How Parents and Teachers View Their School Communities

ABSTRACT

This study examines the perceptions of more than 11,000 parents and 1,500 teachers about their schools, themselves, and their relationships with each other within their school communities. It provides insights into the health of our public schools, their reservoirs of social capital, and the context they provide for student learning. The nature and strength of relationships within school communities is assayed through examination of parents' and teachers' perceptions about their roles, the roles of students, school–home communication, the common experience and climate of the school, and their face-to-face association with one another. Teachers' perceptions are compared with those of parents, and the perceptions of White, non-Hispanic, Black, non-Hispanic, and Hispanic parents are compared with each other.     

A Contingency Interpretation of Place’s Contingency Anomaly in Ordinary Conversation

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - A verbal phenomenon often reported in the research literature of conversation analysis is reviewed. The phenomenon involves the observation that spoken sentences...     

Political,institutional, and bureaucratic fuel for the arms race

Revolutionary changes in Eastern Europe are fundamentally intertwined with the thawing of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Paradoxically, the arms race between the superpowers continues. This paper examines the paradox by first considering the conventional explanations for improved relations and demonstrating their inadequacies, then turning to the structural factors that appear to help explain the changed relations, and finally examining some of the social forces that cause the arms race to continue despite the thawing of the Cold War. Structural factors cited here as having contributed to the improved relations include: changes in the global economy, the development of a civil society in the Eastern bloc, domestic and international peace initiatives, and cultural changes. Despite these changes, the arms race continues due to the stability of strategic policy and the way it is made, military-industrial institutional operations, political and economic interests, and government operations. In each of these areas, much sociological research is needed to help guide the policy-making process away from continuing the arms race.     

READING ALOUD AS AN INITIAL ASSIGNMENT IN MARITAL THERAPY*

This paper suggests conjoint reading aloud as an initial assignment in behavioral marital therapy. The spouses are directed to read a book on marital conflict and communication five times during the week following the initial interview. At that interview they negotiate an agreement on when they will do the reading. Conjoint reading is compared with two alternative initial assignments, Caring Days and the Spouse Observation Checklist. It is argued that the advantage of the conjoint reading is that it addresses the experientially salient problems of verbal conflict. Details for instigating the assignment are presented.     

A method for diagnosing and planning the treatment of adolescent drug abusers (the Adolescent Drug Abuse Diagnosis [ADAD] instrument)

There is a need for a diagnostic method and an instrument appropriate for adolescent drug abuse clients, that permits the assignment of clients to the most appropriate treatment setting, provides the basis for individualized treatment planning, and facilitates comparability across research studies. The development of the Adolescent Drug Abuse Diagnosis (ADAD), a 150-item instrument with a structured interview format, modeled after the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) (which is for adults), is described. The ADAD produces a broad-spectrum comprehensive evaluation of the client, the interviewer's ten-point severity ratings, and composite scores for each of nine life problem areas that are often relevant to the treatment needs of adolescent drug abuse clients. A series of validity and reliability tests are described. The characteristics of the standardization sample (N = 1,042), and the comparison of the characteristics of the three subsamples (outpatient, residential or non-hospital, and inpatient) are also presented.     

Risk Perception in an Interest Group Context: An Examination of the TMI Restart Issue1

Human response to environmental hazards and risks has been the subject of considerable research by social scientists. Work has traditionally focused on either individual response to the risks of an ongoing or future threat (hazards research), or group and organizational response to a specific disaster event (disaster research). As part of a larger investigation of the restart of the Unit 1 reactor at Three Mile Island (TMI), we examined the response of interest groups active in the restart issue to the continued threat of TMI and to future risks due to restart. After reviewing the restart issue in general, the paper examines the local dimensions of the restart issue from interest group perspectives. A method for defining appropriate issues at the community level is reviewed. We then discuss differences in the perceived local impacts of alternative decisions, and systems of beliefs associated with differing perceptions. Finally, we discuss the implications of interest group versus individual perceptions of local issues for decision making about TMI, in particular, and about technological hazards management, in general. Associated implications for determining socially acceptable risk levels are identified. Our research led us to three major conclusions: (1) in contrast to other types of hazards, interest groups are a critical unit of analysis for understanding how beliefs and behaviors form in response to the presence of technological hazards; (2) the divergence of positions between groups, even though they may have shared the same physical experience, is understandable if not always predictable, (3) the resolution of policy debates where risks are a major focus of the arguments should recognize the legitimacy of these divergent positions by allowing participation of the various interest groups in the decision process. Such participation helps ensure that the decision strategy is responsive to local concerns, thereby increasing the likelihood of acceptance of the ultimate decision and thus producing a publicly acceptable level of risk.     

Estimation of a standard measuring error by repeated measurements and sortings

A sorting-and-measuring machine (SMM) measures and sorts (classifies) on-line produced items into several groups according to their size. The measuring devices of the SMM perceive the actual item size with a random error ε and classify the item as being smaller than b iff z+ε<b. Here ε is a normal zero-mean r.v. with unknown standard deviation σ which is the main parameter characterizing the precision and technical condition of an SMM. The paper gives the following method of estimating σ. N₀ items are measured and N₁ of them are recognized by the SMM as belonging to the group a<z≤b. These N₁ items are sorted again and N₂ of them return to this group, these are sorted again, and so on. The estimation of σ is based on the statistics N_m/N_n. Moments of the ratio statistics N_m/N_n and their distributional properties are investigated. It turns out that the expected value of N_m/N_n depends almost linearly on σ which allows us to construct ‘almost’ unbiased estimators of type $\text{σ}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{mn}}\text{=A}\textcolor{red}{}\text{N}{}_{\mathrm{m}}\text{/N}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{+B}$ with good propert including robustness with respect to the distribution of item size. Convex combinations of $\text{σ}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{mn}}$ statistics are considered to obtain an estimator with minimal variance.     

Exploring variation in active network size: Constraints and ego characteristics

Studies of active personal networks have primarily focused on providing reliable estimates of the size of the network. In this study, we examine how compositional properties of the network and ego characteristics are related to variation in network size. There was a negative relationship between mean emotional closeness and network size, for both related and unrelated networks. Further, there was a distinct upper bound on total network size. These results suggest that there are constraints both on the absolute number of individuals that ego can maintain in the network, and also on the emotional intensity of the relationships that ego can maintain with those individuals.