Academic Support Services and Career Decision‐Making Self‐Efficacy in Student Athletes

This study examined the relationship between evaluations of academic support services and student athletes’ career decision‐making self‐efficacy. One hundred and fifty‐eight NCAA athletes (68% male) from 11 Division I teams completed measures of satisfaction with their academic support services, career decision‐making self‐efficacy, general self‐efficacy, and locus of control. Results indicated that evaluations of academic support services were positively related to levels of career decision‐making self‐efficacy. In addition, this relationship was moderated such that student athletes with lower levels of general self‐efficacy and internal locus of control benefited more from positive experiences with academic support services. Limitations and implications are discussed.     

"Victims" and "Survivors": Emerging Vocabularies of Motive for "Battered Women Who Stay"*

This paper reviews the literature providing reasons for why battered women "stay" in abusive relationships and examines the emergence of images of battered women as "survivors" in early and contemporary activists' discourses, drawing on ideas from social constructionist approaches to social problems, identity, and deviance to explore this phenomenon. Most of the early representations of battered women I analyze emphasize their emotionality and their victimization, while the more recent constructions of this collective identity discussed here emphasize their rationality and their agency. Both "victim" and "survivor" typifications provide accounts for why battered women stay in violent relationships, thus providing a vocabulary of motive for this oft-imputed "deviance." Constructing battered women as survivors, however, may also remediate some of the stigma that can attach to victimization more generally. After situating victim and survivor discourses and considering how the image of a survivor may meet normative expectations that a victim image perhaps violates, I briefly discuss some implications of these alternate collective identities.     

USING BASEBALL CARD PRICES TO MEASURE STAR QUALITY AND MONOPSONY

Baseball card prices are used to capture star quality in a new measure of productivity in Major League Baseball. Star quality, which impacts revenues, is determined from a player's baseball card price as the residual in a fit of card prices to performance statistics. This measure is entered into the computation of individual player marginal revenue product and compared to players' salaries using data from the four years leading up to the 1994 MLB strike. Results are examined for monopsonistic exploitation by market size, free agency status, type of player, and other relevant categories. Underpaid and overpaid players are identified.     

The 'Dole or Drudgery' Dilemma: Education, the Work Ethic and Unemployment

Before the recession, Labour ministers claimed that much unemployment in the UK was voluntary. While social policy authors have repeatedly countered such claims by stressing that unemployed people generally possess a strong work ethic and employment commitment, their accounts typically neglect the role that choosiness in job search behaviour plays in deciding individuals' employment status. Fifty in‐depth interviews with both unemployed and employed respondents exposed considerable diversity in attitudes towards ‘dole’ (being unemployed and claiming unemployment benefits) and ‘drudgery’ (doing less attractive jobs). The more educated were more likely to prefer ‘dole’ to ‘drudgery’ (this was also found using National Child Development Study survey data), yet they usually found jobs despite their greater choosiness. Those with very low educational attainment often desperately wanted jobs but could not find them due to their low employability – which might offer an explanation for the often replicated (yet paradoxical) finding that unemployed people generally exhibit a strong work ethic and pro‐employment attitudes and behaviours. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the scope for many Jobseeker's Allowance claimants to increase their net income by undertaking an unattractive job is greater than social policy authors often imply. The question of ‘who must do the least attractive jobs?’ has been neglected by both social policy academics and policy‐makers.     

College students' attitudes toward shared responsibility in decisions about abortion: implications for counseling

In order to study perceptions of college males and females relating to male responsibility for abortion decisions, 274 college students (122 males and 152 females) were provided a questionnaire. Characteristics of the students were: ages 18-24, 95.6% unmarried, 86.9% white, 75% freshmen, 51% Protestants. Data reveal that students agree on shared responsibility for an abortion decision when a couple is married. About 81.8% indicated they felt an abortion decision for an unplanned pregnancy in a marriage should be made only with the complete support and agreement of the male. 54.5% agreed that both partners should share completely in the decision when a couple is engaged. Students feel less strongly about the complete involvement of the male in abortion decision making in other situations of unplanned pregnancy. 33% indicated that the male should be completely involved in the decision of a repeat abortion but only 25% felt that the male should share responsibility for an abortion when the couple is dating steadily and 20% said that the male should share in the decision when a couple is no longer in a relationship. In the situation of a single sexual encounter most females indicated that the male should not share in the responsibility for an abortion decision. Students who indicated a high level of religious activity desired both male and female to be either completely or very much involved in the responsibility for the abortion. This study points out the need for more research on the male's experience with an unplanned pregnancy, more systematic explanation of his perceptions relative to seeking and obtaining pregnancy counseling, and level of satisfaction with such counseling.     

Comments on demography and population policy in the developing countries

Commenting on an article by A. Ia. Kvasha, the author wonders whethe r the Soviet state, as a matter of policy, encourages measures to limit the growth of population. He further regards the Soviet attitude, as he understands it, of making light of the expanding population in developing countries as dangerous and suggests that in the developing world some measures of population control would be necessary in making the transition from a traditional agricultural society into a modern ind ustrial one. In a reply, Kvasha admits that social and economic development can only be obtained by radical changes in the economic structure and the creation of an independent economic base and a relatively well-developed home-owned industry. But he feels that demographic problems, no matter how acute, are always resolved in intimate association with the entire course of social progress. Each socialist country may take a unique approach to population problems as socialist governments do have the opportunity to regulate many processes of life. Thus, the current population policy in the Soviet Union consists of measures to stimulate the birthrate while preserving the right for individuals to plan their own families. Poland is taking measure to limit births while Czechoslovakia and Hungary are trying to increase them.