Telephone communication with children as part of the self‐care arrangement: A research note

Children in self‐care (latchkey) arrangements have been portrayed as a population at risk, and this has recently led to research investigations, social policy discussions, and legislative proposals. This study examines selected characteristics of mother, child, and family, and the amount of time children spend in self‐care, for their influences on the use of the telephone to communicate with children in self‐care. The analysis builds on earlier studies that indicate the importance of time, child's age, and mother's employment for understanding the growing phenomenon of self‐care. The results of multiple regression analyses are presented and discussed. As expected, the age of the child is the most important variable in predicting the length of time spent in self‐care. The age of the child and the length of time spent in self‐care are the strongest predictors of telephone communication with children in self‐care arrangements.     

The Teachers’ Page

Place-based education is a growing trend in education. This article defines place-based education and briefly examines its use across the disciplines. So as to better understand the wider concept, meanings of the geographical term place are analyzed. Place-based education in a social studies classroom is examined using two hypothetical scenarios, demonstrating that place-based education is indeed appropriate in the social studies.     

Reply to Klein

Many “theoretical” writings in sociology and in the social sciences use conceptual frameworks (perspectives, paradigms). Developments in family sociology are used as a case study to explore the role of conceptual frameworks in the growth of scientific theory. The claim that conceptual frameworks are necessary for theory building is evaluated. Using writings in family sociology and in the philosophy of science, the claim is found wanting. Social scientists are therefore cautioned to avoid conceptual work that is only rhetorically related to the development of theory.     

Probability and logic in belief systems

This paper seeks to develop a formal (mathematical) model of belief systems based on the axioms of probability theory and propositional logic. By a belief system we mean a set of propositions along with an actor's objective probability assignments to (beliefs in) them, together with the relationships among and between propositions and beliefs. Belief systems are regarded as being comprised of interrelated elements.In the paper are developed measures of the distance between sets of beliefs; of the congruence, coherence, and consistency of belief systems; and of the degree of polarization of belief systems-which are derived from one basic operation, symmetric difference.We show that these measures possess a number of useful and powerful mathematical properties. Also, a model is set forth by which, from an actor's subjective probability assignment to propositions and pairwise conjunctions of propositions, we may then impute to the actor subjectively perceived truth functional relationships between proposition.The potential uses and practical difficulties with the approach taken in the paper are also discussed, and the assertion is made that the measures developed enable us to simply distinguish between certain notions (e.g., congruence, consistency, coherence) too often and easily confused, provide us with the possibility of interval (or at least, quasi-interval level) measurement of certain properties of individual belief systems, and also allows us to make comparisons between the structures of different actors' belief systems.An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the 1969 American Political-Science Association, Chicago.     

AGE-OF-RECALL EFFECTS ON FAMILY-OF-ORIGIN RATINGS

Family rating scales, particularly those tapping one's view of family of origin, rely heavily on one's summary impressions, perceptions, and recall of the family. Previous research has demonstrated that fairly consistent age, gender, and parent/offspring differences exist in ratings of current family functioning, but little information exists on such differences in rating one's family of origin. The present study had college-age subjects rate current family, family when they were elementary-school age, and family when they were 16 years old. Subjects were 141 college students (93 women, 48 men) who completed the self-Report Family Inventory (SFI) of the Beavers Systems Model of Family Functioning separately for the three specified recall periods (age 10, age 16, and current family). Significant differences were found between age-of-recall groups, with recall ratings from age 10 significantly more competent, cohesive, and less conflicted than those from age 16; current family ratings were intermediate. Relatively few gender by age interactions were significant. Implications for the use and interpretation of family ratings and family-of-origin scales are discussed.