ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS AND COMMUNITY DISSENSION IN RURAL OKLAHOMA

Contemporary research on immigrant settlement and adaptation emphasizes the interactions of ethnic-immigrant resources and local economic contexts. Yet, understandably, most research in this field continues to focus on major urban centers, truncating our view of the range of these interactions and the extent to which theories and concepts emerging from immigrant "magnets" generalize to more peripheral regions of the country. To address this shortcoming, we use census data from the postwar period to examine immigrant settlement trends in the Deep South Triad of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Findings indicate that this peripheral region of an otherwise booming South is extremely diverse in terms of its foreign-born population and that the largest groups (British, Vietnamese, Indians, and Hondurans) exhibit strong yet distinct patterns of concentration in the regional economy. These findings suggest that many of the same immigrant-adjustment processes documented in core immigrant cities generalize reasonably well to very different regional contexts withsubstantially lower rates of immigration and employment growth.     

PUBLIC SCHOOL SEGREGATION AND JUVENILE VIOLENT CRIME ARRESTS IN METROPOLITAN AREAS

Previous research has established an association between residential segregation and violent crime in urban America. Our study examines whether school‐based segregation is predictive of arrests of juveniles for violent crimes in U.S. metro areas. Using Census, Uniform Crime Report, and Common Core data for 204 metro areas, a measure of school‐based racial segregation, Theil's entropy index, is decomposed into two components: between‐ and within‐district segregation. Findings reveal evidence of a significant interaction term: Within‐district segregation is inversely associated with arrests for juvenile violence, but only in metropolitan areas with higher than average levels of between‐district segregation.     

ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS AND RATES OF FEMALE BREAST CANCER MORTALITY IN TEXAS

Relationships between median family income, female employment in agriculture and manufacturing, agricultural pesticide usage, and industrial carcinogenic wastes and rates of female breast cancer mortality were examined for 254 Texas counties. Data for most of the variables were averaged for the period 1980 to 1990. Levels of carcinogenic wastes reported by the Toxics Release Inventory were summed for the years 1988 to 1994. Female employment in agriculture and manufacturing, acres treated with agricultural pesticides, and volume of carcinogens were sources of potential environmental exposure. Mortality rates were based on the average number of deaths attributable to female breast cancer for the period 1986 to 1994 and the 1990 size of population subgroups in Texas. They were age and race adjusted and standardized per 100,000 population, using the direct method. Bivariate correlations were computed, and ordinary least squares regression was conducted. Findings indicated that rates of female breast cancer mortality were greatest in counties where larger numbers of women were employed in agriculture and manufacturing jobs and where volume of accumulated Toxic Release Inventory carcinogen wastes were greatest. Urban county status and median family income were important mitigators of mortality rates only in counties with no carcinogenic wastes. Pesticide use played a negligible role in the analysis.     

DESPAIR, DISTRUST AND DISSATISFACTION AMONG BLACKS AND WOMEN, 1973–1987

Discontent among American blacks and women is examined with indicators of the anomia of despair and distrust, and of job and financial dissatisfaction. Nine years of General Social Survey data covering 1973 through 1987 show that blacks' discontent exceeds whites' in most instances examined; and black women more frequently show significantly higher discontent than other race/gender groups. Also, blacks' discontent more often exceeds whites' among persons high in SES than among those low in SES. But gender main effects are almost nonexistent; and white women almost never show more discontent than other race/gender groups. This unexpected finding may be related to white women's greater identification with race than gender and their perception of general but not personal discrimination. Failure of the gender/discontent relationships to differ with the American president in office may have a similar explanation. But, as expected, racial differences in discontent tended to be higher during the Nixon/Ford and Reagan administrations than Carter's.     

