Mexican Seasonal Migration to Canada and Development: A Community-based Comparison

The article explores development and migration. Based on a comparison of investment‐related behaviour of participants of the Canadian Mexican Seasonal Workers Programme from eleven Mexican villages, the article explores the impact of the nature of the migrants' community of origin on development. Contrary to the findings reported by the “new economics of labour migration” theorists, it was found that migrants from the least endowed communities, not from the best endowed communities, are likely to invest in agricultural land. This pattern is related to variable prices of land and the composition of the participants of the Canadian guest worker programme, most of whom are poor. The article draws attention to the importance of considering composition of migrant workers in an analysis of the impact of migration on community development. Development is analysed in the article from both the “growth” and the “quality of living” perspectives and it is found that regardless of the perspective used, the nature of the community does not affect the impact of migration on development.     

Use of senior centers as a moderator of stress related distress among Latino elders

Little is known about the moderating effects of community services on psychological distress among Latino elders. This study explores the use of senior centers as an intervention strategy to moderate the harmful impact of stress on psychological distress. The study was conducted using data from the 1988 National Survey of Hispanic Elderly People (N=2,299). To examine the direct and moderating effects of the use of senior centers on the relationship between stress and psychological distress we applied multiple regression analysis to an initial model, a direct effect model, and a moderating model. The results indicated that, under stressful life situations, respondents who used senior centers experienced lower levels of psychological distress than those who did not. Implications of the findings for senior centers and for further research are discussed.     

CRITICAL EXPLORATIONS OF GENDER AND THE CARIBBEAN: TAKING IT INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

ABSTRACT

In the years after the Greek Junta, activists who had been involved in anti-dictatorship movements abroad returned as the country’s new pool of left-leaning, well-educated political actors. Drawing on interviews with former activists and borrowing from recent developments in cultural sociology, I analyse these returns as political projects fraught with moral conundrums. I argue that the contemporary crisis structure accounts of returns by placing speakers within what Boltanski and Thévenot call a ‘situation subject to the imperative of justification’. I make two arguments regarding the critiques and valuations used in accounts: First, the idealized political subject put forward by former activists promotes withdrawal over participation and silence over speech. Second, failure is valorized as a principled mode of self-exoneration. This article further demonstrates the importance of theorizing return migration within an ethnographic treatment of the present.     

Racial and Ethnic Determinants of Interracial and Ethnic Trust

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to discern which individual factors are associated with interracial/ethnic trust among a national probability sample of African Americans, Latinos, and non-Hispanic whites. Using national data from the 2000 Community Benchmark Survey, the multiple regression results indicate that, even after controlling for education and income, African Americans and Latinos reported significantly lower levels of interracial/ethnic trust than did non-Hispanic whites. Additionally, separate regression equations indicate that predictors associated with interracial/ethnic trust varied by racial and ethnic group. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Early traces of the Second Demographic Transition in Bulgaria: A joint analysis of marital and non-marital union formation, 1960–2004

We explore trends in first-union formation in Bulgaria from 1960, using data from the national Gender and Generations Survey of 2004. We analyse jointly the transition into cohabitation and directly into marriage. The standardized marriage rate falls dramatically from the early 1980s; the corresponding rate of entry into cohabitation has already increased from the early 1960s but (surprisingly) falls moderately toward the end of our period. Cohabitation also tends to last progressively longer in more recent periods. The analysis shows that a pregnancy leads to a dramatic increase in the rate of both kinds of union formation: the increase is by a factor of almost 20 for marriage formation and about 10 for entry into cohabitation, ceteris paribus. Our findings suggest that, in Bulgaria at least, some manifestations of the Second Demographic Transition can be detected as early as the 1980s.     

