Fertility Behavior and Interspousal Authority Relationships

Abstract

The most important issue which surrounds attitude theory today is the so called “consistency issue.” It is an issue which focuses on the failure of attitude theory and research to demonstrate the kind of causal relationship between attitudes and behavior which has been traditionally asserted in the logical underpinnings of that theory.

For some time, the critics of attitude theory and research have suggested that the inconsistency between attitudes and acts would not be reduced until attitudes were rooted in the social process within which human behavior occurs. This criticism has been responded to by contemporary attitude specialists who have made notable modifications in theory and research to take account of social variables which influence the assumed relationship between attitudes and behavior.

However, some of the criticisms of attitude theory have gone beyond pointing out the lack of a “socialized” conception of the problem to attack the logical underpinnings of the entire enterprise. While this paper is not a renewal of these criticisms of attitude theory, it is an attempt to identify and explicate a conception of attitudes which is a true sociological alternative to more traditional psychological conceptions.     

The social capital and mental health of long-term social assistance recipients in Norway

Previous findings have generally demonstrated the positive mental health benefits of social capital. However, the mental health benefits of social capital for social assistance recipients have not been fully demonstrated. This study analyses the mental health benefits of individual-level bonding and individual-level bridging social capital for 551 Norwegian longer-term social assistance recipients. The findings demonstrate that bonding social capital, i.e. contacts with friends and access to social resources, are positively associated with mental health. Of the variables in the study that relate to bridging social capital, social trust and trust towards the social worker particularly show significant associations for mental health. Consequently, it is important that the mental health benefits of various forms of bonding and bridging social capital are acknowledged within social work practices and that social work practitioners actively aim to increase social trust in longer-term social assistance recipients.     

Moving beyond ‘diversity’ to ‘social justice’: the challenge to re‐conceptualize multicultural education

This is a study of teachers’ conceptualizations of multicultural education (MCE) and their implications for practice in both schools and university courses. Through survey and interview data, the results reveal that teachers associated multicultural education with demographic diversity rather than with social justice, strategies for instruction rather than with theory, and that patterns of communication within the school precluded school‐wide implementation of multicultural education. The implications for bridging the gap between university courses grounded in social justice and school practice are explored.     

The place of odds ratios in the study of place,race and differential occupational opportunities

Demography - During the last few decades the study of racial differences in occupational and economic attainment has progressed rapidly, both in terms of theory and research. The ecological study...     

Industrial shifts,female employment,and occupational differentiation: a dynamic model for American cities, 1960–1970

Sex-linked occupational differentiation has been seen as influenced by both the industrial structure of the economy and the sex composition of the labor force. Here, with a sample of 70 SMSAs, it was found (a) that the odds of men relative to women of joining professional and managerial occupations increased between 1960 and 1970, and (b) that this increase was dependent on the growth of tertiary industries and the greater number of women joining the cash economy. The observed effect of industrial shifts on sex-occupational differentiation, however, is argued to be a spurious consequence of the gender-composition of the work force. Specifically, the development of tertiary industries generates greater demand for female labor. Intensive recruitment of women to the labor force in turn increases occupational differentiation because females, in sex-typed labor markets, are likely to be channeled in disproportionate numbers away from upper-status occupations. The findings demonstrate that traditional modernization theory is unable to account for this. However, the results lend support to expectations derived from a labor market sex-segmentation approach.     

Differentials in divorce in maryland

The basic data needed for measurement of the risks of termination of the legal relationship of marriage by characteristics of the marital partners are not available at this time for the United States because the national divorce registration area includes less than half the States. Special studies based on selected census data or the records of marriages and divorces occurring in one State or community have provided much of the valuable but limited information at hand. Statistics for individual States are subject to substantial bias as a consequence of inter-State migration between time of marriage and time of divorce, but they must serve as a basic data source until national reporting has improved. A record linkage study was undertaken which tied marriages occurring in the State of Maryland in 1959 with divorces occurring in the State in the years 1959–66. Relative, not actual, divorce risks by race, age at marriage, and previous marital status were calculated for couples with at least one partner an in-State resident at the time of marriage. The dissolution rate was higher for whites than for nonwhites. Marriages contracted by persons at very youthful ages and by persons who had been married previously were found subject to greater than average risks of dissolution through divorce.