Trends in Global Gender Inequality (Forthcoming, Social Forces)

This study investigates trends in gender inequality for the world as a whole. Using data encompassing a large majority of the world's population, we examine world trends over recent decades for key indicators of gender inequality in education, mortality, political representation, and economic activity. We find that gender inequality is declining in virtually all major domains, that the decline is occurring across diverse religious and cultural traditions, and that population growth is slowing the decline because populations are growing faster in countries where there is the greatest gender inequality.     

Towards a Sociology of Disclosure: The Case of Surgical Performance

Despite the increasingly widespread emphasis on the need for transparency in health‐care and elsewhere, there is limited evidence regarding the consequences of disclosing medical performance data. The evidence is disparate and has not been synthesised in a coherent way. This paper focuses on surgical performance, whose measurement is generally often seen as straight forward. It begins by outlining the context for understanding the publication of such data and then presents an analytical framework as a vehicle for conceptualising the nature of disclosure in surgery and health‐care more generally. The framework addresses key dimensions concerning one surgical specialty (cardiac surgery) and its relationship with a range of stakeholders in an English context. In particular, we examine the interaction between surgeons and between surgeons, patients, managers and policy‐makers. These relationships are framed in terms of choice and calculativeness, strategies and tactics, and trust, and need to be understood at micro, meso and macro levels. We conclude by considering how this framework provides a research agenda for a sociology of disclosure.     

Building a youth-led movement to keep young people out of the adult criminal justice system

Through the lens of the Youth Art & Self-empowerment Project (YASP), this article explores the impact that the adult criminal justice system has on young people and how young men and women in Philadelphia are organizing to challenge that system. YASP has developed an innovative model for supporting and training young people in Philadelphia's adult jails and recently released from the adult jails to build a youth-led movement to repeal adult transfer laws in Pennsylvania. Through stories of personal experience and collective struggle, this chapter illustrates the power of young people taking back control of their city, their state, and their own destinies.     

Video recording children at night in the home

The practicalities and success of an audio-visual recording system developed to document night-time noise and activity in children's bedrooms in an inner-city area are described. The development and use of this method during the study, and potential applications and contexts for its future use are discussed.

We examined children's sleep disturbance due to cough. To date 143 recordings have been made on 41 children. Seven studies (five per cent) were unsuccessful. Three of 70 families declined to take part in the study because of intrusion of privacy. Analysis of the videos took approximately three hours per study.

Home recording at night was practical and successful in households where sleep disturbance due to cough was presented as a problem. Problems that were anticipated with this method of data collection are discussed, and were minimal.     

University‐industry relationships in genetic research: Potential opportunities and pitfalls

Changes in the environment in which university research is conducted, in conjunction with the development of new research technologies such as biotechnology, are contributing to the proliferation and diversification of university‐industry relationships. This paper describes and documents university‐industry relationships in five categories: research contracts, technology transfer activities, consultancies, employment, and gifts. Special emphasis is given to biotechnology research relations. Conflicts that may arise from these relations are discussed and studies evaluating the potential impacts of university‐industry relationships are summarized. While wide‐spread abuse has not been reported, subtle changes in university research may be occurring. Using the University of Tennessee as a case study, the paper ends with a discussion of the difficulties of establishing guidelines and procedures to prevent and settle conflicts of interest that might result from university‐industry relationships.     

The Effect of Absentee Ownership on Local Employment Change

Abstract

To determine whether absentee-owned firms destabilize local economies, we examine the relationship between absentee ownership of manufacturing companies and employment change in manufacturing for 109 Pennsylvania towns. This issue arises because some earlier studies find that corporate connections through absentee-owned firms are positively related to local employment growth, whereas other work claims that locally owned operations are more stable. We attempt to reconcile these findings by arguing that absentee ownership is destabilizing only in the case of non-conglomerate firms. Our results show that absentee ownership in fact increases the closure rate of firms, thereby negatively affecting manufacturing employment change. Yet, this relationship differs by the parent company's organizational structure. Employment in branches of non-conglomerate firms is more detrimental than employment in branches of conglomerates — an important qualification of the argument that the “conglomeratization” of advanced industrial societies negatively affects communities.     

An interprofessional internship model for training master’s level social work and counseling students in higher education settings

ABSTRACT

The mental health needs of college students are steadily on the rise, which compels mental health service providers and educators to explore innovative ways to provide more collaborative, supportive, and interdisciplinary service models of practice and professional training. Graduate programs in social work and counseling are at the crux of producing internship training programs to help accommodate the influx of students with persistent mental health concerns across a variety of needs and cultures. This article describes an interprofessional internship program structured and designed to meet the clinical training needs of master’s level students matriculating in social work and counseling who aspire to provide mental health services in higher education settings. The interprofessional internship training model proposes an innovative interdisciplinary approach to field education which may result in positive training outcomes and learning experiences for social work and counseling students. This paper discusses the model’s emphasis on individual and interdisciplinary group supervision, objectives of the internship experience, internship site criteria, and professional and personal benefits to pre-service social workers and counselors. Recommendations for training and limitations of the model are provided.