The Child Care Arrangements of Preschool-Age Children in Immigrant Families in the United States

This study examined the child care arrangements of children in immigrant families. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the study found great diversity in the child care arrangements of children according to their nativity status. Children in immigrant families, especially those in low‐income immigrant families, were found less likely to use centre‐based child care. Mexican, Asian, and other Hispanic children are also less likely to use centre‐based child care. Because quality centre‐based child care has been shown to benefit preschool‐age children and help prepare them for school, both scholastically and psychologically, less use of centre‐based child care among children in immigrant families compared to children in non‐immigrant families is a potentially troubling finding. Public policies promoting greater access to and more use of centre‐based child care, especially for low‐income immigrant families and two‐parent immigrant families, may make a significant difference to their children's long‐term adaptation, and their children's school readiness and achievement.     

Consumer-Phase Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis Risk Assessment for Egg-Containing Food Products

We describe a one-dimensional probabilistic model of the role of domestic food handling behaviors on salmonellosis risk associated with the consumption of eggs and egg-containing foods. Six categories of egg-containing foods were defined based on the amount of egg contained in the food, whether eggs are pooled, and the degree of cooking practiced by consumers. We used bootstrap simulation to quantify uncertainty in risk estimates due to sampling error, and sensitivity analysis to identify key sources of variability and uncertainty in the model. Because of typical model characteristics such as nonlinearity, interaction between inputs, thresholds, and saturation points, Sobol's method, a novel sensitivity analysis approach, was used to identify key sources of variability. Based on the mean probability of illness, examples of foods from the food categories ranked from most to least risk of illness were: (1) home-made salad dressings/ice cream; (2) fried eggs/boiled eggs; (3) omelettes; and (4) baked foods/breads. For food categories that may include uncooked eggs (e.g., home-made salad dressings/ice cream), consumer handling conditions such as storage time and temperature after food preparation were the key sources of variability. In contrast, for food categories associated with undercooked eggs (e.g., fried/soft-boiled eggs), the initial level of Salmonella contamination and the log10 reduction due to cooking were the key sources of variability. Important sources of uncertainty varied with both the risk percentile and the food category under consideration. This work adds to previous risk assessments focused on egg production and storage practices, and provides a science-based approach to inform consumer risk communications regarding safe egg handling practices.     

Generic Strategies and Business Performance: an Empirical Study of the Screw Machine Products Industry

Select businesses in industry may attempt to compete through distinct strategies. But some may be successful in adopting distinct strategic profiles while others may not prove successful. In this study it was expected that six different groups of businesses might be present in the empirical exploration – those competing successfully with the low cost strategy and those competing unsuccessfully with this strategy; those competing successfully with the differentiation strategy and those competing unsuccessfully with this strategy; and those competing successfully with low cost and differentiation strategies and those competing unsuccessfully with these strategies. The results of the investigation portray the presence of three strategic profiles. They are unsuccessful low cost businesses with the lowest performance, unsuccessful differentiated businesses with the second lowest performance, and successful businesses with combination strategies with the highest performance.     

Current Directions in Risk Research: New Developments in Psychology and Sociology

This article reviews the main approaches to risk in psychology and sociology and considers recent developments. It shows that research continues from a wide range of perspectives. Some developments in psychological thinking have recently acknowledged the importance of the cultural framing of risk perceptions and responses and the positive power of emotions to manage uncertainties, while some streams of work in sociology have moved toward more individualist approaches. These converging processes open opportunities for cross-fertilization and for using insights from both disciplines in the development of research.     

The asymptotic equivalence between the iterated improved 2sls estimator and the 3sls estimator

In this paper we show that the 3SLS estimator of a system of equations is asymptotically equivalent to an iterative 2SLS estimator applied to each equation, augmented with the residuals from the other equations. This result is a natural extension of Telser (1964).     

Meta-Power,Social Organization,and the Shaping of Social Action

Interactionist analyses of social organization stimulate examination of how social situations and collective activity are shaped. Meta-power, the creation and control of distal situations, and organization as a structuration of meta-power are used as tools for exploring the shaping of situations. Five meta-power processes are presented: strategic agency, rules and conventions, structuring situations, culture construction, and empowering delegates. These processes illustrate how situations are created or altered. This paper offers a view of social organization that emphasizes relations among situations, linkages between consequences and conditions, and networks of collective activity across space and time. The conclusion calls for additional research to make more explicit the nature of social organization and its social conditions.     

On limitations of rational choice theory for sociology

I have criticized rational choice theory, not for confining its analysis to rational behavior in which individuals adapt means to the attainment of their ends, for which it is often criticized, but from a different perspective. The reason is that much individual behavior, though not all, entails rational pursuit of self-interests and that it is legitimate for a theory to confine itself to explaining some aspect of empirical reality and exclude others. The focus of my criticism has rather been that the central task of sociology is not explaining individual behavior but explaining how the structural context of the social environment influences people's life chances.     

Demographic Foundations of Political Empowerment in Multiminority Cities

As U.S. cities accommodate increasing ethnic and racial diversity, political choices may unify or divide their local populations. Those choices pull communities toward two different modes of pluralism: traditional “melting pot” assimilation or a complex mosaic of racial and ethnic assertiveness. Central to this issue is equity and empowerment, which may be accentuated by minority populations’ size, structure, and spatial concentration. We examine two potential modes of local empowerment: “dominance,” whereby each group is the majority of voters in single election districts (reinforcing separative tendencies), and “influence,” whereby a group gains “influential minority” status in several districts (reinforcing unifying tendencies).