Is deviance “Deadℍ? The decline of a sociological research specialization

Colin Sumner has declared that the sociology of deviance as a research specialty was “dead? by 1975; later influential studies on norm-violating behavior appeared only in the specific area of criminology. We subjected this argument to empirical test through an analysis of the most-cited scholars and works in 263 textbooks, articles, and research notes appearing in the sociology of deviance from 1993 to 1999. We found some support for Sumner's claims: The majority of the most-cited scholars in devi-ance today conduct research in other areas, primarily in criminology. Furthermore, among the 31 most-cited works in our analysis, only two of 15 studies classified in the sociology of deviance appeared after 1975. We conclude with some thoughts about the factors that contribute to the rise and fall of research specializations in sociology.     

Diffusion of an Economic Development Policy Innovation: Explaining the International Spread of Casino Gambling

This study uses an event history analysis to examine the factors that lead to the adoption of casino gambling among 13 nations around the world. Specifically, measures of fiscal stress, economic development, tourism, religiosity, and income levels are tested for their relationship to national decisions to legalize casino gambling. This study found that economic development needs, as measured by general unemployment rates, were associated with the casino legalization decisions of national governments. Higher unemployment rates were more likely in the years that nations legalized casino gambling. Religiosity, measured by frequency of church attendance, was also found to be a significant barrier in legalization decisions. Measures of fiscal stress, tourism, and income levels were not found to have significant relationships with the legalization decisions. This is interesting because these factors are often cited in case studies, media reports, and the statements of politicians during legalization processes. This study points to the need for further research in several areas. Further exploration of potential explanatory variables and more appropriate measures of currently theorized factors is warranted. Another area for further research is the seeming contradictory findings of multiple statistical analyses and multiple anecdotal findings of the impacts of fiscal stress on the casino legalization decision.     

Parent and Peer Attachment in Minority Males at High Risk for Delinquency

Juvenile delinquency and high risk behaviors have been linked to disturbances in attachment. The present study examined parent and peer attachment in 67 African American males and 97 Latinos (ages 12–17, M = 14.7 ± 1.3) attending an alternative school. The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment was used to identify 3 attachment style groups: “Isolated,” “Disconnected,” and “Connected.” Controlling for age, attachment group membership predicted differences in delinquent behaviors, as did ethnicity. Further, on the Youth Self-Report of the Child Behavior Checklist, attachment group membership predicted differences in both the Internalizing and Externalizing Scales. Implications for interventions with each identified attachment group are discussed.     

Standard Errors for Elasticities: A Comparison of Bootstrap and Asymptotic Standard Errors

This article compares two methods of deriving standard errors for elasticities in a linear expenditure demand system with first-order autoregressive errors. The first is the ordinary Taylor series method and the second is Efron's bootstrap. In an example problem, these two methods yielded similar values for the standard errors, with the exception of the income elasticity standard errors, for which the asymptotic standard errors were apparently too large by a factor of two.     

A Multilevel Analysis of Hispanic Youth,Exposure to the United States,and Retail Theft

Panel data in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) provide an excellent opportunity to examine the relationship between Hispanic immigration, assimilation, and retail theft. This study examines the relationship between length of time Hispanic youth have spent in America, with the probability of stealing from a store. After controlling for traditional predictors of crime that are correlated with adolescence and immigrant status, random effects logistic regression models indicate that immigrants are less likely to steal than non-immigrants. However, calculating the marginal effects of time spent in the United States reveals that their probability increases with assimilation. Supplementary analyses specify that Hispanic youth who enter the United States within their first 5 years of age will have higher odds of engaging in retail theft. Supportive parenting and a structured home environment is a consistent protective factor in the models. Policies targeting pro-family and social identification are likely to benefit immigrant youth as they acculturate to America.     

The impact of ethnicity on attitudes toward health care reform in New Mexico

Latinos tend to have significantly lower levels of access to general and top quality medical care than do non-Latino whites, and although disparities in access to health care have diminished for all other minority groups over time, they have widened for Latinos. Given these trends, current attempts to provide universal health care at both the national and state levels across the United States have large implications for the health status of Latinos. The objective of this analysis is to determine whether Latinos have different attitudes regarding health reform than non-Latino whites. Our data are from a statewide random digit dialing telephone survey of New Mexico residents, age 18 and older, conducted in the Fall of 2007. With a Latino population of 44% and ongoing health care reform efforts by the state legislature, New Mexico is an ideal location for this analysis. After controlling for a host of individual level factors, our findings suggest that while Latinos are less likely to identify health care as a salient state issue relative to the economy and crime, they are more likely than non-Latino whites to believe affordable health care programs are important. Finally, Latinos view employers, more than government or individuals, to be responsible for expanding health care coverage.     

Orphans in Three Sahelian Countries: Exploratory Analyses from Census Data

Important investments in Africa have reduced slightly the levels child mortality but life expectancy still very low. The number of children without surviving biological parents is increasing and orphans are becoming an important social problem. Because Sahelian societies are mostly patriarchal, becoming fatherless or motherless will have different effects on the well being of the child. This paper examines the levels and trends of the survival status of the parents and then, living arrangements of orphans. We describe characteristics of these children with a special focus on education and economic activities. The paper uses the censuses from Chad, Niger and Senegal made available by the African Census Analysis Project (ACAP) held at University of Pennsylvania. These countries collected information on survival status of each biological parent to estimate adult mortality but the potential of this information for research on child well-being is rarely exploited.     

Affective and aesthetic dimensions of contemporary social movements in South West England

The paper examines contemporary social movement activity within South West England. It is argued that much social movement analysis has been too nation‐state orientated, that it has too readily framed diverse contemporary practices within a narrow, politically reductive and instrumentally rational frame. Increasingly, aesthetic and affective dimensions of everyday life must be examined if any coherent theoretical account of such activity is to be offered. Altering relations between states and their citizens in a global age and the emergence of an extended civil society are linked to a weakening of the capacity of nation states to manage identity formation. A series of excursuses link theoretical analysis of the expressive dimensions of the region's social movement activity, to these more extended global transformations.