Twenty years of the Journal of Homosexuality: a bibliometric examination of the first 24 volumes, 1974-1993

This study examines and evaluates the contents of the first 24 volumes of Journal of Homosexuality (JH), from 1974 to 1993. Data from each issue of JH, in terms of source articles and contributing authors, were collected and analyzed. JH is shown to be a scholarly journal, with high rates of citations per article, high levels of author education, a prevalence of scholarly methodological approaches, and a low rate of self-citation. Articles that disseminated the findings of empirical research noticeably decreased over time, while articles focusing on historical analysis noticeably increased. This trend was consonant with the change over time of JH's mission statement and editorial policy.     

Sibling kinnections: a clinical visitation program

The growing literature on sibling relationships throughout their lifespans is of great importance to those working in the child welfare system, and in adoption services in particular. Sibling bonds are important to all of us, but they are particularly vital to children from disorganized or dysfunctional families. These relationships assume even greater importance when children from these families enter the care system. Supporting and sustaining these sibling bonds should be, and most often is, a priority throughout the child welfare system, with practice literature providing guidelines for arranging and sustaining sibling contact. However, children in the care system may also have dysfunctional sibling relationships as a result of their early experiences, and sibling visitation alone may not be enough to ensure a healthy, long-lasting relationship among siblings. Some form of sibling therapy, or 'clinically supervised visitation,' may be required to help children remove the barriers to form mutually satisfying relationships and to reinforce life-long relationships with each other.     

Gendered policies and practices that increase older men's risk of elder mistreatment

We aim to detail some of the ways that social policy and gendered practices put older men at risk of elder mistreatment. Research on the abuse and neglect that older adults experience has often focused on the characteristics of the victims and the dynamics within families, emphasizing factors such as the likelihood of an intergenerational cycle of violence, substance abuse and dependency, and older men's financial status as key risks in elder abuse. The effect on men from this type of analysis is that elder mistreatment remains an individual or family problem rather than being viewed as a larger societal concern. This article challenges the individualistic focus by outlining the importance of societal forces affecting older men's risk of mistreatment.     

On the validity of retrospective assessments of pregnancy intention

Information on pregnancy intention is often gathered retrospectively (after the birth of a child). This article investigates whether the retrospective assessment of pregnancy intention leads to biased estimates of the extent or consequences of unintended fertility. Comparisons are made between pregnancy intentions ascertained during pregnancy and after birth using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. To address the bias caused by selective recognition or acknowledgment of pregnancy, we used the longitudinal feature of the data to determine actual pregnancy status at the time of interviews, which, in turn, was used as an instrumental variable for the retrospective (versus prospective) reporting of pregnancy intention. After correction for selective pregnancy recognition, we found no evidence that the retrospective assessment of pregnancy intention produces misleading estimates of either the number or the consequences of unintended births. This finding is supported by additional analyses of a small subsample of women for whom information on pregnancy intention was collected both during pregnancy and after birth.     

Negotiating via Information Technology: Theory and Application

In this review article, we examine how people negotiate via e-mail and in particular, how the process and outcomes of e-negotiations differ from those of traditional face-to-face bargaining. We review the key tasks of negotiation and then undertake a review of the research literature that has examined e-negotiations. We outline four theories of interaction that provide insights about social behavior in e-media: rapport building, social contagion, coordination, and information exchange. Our research program has focused on the interpersonal factors and social identity factors that can enhance the quality of e-negotiations. E-negotiators often succumb to the temporal synchrony bias, the burned bridge bias, the squeaky wheel bias, and the sinister attribution bias. We discuss social psychological factors that can reduce these biases and the future of research on e-negotiations.     

Family Policies and Children's School Achievement in Single‐ Versus Two‐Parent Families

We investigate the gap in math and science achievement of third‐ and fourth‐graders who live with a single parent versus those who live with two parents in 11 countries. The United States and New Zealand rank last among the countries we compare in terms of the equality of achievement between children from single‐parent families and those from two‐parent homes. Following a multilevel analysis, we find single parenthood to be less detrimental when family policies equalize resources between single‐ and two‐parent families. In addition, the single‐ and two‐parent achievement gap is greater in countries where single‐parent families are more prevalent. We conclude that national family policies can offset the negative academic outcomes of single parenthood.     

A general framework for path convexities

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization - In this work we deal with the so-called path convexities, defined over special collections of paths. For example, the collection of the shortest paths in a...