Military Brides and Refugees: Vietnamese American Wives and Shifting Links to the Military, 1980 – 2000

Since the immigration legislation of 1965, marriage to American citizens and resident aliens has been one of the primary paths for migration to the United States. Despite the rapid growth of the Asian American population over the course of the late twentieth century, Asian Americans had still reached only 3 per cent of all Americans by 2000, meaning that Asian marriage migration to the United States has been largely through marriage to non‐Asians. In this study, we look at exogamy among Vietnamese Americans using U. S. Census data (1980, 1990, and 2000) from 5 per cent PUMS sets made available through the IPUMS project. We ask: (1) What are the predictors of exogamy among Vietnamese Americans? (2) How do the rates of exogamy of Vietnamese American women compare to those of Vietnamese American men? (3) How have the predictors of exogamy and the apparent characteristics of the exogamously married changed over the decades of refugee movement from Vietnam to North America? We review data from the years 1980, 1990, and 2000. In the assimilationist view of immigration associated with the classic work of Milton M. Gordon, exogamy is the final stage of immigrant incorporation into a host country. Migration through marriage, which has become a major source of immigration to the United States since the Immigration Act of 1965, reverses this assimilationist pattern, placing marriage before immigration and incorporation, or at the earliest stages of immigration and incorporation. Our findings are relevant to understanding the specific Vietnamese experience in the United States. They highlight the continuing but declining importance of the Vietnam War in creating close connections between Vietnamese and other people in the United States, even after the war had ended. The findings also suggest how these connections changed as a result of Vietnamese mass migration to America.     

What next? Volume 1. Setting the context. Special issue of development dialogue

In 1976, the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation sponsored a symposiumresulting in the publication titled What Now? Another Developmentthat presented diverse, authoritative, critical perspectiveson the ways countries, organizations, and individuals in theindustrialized world could foster social and economic developmentin less wealthy countries, most of them in the South. The suggestionswere striking for their emphasis on large development projects,encouragement of development of civil society and democratizationof societies, and centralized interventions. The present volumeprovides a follow-up on this first effort thirty years later. One of the most striking ‘findings’ of the presentvolume is how misguided the earlier volume seems from the standpointof a similar panel of experts today. What Now? was built ona model of exporting social, political, and     

Who supports physicians in malpractice cases?

Malpractice suits have a devastating emotional impact on physicians. Learn about a unique service offered by the HealthTexas Provider Network to help doctors deal with the shock and sadness.     

Measurement of risk and protective factors for drug use and anti-social behavior among high school students in South Africa

The study sought to examine, for South African adolescents: 1) the reliability of sub-scales of the Communities that Care Youth Survey (CTC Youth Survey) of risk and protective factors for drug use and anti-social behavior; and 2) the extent to which tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use can be predicted from community, family, school, and peer-individual factors based on sub-scales of the CTC Youth Survey. On two occasions, 92 male and 31 female, Grade 8 and 11 students completed measures concerning: 1) their past month tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use; and 2) various community, family, school, and peer-individual factors. Cronbach alpha coefficients of sub-scales of the questionnaire ranged between .60 and .94. Kappa values were at least moderate (above .40) on 19 sub-scales, and on the remaining sub-scales observed agreement levels ranged between .49 and .94. Each domain predicted tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use. Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that alcohol use was most strongly accounted for by the peer domain, tobacco use by the school domain, and marijuana use by the peer and community domains. The findings support use of the CTC Youth Survey, with slight revisions, among South African high school students.     

Picture Perception in Infants: Do 9‐Month‐Olds Attempt to Grasp Objects Depicted in Photographs?

Two experiments tested the DeLoache, Pierroutsakos, Uttal, Rosengren, and Gottlieb (1998 claim that 9‐month‐old infants attempt to grasp objects depicted in photographs. In Experiment 1, 9‐month‐olds viewed an object, a photograph of the object, and 2 flat, nonpictorial displays. On average, they reached for the photograph and nonpictorial displays with their hands approximately horizontal and close to the display surfaces, but reached for the object with their hands oriented obliquely and at significantly higher heights. The infants also exhibited similar behaviors when touching the photograph and nonpictorial displays. In Experiment 2, 9‐month‐olds exhibited similar behaviors when touching a photograph of an object and a photograph of textured carpet. The results of both experiments suggest that 9‐month‐olds treat photographs of objects as 2‐dimensional surfaces and not as graspable objects.     

OBJECTIVITY: A CRUTCH AND CLUB FOR BUREAUCRATS/SUBJECTIVITY: A HAVEN FOR LOST SOULS

The objective-subjective controversy that infuses modern sociology is examined to entice fellow sociologists to reflect on the future of the sociological enterprise. The two camps subscribe to different ontologies and advocate competing epistemologies. The ontology of the objectivists is rooted in sixteenth and seventeenth century physical science; that of the subjectivists stems from the Darwinian tradition. The epistemology of the objectivists is rationalized by linking it to instrumentation and quantitative procedures of inorganic sciences; the subjectivists rationalize their procedures by invoking the naturalistic procedures of Darwin. The ontology and epistemology of the objectivists are more compatible with the bureaucratic ethos of modern academic centers than are those of the subjectivists. If sociology is to be transformed into a viable social enterprise that conducts research that will allow for the formulation of generic assertions about social life it will be necessary to formulate programs consistent with the epistemological position of the subjectivists that calls for the study of process, but accepts the epistemological implication of the objectivists' position that calls for controlled observations. Precise and elaborate analysis of artifacts (questionnaire responses and bureaucratic records) will have to be rejected in favor of more refined and sophisticated observation and analysis of social action. The intense commitments members of each camp have to their positions render such a development unlikely.