Women and the Wild: Gender Socialization in Wilderness Recreation Advertising

Women are underrepresented in wilderness recreation despite the numerous benefits such activities provide to mental, physical, and emotional health. Several theories have been proposed linking women??s beliefs about their competence in outdoor spaces, fears of victimization, and concerns over retaining femininity to their lack of participation. We explore media representations of wilderness recreation as a possible agent in the gender socialization process that dissuades women from participation. Through analyzing advertisements from the 42 issues of Backpacker and Outside magazines published in 2008 and 2009 we find that, when women are shown, they are portrayed as having limited and passive roles in wilderness recreation. These advertisements also use the setting to reinforce traditional gender arrangements and paint women as consumers rather than conquerors of the wild. When women are shown as active participants in wilderness recreation, their physical accomplishments are often either downplayed or depicted as the endeavors of ??unique?? women who require feminization.     

UK Privatization: Its Impact on Procurement

This study is concerned with changes in procurement and supply chain management in UK privatized companies. In most cases, privatization requires the organization to develop a completely new approach. This is because of the change in ownership and the new competitive environment into which the company moves. Part of this reassessment of the business by senior management can be expected to include procurement. The paper focuses on the nature and direction of the changes in procurement associated with privatization, based on research into the privatized sector in Britain. The method adopted involves an extensive questionnaire completed by 28 major companies privatized in the UK, followed up by interviews with twelve of these companies. Questions centre on the following key areas: changes in the structure of procurement, procurement strategy, the role and profile of procurement within the company, attitudes to outsourcing and supplier performance and changes in approach to assessing the performance of the procurement function. Our results indicate extensive change. Although cost reduction is often a driver of these changes, as the companies strive to reduce costs to meet City expectations and best practice in the private sector, another consideration is the contribution that procurement can make to the overall strategy of the company, so as to gain and maintain competitive advantage.     

The Comparative Contributions of Congruence and Social Support in Career Outcomes

The authors assessed the relative contributions of social support and interest‐occupation congruence in job satisfaction and tenure. Congruence predicted 13% of the variance in job satisfaction for men, but it was not a significant predictor of job satisfaction for women. Social support accounted for 10% of the variance in job satisfaction for women but was not a significant predictor for men. Neither congruence nor social support predicted tenure. Implications for vocational counseling are discussed.     

Hispanics in Higher Education and the Texas Top 10% Law

This paper examines the consequences of changes in Hispanic college enrollment after affirmative action was banned and replaced by an admission guarantee for students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class. We use administrative data on applicants, admittees, and enrollees from the two most selective public institutions and Texas Education Agency data about high schools to evaluate whether and how application, admission, and enrollment rates changed under the three admission regimes. Despite popular claims that the top 10% law has restored diversity to Texas’s public flagships, our analyses that account for secular changes in the size of graduation cohorts show that Hispanics are more disadvantaged relative to whites under the top 10% admission regime at both University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. Simulations of Hispanics’ gains and losses at each stage of the college pipeline reveal that affirmative action is the most efficient policy to diversify college campuses, even in highly segregated states like Texas.     

Sexual-moral attitudes, love styles, and mate selection

Students at a southwestern university were surveyed to test the interrelations of three constructs: sexual-moral attitudes, love styles, and attraction criteria. Following the procedures of the National Health and Social Life Survey, from which the sexual-moral attitude items were obtained, we conducted a cluster analysis to create attitudinal groupings. We obtained four clusters representing various nuances of liberalism and conservatism. When compared on love styles, the clusters differed primarily on ludus and pragma. Not only did some of the liberal clusters differ from some of the conservative ones on love styles, but there were also some differences within liberalism and within conservatism. Cluster differences also emerged on the attraction criteria.     

Childhood abuse history,secondary traumatic stress,and child welfare workers

Social workers are exposed to trauma vicariously through the trauma of their clients. This phenomenon, called secondary traumatic stress, vicarious traumatization, or compassion fatigue, presents a risk of negative personal psychological consequences. Based on a sample of 166 child welfare workers and using standardized measures, the study findings document the link between a personal history of primary trauma, childhood abuse or neglect, and the heightened risk for secondary traumatic stress in child welfare workers.     

Grassroots sociology and the future of the discipline

It has become a truism to say that the sociological enterprise is in disarray. The sociological niche is neither self-evident nor safe. Given the problems facing sociology, it is imperative that the discipline begins to plan to protect is assets and to project its capabitlities into the twenty-first century. State sociological assocations could be major components of such a plan. The state sociological association is, however, a largely unknown entity. The present study presents the result of a survey of the officers of state assocations to determine the demographic makeup of their membership, concerns addressed by their associations and their strategies for dealing with these concerns. The findings suggest that state socioclogical associations are in an excellent position to build community in the discipline by breaking down the lines of stratification separating the organizational levels of the sociological enterprise and the different needs of our academic and applied endeavors. Both are past presidents of the North Carolina State Sociological Association. Harris is past president of the National Association of State Sociological Associations and Wise is its current president.