Critical Race Theory in the US Sociology of Immigration

This article reviews the recent literature that has incorporated critical race theory to study migration. It includes a survey of the uses, approaches, and contributions of critical race theory in the field of migration. Immigration studies have historically/traditionally focused on demographic aspects of population movements, leaving virtually outside of its analysis social processes at the core of migration, like the social construction of race and citizenship. This disconnect is troubling in the current context of globalization, where specific migrant populations have become target of specific forms of violence on the basis of their racialization. Workplace raids, midnight searches, city ordinances, and changes in social services legislation, to name a few, are consistently used against specific groups to perpetuate their oppression and subordination, becoming in a sense new forms of state sponsored violence. This article begins by outlining major CRT concepts and frameworks used in legal scholarship on immigration. Next, we identify emerging themes generated by this approach by highlighting research questions and operationalization of the CRT framework. Thirdly, we highlight areas of distinction to mainstream sociology in US scholarship.     

Linear cost share equilibria and the veto power of the grand coalition

We consider pure exchange economies with finitely many private goods involving the choice of a public project. We discuss core-equivalence results in the general framework of non-Euclidean representation of the collective goods. We define a contribution scheme to capture the fraction of the total cost of providing the project that each blocking coalition is expected to cover. We show that for each given contribution scheme defined over the wider class of Aubin coalitions, the resulting core is equivalent to the corresponding linear cost share equilibria. We also characterize linear cost share equilibria in terms of the veto power of the grand coalition. It turns out that linear cost share equilibria are exactly those allocations that cannot be blocked by the grand coalition with reference to auxiliary economies with the same space of agents and modified initial endowments and cost functions. Unlike the Aubin-type equivalence and results presented in Diamantaras and Gilles (Soc Choice Welf 15:121–139, 1998), this characterization does not depend on a particular contribution scheme.     

“A lot of work needs to be done”—Service provider perspectives of mental health services available to Croatia- and Bosnia-born migrants

Research suggests that migrants have higher rates of mental health disorders but are less likely to access mental health services, which highlights both their vulnerability to mental illness and inequity in service provision. Despite being large and established culturally similar migrant cohorts in Australia, Croatians and Bosnians are invisible in mental health research. This qualitative study collected practice-based evidence from eight mental health service providers who have had direct professional contact with these communities, in order to understand how they engage with services, barriers to uptake and provide suggestions for service improvements. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes across interviews, which were then compared against Yang and Hwang's Migrant Mental Health Service Utilisation Model. The study identified unique factors specific to Croatia- and Bosnia-born migrants that impact how they engage with services, including mandated/prescribed services, religious resources, knowledge resources, referral pathways and procedures, and service provider competencies. This study will promote a better understanding of the limitations of the current mental health service offerings for Croatia- and Bosnia-born migrants, making it significant to practitioners, mental health organizations, policymakers and the general public.     

Gender differences in positive and negative self-assessments of health status in a national epidemiological study of Israeli aged

The literature in subjective health appraisals frequently notes that elderly women, more so than men, generally experience a lower quality of life in all major indicators (physical health status, functional ability, perceived income adequacy, social contacts, psychological distress, and cognitive ability). The current epidemiological study, of 1,352 reporting Israeli subjects between the ages of 75-94, was undertaken in order to obtain reliable estimates of "poor" and "excellent/good" self assessments of health in a national sample of aged; to identify the most significant correlates of "poor" and "excellent/good" assessments; and to ascertain whether the models of "poor" and "good/excellent" subjective health are different for elderly men and women. While it was found that women indeed rate their health as being poorer than men, of greater theoretical interest was the finding that the pattern of variables predicting to "poor" and "good/excellent" health are different for men and women. The findings point to the fact that the simple health self-evaluation question is not a unitary construct, but rather a complex attitudinal measure which yields different structural and conceptual results when controlling for the subjective health outcome ("poor" or "good/excellent") and when analyzing gender-dichotomized models.     

