Concept Mapping to Measure Outcomes in Study Abroad Programs1

Faculty efforts to measure outcomes in study abroad programs typically fall short of current expectations for measurable results and increased competencies. Part of the problem stems from the dual challenge of conducting rigorous, objective assessment of these programs without losing the rich, subjective meaning of the cultural experience for student growth and development. The concept mapping method developed by Trochim is a potentially powerful tool for overcoming this challenge, allowing evaluators to utilize qualitative and quantitative research designs simultaneously. This paper illustrates the use of the method in an American social work study abroad program based in Mexico.     

Capital investment in neighborhoods: Theories which inform national urban policy in the United States

This article addresses two fundamental issues in the design and implementation of federal urban policies: (i) the shifting priorities of urban policy characterizing urban renewal, the Community Development Act, and recent neighborhood-oriented redevelopment efforts and (ii) the sociological theories which underlie such priorities. The first part of the article traces the shift in priority of national urban policy from an earlier focus on economic redevelopment and housing assistance for the economically disadvantaged to the more recent thrust toward neighborhood rehabilitation, revitalization, and stabilization. The central role of private sector economic involvement in the new urban strategies is discussed and the triage model of urban development is proposed to explain recent urban policy efforts. In the latter part of the article the sociological theories underlying many of the new urban policies are shown to contain inherent contradictions and inadequacies which were largely ignored by policy-makers. The authors conclude that the articulation between these theories of neighborhood dynamics and the present urban policy focus dooms recent programs, once again, to failure.     

A macrosimulation approach to the investigation of natural fertility

This paper is part of a long-term investigation known as the Mormon Historical Demography Project. It examines the capability of a simulation model, originally proposed by John Bongaarts (1976), to fit the natural fertility pattern which characterized the mid-nineteenth century Mormon population. Application of this model permits estimates to be made of the historical timing and age-incidence of fertility limitation. A sensitivity analysis of the model’s parameters demonstrates that simple changes in the model’s proximate determinants of fertility, excluding contraceptive practices, would be insufficientto account for later transition effects. Thus the results successfully capture the dynamics underlying the Mormon natural fertility pattern as well as offer a framework for future modeling of the transition away from natural fertility.     

The strength of primordial ties: Suburban community adaptation to school system retrenchment

Communities and local schools are attached to one another for many other reasons than the purely instrumental objectives of educating children. These highly symbolic interpenetrations of community and school include considerations of diffuse communal identity, religion, and ethnicity. Taken together with different priorities about wider educational goals, these narrower community objectives for local schools put contradictory strains on community-school relations in the heated climate of increased community participation in contracting school systems. Competing claims about the central purposes of local schools become extraordinarily salient parts of the external environment of school districts experiencing contraction, and play a major role in the process of adapting school district organizations to conditions of decline. For many citizens the desire to preserve the local symbolic and non-instrumental roles of neighborhood schools, in particular, may at times outweigh the goal of maintaining quality educational service delivery as seen from the perspective of school managers. For other citizens, the protection of quality programs, serving their children as stepping-stones to the wider society, outweighs considerations of local neighborhood solidarity and identity in adapting to declining enrollments and fiscal strains in the schools.An earlier version of this article was delivered at the 1984 Midwest Sociological Society Annual Meeting in Chicago. I am grateful to Virginia Bartot, Sally B. Kilgore, Gerald D. Suttles, and an anonymous reviewer for comments and suggestions.     

CHANGES IN CHINA'S WAGE STRUCTURE

Using a national sample of Urban Household Surveys, we document several profound changes in China's wage structure during a period of rapid economic growth. Between 1992 and 2007, the average real wage increased by 202%, accompanied by a sharp rise in wage inequality. Decomposition analysis reveals 80% of this wage growth to be attributable to higher pay for basic labor, rising returns to human capital, and increases in the state‐sector wage premium. By employing an aggregate production function framework, we account for the sources of wage growth and wage inequality amid fast economic growth and transition. We find capital accumulation, skill‐biased technological change, and rural–urban migration to be the major forces behind the evolving wage structure in urban China.     

Trauma and stress among older adults in the criminal justice system: a review of the literature with implications for social work

The purpose of this article was to review the empirical literature that investigated trauma and stress among older adults in the criminal justice system. Nineteen journal articles published between 1988 and 2010 were identified and extracted via research databases and included mixed age samples of adjudicated older and younger adults (n = 11) or older adult only samples (n = 8). Findings revealed past and current trauma and stress, consequences and/or correlates, and internal and external coping resources among aging offenders. The implications and future directions for gerontological social work, research, and policy with older adults in the criminal justice system are advanced.     

Resolution v.2 search designs

A fractional factorial design is called a resolution V.2 plan if it is capable of estimating all main effects and two-factor interaction effects, plus two three-factor interaction effects, In this paper, a necessary and sufficient condition for such a resolution V.2 plan is given, Furthermore, a new class of two-level resolution V.2 designs is proposed, We prove that the proposed design always satisfies such a necessary and sufficient condition, A comparison of run size between designs of resolutions VII and V.2 is made, It is shown that run size for design of resolution V.2 is significantly smaller.     

A central limit theorem for correlated variables with limited normal or gamma distributions

Abstract

Non-negative limited normal or gamma distributed random variables are commonly used to model physical phenomenon such as the concentration of compounds within gaseous clouds. This paper demonstrates that when a collection of random variables with limited normal or gamma distributions represents a stationary process for which the underlying variables have exponentially decreasing correlations, then a central limit theorem applies to the correlated random variables.     

Problems of Modeling Growth and Yield of Renewable Resources

Statistical Aspects of Quality Control. Cyrus DERMAN &; Sheldon M. ROSS, San Diego: Academic Press, 1997, xiii + 200 pp. $59.95 (H). Reviewed by Enrique Del Castillo

Handbook of Parametric and Nonparametric Statistical Procedures. David J. SHESKIN. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 1997, 719 pp. $69.95 (H). Reviewed by Karen KAFADAR

A Teacher's Review of the Chance Database. http://www.geom.umn.edu/locate/chance. Reviewed by Joan Garfield