Book Review

MYTHS OF CHILDHOOD. Joel Paris. New York: Taylor and Francis, 2000     

Death preparation and anxiety: a survey in Hong Kong

This study reports the results of a survey on death preparation, death-related beliefs, and death anxiety in a Hong Kong sample. Respondents (N = 285) recruited from the community were asked if they have prepared for themselves a life insurance, a will, and a resting place (e.g. burial site, columbarium, etc.). Questions about their death-related cultural beliefs and anxiety were also asked. Results indicated that respondents who have thought of preparing for their own deaths but not yet acted out (contemplators) held stronger traditional cultural beliefs about death than respondents who have either done the preparations (planners) or never thought of the idea (non-contemplators). Contemplators also reported higher death anxiety. Despite limitations of the study's design, the current results suggest the beliefs in cultural taboo may play a role in the preparation for one's death.     

Sociotechnology and the Environment

The founders of the sociotechnical modelperceived its relevance at the macro level of thecommunity, at the meso level of whole organizations, aswell as at the micro level of the primary work systems, but it is at the primary work system that mostapplications have been carried out. An efficient microlevel sociotechnical solution may still cause thetechnology to have a harmful impact on the environment. An increasing popular awareness ofenvironmental damage due to certain technologies leadsone to consider an extension of the important jointoptimization concept to a systemic heuristic devicecalled the socioecotechnical model in which the intra-and extra-organizational factors can be jointly assessedand optimized.     

Antiracism Organizing and Resistance in Nursing: African Canadian Women*

Cette étude porte sur la lutte menée en Ontario et au Québec de la fin des années 1970 jusqu'aux années 1990 par les femmes de couleur - et plus particulièrement par les infirmières noires -contre le racisme sévissant dans le contexte de leur vie professionnelle. L'auteure procède à une analyse intégrale du phénomène dans une perspective antiraciste. Elle démontre que le racisme est le principal facteur opérant dans la subordination des infirmières noires et que le parti pris contre les femmes et les préjugés fondés sur les origines sociales ont toujours été tributaires d'un racisme sous-jacent. This study examines women of colour, specifically African Canadian nurses, organizing and resisting racism in nursing in Ontario and Quebec from the late 1970s to the 1990s, from an integrative anti-racism perspective. The author demonstrates that although racism is more visibly salient in black nurses' subordination, gender and class have historically been racialized in nursing, a phenomenon that continues today.     

A comparison of equally spaced designs with different correlation structures in one and more dimensions

Equally spaced designs are compared using the generalized variance as a measure of efficiency. Results for polynomial models are derived on the increased efficiency arising from increasing the number of design points when the regions are fixed and when the regions are expanded. The effects of dependence among the observations on these results are studied by considering a particular family of stationary correlated error structures.     

Preference for Nature in Urbanized Societies: Stress, Restoration, and the Pursuit of Sustainability

Urbanicity presents a challenge for the pursuit of sustainability. High settlement density may offer some environmental, economic, and social advantages, but it can impose psychological demands that people find excessive. These demands of urban life have stimulated a desire for contact with nature through suburban residence, leading to planning and transportation practices that have profound implications for the pursuit of sustainability. Some might dismiss people's desire for contact with nature as the result of an anti-urban bias in conjunction with a romantic view of nature. However, research in environmental psychology suggests that people's desire for contact with nature serves an important adaptive function, namely, psychological restoration. Based on this insight, we offer a perspective on an underlying practical challenge: designing communities that balance settlement density with satisfactory access to nature experience. We discuss research on four issues: how people tend to believe that nature is restorative; how restoration needs and beliefs shape environmental preferences; how well people actually achieve restoration in urban and natural environments; and how contact with nature can promote health. In closing, we consider urban nature as a design option that promotes urban sustainability.