Perceived Relational Support in Adolescence: Dimensions,Configurations, and Adolescent Adjustment

The perceived relational support from four key providers (father, mother, special sibling, and best friend) on five provisions (quality of information, respect for autonomy, emotional support, convergence of goals, and acceptance) was examined for 2,262 adolescents (aged 12 – 18 years). In a variable‐centered approach, factor analyses yielded five dimensions of support: three specific to providers (parent, friend, and sibling support) and two specific to provisions (convergence of goals and respect for autonomy). Only parental support was found to change (decrease) across age. In a person‐centered approach, five types of adolescents with different configurations of perceived support were identified. The first three types differed in overall level of support (high, average, and low) for all of the five dimensions; the fourth type represented extremely low support from parents with above‐average support from best friends; the fifth type consisted of adolescents with no best friend. These configurations were significantly related to different patterns of adolescent adjustment in various domains (psychological well‐being, delinquency, substance use, and peer‐group functioning).     

Gendered Resources,Division of Housework,and Perceived Fairness—A Case in Urban China

Drawing upon equity and gender theories, we investigate Chinese couples' perceived fairness of the wife's disproportionately heavy household responsibility. Data come from in‐depth interviews with 39 married couples in Beijing during the summer of 1998. Although housework division remained unequal among dual‐earner couples, the majority of wives and husbands saw it as fair. We explore the notion of gendered resources by examining husbands' and wives' opinions about both paid and domestic work. We find that husband's breadwinner role and wife's housekeeper role retain their primary place in the family and that gender‐role expectations produce gendered resources to both wives and husbands. These expectations release both the husbands, who have fulfilled the provider role, from the obligation to share housework equally, and the wives, who combine paid and domestic work, from an equal responsibility of breadwinning. Therefore, the failure to bring adequate gendered resources to a marriage, rather than the unequal distribution of housework, causes a sense of unfairness.     

Divison of Labor,Perceived Fairness,and Marital Quality: The Effect of Gender Ideology

This study assesses the relations between division of household labor, perceived fairness, and marital quality by comparing three ethnic‐religious groups in Israel that reflect traditional, transitional, and egalitarian ideologies. The findings, based on structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology, show that sense of fairness mediates the relation between division of labor and marital quality and gender ideology moderates these relations for women but not for men. Perceived fairness is related to the division of labor for women in egalitarian and transitional families but not in traditional ones. For egalitarian women, a more segregated division of labor is linked directly with lower marital quality whereas for women in transitional families it is mediated by sense of fairness. The findings are discussed on two overlapping levels—conceptual‐theoretical and sociocultural—with implications for understanding families in cultural transition.     

Perceived Expectations and Role Behavior of Socialization Agents: the Case of the School Counselor and SES Areas*

The defining and, where appropriate, modeling of supervisors, co-workers, parents, teachers, and counselors were correlated with a particular counseling activity. School counselors (N=81) reported these perceived influences and the amount of time they devoted to talking with youths about the ways to avoid past mistakes. In low socioeconomic (SES) areas, counselors and teachers showed the strongest relationship with this behavior; while in high SES groups, parents provided the dominant association.     

Calculated,Conditioned, and Normative Behaviour in Social Exchange: An Integration of Assumptions*

Les théories de léchange social sont des mélanges constitués déléments provenant de la sociologie, de la psychologie et de léconomique. Ces mélanges ont étéétablis sans accorder toute lattention nécessaire aux différences qui se rapportent aux postulate sous-jacents des motivations individuelles. Les postulate sous-jacents, les forces et les faiblesses du modèle de la conduite normative, du modèle de la conduite conditionnée et du modèle utilariste de la conduite intéressée sont examinés tour à tour. Le modèle de Simon de « lhomme en voie-de-se satisfaire « et la théorie des rôles sont utilisés pour élaborer un ensemble intégré de postulate qui incorporent les points forts de chaque modèle tout en évitant plusieurs de leurs lacunes. Social-exchange theories are blends of elements of sociology, psychology, and economics. These have been conjoined without due consideration of differences in underlying assumptions about motivation. The underlying assumptions and strengths and weaknesses of the model of normatively constrained behaviour, of the operant model of conditioned behaviour, and of the utilitarian model of calculated behaviour, which is embedded in economic theory, are examined in turn. Simons model of “satisficing man” and role theory are used to develop an integrated set of assumptions which incorporate the strengths of each model and overcome many of the weaknesses.     

