Interests Aren’t Everything: An Exploration of Economic Explanations of Immigration Policy in a New Destination

Current debates around US immigration policy are playing out against a backdrop that has changed significantly in the past 20 years: immigrants have increasingly gravitated towards “new destinations”; a large and growing portion of immigrants are undocumented; and the federal vacuum in responding to the promise and problems of these new immigration trends has devolved policy to the states. As a result, we have seen innovation on the state level as policymakers seek to accommodate, welcome or resist immigration, with varying degrees of success. In this paper, we explore the case of Utah as a new immigration destination, seeking to understand its transformation from a state with very inclusive immigrant policies as late as 1999 to one currently adopting highly restrictive immigrant policies. To explain this trajectory, we test three prominent materialist theories of public policy: instrumentalism, structuralism and strategic-relational approaches. We draw on a decade’s worth of primary data – including data on state-level legislation, key economic indicators, public statements concerning immigration from the private business sector and the LDS Church, and the editorial content of the state’s two major newspapers regarding immigration – to examine the policy explanations that grow out of interest-based theories of the state. Whereas these theories provide robust explanations for a large and diverse array of public policies, we find that they fall short in explaining immigration policy. While conventional wisdom – and extensive scholarly research – suggests that economic interests drive policy, we find that the policies around immigrants challenge this economic reductionism, suggesting the need for more complex and ideational accounts of this important phenomenon.     

A Bayesian approach to sequential analysis in post‐licensure vaccine safety surveillance

With rapid development of computing technology, Bayesian statistics have increasingly gained more attention in various areas of public health. However, the full potential of Bayesian sequential methods applied to vaccine safety surveillance has not yet been realized, despite acknowledged practical benefits and philosophical advantages of Bayesian statistics. In this paper, we describe how sequential analysis can be performed in a Bayesian paradigm in the field of vaccine safety. We compared the performance of the frequentist sequential method, specifically, Maximized Sequential Probability Ratio Test (MaxSPRT), and a Bayesian sequential method using simulations and a real world vaccine safety example. The performance is evaluated using three metrics: false positive rate, false negative rate, and average earliest time to signal. Depending on the background rate of adverse events, the Bayesian sequential method could significantly improve the false negative rate and decrease the earliest time to signal. We consider the proposed Bayesian sequential approach to be a promising alternative for vaccine safety surveillance.     

Schools as racialized organizations in policy and practice

In this paper we examine schooling inequalities through drawing from the contributions of racialized organizations. We apply the components of this racial theory to offer a new framework for examining racial inequalities in US K-12 schools. We analyze case studies to demonstrate how the four tenants of racialized organizations operate in three schools. In particular, we highlight how these tenants surface through schools' policies (school rules around discipline, language, and tracking) and practices (interactions between students, teachers and staff). We offer a framework for understanding how schools are shaped by the racial hierarchy at the organizational level. We close by considering implications and suggestions for future research.     

‘Cleaning Your Glasses’: A Prerequisite for ‘Catching Your Child Being Good’

Used widely throughout the parenting literature, the phrase ‘Catch them being good’ encapsulates much of current practice that has been shown to be effective in reducing instances of non‐compliance in children with complex and challenging behaviours. ‘Catching your child being good’ is obviously in line with the strategies of praise, encouragement and positive reinforcement. But for some parents, ‘Catching their child being good’ after long periods of defiance becomes almost an impossible task. Metaphorically speaking, ‘Cleaning your glasses' is a necessary prerequisite for effectively ‘catching your child being good’. This metaphor and an associated six‐phase therapeutic intervention seek to enhance a parent's ability to ‘Catch their child being good’, by working through parental distortions, restraints and negativity. This paper introduces the metaphor's origin and use; describes keys concepts; and gives a detailed case example to highlight the advantages and limitations of the intervention.     

Maternal mental health and faltering growth in infants

This study reports on the first phase of a large‐scale, longitudinal, multidisciplinary community study examining the growth, learning and development of young children with a particular focus on failure to thrive without organic cause. However, the group identified in this study may be better described as weight faltering. This paper examines the psychological data collected using the Parenting Stress Index, Rosenberg Self‐Esteem and the General Health Questionnaire in relation to child growth. There were no significant differences between the mothers of the weight faltering and control children in terms of parenting stress, maternal depression, maternal perceptions of their parenting competence or maternal self‐esteem. Maternal sensitivity to comments about child size, regardless of direction, had a negative impact on mood. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interblock information in multidimensional block designs

In many experimental situations, d-way heterogeneity among experimental units may be controlled through use of multiple blocking criteria. In some cases it is reasonable to regard some or all of the block effects as random. Then the model is mixed and observations within blocks are correlated. Very general estimators of treatment effects and their dispersion matrix with recovery of interblock information are provided. They apply to designs with d > 1 blocking criteria that may be crossed, nested, or a combination thereof. These general results may be specialized to provide analyses of new classes of MBD's or used directly for numerical analyses of designs in the general class, perhaps through use as the basis for very general computer programs. Estimation of variance components is discussed, and an example is provided to illustrate adaptation of the general results.     

Class,Race, and Fertility in the Rural South, 1910 and 19401

Abstract Rural residents of the American South were among the last in the nation to complete the transition from high to low fertility. Recently created public use samples of the 1910 and 1940 U.S. censuses are used to achieve two objectives. First, class and race differentials in marital fertility among residents of the rural South are described during the era of transition. Second, the change in rural fertility between 1910 and 1940 is examined to assess class-specific involvement in the rural transition. Significant variation in fertility by social class is observed for blacks in 1910 and 1940. By 1940, significant class differentials emerge for whites, while those for blacks intensify. For both races, farm laborers report the lowest fertility. The analysis of fertility change between 1910 and 1940 reveals participation by all social classes, with farm laborers experiencing the steepest decline.     

TEMPATIONS OF POWER AND CERTAINTY

In our search for guiding principles out of which to conduct therapy, we encounter two temptations: temptations of power and certainty. When therapists do not adequately account for the position of our clients, we fall prey to the temptation of certainty. When we attempt to impose corrections from such certainty, we fall victim to the temptation of power. Colonization occurs in therapy when our commitment to "expert knowledge" blinds us to the experience in the room. This paper offers suggestions for sidestepping power/certainty by constrating therapies of power and certainty with therapies of curiosity and empowernment.     

Union rent appropriation and ex post analysis

A data set of 106Fortune 500 firms is used to investigate the extent of union rent appropriation in 1977. The analysis identifies the existence of an appropriable asset with greater value in use than exchange as a necessary condition for union rent appropriation. The empirical analysis utilizes a new source of unionization data and explicitly addresses the problems associated with ex post analysis. The results suggest capital- and firm-specific efficiency are major sources for union rent appropriation. The authors thank Barry Hirsch for providing data used in this study and also thank Jon Nelson, David Macpherson, Mark Roberts, Chella Courington, seminar participants at The Pennsylvania State University, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper. Machine readable copies of the unionization data and an appendix describing the programs used to generate the results are available from Ted W. Chiles at the Department of Economics, School of Business, Auburn University at Montgomery, 7300 University Drive, Montgomery, Alabama, 36117–3596.