Traditional vs. Modern Food Systems? Insights from Vegetable Supply Chains to Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)

This article describes the development of vegetable marketing in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), where modern distribution outlets are competing fiercely with traditional traders for wholesale and retail customers. Data from interviews with supply chain stakeholders and a survey of vegetable wholesalers have been used to compare the performance of modern and traditional chains, and the findings reveal the chains as segmented in their product focus, the modern sector focusing exclusively on quality. Modern marketing channels are generally more efficient than traditional ones but still account for only around 2% of vegetable distribution. The article argues that policy‐makers should not promote the ‘modernisation’ of food systems at the expense of traditional channels which meet important consumer needs.     

Developmental Outcomes for Children of Young Mothers

This study tested the association between mother’s early age at first birth and various life outcomes for her children in later adolescence and early adulthood. Data were analyzed from the Rochester Youth Development Study, an ongoing panel study of adolescents enrolled in seventh or eighth grade in Rochester Public Schools in 1988 (N =729). Boys born to mothers who began childbearing before age 19 had elevated risks of drug use, gang membership, unemployment, and early parenthood. Girls born to young mothers only had elevated risks of early parenthood. Of the mediators tested, low maternal education had the largest mediating effects. The findings suggest that the risks associated with being born to a young mother are substantial but perhaps disproportionately so for boys.     

Attributional Retraining Increases Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy

This study examined whether 60 college students (41 women and 19 men), grouped according to their career locus of control, were differentially affected by a videotaped career intervention. The intervention was an attributional retraining procedure designed to persuade students to attribute low levels of confidence in making career decisions and career-related failures to a lack of effort. Results indicated that the career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) of students who initially exhibited an external career locus of control significantly increased after the attributional retraining procedure (p < .05), whereas the students who initially exhibited an internal career locus of control demonstrated no significant increase in CDMSE after attributional retraining.     

Rural-Urban Differences in Obesity1

Abstract Obesity is an important social and health issue in contemporary society. Differences in relative weight, overweight, and extreme overweight were examined in rural, middle-sized, and urban areas in a national sample of 11,578 adults in the NHANES II survey. Rural-urban residence and weight were examined in bivariate relationships and in multiple regression analyses controlling for demographic and physical variables. Overall bivariate analyses revealed that some groups in rural areas had higher weights than their more urban counterparts. However, regression analyses showed that many bivariate rural-urban differences disappeared when demographics were controlled, although rural white women and men were still more likely to be overweight relative to their more urban counterparts. These findings suggest that the demographic composition of rural and urban populations explains most, but not all rural-urban variations in weight.     

关于“林业生态工程学”教学的思考

该文分析了目前北京林业大学“林业生态工程学”教学中存在的问题,主要是课程内容较多,又受到其他因素的影响,在有限的教学时数内很难提高教学质量。同时教学实践环节比较薄弱,不能满足社会对学生工作能力的期待。对此,作者在教学内容、教学手段、课堂互动、个性化作业、综合能力培训等方面进行了一些探索,取得了较好的效果。该文提出了进一步教学改革的思路是“以课程设计为主线,围绕设计教授课程”,并沿着“理论—综述—专项规划设计—综合规划设计—评价报告”的路线进行教学。     

Women are Victims,Men Make Choices: The Invisibility of Men and Boys in the Global Sex Trade

The invisibility of men and boys in scholarly discussions of the global sex trade was analyzed through a sample of 166 recent articles published in social science journals. Most failed to acknowledge the existence of male sex workers at all. When male sex workers were discussed, they were assigned considerably more agency than female sex workers, the chief danger ascribed to them was HIV rather than violence, and the question of their sexual orientation was always addressed, whereas female sex workers were always assumed heterosexual. The results are discussed in the context of world system theory, Orientalism, and heteronormativity.