Education and risky sex in Africa: Unraveling the link between women’s education and reproductive health behaviors in Kenya

Much research attention has been devoted to understanding the relationship between education and riskier sex-related behaviors and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. While in the early 1990s researchers found that increases in education were associated with a higher incidence of HIV/AIDS, this relationship appears to have reversed and better educated people, especially women, appear less likely to engage in riskier sex-related behaviors and have a lower incidence rate of HIV/AIDS. Our study begins to unravel the mechanisms that could explain why women’s educational attainment is associated with safer sex-related behaviors in sub-Saharan Africa. Using data from the 2003 Kenyan Demographic and Health Survey, we examine the potential mediating effects of HIV/AIDS knowledge, family planning discussions, gender empowerment, and husband’s education for explaining the relationship between education and age of first sex, casual sex, multiple sex partners, and condom use. We find that gender empowerment partially explains the relationship between education and age of first sex, and HIV/AIDS knowledge, husband’s education, and family planning discussions partially explain the relationship between education and condom use. We argue that gender inequality and lack of knowledge are likely to play a greater role in explaining the relationship between woman’s education and sex-related behaviors in sub-Saharan Africa than they do in more industrialized nations, where social capital explanations may have more explanatory power.     

A Lifeline in troubled waters: A support intervention for migrant farm workers

We implemented and evaluated a service delivery intervention (support model) to address the challenges faced by migrant agricultural workers in British Columbia, Canada. Three factors were identified that contributed to the effectiveness of the intervention: (1) face-to-face support and in-person outreach towards connection; (2) accounting migrant workers' hierarchy of needs and addressing their basic needs first towards comprehensiveness; and (3) role clarity and communication between partners involved in supporting this population towards coordination. A final factor, wider constraints, referred to the wider context of migrant workers' lives including their temporary status, tied work permits, and lack of access to rights. These wider constraints, which were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, underscore that until greater policy action is taken to address these workers' precarious status, support services can only offer a lifeline in troubled waters.     

The Precariat and the Pandemic: Assessing the Well-Being of Metro Orlando's Hospitality Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a catalyst for precaritization highlighting the instability plaguing many American workers. As the rapid spread of the virus led to the closure of businesses, both temporarily and permanently, the nation reached record high levels of unemployment. The effects of the pandemic have fallen unequally among different groups forcing women, people of color, and low-income, precarious workers to endure the brunt of the economic downturn. In particular, the hospitality industry, comprised of those employed in restaurants, bars, event/convention centers, theme parks, and the like, was and continues to be the hardest hit by the effects of COVID-19. We explore the experiences of 454 hospitality industry workers in the Metro Orlando, Florida area during the COVID-19 pandemic using data collected using an online survey. The purpose of this research is twofold. First, it seeks to identify the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic upon hospitality workers in the metro Orlando area across the dimensions of employment status, financial stability, mental health, housing, and food security. The second aim of this research adopts Kalleberg and Vallas' recommendation for analysis of hierarchies in precarious work by identifying differential outcomes across the aforementioned dimensions along the lines of race, gender, and income type (salaried, tipped, hourly) to explore stratification within the precariat. Findings reflect the potentially devastating consequences of precarity and expand upon conceptualizations of the precariat by offering empirical evidence of disparities within this group.     

Bio-citizens online: A content analysis of pro-ana and weight loss blogs

Current neoliberal ideology in Western society encourages individuals to self-monitor their body to control population health. The resulting self-surveillance includes weight management, promoted as a marker of health. Disordered eating, like anorexia, is framed as a health disorder. However, weight loss is framed as a health initiative; we argue that these framings are engaging with the same body project, encouraging thinness as a marker of health and good bio-citizenry. Using content analysis to compare online blog context created by individuals engaged in weight loss and individuals who identify as pro-anorexia, we argue and evidence that both groups are engaged in body projects with shared parameters. Findings suggest each group is striving to embody a thin ideal through weight management. Specifically, weight loss bloggers and pro-ana bloggers demonstrate similar diet and exercise behaviours in online diaries detailing their weight loss experiences. Thus, weight loss and anorexia exist on the same spectrum of responsible bio-citizenry.     

