Labor immigration and capital flows: long-term Australian,Canadian and United States experience

"Evidence on labor immigration and capital inflows to three high labor-immigration economies (Australia, Canada, the United States) is examined over periods ranging from 1820-1870 through to 1991. Data show a close association between capital flows and immigration, although causality implications are ambiguous. For the United States, the relation between factor flows is more complex than for the other countries, but flows to the United States have influenced those to smaller economies. All three nations have been subjected to common immigrant push factors through to 1930-1950 but, since World War II, linkages between factor flows have altered. Post-World War II U.S. immigration restrictions have become more important as a global determinant of labor flows, with factor flow policymaking becoming increasingly internationally interdependent."     

Childhood depression and mass print magazines in the USA and Canada: 1983–2008

Childhood depression is a diagnosis made with increasing frequency. Mass media, including magazines, are a significant source of knowledge about health and illness available in mass society, including childhood depression. This study is a frame analysis of the portrayal of childhood depression in the textual content of magazines available in English in North America in the years 1983–2008. Childhood depression is portrayed as a real, biologically rooted, unitary and somewhat common condition that is undertreated and can be dangerous. The job of the parent in the face of the symptoms of depression such as sadness and irritability in a child is limited to taking the child to an expert (usually a doctor) for treatment. This portrayal reflects three contemporary theories (medicalization, intensive mothering and the diseasing of childhood) and has probable practical consequences for the actions of parents and for the ways in which they approach clinicians regarding the health of their children. It also has consequences for the well‐being of children.     

Racial Residential Segregation in Urban America

There are numerous causes and consequences of racial residential segregation in American metropolitan areas, and a long-standing literature is filled with debates about them. We provide an overview of the trends and patterns regarding racial residential segregation, focusing primarily on blacks and whites. We pay special attention to the competing arguments about race and class in the context of residential stratification. We then discuss the many causes of residential segregation, and its social and economic consequences. After the overview, we identify key gaps in the literature. We discuss three broad substantive areas of research that expand the study of racial residential segregation: (i) the everyday experiences of race, class, and gender disadvantage as they are related to segregation; (ii) contemporary immigration streams and their impact on black-white residential dynamics; and (iii) the power of political-economic forces to transform residentially segregated spaces, with a particular emphasis on processes related to gentrification and home mortgage lending.     

Safety culture: under-specified and overrated?

Is the measurement of ‘safety culture’ a valid management tool in the effort to reduce accident rate and improve safety performance, or is it a fuzzy academic concept, lacking empirical validation? The answer to this question seems to depend on whom one asks. The UK Health and Safety Commission has encouraged companies to improve their safety performance through the development of a ‘positive safety culture’. However, academic discussions in this area suggest that the concept remains vague, lacks empirical validation and is used as an ‘umbrella term’ for all the social and organizational factors that affect accident rate. This paper reviews the existing literature on safety culture and provides some clarification in terms of definition, empirical evidence and theoretical development. A theoretical framework of the mechanisms by which safety culture affects safety behaviours in organizations is proposed. The implications for practical management issues are discussed and future challenges and areas for further research are identified.     

Splitting Difference: Psychoanalysis, Hatred and Exclusion

In this paper I will argue that the inclusion of certain aspects of psychoanalytic theory into sociological analysis can be particularly enlightening in specific areas of social research where traditional theory and practice have failed to explain phenomena satisfactorily. This is arguably the case in the explanation of hatred and exclusion, where powerful affective forces fuel racist discourse and support structures of discimination. This is not presented as an antithesis or critique of contemporary sociological methodologies, rather as an addition, a tool through which another dimension of exploration is added to give a greater understanding of conflict arising in social life. This paper seeks to reveal the affective forces that shape motivation in everyday life, influencing social structure and leading to the maltreatment of people because of their 'otherness'.     

Management paradigms for the new millennium

A proliferation of paradigms is occurring in management thought and practice, defining paradigms as means of understanding the world and a basis for informing action. Frequent paradigm shifts are essential for survival in a business context of constant innovation. While the idea of paradigms has been widely received in management, it has been so more as a contested than a settled domain. Management paradigms are far more numerous than those of the natural sciences that Kuhn studied. Kuhn expected the long periods of normality to be marked by an absence of paradigmatic questioning and strife. In management, at any time, there are a number of competing paradigms available. Kuhn was concerned to chart how changing realities of investigation were tied up with changing perceptions. In business the focus has been much more on the changing realities rather than changing perspectives. In any system that is ecologically interdependent, if you change any paradigmatic part then you change the whole. When there is sufficient change and fluidity in a system then we can speak of a ‘paradigm shift’: that period when a shift occurs from one paradigm set to another, the transition from one wave to the next. In these conditions uncertainty and ambiguity will apply. Discontinuous change is a step shift in the rate of change that invalidates existing assumptions and begins to transform the rules of competition.     

Children's family circumstances: recent trends in Great Britain

Recent trends in family formation and dissolution have led to an increase in the diversity of types of family in which children live and to children experiencing more disruptions and changes throughout their childhood years. Our estimates suggest that only about one half of all children can now expect to spend their entire childhood living with their married, natural parents. For policy concerning the welfare of children, it is important to recognize the large proportion of children who will experience family disruption or the likelihood of transition between family types at some point in their childhood.Les tendances récentes de formation et dissolution des familles ont conduit à un accroissement de la diversité des types de familles dans lesquelles vivent les enfants. Tout au long de leurs années d'enfance ils connaissent également beaucoup plus de ruptures et de changements. Nos estimations suggèrent que seulement la moitié environ de tous les enfants peuvent maintenant compter passer l'ensemble de leurs années d'enfance avec leurs parents mariés ou cohabitants. Pour les politiques de protection infantile il est important de reconnaître la forte proportion d'enfants qui expérimenteront à l'avenir des ruptures familiales, ou la vraisemblance de transition entre divers types de familles à certains moments de leur enfance.     

Representations of the cinaedus in Roman art: Evidence of "gay" subculture?

Whereas analysis of ancient Roman texts reveals signs of a possible homosexual subculture, their interpretation is difficult. This article analyzes the content and context of visual representations of male-male intercourse, including wall paintings at Pompeii, a silver cup, and an engraved agate gemstone. Whether presenting negative stereotypes (Tavern of Salvius, Pompeii; Suburban Baths, Pompeii), or positive ones (Warren Cup, British Museum; Leiden gemstone), these representations reveal the presence of well-developed social attitudes toward the practice ofmale-male sex and the practitioners themselves.