Measuring Tourist Satisfaction Through a Dual Approach: The 4Q Methodology

Tourist satisfaction is one of the key factors in determining the success of a tourist destination, since it affects behavioural intentions, such as the willingness to revisit and recommend the destination. Therefore, much research has addressed the measuring of tourist satisfaction, either eliciting positive or negative evaluations of a holiday or destination. The spread between expected positive and negative characteristics can trigger a tourist experience. And the gap between expectations and perceptions will produce a feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Expectancy-Disconfirmation Paradigm, EDP). Under these conditions, this paper adopts a dual approach, considering tourist satisfaction and dissatisfaction as two distinct constructs; it also proposes a practical methodology, termed 4Q, for measuring these constructs in the field of tourism research. Lastly, two distinct composite indicators relating to Tourist Satisfaction (TS) and Tourist Dissatisfaction (TD) are proposed, for comparing the performance of tourist destinations over space and time, and addressing marketing strategies regarding different tourist segments.

     

The integrated assessment of occupational risks in a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant

Pharmaceutical plants are usually characterized by workplaces with quality levels generally higher than in other manufactoring sectors since healthcare products need to be produced in special conditions, keeping under a strong control hygiene, chemical and biological contaminants, and giving a particular emphasis on equipment maintenance. Limited physical work load, a low rate of injuries and work related pathologies together with a high level of quality process control contribute to consider pharma work conditions as generally light and safe. In this kind of contexts risk assessment cannot be based on factors individually considered, neither work load can be essentially measured on material handling and physical effort. Risk assessment and work environment improvements, on the contrary, have to be studied by an integrated view point. The paper presents methodologies and results of the applied research project IntegrARE (INTEGRated Assessment of Risks within Ergonomics) aimed at analyzing, in a big solid forms pharmaceutical plant, three different risk categories - architectural, ergonomic and active pharmaceutical ingredients risks - in order to highlight possible interactions on workers health, safety and wellbeing. After a detailed risk situations survey, singularly analyzed by a number of ad-hoc procedures, the study presents a methodology for integrated assessment of risks, aimed at identifying and evaluating integrated effects increasing or triggering risk situations for workers.     

Does Observed Conflict Recovery Play a Role in Adolescent Dating Aggression?

In a study of conflict recovery and adolescent dating aggression, 14- to 18-year-old couples (N = 209 dyads) participated in a 1-hr observational assessment. Negative behavior was observed during conflict-evoking “hot” tasks and in a “cooldown” task. Physical and psychological dating aggression were assessed via questionnaires. Negative behavior measured in the cooldown task was not associated with dating aggression after controlling for carryover effects of negativity from the hot to cooldown tasks. Moreover, cooldown negativity moderated the associations of hot task negativity and dating aggression. Actor and partner effects were disentangled via dyadic data analyses. Given the paucity of observational studies of dating aggression, our findings are an important contribution to the literature and in need of replication and extension.     

An Integrational Framework of Organizational Moral Development,Legitimacy, and Corporate Responsibility: A Longitudinal,Intersectoral Analysis of Citizenship Reports

In this article, we outline a unique conceptual framework connecting legitimacy types (Suchman, 1995 ), theories of corporate responsibility (Brummer, 1991 ), and levels of organizational moral development based on Kohlberg's ( 1971 ) moral development stages. In addition, based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) categories, we found empirical support for our framework, by content analyzing Fortune 500 corporate citizenship reports from four different industries (i.e., chemicals, motor vehicle/auto parts, pharmaceutical, and utilities), at three data points (i.e., 2002, 2007, and 2012). Our analysis indicates that motor vehicle/auto parts and chemicals industries are at a higher developmental level, and portray moral legitimacy along with social demandingness corporate responsibility in recent years; while the pharmaceutical and utilities sectors are at a lower developmental level, showing signs of pragmatic legitimacy, alongside classical and stakeholder corporate responsibility strategies. This article contributes to the current organizational moral development literature by developing and finding empirical support of a conceptual framework of organizational moral development, legitimacy, and corporate responsibility. In particular, our findings provide a deeper understanding of the differences in moral development levels across four focal industries over a 10‐year timespan.