Italy’s Path to Very Low Fertility: The Adequacy of Economic and Second Demographic Transition Theories

The deep drop of the fertility rate in Italy to among the lowest in the world challenges contemporary theories of childbearing and family building. Among high-income countries, Italy was presumed to have characteristics of family values and female labor force participation that would favor higher fertility than its European neighbors to the north. We test competing economic and cultural explanations, drawing on new nationally representative, longitudinal data to examine first union, first birth, and second birth. Our event history analysis finds some support for economic determinants of family formation and fertility, but the clear importance of regional differences and of secularization suggests that such an explanation is at best incomplete and that cultural and ideational factors must be considered.     

The Psychological and Health Consequences of Caring for a Spouse With Dementia: A Critical Comparison of Husbands and Wives

Caring for someone with dementia can be demanding, particularly for spouses living with the care recipient. The main goal of this study was to clarify differences in the experience of caregivers who were husbands and wives with respect to burden, health, healthy behaviors, presence of difficult care recipient behaviors, social supports, and the quality of the premorbid relationship. The results of this study support research demonstrating a difference between the caregiving experiences of women and men. It is becoming increasingly apparent that female gender is a marker that places them at increased risk of high burden and less support.     

An ethnographer in the global arena: globography perhaps?

In this article Hendry addresses the difficulties and apparent contradictions of applying the qualitative rigour of the ethnographic research method to fieldwork carried out in a global context. While pursuing a discourse evidently shared by people indigenous to many different parts of the world, the author reflects on why she feels the work she is doing still draws on elements of the qualitative strength of the method first developed by her own discipline of social anthropology. This subject is now somewhat unfashionable for reasons precisely associated with the discourse she is following, namely a status inequality seen as implicit in the representation of ‘other’ peoples. In the article she argues against throwing the baby out with the bathwater, however, and seeks to demonstrate how the value the ethnographic method gleaned from social anthropology offers an important contribution to understanding local aspects of global issues.     

Attitudes and Acts of Sexual Aggression on a University Campus*

There is increasing understanding of the widespread extent of men's physical sexual coercion of women in this society. In this study, we document the amount of that coercion among a sample of college students. We try to explain that coercion in terms of certain valucs (traditional sex-role conceptions that amount to an ideology of gender inequality). We also try to explain that coercion in terms of attitudes towards physical sexual coercion. For purposes of this study, we measured both females’experience as victims of sexual aggression and males’experience as perpetrators of sexual aggression. We also measured both males’and females’values regarding gender inequality and attitudes regarding sexual aggression. We found that female college students in our sample had experienced a considerable amount of sexual aggression. We also found that male and female students’values regarding gender inequality and their attitudes regarding physical sexual coercion differed widely. Finally, we found strong relationships between male students’values and attitudes and their participation in sexual aggression.     

Variations in the Over-Representation of Aboriginal Young Offenders in the Criminal Justice System

It is well publicised that Aborigines, both adult and juvenile, are over-represented in the criminal justice system. However, an examination of youth offending in South Australia during the period 1 July 1979 — 30 June 1983 has indicated that the degree of Aboriginal over-representation increases rapidly as they move up through the various stages of the system. They are least over-represented at the lowest stage, namely at the Children's Aid Panel level, and most over-represented at the sentencing stage of the Children's Court in terms of the numbers sentenced to detention in a youth training centre. This raises questions about the applicability of the juvenile section of the criminal justice system to Aborigines.     

Gangsters and wheelchairs: urban teachers’ perceptions of disability,race and gender

This investigation provides inquiry into Disability Critical Race Studies to analyze the intersecting attributes related to race, gender and disability. The application of Disability Critical Race Studies revealed the ways in which race/ethnicity and gender merge to erroneously typecast African-American men who are wheelchair users as reformed ‘gang bangers’ or ‘victims’ of neighborhood gun violence. This investigation examines urban pre-service teachers’ understandings of disability and underscores the challenging intersection of race, gender and disability within urban communities.