An extension of McGarvey’s theorem from the perspective of the plurality collective choice mechanism

In 1953, David McGarvey showed that if the number of voters is unrestricted, then the set of outputs obtained from majority rule is a very general class of binary relations. We will present an extension of McGarvey’s Theorem based on the plurality collective choice mechanism.     

Exploring Children's Perceptions of their Local Environment in Relation to Time Spent Outside

This study aims to understand how children perceive their environment, exploring the affordances children perceive to influence their physical activity (PA) behaviour when outside. Participants included boys and girls aged 10–12 years (n = 15) living in Scotland. Children's visual and verbal representations of their perceived environment were analysed to assess environmental determinants of PA. The findings suggested that physical affordances that offer a sense of risk were important to children's play spaces. Social affordances influenced where the children went in their environment and the features they utilised as part of play behaviour; strangers were considered threatening depending on whether the activity was recognised.     

Economies of scale,bulk discounts,and liquidity constraints: comparing unit value and transaction level evidence in a poor country

We examine bulk discounts, which are claimed to explain the Deaton and Paxson puzzle about household size and food demand, and which may matter to household behavior studied in other literatures. Most previous studies use unit values, which are subject to several biases and reflect economizing choices made by households, so may not reliably estimate the bulk discount schedule. Instead, individual transaction records in household expenditure diaries are used, which report expenditure, quantity, brand, unit size and number purchased per transaction. The bulk discount schedule is estimated for four foods (rice, canned meat, canned fish and chicken) that make up one-third of the total food budget in a survey in urban Papua New Guinea. For each food we use the dominant brand(s) so there is no quality variation and the estimated price schedule only reflects discounts due to variations in purchase quantity. All foods have precisely measured but small elasticities of unit price with respect to quantity purchased.     

Trauma,World Assumptions,and Coping Resources among Youthful Offenders: Social Work,Mental Health,and Criminal Justice Implications

The purpose of this study was to contribute to the extant literature by examining the relationship of traumatic and stressful life experiences among youthful offenders aged 18–24 years old. The sample included 38 youthful offenders incarcerated in the New Jersey Department of Corrections in 2008. During in-person interviews, youthful offenders completed a survey that gathered information on cumulative trauma, world assumptions, and coping resources using the Stressful Life Experiences Screening Inventory-Long Form, World Assumption Scale, and Coping Resources Inventory. A series of OLS regression analyses revealed partial support for the study hypotheses that cumulative trauma is significantly and negatively associated to youthful offenders’ basic world assumptions about the world having meaning. Opposite of what was expected, it was found that cumulative trauma was significantly and positively associated with spiritual coping resources among youthful offenders. These findings have important implications for developing and improving interdisciplinary and multi-level trauma assessment and intervention strategies with youthful offenders.     

De los Derechos Humanos: Reimagining Civics in Bilingual & Bicultural Settings

Dominant approaches to teaching social studies often marginalize bilingual and bicultural students. This is particularly troubling because the explicit goal of the social studies is to cultivate civic participation. Educational inequalities are thus tied to political inequalities. In light of this, this article shares a narrative case study of the author's own bilingual and bicultural approach to teaching middle school civics at a dual-language American school in Mexico. Through the illustration of a comparative civics curriculum that incorporates translanguaging practices, the author argues that embracing bilingualism and biculturalism in the social studies can lead to more expansive possibilities for justice-oriented civic education.     

Factors associated with hispamic teenagers' attitude toward the importance of birth control

Attitudes of 240 female Hispanic teenagers in 1984-85 in New York City toward the importance of birth control (ATIBC) are examined as a reflection of the following: demographic factors, educational aspirations, maternal characteristics, religiosity, clarity of longterm goals, and perception of friends' behavior, i.e., the degree, formation, and variation of these factors. The nonrandom sample was recruited from pregnancy prevention classes. The questionnaire was available in English or Spanish. 9 research questions were of interest including whether girls in female-headed households were more likely to be sexually active and have higher ATIBC scores, whether Catholics will have lower ATIBC scores, whether spanish preference speakers have lower ATIBC scores, whether working mothers' children, or more highly educated mothers' children were more sexually active and have higher scores, whether religiosity lowers scores, whether higher educational aspirations increases scores, whether childrens' beliefs that most of the friends use contraceptive is related to higher cores, and whether clearer longterm goals are related to higher scores. The attitude scale was based on Kirby's and Cvetkovich and Grote's work and focused on peer influence, parental attitudes, and strength of intention to use contraceptives. Other measures are identified by specific questions, i.e., clarity of longterm goals is measured by the question: I have a clear idea of where I'm headed in the future, and I know what I want out of life. The results indicated that 4 variables were significantly associated with ATIBC scores: 1) lower scores were associated with teenagers who had mothers with low education (2nd-9th grades), and 2) teenagers who spoke Spanish best; 3) perceived importance of religion was significantly related to lower ATIBC scores such that great importance was related to low scores and little importance was related to high scores; and 4) teenagers' belief about their friends' potential use of birth control was significantly related such that if 75% of friends were thought to use birth control. These 4 predictors (primary language, mother's education, importance of religion, and friends' perceived birth control use) yielded an R of .55 and and R2 = .31. The strongest single predictor is friends' perceived birth control use at 15% and mother's education at 14%.     

Managing Communication: Appropriate Behaviour in Medical Consultations

The interaction process between doctors and their patients represents a relatively infrequently explored strand of medical sociology. This paper is primarily concerned with one aspect of the attitudes and expectations which both doctors and patients bring to their interaction—the role which the patient is expected to play in the medical consultation. The data provide a detailed picture of the sorts of things which it was felt that patients should and should not do. Furthermore, the data indicate a high degree of overlap between doctors' and patients' views on what characteristics are representative of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ patients. Finally, some consideration is given to the implications of what is seen to be ‘appropriate’ behaviour in medical consultations for broader health care outcomes.