Helpless in Finance: The Cost of Helping Effort Among Bank Employees

Theory suggests that individual performance pay increases effort but may reduce the incentive to help co-workers. In an original survey of finance industry employees subject to individual performance pay, we demonstrate that those workers who report they do not help co-workers earn significantly more. This result is particularly strong for those workers with the strongest individual performance pay incentives. Moreover, when those workers report that their coworkers help them, they also earn significantly more. These dual results are consistent with a strong incentive to free-ride on the helping effort of others in the face of individual performance pay.

Effort on Display: Unemployment and the Interactional Management of Moral Accountability

In this study of moral accountability in vocational guidance conversations at a public employment office in Sweden, I adopt a combination of approaches to explore implicit accounts as intrinsic to institutional activities. In this setting, participants managed moral accountability by normalizing a person's conduct, preempting potential critique, and marking transgression. Clients were never held accountable for lack of competence, knowledge, or skill or for failing to get a job. A critical element in sustaining oneself as a morally accountable client in this setting is to successfully display one's efforts properly in situ as well as through the institutional record.     

Gender and Achievement: The Early Careers of College Graduates

Abstract

NORC longitudinal data on a national sample of 1961 college graduates are analyzed to determine gender main and interaction effects in a model of educational, occupational and income achievement among employed graduates. The results indicate that (1) there is a direct female disadvantage in educational and income achievement but gender comparability in occupational prestige; (2) in general, grades are no more important than gender of student as a determinant of achievement; and (3) for men more than women; high freshman prestige expectations result in high undergraduate grades; high grades translate into high senior prestige expectations; and graduate school enrollment results in degree attainment.     

The Effort of Being in a Fictional World: Upkeyings and Laminated Frames in MMORPGs

On the basis of ten months of fieldwork studying a role‐playing guild in the game World of Warcraft, this article shows that contrary to the idea that virtual worlds are seductive illusions, technology does not necessarily support players' feelings of being immersed in fictional worlds. Applying Goffman's frame theory, the author explains how role‐players in the game actively upkey elements from primary frameworks in order to create and uphold the frame of being in a fictional world. This kind of narrative immersion is rather hindered than facilitated by technology.     

An Examination of the Relationship Among High School Size,Social Capital,and Adolescents' Mathematics Achievement

In an effort to enhance both adolescents' social capital and increase achievement, public school districts across the United States have created small high schools. Using data derived from a longitudinal and nationally representative study of U.S. high school students, the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, results show that when adolescents' parents know their friends' parents math achievement is significantly predicted. This association, however, is nonsignificant when conditioned on standard measures of prior achievement and family background, among others. In addition, while this relationship is also strong and significant within small high schools, it, too, is eliminated when conditioned on select confounding variables. These findings are discussed in terms of current efforts to improve achievement through reductions in school size.     

Twenty-first century learning after school: the case of Junior Achievement Worldwide

Efforts to increase after-school programming indicate the nation's concern about how youth are engaged during out-of-school time. There are clear benefits to extending the learning that goes on during the school day. Research from the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice shows that after-school participants do better in school and have stronger expectations for the future than youth who are not occupied after school. And the need is evident: 14.3 million students return to an empty house after school, yet only 6.5 million children are currently enrolled in after-school programs. If an after-school program were available, parents of 15.3 million would enroll their child. JA Worldwide began in 1919 and has been rooted in the afterschool arena from its origins. Its after-school programs teach students about the free enterprise system through curriculum focusing on business, citizenship, economics, entrepreneurship, ethics and character, financial literacy, and career development. At the same time, JA Worldwide incorporates hands-on learning and engagement with adults as role models, both key elements to a successful after-school program. Now focused on developing curriculum emphasizing skills needed for the twenty-first century, JA adopted the key elements laid out for after-school programs by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. To ensure that the next generation of students enters the workforce prepared, America's education system must provide the required knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Programs such as JA Worldwide serve as models of how to provide the twenty-first century skills that all students need to succeed.     