Affect and leader-member exchange in the new millennium: A state-of-art review and guiding framework

The idea that affect plays a key role in leader-member exchange (LMX) processes is not new, but it has become a subject of considerable research attention since the turn of the Millennium. This interest has, however, resulted in a multiplicity of views that have tended to obfuscate rather than clarify the affect-LMX nexus. To deal with this lack of clarity, we conducted a systematic integration of affect-LMX literature published in leading journals since 2000, including the role of personal affectivity, discrete affect, emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and affective climate. We structured our review using a multilevel framework of affect that encompasses five levels of analysis: (1) within-person, (2) between persons, (3) interpersonal, (4) team, and (5) organizational levels; as well as consideration of cross-level effects. We address in particular three fundamental issues that we argue may have hampered the development of the affect-LMX nexus in the literature: theoretical diversity, problems of data analysis, and measurement issues. We conclude by discussing opportunities for future research across the different levels and develop a set of research questions that we hope will help to promote research into the role of affect in LMX.     

The Effects of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on the Educational Outcomes of Undocumented Students

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is the first large-scale immigration policy to affect undocumented immigrants in the United States in decades and offers eligible undocumented youth temporary relief from deportation as well as renewable work permits. Although DACA has improved the economic conditions and mental health of undocumented immigrants, we do not know how DACA improves the social mobility of undocumented immigrants through its effect on educational attainment. We use administrative data on students attending a large public university to estimate the effect of DACA on undocumented students’ educational outcomes. The data are unique because they accurately identify students’ legal status, account for individual heterogeneity, and allow separate analysis of students attending community colleges versus four-year colleges. Results from difference-in-difference estimates demonstrate that as a temporary work permit program, DACA incentivizes work over educational investments but that the effect of DACA on educational investments depends on how easily colleges accommodate working students. At four-year colleges, DACA induces undocumented students to make binary choices between attending school full-time and dropping out of school to work. At community colleges, undocumented students have the flexibility to reduce course work to accommodate increased work hours. Overall, the results suggest that the precarious and temporary nature of DACA creates barriers to educational investments.     

Satire as a source for learning? The differential impact of news versus satire exposure on net neutrality knowledge gain

This study considers the effects of exposure to political satire versus traditional news on issue-specific learning and engagement. Using data from an experiment conducted in January 2016 (N?=?296), we employ ANOVA analysis to test the differential effects of exposure to net neutrality coverage from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight versus ABC News on knowledge gain, issue importance, and perceived issue difficulty. Pairwise comparisons suggest that political comedy is as good a source as news for knowledge gain, but that news exposure is more important for evaluations of issue importance. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings given the increasing size of the political satire audience and the viral reach of these comedy programs.     

Bringing Sociology into the Public Policy Process: a Relational Network Approach

How does evidence-based sociological research influence public policymaking either directly or indirectly? Based on an analysis of a 2014 NSF-funded public policy research workshop and written case studies by workshop participants, this article provides a conceptual roadmap and varied examples of the pathways through which social science research and social scientists can inform public policy decision-making. Pathways include networks and relationships among academics, social scientists employed in government, special interest groups and non-profits, and members of the media. Many sociologists are committed to using their evidence-based findings to inform solutions to societal problems, yet are often too narrowly trained to write only for scholarly communities and are often unaware of the relations, connections, and networks that can increase the use of sociological and other social science research in public discourse and in the public policy arena. The paper highlights lessons learned about effective networks, communication channels and dissemination strategies from the workshop and case studies in order to better equip those social scientists interested to bring their research into a public policy realm with the tools to do so. Given the current political climate, this resolve seems all the more important.