The impact of population growth on the physical environment

This paper recognizes how little demography has advanced beyond Malthusian arithmetic, when the relationship between population growth and the physical environment are considered. Attention must be directed to localized empirical studies and must include all the processes by which populations grow. Another challenge still to be faced by demographers and other social scientists is how to reconcile ecosystem boundaries with the standard units of analysis in these disciplines. This paper outlines these problems and suggests that a prime candidate for the attention of population specialists is migration and settlement patterns and their relationships to the physical environment.     

The Effects of Candidate Gender on Campaign Spending in State Legislative Elections*

Objective. This article will investigate whether candidate gender affects levels of campaign spending in state legislative elections. Methods. The analysis compares men and women candidates running for the state legislature in 20 states over two election cycles. By controlling for a range of contextual factors, the analysis isolates the independent influence of candidate gender. Results. The findings demonstrate that women and men spend similar levels of campaign funding in running for the state legislature. Running as incumbents, challengers, or open‐seat candidates, women are not at a financial disadvantage relative to similarly situated men candidates in the general election. Conclusions. Although women may suffer difficulties at other parts of the electoral process, women are not at a disadvantage relative to men in how much money their campaigns ultimately allocate for the purposes of gaining voter support.     

Attitudes, opinions, and sexual development of 205 homosexual women

Two hundred and five homosexual women, aged 15 to 50, were surveyed as to their attitudes and experiences in the areas of education, religion, family experiences, marriage, friendship, personal happiness, sexual development and satisfaction, psychological adjustment, and occupational status. The investigation discovered a high rate of only-child status among lesbian women, a tendency toward ambivalence of opinion on many issues, and a general lack of insight into self and others. Comparisons with other research on female homosexuality were made.     

The coupling of rural communities with their economic base: agriculture,localism and the discourse of self-sufficiency

In the context of the changing socio-economic position of agriculture, this paper is concerned with the governmental relations associated with managing the decoupling of society from economy and the ensuing question about how the economic base can be adequately utilised to ensure continued material sustenance for the community. Central to these challenges is the role of social policy in co-ordinating processes of change against society's capacity for change, taking into account the increasing realisation that the both the capacity of the planet and its economies are finite. Localism is increasingly being promoted as a key social strategy which communities can use to address their needs to secure material sustenance. Under this form of localism, communities are required to secure their own socio-economic sustainability by taking an entrepreneurial approach to developing their local assets and resources. Societies are facing questions about the viability of both interventionist and market-based approaches for ensuring the continued sustenance of given communities. But, since localism does not have the capacity effectively to deal with the question of the carrying capacity of the economic or environmental base at a societal level, one must query the extent to which faith can be maintained in localism as an effective strategy for the future.     

Gender-Specific Barriers to Self-Sufficiency Among Former Supplemental Security Income Drug Addiction and Alcoholism Beneficiaries: Implications for Welfare-To-Work Programs and Services

ABSTRACT

This study examines barriers to economic self-sufficiency among a panel of 219 former Supplemental Security Income (SSI) drug addiction and alcoholism (DA&A) recipients following elimination of DA&A as an eligibility category for SSI disability benefits. Study participants were comprehensively surveyed at six measurement points following the policy change. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine full-sample and gender-specific barriers to economic self-sufficiency. Results indicate that access to transportation, age, and time are the strongest predictors of achieving self-sufficiency for both men and women leaving the welfare system. Gender-specific barriers are also identified. Future research needs to assess the generalizability of these results to other public assistance recipients.     

Emotional Aspects of Large Group Teaching

With the growth of mass education in the U.K.has come the seemingly inevitable growth of large groupteaching. Many technical solutions to theproblems of large group teaching have been proposed (e.g., use of microphones, structured handouts,buzz groups, etc.) but we contend that emotional aspectshave been largely neglected and ignored. We argue thatit is legitimate to consider the role of emotion in higher education, and its particular effectsin large teaching groups. While it is, perhaps, easierand safer to pretend that all is well, there are clearemotional consequences to working in these large groups for both students and lecturers. Forinstance, students may experience powerful feelings ofalienation, anger, and envy in large groups andcompensate in various ways, some of which will beantithetical to achieving effective learning and astimulating educational experience. Similarly, lecturerscan also seek to cope with their own feelings of fearand uncertainty by behaving equally maladaptively. We examine the contribution psychodynamic thinkingcan make to our understanding of large teaching groupsand contrast this with the consequences of adhering tosimplistic technical models. We argue for the legitimacy of the role of emotion in highereducation and seek to encourage a debate on this issuewhich will include appropriate research into the effectsof trying to teach and learn in large groups. This paper thus seeks to raise issues andencourage debate in this relatively unresearched area.Further, we contend that it is important and necessaryto conduct appropriate research into the emotional effects of such groups on both teaching andlearning.