Academic Procrastination in STEM: Interactive Effects of Stereotype Threat and Achievement Goals

A host of academic outcomes have been investigated as consequences of stereotype threat for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including attrition and decreased academic performance. However, the role of a potentially important precursor to these negative outcomes—academic procrastination—remains unclear. The present research sought to address this issue. University students (N = 223) enrolled in biology, chemistry, physics, and psychology courses participated in the study. Mastery approach, mastery avoidance, and performance avoidance achievement goals were hypothesized to moderate the effect of stereotype threat on academic procrastination. Results indicated significant interactions for women but not for men; however, interactions were not in the hypothesized direction for the avoidance goal moderators. Mastery approach goals exerted a significant buffering effect on the stereotype threat–academic procrastination relationship, but, contrary to prediction, both mastery avoidance and performance avoidance goals exerted a significant buffering effect. Implications for career‐related outcomes among women in STEM are discussed.     

Assimilation and Educational Achievement: the Case of the Second Generation Japanese-American*

A review of the literature reveals three conflicting hypotheses concerning Japanese-American educational achievement. Data from a three-generational, national sample of Japanese-Americans are examined to determine the correlates of the second-generation respondents'(the Nisei) educational achievement. Employing four measures of assimilation—cultural, structural, marital, and identificational—the findings suggest that the greater the assimilation of the respondent, the higher the educational achievement. These findings and their implications are discussed.     

The Medicalization of Deviance as an Interactive Achievement: The Construction of Compulsive Gambling

This article joins two lines of research from distinct areas in sociology to illuminate the mechanisms through which the meaning of “compulsive gambling” and what it means to be “a compulsive gambler” are cooperatively constructed in interaction at meetings of the fellowship group Gamblers Anonymous (GA). Combining Conrad's work on the medicalization of deviance with a social psychological focus on support group interaction, I demonstrate how individuals' experiences and identities come to be imbued with a medical vocabulary through the homogenization of the initial diversity among members. This analysis contributes to conceptualizations of the medicalization of deviance as well as to interactionist interests in the social construction of reality.     

Early Achievement Gains and Poverty-Linked Social Distress: The Case of Post-Head Start Transition

Public policymakers in West Virginia have an intense interest in early and continuing educational intervention for the poor. In this view, interventions such as Head Start are a good idea, but they start too late and end too soon. Properly executed, early and continuing intervention is expected to provide a basis for later achievement-driven improvements in occupational and income attainments. Rural poverty and its correlates, which manifest and cause social distress in a variety of forms, is then diminished. We report on an evaluation of the West Virginia site of a federally-funded program intended to maintain early achievement gains viewed as crucial in alleviating poverty-linked social distress. Results of the evaluation of Post-Head Start Transition show no achievement gains. This undercuts the rationale for the program. Furthermore, it provides no support for a general policy of early and continuing educational intervention to foster achievement-driven diminution of poverty. It seems reasonable to consider the possibility that achievement rises and falls in response to the prevalence and intensity of social distress. Context determines educational outcomes, not the other way around. Reasons are suggested for this.     

Early Achievement Gains and Poverty-Linked Social Distress: The Case of Post-Head Start Transition

Public policymakers in West Virginia have an intense interest in early and continuing educational intervention for the poor. In this view, interventions such as Head Start are a good idea, but they start too late and end too soon. Properly executed, early and continuing intervention is expected to provide a basis for later achievement-driven improvements in occupational and income attainments. Rural poverty and its correlates, which manifest and cause social distress in a variety of forms, is then diminished. We report on an evaluation of the West Virginia site of a federally-funded program intended to maintain early achievement gains viewed as crucial in alleviating poverty-linked social distress. Results of the evaluation of Post-Head Start Transition show no achievement gains. This undercuts the rationale for the program. Furthermore, it provides no support for a general policy of early and continuing educational intervention to foster achievement-driven diminution of poverty. It seems reasonable to consider the possibility that achievement rises and falls in response to the prevalence and intensity of social distress. Context determines educational outcomes, not the other way around. Reasons are suggested for this.     

