Frank Parsons and the Progressive Movement

This article recounts the social influences that must have inspired Frank Parsons to create vocational counseling and traces the profession's early development.     

The difficult and ubiquitous problems of multiplicities

Multiplicities are ubiquitous. They threaten every inference in every aspect of life. Despite the focus in statistics on multiplicities, statisticians underestimate their importance. One reason is that the focus is on methodology for known multiplicities. Silent multiplicities are much more important and they are insidious. Both frequentists and Bayesians have important contributions to make regarding problems of multiplicities. But neither group has an inside track. Frequentists and Bayesians working together is a promising way of making inroads into this knotty set of problems. Two experiments with identical results may well lead to very different statistical conclusions. So we will never be able to use a software package with default settings to resolve all problems of multiplicities. Every problem has unique aspects. And all problems require understanding the substantive area of application.     

Linguistic competition and education spending in Spain 1992–2008

Linguistic competition occurs when two or more linguistic groups vie against each other for resources from the same state. What are the effects of this competition on education spending? In this paper, we examine two competing explanations. On the one hand, there is the claim that increasing levels of ethno-linguistic diversity can decrease education spending. On the other hand, there is also the argument that education spending is higher when there is electoral competition. Using a newly assembled dataset of education spending at the subnational level for Spain (1992–2008), we test these two arguments. We find (1) while ethno-linguistic diversity matters for spending, the effect is not in the expected direction and (2) electoral competition can affect education spending. We also find that the type of education curriculum (monolingual versus bilingual) can moderate the effects of ethno-linguistic diversity. These results shed light on the commonly held belief that diversity stunts education spending.     

Source of complexity in the social and managerial sciences: an extended Sen’s theorem

Many disciplines, including the social, behavioral, and management sciences, search for appropriate aggregated outcomes—a search that can be frustrated by complexities and inefficiencies. As shown here, explanations for these difficulties can be found in social choice. Indeed, it is shown why some of these problems are direct consequences of adopted approaches (e.g., management style, choice of a division of labor, or even the use of expertise and experts), and they cannot be avoided. These results are motivated by Sen’s Theorem from decision theory.     

The role of age in the relationship between work social characteristics and job attitudes

Despite the amount of research on the link between work social characteristics and job attitudes, there is a lack of work on moderators of this relationship. In the present study, we examine the role of age as a moderating effect of this relationship using life-span development theory. The aim of this paper is to study the moderator effect of age in the relationship between two work social characteristics (interaction outside the organization and interdependence) and job attitudes (i.e., general job satisfaction and work engagement). Participants were 258 workers from private organizations. Data were collected at two time points (2 to 4 weeks between T₁ and T₂). Results showed that the relationship between interdependence and work engagement was stronger for older workers than for younger workers. In addition, the relationship between interaction outside the organization and general job satisfaction was stronger for younger than for older workers. Because increased engagement and satisfaction in an age-diverse workforce is important, organizations may benefit by challenging older workers with interdependent tasks, and younger workers with interaction with stakeholders outside the organization.     

Spatial prediction of crystalline defects observed in molecular dynamic simulations of plastic damage

Molecular dynamic computer simulation is an essential tool in materials science to study atomic properties of materials in extreme environments and guide development of new materials. We propose a statistical analysis to emulate simulation output with the ultimate goal of efficiently approximating the computationally intensive simulation. We compare several spatial regression approaches including conditional autoregression (CAR), discrete wavelets transform (DWT), and principle components analysis (PCA). The methods are applied to simulation of copper atoms with twin wall and dislocation loop defects, under varying tilt tension angles. We find that CAR and DWT yield accurate results but fail to capture extreme defects, yet PCA better captures defect structure.     

A social change index-an objective means to discern and measure the relative current social condition of cities,towns, and their sub-communities

A social change index has been developed in response to a social planning need to have a means whereby the current social pathology of communities may be identified on an objective basis. The index is derived from a combination of social indicators which are reported by census tract by the State of Rhode Island on an annual basis. The index is particularly useful for the inter-decennial years because high mobility rates, particularly in central cities (up to 80% in some areas of these cities), cause census data to be unrepresentative in many instances for these years. In addition to serving as a means to identify social needs and problem areas, the index may be used for priority ranking of need for social program services, program monitoring, and program evaluation. The State of Rhode Island is expected to institute a Committee on Social Statistics among whose primary responsibilities will be to encourage state agencies to publish their social statistics by census tracts in their annual reports. It is presumed, consequently, that a larger number of current social indicators will be available to be included in the social change index and increase its accuracy.     

Some aspects of the use of birth expectations data from sample surveys for population projections

The value of national sample survey data relating to birth expectations for projecting births is reassessed in the light of data limitations pointed out by Ryder and Westoff among others and of the methods of projection used by the United States Bureau of the Census. The annual level of fertility under the cohort-fertility projection method depends on the assumptions regarding completed fertility, about which the available survey data are fairly informative, and on the assumptions regarding the timing of births, about which the survey data tell us very little. Test calculations suggest that Ryder and Westoff have overstated the significance of timing relative to completed family size for the level of future births. We believe that the fall in the annual total fertility rate in the first half of the sixties is to be explained only in part by a general delay in childbearing; a moderate to substantial decrease in completed family size has also occurred. Analysis of the latest set of fertility projections of the Census Bureau also suggests that the assumptions about completed fertility are a much more important determinant of the level of future births than timing, both in the short and long term. Although the available expectations data cannot help in predicting short-term annual changes in fertility, they appear useful for making long-term projections of annual fertility. Expansion of the size, frequency, and content of the sample surveys and incorporation of parity and birth interval into the projection method may improve projections.