Wie die Mutter, so die Tochter?

In analyses that deal with occupational mobility the question as to how the mother’s occupational status influences the process of occupational status attainment usually is passed over. Here we formulate hypotheses on over-time and life course dynamics of her influence: mothers’ (and fathers’) status transfer for cohorts of daughters born between 1927 and 1965 and additionally for labour market careers. Sons are excluded in the analytical model because the mother’s job appears not to be important for their job status locations. The hypotheses are tested in a cluster adjusted regression analysis. The German database contains 4043 job spells of 1760 women and the two pooled Dutch sets of data include 4513 job spells of 1623 female respondents. Our results show that in recent decennia the influence of the occupational status of both parents on their daughter’s job status has decreased in a similar fashion. We conclude that a continuing trend towards a decrease of social inequality in the process of occupational status attainment is applicable to the influence of the father and the mother. Over the course of the daughter’s career, however, her occupational status becomes increasingly related to that of her mother. This result indicates that the occupational role model of the mother seems to be important for understanding patterns of female occupational immobility.     

Soziale Beziehungen in virtuellen kooperativen Lernszenarien

This paper focuses first on the importance of establishing and maintaining social relationships in computer supported cooperative learning (CSCL) scenarios. Furthermore, scales to measure the degree of social relationship building in CSCL-environments (Kreijns, 2004) are introduced based on the concept on sociable CSCL environments. These scales shall measure how far it is possible to build social relationships based on virtual learning platforms. Kreijns’ work, i.e. his concept of ‘sociability’ of virtual learning environments, is compared to own research on group based learning in virtual seminars (Schmidtmann, 2005) and examined in a small empirical study.     

Die Architektur der Gesellschaft. Architektur der Moderne im Blick soziologischer Theorien

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Women and philanthropy in Germany

In terms of finances, the state and non-profit organisations in Germany are closely interrelated; philanthropy has until recently played only a minor role. However, with the financial crisis of the German welfare state, philanthropy and fundraising have started to play more important and more visible roles since the early 1990s. Yet most women's organisations so far have neglected to tap or to develop private funding resources to a larger extent. While traditional women's associatiations still predominantly rely upon volunteerism, autonomous women's projects are heavily dependent upon government money. There is a huge untapped potential for philanthropy in Germany in general, and for women's causes in particular, and several examples show that many women are prepared to support women's causes when they are asked to do so. To foster philanthropy by and for women in the future will mean a strengthening of civil society in Germany.     

Wirkungen des TV-Duells im Vorfeld der Bundestagswahl 2005 auf die Wahlentscheidung

During the election campaign to the German Federal Election 2005 the incumbent chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his challenger Angela Merkel met one another on the occasion of a televised debate, the so-called “TV-duel”. This debate was viewed by roughly one third of the German electorate. It is analyzed, whether the perception of the TV-duel winner has had an influence on the voting decision. In the empirical analyses special regard is given to the stability of the winner perception until election day and the influence of subjective expectations towards the debate performance of the candidates. The data analyzed were collected by means of a new interviewing technology via the television screen of the respondents. It is shown, that the winner perception was largely stable and only marginally influenced by the media coverage following the debate. Subjective expectations towards the debate performance of the candidates turn out to be of no importance for the voting decision. The effect of the winner perception on voting behaviour was mediated by changing candidate orientations.     

Book reviews

Journal of Labor Research -