Embracing the Village and Tribe: Critical Thinking for Social Workers From an African-Centered Approach

The social work department at a small historically Black college implemented an African-centered approach to the course Critical Thinking for Social Workers for freshmen students who declared social work as their major. We firmly believe that knowing and understanding the history and legacy of people of African descent is extremely important in educating African American students. Various pedagogical techniques, assignments, and intentional lecture topics were used in the implementation of this unique teaching style. This article reports the findings from using the African-centered approach in pedagogy and offers implications for social work education in the 21st century for historically Black colleges and universities and other programs with minority student populations.     

The description of South African corporate communication practitioners that contribute to organisational performance

Public relations are a function that contributes to the greater good of society and the performance of an organisation (0115 and 0125). However, many times the practitioner fails to accomplish this undertaking (0125, 0325 and 0335).     

Majority Rules? The Effects of School Ethnic Composition on Substance Use by Mexican Heritage Adolescents

This article examines key aspects of the school environment - its composition by ethnicity and acculturation - as important social contexts for understanding Mexican immigrant and Mexican American adolescents' drug use norms and behaviors. Results are presented based on surveys completed by Mexican-background students from 35 Phoenix. Arizona middle schools, whose enrollment ranged from a numerical minority to an overwhelming majority. Multivariate mixed models tested for the influence of school ethnic composition measures on substance use outcomes, while accounting for individual level predictors and for the nesting of data at the school level. The proportional representation of Latinos in the school was not a factor in an individual's drug use norms or drug use for the sample overall. Once students were broken down by acculturation status, however, ethnic composition had an effect. Less acculturated Mexican heritage students in schools with higher proportions of Latino students reported less substance use and less adherence to pro-drug norms. Further investigation using other measures of ethnic composition suggested that these effects were attributable to the larger presence of less acculturated Latinos in the school rather than more acculturated Latino students. These school-level effects support the individual-level results indicating that less acculturated Mexican American students face less daunting substance use risks. The results suggest that ethnic group size, but not necessarily numerical predominance, matters and that within-group differences influence the effect of a particular ethnic group's presence in the school. In other words, the majority does not always rule. These findings are interpreted using the concepts of segmented assimilation and school level social capital.     

He Said,She Said: Gender Differences in Mother – Adolescent Conversations about Sexuality

This study examined gender differences in self‐reported and observed conversations about sexual issues. Fifty mother –adolescent dyads reported on their conversations about sexual issues and participated in videotaped conversations about dating and sexuality in a laboratory setting. Gender differences (more mother – daughter than mother –son) were found in the extent of sexual communication based on adolescents’ reports, but no gender differences were found based on mothers’ reports, or on observations of conversations. Aspects of laboratory interactions, however, did distinguish mother– daughter and mother – son dyads, and related to self‐report measures. Girls’ reported sexuality communication frequency related to behavior in the laboratory setting. During mother – son conversations, one person usually took on the role of questioner, whereas the other did not. In contrast, there was evidence for mutuality of positive emotions for mother – daughter dyads, but not for mother – son dyads.     

A Comparative Exposure Assessment of Campylobacter in Ontario,Canada

To inform source attribution efforts, a comparative exposure assessment was developed to estimate the relative exposure to Campylobacter, the leading bacterial gastrointestinal disease in Canada, for 13 different transmission routes within Ontario, Canada, during the summer. Exposure was quantified with stochastic models at the population level, which incorporated measures of frequency, quantity ingested, prevalence, and concentration, using data from FoodNet Canada surveillance, the peer‐reviewed and gray literature, other Ontario data, and data that were specifically collected for this study. Models were run with @Risk software using Monte Carlo simulations. The mean number of cells of Campylobacter ingested per Ontarian per day during the summer, ranked from highest to lowest is as follows: household pets, chicken, living on a farm, raw milk, visiting a farm, recreational water, beef, drinking water, pork, vegetables, seafood, petting zoos, and fruits. The study results identify knowledge gaps for some transmission routes, and indicate that some transmission routes for Campylobacter are underestimated in the current literature, such as household pets and raw milk. Many data gaps were identified for future data collection consideration, especially for the concentration of Campylobacter in all transmission routes.