of one's behavior. This disavowal tended to occur in therapists also.

The psychological, medical, and psychiatric literature on AIDS was reviewed in order to provide a context for the case review. The author examines some of the psychotherapeutic and psychoeducational issues faced by therapists in their work with students during this developing epidemic and the concomitant consciousness raising that is occurring.     

Why social work should care: Television violence and children

There is an abundance of research on the influence of television violence on children. The convergence of research demonstrates an association between heavy viewing of violence and aggressive behavior. Despite thirty years of research, regulatory policy has failed to decrease violence on children's television. Children exposed to high rates of violence on television may be at greater risk of developing school and social problems. This paper highlights both research and theory which explains the relationship of television violence to children. It further makes the case that television violence should be an important and legitimate concern for social work.Ms. Lazar is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Southern Maine and a Doctoral student at Simmons School of Social Work.     

Why Rights are Never Enough: rights, intellectual disability and understanding

In order to address obvious inequities, rights have been utilised to provide the 'basic' material needs for many groups. Whilst this brings some groups/individuals up to a perceived minimum standard, it unfortunately fails to address the misunderstandings from which the inequities originally stemmed. Via a sociological and philosophical exploration of rights-based strategies relating to intellectual disability, the purpose of this paper is to provide a fuller exploration of the issues surrounding this problem, and to suggest some fruitful alternatives. These alternatives will be concerned specifically with a broadening of rights to facilitate understanding, rather than simple 'protection' from harm and/or the provision of material needs.     

The Attractiveness Halo: Why Some Candidates are Perceived More Favorably than Others

Olivola and Todorov (Elected in 100 milliseconds: appearance-based trait inferences and voting. J Nonverbal Behav, 2010) provide a convincing demonstration that competence ratings based on 1-second exposures to paired photos of US congressional candidates predict election outcomes at better than chance levels. However, they do not account for variation in competence judgments. In their analysis, Olivola and Todorov show that attractiveness, familiarity, babyfacedness and age are proximal predictors of vote choice, but find that after controlling for competence these factors no longer reliably influence the margin of electoral victory. Drawing on well-documented halo effects of attractiveness on character-based inferences and the extensive literature on mere exposure effects, we re-organize Olivola and Todorov’s analysis into a simple path model to explore the causal ordering of these factors. We find that spontaneous assessments of attractiveness and familiarity occur prior to attributions of competence, and thus exert a downstream effect on judgments of competence.     

Being there

This paper examines the use of the Internet as experienced by people with significant mobility/physical impairments who are accustomed to using computers. The study is based on interviews and focuses on computer usage in everyday action and interaction. In many cases, the possibilities that the computer and Internet offer have meant not only important improvements in quality of life, but first-time occurrences of great personal significance. The analysis is phenomenographic, resulting in main categories and subcategories, illustrated primarily through direct quotations. The three main categories are independence, communication, and learning.     

Arrovian theorems for economic domains. The case where there are simultaneously private and public goods

We prove that Arrow's theorem and, with quasi-transitive social preferences, a version of Mas-Colell and Sonnenschein's theorem, hold when there are simultaneously private and public goods, and the individuals are supposed to have selfish, continuous, convex and strictly increasing preferences. We first prove the results in an abstract general setting, and show that the above-mentioned economic domain is a model for this setting.We thank Donald Campbell and two anonymous referees for helpfull suggestions.     

Parenting groups for parents whose children are in care

Excluding very severe child abuse cases, biological parents are usually encouraged to maintain contact with their children in care. Parent‐child contact is often considered important because it can maintain the child's psychological identity and well‐being. It can also maintain parent‐child attachment and in some cases facilitate reunification. Improving parenting skills is viewed as an important method by which contact between children and their biological parents can be enhanced. However, mainstream parenting groups are often unsuitable for parents whose children are in care for a number of reasons. There is stigma involved with having children in care, such parents have very complex lives and there are reduced opportunities to practise skills learnt with their children. Groups designed specifically for parents whose children are in care appear to be a promising approach to improving the quality of contact between these parents and their children. This paper will review group‐based approaches to working with biological parents whose pre‐school‐aged children have been placed in care. The paper will also report the findings of a research project designed to identify key facilitators and barriers to parental involvement in a group‐based programme which includes contact between parents and their children who have been placed in care. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Diversity vs. equality: Why the education of Roma children does not work

This article takes up the question of why recent efforts to reform Roma education have been largely unsuccessful. Using case studies, the authors identify and discuss situations that have produced poor results: good intentions and bad realisations, good intentions and good realisations, and misguided intentions and bad realisations. They suggest in conclusion that as long as underlying cultural and structural conditions are not transformed, Roma education reform will not produce the desired results.     

The Third Way Reconfigured: How and Why Nonprofit Organizations are Shifting Their Human Resource Management

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are facing increasing demands to become more efficient and effective, especially given increasing financial cutbacks, the rising demand for services and the push toward performance-related management. Human resource management (HRM) is claimed to play an important role in coping with these challenges. Yet, within the field of nonprofit management, little is known about the configuration of HR architectures in NPOs, let alone their impact on performance. To bridge this gap, we conduct an exploratory multiple case study in ten health and social services NPOs. The case study data indicates a shift toward a dominant strategic orientation in the configuration of HRM. Our article makes a central contribution by uncovering a third way in which NPOs seek a specific configuration of HRM to confront the challenges they face in their internal and external environments.     

Reasons Why

Reasons—organized answers to the question "Why does (did, should) X do Y?"—vary between formulas and cause‐effect accounts in one dimension and between popular and specialized statements on the other. Conventions, explanatory stories, codified justifications, and technical accounts all qualify as reasons. Choices among types of reasons and contents within each type vary as a function of social relations between givers and receivers. As professional analysts of reasons for social processes as well as of reasons that social actors provide for their actions, sociologists face serious challenges to their credibility. They can reply to those challenges by (1) building records of effective intervention in social affairs; (2) educating audiences in the logic of social science; (3) incorporating their own explanations into widely available explanatory stories; or (4) confining their conversation to each other. Sociologists who want to influence public understanding must adopt some combination of Options 1 to 3.     

Why some Conferences are Difficult: a Study of the Professionals' Experience of Some Initial Child Protection Conferences

The views of 261 professionals attending 36 initial child protection conferences with parental participation were collected by means of a questionnaire. Overall, the professionals found the involvement of parents beneficial to the consideration of risk and the decision-making process, with some provisos. The data revealed that most of the negative responses arose from one third of the conferences, and that these conferences shared particular features relating to family profile and certain conference characteristics. The nature of the difficulties is identified and explored, especially with regard to the ambiguities and the uncertainties involved in risk assessments which contributed to the professionals, negative experiences, and which seemed to be heightened by the parents' presence.