Challenge and Urgency in Defining Doctoral Education in Marriage and Family Therapy: Valuing Complementary Models

In this overview, I comment on the strong theme of the need to define and improve the quality of doctoral education in marriage and family therapy that pervades the three essays. Deficits in research training are the central concern, although the essayists take different perspectives on the nature of the research training needed. The different perspectives can be understood in terms of three different models of doctoral education. The institutional model focuses on professional training with little financial support for students and lower expectations for faculty research. The community of scholars model emphasizes a balance of research and practice with students required to attend full-time and financial support provided. Research is a mix of faculty- and student-driven and is often focused on professional issues. The star researcher model often held out as the ideal, although not yet represented in marital and family therapy (MFT), emphasizes faculty externally funded programmatic research with students working on and supported by faculty grant funding. The value and role of all three models in MFT doctoral education are described and discussed.     

Collective Self-Esteem and Coping Strategies among Vietnamese American Adolescents

This article reports on the “social empathy attitudes” results that were part of a larger study on empathy in college students at a large research university in the Southwest. Two hundred ninety-four students completed the Social Empathy Assessment Index (SEAI). The research hypothesis was that students of color would have higher levels of social empathy attitudes than Caucasian students. The statistically significant SEAI items suggested that Latino students identify as more collectivist and more optimistic and have higher levels of social empathy attitudes. Latinos may be more willing to help a stranger than either Caucasians or members of other racial groups.     

Economic Impact of Accelerated Cleanup on Regions Surrounding the U.S. DOE's Major Nuclear Weapons Sites

The regional economic impacts of the U.S. Department of Energy's accelerated environmental cleanup plan are estimated for the major nuclear weapons sites in Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington. The analysis shows that the impact falls heavily on the three relatively rural regions around the Savannah River (SC), Hanford (WA), and Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (ID) sites. A less aggressive phase-down of environmental management funds and separate funds to invest in education and infrastructure in the regions helps buffer the impacts on jobs, personal income, and gross regional product. Policy options open to the federal and state and local governments are discussed.     

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) History and Conceptual Overview

The concept of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) is a system that enables the production of safe meat and poultry products through the thorough analysis of production processes, identification of all hazards that are likely to occur in the production establishment, the identification of critical points in the process at which these hazards may be introduced into product and therefore should be controlled, the establishment of critical limits for control at those points, the verification of these prescribed steps, and the methods by which the processing establishment and the regulatory authority can monitor how well process control through the HACCP plan is working. The history of the development of HACCP is reviewed, and examples of practical applications of HACCP are described.     

Deforestation and the Environmental Kuznets Curve: A Cross-National Investigation of Intervening Mechanisms

Objective . We draw on ecological modernization theory and international political economy arguments to examine the sources of an environmental Kuznets curve (or EKC) that produces an inverted U-shaped rate of deforestation relative to economic development. Method . We use ordinary least squares regression with White's (1978) correction for possible heteroskedasticity to examine the rate of deforestation (1980–1995) in less developed countries. Results . Net of controls for initial forest stock and the quality of deforestation estimates, we find strong evidence for an EKC driven by (1) agglomeration effects linked to the level of urbanization, (2) rural-to-urban migration that partially offsets rural population pressure, (3) the growth of services-dominated urban economies, and (4) strong democratic states. We find little evidence that foreign debt or export dependence influence the deforestation rate. Conclusions . Although deforestation continues to pose pressing and potentially irreversible environmental risks, there is evidence of self-corrective ecological and modernization processes inherent in development that act to mitigate these risks.     

Mutual Contributions of Individuals, Partners, and Institutions: Planning to Remember in Girl Scout Cookie Sales

This paper argues that planning entails distributed, mutual contributions of individuals, their social partners, and their community institutions. We suggest that these mutually involved contributions can be viewed through shifts in focus of analysis, contrasting with analyses of cognitive development that treat individuals as though they exist apart from their social and cultural worlds. We illustrate this argument with a study examining the distributed nature of planning to remember in a complex everyday task. We investigated the personal, interpersonal, and institutional cognitive contributions of 16 Girl Scouts, their mothers and customers and other companions, and institutions (the national organization and the cookie company) in keeping track of deliveries and planning collection of money in Girl Scout cookie sales and deliveries. The article also discusses an analytic methodology (Functional Pattern Analysis) for abstracting findings from the details of rich ethnographic data. Individual scouts, their mothers, customers, and the scouting organization and cookie company all played significant roles in keeping track of progress. In particular, tools and supports provided by the cookie company played a key role in organizing the cognitive tasks, and the scouts collaborated in planning with other people (usually their mothers and customers). Our findings illustrate the importance of examining contributions beyond those of the individual, while still recognizing the active roles of individuals in thinking. We argue that conceiving of individual, interpersonal, and institutional/cultural contributions as mutually constituting aspects of cognitive activities supports this aim beyond the usual focus on separate individual and ‘external’ factors.     

“Transnational” Socio‐Cultural Systems and Ethnographic Research: Views from an Extended Field Site

This article discusses a widespread pattern of migratory moves that is often overlooked in contemporary research on transnational migration. Transnational theory has successfully highlighted the significance of migrants' attachments to people and places transcending the confines of nation‐states. By emphasizing, a priori, the national, this theory tends to overlook the full complexity and meaning of migrants' extra‐local socio‐cultural relations. Through an ethnographic study of dispersed family networks of Caribbean origin, I explore the wide range of migration practices in which differing actors engage and the nature of the sociocultural systems that emerge as migrants move between places.     

Subjective Quality of Life and Self-Esteem in Children: The Role of Primary and Secondary Control in Coping with Everyday Stress

Two major predictors of subjective quality oflife (SQOL) in adults are known to beself-esteem and a sense of primary control.Moreover, secondary control is known to be animportant defence strategy when primary controlfails. This study aimed to determine whetherthese relationships also apply to children. Asample of 66 children aged from 5 to 12 yearswere compared on their use of primary andsecondary control and on their ratings of SQOLand self-esteem. SQOL was measured using theComprehensive Quality of Life Scale,self-esteem by using the CoopersmithSelf-Esteem Inventory, and primary andsecondary control were measured by codingchildren's responses to three short video clipsof children in stressful situations. It wasfound that younger children use more primarycontrol and less secondary control than olderchildren. However, five year olds were foundcapable of producing secondary controlstrategies. Contrary to expectation, primaryand secondary control did not predict eitherself-esteem or SQOL. However, self-esteempredicted SQOL as expected and no sexdifferences were found. These findingsemphasise important differences from the adultliterature and the reasons for this arediscussed.     

Reframing Sociological Concepts for a Brave New (Virtual?) World*

The articles that make up this Sociological Inquiry feature emerged from the 1995 meetings of the American Sociological Association. The authors included in this issue were expressly solicited for a special session on “Technologically Generated Communities.” The authors were asked to individually provide their own perspectives on the intersection of technology, community, and social action. My essay attempts to crystallize several key changes that the new communication technologies demand of conceptual frames long embraced by sociologists. In particular, the pages that follow propose some necessary adjustments to the ways in which sociologists formulate and apply three key analytic concepts: social interaction, social bonding, and empirical experience.