How surveys are changing at the U.S. Bureau of the Census

"This article describes the survey activities of the U.S. Census Bureau and recent efforts by the bureau to move toward a more fully automated environment....[It] focuses on four areas in which the Census Bureau is changing its approach to surveys: (1) redesigning the questionnaire for the Current Population Survey to better reflect current labor force conditions; (2) redesigning the same questionnaire to gain advantages from computer-assisted interviewing; (3) redesigning the samples for household surveys to be used during the next decade, a task undertaken after every decennial census; and (4) progress in changing to a computer-assisted survey information collection (CASIC) system and developing a data management network for all Census Bureau surveys."     

Transforming the social order: The role of the university in social change

The contemporary multicultural and secular university in the United States is experiencing an array of value transitions as well as ideological contradictions. The present dilemmas and challenges confronting the academy appear to emanate from the preoccupation with new schools of explanation and interpretation and from arbitrarily defined appropriate speech. In the social sciences and in the humanities, value neutrality and traditional constructs are viewed as strategies for concealing and promoting anachronistic standards of conduct. Faculty interviewed express concern and skepticism about the direction and future of the American university in a postindustrial and a postmodernistic era. Many perceive the university as not assuming a leading role in constructive social change. This results from its absorption with political symbols and selectively perceived meanings of varied cultural interests. Some faculty sense a major transformation in the way the university and its culture are produced and arranged. The social sciences and humanities have the potential for coping with the current paradoxes.This paper is a revision of the presidential address delivered in Boston at the 1993 annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society.     

Argumentation theory and GM foods

The European debate around genetically modified foods was one of the most sustained and ardent public discussions in the late 1990s. Concerns about risks to human health and the environment were voiced alongside claims that healthier foods can be produced more efficiently and in a more environmentally friendly manner using the new technology. The aims of this paper are (1) to test the usefulness of Stephen Toulmins argumentation model for the analysis of public debates almost 50 years after it was first introduced, and (2) to establish whether any of the parties in the genetically modified (GM) food debate used seriously flawed argumentation. The paper argues that Stephen Toulmins argumentation model can be useful in three ways when analysing public debates. Firstly, incomplete or flawed claims can be defeated by exposing missing or mismatching argumentation elements; all examined arguments in the GM debate were well formulated. Secondly, weaknesses in argumentation can be identified by making explicit warrants and backing; in the GM case, this allowed the identification of points of attack for counter-argumentation. Thirdly, analysing the type of backing used, allows inferences about the persuasion approach taken. The industrialists employed ethical principles as their backing much more than the scientists and environmentalists, a surprising result.

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THE MYTH OF THE UNFEELING STRATEGIC THERAPIST

This paper explores what the authors consider to be a widespread myth: that strategic therapists ignore, avoid, or neglect client feelings in treatment. This myth is promulgated by trainers' admonitions and strategic theorists' injunctions against dealing with client affect. It is also cultivated by omission of this topic in the strategic literature. The myth is destructive in that it misrepresents what strategic practitioners actually do in a therapy session. Seven elements of the myth are delineated and the corresponding fallacies are illustrated.     

Lessons from the past,directions for the future

The authors provide a retrospective look at time use research since the turn of the century by identifying shortcomings in previous attempts at measuring time allocation patterns and in the models used to examine time use by individuals and households. Suggestions are offered for improving measurement in future empirical work. Fruitful areas for future time use research are identified.Her research interests include family time use, consumer decision making, adoption, and family policy.His research interests include parental child care and the effects of technical change on time use patterns.Her research interests include valuation of unpaid work in national income accounts.Her research interests include family time use and patterns in time use.     

The clubhouse model: An outcome study on attendance,work attainment and status,and hospitalization recidivism

The purpose of this outcome study is to assess the effectiveness of one clubhouse program model, Connections Clubhouse. The study was conducted on 117 randomly selected members attending Connections Clubhouse from January 1998 to June 1999. The study examines the effect of attendance rates on members' employment attainment and status, and on rate of hospitalization recidivism. Rate of hospitalization recidivism was conceptualized as the difference between number of hospitalizations after enrollment and before enrollment in the program. It is hypothesized that adult psychiatric patients, with a high rate of attendance at Connections Clubhouse, will demonstrate (a) a high rate of employment attainment and more advanced employment status; and (b) a low rate of hospitalization recidivism as compared to those with a low attendance rate. As hypothesized, the proportion of members with a high rate of attendance with no employment of any kind was significantly lower than the proportion of members with a low rate of attendance. Though less pronounced, the proportion of members with a high rate of attendance holding a more advanced employment status was significantly higher than the proportion of members with a low rate of attendance. As expected, the recidivism rate of members with a high rate of attendance was significantly lower than for members with a low rate of attendance.     

Human capital,time use,and other family behavior

Human capital theory is recommended as a fertile theory to explain many aspects of family time use behavior. Some examples are given of the potential usefulness of the concepts of general and specific human capital. Investment of parental time in children is urged as a fruitful area of time use research.The criticisms of this article by my colleagues Rosemary Avery, Dean Lillard, and Dan Mont improved it materially. The views expressed are mine and not theirs, as they so ably pointed out, and I retain responsibility for them.Dr. Bryant's research interests include the consumption, investment and time use behavior of families and family members.     

IS THERE MORE TO COUNTING THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE? COMMENT ON SNYDER AND RICE

Snhyder and Rice (1994) comment that Shortz, Worthington, McCullough, DeVries, and Morrow (1994) failed to use sophisticated methods in their identification of prolific authors, institutions, and journals within the field of mari-tal therapy. This article is a response to Snyder and rice. We argue that Snyder and Rice's suggested methods emphasize a different research question that ouroriginal question, We investigated productivity of authous and institutions, not im-pact of scholars on the fiels of marital therapy. furthermore, we demonstrate that the results obtained from Snyder and Rice's suggested methodologies are nor appreciably different from our original results.