Community Resources and School Performance: The Northern Cheyenne Case

This research investigates the school performance of Indian students on the Northern Cheyenne reservation using both quantitative and qualitative data. Understanding influences on school performance is important since previous research established its impact on dropout behavior. Statistical analyses assess the relative effects of students' residence in reservation communities, the type of schools students attend (public. Catholic, or tribal), gender, family characteristics, and school experience variables. Findings reveal the importance of students' community residence for explaining performance levels at the two Indian schools, the tribally controlled and Catholic schools, and school experiences for understanding performance of the non-Indian public school students. Qualitative data on contextual factors for communities and schools help to explain how community characteristics such as population size, community access to the school, support for education, and traditional culture interact with the specific schools serving the community. This research suggests that contrary to conventional analyses of American Indian assimilation, the traditional culture, social resources, and interaction patterns of students' communities can have positive effects on students' schooling outcomes.     

Women and the work of caring

In the U.S., care for chronically dependent people is done mostly by family and friends, with only sporadic community support. Though such unpaid caregiving work--the bulk of it performed by women--constitutes an enormous subsidy to the national welfare, the contribution is undervalued, and the negative practical consequences for caregivers seldom recognized.     

‘They are just good people…generally good people’: perspectives of young men on relationships with social care workers in the UK

The perspectives of marginalised young men on what they value in relationships with social care workers are under‐researched and have not received adequate attention within policy and practice literatures. Moreover, problematic assumptions about gender pervade much political and cultural commentary. Research findings from a study of 50 young men, aged between 16 and 25, attending a range of social care services, are highly significant in this context. They highlight young men's investment in a language of care and respect and their rejection of categorical presumptions. However, the services were steeped in practices and understandings of their marginalisation and offered important opportunities for recognition.     

Building Bridges: The Role of an Undergraduate Mentor

I share some advice and lessons that I have learned from working with many wonderful students and colleagues, in my role as Undergraduate Chair of Statistics at Purdue University since 2008. I also reflect on developing, implementing, and sustaining a new living, learning community environment for statistics students.     

Risk,resilience and identity construction in the life narratives of young people leaving residential care

The role of residential care for children has developed very differently internationally, but in all cultural contexts, there are questions about the extent to which it can help young people recover from high risk backgrounds. In the UK, residential care has come to be seen as the placement of last resort, yet new government guidance on permanence has suggested that residential care can provide security and a sense of belonging. Narrative analysis of interviews with 20 care leavers identified their different pathways from birth families through residential care to early adulthood. Some experienced a transformation from a negative sense of self as victims or ‘bad children’ to survivors, while others continued to struggle. Key to successful turning points were four interacting factors, all associated with resilience; connection, agency, activity and coherence. These narratives revealed the importance of nurturing relationships and a sense of ‘family’, and also the role of support after leaving residential care, when transitions workers helped them to move on but stay connected. The study highlighted how residential care leavers from adverse backgrounds attribute very different meanings to their experiences, which affects identity construction, resilience and the need for support.     

Assessing recall bias and measurement error in high-frequency social data collection for human-environment research

Population and Environment - A major impediment to understanding human-environment interactions is that data on social systems are not collected in a way that is easily comparable to natural...     

Correction to: Assessing recall bias and measurement error in high-frequency social data collection for human-environment research

Population and Environment - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The name of “Md. Ehsanul Haque Tamal” is now corrected in the author group of this...     

Productivity of women scholars and gender researchers: Is funding a factor?

Articles by women scholars and proportions of articles focused on gender have increased steadily in major sociology journals since 1974. Women are more heavily represented as journal authors than as members of graduate-program departments, the institutional bases where most published work originates. We consider whether funding might account for these patterns by examining acknowledgement of support in published articles. We find no significant relationships among author gender, article topic, and notation of internal funding. Male-authored articles focused on nongender topics acknowledge external funding significantly more often than women-authored works and articles focused on gender written by women or men. Funding patterns therefore do not appear to account for increased productivity by women and gender researchers. She is currently studying the educational achievement of immigrant students. Linda Grant is an assistant professor of sociology and faculty associated of the Institute of Behavioral Research at the University of Georgia. Her current research focuses on gender and academic careers and gender relationships in schools. Her current research includes the feminist critique of sociology and publishing, and the U.S. women’s movement.