VOUCHERS,PUBLIC SCHOOL RESPONSE,AND THE ROLE OF INCENTIVES: EVIDENCE FROM FLORIDA

This paper analyzes the incentives and responses of public schools in the context of an educational reform. Much of the literature studying the effect of voucher programs on public schools has looked at the effect on student and mean school scores. This paper tries to go inside the black box to investigate some of the ways in which schools facing the Florida accountability‐tied voucher program behaved. Schools getting an “F” grade for the first time were exposed to the threat of vouchers, but did not face vouchers unless and until they got a second “F” within the next 3 years. In addition, “F,” being the lowest grade, exposed the threatened schools to stigma. Exploiting the institutional details of this program, I analyze the incentives built into the system and investigate the behavior of the threatened public schools facing these incentives. There is strong evidence that they did respond to incentives. Using highly disaggregated school‐level data, a difference‐in‐differences estimation strategy as well as a regression discontinuity (RD) analysis, I find that the threatened schools tended to focus more on students below the minimum criteria cutoffs rather than equally on all. Second, consistent with incentives, the threatened school improvements were, by far, the largest in writing. These results are robust to controlling for differential preprogram trends, changes in demographic compositions, mean reversion, and sorting. These findings have important policy implications. (JEL H4, I21, I28)     

RANK, PERFORMANCE, AND MOBILITY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL GROUPING

Because the stratified levels in schools and school systems bear widely accepted symbolic statuses, students' positions in the hierarchy may influence the pattern of their educational careers, independently of their scholastic achievement. This article measures the effects of the rank of students' reading groups in first grade and their first-grade achievement on assignment to a reading group at the beginning of second grade. Two patterns are discovered: one in which students' reading-group levels in second grade depend on their first-grade positions, and a second in which achievement appears to be the criterion used for placement. However, examination of the composition of first- and second-grade reading groups reveals that in both cases, teachers attempt to reduce the heterogeneity of low- and middle-reading groups between first and second grade.     

IRRATIONALITY AND CONTRADICTION IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: Transformation in the Corporate Form of a U.S. Steel Corporation, 1930–1987

This article analyzes historical and interview data on one of the largest steel corporations in the U.S. to determine (1) the effects of financial controls on long-term incremental organizational changes, (2) the effects of the environment on the organization, (3) the degree to which organizations structure their environment, and (4) the conditions that transform the corporate form. Findings demonstrate that transformations emerge from crisis due to contradictions within the corporate form and between the corporate form and its environment. The sources of these contradictions include the long-term irrationality of formally rational financial controls, oligopolistic structures, and the state's tax policies. These findings question efficiency arguments in general, but more specifically do not support Alfred Chandler's conception of the "logic of managerial enterprise," which suggests that oligopolistic corporations are efficient because their size provides capital to realize economies of scale, and market share competition sharpens management's skills.     

MONEY, INCOME, AND PRICES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: 1870–1913

This paper examines certain aspects of the operation of the gold standard and its effects on the United Kingdom in the period before World War I. Reduced-form tests and estimates of output and money-demand equations are presented. The major conclusions are (1) Prices and interest rates in the United Kingdom can be represented as being determined independently of the money stock and output in the United Kingdom; and (2) Evidence concerning Lucas's version of the natural-rate hypothesis indicates various inadequacies.     

RACIAL SEGREGATION AND INSURANCE ENTERPRISE AMONG BLACK AMERICANS IN NORTHERN CITIES

At the turn of the century, many white-owned insurance firms discriminated against blacks by denying them coverage or by charging them extraordinarily high premiums. This discrimination created a void that was successfully filled by black insurance entrepreneurs who built upon an old tradition of self-help. My study adds to this account by showing that, in northern cities during the Great Migration, there was a significant, positive association between the representation of blacks in insurance occupations and the spatial isolation of black populations. This finding suggests that, during the study period, many blacks were drawn into the insurance business by the prospect of serving a geographically based market of co-ethnic consumers. I conclude that residential segregation by race, an ecological factor, played an important role in the development of insurance enterprise among black Americans in the urban North.     

