American Indian studies and its evolution in academia

This article traces the progression of American Indian Studies programs and the discipline's evolution in academia. Our research is divided into three sections. The first describes the era of the turbulent 1960s, when programs began and struggled to assert themselves as worthy of independent intellectual status. The second part focuses on American Indian studies programs' efforts to continue maturing as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry. This section includes a discussion of the evolving methods, theories, and concepts used for analysis and research concerning the diversity of American Indian cultures. There were certain structural, personnel, and curriculum problems which presented themselves along the road to academic maturity, some of which remain. The final section suggests characteristics necessary for an ideal American Indian studies program into the 21st century.     

Personality and coping as moderators of work stress processes: Models, methods and measures

This article reviews the role of individual differences in work stress processes, with particular reference to personality and coping as moderator variables. Vulnerability/resilience and person-environment fit (congruence) models of moderator effects are contrasted and relevant issues of methodology and analysis are outlined. Personality traits (locus of control, hardiness, Type A, optimism, and neuroticism) that act as moderators of stress/strain relations are reviewed; the characteristics and limitations of available measures are described. Associations between personality and coping, inventories for the assessment of coping, and the dimensions of coping behaviour, are then considered. The implications of structural and transactional models of stress for coping assessment are discussed with reference to dispositional versus situational approaches and other psychometric issues. The need for research into coping flexibility and consistency is emphasized. No attempt is made to provide a comprehensive account of empirical research into individual difference moderator effects, but relevant review articles are cited, together with some recent studies. Finally, several areas which would merit further attention (including specificity of moderator effects, conjunctive and disjunctive patterns, and moderation of relations between objective and perceived stressors) are identified.     

The Cat and Mouse Game at the Mexico‐U.S. Border: Gendered Patterns and Recent Shifts1

This paper provides new insights into the process of undocumented border crossing by examining both men and women in the process. We investigate differences in the ways in which men and women make their way across the well‐guarded Mexico‐U.S. border, and the extent to which men and women by the end of the 1990s were similar to, or different from, their counterparts who crossed before 1986 and the implementation of immigration policy designed to reduce undocumented migration. We find substantial differences in how men and women crossed the border without legal documents and in their chances of being apprehended. Our analysis makes clear that shifts in U.S. immigration policy after 1986 have led to women's greater reliance on the assistance of paid smugglers to cross without documents but men were more likely to cross alone. Moreover, immediately after 1986, women on first U.S. trips faced higher risks of being apprehended compared to women who migrated in the early 1980s, but men faced lower risks. After accumulating some U.S. experience, however, both women and men faced lower risks of being detected after 1986 compared to earlier in that decade.     

Microdata Access and Labor Market Research: The U. S. Experience

Summary: The paper illustrates the value of broad researcher access to survey and administrative microdata using examples drawn from the U. S. experience, outlining how analyses of trends in earnings inequality, poverty and employment dynamics using such data have benefited policy makers and contributed to improvements in statistical agency data products. Methods of facilitating researcher access, including the release of public use files, the use of licensing agreements, and the establishment of research data centers, are discussed. * The author thanks Anne Polivka, Marilyn Seastrom and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.     

The conditions of action,power and the problem of interests

It is argued that the problem of ‘structure and agency’ should be reconsidered as the problem of ‘fate and agency’ for event causation and agency causation). The problem of fate and agency is addressed by outlining a model of the conditions of action derived from work by Giddens and Wright Mills. The model uses the concepts of different forms of knowledge and of the unintended consequence to set up a framework by which it should, in principle, be possible to decide of fate or events. This framework is then used to discuss the problems raised by defining power in terms of interests. It is argued that this definition is inadequate and suggested that a definition of power based on access to resources and causal responsibility for outcomes may be more useful.