Becoming Each Other: A Single Case Exploration of Relational Consciousness in Couple Therapy

The concept of “relational consciousness” has gained increasing attention in the last decades in the fields of philosophy, sociology, and psychotherapy. Yet human consciousness with its concomitant awareness of self and other as distinct is linguistically and culturally situated in the individual mind. This article explores the lived experience of shared consciousness in the practice of “becoming the other” with a focus on therapy with one couple. The historical development of our understanding of consciousness as a relational phenomenon is addressed with particular attention to the observations, insights, and practices of Lev Vygotsky, George Herbert Mead, and Gregory Bateson, who have each contributed substantially to our understanding of mind as relationally experienced and constructed. The article explores implications for practice and future directions this methodology might take.

A Politicization Paradigm: the Case of Yugoslavia*

This study uses data gathered in Yugoslavia to develop a predictive technique used to determine a person's combined degree of political participation and supporting political attitudes. The primary analytic variables used in the model were the following: (1) urbanness, (2) socioeconomic status, (3) atheism, (4) political consciousness–as determined by a five item index. The data are used to combine these variables into a predictive table which displays smooth linearity from high to low degree of politicization. in accord with the embryonic theory advanced.     

Perceived Fairness and Satisfaction with the Division of Housework Among Dual-Earner Couples in Italy

A well-documented paradox in family literature is that most married women and men consider the division of household labor to be fair, although its distribution is quite uneven. In this article I report results from a survey on 404 dual-earner couples with young children living in Torino, Italy. A small proportion of wives and husbands (13.6% and 5.7%, respectively) reported both unfairness and dissatisfaction with the division of housework. The absolute majority (55%) of both wives and husbands perceived fairness and satisfaction, even if most of the chores (about two-thirds) fell on wives’ shoulders. To explain these judgments, elements of Thompson's distributive justice theoretical framework were operationalized and tested. A critical reassessment of these elements is provided, based on empirical findings.     

Power,Exchange and Solidarity: Case Studies in Youth Volunteering for Development

The proliferation of volunteering for development (V4D) models, approaches and funding sources means V4D is no longer able to be neatly located within the third sector. The enormous diversity of interactions within the Youth V4D (YV4D) field provides an opportunity to examine new and different activities and trajectories to ascertain the extent to which the traditional values of V4D, reciprocity and solidarity continue to form part of YV4D. Using the classical third sector model of Evers and Laville (The third sector in Europe, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2004), and drawing on Polanyi (The great transformation: the political and economic origins of our time, Beacon Press, Boston, 2001 [1944]) and Mauss (The gift. The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies, Routledge, London, 1990 [1925]), in particular their concepts of redistribution and reciprocity, we present three case studies of new hybrid YV4D trajectories—university YV4D, state YV4D programmes, and volunteer tourism/voluntourism—to reveal the different logics and features of contemporary YV4D. We argue that understanding these contemporary YV4D trajectories requires a focus on organisational and stakeholder structures of diverse volunteering activities, their relational logics and the forms of reciprocity they involve. We find that in the YV4D case studies we explore the neoliberal market logic of exchange, along with political ideologies and state interests, affects the YV4D model design.

     

Commodity Agriculture,Civic Agriculture and the Future of U.S. Farming*

Abstract Commodity agriculture and civic agriculture represent two distinct types of farming found in the U.S. today. Commodity agriculture is grounded on the belief that the primary objectives of farming should be to produce as much food/fiber as possible for the least cost. It is driven by the twin goals of productivity and efficiency. Civic agriculture, on the other hand, represents the rebirth of a more locally oriented agriculture and food system. Using data from the 1992 and 1997 Censuses of Agriculture and other secondary data sets, we examine factors and conditions associated with the presence and growth of both types of agriculture. Our findings show that civic agriculture is associated with particular commodities and with specific social, economic and demographic characteristics of localities. Commodity agriculture, on the other hand, is more sensitive to the classic economic factors of production, namely, land, labor, and capital.     

A Social Exchange Typology of Conjugal Relationships and Conflict Development*

In this article the authors attempt to demonstrate how the principles of social exchange, reciprocity and distributive justice can be used to explain the development and continuation of marital dissatisfaction and conflict. A typology of marital relationships is presented based upon the premise that marriages can be located on a continuum ranging from satisfying and voluntary to conflicted and nonvoluntary. Satisfying relationships are conceptualized as equitable reciprocal exchanges. Socially approved behaviors as well as deviant interpersonal responses which occur are seen as impersnal maneuvers which a spouse might utilize to restore an equitable balance of exchanges once the norm of equity has been violated. The type of strategy employed by a spouse will depend upon the relative power he/she possesses, the type of marriage in which the spouse is involved, and the availability of reinforcements which can be gained from sources external to the relationship. Practical suggestions for assessing the appropriateness of various forms of clinical intervention available to the therapist are discussed in the light of this typology and clinical implications are offered.     

