What Explains the Rural-Urban Gap in Infant Mortality: Household or Community Characteristics?

The rural-urban gap in infant mortality rates is explained by using a new decomposition method that permits identification of the contribution of unobserved heterogeneity at the household and the community level. Using Demographic and Health Survey data for six Francophone countries in Central and West sub-Saharan Africa, we find that differences in the distributions of factors that determine mortality-not differences in their effects-explain almost the entire gap. Higher infant mortality rates in rural areas mainly derive from the rural disadvantage in household characteristics, both observed and unobserved, which explain two-thirds of the gap. Among the observed characteristics, environmental factors-a safe source of drinking water, electricity, and quality of housing materials-are the most important contributors. Community characteristics explain less than onequarter of the gap, with about two-thirds of this coming from community unobserved heterogeneity and one-third from the existence of a health facility within the community. The effect of disadvantageous environmental conditions-such as limited electricity and water supply-derives both from a lack of community-level infrastructure and from the inability of some households to exploit it when available. Policy needs to operate at both the community and household levels to correct such deficiencies.     

Overeducation,Undereducation and Earnings: Further Evidence on the Importance of Ability and Measurement Error Bias

It is generally found that overeducated (undereducated) workers earn less (more) than adequately educated workers with similar years of education. We investigate the importance of ability and measurement error bias for these outcomes by applying a fixed-effects instrumental variable approach on data for Flemish young workers. This approach results in substantially higher overeducation penalties and undereducation bonusses than a standard random effects approach. This suggests that the upward bias resulting from unobserved worker heterogeneity is more than compensated by the negative bias resulting from measurement error. Further, we also find some evidence on heterogeneous effects of mismatches accross job levels and years of experience.     

Managing a crisis of confidence in Nigeria's banking and financial industry

An ongoing crisis of confidence in the banking and financial industry in Nigeria's emerging economy calls for using integrated marketing communications (IMC) in optimizing five potentially normative actions as a beachhead in procuring corporate benefits from three variables that predict significantly customers’ favorable impressions of business: satisfaction, trust, relationship commitment. The actions: (a) personalize the stakeholder experience, (b) integrate ethics into the workplace and into corporate communications, (c) participate in training sessions in applied ethics, (d) use brandstanding expansively and integratively, and (e) conduct rigorous outcomes assessment and disseminate its results promptly to stakeholders.     

Interpersonal Behavior, Peer Popularity, and Self-esteem in Early Adolescence

The present study compared the behavioral correlates of sociometric popularity status and consensual popularity status among a large group of children (N = 778) in their first year of secondary school. By means of self‐report and classmates’ nomination procedures, the relative contribution of the two types of popularity to peer role strain and self‐esteem were investigated. Results indicated large differences in the behavioral correlates of both types of popularity: Sociometric popularity is largely related to cooperative behavior and being perceived as popular. Consensual popularity is highly related to fashion style and being perceived as not boring. The two types of popu‐larity were uniquely related to self‐esteem levels. Consensual popularity was directly linked to social self‐esteem; sociometric popularity appeared to be linked to self‐esteem through the reduction of peer role strain levels. The results are discussed in the light of social psychological theories of dominance and prestige among children.     

“Soft Power” and the Negotiation of Legitimacy: Collective Meaning Making in a Teacher Team

This article interrogates the “soft power” of teacher teamwork by probing the ways in which authority conditions the appropriation of institutional motives through collective meaning making. The study analyzes the interaction of a teacher-leader and a science teacher team across two settings of professional development organized to promote curricular reform in their U.S. secondary school. The premise of the analysis draws on frameworks from cultural-historical theories, sociological perspectives, and social semiotics to view authority as the outcome of relations of power and control. The analysis reveals how the negotiation of legitimacy in interaction functions to open up or close down possibilities for acquiring motives appropriate to subject matter, teaching, and student learning in teachers' professional practice. The article makes a novel contribution to post-Vygotskian theoretical development in its presentation of authority as an attribute of the dialectical relationship of person and society in the production of institutionalized objects.     

Testing Karasek's learning and strain hypotheses on young workers in their first job

This study tests the core hypotheses of Karasek's job demand-control model: high job demands (workload) in combination with low job control (autonomy) increase strains (job dissatisfaction; strain hypothesis), whereas high job demands in combination with high job control increase learning and development in the job (here: learning new skills in the first job; learning hypothesis). These hypotheses are tested in two ways: (a) the mere combination of both job characteristics is associated with the expected outcomes, and (b) a statistical interaction between both job characteristics in predicting the outcomes is expected. A large dataset (n=2,212) of young workers in their first job was used to test all hypotheses. As young workers are presumably still in the process of adjusting themselves to their work environment, we expected that the effects of work characteristics on work outcomes would be stronger for this group than for more experienced workers. The results confirm both the strain and the learning hypothesis. We found a combined effect of both job characteristics, as well as a statistical interaction between both variables. The lowest level of job satisfaction was found in the “high strain” job, whereas the highest increase in skills was found in the “active” job. The consequences of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.