THE NATURE OF FUTURE MYTHS: ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOURSE IN SCIENCE FICTION FILM, 1950-1999

Given the need to transform the societal relationship with nature, culture demands analysis for the role it plays in defining nature and the relationship with nature. Important as future myths, the environmental discourse imbedded in popular science fiction films since the 1950s is analyzed toward this end. Cultural studies serves as a theoretical and methodological guide. For the most part, the films resonate with reproductive discourse, degrading nature as less valuable than the civilized and favoring a relationship with nature most beneficial to humanity. Specifically, these films glorify science and technology, portray civilization continuing to fill and dominate the wilderness of space, and devalue nature as hostile and inferior to civilization. Resistant discourse, content which values and demands a more benign relationship with nature, is also present, but is less common and arguably less potent. This finding is interpreted in terms of implications for change in the societal relationship with nature as well as in light of other analyses of culture which find evidence for a shift in culture in an ecological direction.     

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE,SWINE PRODUCTION AND FARM LOSS IN NORTH CAROLINA

Since the early 1990s, North Carolina has been the fastest growing swine-producing state in the country and the leading innovator in vertically integrated, industrially structured hog farming. Although the growth and concentration of swine production has been associated with a host of negative social and environmental impacts on the states air, land, and waterways, environmental justice and farm loss concerns have played a particularly key role in the evolution of the controversy in North Carolina. Using multivariate analysis of statewide census and agricultural data, we identified the county-level sociodemographic characteristics associated with farm loss between 1982 and 1997. We found that recent patterns of farm loss were more pronounced in Black communities, regardless of income, and low-income communities, regardless of race. Furthermore, counties that had greater hog industry growth in the early 1980s and had large hog populations by 1992 have suffered greater farm loss since the early 1980s than counties where the hog industry growth did not intensify until more recently. The implications of these findings with reference to an expanded environmental justice framework regarding the discriminatory impacts of swine facilities on minority and low-income rural communities are discussed.     

HOUSEHOLD CHANGE AND RURAL SCHOOL ENROLLMENT IN MALAWI AND KENYA

This study examines school enrollment in two sub-Saharan African nations, Malawi and Kenya. The article advances a refined family economy theoretical framework for understanding variations in school enrollment. It recasts family economy frameworks to consider not only how the household institution mediates a broad social change, but also how the family institution itself may be influenced by a macroinstitutional change. The findings suggest that household structural changes, as well as changes in parents' activities and perceptions, help explain enrollment practices in rural Malawi and Kenya.     

WHITE ENROLLMENT IN NONPUBLIC SCHOOLS, PUBLIC SCHOOL RACIAL COMPOSITION, AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE

This research note presents preliminary research into the relationship between the racial composition of public schools in school districts and the percentages of white students in nonpublic schools in those districts. Specifically, we ask two questions: Is the enrollment of whites in non‐public schools associated with minority predominance in public schools? Is there an association between the enrollment of whites outside of the public school system and the academic performance of students in the public school system? Using two‐ and three‐level hierarchical linear models, we find that school districts that have more whites in nonpublic schools tend to contain public schools with larger percentages of minority students. Further, at both the school and individual levels, achievement test scores tend to be lower in districts in which white students tend to be enrolled outside of the public school system. In addition, the achievement gap between white and minority students tends to be greater in districts with relatively more students in nonpublic schools. These findings are consistent with the argument that the withdrawal of white students from the public school system is negatively related to academic achievement because it tends to concentrate minority students in public schools.     

PUNISHMENT AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE REVISITED: UNEMPLOYMENT AND IMPRISONMENT IN THE UNITED STATES, 1948–1984

Several recent empirical studies of imprisonment trends in the United States and Western Europe confirm Rusche and Kirchheimer's thesis that unemployment affects imprisonment directly with crime held constant. This empirical confirmation, however, remains suspect because these studies fail to address alternative explanations adequately. This article examines these alternatives more thoroughly and considers a limitation on the scope of the thesis. In particular, because the thesis concerns competitive labor markets of industrial capitalism, we reason that unemployment plays less of a role in the dynamics of imprisonment where the labor market is less freely competitive. The analysis of post-World War II trends reveals robust results for the Rusche-Kirchheimer thesis and limited empirical support for differences in labor markets.     

