Tipping the Multiracial Color-Line: Racialized Preferences of Multiracial Online Daters

Building on previous work on US multiraciality, we analyze the messaging patterns of Asian-white, Hispanic-white, and black-white multiracial heterosexual     

Retaining clients in an outcome monitoring evaluation study: HIV prevention efforts in community settings

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP) conducted outcome monitoring studies on evidence-based interventions (EBIs) provided by CDC-funded community-based organizations (CBOs). Critical to the success of outcome monitoring was the ability of CBOs to recruit and retain clients in evaluation studies. Two EBIs, Video Opportunities for Innovative Condom Education and Safer Sex (VOICES/VOCES) and Healthy Relationships, were evaluated using repeated measure studies, which require robust follow-up retention rates to increase the validity and usefulness of the findings. The retention rates were high for both VOICES/VOCES CBOs (95.8% at 30 days and 91.1% at 120 days), and Healthy Relationships CBOs (89.5% at 90 days and 83.5% at 180 days). This paper presents an overview of the retention of clients, challenges to follow-up, and strategies developed by CBOs to achieve high retention rates. These strategies and rates are discussed within the context of the CBOs’ target populations and communities.     

The Social Basis of Conflict between Blind People and Agents of Rehabilitation

This paper analyzes the sources of conflict between professionals and organizations providing services and consumer-oriented self-help organizations of blind people. It reviews major developments within this profession and the rejection of the resulting professional ideologies by a new social movement. We demonstrate that there is not a unity of interest between agencies and the recipients of rehabilitation efforts. Professional and organizational self-interests are opposed to consumer efforts to redefine the nature of blindness. As consumer political effectiveness continues to grow, the threat to the funding and public legitimacy of existing programs may result in a change in attitudes toward consumer participation and definitions of blindness.     

Betting the future online

The Internet has brought, among other things, the online betting exchange. From desks in the City or from laptops on sunny beaches, those in the know or out of it can place bets with each other on anything under the sun, whether likely—Australia beating England at cricket—or the reverse. If you have a hunch that a genetically engineered Tyrannosaur will wander down Oxford Street next year, and if you want to put money on it, Internet betting exchanges will find someone to accommodate you. Leighton Vaughan Williams explains how a simple change in tax regime has brought something other than just a more efficient gambling system. It has created a strangely accurate way of foretelling the future.     

Decision-making in betting markets

The placing of a bet is a classic example of decision-making under uncertainty. A betting market is also an example of a simple financial market, but one which possesses the advantage that each bet is characterised by a well-defined end point at which it possesses a definite value, i.e. the amount won or lost. Leighton Vaughan Williams explains the implications for our understanding of economic decision-making of the observed tendency for the expected returns on bets to differ markedly at different odds levels.     

Child,Caregiver, and Temperament Contributions to Infant Joint Attention

Little is known about variables that may contribute to individual differences in infant joint attention, or the coordination of visual attention with a social partner. Therefore, this study examined the contributions of caregiver behavior and temperament to infant joint attention development between 9 and 12 months. Data were collected from 57 infants using a caregiver–infant paradigm, an infant–tester paradigm, and a parent report of infant temperament. Nine‐month measures of caregiver scaffolding and infant initiating joint attention (IJA) with testers were significantly related to 12‐month infant IJA with testers. A temperament measure of positive emotional reactivity was related to 9‐month IJA, and a measure of negative emotional reactivity was related to 12‐month IJA. Temperament and caregiver scaffolding measures, however, were not associated with the development of infant responding to joint attention. These results further the understanding of the multiple processes that contribute to joint attention development in infancy, and support the hypothesis that initiating and responding measures tap different aspects of joint attention development.     

Rendering To Cesa: On the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations

In a recent number of the Journal Ian Cesa recognises the importance, for social researchers, of the newly developed Australian Standard Classification of Occupations, but offers an incorrect account based upon a superseded, preliminary draft. In this brief note a concise and correct summary of the classification is given with references to the relevant and current publications which explain the implementation of the classification for various purposes.     

The Significance of Socioeconomic and Ethnic Diversity for the Risk Communication Process

Risk communication is being characterized as one way of facilitating more effective, democratic and participatory risk management strategies. An emphasis on formal communication approaches as a means to improve decisions and decrease conflict will highlight the challenge of managing hazards within a culturally heterogeneous society. Communication and participatory strategies will be considered successful only if diverse communities can be engaged as partners in the policy process. Because responses to risks are embedded and evolve within broader social environments, achieving the promise of risk communication across a diverse society may not be possible absent an understanding of how sociocultural variables and past experiences shape the exchange of ideas or information in any particular situation. This paper considers the implications of ethnic and socioeconomic variability for the risk communication process, summarizing theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence on the link between sociocultural features and risk responses. Specifically, the factors that define the context of communication may influence: the initial framing of a risk issue, particularly, the adoption of an environmental justice vs. scientific/economic perspective; the perceived importance of various aspects of the decision problem; and prior beliefs about environmental hazards and agencies involved in risk management. Two examples of situations requiring communications about risk are presented and illustrate how these principles could operate in minority or lower-income communities. A significant challenge for health and regulatory officials will be to engage in an interactive process of information and opinion exchanges that is reasonable and effective within vastly different socioeconomic and cultural contexts.