Job‐change and age: The experience of administrators in colleges and universities

Job‐change is widely regarded as the primary means of career advancement for professionals in bureaucratic organizations. However, while the relationship between mobility and age has been suggested, age differences, when they have been recognized at all, have been variously interpreted, but rarely related to organizational selection and career cycles.

In this paper we explore the relationship between job‐change and age for one kind of professional employed in bureaucratic organizations–academic administrators in colleges and universities. This is accomplished by determining job‐change rates for administrators in different age cohorts as a function of type of position held and gender. Analyzing mail questionnaires from academic administrators in one state, the research also tests the efficiency‐motivation model of mobility which suggests that job‐change serves two diverse and possibly conflicting functions of meeting an organization's need to select and advance persons to perform necessary tasks as well as serving as an important source of employee motivation. The results indicate the presence of several patterns of job‐change and suggest that the theory, with some modifications, offers a framework for conceptualizing and analyzing academic administrator mobility.     

Ideals and realities: Renaissance state communication in Machiavelli's The Prince and More's Utopia

Communication plays very different parts in two of the most influential political works of the last 500 years, The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) and Utopia by Sir Thomas More (1478–1535). The contrasts between More's carefully controlled and Machiavelli's unconstrained political communication shed light on the communication issues and practices of their times, some of which may still figure in relations between state and citizen.     

The determinants and effects of right-to-work laws: A review of the recent literature

I review the recent literature on the determinants and effects of right-to-work (RTW) laws. The focus is primarily on the econometric studies published since the early 1980s. Five major areas of impact are assessed: unionization, free riding, union organizing activities and successes in NLRB elections, wage structure, and state industrial development. While individual findings are quite sensitive to model specification, the accumulated evidence indicates that RTW laws have at least a significant short-run impact on all of these areas except perhaps wages.     

Sampling from a Discrete Distribution While Preserving Monotonicity

This article describes a cutpoint sampling method for efficiently sampling from an n-point discrete distribution that preserves the monotone relationship between a uniform deviate and the random variate it generates. This property is useful for developing a sampling plan to reduce variance in a Monte Carlo or simulation study. The expected number of comparisons with this method is derived and shown to be bounded above by (m + n ?1)/n, where m denotes the number of cut-points. The alias sampling method, which is regarded as the most efficient table sampling technique, generally lacks the monotone property and requires 2n storage locations, whereas the proposed cutpoint sampling method requires m + n storage locations. The article describes two modifications for cases in which n is large and possibly infinite. It is shown that circumstances arise in which the cutpoint method requires fewer comparisons on average than the alias method does for exactly the same space requirement. The article also describes an algorithm to implement the proposed method.     

The Transgenerational Consequences of Discrimination on African‐American Health Outcomes

Disparities in African American health remain pervasive and persist ransgenerationally. There is a growing consensus that both structural and interpersonal racial discrimination are key mechanisms affecting African American health. The Biopsychosocial Model of Racism as a Stressor posits that the persistent stress of experiencing discrimination take a physical toll on the health of African Americans and is ultimately manifested in the onset of illness. However, the degree to which the health consequences of racism and discrimination can be passed down from one generation to the next is an important avenue of exploration. In this review, we discuss and link literature across disciplines demonstrating the harmful impact of racism on African American physical health and the health of their offspring.     

Voicing Gay Women's Liberation: Judy Grahn and the Shaping of Lesbian Feminism

A closer look at the rich world of California feminisms demonstrates how Judy Grahn served as a central figure in bay area feminism, working to establish and support lesbian activist organizations, feminist publications, women's cultural events, and more. Two of Grahn's early political writings consider how lesbians sat at the nexus of homophobia and sexism. These writings demonstrate the formative role played by San Francisco lesbians in reframing ideas about “women-loving women” and the intersections of gender and sexuality in creating the oppressions faced by all women.     

Dialect contact and distinctiveness: The social meaning of language variation in an island community

In this paper, we analyse linguistic variables which are well‐established in British English, the vowels in the trap and bath lexical sets. We demonstrate that the social meanings of these variables are both historically substantiated and locally‐elaborated. Our data is taken from the speech of individuals living on the Isles of Scilly, a group of islands off the south‐west coast of England. Our initial analysis shows that trap and bath variants found on the islands are linked to contact with Standard English English, on the one hand, and the nearest neighbouring variety of Cornish English, on the other. The general distribution of variants is shown to reflect educational differences amongst our speakers. However, two case studies show speakers using forms atypical of their education type in order to position themselves in interactionally‐dynamic ways. This reveals how speakers exploit the multidimensional meanings of linguistic variants to reflect and construct local practices and alignments.     

Older Professional Women's Views on Work: A Qualitative Analysis

This qualitative study reports on the career experiences of older professional women using consensual qualitative research. Thirteen women over age 50 were interviewed regarding the influences of gender and age on work. In general, all participants reported career adaptability, and many participants also reported specific subthemes of career adaptability (i.e., concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) as resources. These subthemes denote participants' future orientation, self‐discipline as evidenced by their conscientiousness in career decisions, active information seeking, and certitude that they have the ability to solve career‐related problems. Relationships with colleagues were also considered critical, and participants acknowledged the benefits and drawbacks of being a woman and being older. These women were able to achieve flexibility and autonomy in their work and spoke about the importance of work–family balance and boundaries. Practitioners are encouraged to consider how career adaptability is manifested within the interplay between gender and age, because this can influence career counseling with older women.