Making a place for escort work: a case study

This case study focused on the steps taken by a Canadian city bordering the United States to manage the commercial sex component of an adult entertainment package that draws many American visitors. It explored how the city dealt with the potential of community stigmatization resulting from its growing reputation as a place for easily accessible sex trade. The distinctive Canadian laws related to the sex industry, the predominantly laissez-faire attitude toward people's sex lives, and concerns about maintaining the atmosphere of safety and privacy protection preferred by many residents set boundaries to the approach that could be taken. The specific historical, geographic, social, and political location of the city figured prominently in its choice of a normalization rather than a spatialization strategy.     

Discriminatory behavior in New York restaurants: 1950 and 1981

Survey techniques are combined with behavioral observations in this attempt to replicate a 1950 baseline study in order to examine trends in racial discrimination. In the 1950 study, treatment of black and white couples was compared in a sample of 62 restaurants drawn from a population of all restaurants in a large area of East Side Manhattan. In 1981 we carried out similar comparisons in a sample of 20 restaurants (plus four replications) drawn from the same area, following as closely as possible the procedures used in the baseline study. A substantial amount of discrimination was found in 1981, though somewhat less than in 1950. The difficult problems of determining when discrimination has and has not occurred are discussed from the standpoints of both black customers and social science investigators.     

A close look at the demography of Afghanistan

The first survey designed to allow estimates of the demographic characteristics of Afghanistan's sedentary population was conducted during the period 1972-1974. Our analysis of these data, based on recently developed techniques for handling imcomplete or inaccurate data, suggests that this population lives under conditions that are extreme when judged by modern standards. Marriage is early, especially for females, and universal. Marital fertility conforms to a pattern of natural fertility and total fertility is high. The birth rate is among the highest in the world today, and the expectation of life at birth is among the very lowest. Mortality is lower in urban areas than in rural areas, whereas total fertility is approximately the same in both. Our estimates of fertility and mortality imply stable populations which match closely the observed age distributions for both the rural and urban areas.     

Social Constructivist Practice with Youth

Social constructivism is an important and creative perspective for helping social workers in their work with adolescents. This paper demonstrates how theoretical orientations and clinical techniques that adhere to a social constructivist perspective can be integrated with the developmental realities of adolescence to provide effective social work interventions. Fundamental assumptions are discussed and are related to problems of practice. Case studies are utilized to demonstrate social constructivist principles in clinical work with adolescents.     

Experiments in Producing Nonresponse Bias

While nonresponse rates in household surveys are increasingin most industrialized nations, the increasing rates do notalways produce nonresponse bias in survey estimates. The linkagebetween nonresponse rates and nonresponse bias arises from thepresence of a covariance between response propensity and thesurvey variables of interest. To understand the covariance term,researchers must think about the common influences on responsepropensity and the survey variable. Three variables appear tobe especially relevant in this regard: interest in the surveytopic, reactions to the survey sponsor, and the use of incentives.A set of randomized experiments tests whether those likely tobe interested in the stated survey topic participate at higherrates and whether nonresponse bias on estimates involving variablescentral to the survey topic is affected by this. The experimentsalso test whether incentives disproportionately increase theparticipation of those less interested in the topic. The experimentsshow mixed results in support of these key hypotheses.     

Evaluations of the special supplemental program for Women,infants, and children's (WIC's) effectiveness

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) analyzed the evaluations of the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to determine whether they support assertions that have been made about the program's positive effects for five outcomes. Insufficient evidence was found for making any general or conclusive judgments about WIC's effectiveness overall, but in a limited way, the information does indicate the likelihood that WIC has positive effects in some areas. GAO also assessed problems in the state of evaluation efforts. That the program evaluations do not reveal whether WIC is having the effect intended by the legislation underscores the need to design and implement better studies. Generally speaking, GAO believes that if the lessons learned from past efforts are heeded, it should be possible to produce information on the overall effectiveness of WIC.