Evaluating Scholarship Productivity in COAMFTE-Accredited PhD Programs

Due to an increasing trend among states to cut higher education funds, many universities are relying more on private donations and federal funding to keep programs afloat. Scholarship productivity in general has become an integral factor in terms of universities granting tenure to faculty, allocating resources, and supporting program goals due to the fact that more research in a particular area tends to increase the likelihood that one will obtain funding from federal, state, and private sources. In the past, ranking systems have also been used to evaluate programs. However, most ranking systems use methodologies that do not quantify research productivity or evaluate factors that match current university trends. The purpose of this article is to explore current scholarship productivity trends among COAMFTE-accredited doctoral programs through the use of several evaluation methods. Specifically, productivity was examined in regard to the following areas: (a) family therapy journal publications; (b) family science journal publications; (c) historic journal publication trends; and (d) recent journal publication trends.     

Strategic Role Taking and Political Struggle: Bearing Witness to the Iraq War

U.S. and Canadian peace activists traveled to Iraq as a social movement tactic, in the buildup to the war and during the war itself, in an attempt to sustain or increase peace activism at home. Based on interviews with fourteen peace activists, this study analyzes how the presence of antiwar activists in Iraq serves two social movement goals. First, their presence in Iraq bestowed activists increased access to media, bolstering their ability to reframe the war within mainstream media accounts. Second, by traveling to Iraq, activists furnished themselves with stories of the hardships and suffering of war to share with audiences at home. By retelling these narratives, activists provide opportunities and obligations for audience members to imaginatively take the role of Iraqi civilians, in the hope that audience members will practice moral reasoning and be consequently moved to act against the war. To provide these role‐taking opportunities, peace activists must also engage in a political struggle over “otherhood” by countering official attempts to dehumanize Iraqis.     

Adolescents Exiting Homelessness Over Two Years: The Risk Amplification and Abatement Model

The Risk Amplification and Abatement Model (RAAM) demonstrates that negative contact with socializing agents amplify risk, while positive contact abates risk for homeless adolescents. To test this model, the likelihood of exiting homelessness and returning to familial housing at 2 years and stably exiting over time are examined with longitudinal data collected from 183 newly homeless adolescents followed over 2 years in Los Angeles, CA. In support of RAAM, unadjusted odds of exiting at 2 years and stably exiting over 2 years revealed that engagement with prosocial peers, maternal social support, and continued school attendance all promoted exiting behaviors. Simultaneously, exposure to family violence and reliance on shelter services discouraged stably exiting behaviors. Implications for family‐based interventions are proposed.     

Media,Politics and Climate Change: Towards a New Research Agenda

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and the media have been demonstrated to play a key role in shaping public perceptions and policy agendas. Journalists are faced with multiple challenges in covering this complex field. This article provides an overview of existing research on the media framing of climate change, highlighting major research themes and assessing future potential research developments. It argues that analysis of the reporting of climate science must be placed in the wider context of the growing concentration and globalization of news media ownership, and an increasingly ‘promotional culture’, highlighted by the rapid rise of the public relations industry in recent years and claims‐makers who employ increasingly sophisticated media strategies. Future research will need to examine in‐depth the targeting of media by a range of actors, as well as unravel complex information flows across countries as media increasingly converge.     

A Consistency Test for AHP Decision Makers

Saaty's analytic hierarchy process assessed attribute importance by soliciting decision makers' (DM) importance ratios to compute weights. Saaty suggested a decision rule for accepting DM judgments based on a consistency measure derived from the DM's importance ratios. This paper investigates the distribution of random inconsistency and decision rule implications. Stricter consistency requirements for three- and four-attribute criteria matrices are suggested.     

阶级分析的三种逻辑与中产阶级研究

本文着重探讨阶级分析的不同传统所强调的三类因果过程:首先是对个体生活有着显著影响的不平等的生活条件相关联的机制;其次是与各种社会封闭形式(forms of socialclosure)有关的机制,社会封闭使得某些个人或群体通过排斥他人而享有获取资源和机会的优势;第三是与个人或群体通过控制他人活动而受益的方式有关的机制。这三类机制可分别称作:基于个人属性和生活条件的阶级划分机制、基于机会阻隔(opportunity-hoarding)的阶级划分机制和基于支配、剥削关系的阶级划分机制。对于中产阶级的分析可以联系上述三种机制进行理解:中产阶级在不平等的生活条件分布中占据中间位置;他们受益于劳动力市场中的机会阻隔,特别是通过技能认证和资格审查制度得以实现;他们在支配和剥削他人劳动的同时自身又受到支配和剥削。     

Likelihood estimation for stochastic compartmental models using Markov chain methods

This paper presents a method for estimating likelihood ratios for stochastic compartment models when only times of removals from a population are observed. The technique operates by embedding the models in a composite model parameterised by an integer k which identifies a switching time when dynamics change from one model to the other. Likelihood ratios can then be estimated from the posterior density of k using Markov chain methods. The techniques are illustrated by a simulation study involving an immigration-death model and validated using analytic results derived for this case. They are also applied to compare the fit of stochastic epidemic models to historical data on a smallpox epidemic. In addition to estimating likelihood ratios, the method can be used for direct estimation of likelihoods by selecting one of the models in the comparison to have a known likelihood for the observations. Some general properties of the likelihoods typically arising in this scenario, and their implications for inference, are illustrated and discussed.     

WOrkers for Australia: a profile of british and Irish migrants assisted to New South Wales in 1841

Convict transportation to New South Wales was terminated in 1841. It was swiftly replaced by a new population stock in the form of the greatest Australian immigration before the gold rushes. This profile of 20,000 British and Irish assisted migrants, based on individual-level data, establishes their age, sex, religious, educational and occupational characteristics. Their composition differed markedly from the existing colonial population and other migrant flows at the time. They reflected the recruiting methods of the time as well as the changing migration propensities in the British Isles. The migrants were better human capital than was acknowledged at the time. They constituted a new start in Australian demographic development. This reconstruction of the socio-economic characteristics of the 1841 migrants provides a new mid-century benchmark for systematic comparisons with other migrant populations, within and beyond Australia, and in other periods. It is a contribution to the quantitative study of colonial society.