The impact of grandparental proximity on maternal childcare in China

This paper investigates the impact of the proximity of grandparents' residence on mother's childcare involvement in contemporary China. Drawing on data from the 1991 China Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that the presence of grandparents in the household significantly reduces a mother's involvement in childcare. Nearby residence of grandparents also decreases mothers' childcare involvement, but only in the case of paternal grandparents not maternal grandparents. These findings suggest the importance of grandparents as childcare substitutes and the strong legacy of a patrilineal culture. Our results point to the importance of taking into account kinship ties that extend beyond the household boundary.     

Less help for mother: The decline in coresidential female support for the mothers of young children, 1880–2000

Research on changes in women's parenting has focused primarily on their increased likelihood of combining parenthood with paid employment, exploring the pressures that result from this "second shift" or "double burden." This article complements this approach by focusing instead on the likely reduction in the help that mothers of small children have received as declines both in fertility and the coresidence of nonnuclear adults have reduced the number of other women in the household. Using national census data for the period 1880 to 2000, we show a substantial decline in the presence and availability of other females in the household, as fewer are coresident and more of those who are coresident are employed or in school. Although all mothers experience this decline, it is most acute for mothers working for pay in nonagricultural activities.     

Sociology in the high school: Perceptions of those who teach it

The following research note reports two major findings of a more detailed study of the opinions, training, and practices of teachers of high school sociology in Texas. Two major findings of interest to the discipline emerge from the research: (1) high school teachers are only marginally prepared in the field of sociology itself; (2) teachers generally give sociology's reputation as a discipline a favorable rating, while at the same time showing concerns about whether or not they would recommend sociology as a college major. The implications of teacher attitudes and training for the discipline are explored.     

Integrating Space With Place in Health Research: A Multilevel Spatial Investigation Using Child Mortality in 1880 Newark,New Jersey

Research on neighborhoods and health increasingly acknowledges the need to conceptualize, measure, and model spatial features of social and physical environments. When ignoring underlying spatial dynamics, we run the risk of biased statistical inference and misleading results. In this article, we propose an integrated multilevel spatial approach for Poisson models of discrete responses. In an empirical example of child mortality in 1880 Newark, New Jersey, we compare this multilevel spatial approach with the more typical aspatial multilevel approach. Results indicate that spatially defined egocentric neighborhoods, or distance-based measures, outperform administrative areal units, such as census units. In addition, although results do not vary by specific definitions of egocentric neighborhoods, they are sensitive to geographic scale and modeling strategy. Overall, our findings confirm that adopting a spatial multilevel approach enhances our ability to disentangle the effect of space from that of place, pointing to the need for more careful spatial thinking in population research on neighborhoods and health.     

Better know an HRD scholar: a conversation with Karen Watkins

This article contains a conversation with Karen Watkins and is part of a series that focuses on HRD scholars, the aim being to understand better the people behind the names we see in print. At the time of writing, Karen was Professor of Adult Education. She was a founder and the second President of the Academy of Human Resource Development as well as a recipient of that organization's Outstanding Scholar Award.     

Assessing the Measurement and Structure of Material Hardship in the United States

Previous attempts to measure material well-being or hardship have not made clear the relationship of individual items to the broader concept of hardship. The current study used the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), a large-scale U.S. survey with a large number of questions on the material circumstances of households to create a measurement model of hardship that takes this relationship into account. A higher-order model with five-first-order factors: consumer durables, resources available to meet needs, housing conditions, neighborhood problems and crime, and community services, and a single second-order factor hardship fit the data well, with the “Housing” and “Neighborhood” first-order factors most strongly related to the higher-order hardship construct. Despite our attempts to tie the hardship measures to objective conditions, subjective evaluations were strongly related to most of the factors.

A Methodological Review of Exploratory Factor Analysis in Sexuality Research: Used Practices,Best Practices,and Data Analysis Resources

Sexuality researchers frequently use exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to illuminate the distinguishable theoretical constructs assessed by a set of variables. EFA entails a substantive number of analytic decisions to be made with respect to sample size determination, and how factors are extracted, rotated, and retained. The available analytic options, however, are not all equally empirically rigorous. We discuss the commonly available options for conducting EFA and which options constitute best practices for EFA. We also present the results of a methodological review of the analytic options for EFA used by sexuality researchers in more than 200 EFAs, published in more than 160 articles and chapters from 1974 to 2014, in a sample of sexuality research journals. Our review reveals that best practices for EFA are actually those least frequently used by sexuality researchers. We introduce freely available analytic resources to help make it easier for sexuality researchers to adhere to best practices when conducting EFAs in their own research.     

Teacher drug use: a response to occupational stress

Work-related stress is predicted to be correlated with wanting to leave the teaching profession and drug use. A stratified random sample of 500 Texas teachers was surveyed (56.5% responded), regarding working conditions, collegial and supervisory relationships, job satisfaction, rigidity of attitudes and drug use. Two-thirds of teachers may want to quit the profession, while 36.4 percent are likely to quit. Teachers report higher rates than a national sample of lifetime alcohol, amphetamine, and tranquilizer use and higher rates of alcohol use in the last year and last month. Selected measures of stress are correlated with drug use, particularly amphetamine use, over the lifetime, last year, and last month.