Social interactions and college enrollment: A combined school fixed effects/instrumental variables approach

This paper provides some of the first evidence of peer effects in college enrollment decisions. There are several empirical challenges in assessing the influences of peers in this context, including the endogeneity of high school, shared group-level unobservables, and identifying policy-relevant parameters of social interactions models. This paper addresses these issues by using an instrumental variables/fixed effects approach that compares students in the same school but different grade-levels who are thus exposed to different sets of classmates. In particular, plausibly exogenous variation in peers’ parents’ college expectations are used as an instrument for peers’ college choices. Preferred specifications indicate that increasing a student’s exposure to college-going peers by ten percentage points is predicted to raise the student’s probability of enrolling in college by 4 percentage points. This effect is roughly half the magnitude of growing up in a household with married parents (vs. an unmarried household).     

Peer group ties and executive compensation networks

Publicly traded firms in the US typically determine C.E.O. compensation by benchmarking the pay of their C.E.O.s against the pay of C.E.O.s in “peer” firms. Consequently, executive compensation is influenced not only by firm-level characteristics, but also by the selection and actions of the firm’s immediate peers as well as by the structure of the executive compensation network overall. Analyzing compensation peer group choices made by the same 1183 firms for F.Y. 2007, 2008 and 2009, we find that while the typical compensation peer is similar in size and industry to the firm that chose it, deviations from this norm are common, especially among larger firms, and tend to be towards larger firms with better paid CEOs. Further analysis shows that firms who pay CEOs well relative to the pay that would be predicted from their revenues, return on assets, and industry tend to have greater aspiration bias in their group of named peers.     

法治视野下高校学生参与管理的实证研究

研究以高校学生参与管理实证调查为基础,剖析了当前高校管理中学生参与现状及存在问题,并阐释了＂功效理性＂缺失、制度性支撑不足、大学生参与能力较低等导致问题存在的三大原因。研究表明,实现高校管理中学生的有序参与,需要增强学生参与的公民意识及能力、完善学生组织化参与的机理、畅通与健全学生参与的制度路径。     

Intermediate peer contexts and educational outcomes: Do the friends of students' friends matter?

Sociologists of education have long been interested in the effects of peer relations on educational outcomes. Recent theory and research on adolescence suggest that peers on the boundaries of students' friendship networks may play an important role in shaping behaviors and educational outcomes. In this study, we examine the importance of a key “intermediate peer context” for students' outcomes: the friends of a student's friends. Our findings indicate both friends' and friends' friends' characteristics independently predict students' college expectations and their risk of dropping out of high school (although only friends' characteristics predict GPA). Our models suggest the magnitude of students' friends-of-friends’ characteristics are at least as large their friends' characteristics. Together, the association between the peer context and students outcomes is considerably larger when accounting for both the characteristics of students' friends and the friends of their friends.     

场:做好新形势下群众工作的新思考

高校学生社团及社团活动是实施素质教育、为党和国家培养优秀建设人才的重要途径和有效形式,是高校校园文化建设的重要载体,是学生"自我管理、自我教育和自我服务"的集中表现,在创新校园文化建设、提高学生综合素质、引导学生适应社会、促进学生成才就业、强化学生思想政治教育、实践科学调研和维护学校稳定等方面发挥着十分重要的作用。文章着重从新时期高校学生社团的机制保障、理念探索等方面进行了思考和探索。     

国外行业组织政策参与研究及对我国的启示

20世纪80年代以来,国际学术界涌现出一批关于行业组织政策参与的研究成果.这主要包括三个方面:行业组织政策参与类型与国家—社会关系、行业组织政策参与能力及其影响因素以及政策参与对行业与经济发展的影响.在当前我国国家与社会关系转型的背景下,这些成果对我国行业组织的发展及研究具有重要的借鉴价值.     

中国古代的社、结社与文人结社

目前学界关于中国古代文人结社的研究主要是实证性的和文化学的,学理性研究尚未引起足够重视。结社的学理性研究是对结社的本体进行研究,诸如什么是结社,结社与群体、集团、政党等概念的区别与联系是什么,结社的形态和类型有哪些,中国古代的结社是由哪些要素构成的,什么样的结社可以称为文人结社等等。对这些根本性问题的解答是研究工作取得更大成效的前提和基础,在某种意义上它比上述两类研究更为重要。     

大学生参与社会实践活动意愿实证分析与提升路径

参与社会实践活动对大学生成长成才具有重要现实意义和成效,然而当前社会实践活动大学生的参与率相对较低。在对福建省四所高校大学生参与社会时间活动意愿问卷调查的基础上,就影响大学生参与社会实践意愿的因素进行了实证分析,认为是否为学生干部、是否熟悉参与方式及家人是否支持正是影响大学生参与社会实践的三大要素。相应地,在实际工作中,加强宣传协同优化社会实践环境、改变学生家长教育观念争取支持、创新形式多元筹集经费支持等举措,实为拓宽大学生社会实践参与路径之关健。     

