The Ecology of Family Guidance in Low-Income Mexican-American and European-American Families*

This two-part study applied an ecocultural perspective to socialization of daily and long-term goals in low-income Mexican-American and European-American families with children in third, fifth, and seventh grades. The first part of the study examined family members' participation and parents' socialization goals and guidance strategies for their children's daily household chores and homework activities. The second part of the study examined parents' long-term aspirations and guidance strategies for their children's educational, vocational, and moral development. For daily activities, results showed that in Mexican-American families both parents and siblings played important roles, whereas in European-American families parents were the primary socialization agents. As predicted, in both groups parents' expertise influenced their guidance strategies. Finally, Mexican-American and European-American parents differed in their relative endorsement of gender, relational, and self-reliance goals for household chores. For long-term goals, parents in both groups held high educational, vocational, and moral aspirations for their children. However, some parents of seventh-graders had lower educational and vocational aspirations than those of fifth- and third-graders. Although expertise consistently influenced Mexican-American parents' guidance strategies, the pattern for European-American parents was mixed. The discussion highlights between- and within-group differences in daily and long-term socialization practices with an emphasis on resources and vulnerabilities in the families.     

动机与第二语言习得

动机是学习第二语言成就大小的重要因素之一。很多研究实验已经证明动机在人类认知过程中起非常关键性的作用。本文打算对动机，融合性动机和功用性动机及其与第二语言习得的关系做一些探讨     

Improving on truncated linear estimates of exponential and gamma scale parameters

We consider the problem of estimating the scale parameter of an exponential or a gamma distribution under squared error loss when the scale parameter θ is known to be greater than some fixed value θ₀. Natural estimators in this setting include truncated linear functions of the sufficient statistic. Such estimators are typically inadmissible, but explicit improvements seem difficult to find. Some are presented here. A particularly interesting finding is that estimators which are admissible in the untruncated problem which take values only in the interior of the truncated parameter space are found to be inadmissible for the truncated problem.     

Leslie matrix models

A review of the Leslie matrix model theory and its literature 1941-1987 is presented. The point of view is that of a mathematician who focuses on the parts of the theory which are relevant to demography. Works of a decidedly applied nature are not dealt with.     

Policies over time and pareto optimality

This paper is concerned with sequences of policies that occur over time in voting models and planning procedures. The framework for our analysis includes assumptions that are satisfied by models in the corresponding literatures, together with other standard assumptions for microeconomic analysis that involve time. The starting point for our analyses is the prespective that results from combining the following (widely held) views: 1) certain voting models and planning procedures can be interpreted as being non-tatonnement or sequential processes (where each policy in the sequence that is generated is actually experienced by voters or consumers) and 2) an alternative being Pareto optimal in any given period (temporal Pareto optimality) is the appropriate efficiency criterion only if the alternative is the final outcome from a tatonnement process-and that, otherwise, one should examine the efficiency of the entire path (using intertemporal Pareto optimality). Our first observation about the planning literature is that is has (by and large) neglected the efficiency criterion that is appropriate for the discrete-time procedures that can be interpreted as non-tatonnement or sequential processes-and that, what's more, such trajectories will (in general) fail to meet this criterion. Our second observation identifies some results that can be used to establish that some of these trajectories will at least be ultimately intertemporally Pareto optimal. In our discussion of voting theory, we review Buchanan's opposition to requiring (social) choice consistency for voting procedures-and his argument for this position on (Pareto) efficiency grounds. We then consider voting procedures that can be interpreted as non-tatonnement or sequential processes and arrive at the conclusion that, in these cases, (i) majority rule cycles are intertemporally Pareto inefficient and (ii) achieving intertemporal Pareto optimality requires choice consistency. We then go on to show that related observations apply to Kramer's normative conclusions about his dynamical model of political equilibrium — and identify some further references where similar observations apply. In the final part of our discussion of voting models, we arrive at the further conclusion that, in the most relevant cases, a trajectory that stays in the temporal Pareto set is not necessarily more desirable (on efficiency grounds) than one that doesn't.This paper has been improved by helpful comments and suggestions that have been provided by Kenneth Arrow, an anonymous referee, and the editor who handled the paper.Peter Coughlin gratefully acknowledges financial support provided by (i) National Science Foundation Grant No. SES-8409352, and (ii) the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford (with support from National Science Foundation Grant No. BNS-8700864 and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation).     

A review of research on the happiness measures: A sixty second index of happiness and mental health

Eighteen years of research using the Happiness Measures (HM) is reviewed in relation to the general progress of well-being measurement efforts. The accumulated findings on this remarkably quick instrument, show good reliability, exceptional stability, and a record of convergent, construct, and discriminative validity unparalleled in the field. Because of this, the HM is offered as a potential touchstone of measurement consistency in a field which generally lacks it.     

Parents and patients: Members of an interdisciplinary team on an adolescent inpatient unit

In a six-year study on a locked psychiatric hospital unit for adolescents, first patients and then their families became integrated into the interdisciplinary treatment team. The results were universally beneficial. After initial resistance and some fine tuning of their skills, the staff became strong supporters of the program. Parents, no longer one down, developed a close working relationship with the therapists and milieu staff. Treatment planning and implementation was enriched by the interaction and dissension was minimized. Most important of all, the adolescents improved more rapidly and hospital stays were significantly shortened.     

On estimating census undercount in small areas

"Net undercount rates in the U.S. decennial census have been steadily declining over the last several censuses. Differential undercounts among race groups and geographic areas, however, appear to persist. In the following, we examine and compare several methodologies for providing small area estimates of census coverage by constructing artificial populations. Measures of performance are also introduced to assess the various small area estimates. Synthetic estimation in combination with regression modelling provide the best results over the methods considered. Sampling error effects are also simulated. The results form the basis for determining coverage evaluation survey small area estimates of the 1900 decennial census."     

Age patterns of marital fertility: revising the Coale-Trussell method

"This article revises the Coale-Trussell method for analyzing data from the World Fertility Survey by proposing and testing alternative log-linear and log-multiplicative models. The models, in one form or another, represent the structural constraint underlying the Coale-Trussell method on the variation in the age pattern of human fertility. With a Poisson distribution assumption for the number of births, several parameters of the models are simultaneously estimated via maximum likelihood. It is shown that the new approach can be adopted whenever fertility limitation is compared across multiple populations or subpopulations."