A Use of Social Exchange Theory in Family Crisis Intervention*

This paper explores the practical application of social exchange theory in conceptualizing a working hypothesis in family crisis intervention. It is hypothesized that the range of exchange content in a family crisis situation is proportional to the frequency of negative communication. The contention is made that offering specific behavioral exchange equivalents to family members based on need-response patterns allows for resolution of the family conflict. A case example illustrates support for the hypothesis and implications for future empirical research in family crisis studies are noted.     

Perceived Sex Knowledge,Exposure to Eroticism,and Premarital Sexual Behavior: the Impact of Dating*

The antecedents of premarital sexual behavior are examined using interview data from a national probability sample of 1,177 American college students. I hypothesize that a positive relationship exists between perceived sex knowledge, exposure to eroticism, dating experiences, and premarital sexual behavior. Dating frequency, intimacy, and related circumstances are proposed as powerful explanatory variables in understanding the developmental process leading to increased socio-sexual involvement. Data are provided which confirm the hypotheses and lend support to the theory that a complex social-psychological network of variables, centering around the opportunity and pressures associated with dating and peer group experiences, influences premarital sexual behavior.     

Social Capital,Organic Agriculture,and Sustainable Livelihood Security: Rethinking Agrarian Change in Mexico*

Abstract This paper explores the relevance of extra local market linkages and local‐level social capital to sustainable livelihood outcomes in two agrarian communities on Mexico's Baja Peninsula. Contextualized by the specificity of Mexico's transition from state‐directed rural development to neoliberally‐guided rural development in the 1990s, findings suggest that market linkages can intersect with pre‐existing social capital to both create new and destroy preexisting social capital, thus shaping the direction of development and inequality outcomes. The nature of a community's social fabric is often a result of long‐standing historical legacies. In the communities presented, the quantity and quality of social capital was intricately connected to their history of state‐sponsored or market agriculture; the nature of local institutions, with particular emphasis on the formation and evolution of the ejido; and the access to and availability of natural resources, namely land and water, which are both intricately connected to market access options. Moving beyond a simple demonstration that social capital matters, this analysis explores the complex and dynamic interaction between local‐level social capital and extralocal market linkages. In doing so, it contributes to the larger debate on how the historical legacy of populist reforms and the social and political institutions created during state populism have nuanced the trajectory of neoliberal development in Mexico.     

The Routinization of Social Movement Organizations: China as a Deviant Case*

This paper has two purposes: (1) to show how previous work in complex organizations, social movements and political development converges to predict routinization of successful social movement organizations, and (2) to explore the Chinese experiment in organization as a deviant case for the “law” of routinization. First, theories from three substantive areas are shown to predict routinization of social movement organizations. Next, an alternative model of organization, the Maoist model, is presented. Then, recent social history of China is examined to see if the model has been implemented. Lastly, several generalizations about the routinization process are drawn from the Chinese case.     

Discrepancies in Perceived Organizational Control: their Incidence and Importance in Local Churches*

The effects of discrepancies between preferred and perceived control among church members are investigated in terms of amount and distribution of control. For each dimension of control, three categories of respondents are identified: those who preferred a greater amount or wider distribution of control than they perceived to exist within their churches (deficit); those whose preferred and perceived control scores were identical (balance); and those who preferred a lesser amount or more concentrated distribution of control in their churches than they perceived to exist (surplus). For both amount and distribution of control, a perceived deficit is more common than a surplus. Respondents experiencing discrepancies in either direction are more dissatisfied and alienated than those with a balance in desired and perceived organizational control. A deficit is associated with more dissatisfaction (but not necessarily more alienation) than a surplus. Subsample comparisons show these findings hold for both officers and non-officers. Regression analyses show that discrepancies regarding organizational control are important even after other aspects of control have been introduced.     

The Interplay between Equity and Gender Ideology in Perceived Housework Fairness: Evidence from an Experimental Vignette Design

Previous survey studies on the perceived fairness of the division of housework have suffered from limitations resulting from the use of observational data, namely reverse causation, unobserved heterogeneity, and the difficulty of estimating more than one causal effect at once. This article overcomes these limitations by using an innovative method in this research field: a survey‐based vignette design combining the benefits of experiments with a higher capability of generalization. From our findings based on Italian primary data, we argue that equity and gender ideology theories explain different elements of the fairness evaluation process and are not mutually exclusive. Consistent with equity theory, under certain conditions it is considered fair to exchange paid and unpaid time. However, unlike equity theory, the economic value of time is not an issue. Moreover, a request to renegotiate housework is more legitimate if it redresses a prior inequity and, for women, irrespective of the asker's gender. Gender ideology affects partners' equity considerations, weighting their contribution to paid and unpaid work differently.