Competence and African American children in informal kinship care: The role of family

African American children are more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to live in kinship care, yet there is little empirical knowledge available to help understand the attributes of these families that contribute to children's development of competence. This study analyzed existing longitudinal data to explore the family-level factors that promote these children's competence. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that average quality of the biological mother's relationship with child, the quality of the biological father's relationship with child, and kinship care family functioning predicts children's average competence. Additionally, changes in family resources and family functioning over time are related to corresponding changes in children's competence levels. Results from this study highlight that African American informal kinship care families possess the strengths and resources that contribute to children's competence.     

Ideas in action: the politics of Prussian child labor reform, 1817–1839

This article explains the political origins of an 1839 law regulating the factory employment of children in Prussia. The article has two aims. First, it seeks to explain why Prussia adopted the particular law that it did. Existing historical explanations of this particular policy change are not correct, largely because they fail to take into account the actual motivations and intentions of key reformers. Second, the article contributes to theories of the role of ideas in public policymaking. Ideas interact with institutional and political factors to serve as motivators and as resources for policy change. As motivators, they drive political action and shape the content of policy programs; as resources, they enable political actors to recruit supporters and forge alliances. I offer a theory of the relationship between ideas, motivation, and political action, and I develop a methodological framework for assessing the reliability of political actors’ expressed motivations. Further, I explain how political actors use ideas as resources by deploying three specific ideational strategies: framing, borrowing, and citing. By tracing how different understandings of the child labor problem motivated and were embodied in two competing child labor policy proposals, I show how the ideas underlying reform had significant consequences for policy outcomes.     

Déjà vu for airline industrial relations

Fifteen years after deregulation, labor relations in the airline industry returned to thestatus quo ante, as union power, particularly ALPA’s, still dominates. Without a long-term shift in bargaining power between the parties, costs and productivity have not changed much. Labor accounts for 60 percent of the cost difference between strong and low-cost carriers. American, Delta, United, Northwest, and USAir would require some combination of labor cost concessions or productivity increases of $1.6 billion to match the productivity-adjusted labor costs for low-cost carriers’ flight crews. To remain competitive, strong carriers and unions must develop strategies to deal with anachronistic work rules, provisions to contract out work, and premium pay for airline employees.     

Connection and Community

Abstract

More and more GLBT people are choosing parenthood, many of them finding connection through organizations like the Family Pride Coalition and other local parenting groups. While some live in communities where resources are more plentiful, others still struggle to find other families like theirs. Groups like Family Pride have largely grown out of the desire of GLBT parents to find others like themselves and to provide a place for their children to experience families similar to their own. This article reviews the history of the Family Pride Coalition and shares the personal memories and motivations of pioneering GLBT parents/activists who have made a difference.     

Why We Can't Wait!

Abstract

An Afrocentric theoretical approach is utilized as a framework in guiding practitioners working with African American families. Afrocentricity places African American history, culture, and African heritage at the center of persons of African American families. An Afrocentric perspective also epitomizes the political, economic, and social freedom of African American families and communities. More importantly, understanding the cultural dynamics of African American families and their historical and contemporary use of resources (e.g., worldview, language, spirituality, etc.) to adapt and overcome certain life circumstances can be useful in assessment and treatment.     

The study of war in American sociology: An analysis of selected journals, 1936 to 1984

In an analysis of articles in theAmerican Journal of Sociology theAmerican Sociological Review, andSocial Forces at six-year intervals between 1936 and 1984 it was found that the topic of war was not often examined, especially in more recent decades. The most unexpected finding was that there were proportionately no more articles on war in selected European journals than in the top three American journals. It was concluded that war is not perceived as an important research topic in American sociology, as reflected in major sociology journals. His dissertation will deal with conditions for cooperation between adversaries during war.     

The production of social capital in US counties

A growing belief exists that social capital contributes to economic growth of communities. In this paper, we identify inputs into the production of social capital at the level of US counties, using an array of individual and community factors that are theoretically important determinants of social capital. We use data from the Bureau of the Census, County Business Patterns, USA Counties on CD, National Center for Charitable Statistics, and the Regional Economic Information System for two time periods. Ethnic homogeneity, income inequality, attachment to place, education, age, and female labor force participation are strongly associated with levels of social capital across US counties.     

The Great Flood of 1993: Response and Recovery in Five Communities

Abstract

In 1993, the Midwest endured a “one-hundred year flood.” Although aid was available from public and private sources, some communities were much less successful than others in obtaining assistance and resources. This study contrasts response and recovery from the flood in five communities. The study was initiated by 22 undergraduate students of social work community practice. Data sources include formal interviews with 58 flooded-out residents and 10 community leaders, as well as informal conversations and observations in the five communities. Immediate assistance in the response phase was available in all communities, but recovery varied considerably across the five. Findings focus on the importance of consensus on recovery goals, presence of local leaders and local organizations, socioeconomic resources, and political “voice.” The article discusses implications for community social work in post-disaster situations, including the importance of basic organization, advocacy skills, and understanding household and community economics.     

