Public Perceptions of the Risks and Benefits of Technology1

This study attempted to verify and extend previous research on people's perceptions of the risks and benefits of technology and their judgments concerning the acceptability of technology safety regulations. The study addressed several limitations of prior work, in that: (1) it was the first “expressed-preference” study to collect data from large, representative samples of Americans; (2) the research design made “person,” rather than “technology,” the unit of statistical analysis; and (3) the study employed an expanded set of independent variables, including three qualitative benefit characteristics. The results confirmed several major conclusions of prior expressed-preference research, the most important being that members of the public tend to define “risks,”“benefits,” and “acceptability” in a complex, multidimensional manner; and that their definitions differ significantly from those used by professional risk-managers and other technical experts in quantitative assessments of risk and acceptability. The results also indicated that people's stances toward technology regulation tend to cut across traditional sociodemographic lines.     

A Split Labor Market: Mexican Farm Workers in the Southwest*

Edna Bonacich's split-labor-market theory is used to explore the dynamics of agriculture in the southwest. This theory helps to explain the following developments: (1) importation of foreign contract workers; (2) passage of farm labor legislation; (3) development and implementation of mechanized equipment; (4) expansion of the “runaway shop”; and (5) a decrease in the number of independent farmers concurrent with an increase in large-scale corporate farms. One additional factor having a major impact on the industry is (6) the farm worker movement, the United Farm Workers (UFW) and the Arizona Farm Workers (AFW) being two of the most familiar examples.     

In Search of Mesostructure in the Family: An Interactionist Approach to Division of Labor

This paper demonstrates the importance of the concept of mesostructure for understanding how families create and enact a gendered division of labor. The work of symbolic interactionists, especially those using the negotiated order perspective, is used to examine linkages and processes of articulation between the public and private worlds. Mesostructure provides a conceptual device for examining how men and women merge their respective activities within the context of social constraints. Six interlinked concepts developed by Hall (1987)—collective activity, network, conventions-practices, resources-power, processuality-temporality, and grounding—form the foundation for a mesostructural analysis of family division of labor. These concepts are used to explicate the interaction of structure and process in gender division of labor in families.     

Ignored,Neglected, And Abused: The Behavior Variable In Attitude-Behavior Research

A fundamental area of concern for social scientists is the relationship between attitudes and behavior. In recent years there has been a plethora of work on the attitude-behavior relationship. This work is examined in light of earlier theoretical and methodological critiques offered by Blumer and Deutscher. Of specific concern is the conceptualization and measurement of behavior. A comprehensive collection of sixty-two recently published articles on the topic are examined. It is found that little consideration is given to how behavior is conceptualized and measured. One result of the treatment which it receives is that studies remain contradictory in their findings. Researchers can better contribute to theoretical and methodological advances by heeding interactionist advice to adopt techniques which respect the constructed nature of the social world. A promising foundation upon which to build is suggested by two theoretical pieces in the sample.     

Supervision of trainees: Tending the professional self

This article seeks to demonstrage how self psychological concepts can be applied to the process of training psychotherapists in a variety of clinical and community settings. The author examines the role of clinical supervision in the development, consolidation, and maintenance of a cohesive professional self. The role of selfobject experience, needs, transference, and countertransference as manifested in the supervisory relationship is elaborated. Supervisor and supervisee form a self-selfobject unit, through which the trainee's anxieties and vulnerabilities can be managed. This selfobject matrix enables maintenance of self-esteem, expansion of cognitive understanding, and structure building in the arena of the professional self. To achieve these ends, the supervisor forms an empathic alliance with the internal, subjective experience of the therapist. The importance of focusing on the self experience and selfobject needs of the therapist in training via an empathic mode of observation is illustrated by several examples and vignettes. The application of theory to practice is emphasized, with examples chosen from a variety of clinical settings and modalities.     

Citizen Advisory Committees and Environmental Policy: What We Know, What's Left to Discover

Citizen Advisory Committees (CACs) are being used in increasing numbers to provide public input into environmental policy and management decisions. While there is a large body of literature consisting of guidelines for establishing and running CACs, the body of literature of empirical evaluations of CACs is markedly smaller. Fourteen empirical studies of CACs involved in environmental policy decisions (spanning the period from 1976 to 1994) are reviewed here, including case studies, large-scale surveys, and consultant reports. For each study consideration is given to the methods of study, the issues considered by the CACs, the organizations advised, the definitions of success used in the study, and the suggested factors contributing to the success, or lack of success, experienced by the CACs. The review shows that the influence of CACs on policy outcomes have varied from case to case, with some accomplishing little and others having significant policy impacts. The increased use of CACs by government and industry presents an excellent opportunity for academics and practitioners to strengthen their understanding of the internal processes and capabilities of CACs through comparative evaluation research.     

Defenses: Invincible and vincible

Essential to the treatment of each trauma survivor is both the awareness of predictable, acute, generalized symptoms, and the individual's character style and dynamics. This character style, with its habitual defenses, influences the responses to the traumatic situation and its after effects. The trauma often takes on a private significance, with each person experiencing and interpreting it according to his/her own psychic reality. Post-traumatic stress disorder, rape trauma syndrome, the development and dual nature of defenses, their ability to be both adaptive and maladaptive, will be explored in this paper through the case illustration of a rape surivor.     

A Slippery Road to Equality: Hong Kong's experience of unplanned integrated education

This article examines the issue of children with a disability who are 'informally integrated' into mainstream school. Its main purpose is to reflect the views and experiences of parents, and to identify the major difficulties that arise and their suggestions for ameliorating the situation. The data is based on a series of interviews and focus groups of parents. In order to provide a balanced perspective, responses of schools to a questionnaire were also included. Teachers were asked to express their views about integrated education. These responses were then categorised. It was found that lack of resources and training predominated.     

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.