A Learning Curve Analysis of Expert System Use*

In this article, we study how an expert system affects novice problem solving in a financial risk analysis domain. We demonstrate that novice performance is improved after exposure to an expert system. Further, we show that novice performance continues to improve when the system is withdrawn. By comparing learning curves for people with exposure to those without, we can assess how much the system has benefitted its users. We demonstrate a quantitative methodology to measure the increment of learning due to the use of an information technology. We also explore the issue of how expertise is transferred from the system to the user.     

Parenthood and Well-Being: A Decade in Review

Understanding social aspects of parental well-being is vital because parents' welfare has implications not only for the parents themselves but also for child development, fertility, and the overall health of a society. This article provides a critical review of scholarship on parenthood and well-being in advanced economies published from 2010 to 2019. It focuses on the role of social, economic, cultural, and institutional contexts of parenting in influencing adult well-being. The authors identify major themes, achievements, and challenges and organize the review around the demands-rewards perspective and two other theoretical frameworks: the stress process model and the life course perspective. The analysis shows that rising economic insecurities and inequalities and a diffusion of intensive parenting ideology were major social contexts of parenting in the 2010s. Scholarship linking parenting contexts and parental well-being illuminated how stressors related to providing and caring for children could unjustly burden some parents, especially mothers, those with fewer socioeconomic resources, and those with marginalized statuses. In that vein, researchers continued to emphasize how stressors diverged by parents' socioeconomic status, gender, and partnership status, with new attention to strains experienced by racial/ethnic minority, immigrant, and sexual minority parents. Scholars' comparisons of parents' positions in various countries expanded, enhancing knowledge regarding specific policy supports that allow parents to thrive. Articulating future research within a stress process model framework, the authors show vibrant theoretical pathways, including conceptualizing potential parental social supports at multiple levels, attending to the intersection of multiple social locations of parents, and renewing attention to local contextual factors and parenting life stages.     

Risking safety and rights: online sex work,crimes and ‘blended safety repertoires’

It has been well established that those working in the sex industry are at various risks of violence and crime depending on where they sell sex and the environments in which they work. What sociological research has failed to address is how crime and safety have been affected by the dynamic changing nature of sex work given the dominance of the internet and digital technologies, including the development of new markets such as webcamming. This paper reports the most comprehensive findings on the internet‐based sex market in the UK demonstrating types of crimes experienced by internet‐based sex workers and the strategies of risk management that sex workers adopt, building on our article in the British Journal of Sociology in 2007. We present the concept of ‘blended safety repertoires’ to explain how sex workers, particularly independent escorts, are using a range of traditional techniques alongside digitally enabled strategies to keep themselves safe. We contribute a deeper understanding of why sex workers who work indoors rarely report crimes to the police, reflecting the dilemmas experienced. Our findings highlight how legal and policy changes which seek to ban online adult services advertising and sex work related content within online spaces would have direct impact on the safety strategies online sex workers employ and would further undermine their safety. These findings occur in a context where aspects of sex work are quasi‐criminalized through the brothel keeping legislation. We conclude that the legal and policy failure to recognize sex work as a form of employment, contributes to the stigmatization of sex work and prevents individuals working together. Current UK policy disallows a framework for employment laws and health and safety standards to regulate sex work, leaving sex workers in the shadow economy, their safety at risk in a quasi‐legal system. In light of the strong evidence that the internet makes sex work safer, we argue that decriminalisation as a rights based model of regulation is most appropriate.     

Is the Education of Local Children Influenced by Living near a Refugee Camp? Evidence from Host Communities in Rwanda

This article studies the extent to which educational services and schooling outcomes of local children are influenced by the presence of a refugee camp in or near their community. Investigating Congolese refugees in Rwanda and relying on a mixed‐method approach, we examine schooling rates and access to school‐based feeding programmes in communities closer to and further away from three refugee camps. We conduct cohort analyses to compare the schooling outcomes of Rwandans residing at different distances from each of these camps. Our results highlight that children residing closer to the camps have better schooling outcomes and that locals residing closer to the camps have mostly positive views regarding the effects of refugees on local education. These results contribute to the literature on the effects of refugees on host communities and inform policy debates on how refugees need not be a “burden” if a long‐term vision shapes educational investments.     

The Implicit Curriculum: Student Engagement and the Role of Social Media

This article presents results from an exploratory study conducted as a component of an assessment of the implicit curriculum in one master’s-level social work program. Web-based surveys were used to collect data from 80 graduate social work students in online and face-to-face programs. Findings indicate students who perceived social media as more useful reported higher levels of engagement and participation in program governance. The implications for social work education deal with the ability to competently use social media as a tool to increase student engagement. Students will only be exposed to elements of the implicit curriculum if they are active participants in their academic environments.     

The Influence of Career Planning on Career Thoughts in STEM‐Interested Undergraduates

Undergraduate career planning courses have shown efficacy in decreasing students’ negative career thoughts; however, universities have minimally applied these courses to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) populations. This study compared the influence of a STEM‐focused career planning course for undecided STEM students with a seminar course for decided STEM majors. An analysis of covariance with covariate adjustment revealed that undecided career planning students had lower adjusted mean scores on a measure of negative career thinking than the decided STEM majors after the first semester of college. The results provide support for the efficacy of STEM‐focused career planning courses and measuring negative career thoughts with STEM undergraduates.