Breaking New Ground: Diverse Routes to College in Rural America*

Abstract Rural communities pose a challenge to status attainment models that explain children's educational attainment primarily in terms of the parents' education and professional status. Alongside the rural professional class are farmers of similar social status but with less education and other families that lack the status and resources of both professional‐class and farm families. The prolonged agricultural crisis in the American Midwest has turned rural youths toward college and has raised questions about the educational value of resources provided by farm parents and other rural parents. We classified youths from the Iowa Youth and Families Project into three SES groups: professional‐managerial, farm, and lower‐status. We compared these groups on resource levels and on the extent to which the resources predicted enrollment in a four‐year college one year after high school. Findings indicated three distinct routes to four‐year college. Professional‐managerial youths tended to follow the traditional path from parents' educational and other resources and support to their own academic involvement and aspirations for higher education. Successful farm youths, in lieu of parental educational advantages, drew on parents' community ties. Resourceful lower‐status youths, in the absence of family background advantages, generated educational attainment through early educational ambition and varied community and school involvements. Even relatively low levels of involvement were valuable to these youths' educational attainment.     

Effects of residential density on sonoran desert nocturnal rodents

We compared nocturnal rodent distributions among residential developments and in adjacent undeveloped native habitat remnants in Tucson, Arizona during October 1994. We trapped rodents in 2 low density (0.5 houses/ha) developments, 2 medium density (7.5 houses/ha) developments, and in 4 adjacent blocks of undeveloped native habitat using trap lines of 50 snap traps spaced at 2 traps every 10 meters. We compared species abundance, species richness, and total abundance among the 4 site types in a contingency table using a 2-tailed Fisher's exact test, and used post-hoc tests where the null hypothesis of no difference among sites was rejected. We encountered 144 individuals representing 5 species of nocturnal rodents in 1200 trap nights. Of 4 native rodent species, none were captured in medium housing density sites. House mice (Mus musculus) were captured only in medium housing density sites. Total rodent abundance was lower in both the medium density residential and the adjacent undeveloped sites than in either low density or adjacent undeveloped sites. Low density housing must be included in the developing matrix if the full complement of native nocturnal rodents is to be retained in Tucson.     

Parameterization and inference for nonparametric regression problems

We consider local likelihood or local estimating equations, in which a multivariate function () is estimated but a derived function () of () is of interest. In many applications, when most naturally formulated the derived function is a non-linear function of (). In trying to understand whether the derived non-linear function is constant or linear, a problem arises with this approach: when the function is actually constant or linear, the expectation of the function estimate need not be constant or linear, at least to second order. In such circumstances, the simplest standard methods in nonparametric regression for testing whether a function is constant or linear cannot be applied. We develop a simple general solution which is applicable to nonparametric regression, varying-coefficient models, nonparametric generalized linear models, etc. We show that, in local linear kernel regression, inference about the derived function () is facilitated without a loss of power by reparameterization so that () is itself a component of (). Our approach is in contrast with the standard practice of choosing () for convenience and allowing ()> to be a non-linear function of (). The methods are applied to an important data set in nutritional epidemiology.     

How Do Cancer Risks Predicted From Animal Bioassays Compare with the Epidemiologic Evidence? The Case of Ethylene Dibromide

Cancer risks for ethylene dibromide (EDB) were estimated by fitting several linear non-threshold additive models to data from a gavage bioassay. Risks predicted by these models were compared to the observed cancer mortality among a cohort of workers occupationally exposed to the same chemical. Models that accounted for the shortened latency period in the gavaged rats predicted upper bound risks that were within a factor of 3 of the observed cancer deaths. Data from an animal inhalation study of EDB also were compatible with the epidemiologic data. These findings contradict those of Ramsey et al. (1978), who reported that extrapolation from animal data produced highly exaggerated risk estimates for EDB-exposed workers. This paper explores the reasons for these discrepant findings.     

Negative and Positive Keying in Natural Contexts: Preserving the Transformation Concept from Death through Conaflation

Frame analysis has been severely criticized for its reliance on fictive and newspaper domains and its static portrayal of social behavior. Published and refereed studies, many of the participant observer vintage, are examined to investigate these charges. Conclusions include: (1) transformations are significant occurrences in Americans'daily lives, (2) societal definitions cannot be validly depicted apart from the emergent aspects of personal and interpersonal histories, (3) a new form of keying, negative keying , a not-reality, is conceptualized, (4) the relationship between Goffman's transformations and Glaser's and Strauss'awareness contexts is delineated. Recommendations for the future study of layered definitions are offered.     

Residential Location and Proximity to Children Among Impaired Elderly Parents1

Abstract The availability of adult children as potential caregivers is particularly critical to the rural elderly because of the dearth of health and human services in rural areas. This paper analyzes proximity to adult children among a large sample of older persons with some degree of functional impairment, employing four residence categories and two indicators of proximity: coresidence with a child, and residence within a half-hour's travel time. Results show that older residents of large cities are most likely to live with children and that large-city and farm residents are more likely than small-city or rural nonfarm residents to live near children. Implications regarding the potential for family caregiving for the impaired elderly are discussed.     

Trends in Alcohol Consumption Among Undergraduate Students at a Northeastern Public University, 2002–2008

Abstract

Objective: This study examined alcohol consumption patterns and trends at a public university in the Northeast from 2002 to 2008. Participants: Stratified random sampling was used to select undergraduate students enrolled in courses during spring semesters in 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008. Methods: Data were collected during regularly scheduled classes for 4 measures of alcohol consumption and 5 demographic categories using the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey. Results: Four groups showed significant increases in both frequency and volume of alcohol consumption—students who were female, over 21 years of age or over, living off-campus, or performing well academically. There were no decreasing trends for any demographic group. These results differ from national college health surveys, which have shown alcohol use remaining steady during this period. Conclusions: Campus-specific trend data can provide unique perspectives and guide programming efforts. These trends suggest a need for new intervention strategies on this campus.