The Interplay of Science, Values, and Experiences Among Scientists Asked to Evaluate the Hazards of Dioxin, Radon, and Environmental Tobacco Smoke

To investigate the extent to which personal values and experiences among scientists might affect their assessment of risks from dioxin, radon, and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), we conducted an experiment through a telephone survey of 1461 epidemiologists, toxicologists, physicians, and general scientists. Each participant was read a vignette designed to reflect the mainstream scientific thinking on one of the three substances. For half of the participants (group A) the substance was named. For the other half (group B), the substance was not named but was identified only as Substance X, Y, or Z. Knowing the name of the substance had little effect on the scientists' evaluation of dioxin, although those who knew the substance to be dioxin were more likely to rate the substance as a serious environmental health hazard (51% vs. 42%, p = 0.062). For radon, those who knew the substance by name were significantly more likely to consider it an environmental health hazard than were those who knew it as substance Z (91% vs. 78%, p less than 0.001). Participants who knew they were being asked about ETS rather than substance X were significantly more likely to consider the substance an environmental health hazard (88% vs. 66%, p less than 0.001), to consider the substance a serious environmental health hazard (70% vs. 33%, p less than 0.001), to believe that background exposure required public health intervention (85% vs. 41%, p less than 0.001), and to believe that above-background exposure required public health intervention (90% vs. 74%, p less than 0.001). These findings suggest that values and experiences may be influencing health risk assessments for these substances, and indicate the need for more study of this phenomenon.     

Interest Groups and Social Movements: Self- or Public Interested? Insights from the Brazilian Third-Sector Literature

By definition, interest groups are seen as self-interested, that is, organizations established to pursue the self-interest of their members. As such, this plethora of self-interested actors has been seen largely as a negative thing, cluttering the policy process, creating unmanageable demands, and leading to iron triangles of interest group/legislative/bureaucratic networks geared toward funneling benefits to narrow groups. In contrast, social movements, nongovernmental organizations, and the like typically are seen as positive, democratizing players in public policy. This paper seeks to muddy both sides of this neat distinction by bringing the Brazilian third-sector literature and field research on scientific and professional associations in the states of Sergipe and Santa Catarina to bear on the question of the self- versus public-interested stance of third-sector groups. On the one hand, social movements can be just as self-interested as the more traditional interest groups. On the other, interest groups often act wholly in the public interest.     

Cancer premiums and latency effects: A risk tradeoff approach for valuing reductions in fatal cancer risks

Many studies estimate individuals’ values for avoiding fatality risks; however, most value-of-statistical-life studies focus on accident-related deaths. Consequently, little is known about preferences for avoiding other fatal risks, such as cancer. Cancer may engender strong feelings of dread, leading to a “cancer premium,” but cancer latency periods may have the opposite effect. Using a national survey, we elicit relative preferences for avoiding fatal cancer and auto-accident risks. We find strong preferences for avoiding cancer risks. With a 5-year latency, they are valued roughly three times greater than immediate accident risks, declining to 50% greater for a 25-year latency.

Social security in the USSR

Social security systems reflect the political and economic realities of their country. The history of the Soviet social security system lends support to this thesis. Its basic features were drawn during Stalin's forceful drive towards heavy industrialization and they remained pretty much the same over the years despite many changes, often of significant detail. It was a system financed by the state, providing earnings-related benefits to workers who fulfilled their work obligations and favouring those in the Communist Party, government and industry whose contribution was deemed to be most useful to the state and the economy. The absence of political freedom meant that open criticism of existing provisions was very difficult, while the emphasis of successive governments on defence and space exploration inevitably meant that state funds for social security suffered and with them the level and range of benefits. The collapse of the Soviet Union has resulted in widespread hardship among those relying on benefits and has created a situation where new social security systems are needed to reflect the new political and economic realities.     

Anarchism,Revolution and Reaction: Catalan Labour and the Crisis of the Spanish State, 1898–1923

The British Journal of Sociology, XXVII, no. 3, September 1976 (special issue ‘Sociology and history'), 117 (Routledge and Kegan Paul, £2.50).

Michael W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East (1977), xviii+390 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, £15.80).

T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin and F. J. Byrne (eds), A Sew History of Ireland, Vol. III, Early Modern Ireland 1534–1691 (1976), lxiii+736 (Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, £17).

Edward Shorter, The Making of the Modern Family (1976), xiv+369 (Collins, £4.50).

Dirk Blasius, Bürgerliche Gesellschaft und Kriminalität: zur Sozialgeschichte Preussens im Vormärz (1976), 203 (Vandenhoeck &; Ruprecht, Göttingen, DM 38).

Carsten Rüther, Räuber und Gauner in Deutschland: das Organisierte Bandenwesen im 18. und Frühen 19. Jahrhundert (1976), 197 (Vandenhoeck &; Ruprecht, Göttingen, no price given).

James S. Donnelly Jr, The Land and People of Nineteenth‐Century Cork: The Rural Economy and the Land Question (1975), xiv+440 (Routledge and Kegan Paul, £9.95).

Herbert G. Gutman, Work, Culture and Society in Industrializing America. Essays in American Working‐Class and Social History (1976), xiv+343 (Alfred Knopf, New York, $12.50, paperback $7).

James Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society: South Lindsey 1825–1875 (1976), xiv+353 (Oxford University Press, £12.00).

R. J. Morris, Cholera 1832 (1976), 228+vii (Croom Helm, £7.50).

Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernisation of Rural France 1870–1914 (1977), xv+615 (Chatto &; Windus, £12.00).

Stuart D. Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism 1880–1940 (1976), ix+210 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, £10.55).

Charles van Onselen, Chibaro ‐ African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1933 (1976) 326 (Pluto Press, £7.50).     

Human Rights Curricula in the Formation of a European Identity: the cases of Greece,England and France

This study involves a content analysis of the social studies curricula of England, France and Greece. The purpose of the study is to identify all direct and indirect references made to human and childrens' rights, a supranational theme, which transcends national cultures and is linked with European identity. The analysis revealed that the curriculum of Greece exceeds France and England in quantity at both direct and indirect references. The evidence at hand indicates that human rights as a transnational theme is occasionally and indirectly treated in the national curricula of the selected countries and it does not pervade all social studies subjects, neither can it be found transversally in various other subjects, especially in the case of England. Thus, the findings indicate that, as far as the curricula are concerned, the claims, policies and rhetoric about human rights articulated by politicians in the civil community of the European Union (EU) and cited in several documents, remain unsupported, since they are not fully reflected in the written curricula. It is concluded that nation states in the EU and elsewhere can no longer afford to offer students parochial pedagogy, ethnocentric and Eurocentric orientations ignoring supranational and global views, and themes such as human rights, which can mediate effectively for the formation of European and world identity.