The effect of urban ground covers on arthropods: An experiment

Changes to the ground layer in urban areas are extensive, but the effects on arthropod fauna are poorly understood. We undertook a manipulative experiment to examine the response of arthropods to small-scale variation in ground covers commonly found in urban parks and gardens in Australia. The ground covers tested were bare ground, leaf litter, woodchips and grass, with plot sizes of 3.6 m². Epigeic arthropods were sampled with pitfall traps and Tullgren funnels over 12 months following establishment of the treatments. All epigeic arthropods were sorted to order and the ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), beetles (Coleoptera), millipedes (Diplopoda) and slaters (Isopoda: Oniscidea) were examined at lower taxonomic levels. Diverse arthropods rapidly colonised previously cleared plots in all four treatments and were most abundant in grass plots. The diversity of ants and beetles was significantly different in different ground covers and tended to be most diverse in grass plots. Despite the treatments providing very different microclimates, the fauna studied did not show strong selection for a particular cover type overall. The abundance of grass cover in the surrounding area may have led to the grass plots having the greatest abundance of arthropods. These results have important implications for developing effective small-scale conservation efforts for arthropods in anthropogenically modified landscapes, especially for species with poor dispersal abilities.     

How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study

The New Family Structures Study (NFSS) is a social-science data-collection project that fielded a survey to a large, random sample of American young adults (ages 18-39) who were raised in different types of family arrangements. In this debut article of the NFSS, I compare how the young-adult children of a parent who has had a same-sex romantic relationship fare on 40 different social, emotional, and relational outcome variables when compared with six other family-of-origin types. The results reveal numerous, consistent differences, especially between the children of women who have had a lesbian relationship and those with still-married (heterosexual) biological parents. The results are typically robust in multivariate contexts as well, suggesting far greater diversity in lesbian-parent household experiences than convenience-sample studies of lesbian families have revealed. The NFSS proves to be an illuminating, versatile dataset that can assist family scholars in understanding the long reach of family structure and transitions.     

Evaluation of planning and management approaches for limiting residential encroachment impacts within forest edges: A Southern Ontario case study

Studies increasingly document degradation and loss of publicly owned urban forest area following adjacent development due to residential encroachment. Little is known about prevailing approaches for limiting these impacts. Taking Southern Ontario as a case study, long interviews were conducted among Ontario planners, landscape architects, forest managers and bylaw officials within six Ontario municipalities to determine prevailing goals, tools, and strategies for addressing residential encroachment. Few municipalities had explicit goals, and none had objectives for addressing encroachment. Bylaws were the primary tools for addressing existing encroachments, but field studies indicated infrequent enforcement. Boundary-focused structures, such as fences, were the primary means of preventing encroachment; however, they were applied to a minority of forests with adjacent housing. None of the municipalities had a strategy for implementing their tools to protect targeted ecological, social or economic services provided by urban forests. Recommendations for improved approaches for managing residential encroachment impacts within forest edges are provided.     

Effects of apologies and crisis responsibility on corporate and spokesperson reputation

This study is aimed at the effects of making apologies in a crisis situation and attributed crisis responsibility on corporate- and spokesperson reputation. In a 2 × 2 scenario experiment (spokesperson making apologies versus no apologies; and accidental versus preventable crisis), 84 respondents judged corporate and spokesperson reputation. We found that the crisis has more impact on corporate reputation than on the spokesperson's reputation. This indicates that the crisis is seen as a collective responsibility of the organization, rather than the personal responsibility of the spokesperson.     

A Longitudinal Study of the Developmental Trajectories of Parental Attachment and Career Maturity of South Korean Adolescents

This study tested the developmental trajectories of career maturity (CM) and parental attachment (PA), the longitudinal influence of both, and gender as a moderator. Findings showed developmental progressions in adolescents’ PA and CM over 4 years. The change in PA was positively related to the developmental change in CM. For gender, there was a statistically significant difference in the initial status of CM and PA but no significant difference in developmental change. This study verified the longitudinal influence of PA on CM and showed that the cross‐sectional effect of predictors on CM needs to be distinguished from the longitudinal effect in future studies.     

