Toward an index of gender equality

This paper develops a Gender Equality Index (GEI) that is modelled in its thinking and implementation on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The GEI was computed using annual Ontario data on seven socioeconomic indicators for the years 1975 to 1984. The analysis supports the following conclusions: (1) that it is possible to indentify a subset of indicators that have face validity as measures of relative gender equality; (2) that factor analysis is a useful means for evaluating the construct validity of gender equality; (3) that the resulting GEI reveals a strong upward trend toward gender equality in the latter half of the 1970's and the early 1980's and (4) that this trend has flattened in 1984.     

Prize Proliferation1

Recent decades have been characterized by growing numbers of awards, prizes, and honors distributed by a wide range of social worlds—prize proliferation. This article examines how claims for—and counterclaims against—establishing prizes lead to more awards being given. Unlike most constructionist analyses that explore how centralized claims‐making campaigns construct social problems, this study of prize proliferation illustrates how localized, independent social worlds can become arenas for claims, and how such largely unrelated efforts can shape broad social trends.     

IMPLICATION ANALYSIS: A PRAGMATIC PROPOSAL FOR LINKING THEORY AND DATA IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Sociology and other social sciences struggle to emulate a model of scientific evidence that is often inappropriate. Not only do social researchers encounter special limits, but they are also handicapped by a distorted and idealized picture of practices in the "hard sciences." Ironically, while often obliged to use data of lower quality, sociology employs standards for evaluating a theory that are not attained in the hard sciences. After a brief review of these obstacles, we describe a set of procedures for using empirical data to rigorously evaluate theories and hypotheses without resorting to the mimicking of hard science. The interaction between theory and evidence normally involves deriving implications from the theory (usually referred to as hypotheses) and then ascertaining how closely the empirical evidence meets these implications. The appropriateness of the implications is a key factor in the entire operation, linking as they do the data and the theory. The evaluation of a theory is no better than the theory's implications (as generated by the investigator) coupled with the quality and appropriateness of the evidence. It is our impression, however, that because this step is insufficiently addressed, there are unnecessary problems in the evaluation of theories. We use the term "Implication Analysis" to describe our efforts to review and improve current procedures.     

Method in the Madness: The Strategic Uses of Absurdity and the Unexpected in Psychotherapy

This article explores some of the uses of absurdity and the unexpected in psychotherapy. Case examples are used to ground the discussion of some key ideas that inform an understanding of how absurdity and the unexpected might serve as catalysts or primers for change in the psychotherapeutic context. Erickson's confusion technique and some ideas derived from Bateson's understanding of cybernetics also serve an explanatory purpose.     

Decision-making in the public sector- a logical model

The decision making process consists of three basic elements. These factors are goals and standards, personality, and environment. Given these three concepts, the decision maker in the public sector follows identifiable processes. Some of these processes are more valuable and yield better results than others. This work is an attempt to discuss this process after an overview of the subject and to identify a model which will facilitate the decision making procedure.     

Assessment of Cigarette Smoking and Smoking Susceptibility among Youth: Telephone Computer-Assisted Self-Interviews versus Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews

This experimental study assesses the effect of two survey methods,telephone audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (T-ACASI)and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), on self-reportsof smoking behavior and smoking susceptibility among adolescents12–17 years of age in California. In T-ACASI, participantslisten to prerecorded, computer-controlled questions and respondby pressing the keypad on a touch-tone telephone. In CATI, interviewersadminister the questions and enter responses into a computer.Prior research suggests that youth may be more likely to reportsensitive behaviors in a self-administered survey like T-ACASIcompared to an interviewer-administered survey like CATI, dueto greater perceived confidentiality. Logistic regression analyseswere conducted on unweighted data, controlling for demographicdifferences. Adjusted estimates of current smoking (past 30days) were significantly greater in T-ACASI (8.3 percent) thanCATI (4.5 percent). Smoking susceptibility (i.e., lack of afirm commitment not to smoke among those who have never smoked)was also greater in T-ACASI (45.0 percent) than CATI (34.9 percent).In both surveys, social desirability response bias was negativelyassociated with smoking, which suggests that response bias wasproblematic for both modes. Many respondents reported that aparent was present during the interview (59.4 percent in CATI;42.0 percent in T-ACASI). In both surveys, parental presencewas negatively associated with smoking, which suggests thatthis factor could also contribute to underreporting. Applicationof sample weights to the data eliminated the survey mode effects;however, the CATI current smoking estimate (9.3 percent) fromthis study was significantly less than an estimate (14.2 percent)obtained from a self-administered, school-based survey conductedthe same year on California adolescents.     

East European assimilation and (re)integration: the interwar legacies of transatlantic migration and “Russian” Orthodox conversion (1918–1939)

In the 1920s and 30s, mass conversion movements to “Russian” Orthodoxy emerged among Greek Catholics in Czechoslovakia and Poland, comprising a new chapter in a continuing saga of conversion which began in the late nineteenth century, in what was then Austria–Hungary. Pre-1914 conversion movements arose in large part due to transatlantic migration – especially return migration – between Austria–Hungary and the Americas. Americanists have generally treated the 1920s and 30s as the era when transnational migration’s impact waned owing to US immigration restrictions, while East Europeanists have minimized or ignored the impact of transnational migration upon East European regions. Interwar Catholic-to-Orthodox conversions, however, are not merely attributable to historical legacy: transatlantic migration continued to influence the dynamics of conversion as an active, contemporary force. As had been true prior to World War I, returning migrants and their families comprised the most significant constituency of the movements after the war; migrants remaining in the Americas supported the East European movements with economic and social remittances, and activists on either side of the Orthodox/Catholic divide treated the conversions as transnational phenomena. This essay analyzes the impact of transnational migration upon shifting ethnoreligious identifications, in the context of shifting social, national, and geopolitical circumstances, 1918–1939.     

Consumer racial discrimination: A reassessment of the market for baseball cards

Research on the presence of consumer racial discrimination in the baseball labor and memorabilia markets has produced contradictory empirical results. While studies of baseball salaries find no evidence of discrimination, Nardinelli and Simon (1990) and Andersen and La Croix (1991) use data from the baseball card market to show that the price that consumers pay for a card depends on the player’s race. In this paper, we reconsider the evidence of consumer discrimination in the baseball card market. Our study improves on previous research by applying more appropriate econometric methods and using a data set in which card supply is constant and incentives for speculative demand are weaker. In contradiction to the aforementioned studies, we find little evidence of racial discrimination. This result proves robust across variable specifications and econometric models. The authors thank Tyler Cowen, Kevin Grier, David Levy, Barb McKiernan, Don Palmer, Dan Sutler, and Bob Tollison for helpful suggestions on an earlier draft.