Measuring the effectiveness of a multi-year multi-county marriage celebration: qualitative findings

In the early stages of the recent recession, men were disproportionately among the ranks of the unemployed. Current economic times provide a researchable moment, as more women are likely to be in positions of power vis-à-vis earnings. This article uses a unique nationally representative dataset of married individuals (n = 158) to examine expected level of support for relocation if the respondent's spouse were offered a hypothetical job opportunity. Although there do appear to be gender differences in the associations between background characteristics and expected level of support, we find no basis for our hypotheses about the nature of the relationships between race, class, and expected level of support. Black women have higher levels of expected support than do White women, whereas Black men have lower levels of expected support than do White men; there are no class differences in expected level of support. We interpret these findings in the context of the complicated performance of gender in challenging economic times.     

Black Boxes as Capacities for and Constraints on Action: Electoral Politics, Journalism, and Devices of Representation

Actor-Network Theory, as a theoretical and methodological approach, is particularly insightful when applied to domains of social activity that are in flux, thus making it particularly useful for ethnographic research about unsettled socio-technical systems. Drawing from field research conducted over the last decade, this paper presents two empirical cases that reveal how ANT enables researchers to trace the associations that form the socio-technical objects of political and journalistic practice. We focus on “black-boxed” technical objects, exploring two distinct, yet complementary, analytical moments that emerged during our respective fieldwork. First, we detail the work that an electoral map performs in stabilizing networks of political representation and creating new capacities to act. We then go inside a journalistic organization to reveal a moment of breakdown when the black box of a content management system unravels and fails to do what it is seemingly supposed to do, throwing news production into a tenuous state. The paper concludes by interrogating our empirical findings through the lens of cultural practices, highlighting a few ways sociologists might need to supplement ANT-analysis with a more robust understanding of culture and symbolic belief systems.     

Public relations and social morality as national identity: a cultural-economic examination of the US Government’s fight against venereal disease in the 1920s

ABSTRACT

A historical case study of how United States Public Health Service (USPHS) officials used public relations in an active attempt to construct meanings within cultural contexts both illuminates and extends the cultural-economic model (CEM) of public relations, which is based on the circuit of culture. The case shows how the CEM would benefit from exploring why practitioners act as they do, as understanding a producer’s motivation can provide even more understanding of the attempts to create a desired meaning.     

Internalized homophobia and depression in lesbian women: The protective role of pride

This study sought to examine the association between internalized homophobia and depressive symptoms in lesbian women, and establish whether such a relationship was mediated by collective self-esteem, self-esteem, and self-disclosure. Participants were 225 self-identified lesbian women in the community. Structural equation modeling was used to demonstrate that an underlying construct, labeled pride, reflected participants’ levels of self-esteem, collective self-esteem, and self-disclosure. Internalized homophobia was moderately and negatively predictive of pride, and pride was strongly and negatively predictive of depression. Results highlight the potentially protective role of pride in the prevention of depression among lesbian women.     

Birth Mothers' Perceptions of Their Parented Children's Knowledge of and Involvement in Adoption

An examination of birth mothers' perceptions of the relationship between the children she is parenting and the children she placed for adoption offers unique insight into the life course of openness. In the present study, 94 birth mothers from the United States participated in a semi-structured interview, discussing their oldest parented children's knowledge of and experience with their siblings placed for adoption. Results show that 59 birth mothers have an oldest parented child who is aware of their adopted sibling, although 4 of these do not know their true relationship with the adopted sibling. Of these, 27 had direct contact with the adopted sibling, 4 had indirect contact through the birth mother, and 1 had previous contact that has since ceased. A majority of birth mothers indicated that their oldest parented child would like more contact, direct contact, or more information about the adopted youth. Implications for research and practice with birth mothers and their children separated by adoption are discussed.     

Ethics in an Age of Information Seekers: A Survey of Licensed Healthcare Providers about Online Social Networking

The present study explores how licensed health care providers use social media. The researchers utilized a survey to explore 88 licensed psychologists, physicians, and social workers average numbers of Facebook© friends, social groups, and photo albums as well as attitudes toward possible regulation of online social networking by professional organizations. Statistically significant differences were found among groups regarding the degree to which they wanted guidance on ethically managing this new technology, with psychologists and social workers desiring more guidance than physicians. Overall, this study shows that the majority of the psychologists, physicians, and social workers who participated in this study now frequently use Facebook, often providing information on profiles that may include that which is not generally disclosed in a client–therapist relationship.     

What is really different about rural and urban firms? Some evidence from Northern Ireland

The economic structure of rural regions in Europe is becoming increasingly similar to that of urban regions. Therefore, what is really different about rural and urban firms? This question is investigated here through a comparison of matched manufacturing plants in rural and urban areas of Northern Ireland. The analysis finds that remote rural, accessible rural and urban manufacturing plants that are matched with respect to their industrial sector, size, age and ownership structure are nevertheless different in certain key respects. Remote rural manufacturing plants are seen to follow a production-cost-oriented export strategy, while accessible rural firms adopt a more innovation-oriented export strategy. In contrast, urban manufacturing plants use their reputation-based competitive advantage to service relatively large local markets. The competitiveness of rural firms is particularly influenced by the quality of transport infrastructure, the availability of suitably qualified staff, and external trade factors. Given this complex set of factors, effective policy initiatives in this area may involve measures that cut across departmental and national boundaries.     

Improved generalized Fourier amplitude sensitivity test (FAST) for model assessment

The Fourier amplitude sensitivity test (FAST) can be used to calculate the relative variance contribution of model input parameters to the variance of predictions made with functional models. It is widely used in the analyses of complicated process modeling systems. This study provides an improved transformation procedure of the Fourier amplitude sensitivity test (FAST) for non-uniform distributions that can be used to represent the input parameters. Here it is proposed that the cumulative probability be used instead of probability density when transforming non-uniform distributions for FAST. This improvement will increase the accuracy of transformation by reducing errors, and makes the transformation more convenient to be used in practice. In an evaluation of the procedure, the improved procedure was demonstrated to have very high accuracy in comparison to the procedure that is currently widely in use.     

Using an empirical binomial hierarchical Bayesian model as an alternative to analyzing data from multisite studies

This article explores the statistical methodologies used in demonstration and effectiveness studies when the treatments are applied across multiple settings. The importance of evaluating and how to evaluate these types of studies are discussed. As an alternative to standard methodology, the authors of this article offer an empirical binomial hierarchical Bayesian model as a way to effectively evaluate multisite studies. An application of using the Bayesian model in a real-world multisite study is given.