The demographic characteristics of populations living near oil and gas wells in the USA

Population and Environment - This study documents the prevalence of historically marginalized populations (across age, income, education, race-ethnicity, and language) living near active oil and...     

Hogging the road

This essay examines how aesthetic, corporate and cultural formations have radically altered. motorcycling and its image over the past two decades as a means to highlight more general changes in cultural politics, citizenship and governing through culture. The essay begins with the Guggenheim's The Art of the Motorcycle exhibit, treated. as a means for shaping and governing thought and conduct about and on motorcycles. The essay then addresses numerous articulations between aesthetic criteria and economic practices that have benefited. corporate and professional entities at the expense of long-time motorcyclists. Lastly, the essay formulates genealogical criteria for assessing attempts to represent culture in the hopes of more actively engaging in struggles over not just representation, but the activation of modes of thought, conduct and citizenship.     

Ecosystem services provided by urban spontaneous vegetation

Spontaneous vegetation colonizes large areas in and around cities. These unmanaged areas are considered to have low economic value or indicate dereliction, but recent research suggests that these can contribute valuable ecosystem services. This study evaluates indicators of ecosystem services in three habitats: urban spontaneous vegetation (USV), managed lawns, and semi-natural urban forest, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. USV had higher indicator values for habitat provisioning (plant species diversity, invertebrate abundance and taxonomic diversity) than the other habitats. Indicators of climatic regulatory services (albedo and leaf area index) in USV were similar to those in lawn habitats. Organic carbon content of the soils, an indicator of carbon storage, was lowest in USV but only marginally lower than in lawns. Standing biomass, an indicator of production services, was lowest in USV but lawn production may have been overestimated. While USV sites are usually transitory components of the urban landscape, they deserve further consideration due to their provision of ecosystem services, in some cases to a greater extent than conventionally valued urban habitats.     

The Good, the Bad, and the Regulator: An Experimental Test of Two Conditional Audit Schemes

Conditional audit rules are designed to achieve regulatory compliance with fewer inspections than required by random auditing. A regulator places individuals into audit pools that differ in probability of audit or severity of fine and specifies transition rules between pools. Future pool assignment is conditional on current audit results. We conduct an experiment to compare two specific schemes—Harrington's Past-Compliance Targeting and Friesen's Optimal Targeting—against random auditing. We find a production possibility frontier between compliance and minimizing inspections. Optimal targeting generates the lowest inspection rates as predicted, but random auditing the highest compliance. Past-compliance targeting is intermediate.     

Colonized Silence: Confronting the Colonial Link in Rural Alaska Native Survivors’ Non-Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse

Though there is evidence linking the history of colonialism and oppression of Indigenous people to the high rates of rape and child sexual abuse experienced by this population today, it is less understood how colonial processes, past and present, condition the decision to disclose or report victimization. Drawing on a survivorship storytelling study of rural Alaska Native survivors of child sexual abuse, this paper underscores the importance of centering colonialism in understanding the culture of silence surrounding sexual victimization among Indigenous people. Results show that reasons for non-disclosure are quite embedded within larger social, historical and political themes of colonialism, oppression, and marginalization. Implications for policy and praxes are discussed, as well as a broader mandate of social change to remove barriers to disclosure.     

Coping with racial battle fatigue: differences and similarities for African American and Mexican American college students

Student of Color often reference racial microaggressions when asked to describe their post-secondary experience. The racial battle fatigue framework assists in understanding the cumulative, negative effect of racial microaggressions on psychological, behavioral, and physiological outcomes. This paper assesses the racial battle fatigue framework for African American and Mexican American college students and the impact of coping on racial stress. Results demonstrate that racial microaggressions negatively impact stress responses for African American and Mexican Americans differently, but coping may help alleviate the impact of racial battle fatigue. Universities can address racial microaggressions and negative health outcomes by educating campus constituents about racial microaggressions, addressing Whiteness, and providing education about adaptive coping strategies.     

From Migrant to Minority: Hmong Refugees and the Social Construction of Identity in the United States*

The social constructionist perspective of ethnicity suggests that international migrants may not consider themselves ethnic minorities even when they objectively hold this status. Interview data from forty Hmong refugee leaders support this thesis. One-third have an entirely migrant orientation, while few have an entirely minority orientation. However, one-third are primarily minority in orientation. The migrant orientation prioritizes the ethnic community and problems related to migration. The minority orientation prioritizes relations with U.S. society and problems caused by U.S. institutions. Consistent with findings of prior research, the minority orientation is most common among leaders who have the greatest potential for successful adaptation. But in contrast to prior research, the findings suggest that ethnic awareness among migrants depends not only on attitudes toward assimilation, but also on whether they attribute inequality to their status as newcomers in a host society or to their status as a minority in a racial and ethnic hierarchy.     

Privatization in eastern Europe

As an adviser to governments and companies in this field, Jeremy Seddon is well placed to comment on privatization schemes. Privatization of industry and commerce in Eastern Europe is a must as a result of the appalling legacy of central planning.Seddon looks at the rationale behind privatization, the obstacles that need to be defeated and some strategies. He believes that the principal method of privatization will be by sale of state-owned businesses either to existing private sector companies, to investors via a stock market or to employees of the business concerned. The consequences of these different types of transactions are of great interest to governments and companies and all “Eastern Europe-watchers”.     

Examining the Relationship Between Female Inmate Homosexual Behavior and Attitudes Toward Homosexuality and Homosexuals

Most sociologists and penologists tend to shy away from studying inmate attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexuals. Researchers within the corrections field who focus on prison sexuality typically conduct their research on consensual samesex sexual behavior and sexual coercion. The focus of the present study, however, was to ascertain female inmates' attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexuals while exploring the role ofseveral predictor variables on their attitudes. Specifically, the authors examine the relationship between female inmate homosexual behavior and attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexuals. Because of the number of items pertaining to attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexuals, factor analysis was conducted to examine whether the items measured similar constructs. Results ofthe factor analysis revealed two distinct factors/issues:civil/personal rights and personal deviance models. The mostsalient, and only statistically significant, variables in the civil/personal rights model were age, homosexual activity prior to incarceration, and homosexual activity during incarceration. Homosexual behavior during incarceration was the only statistically significant predictor of the personal deviance model.     

EDUCATIONAL AND WORK STRATEGIES FROM ADOLESCENCE TO EARLY ADULTHOOD: CONSEQUENCES FOR EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

Whereas sociologists have long recognized that adolescence marks the start of the socioeconomic career, the importance of this period has been attributed to school performance, aspirations, and significant others' influence that support educational attainment to a greater or lesser degree. The underlying premise of this study is that adolescent work is an expression of instrumental action with consequences for socioeconomic attainment. Using data from the Youth Development Study, we find that part-time work during high school is linked with patterns of schooling and working that persist during the succeeding years and are more or less conducive to the receipt of a BA/BS degree. Moderate work coupled with school appears to especially facilitate the educational attainment of low promise youth.