Homosexually Active Latino Men:

This paper presents a critical overview of the literature on homosexual conduct and identity among Latino men both in Latin America and in the United States. The relationships between homosexually active Latino men and their families, the various Latino national origin communities, and gay communities are also considered. Latino perspectives are contrasted with the dominant North American gay understandings of homosexuality in terms of individual identity and political activism. The unique problems of this population are also discussed with an emphasis on the social and cultural resources available to homosexually active Latinos and social work practitioners who serve them. Recommendations for social work practice and further research are offered.     

Urban and Indigenous: The Challenges of being a Native American in the City

The United States is home to more than 4 million Native Americans, the majority of whom live in urban areas. Urban Native Americans often experience significant social, health, and economic problems while having access to substantially fewer Native-specific resources than their reservation-based counterparts. They also face challenges with access to tribal services and political processes, as well as identity-sustaining cultural resources. This article describes the urban nature of many contemporary Native American communities. Examples from various urban Native American communities highlight the challenges faced by urban Native people, as well as creative initiatives developed to serve this population. This paper draws on and synthesizes the literature on contemporary urban Native communities, thus providing needed information for service providers and researchers working in these communities.     

Labor organization and class alliance

Conclusion The analysis reported here helps to clarify the dual role played by craft organization in labor movement development. In the United States, as in France, community rather than industry was the more promising ground on which to build an inclusive working-class organization. Craft organization in the community always helped mobilize less-skilled workers, and the effect was strongest during the period when the labor movement was growing most rapidly. In contrast, craft organizations within a local industry may have impeded less-skilled workers' organization during the Knights' early years. Only later, when the Knights found themselves on the defensive - attacked by employers, the press, and the craft unions affiliated with the rival American Federation of Labor - did craft locals provide unambiguous support for the organizational efforts of less-skilled workers in their own industries.This dual role must be reckoned with if we are to understand class formation. Because labor historians and others who study working-class movements often pursue research agendas dictated by the dominant tendencies of a single country, their studies tend to exaggerate each country's peculiarites. This study pursued a different line of inquiry by asking its questions from a comparative framework, and by seeking out local variation. The results suggest that craft workers in all countries probably harbored both exclusive and solidaristic tendencies. We need to undertake other studies that might illuminate the conditions that lead to solidarity or exclusivity. Such information will go a long way toward elucidating the dynamics of labor-movement development, thus explaning how oft-mentioned factors such as state action and the pace of capitalist development had the effects they did.Finally, these findings support recent arguments about American exceptionalism put forward by Ira Katznelson and his collaborators. In two influential books, Katznelson argues that America's unique pattern of working-class formation stems, in large part, from the radical division between the politics of work and the politics of community in the United States. Katznelson believes that the institutional set that supported the divorce of workplace and community system (that is, political parties organized around community concerns and trade unions organized around workplace issues) was largely in place by the 1860s. After that the die was cast, except perhaps in small communities where the two spheres were not yet so radically divided. Based on this study I would argue that community remained the most important arena for labor organization even in large urban areas until 1886. But periodization aside, both the quantitative findings and the Trenton case study suggest that the divorce of the community from the workplace must have had a profound effect not only on working-class politics, but on the growth of the union movement as well.

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State of the unions: Assessment by elite American labor leaders

One hundred and sixty-four elite union leaders in the United States completed a survey to assess the condition of the American labor movement and the factors affecting it. The respondents included high-level international union and state federation officers, central labor presidents, and 58 shop stewards. This study compares the responses of these labor officials and finds that they have similar, negative assessments of the condition of the American labor movement. The study also finds that these leaders agree that the most important factors affecting the labor movement are collective bargaining rights, union leadership, union member solidarity, and the NLRB.     

Using Trellis software to enhance high-quality large-scale network data collection in the field

Trellis is a mobile platform created by the Human Nature Lab at the Yale Institute for Network Science to collect high-quality, location-aware, off-line/online, multi-lingual, multi-relational social network and behavior data in hard-to-reach communities. Respondents use Trellis to identify their social contacts by name and photograph, a procedure especially useful in low-literacy populations or in contexts where names may be similar or confusing. We use social network data collected from 1,969 adult respondents in two villages in Kenya to demonstrate Trellis’ ability to provide unprecedented metadata to monitor and report on the data collection process including artifactual variability based on surveyors, time of day, or location.     

Family leave legislation in the American states: Toward a model of state policy adoption

The issue of mandated family leave has drawn substantial attention in recent years. This article develops and tests empirically a model of adoption of family leave policies in the American states during the late 1980s. State family leave policies are seen as a function of three sets of variables: (a) institutional-elite variables such as partisan control of state government and the proportion of women in the state legislatures; (b) constituency disposition variables such as mass partisanship, mass ideology, and the likelihood of general support for “women's” issues; and (c) contextual-demand variables such as birth rates and women's participation in the workforce. The model provides impressive fit to the data, accurately predicting the family leave policies of 92% of the state cases. The results suggest the importance of partisan control of state government, proportion of women in the state legislature, urbanization, and feminism as a state policy as factors that affect the probability that states will adopt mandated family leave policies. His research interests include American politics, public policy, and domestic political economy. He is editor of theAmerican Politics Quarterly, and is former President of the State Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include family policy and women's labor force participation. She received her Ph.D. in Family Science from the University of Georgia.     

