The Timing of Entry Into Fatherhood in Young, At-Risk Men

Timing of first fatherhood was examined in a sample of 206 at-risk, predominantly White men, followed prospectively for 17 years. An event history analysis was used to test a model wherein antisocial behavior, the contextual and familial factors that may contribute to the development of antisocial behavior, and common correlates of such behavior, including academic failure, substance use, and early initiation of sexual behaviors, lead both directly and indirectly to an early transition to fatherhood. Having a mother who was younger at first birth, low family SES, poor academic skills, failure to use condoms, and being in a cohabitating or marital relationship predicted entry into fatherhood. Implications of the findings for prevention of and intervention with early fathering are discussed.     

Best Spatial Two-Stage Least Squares Estimators for a Spatial Autoregressive Model with Autoregressive Disturbances

Estimation of a cross-sectional spatial model containing both a spatial lag of the dependent variable and spatially autoregressive disturbances are considered. [Kelejian and Prucha (1998)]described a generalized two-stage least squares procedure for estimating such a spatial model. Their estimator is, however, not asymptotically optimal. We propose best spatial 2SLS estimators that are asymptotically optimal instrumental variable (IV) estimators. An associated goodness-of-fit (or over identification) test is available. We suggest computationally simple and tractable numerical procedures for constructing the optimal instruments.     

Residential Differences in Filial Responsibility Expectations Among Older Persons1

Abstract This study examines variation in filial responsibility expectations-the extent to which adult children are expected to assist and care for their aging parents-among a sample of 440 older persons. The analysis focuses on the relationship of filial responsibility expectations to residential location and tests the hypothesis that older rural residents have higher expectations for assistance from their children than do older urbanites. Current residential location is found to have little impact on expectations, but older persons who were raised in rural areas, particularly on farms, have significantly higher expectations for filial assistance than do older persons from urban backgrounds. Possible consequences of these patterns for the transmission of expectations from parents to children are discussed.     

Statistical morphology

This paper first introduces a parametric model for the generation of stationary random correlated binary sequences. The parameters of the model include the probability that a pixel is a binary one pixel and the length of the structuring element which dilates the initially spatially uncorrelated sequence. The spatial statistics of such eroded, dilated, opened and closed correlated binary sequences are derived in terms of the spatial statistics of the input binary sequence. Understanding of such one-dimensional processing is a precondition for understanding what happens in the more interesting two- dimensional case.     

CAPTAIN PLANET AND THE PLANETEERS:

The environmental crisis is presented as a contested cultural discourse with conflicting social and political narratives pervasively targeted at children. Textual analysis of an environmental cartoon, and interviews with the cartoon's producers and child viewers, are used to deconstruct popular themes being transmitted to children in the name of "saving the planet". The cartoon is critiqued as representing and promoting a liberal environmental paradox espousing: a simultaneous call for children to both conserve and consume; a diffusion of responsibility that supports the notion of environmental crisis as everybody's fault; simplistic, individualistic solutions to complex corporate and bureaucratic problems. Narratives of nature as a social actor are proposed as rhetorical and epistemological alternatives for the recreation of children's social, political, and environmental awareness.     

Global sociology or “Ghettoized” knowledges? The paradox of sociological universalization in the Third World

The relationship between First and Third World scholarship may be characterized as a type of ideological dependency. This dependency can be seen in the founding of sociology departments in many Third World universities that followed closely the development of tertiary education during the colonial and postcolonial periods. These departments provide an important link between Third World aspirations to modernize and First World production of sociological knowledge for rationalizing modern experiences. They can therefore be considered a type of institutional measure of the fate of modernity in the Third World. Because of the quest for modernity in the Third World, postmodernism will not likely be considered seriously as a reevaluation of and challenge to modernity. The institutionalization of sociology and its probable response to postmodernism will be examined in the context of a Third World nation, namely Malaysia.     

ROBUST ESTIMATION UNDER TYPE II CENSORING

The properties of robust M-estimators with type II censored failure time data are considered. The optimal members within two classes of ψ-functions are characterized. The first optimality result is the censored data analogue of the optimality result described in Hampel et al. (1986); the estimators corresponding to the optimal members within this class are referred to as the optimal robust estimators. The second result pertains to a restricted class of ψ-functions which is the analogue of the class of ψ-functions considered in James (1986) for randomly censored data; the estimators corresponding to the optimal members within this restricted class are referred to as the optimal James-type estimators. We examine the usefulness of the two classes of ψ-functions and find that the breakdown point and efficiency of the optimal James-type estimators compare favourably with those of the corresponding optimal robust estimators. From the computational point of view, the optimal James-type ψ-functions are readily obtainable from the optimal ψ-functions in the uncensored case. The ψ-functions for the optimal robust estimators require a separate algorithm which is provided. A data set illustrates the optimal robust estimators for the parameters of the extreme value distribution.     

Does Australia Have a Filipina Brides Problem?

This paper challenges the assumption that Australian-Filipina marriages are prone to high rates of marital breakdown; and the belief that the incidence of Australian-Filipina marriages is sufficiently large to warrant the introduction of restrictive immigration policies for Filipinas. First we set the problem of Filipina bride migration in perspective by viewing it in the wider context of Australian immigration patterns — something that has been largely neglected in the discussion so far. Then we review the evidence on marital breakdown and show that Filipina-Australian marriages have been more successful than is commonly assumed. Finally, we consider the standard explanation of the breakdown of Filipina-Australian marriages in terms of ‘cultural differences’. Our conclusion is that much of the discussion has been based on implicit racial and sexual prejudices, rather than factual evidence.