Shaping American Higher Education,Logan Wilson. Washington,D.C.: American Council on Education, 1972. 301 Pages, $8.00 Hardbound

Abstract

Social work educators seeking promotion and/or tenure must demonstrate achievement in the area of productive scholarship. Judgments are made by administrators regarding the quantity and quality of a candidate's record of publication. We surveyed deans of graduate programs to ascertain the importance of various factors in their quality assessment of a journal article or book publication. The findings are presented and discussed.     

Development of a Short-Form Scale of Public Attitudes Toward Homelessness

Nationwide, demographic changes have led to an increased awareness of the impact of cultural diversity on the delivery of medical and psychological care. Due to the over-representation of minority and socially stigmatized groups among those affected by HIV, understanding the effects of psychosocial, linguistic and cultural membership or treatment relationships is crucial. In the psychological treatment of HIV-infected patients, psychotherapists can enhance the lives of their patients and support their involvement and compliance with medical treatment planning Case studies are presented in which psychotherapy helped resolve difficulties in the medical care of three HIV-positive women that were due to cultural misunderstanding between doctors and patients.     

RATIONALITY, EVOLUTION, AND ACQUISITIVENESS

The first part of this paper discusses Alchian's classic 1950 article "Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory" and argues against the notion that it is easy to eliminate rationality from economic behavior by appealing to evolution as a substitute. The second section discusses rationality and develops a specc meaning for this term that distinguishes it from the axioms of choice found in economic theory. In the final section, I use this definition and link rationality to a behavioral propensity almost unique to the human species—acquisitiveness, concluding from this linkage that acquisitiveness can speed up the evolution of intelligence.     

Minimum wages and the wessels effect in a monopsony model

The Wessels model suggests that firms respond to increases in the minimum wage rate by decreasing the level of fringe benefits — an action which produces an inefficiency effect that lowers workers’ utility and the supply of labor. Standard models of monopsony, however, argue that wage floors prevent the exercise of market power and increase employment. I show that wage floors, even with fringe benefit curtailment, may increase employment by lowering the marginal expense of labor. Employee utility and employment will rise somewhat but not as much had the firm acted competitively in setting both wages and fringes.     

Nutrition,food security,and obesity

In “Nutrition, Food Security, and Obesity,” Harold S. Beebout, a senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., and chief information officer at the Child and Family Services Agency, District of Columbia, reviews what is known about nutrition, food security, and obesity. He relies on the following data sources: the Continuing Survey of Food Intake for Individuals (CSFII), the CPS, the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES), and state administrative data reported to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Beebout first examines the forces behind the dramatic decline in food stamp rolls, which dropped by 9.1 million (35 percent) between August 1995 and July 2000. He describes how the welfare reform law (PRWORA) restricted eligibility, particularly for able-bodied adults who have no children and who work less than twenty hours per week. He adds that many legal immigrants were disqualified under the legislation as well. But, he notes, these changes explain only about 20 percent of the food stamp decline. Most of the decline occurred among households with children, many of which still appear to be eligible for benefits.