生态文明视域下大学生党建工作探微——以农林独立学院为例

党的十八大将生态文明建设提升为关系人民福祉、关乎民族未来的长远之计。通过调研农林独立学院大学生党员的生态文明意识与行为,认为该类院校大学生党员具有注重实践活动、拥有较好创新意识等优势,为此文章提出抓理论、促学习,树理念、提意识,搭平台、重实践,探机制、保长效等加强大学生党建工作的对策建议,旨在为培养生态文明建设生力军、推进生态文明建设大局服务。     

略论隐性课程与高校思想政治教育

隐性课程是教育者通过教育环境有意或无意地传递给学生的情感、态度、价值、信仰等非公开性的经验。隐性课程对高校思想政治教育的启发有以下四个方面：划军高校校园环境的育人功能;完善高校思想政治教育工作者的道德形象和人格形象;重视高校学生社团的作用;发挥哲学社会科学在思想政治教育中的渗透作用。     

Homophily in the career mobility of China’s political elite

We argue that leadership promotion in China’s political elite relies on homophily for signals of trustworthiness and future cooperative behavior more than on economic performance. We first point to the limitation of the economic performance argument from within the framework of China’s specific M-form state structure, and then we proffer a sociological explanation for why higher-level elites in China rely on homophilous associations in recruiting middle-level elites to the top positions of state. Using a unique dataset covering China’s provincial leaders from 1979 to 2011, we develop a homophily index focusing on joint origin, joint education and joint work experience. We trace personal similarities in these respects between provincial leaders and members of China’s supreme decision-making body, the Politbureau’s Standing Committee. We then provide robust evidence confirming the persisting impact of homophilous associations on promotion patterns in post-reform China.     

社区治理的国际经验与启示

日本的社区建设采取行政与自治相结合的混合治理模式,新加坡的社区建设是政府主导的治理方式。两国社区治理的做法与经验对我国的社区建设具有重要启示意义：坚持存量盘活、增量添彩的基本原则,发挥政府的资源与政策优势,引入契约合作模式,优化社区治理结构,推广“三社互动”,创新社区党建,实现社会协同与公众参与。     

Intimate partner violence in neighborhood context: The roles of structural disadvantage,subjective disorder,and emotional distress

Most theoretical treatments of intimate partner violence (IPV) focus on individual-level processes. Some researchers have attempted to situate IPV within the larger neighborhood context, but few studies have sought to link structural- and individual-level factors. The current analyses fill a research gap by examining the role of anger and depression in the association between neighborhood disadvantage and IPV. Using data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) and the 2000 Census, this study focuses on structural indicators of disadvantage as well as subjective disorder, and highlights the complex associations between neighborhood conditions, emotional distress, and IPV. Findings indicate that anger and depressive symptoms partially explain the association between neighborhood disadvantage and IPV. Additionally, the associations between disadvantage, disorder, and IPV depend on respondent’s level of anger. Results underscore the need to further consider the role of neighborhood factors (both objective and subjective) in relation to IPV, and also suggest the utility of introducing individual-level emotional measures to assess the circumstances under which neighborhoods matter most.     

Does the standard voluntary association question capture informal associations?

Sociologists have long been attentive to participation in associational life. Yet, despite being repeatedly cautioned to consider more informal groups, most researchers focus on participation in formal voluntary associations using national surveys with fixed group categories, such as the General Social Survey (GSS). In this paper, we use new GSS data on the names of the voluntary associations listed by respondents to evaluate whether voluntary association prompts capture or miss various types of informal associations. We code the formality of the associations listed by respondents and also compare to a new sample of bottom-up, informal voluntary associations. We demonstrate that some response categories adequately capture both formal and informal associations, e.g., sports groups. However, our results also suggest that the standard voluntary association question both omits entire categories of informal associations and omits some informal variants of associations within categories. In the tradition of Baumgartner and Walker (1988), Wuthnow (1994), and Wellman et al. (2001), we suggest that we may misunderstand citizen associations if we ignore informal associating.     

Gatekeepers of the American Dream: How teachers’ perceptions shape the academic outcomes of immigrant and language-minority students

High school teachers evaluate and offer guidance to students as they approach the transition to college based in part on their perceptions of the student's hard work and potential to succeed in college. Their perceptions may be especially crucial for immigrant and language-minority students navigating the U.S. educational system. Using the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), we consider how the intersection of nativity and language-minority status may (1) inform teachers’ perceptions of students’ effort and college potential, and (2) shape the link between teachers’ perceptions and students’ academic progress towards college (grades and likelihood of advancing to more demanding math courses). We find that teachers perceive immigrant language-minority students as hard workers, and that their grades reflect that perception. However, these same students are less likely than others to advance in math between the sophomore and junior years, a critical point for preparing for college. Language-minority students born in the U.S. are more likely to be negatively perceived. Yet, when their teachers see them as hard workers, they advance in math at the same rates as nonimmigrant native English speaking peers. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering both language-minority and immigrant status as social dimensions of students’ background that moderate the way that high school teachers’ perceptions shape students’ preparation for college.     