CROSS-BORDER ACQUISITIONS AND BOARD GLOBALIZATION IN THE WORLD'S LARGEST TNCS, 1995–2005

Because of their size, power, and undemocratic nature, the cross-border activities of the world's transnational corporations (TNCs) are of particular interest to sociologists. Previous research shows that over the past decade the boards of directors of the world's largest TNCs have become more multinational, in other words are increasingly composed of individuals from different countries. During the same period there was also a dramatic increase in the number of cross-border TNC mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Anecdotal evidence suggests a connection between cross-border acquisitions and the increasingly multinational composition of TNC boards, and this study explores that relationship using data on the 148 largest TNCs and commercial banks. We find that a cross-border acquisition almost always results in a more multinational board of directors, that multinational boards are more likely to do cross-border deals, and that once a board becomes multinational it stays that way. The evidence also shows that multinational boards are concentrated in Europe, suggesting another dynamic between the integrating forces of the European Union and its TNCs. Because the results show increasing cross-national contact between the corporate elites who serve on multinational TNC boards, the results also provide some support for claims about the recent emergence of a Transnational Business Class or Transnational Capitalist Class, at least in Europe, although it is recognized that more study is needed to make the case that such a class is forming.     

HIGH SCHOOL CHOICES AND THE GENDER GAP IN STEM

Women are less likely than men to graduate with a degree in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). We use detailed administrative data for a recent cohort of Ontario high school students, combined with data from the province's university admission system, to analyze the sources of this gap. We show that entry to STEM programs is mediated through an index of STEM readiness that depends on end‐of‐high school courses in math and science. Most of the gender gap in STEM entry can be traced to differences in the share of college entrants who are STEM‐ready; only a small share is attributable to differences in the choice of major conditional on readiness. We then use high school course data to decompose the gender gap in STEM readiness into two channels: one reflecting the gap in the fraction of high school students with the necessary prerequisites to enter STEM, the other arising from differences in the overall fractions of females and males who enter university. The gender gap in the fraction of males and females with STEM prerequisites is small. The primary driver of the gap in STEM readiness is the low rate of university entry by nonscience‐oriented males. (JEL I21, 28, I20)     

AN ACCOUNT OF IMMIGRATION STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA, 1990–2004

The growth and proliferation of sociological immigration research has garnered sufficient attention to warrant a review and evaluation of the development of the field. This study took the first step by collecting detailed information about work published in the area of immigration research from major journals between 1990 and 2004. We explored three major areas: research topics addressed, theoretical frameworks employed, and population groups studied in the published literature. We compared the development of the field in the United States and Canada. The studies reveal several important patterns in the sociological publications of the United States and Canada. First, the topics studied and population groups included in the sociological publications on immigration are closely associated with the demographic and immigrant integration context of the country. Second, the publications as a whole show that in the development of immigration literature, researchers in the field are engaging in the general sociological theoretical discussion.     

MIGRATION TRENDS AND EARNINGS OF FREE AGENTS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, 1976–1979

This paper is an empirical investigation of the effect of team characteristics on the migration pattern of free agents in Major League Baseball during the period 1976–1979. The results indicate that high-quality free agents tend to leave winning teams and move to teams in cities with large or rapidly growing populations. The compensation paid to free agents is shown to depend on these team characteristics as well as the players' personal characteristics and market conditions.     

PREP SCHOOL AND PUBLIC SCHOOL GRADUATES: WHO ATTENDS COLLEGE REUNIONS,WHO DONATES,WHO DOESN'T,AND WHY

As early as the 1920s, studies at various elite colleges revealed that public school graduates outperformed private school graduates academically, and more recent research indicates various differences in life patterns between these two groups 25 years after graduation. The two new studies presented here, which look at attendance at college reunions and donations to one's college, extend that earlier work. At a New England college, public school graduates were more likely than the private school graduates to attend their 30th, 35th, and 40th year college reunions. Donations to the school showed that public school graduates were somewhat more likely to make contributions than private school graduates, and graduates of the most socially elite boarding schools were especially unlikely to have made contributions. These findings are discussed in terms of the varying roles that prep schools and colleges play in one's identity.