Reinstitutionalizing Families: Life Course Policy and Marriage in the Military

The transition to adulthood has become an increasingly telescoped process for Americans, with marital formation occurring increasingly later in the life course. It is therefore striking to find a context like the U.S. military, in which marriage rates bear an anachronistic resemblance to those of the 1950s era. Using narrative data from life history interviews with military affiliates, the authors show that the military has reinstitutionalized military families at the same time that civilian families are becoming deinstitutionalized. Structural conditions of modern military service, such as war deployment and frequent geographical relocation, have created policies that rely on families to make these conditions more bearable for military personnel. These policies are part of an overarching institutional culture that directly and indirectly promotes marriage. The authors bring together life course literatures on turning points, the welfare state, and linked lives to show how the military has reinstitutionalized families in these ways.     

Effect of Low‐Income Unmarried Fathers' Presence at Birth on Involvement

The birth of a child represents a unique window of opportunity to understand and support ongoing father involvement among low‐income unmarried parents. Using data collected as part of a randomized controlled trial of a community‐based home visiting intervention provided to 248 low‐income African American women, a propensity score matching approach was used to estimate the effect of fathers' presence at birth on multiple measures of later father involvement over the first 2 years postpartum. The results indicated that participation in child care activities is the only form of involvement predicted by presence at birth at 4 months, and none of the forms of father involvement measured were predicted at 12 months; however, presence at birth was predictive of all 7 indicators of involvement at 24 months. Engaging fathers in the birth experience may represent an important opportunity to provide services.     

Validating the Gambling Functional Assessment—Revised in a United Kingdom Sample

The gambling functional assessment-revised (GFA-R) was designed to assess whether the respondent’s gambling was maintained by positive reinforcement or escape. The present study attempted to validate the GFA-R’s psychometric properties using United Kingdom (UK) university students and to compare the results to those from a sample of American university students. Two hundred seventy four UK students completed the GFA-R, and 153 also completed the South Oaks gambling screen (SOGS). Two hundred one United States (US) university students completed both measures. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the original model of the GFA-R provided an excellent fit for the UK data and internal consistency was high. These outcomes were similar, if not superior, to those from the US sample. SOGS scores strongly correlated with GFA-R escape subscale scores in both samples, replicating previous results. These findings indicate that the GFA-R is a valid measure for use in the UK, which is potentially useful to both practitioners and researchers. They also suggest that the strong relationship between endorsing gambling as an escape and measures of disordered gambling may be ubiquitous.     

RANDOMISED RESPONSE VS. DIRECT QUESTIONING: ESTIMATING THE PREVALENCE OF ALCOHOL RELATED PROBLEMS IN A FIELD SURVEY

Fifteen hundred adults selected for a population survey from the City of Edinburgh Electoral Registers by probability sampling were allocated to randomised response interview or direct interview at random. These alternative interviewing strategies were adopted for two questions relating to attributes which might be considered stigmatising. There were no significant differences in reporting between the two methods either at aggregate or at subgroup level. The apparent failure of the randomised response method to increase estimates of the proportions with the attributes hypothesised indicates either that traditional methods are satisfactory for the collection of this sensitive information, or that randomised response was not an acceptable alternative.     

The sexuality of men and the sociology of gender

In recent years writers in the field of the sociology of gender have turned to psychoanalysis for insights into the psychological dimensions of female sexuality. The same insights are now being applied to the analysis of masculinity. This paper argues that the full advantages of this are undermined by the adoption of an object-relations perspective which restores the social determinism from which many such writers seek to escape. This argument is pursued through a detailed analysis of one recent text in the field —The Sexuality of Men (eds) A. Metcalf and M. Humphries (1985) — but is applied more widely to the treatment of sexuality in the sociology of gender.     

A world of cities

Amin , Ash and Thrift , Nigel 2002 Cities: Reimagining the Urban Cambridge : Polity Press 192 pp. £ (hardback) £ (paperback)     

Health and Social Services Planning

The authors outline joint planning between health and social services since 1974, examining the joint planning meetings of two different types. They identify certain features of small group meetings which could ease joint planning arrangements.