Using an entropy-maximizing procedure to estimate territorial social indicators: An introduction and illustration

The creation of quantitative territorial social indicators for studies of spatial variations in human behavior is often hampered by the lack of spatially disaggregable data, with the consequence that the absence of any such variations much be assumed. An entropy-maximizing procedure has been developed which produces maximum likelihood estimates of spatial variations within known, aggregate, constraints. This procedure is introduced and illustrated using the example of tactical voting in Great Britain.     

The Contradiction of Helping: Inuit Oppression(s) and Social Work in Nunavut

Significant differences in privilege, material resources, and decision-making power exist between Inuit and Qallunaat (or non-Inuit) in Canada’s Nunavut Territory. Holding serious implications, the disproportionate advantages afforded Qallunaat require an examination of the relationship between social work and the State (as employer). The role of credentialism and professionalism in the maintenance of neocolonial relations reveals a professional paradox and a barrier to pursing the objective of social justice within the profession. The transition experienced by Inuit—from a predominantly hunting culture to the logic of industrial capitalism—necessitates an examination of the role Qallunaat social workers have played and continue to practice within this transition and in the institutional structures that protect their interests.     

Software and Method: Reflections on Teaching and Using QSR NVivo in Doctoral Research

This reflective paper draws on a range of experiences developed over the last 11 years regarding the way in which qualitative data analysis (QDA) software (QSR NUD?IST and NVivo) is taught and used within doctoral research. The existing separation of qualitative methods training from QDA software training can result in disconnected technical and methodological learning curves. This can cause a number of problems for doctoral students because a ‘methods revolution’ is being experienced and current students are not necessarily exposed to the support they require via the methods literature, their postgraduate training programme or their supervisor. Three key influences on the use of QDA software are discussed within the context of teaching and learning QSR NVivo: the increased popularity of QDA software amongst those from traditionally positivistic backgrounds; the promise of improved levels of transparency; and the reliance upon the free tutorials, which are distributed with the software, to learn qualitative research methods as well as software processes. Implications for doctoral students, supervisors and examiners are discussed.     

Understanding Observational Learning: An Interbehavioral Approach

Observational learning is an important area in the field of psychology and behavior science more generally. Given this, it is essential that behavior analysts articulate a sound theory of how behavior change occurs through observation. This paper begins with an overview of seminal research in the area of observational learning, followed by a consideration of common behavior analytic conceptualizations of these findings. The interbehavioral perspective is then outlined, shedding light on some difficulties with the existing behavior analytic approaches. The implications of embracing the interbehavioral perspective for understanding the most complex sorts of behavior, including those involved in observational learning are considered.     

Intrahousehold Resource Allocation: Do Parents Reduce or Reinforce Child Ability Gaps?

Do parents invest more or less in their high-ability children? We provide new evidence on this question by comparing observed ability differences and observed investment differences between siblings living in the United States. To overcome endogeneity issues, we use sibling differences in handedness as an instrument for cognitive ability differences. We find that parents invest more in high-ability children, with a 1 standard deviation increase in child cognitive ability increasing parental investments by approximately one-third of a standard deviation. Consequently, differences in child cognitive ability are enhanced by differential parental investments.     

Professional women “rebalancing” in retirement: Time,relationships, and body

ABSTRACT

This is an interview-based study focused on how professional baby boomer women negotiate and narrate postretirement lives. This group came of age in the 1960s and represents a socially privileged segment of the baby boomer generation, a cohort that created new gendered pathways in employment. Today, these retired professional women are attempting to make sense of their multilayered complex and changing realities. In their accounts, the most salient themes are shifting identity, embodiment, and relationships. By using what we call a relational lens, we will show how many aspects of postretirement life, for these professional women, are mediated by changing relationships—relationships to time, work identity, friends and family, and body. Through these individual and relational contexts we see how female professional baby boomer retirees grapple with liberation and loss, autonomy and control, ongoing gendered work, and rebalancing in a new chapter of life. Perhaps most importantly, we see how learning about self in this stage of life, and perhaps across the life course, takes place largely in the context of relationships.     

The influence of collaboration on program outcomes: the Colorado Nurse-Family Partnership

Though collaboration is often required in community initiatives, little evidence documents relationships between collaboration and program success. The authors contend that clarification of the construct collaboration is necessary for investigating its contribution to the success of community initiatives. After respecifying collaboration, they present a study of a multisite program that involved varying degrees of collaboration in the 16 communities adopting a nurse home visitation program. The authors employ hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to test the predictive power of individual participant characteristics and examine the increased accuracy of predictions from a second level model of site qualities-specifically, features of the collaborative process associated with different sites. The first-level model predicted approximately 10% of the variance in attrition, or dropout, of program clients. The second-level model accounted for an additional 28% of the variance in attrition. A theory of commitment transfer is offered as a first explanation of this result.     

LOCUS OF CONTROL,TRUST, AND DECISION MAKING*

A theoretical connection was proposed between certain social personality variables, namely locus of control (Internal or External) and trust (High and Low) and the formal decision-making model of Subjective Expected Utility (SEU). Rather than adopting the traditional definition of these variables as “generalized expectancies” for behavior of self and others, locus of control and trust were reconceptualized as intrapersonal tendencies to favor, prefer, or otherwise bias the subjective probabilities entering into a decision computation. S's high in external control orientation did not differ from internals overall, but external males were more risk averse under certain choice conditions (female-sex-role appropriate dilemma, probability-estimate form). Low-trust S's were also more risk averse than high-trust S's, overall. Low-trust males generated maximally risk-averse choice solutions under the choice condition of feminine role problem appropriateness and probability estimation. In general, female S's made choices that were more consistent with SEU-predicted solutions than males.     

Unpaid labour and territorial extraction in digital value networks

Production in knowledge and data-intensive industries is powered by work that can, in theory, be done from anywhere, via cloudwork platforms. Cloudwork platforms govern data value chains in distinct ways to concentrate power and extract value at the global scale. We argue that unpaid labour is a systemic mechanism of accumulation in these digital value networks. In this paper we demonstrate how it is tied to platform business models and facilitated by elements of platform governance including monopsony power, a high degree of spatial flexibility in sourcing labour, regulatory unaccountability and digital enclosure. We draw on a survey of 699 workers on 14 platforms in 74 countries to show that unpaid labour is an engine of South–North value extraction, and workers in the global South perform more unpaid labour than counterparts in the global North. Our findings have important ramifications our understanding of the changing international division of labour and platform capitalism.