公民参与人大监督模式研究——以浙江Z市“人民听证”制度为例

公民参与人大监督是实现人民当家作主的一种重要途径。《监督法》实施以来,我国各地人大在此方面积累了许多实践经验。基于人大监督治理范式和公民参与政策过程理论,可以建构出人大监督过程中的九类公民参与模式。从浙江省Z市"人民听证"(2007—2011年)的实践来看,当前现实的公民参与人大监督模式分为四种:象征参与式、准象征参与式、非典型的非参与式、准非参与式等。这些模式的选择主要受人大监督议题性质和维护社会稳定需要等因素影响;在总体上,人大常委会倾向于让公民参与处于中等程度。未来需要在监督决策、监督执行和监督评估阶段全面提高公民参与人大监督的水平。不过,关于公民参与人大监督的理论框架的有效性,尚需更扎实的异地案例研究予以验证。     

Impact of the spread of mass education on married women’s experience with domestic violence

This paper investigates the association between mass education and married women’s experience with domestic violence in rural Nepal. Previous research on domestic violence in South Asian societies emphasizes patriarchal ideology and the widespread subordinate status of women within their communities and families. The recent spread of mass education is likely to shift these gendered dynamics, thereby lowering women’s likelihood of experiencing domestic violence. Using data from 1775 currently married women from the Chitwan Valley Family Study in Nepal, we provide a thorough analysis of how the spread of mass education is associated with domestic violence among married women. The results show that women’s childhood access to school, their parents’ schooling, their own schooling, and their husbands’ schooling are each associated with their lower likelihood of experiencing domestic violence. Indeed, husbands’ education has a particularly strong, inverse association with women’s likelihood of experiencing domestic violence. These associations suggest that the proliferation of mass education will lead to a marked decline in women’s experience with domestic violence in Nepal.     

Behind the ethnic–civic distinction: Public attitudes towards immigrants’ political rights in the Netherlands

Public opinion research has sought to distinguish between ethnic and civic conceptions of citizenship and examined the differential associations of these conceptions with policy preferences in the realm of immigration. What has not been examined empirically is why exactly these conceptions are related to people’s preferences. In two survey studies conducted among national samples of native Dutch we tested the proposition that the endorsement of ethnic citizenship is related to lower acceptance of Muslim immigrant rights (Study 1) and their political participation (Study 2) because of a weaker normative sense of common national belonging and higher adherence to autochthony (primo-occupancy) beliefs. In contrast, the endorsement of civic citizenship was expected to be associated with higher acceptance of Muslim immigrant rights and their political participation because of a stronger sense of common belonging and lower belief in autochthony. The findings of the two studies are similar and in support of these expectations.     

Family structure and the economic wellbeing of children in youth and adulthood

An extensive literature on the relationship between family structure and children’s outcomes consistently shows that living with a single parent is associated with negative outcomes. Few US studies, however, examine how a child’s family structure affects outcomes for the child once he/she reaches adulthood. We directly examine, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, whether family structure during childhood is related to the child’s economic wellbeing both during childhood as well as during adulthood. We find that living with a single parent is associated with the level of family resources available during childhood. This finding persists even when we remove time invariant factors within families. We also show that family structure is related to the child’s education, marital status, and adult family income. Once we control for the child’s demography and economic wellbeing in childhood, however, the associations into adulthood become trivial in size and statistically insignificant, suggesting that the relationship between family structure and children’s long-term, economic outcomes is due in large part to the relationship between family structure and economic wellbeing in childhood.     

Adolescents’ perception of peer groups: Psychological,behavioral, and relational determinants

Adolescents’ social cognitive understanding of their social world is often inaccurate and biased. Focusing on peer groups, this study examines how adolescents’ psychological, behavioral, and relational characteristics influence the extent to which they accurately identify their own and others’ peer groups. Analyses were conducted with a sample of 1481 seventh- and tenth-grade Chinese students who are embedded with 346 peer groups. Overall, females and older students had more accurate perceptions. In addition, lower self-esteem, higher indegree centrality, and lower betweenness centrality in the friendship network predicted more accurate perception of one’s own groups, whereas higher academic performance and lower betweenness centrality in the friendship network predicted more accurate perception of others’ groups. Implications for understanding the connection between adolescents’ psychological and behavioral traits, social relationships, and social cognition are discussed.