Can We Promote Child Well‐Being by Promoting Marriage?

This article uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort Mother‐Child files to explore the idea that child well‐being can be improved by encouraging and enhancing parental marriage. I consider how children’s living arrangements, the stability of parental marriages, and changes in living arrangements are related to children’s behavior and cognitive test scores. Although there is some evidence that children living with their married parents, even parents in unstable marriages, have better outcomes than children living in certain nonmarital arrangements, the findings vary across domains and specifications, and the effect sizes are generally small. Thus, any benefits of policies aimed improving child well‐being by encouraging and enhancing parental marriage are likely to be modest at best.     

To Farm or Not to Farm: Rural Dilemma in Russia and Ukraine

Abstract Employing primary data collected in the summer of 1991 in a representative survey of two farming areas in the territory of the republics of Russia and Ukraine, this study addresses the issue of the future involvement of collective and state-farm workers in private farming. Through the use of a LISREL model, it is argued that those who have been involved in small-scale private farming show no interest in expanding their farm operations or in buying or leasing additional land for farming. Moreover, it is maintained that those who intend to become farmers in privately owned and operated farms are more likely to be young, educated, and to some extent, ideologically committed to the free market system. A combination of structural constraints and a lack of knowledge regarding what to expect in the future can be viewed as possible explanations of the answers provided by respondents.     

TREATMENT ACCEPTABILITY OF ALTERNATIVE MARITAL THERAPIES: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Client acceptability of treatment procedures has recently become a significant concern in the assessment of psychotherapeutic effectiveness (Kazdin, French & Sherick, 1981; Wolf, 1978). Formally, acceptability refers to the fairness, appropriateness and intrusiveness of the treatment procedure as judged by clients, lay persons and nonprofessionals (Kazdin, 1980a). Unfortunately, marital and family therapists have yet to utilize this criterion in an evaluation of their psychotherapeutic interventions. Consequently, the purpose of the present investigation was to examine the acceptability of four differing therapeutic models (psychoanalytic, behavioral, systems and eclectic) used in the treatment of marital discord.     

Farm Structure and Economic Well-Being: A Look at Three Methodological Sins

Abstract Sociologists have increasingly turned to secondary data sources to study social and economic change. As our experience in this area increases, so should our methodological rigor. Three common methodological sins—model mis-specification, inattention to regional influences, and fuzzy operationalizations—are illustrated through a critique of Barnes and Blevins' (1992) study of farm structure and economic well-being in nonmetropolitan areas. This paper argues, and demonstrates empirically, that many of Barnes and Blevins' conclusions are suspect because they did not include ethnic and regional variables in their regression studies.     

UPPER BOUNDS FOR THE HARMONIC MEAN, WITH AN APPLICATION TO EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

For positive-valued random variables, the paper provides a sequence of upper bounds for the harmonic mean, the ith of these bounds being exact if and only if the random variable is essentially i-valued. Sufficient conditions for the convergence of the bounds to the harmonic mean are given. The bounds have a number of applications, particularly in experimental design where they may be used to check how close a given design is to A-optimality     

Personal Acts1

Personal acts, whether carried on alone or with others, are amenable to the same mode of analysis as joint actions. They are concerted. This article deals with six dimensions of the orchestration of such concerts—self, role and role-taking, personal appearace, situations, out-of-awareness contexts, and symbols. Comments are made and questions raised about these dimensions that are not often made or raised in the literature of symbolic interaction. A rudimentary paradigm has been established which needs further systematizarjon and specification but may well guide future research even in its present state.     

Young, Gifted and Disabled: Entering the Employment Market

This article identifies the way systems and services are designed to help disabled people simply act to increase dependency. It argues that unless service provision is based upon our needs as we interpret them then we will continue to be excluded from the labour market. It is the summary of presentation given Simon Brisenden at an employment conference organised by Southampton Centre for Independent Living.