How Much More XXX is Generation X Consuming? Evidence of Changing Attitudes and Behaviors Related to Pornography Since 1973

We use data from the General Social Survey (GSS) over a 40-year period (1973–2012) to evaluate changes in attitudes about pornography and pornography consumption among American young adults. One of the major challenges in making comparisons across birth generations is separating the effect of birth cohort from age and period effects. We use an intrinsic estimator to separately identify the effects of age, birth cohort, and time period using 40 years of repeated cross-section data. We find that, relative to the general population, young people's beliefs about whether pornography should be illegal have stayed relatively constant over this 40-year period and, if anything, have slightly increased. We also find that pornography consumption has been increasing across birth generations, though this increase has been smaller than would be inferred based on differences across generations at a single point in time, due to a strong age component in consumption patterns.     

Poverty,Place, and Coal Employment across Appalachia and the United States in a New Economic Era

The impacts of employment in the coal industry remain controversial. Few studies have investigated these impacts over the decade of the great recession and in light of the nation's changing energy economy. We bring together two long‐standing rural sociological traditions to address debates framed at the national level and for Appalachian communities facing the throes of transition from the coal industry. Building from rural sociology's “poverty and place” tradition and from natural resources sociology, we examine the relationship between coal employment and communities’ economic well‐being as indicated by poverty, household income, and unemployment. The study spans U.S. and Appalachian counties from 1990 to 2010. U.S. counties with greater coal employment in 1990 had lower income and higher poverty in 2000. Overall, however, coal employment's effect is mixed in the 1990–2000 decade. By contrast, for the recent 2000–2010 decade, coal employment is positively associated with indicators of well‐being. In Appalachia, fewer employment alternatives outside mining are related to higher well‐being. Our findings extend the poverty and place literature and the natural resources literature and underscore why a just transition away from coal should focus on moving communities toward sectors offering better future livelihoods.     

The Great Recession and the Allure of New Immigrant Destinations in the United States

In the 1990s, the immigrant population in the United States dispersed to non‐traditional settlement locations (what have become known as “new immigrant destinations”). This paper examines whether the allure of new destinations persisted in the 2000s with a particular focus on the internal migration of the foreign‐born during the recent deep recessionary period and its aftermath. Three specific questions motivate the analysis. First, are immigrants, much like the U.S.‐born population, becoming less migratory within the country over time? Second, is immigrant dispersal from traditional gateways via internal migration continuing despite considerable economic contraction in many new destination metropolitan areas? Third, is immigration from aboard a substitute for what appears to be declining immigrant internal migration to new destinations? The findings reveal a close correlation between the declining internal migration propensity of the U.S.‐born and immigrants in the last two decades. We also observe parallels between the geographies of migration of native‐ and foreign‐born populations with both groups moving to similar metropolitan areas in the 1990s. This redistributive association, however, weakened in the subsequent decade as new destination metropolitan areas lost their appeal for both groups, especially immigrants. There is no evidence to suggest that immigration from abroad is substituting for the decline in immigrant redistribution through internal migration to new destinations. Across destination types, the relationship between immigration from abroad and the internal migration of the foreign‐born remained the same during and after the Great Recession as in the period immediately before it.     

US Social Work Students' Attitudes Shift Favorably Towards a Harm Reduction Approach to Alcohol and Other Drugs Practice: The Effectiveness of Consequence Analysis

Given the increasing numbers of people in need of treatment for problems associated with Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) problems and the concomitant likelihood that social worker caseloads currently reflect this increase, a critical analysis of social work student attitudes towards different approaches to AOD treatment is warranted. Our study examined United States' social work students' (n = 100) attitudes towards treatment approaches to practice with people who misuse/abuse AOD and enlisted a Consequence Analysis (CA) intervention designed to shift attitudes towards considering a harm reduction approach. The Harm Reduction Acceptability Scale (HRAS), as well as a two-item response measure, measured pretest and posttest attitudes. Findings demonstrate that at pretest both intervention and comparison groups were willing to consider a goal of moderation (a proxy for the acceptability of a harm reduction approach and a client-centered perspective), and neutral on the effectiveness of an abstinence-oriented approach. At posttest, the intervention group became more flexible and open to the broader philosophical perspective of a harm reduction approach while the comparison group became less so. Consequence Analysis appears responsible for producing the observed changes in attitude towards harm reduction. Implications for international social work education and training are discussed.