An Analysis of the Patient Self-Determination Act of 1990

Advance directives (ADs) provide a way to express medical care preferences at the end of life, yet they are underutilized. This article analyzes the effect of the Patient Self-Determination Act and presents recommendations for the improvement of AD legislation. Although the Patient Self-Determination Act was intended to educate patients, clinicians, and the public about ADs, more work is needed to improve involvement in end-of-life care decision making for individuals who may be disenfranchised in this process.     

Racial Profiling and Traffic Stops: An Examination of Research Approaches and Findings in the War on Drugs

This article is a review of some of the main research approaches to understanding racial profiling as it manifests in the traffic stop. It orients the emergence of racial profiling as a product of the war on drugs philosophy guiding law enforcement in the late 20th century and discusses how the contemporary nature of racial profiling has origins in a long history of racialized policing in the United States. Theoretical and methodological approaches to the issue, particularly from mainstream criminologists, focus on quantitative assessment of exposure to law enforcement agents and rational choice-based arguments that it makes sense to target certain groups based on the hue of the criminal justice system. More critical approaches examined within complicate this notion by contextualizing racial profiling in contemporary times as a mere manifestation of historical efforts by the state to marginalize communities of color.     

Revisiting histories of anti-racist thought and activism

ABSTRACT

This piece reconsiders histories of anti-racist thought and practice, including the linkages between anti-racisms and other traditions of liberatory thought. We argue that anti-racism should be understood as a strand in radical thought linking internationalism, institutional critique and street activism, in the process interfeeding with other social movements. The traditions of anti-racist thought discussed in this special issue exemplify these cross-cutting influences.     

Benefits to Children Who Participate in Family Therapy with their Substance‐Using Mother

It is rare that family members other than the identified patient are followed over time in studies of therapy effectiveness. Family therapy is believed to be effective because it targets processes within the system that maintain symptoms. If these processes are changed, then all family members can benefit. Using a sample of 183 mother–child dyads from a study comparing family therapy for adult substance use versus an attention control, change in child's substance use (tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana) was estimated. Children who participated in family therapy with their mothers showed greater decreases in alcohol and tobacco use and were less likely to begin using compared to children whose mothers participated in the attention control condition.     

Change in disability-free life expectancy for Americans 70 years old and older*

In this article, we examine changes in life expectancy free of disability using longitudinal data collected from 1984 through 2000 from two cohorts who composed the Longitudinal Studies of Aging I and II. Life expectancies with and without ADL and/or IADL disability are calculated using a Markov-based multistate life table approach. At age 70, disability-free life expectancy increased over a 10-year period by 0.6 of a year in the later cohort, which was the same as the increase in total life expectancy, both increases marginally statistically significant. The average length of expected life with IADL and ADL disability did not change. Changes in disability-free life expectancy resulted from decreases in disability incidence and increases in the incidence of recovery from disability across the two survey cohorts. Age-specific mortality among the ADL disabled declined significantly in the later cohort after age 80. Mortality for the IADL disabled and the nondisabled did not change significantly. Those with ADL disability at age 70 experienced substantial increases in both total life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy. These results indicate the importance of efforts both to prevent and delay disability and to promote recovery from disability for increasing life expectancy without disability. Results also indicate that while reductions in incidence and increases in recovery work to decrease population prevalence of disability, declining mortality among the disabled has been a force toward increasing disability prevalence.     

Can cultural consumption increase future earnings? Exploring the economic returns to cultural capital

Cultural consumption is often viewed as a form of embodied cultural capital which can be converted into economic rewards (e.g., earnings) because such practices increase the likelihood of moving into more advantaged social positions. However, quantitative evidence supporting this theory remains uncertain because it is often unable to rule out alternative explanations. Cultural consumption appears to influence hiring decisions in some elite firms, in both the US and the UK, but it is unclear whether these processes are applicable to other professional occupations and other labour market processes, such as promotions. We examine these processes using data from Understanding Society, an individual‐level panel survey conducted in the UK, allowing us to explore whether cultural consumption predicts future earnings, upward social mobility and promotions. People who consume a larger number of cultural activities are more likely to earn higher wages in the future, to be upwardly socially mobile, and to be promoted. Cultural consumption, then, can function as cultural capital in some labour market settings, potentially contributing to the reproduction of income inequality between generations.     

The social gradient in cultural consumption and the information‐processing hypothesis

Patterns of cultural consumption have a strong social gradient which is primarily driven by education, but what explains these educational differences in cultural preferences remains unclear. Explanations based on information processing capacity have gained widespread currency; the perceived cognitive ‘difficulty’ of both appreciating high culture, and of maintaining broad, omnivorous tastes. If, on average, high culture is more complex than low culture then a higher level of information processing capacity may be required to derive enjoyment from it. In contrast, socialization theories suggest that exposure to ‘high’ culture, may explain this gradient, particularly among university graduates with degrees in the Arts or Humanities. To test these two theories we use the Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion survey (n = 1,079) and estimate the association between degree type and measures of cultural preference and consumption, including: film directors, artists, and cultural participation. Compared to non‐graduates, arts, humanities, and social science graduates are more likely to enjoy highbrow directors and artists, and are more likely to be cultural omnivores; while graduates from other subjects are not clearly distinct from non‐graduates in their cultural preferences. These findings suggest that information processing plays a minor role in shaping the social gradient in cultural consumption.     

Historical Analysis of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997

Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997 in an attempt to provide safety, stability, and permanency for maltreated children. To help provide a historical context, child welfare legislation preceding ASFA is reviewed. In this historical analysis, the precipitating events that led to the creation of ASFA are assessed. In addition, a detailed review of congressional hearings related to this Act is given. The key components and goals of this policy are outlined. Finally, revisions made to ASFA are discussed, and its influence on proceeding legislation is presented.     

A Monte Carlo comparison of alternative methods of maximum likelihood ranking in racing sports

Applications of maximum likelihood techniques to rank competitors in sports are commonly based on the assumption that each competitor's performance is a function of a deterministic component that represents inherent ability and a stochastic component that the competitor has limited control over. Perhaps based on an appeal to the central limit theorem, the stochastic component of performance has often been assumed to be a normal random variable. However, in the context of a racing sport, this assumption is problematic because the resulting model is the computationally difficult rank-ordered probit. Although a rank-ordered logit is a viable alternative, a Thurstonian paired-comparison model could also be applied. The purpose of this analysis was to compare the performance of the rank-ordered logit and Thurstonian paired-comparison models given the objective of ranking competitors based on ability. Monte Carlo simulations were used to generate race results based on a known ranking of competitors, assign rankings from the results of the two models, and judge performance based on Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. Results suggest that in many applications, a Thurstonian model can outperform a rank-ordered logit if each competitor's performance is normally distributed.