Revisiting the sociology of identities and selves with discursive resources

In recent years, a growing body of multidisciplinary research has used the concept of the discursive resource. Discursive psychologists, communications scholars, and sociologists have all used this concept. Discursive resources are clusters of categories supplied by culture that present explanations for past and future activities, provide individual and collective identities for self‐construction, and enable and constrain texts. In this essay, I describe how this research contributes to sociological theorizing of identity, and make some recommendations for researchers who wish to use these concepts or improve these concepts. Studies using the concept of the discursive resource contribute to sociological theorizing of identity by showing how discursive resources are related to important features of social life such as future talk; collective identities; space and time; and complex and political divisions of labor, culture, and postmodernity. I then conclude by suggesting that future research analyze the social distribution of discursive resources across different kinds of social environments.     

Standardized testing and school segregation: like tinder for fire?

Recent research suggests that high-stakes standardized testing has played a negative role in the segregation of children by race and class in schools. In this article we review research on the overall effects of segregation, the positive and negative aspects of how desegregation plans were carried out following the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, and the de facto re-segregation that followed the dismantling of many desegregation plans, along with the increase of school choice plans. We then analyze these effects in light of the ways that high-stakes standardized testing has grown in importance and intensity in US education policy and practice, especially during the most recent period of school re-segregation. Based on the evidence we argue that the intrinsic features of high-stakes testing, combined with current systems of school choice, function as mechanisms used for racial coding that facilitate segregation and compound inequalities found in schools.     

INFORMATION ACQUISITION UNDER RISKY CONDITIONS ACROSS REAL AND HYPOTHETICAL SETTINGS

I collect data on how subjects acquire information about risky choices in both real and hypothetical settings using process‐tracing software called Mouselab. On average, there are no significant differences across settings in the amount of time subjects take to make a choice or the completeness of the information they acquire. Subjects also acquire information in sequences consistent with an integration model of decision‐making, such as expected utility theory or prospect theory. I do not find significant differences in risk preferences across settings, on average, but I do find that subjects' risk preferences are related to the completeness of the information that they acquire and where they start their information acquisition. (JEL C91, D80, D83)     

Marginal Utility and Economic Development: Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Aspirations and Subjective Well-Being Among Chinese Employees

The post-1979 economic reforms have led to impressive economic growth in China both in terms of gross domestic product and individual income. Individual well-being, however, has not increased on par with the economy (Brockmann et al. in J Happiness Stud 10(4):387–405, 2009; Easterlin et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 109(25):9775–9780, 2012). In the current series of studies, traditional and multilevel regression models are applied to examine the relationship between income and employee well-being. Results suggest a curvilinear relationship between income and satisfaction (both with one’s job and one’s income), supporting a diminishing marginal utility effect. Additionally, confirming a central postulate of Goal Contents Theory (GCT), individuals who espoused the importance of income (an extrinsic motive) were less satisfied with income itself. Further examining the application of GCT in a Chinese context, results suggest individuals who value extrinsic motives (i.e., money, possessions, fame) exhibit lower levels of job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and feelings of accomplishment. Finally, there is a significant multilevel effect such that between-city levels of health have a significant positive relationship with life satisfaction. These results offer organizational and policy implications related to the interaction between economic prosperity and human development.     

A wavelet lifting approach to long-memory estimation

Reliable estimation of long-range dependence parameters is vital in time series. For example, in environmental and climate science such estimation is often key to understanding climate dynamics, variability and often prediction. The challenge of data collection in such disciplines means that, in practice, the sampling pattern is either irregular or blighted by missing observations. Unfortunately, virtually all existing Hurst parameter estimation methods assume regularly sampled time series and require modification to cope with irregularity or missing data. However, such interventions come at the price of inducing higher estimator bias and variation, often worryingly ignored. This article proposes a new Hurst exponent estimation method which naturally copes with data sampling irregularity. The new method is based on a multiscale lifting transform exploiting its ability to produce wavelet-like coefficients on irregular data and, simultaneously, to effect a necessary powerful decorrelation of those coefficients. Simulations show that our method is accurate and effective, performing well against competitors even in regular data settings. Armed with this evidence our method sheds new light on long-memory intensity results in environmental and climate science applications, sometimes suggesting that different scientific conclusions may need to be drawn.     

The economic consequences of divorce in six OECD countries

This article uses longitudinal data to estimate the short‐ and medium‐term economic effects of divorce in the USA, the UK, Switzerland, Korea, Germany and Australia during the first decade of the 21st century. Based on the data collected during the 2000s, in all of the countries studied, divorce had, on average, negative effects on the equivalised household incomes of women. However, the extent and duration of the negative effects of divorce differed markedly between countries. In all of the countries, the effects of divorce on the equivalised household income of men were smaller than for women. Although, using the available data, it is not possible to definitely explain the differences between countries, the analysis presented in this article has demonstrated that the average economic effects of divorce, particularly for women, are heavily influenced by the social security system, the labour market, family models and the family law system of each country. While the social security system and institutional arrangements such as child support and spousal maintenance do influence women's post‐divorce economic outcomes, what is most important in explaining cross‐country differences is women's labour market earnings and the extent to which re‐partnering occurs.     

Monitoring foreclosure rates with a spatially risk-adjusted Bernoulli CUSUM chart for concurrent observations

Frequently in process monitoring, situations arise in which the order that events occur cannot be distinguished, motivating the need to accommodate multiple observations occurring at the same time, or concurrent observations. The risk-adjusted Bernoulli cumulative sum (CUSUM) control chart can be used to monitor the rate of an adverse event by fitting a risk-adjustment model, followed by a likelihood ratio-based scoring method that produces a statistic that can be monitored. In our paper, we develop a risk-adjusted Bernoulli CUSUM control chart for concurrent observations. Furthermore, we adopt a novel approach that uses a combined mixture model and kernel density estimation approach in order to perform risk-adjustment with regard to spatial location. Our proposed method allows for monitoring binary outcomes through time with multiple observations at each time point, where the chart is spatially adjusted for each Bernoulli observation's estimated probability of the adverse event. A simulation study is presented to assess the performance of the proposed monitoring scheme. We apply our method using data from Wayne County, Michigan between 2005 and 2014 to monitor the rate of foreclosure as a percentage of all housing transactions.     

Determinants of urban tree canopy in residential neighborhoods: Household characteristics, urban form, and the geophysical landscape

The aesthetic, economic, and environmental benefits of urban trees are well recognized. Previous research has focused on understanding how a variety of social and environmental factors are related to urban vegetation. The aim is often to provide planners with information that will improve residential neighborhood design, or guide tree planting campaigns encouraging the cultivation of urban trees. In this paper we examine a broad range of factors we hypothesize are correlated to urban tree canopy heterogeneity in Salt Lake County, Utah. We use a multi-model inference approach to evaluate the relative contribution of these factors to observed heterogeneity in urban tree canopy cover, and discuss the implications of our analysis. An important contribution of this work is an explicit attempt to account for the confounding effect of neighborhood age in understanding the relationship between human and environmental factors, and urban tree canopy. We use regression analysis with interaction terms to assess the effects of 15 human and environmental variables on tree canopy abundance while holding neighborhood age constant. We demonstrate that neighborhood age is an influential covariate that affects how the human and environmental factors relate to the abundance of neighborhood tree canopy. For example, we demonstrate that in new neighborhoods a positive relationship exists between street density and residential tree canopy, but the relationship diminishes as the neighborhood ages. We conclude that to better understand the determinants of urban tree canopy in residential areas it is important to consider both human and environmental factors while accounting for neighborhood age.