The Robustness of Trend Stationarity: An Illustration with the Extended Nelson-Plosser Dataset

We re-evaluate Andreu and Spanos's findings in favour of trend stationarity by considering the extended Nelson-Plosser data set. This expanded (to 1988) data set includes a period of rather different behaviour compared with the original Nelson-Plosser data used by Andreou and Spanos. We find that Andreou and Spanos's models (with only minor adjustments) exhibit remarable stability over this extended period, and indicate that their conclusions are more robust than they have shown.     

Muted Masculinity as an Outsider Strategy: Gender Sharing in Ethnographic Work with Wives of Professional Athletes

Using findings from a study of the world of the wives of professional athletes, this article explores the complex motivations for and displays of trust, rapport, and group acceptance during ethnographic research. Episodic exchanges between a male ethnographer and female collaborators revealed subtle issues of gender and perceived relative worth. This article proposes the outsider strategy of “muted masculinity” as a means of exploring ethnographic issues in which the boundaries between insiders and outsiders are uncertain.     

Trade-Offs Between Formal Home Health Care and Informal Family CareGiving

Using 1994 National Long Term Care Survey data, we estimated logistic regressions of formal and informal home health care use and hours. Home health care use and intensity were differentially impacted by chronic conditions, are higher for Medicaid enrollees and rural or small town residents, but lower for HMO enrollees. Decreases in the probability of home health care use increased informal instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) support four hours and decreased informal activities of daily living (ADL) support eight hours weekly. IADL caregiving substituted for formal care, but ADL caregiving declined with reductions in formal care. Public policy reducing formal home health care access may reduce informal ADL caregiving and increase informal IADL caregiving, producing net declines in support.     

Foster parenting: A developmental model

This paper proposes a developmental framework for foster parents and outlines four distinct growth stages. Such a framework can be of value to program administrators who are required to assess foster parent development during the crucial matching process. To draw a distinction between each developmental stage, specific instrumental tasks and indicators are outlined.     

Farming Patterns,Rural Restructuring,and Poverty: A Comparative Regional Analysis1

Abstract This study examines the contentions of two recent perspectives on rural economic organization and their implications for poverty. Building from (1) agrarian political economy and (2) the rural restructuring literatures, we present a comparative regional analysis of how farming patterns and other aspects of economic organization differentially affect poverty in rural areas. Data are based on 2,349 nonmetropolitan U.S. counties for the 1970–1980 period. Nonhired labor-dependent, family-operated farming (smaller and larger family farming) has relatively similar cross-regional effects on rural poverty. The effects of industrialized farming are more spatially variant, suggesting that this type of farming is integrated into regional political economies in different ways than are simple commodity units. However, farming patterns have only a small effect on rural poverty relative to other factors, such as the local employment structure, characteristics of the population, and geographic location. The results of this study highlight the need to move beyond the farm sector to understand both the dynamics of this sector and the socioeconomic consequences of rural restructuring. More broadly, the study underscores the importance of testing general sociological relationships under different spatial (e.g., regional) contexts.     

THE EFFICACY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY: A PERSPECTIVE FROM META-ANALYSIS

This article reviews the major findings from a multiproject meta-analysis of the effects of marital and family therapy (MFT). Across 163 randomized trials, MFT demonstrates moderate, statistically significant, and often clinically significant effects. No orientation is yet demonstrably superior to any other, nor is MFT superior to individual therapy. Cost effectiveness information is scant in these 163 studies, but supportive. Randomized experiments yield very different answers from nonrandomized experimental studies of the effects of MFT, calling into question whether we should mix the two in reviews. We have also found several new differences in the ways that marital therapy (MT) and family therapy (FT) studies are conducted, making them harder to compare. Finally, important questions still exist about whether any psychotherapy, including MFT, yet has sufficient information about how well research generalizes to everyday clinical practice.     

The gambling market in the Federal Republic of Germany and the helpseeking of pathological gamblers

The development of the gambling market in the Federal Republic of Germany since the middle of the seventies and data on pathological gamblers seeking help are described. The continuously increasing supply, together with increases in turnover, was followed-with some temporal delay-by an increase in the number of gamblers who sought advice and treatment. Preliminary measures taken by the health authorities as well as some consequences of pathological gambling are discussed.This article is a translation of a German article published in: Deutsche Hauptstelle gegen die Suchtgefahren (1990): Jahrbuch '91 zur Frage der Suchtgefahren. Hamburg: Neuland-Verlag.