The rural space in Israel in search of renewed identity: The case of the moshav

This paper aims to describe and explain the changes which have taken place in the rural areas of Israel by focussing on a particular type of community—the moshav, which is a planned smallholders’ settlement, based on family farms and legally organized as a cooperative society. An analysis of the changes that have taken place in the moshav in the past few decades reveals a process of rural restructuring, similar to that which is occurring in many developed countries. New economic activities have replaced farming as sources of income, and newcomers, mostly of urban origin, have invaded rural communities in search of a better quality of life. These changes derive from a combination of structural changes in agriculture, changing government policies and cumulative decisions of rural households. The result is a more heterogeneous moshav—physically, economically and socially, and growing regional, inter-village and intra-village disparities. These developments have a direct impact on the organizational structure of the moshav, its environmental qualities and its exchange relations with the urban sector. As part of the ongoing process of change the moshav is gradually losing some of its unique features, which formed the basis for its identity as a special type of rural community. This leads to the question of whether the moshav will be able to develop a new identity as a distinct type of rural community, or turn into a suburban or urban community. The answer will depend largely on the direction taken by government policy.     

Adoption and adaptation: A computational case study of the spread of Granovetter's weak ties hypothesis

How do new scientific ideas diffuse? Computational studies reveal how network structures facilitate or obstruct diffusion; qualitative studies demonstrate that diffusion entails the continuous translation and transformation of ideas. This article bridges these computational and qualitative approaches to study diffusion as a complex process of continuous adaptation. As a case study, we analyze the spread of Granovetter's Strength of Weak Ties hypothesis, published in American Journal of Sociology in 1973. Through network analysis, topic modeling and a close reading of a diffusion network created using Web of Science data, we study how different communities in this network interpret and develop Granovetter's hypothesis in distinct ways. We further trace how these communities originate, merge and split, and examine how central scholars emerge as community leaders or brokers in the diffusion process.     

The social ecology of skid row

Using a sociocultural ecological model the social structure and ter‐ritoriality of the skid row in a midwestern city was examined. Results suggest that the various groups inhabiting skid row can be hierarchically ordered according to social status and that uses of the territory varies greatly among component groups. Results also support the use of sociocultural ecology as a model for analyzing skid row and probable effects of changes imposed on skid row by urban renewal and redevelopment.     

Family,religion, and work among Arab American women

Using data from a national survey of 501 Arab American women, this study examines the extent to which family behavior mediates the influence of religion on women's labor force activity. Prior research on families has largely overlooked the role of religion in influencing women's labor force decisions, particularly at different stages of the life cycle. The analysis begins to address this gap by examining whether religious affiliation and religiosity have direct relationships to women's work behaviors, or whether they primarily operate through family behaviors at different phases of the life course. The results show that religiosity exerts a negative influence on women's labor force participation, but only when children are present in the home. Among women with no children, religiosity has no effect on employment.     

The american labor movement and employee ownership: Objections to and uses of employee stock ownership plans

This paper analyzes the evolution of American unions’ attitudes and policies concerning employee ownership that coincided with the rapid growth of employee stock-ownership plans during the 1980s. From an initial position of opposing employee ownership and viewing it as a threat, many major unions have come to accept, and in some cases to promote, stock ownership for their members. Among the factors driving this change of view have been economic necessity, evidence that many of the labor movement’s traditional concerns about employee ownership are largely unfounded, and the growing realization among unions that employee ownership is a potentially useful strategic asset.     

Friends with benefits or “friends” with deficits? The meaning and contexts of uncommitted sexual relationships among Mexican American and European American adolescents

Using focus groups, this study sought to understand and compare how Mexican American (n = 41, M = 16.0 years old, SD = .96) and European American (n = 34, M = 16.1 years old, SD = .64) youths conceptualize and experience “friends with benefits” relationships (FWBRs). Contrary to the implied nature of friendship, partners did not show caring and viewed FWBRs as a means to meet sexual needs. The “benefits” of this arrangement included guilt-free pleasure, little responsibility, the freedom to date others, or to remain available for a more desirable partner. The inherent deficits of FWBRs, on the other hand, included the potential pitfall of getting emotionally attached. Despite the recognized deficits, European American and Mexican American girls both desired and participated in FWBRs. However, Mexican American girls described more committed “going-out” relationships as ideal, which left them vulnerable to mismatched expectations and emotional upset in FWBRs. Findings outline the socio-emotional contexts of adolescent involvement in FWBRs, as well as underscore the potential for conflicting desires. Recommendations for healthy relationship and sexual health programs are discussed.