Book Review: Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. By Viviane K. Namaste. Chicago,IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2000. Postcolonial and Queer Theories: Intersections and Essays. By John C. Hawley (Ed.) Westport,CT: Greenwood Press, 2001

Qualitative Sociology -     

Family Support and the Health of Children

This paper examines the relationship between family support and the health of children. The impact of the decline in the structural support for child rearing is considered first, followed by an examination of the health effects of support provided in home visitation programmes. Finally, the health and welfare effects of the provision of day-care services for children are considered. Because the validity of evidence from properly conducted randomised controlled trials is more readily assured than with other study designs, particular emphasis has been given to the results of experimental evaluations.     

Time and Work–Life Balance: The Roles of ‘Temporal Customization’ and ‘Life Temporality’

This article poses a challenge to the orthodox binary, conceptualization of work–life balance only made possible by relying on the widespread ‘clock time’ worldview, which understands employment practices in terms of the basic time = money equation. In particular, it is the balance metaphor which relies on a quantification of both work and life in order to make sense and can therefore be seen to be based on an understanding of time as a measurable and value‐able unit. This article seeks to begin the exercise of examining the concept of work–life balance through a broader concept of the temporal dimension than simply limited quantitative notions. Two temporal themes are reported from a study which identified employees who had customized their working pattern to suit the various and multi‐dimensional facets of their lifestyles and thereby successfully improved their work–life balance. Participants in this study demonstrated that an improved work–life balance is more about a mind‐set that refuses to be dominated by a work temporality and is determined to create ‘me time’ rather than e.g. simply choosing a four day week or a part‐time job. It is argued that the notion of work–life balance is more usefully conceptualized within a broader notion of ‘livingscapes’ which contain both elements of work and life and that as researchers, our challenge must be to reflect the complexity of this weave within our analyses of individuals’ work–life balance.     

城市化、分权与农村生活的重组

文章关注于发展中国家城市化的当代模式，并探讨这些模式对农村发展的涵义。发展中国家的不同国家和地区之间的城市化并不是统一的模式，且当代城市化模式所导致的在农村-城市联系中经济和社会多样性的程度是前所未有的。移民和分权是城市化在微观层次的两方面。城市化必然意味着或是永久的或是暂时的从农村流向城市的人口的净转移，而这些移民也对农村地区不平等产生了影响。而发展中国家城市化的一个新特征表现在它是伴随着行政的分权而发生的。分权的一个结果是使影响地方发展的行动者增加，另一个结果是没有任何一个人可以垄断资源或外部联系和信息。     

HISTORICAL AND CURRENT FACTORS DISCRIMINATING SEXUALLY FUNCTIONAL FROM SEXUALLY DYSFUNCTIONAL MARRIED COUPLES*

Clinical literature has noted numerous past and current psychosocial factors characteristicof sexually dysfunctional individuals. However, there is almost no empirical documentation of factorsdiscriminating sexually functional from dysfunctional couples. The present study compared the responses of 94 clinical couples accepted for sex therapy with 110 nonclinical couples, selected from the same community. The couples were in their mid-30s, married an average of 12 years, middle income, rather well educated, and over 75% had at least one child. Individuals completed a 517-question Personal History Questionnaire (PHQ), and sex and marital defensiveness scales. The PHQ wasclinically and empirically developed, resulting in 54 internally consistent scales. Major analyses tested the discriminating power of past and current PHQ scales. The best discriminators were sexual functioning scales, historical and affective scales for women, and current and fantasy scales for men. Several surprising results appeared, including the importance of first coitus and the lack of importance of marital satisfaction, communication and sexual history scales. Four conclusionswere discussed relevant to the separation of sex and relationship satisfaction, the separation of sexualfunctioning and sexual satisfaction, and the differential impact of sexual problems on men and women.     

A case study in non-centering for data augmentation: Stochastic epidemics

In this paper, we introduce non-centered and partially non-centered MCMC algorithms for stochastic epidemic models. Centered algorithms previously considered in the literature perform adequately well for small data sets. However, due to the high dependence inherent in the models between the missing data and the parameters, the performance of the centered algorithms gets appreciably worse when larger data sets are considered. Therefore non-centered and partially non-centered algorithms are introduced and are shown to out perform the existing centered algorithms.