Will 1990 mark the end of the will to work—or the right to manage?

The environment of the 1980s is not likely to be as comfortable as the 1970s. The combination of new technology, new economics and new social forces is likely to trigger a drastic drop in the number of jobs as well. At the same time, our education systems, the media and every other element affecting people's expectations seem to be combining to foster something that might be called the ‘more syndrome’—people demand more pay, more secure jobs, more amenities and more control over their working lives—but appear unwilling to commit themselves, to exhibit loyalty to an employer, or even to move in search of work. The challenge is international, the goal must be convergence between social policies, between the expectations and the realities, between the new technology and the new values. The end of the decade is likely to see the end of the work ethic and the beginning of the real post-industrial society.     

Residency training and the later use of marital and family therapy in psychiatric practice

Marital and family therapy training during psychiatry residency was compared to later use, in practice, for 87 psychiatrists. Respondents reported modest to minimal amounts of training in residency but practiced marital and family therapy with a variety of problems, identified a spread of effect to other treatment modalities, and preferred marital and family therapy second only to individual therapy. These results suggest a trend towards incorporating marital and family therapy into psychiatry and also indicate levels of training which must be exceeded in order to achieve basic competency.     

The F Word: College Students' Definitions of a Feminist

Research indicates that most people espouse feminist ideologies, yet very few self-identify as feminists. This article examines the discrepancy between agreement with feminist principles and lack of identification with feminism by analyzing 270 female and male college students' definitions of feminists. We explored similarities and differences in definitions provided by self-identified feminists and nonfeminists. The results indicate that feminists and nonfeminists are equally likely to define a feminist as one who actively promotes gender equality in society and, less commonly, rejects traditional gender roles and burns bras. Feminists were more likely to define a feminist as one who supports gender equality, is female, and has positive personal characteristics. Nonfeminists were more likely to define a feminist as one who supports female superiority, dislikes men, discriminates based on gender, has negative personal characteristics, and is lesbian or butch. These results are discussed in the broader contexts of feminist identity and movement mobilization.     

Meeting the training needs of GP registrars in child abuse and neglect

A questionnaire survey undertaken among general practitioner registrars in North Thames in 1998 revealed significant deficiencies in their child protection training. A minority expressed confidence at the prospect of dealing with child protection cases in the future. A new, interactive training package was subsequently developed and delivered to a sample of GP registrars in Northeast Thames in 1999. Preliminary evaluation confirmed that the new training material was sensitive to the needs of recipients and levels of perceived confidence with participation in child protection work were increased. Further work is needed to develop the package and to oversee its successful incorporation into general practitioner vocational training. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exotic dancers in an awkward negotiation: Implications for affect control theory

We use affect control theory (ACT) to test the veracity of mathematically derived predictions that an exotic dancer will act in ways that are consistent with societal expectations for her “deviant” label. We also explore the strategies that exotic dancers use to maintain the definition of the situation. Our findings indicate that exotic dancers do not define their own identities as predicted. Our data also demonstrate that participants in our study were at least as likely to manage the identities of others as they were their own identities. We conclude our paper by discussing our interpretations of the data and the veracity of ACT.     

The Interaction of Race and Gender: Changing Gender‐Role Attitudes, 1974–2006*

Objective. The purpose of this article is to assess over‐time trends in the interactive effects of gender and race on attitudes toward the changing roles of women in U.S. society. Methods. This article uses data from the 1974–2006 General Social Survey. Gender‐role attitudes are measured using two composite indices of traditionalism. Results. We find black females tend to hold less traditional gender‐role attitudes than their black male, white male, and white female counterparts. Black and white males tend to hold similar attitudes toward women entering politics, but differ significantly in their attitudes toward women working outside the home and its impact on children. Assessing over‐time trends, we find the difference between black females and the other social groups to be generally diminishing. This convergence is more pronounced for white and black females. The difference in attitudes toward women entering politics between black females and white males, on the other hand, appears to be maintaining over time. Conclusions. These findings support the idea that the labor force participation for women may have provided the groundwork for the evolution of attitudes for men and women. As white women in particular increase participation in the workforce, ideologies regarding the place of women in U.S. society have shifted.     

The issue of consent in research that administers drugs of addiction to addicted persons

In addiction, impaired control over drug use raises questions about the capacity of addicted persons to consent to participate in research studies in which they are given their drug of addiction. We review the case for doing such research, and the arguments that addiction does, and does not, prevent addicted persons from consenting to such research. We argue for a more nuanced view that acknowledges that while in some situations addiction impairs decision-making capacity, it does not eliminate such capacity. We conclude with some suggestions for recruiting addicted subjects and designing experiments in ways to obtain free and informed consent.     

MODELS FOR GENERALIZED LOCATION SYSTEMS

A formal framework is introduced for a general class of assignment systems that can be used to characterize a range of social phenomena. An exponential family of distributions is developed for modeling such systems, allowing for the incorporation of both attributional and relational covariates. Methods are shown for simulation and inference using the location system model. Two illustrative applications (occupational stratification and residential settlement patterns) are presented, and simulation is employed to show the behavior of the location system model in each case; a third application, involving occupancy of positions within an organization, is used to demonstrate inference for the location system. By leveraging established results in the fields of social network analysis, spatial statistics, and statistical mechanics, it is argued that sociologists can model complex social systems without sacrificing inferential tractability.