Life's predictable unpredictables and the career plans of youth

A review of the status attainment research failed to discover a model that takes into account possible effects of unforeseen, consequential life events on the career plans of youth. The present longitudinal study found that 30.4% of 536 respondents indicated that something major had happened to change their occupational or educational plans in an important way. Race and sex differences were discovered with respect to whether a major happening was perceived to have occurred and with respect to the nature of the event. White women were found to be peculiarly vulnerable to the impact of unforeseen events. About half of all respondents who indicated that a consequential event had occurred cited marriage or having a child as the event. Relatively few in the low‐income sample cited financial problems as unpredictable events. Respondents who reported any consequential event were found to be less satisfied with their jobs and less happy with their marriages. It would be desirable to include measures of unforeseen consequential events in future status attainment research.     

Control Variates for Monte Carlo Analysis of Nonlinear Statistical Models,I: Overview

Parameter values of nonlinear statistical models are typically estimated from data using iterative numerical procedures. The resulting joint sampling distribution of the parameter estimators is often intractable, resulting in the use of approximators or Monte Carlo simulation to determine properties of the sampling distribution.

This paper develops methods, using linear and higher-order approximators as control variates that reduce the variance of the Monte Carlo estimator by orders of magnitude. Estimation of means, higher-order raw moments, variances, covariances, and percentiles is considered.     

Voting for president in the U.S.-Mexico border region

Reasoning that life in the U.S.-Mexico border region is sufficiently different from life in non-border regions this paper asks whether proximity to the border has a significant impact on presidential voting. County level data from four border states, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, over five presidential elections, 1992-2008, are examined using a both cross-sectional and panel data analysis. The authors conclude that there is a border effect that favors Democratic candidates and that fades as distance from the border increases.     

Leadership and change in the Tasmanian environment movement

Semi-structured interviews with key environmentalists conducted in 2002 suggest strategic decision makers, organisational spokespeople and Green politicians are key leaders of the Tasmanian environmental movement, although charismatic leadership persists following movement routinisation. Routinisation is associated with the rise of non-protest environmental movement organisations addressing mainstream issues such as soil erosion, while protest oriented organisations champion the protection of old growth forests. Disproportionate federal government funding of non-protest organisations underpins tensions between movement leaders. An environmental council representing the diverse interests of the groups and organisations comprising the movement mitigates tensions and strengthens leader integration. Entrenched leaders from the ‘baby boom’ generation hinder the rise of younger leaders. Leader mentoring schemes adopted by movement organisations offer a potential solution to leadership succession in a mature social movement.     

False Belief and Emotion Understanding in Post-institutionalized Children

Deficits in social cognition may impair the ability to negotiate social transactions and relationships and contribute to socio emotional difficulties experienced by some post‐institutionalized children. We examined false belief and emotion understanding in 40 institutional care‐adopted children, 40 foster care‐adopted children and 40 birth children. Both groups of adopted children were adopted internationally. Controlling for verbal ability, post‐institutionalized children scored lower than birth children on a false belief task. Almost half of the post‐institutionalized children performed below chance levels. The foster care group did not differ from either group on false belief understanding. The groups did not differ on emotion understanding after controlling for verbal ability. The results suggest that some post‐institutionalized children are delayed in false belief understanding.     

Medical Uncertainty in Students Entering Medical School

Abstract

Uncertainty is a fundamental characteristic of medical practice. Renee Fox described three types of uncertainty: limitations in the body of medical knowledge, incomplete mastery of existing knowledge, and distinguishing between limitations and mastery of knowledge. This investigation administered ten Likert-format questions about uncertainty to 171 incoming medical students at one state medical school Items were reliable over a six week test-retest, and validity was supported by correlations with an Intolerance of Ambiguity scale. Entering students recognized that uncertainty exists in medical knowledge and mastery of medical knowledge. Factor analysis of the ten item uncertainty scale revealed three dimensions: uncertainty of the profession, practice certainty, and growth in uncertainty. No significant differences in the uncertainty items, scale, or factors existed by demographic characteristics or medical specialty preferences. These findings suggest that students are aware of issues surrounding uncertainty in medicine as they begin medical school, but medical uncertainty at this early stage in medical socialization is not sufficiently powerful to be associated with medical specialty preference.     

Academic Affiliations of Those Published in Social Work Journals: A Productivity Analysis, 1989–1993

Abstract

The academic affiliations of the authors of all articles published in six social work journals between 1989 and 1993 were reviewed and tabulated to produce a ranking of the colleges and universities whose faculty are making the most substantive contributions to the social work literature. The results of this analysis are compared with the findings of two similar, previously published studies covering the five-year periods of 1979-1983 and 1984-1988.