Setting (on) Fire: Reply to Discussions

The author begins by turning to a recent confrontation with four men who chanted homophobic slurs in his neighborhood. He uses this experience to state some of his ideas regarding violence and the setting. Visceral belonging is considered a problem insofar as it is tethered to a setting that constitutively excludes Blackness and queerness in structurally precise ways. Intervention into the setting is theorized as a temporal movement, and the fire of such intervention is couched as a tension of opening and a willingness to burn.     

'The past, the present, but never the future': thematic representations of fostering disruption

The paper discusses some of the findings of a small-scale explor-atory research project which analysed the dynamics involved in substitute family care placements for young people, and assessed the processes demonstrated in fostering breakdowns in terms of the interactions, negotiations and adjustments between the re-spective parties over time. The paper concentrates on three core and interlocking themes: first, the perception of foster placements as 'second best'; secondly, the 'images of family life' permeating placements; and finally, the 'nature vs. nurture' debate which affected the ability of users and carers to sustain placements. These themes were selected for their significance in the development of an explanatory framework for understanding the interactional dynamics involved in placement disruption. The paper concludes with a discussion of the key implications for social work practice, considering foster carer training, sustaining placements, and part-nership arrangements between the young people, their natural families, foster carers and social work professionals.     

Member Perspectives on the Role of BDSM Communities

Bondage-discipline/Dominance-submission/sadomasochism (BDSM) is an often misunderstood and misrepresented social phenomenon warranting further discourse and study. Community-based research that engages member perspective can assist in understanding socially marginalized experiences. The current study examined the role, meaning, and function of BDSM communities from the perspective of self-identified members. Seven nominal group technique workshops were conducted representing a variety of practitioner experiences and identities. Workshops involved 48 participants and resulted in the generation of 133 unique terms describing the role of BDSM communities in their lives. Terms were coded using a five-step procedure involving both academic and community members. A total of 15 categories were identified and included domains such as acceptance, sexual expression, friendship, safety, and sharing of educational knowledge. Results underscore the multifaceted nature of the role of such communities. While results consisted of mostly positive features, participants also identified certain negative aspects, such as conflict among members. Results from the study provide a succinct, member-derived, structured inventory of the role of BDSM communities that can serve to validate and synthesize existing research, improve dissemination of community voice around BDSM, and inform future research. We conclude with a discussion of the study’s implications for sex education, clinical practice, and community dissemination.     

Differential Privacy and the Accuracy of County-Level Net Migration Estimates

Population Research and Policy Review - Each decade since the 1950s, demographers have generated high-quality net migration estimates by age, sex, and race for US counties using decennial census...     

Health conditions and job hazards: Union and nonunion jobs

Blue-collar union members are more likely than nonunion blue-collar workers to report health conditions caused by job accidents and by bad working conditions caused by noise, smoke, heat, and dust. This is consistent with blue-collar union members’ evaluation of hazardous job conditions and with their indemnity claims filing behavior for industrial injury or occupational disease. Union members are also more likely to be found in industries with higher injury rates. Age and marital status are positively associated and being female and education are negatively associated with a self-reported job related health condition. We thank Steve Zrebiec for research assistance and Bill Greene for the maximum likelihood routines. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Council on Compensation Insurance or Brigham Young University.     

Race and Job Satisfaction in the Military*

This paper questions the validity of past studies of job satisfaction for minority groups. Past studies relegate the racial issue to the initial determinant of status attainment deficiencies which indirectly influence job satisfaction. On a sample of over 9,000 military men, including almost 1,500 blacks, three questions are examined: (1) Do past findings on job satisfaction apply to the military setting? (2) Are the conditions contributing to job satisfaction for blacks qualitatively different from the conditions contributing to white job satisfaction? (3) What are the implications of the emergence of separatist attitudes among blacks for work experiences in an integrated setting? The black-white differences uncovered are traced from the historical development in race relation in America, pivoting on the intense racial experience of the 1960s. Implications for other minority groups are discussed.     

Roasting Donald Duck: Alternative Comics and Photonovels in Latin America

A corollary of dependency theory, which has enjoyed considerable popularity among social scientists in the last fifteen years, is the notion of cultural imperialism. Simply stated, the theory holds that countries with global economic dominance reinforce their hegemonic relationship with lesser developed countries through the manipulation of mass media such as television, radio, film and comic books. A number of radical critiques of Latin America mass media have appeared in response to this perceived relationship. In her article, Cornelia Butler Flora examines several Latin American comic books and photonovels which were created as alternatives to commercial controlled media forms. For example, in Chile during the short-lived presidency of Salvador Allende (1970–1973), the government publishing house Quimanto brought together artists and communications specialists to produce comic books which would serve as the socialist answer to Donald Duck andbther publications that were seen as purveyors of caplitalist values. Flora also draws on other examplles of comic books and photonovels from Mexico, Ecuador and Peru.     

ON THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF TIME AND RISK PREFERENCES: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

When explaining risk taking, intertemporal allocation, and distributing behavior, economists rely on risk, time, and other-regarding preferences but offer no guidance on how these three crucial aspects are interrelated. We report on an experiment exploring such interrelation. For this sake, we compare evaluations of several prospects, each of which allocates certain or risky and immediate or delayed payoffs to the actor and to another participant. We find that individuals are self-oriented as to social allocation of risk and delay and other-regarding with respect to expected payoffs . ( JEL C91, D63, D81)     

Stages of sexual readiness and six-month stage progression among African American pre-teens

We examined the range of sexual intentions and behaviors preceding sexual initiation among 211 African-American pre-teens assigned to the control arm of a longitudinal community-based intervention trial. Stage of sexual readiness was assessed using the stage of change construct from the Transtheoretical Model, and patterns of stage movement during a 6-month period were examined. Overall, 90% of participants were in precontemplation at baseline, with the proportion of participants in this stage declining with each year of age. There was substantial stability in stage of sexual readiness during the 6-month period (87% stable). While definitive conclusions regarding exact patterns of movement are not yet possible, stage movement does not appear to be linear for all pre-teens, and there is evidence of both stage progression and regression. We present emerging patterns of stage movement, which suggest potential variation by age, gender, and baseline stage, and discuss potential implications.