The Price of Opportunity: Race,Student Loan Debt,and College Achievement

This paper examines racial differences in student loan debt and concurrently assesses the potential payoffs and countervailing risks inherent in reliance on loans in a cohort of black and white first‐year college students. Using the 1996–2001 Beginning Postsecondary Student study we find that the use of loans results in greater enrollment persistence and higher odds of college completion, especially for black students. However, black students acquire larger amounts of student loan debt and face a higher risk of default than white students. This is in part due to associated racial differences in family socioeconomic status and type of institution attended. We suggest these findings illuminate the dual‐sided nature of college loans that makes them an imperfect, but overall positive, tool for reducing educational inequality. On the one hand, student loans reduce educational inequality that otherwise results from disadvantaged students' struggles to pay for college and complete college in a timely fashion. At the same time, the degree to which loans reduce racial inequality is diminished by black students' higher loan amounts, the large number of black students who borrow but do not finish college, and the large racial difference in the odds of defaulting on a loan.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING OF MARRIED MEN AND WOMEN: An Asian Case

Using a wide variety of measures of psychological well-being obtained from a representative sample of married men and women in Bangkok, Thailand, we examine gender differences in psychological well-being. We find that, in Bangkok, as in the United States, married men generally enjoy a higher level of psychological well-being than do married women. We find no support for role strain theory, but we do find support for role enhancement theory. We find that social support has little effect on psychological well-being, but that social strain not only has a significant effect on well-being but also largely accounts for gender differences in well-being. The mixed findings suggest the importance of testing theories in different societal contexts, for they may or may not be easily portable from one culture to another.     

Earnings,Effort, and Work Flexibility of Self-Employed Women and Men: The Case of St. Croix County,Wisconsin

Data collected on self-employed women and men in one county allow examination of work effort, housework effort, housework hours, and preference for flexible work on earnings. Regressions indicate housework effort of self-employed women contributes to their lower earnings. Housework hours do not supporting the view women select self-employment to find flexible work. Housework hours do reduce the earnings of self-employed men, which could reflect their stronger commitment to housework combined with less flexible work. A Oaxaca decomposition suggests less tenure and greater housework effort are important contributors to lower earnings of self-employed women. Ranges that measure earnings may contribute to the insignificance of work effort, normalized work effort, and preference for flexible work hours. (J16, J23)

Profiles of Achievement: Women's Entry into the Professions,the Arts,and Social Reform*

This paper examines the structural determinants of the achievement behavior of over 1,300 American women whose lives collectively span three centuries of American history, 1607–1950. Of particular importance is the investigation of the relative effects of historical birth cohort, religion, sibling placement, social class background, and region of birth upon the career patterns of women involved in the professions, the arts, and social reform. A major conclusion of this study is that denomination and importance of religion are major factors accounting for social reform careers, while the absence of religion combined with being the first child is related most importantly to career choices in the professions and the arts. Historical birth cohort was found to be of some importance along with social class. However, region of birth proved to be the least important influence affecting achievement patterns. The data for this study are a quantitative archive established by the author on the basis of a detailed coding of all the biographies included in the three-volume reference set, Notable American Women (James, James, and Boyer, 1971). Information concerning 302 variables relevant to a study of achievement behavior was coded on a standardized form, keypunched, and transferred to magnetic tape suitable for computer and statistical analysis. The techniques used in this research are discriminant analysis and cross tabular analysis.     

Latino Acculturation and Perceived Educational Achievement: Evidence for a Bidimensional Model of Acculturation among Mexican-American Children

Considerable attention has been paid to the educational fate of Latino children and youths due to mounting evidence that their educational progress has been stagnant. This study investigates the effect of acculturation on perceived educational achievement among Mexican-American children, employing bidimensional acculturation theory to help explain acculturation patterns as related to both ethnic and mainstream identities. Using a sample of 294 Mexican-American children, five acculturation patterns were identified using cluster analysis. We found that the separated group of children had significantly higher educational achievement than the highly assimilated group. The study asserts that the segregated acculturation pattern can be protective for educational achievement of Mexican-American children within ethnically segregated environmental contexts.