Review article: Globalization and the age of migration

Books reviewed in this article:
R. Holton, Globalization and the Nation-State
R. Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction
S. Castles and M. Miller, The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World     

Temperamental,Parental, and Contextual Contributors to Early‐emerging Internalizing Problems: A New Integrative Analysis Approach

This study evaluated a comprehensive model of factors associated with internalizing problems (IP) in early childhood, hypothesizing direct, mediated, and moderated pathways linking child temperamental inhibition, maternal overcontrol and rejection, and contextual stressors to IP. In a novel approach, three samples were integrated to form a large sample (N = 500) of Canadian children (2–6 years; M = 3.95 years; SD = .80). Items tapping into the same constructs across samples were used to create parallel measures of inhibited temperament, maternal positive, critical, and punitive parenting, maternal negative emotionality, family socioeconomic and structural stressors, and child's IP. Multiple‐groups structural equation modeling indicated that associations were invariant across samples and did not differ for boys and girls. Child inhibition, less positive and more critical parenting, maternal negative emotionality, and family socioeconomic disadvantage were found to have direct associations with IP. In addition, maternal negative emotionality was associated with IP through more critical parenting, and both maternal negative emotionality and socioeconomic stress were associated with IP through less positive parenting. Results highlight the multiple independent and cumulative risk factors for early IP and demonstrate the power of integrating data across developmental studies.     

Are simple tests of son preference useful? An evaluation using data from Vietnam

Son preference is widespread although not universal. Where it occurs it may lead to higher fertility rates. Ideally son preference should be measured in the context of a hazards or parity progression model of fertility, or a logistic model of contraceptive use. Such models require large amounts of survey data, particularly to measure the covariates. Can son preference be discerned reliably using tests which rely on more limited information? The answer is yes, based on applying eight simple tests to data from the Vietnam Living Standards Survey of 1992–93 and comparing the outcomes with the benchmark results from fuller models. Some, but not all, of the simpler tests accurately measure son preference, including estimating a simple hazards or progression parity model, the unisex sibship test, and the sibling differentials test. Received: 28 September 1995 / Accepted: 2 January 1997     

An Updated Examination of the Effects of Illegal Drug Use in the Workplace

Illegal drug use in the workplace is a pervasive and serious problem that affects the corporate world, particularly with respect to the impairment of employee communication in their occupational settings. Because of the diversity of illegal drugs that are available (e.g., stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens) to general employees in the workforce, various effects can occur on the users that can affect their communication styles and patterns. The purpose of this article is to compile, examine, and display the most recent literature and statistical data on illegal drug use in the workplace and its effects on human communication and the behavioral effects of illegal drug use on employees. This issue has received substantial attention over the past generations. More specifically, this area of inquiry has been a hot, scholarly topic in business and communication studies for the past few decades.     

Media coverage and issue visibility: State legislative responses to school bullying

Dealing with the schoolyard bully is an age-old problem; however, legislators have only recently tackled it at the state level. This study examines the adoption of anti-bullying policies from the policy diffusion and innovation perspective with an emphasis on the role of print media coverage. The study contributes to the policy diffusion literature by examining both national and local media coverage as conduits for diffusion and adds to the expanding views of the diffusion process beyond the traditional geographic proximity argument. Further, it provides the first examination of an emerging policy area important to education policy scholars. The findings show issue saliency via national media coverage drives policy adoption beyond any geographic proximity.     

Determinants of Priority for Risk Reduction: The Role of Worry

One hundred twenty-two members (experts) of the Society for Risk Analysis completed a mailed questionnaire and 150 nonexperts completed a similar questionnaire on the World Wide Web. Questions asked included those about priorities on personal and government action for risk reduction, badness of the risk, number of people affected, worry, and probabilities for self and others. Individual differences in mean desire for action were largely explained in terms of worry. Worry, in turn, was largely affected by probability judgments, which were lower for experts than for nonexperts. Differences across risks in the desire for action, within each subject, were also determined largely by worry and probability. Belief in expert knowledge about the risk increased worry and the priority for risk reduction. A second study involving 91 nonexperts (42 interviewed and 49 on the Web) replicated the main findings for nonexperts from the first study. Interviews also probed the determinants of worry, attitudes toward government versus personal control, and protective behaviors.     

New Identities

The transformation of a segment of the Hamilton working class in the space of a couple of decades—from lifestyles supported by good jobs that, given the global demand for steel, seemed certain to last forever, to week-to-week insecurity and shattered gender expectations—came about not only through structural shifts in the global economy, but through the agency of the members of steelworker families as well, all mediated by local cultural ideas and practices. This article considers how we might think about the apparently mundane, everyday actions of women as contributing to—rather than simply responding to—broader shifts. I suggest this means thinking about women's lives as entailing meaningful acts that, through continuous and combined application, gradually alter structural conditions. Sensitivity to the forms of agency that women employ requires a notion of agency that can account for different experiences and, thus, different meanings, which arise from unequal access to wealth and power. Human agency involves a cognitive process of remembering the past, engaging the present, and imagining the future as people reflect on ideas and events, make judgements, and evaluate imagined alternatives. In the distinctively human ability to incorporate imagined futures into decisions over which path to take, we can see a particularly gendered expression of agency. As women reflect on their own experiences of the past and the present, they can rarely avoid confronting gendered forms of inequality. Action rests on a capacity to imagine a future free of (the effects of) gendered inequalities. Imagination thus spurs gendered action.     

Family values and labor force participation: Ireland in international perspective

The large-scale entry of married women into the workforce has been a striking feature of the post-war period, particularly in the United States, Britain, and other Anglo-Celtic nations. Theory implies that this should happen in all developed nations. But there is a counter-example: Ireland. To discover whether this is truly an exception, we analyze data from large, representative samples of Ireland, the USA, Britain, and Australia (pooled n=8,240). We find that Irish are not especially traditional; they are especially devout, but the difference persists when this is controlled. Strikingly, the behavior of Irish immigrants is indistinguishable from other Anglo-Celts in their new societies. Thus it seems that Irish exceptionalism arises from an institutional setting uniquely hostile to women’s employment. She is currently coordinating a multi-national research project assessing the extent of ethnic discrimination in different societies. She and Jonathan Kelley are continuing their long-run international, comparative project on economic culture with special reference to inequality. He and M.D.R. Evans conduct their omnibus International Social Science Surveys, which include as their International Survey of Economic Attitudes, their Bioethics surveys, the Australian National Social Science Survey, and others. They are completing a book on time use and subjective well-being in later life. She researches intergenerational social mobility and occupational careers with special reference to gender, and also studies socio-political attitudes and their sources, particularly using International Social Survey Program data.