Marital Aspirations,Sexual Behaviors,and HIV/AIDS in Rural Malawi

We explore how marital aspirations are related to the sexual behaviors of adolescents and young adults in Malawi, where HIV/AIDS prevalence among adults exceeds 10%. We also consider whether the specter of AIDS is shaping ideals about marriage. By combining survey data (N = 1,087) and in‐depth interviews (N = 133) with young Malawians from the Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project, we show that looking for and finding a suitable spouse are linked to sexual behaviors and, thus, HIV risks. Moreover, concerns about contracting HIV are closely tied to the ideal characteristics of a future spouse. Our findings draw long‐overdue attention to the importance of marital aspirations in understanding adolescent sexual behaviors and risks in the era of AIDS.     

Opportunity theory and adolescent school-based victimization

While school-based adolescent victimization has received a great deal of public attention, there exist relatively few theoretically driven studies aimed at explaining this phenomenon. We address this paucity by providing a test of a criminal-opportunity model of school-based victimization using data on over 3,000 students from 40 different Kentucky middle and high schools. The effects of opportunity-related concepts are estimated for both violent and property victimization, and comparisons are made for each victimization type across middle- and high-school student subsamples. Findings suggest that criminal opportunity theory is relevant to the understanding of school-based victimization. In particular, indicators of exposure to crime and target antagonism appear to be robust predictors. Further, there appears to be substantial generalizability in the effects of opportunity-related variables across violent versus property victimization as well as across middle-school versus high-school contexts.     

Illinois's child welfare research agenda: an approach to building consensus for practice-based research

This article presents a consensus-building initiative to develop a statewide research agenda that responds to the needs of Illinois's child welfare community. Researchers conducted this process through a university-community partnership to engage those interested in child welfare services. The process and findings resulted in a living document that will guide child welfare research throughout the state. Findings of the inquiry suggest that the development of best practice models may be one of the most important contributions research can make to practice.     

Indigenous Resource Management Plans: Transporting Non-Indigenous People into the Indigenous World

The paper explores the degree to which Indigenous groups perceive that resource management plans they develop are able to help deliver outcomes they seek through formal planning systems. It does this by a case study of practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. Some Indigenous groups are concerned they are being encouraged to devote considerable effort to production of major planning documents for use in interaction with environmental agencies, yet in practice, such plans can appear to have a limited role in bringing about desired change or affecting wider planning processes. The research contributes a New Zealand dimension to this international debate.     

SOURCES OF INFLUENCE AND TOPIC AREAS IN FAMILY THERAPY: TRENDS IN THREE MAJOR JOURNALS

Following Gurman (1981), this study reports on authors and topics of interest in prominent marriage and family therapy journals from 1980 through 1995. Fifteen of the 25 institutions that produced the greatest number of authors prior to 1978 continued to be among the top 25 between 1980 and 1995, and the 25 leading institutions produced 29.5% of articles from 1980 to 1995. Most authors held positions in university settings and taught in programs with a marriage and family therapy focus. Clinical issues were the most common focus of articles (61%), and one-third of all articles were research reports.     

Defining high-performance teams and physician leadership

Learn to define the essential hallmarks of high-performing teams and look at the role of physician management in this team-based environment.     

Limited Information and Advertising in the U.S. Personal Computer Industry

Traditional discrete‐choice models assume buyers are aware of all products for sale. In markets where products change rapidly, the full information assumption is untenable. I present a discrete‐choice model of limited consumer information, where advertising influences the set of products from which consumers choose to purchase. I apply the model to the U.S. personal computer market where top firms spend over $2 billion annually on advertising. I find estimated markups of 19% over production costs, where top firms advertise more than average and earn higher than average markups. High markups are explained to a large extent by informational asymmetries across consumers, where full information models predict markups of one‐fourth the magnitude. I find that estimated product demand curves are biased toward being too elastic under traditional models. I show how to use data on media exposure to improve estimated price elasticities in the absence of micro ad data.     

A Multitude of Voices: Pushcart Prize Winning Publications 1976–2006

The Pushcart Prize, established in 1976, has a well-deserved reputation for highlighting the best in small press publication. The authors examined the first thirty volumes, 1976/1977 through 2006, to identify attributes of the items included in each volume and placed the volumes into five time periods of six volumes each to facilitate trend analysis. In order to identify the most productive publications, titles that had fewer than four selections in the thirty volumes and did not appear in at least two time periods were eliminated. The authors examined: press status as independent or affiliated, state and region where published, and type of work (poetry or other). Finally, highly productive titles were reviewed in WorldCat to determine how frequently these were held in the United States.California, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio have a continuing, substantial presence in the Prize volumes. Most of the publications included were still active and were affiliated with a larger institution. The three small press titles appearing most frequently were Ploughshares, Paris Review, and American Poetry Review. The Pushcart Prize selections most frequently listed in WorldCat were the Hudson Review, the Paris Review, and the American Poetry Review. Each is held by more than eight hundred U.S. libraries.     

Hope for a Cause as Cause for Hope: The Need for Hope in Environmental Sociology

Hope is a crucial component of agency involving the setting of goals, visualization of obstacles, and increasing willpower in the effort of achieving a desired goal. This hope is not simply optimism and is potentially a bridge between structure and agency. Yet, the powers of hope in sociology have been greatly unexplored including the ability of collective hope to create social change. This lack of hope is particularly poignant in environmental sociology as the sub-discipline looks for solutions to some of the greatest challenges humanity and the planet faces. This article discusses the undercurrent of pessimism in environmental sociology and calls for the integration of hope as it is necessary for generating potential social environmental change.     

One is Not Enough: Multiple Exemplars Facilitate Infants' Generalizations of Novel Properties

Across three experiments, we examined 9‐ and 11‐month‐olds' mappings of novel sound properties to novel animal categories. Infants were familiarized with novel animal–novel sound pairings (e.g., Animal A [red]–Sound 1) and then tested on: (1) their acquisition of the original pairing and (2) their generalization of the sound property to a new member of a familiarized category (e.g., Animal A [blue]–Sound 1). When familiarized with a single exemplar of a category, 11‐month‐olds showed no evidence of acquiring or generalizing the animal–sound pairings. In contrast, 11‐month‐olds learnt the original animal–sound mappings and generalized the sound property to a novel member of that category when familiarized with multiple exemplars of a category. Finally, when familiarized with multiple exemplars, 9‐month‐old infants learnt the original animal–sound pairing, but did not extend the novel sound property. The results of these experiments provide evidence for developmental differences in the facilitative role of multiple exemplars in promoting the learning and generalization of information.