Trust and Ethnic Tolerance in the Face of Social Change

The primary goals of this article are to examine conceptual approaches to the study of trust, summarize the tools that can be used in such studies, and use empirical data to elucidate the concept of a “culture of trust.” It also discusses certain problems involved in the empirical study of generalized trust and concludes that ethnic tolerance is one element of a culture of trust. The article presents the results of a 2014 sociological study of Muscovites that was carried out using formalized interviews. This study examined the attitude of trust and subjective bases of trust and mistrust that have developed within Moscow society. A three-stage random territorial probability sampling was used, distributed across administrative districts proportional to their population sizes. The 800-respondent sample was representative in terms of sex and age. Using a simple 4-point scale, our study found that Moscow’s population is strongly polarized in terms of trust—47.6 percent are inclined to be trusting while 46.5 percent are not. Trust networks in Moscow are primarily built around close family and friends. There is a clear lack of basic trust. The study’s results suggest that generalized trust and ethnic tolerance are interrelated. What links these processes are the collaborative relationships that form based on ties of friendship and neighborliness.     

When Prejudice Is Popular: Implications for Discriminatory Behavior

Prejudice and popularity represent two major areas of research. Yet studies have not considered whether prejudiced adolescents actually can be popular. Among 572 high school students (M_age = 15.80 years), the current study tested the association between popularity (based on sociometric peer nominations) and sexual prejudice against gay and lesbian individuals, moderated by gender and perspective taking. As hypothesized, the association was significant for males but not females, and it was significant for adolescents lower on perspective taking but not those higher on perspective taking. Moreover, adolescents who were popular and expressed strong sexual prejudice were more likely to engage in homophobic behavior than prejudiced adolescents who were less popular. Popular adolescents with strong sexual prejudice beliefs may be more prone to use homophobic behavior as a way to maintain their dominant position. Similarly, prejudiced adolescents who are popular may face less pushback for their engagement in homophobic behavior. Continued attention to the connection between sexual prejudice and popularity is important because of the high status, influence, and visibility of popular adolescents.     

Life Satisfaction in Brazil: Testing the Psychometric Properties of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) in Five Brazilian Samples

The aim of this paper was to validate the Brazilian-Portuguese version of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), presenting evidence of its reliability and construct and criterion-related validity. A large Brazilian sample (2,180 participants), from five different populations (undergraduate and high school students, general population, elementary school teachers, and physicians), was considered. The results confirmed the single factorial structure and reliability (0.77 < Cronbach’s α < 0.88, mean α = 0.81) of the SWLS. Supporting its criterion-related validity, the SWLS correlated positively with positive affect and negatively with both negative affect and psychological distress across all five samples. The findings indicate that the Brazilian-Portuguese version of the SWLS is a valid instrument to use with diverse Brazilian samples.     

Free education, fertility and human capital accumulation

This article analyzes the effect of free public education on fertility, private educational investments, and human capital accumulation at different stages of economic development. The model shows that, when fertility is endogenous, parental human capital levels are crucial for determining the effect of free education. At early stages of development when parental human capital is low, free access to basic education may provide the only chance to leave poverty. In contrast, at advanced stages of development when parental human capital is high, the availability of free education crowds out private educational investments, stimulates fertility, and may impede growth.     

A century of international mortality trends: I

An attempt is made to summarize the chief generalizations that can be drawn from available evidence on world mortality developments during the last hundred years. Past and prospective trends are compared for three broad groups of populations or approximately those in the West, Eastern and Southern Europe, and Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Two major points of emphasis are that the usual methods of comparing regional changes can usefully be supplemented by other approaches, and that the mortality history of Western nations may prove a highly unsatisfactory guide to future trends elsewhere. The study is based on a nearly complete compilation of the national life tables on record.     

Family planning programmes and action in Western Europe

Neo-Malthusian organisations for spreading birth control propaganda were created in many West European countries in the 1870s and '80s. But the birth control movement proper, with its provision of clinics and other means of supplying advice on contraception, began much later-generally after World War I and largely on a welfare basis, divorced from Malthusianism. Legal and other difficulties impeded progress and conditioned the nature of the movement. Since World War II, however, the relevance of birth control has come increasingly to be recognized and the movement has expanded markedly. In some countries — especially in France, West Germany and Italy — there are still legal obstacles, though ways have been found of avoiding them. But even in other countries the direct impact of birth control clinics is far smaller than might have been expected and married couples still obtain their information on contraception from other sources. In recent years the various national movements have shown a greater interest in the evaluation of their activities. As a result, the near future may see substantial changes in their structure and in the approach to their potential clientèle.     

Developing a Brief Suicide Prevention Intervention and Mobile Phone Application: A Qualitative Report

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among youth and has become a serious public health problem. There has been limited research on strategies to decrease the likelihood of reattempt in adolescents. As phase one of a treatment development study, clinicians, parents, and adolescents participated in qualitative interviews in order to gain new perspectives on developing a targeted intervention and a safety plan phone application for suicide prevention. Participants indicated that transition of care, specific treatment targets, and safety planning were important parts of treatment. In addition, all participants endorsed the use of a smartphone application for these purposes.     

In-depth learning in field education: evaluating the effectiveness of process recording

Process recording is the anamnestic recollection of narratives and behaviours of the participants in client interviews. Through critical incidents of teaching, this study explores how the process recording teaching and learning activity was operationalised in a field education seminar for postgraduate social work students, at an Australian University. Further, the study evaluates the student satisfaction aspect of the effectiveness of the activity. Assuming the practitioner/lecturer-researcher role, the author adopted a psychodynamic theoretical framework to identify relational roots in client problems, support students to carry out holistic bio-psychosocial assessments, correct practice mistakes and separate facts from thoughts—conceptualised as theories of practice—and emotions. An anonymous mixed-method questionnaire evaluated the satisfaction of students with the activity. The clear majority evaluated process recording as very beneficial for their learning and rated the reflections of the lecturer on the process recorded material as highly satisfactory.