Occupational Classification

The need for a common occupational classification system has begun to outweigh the importance of the precision of a multipurpose classification system. Recent multiplication, in government, of sources of occupational statistics, the variety of uses to which occupationally classified data are now put, and the theoretical dissatisfaction shown in recent literature make it desirable that a single, standard classification system be developed for all agencies.Work is now starting on a standard classification system (presently in the major group of professional, technical, and related workers). Although final results will not be available for use in the1970 Census, there is detailed effort to reduce the large residual census categories and to develop a more detailed list of classifications for that Census. The statistician should beaware that work is in progress on one of the classifications of growing importance to him.     

Development and identity issues in adolescent homosexuality

This paper argues that homosexual emergence in adolescence must be viewed from a developmentally non-pejorative perspective. In attempting to respond to the special stresses in adolescents who are developing gay or lesbian identities, helping professionals need to develop a familiarity with the unique developmental tasks of gay and lesbian youth, as well as the sexual identity formation literature generally. A review of developmental issues for gay and lesbian youth leads to some thoughts regarding the development of services.To the doctor, you were sick; to the lawyer, you were a criminal; to the minister, you were wicked.This paper is one of several reviews and research reports produced is part of the Sexual Orientation and Youth Project, a project examining the issues regarding service delivery to gay youth. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the Ministry of Community and Social Services.     

“Falling into a Place”: Reading for Renewal as Queer Pedagogy

This essay explores reading for renewal as queer pedagogy. Within the context of lesbian and gay literature courses, professors can teach students and themselves how to pull stories—beautiful, celebratory stories—out of the bits and pieces of stones of self-hatred and of suffering. If readers of gay and lesbian texts are to resist homophobic discourse, then they must not only train themselves to recognize signs of queerness within even the most oppressive of narratives, but also seek out those texts whose discussions of narrative theory and identity politics promote queer visibility. Reading for renewal—that is, locating a place of transformative possibility either within the text or within the experience of reading the text within the classroom—is, the author argues, integral to practicing a queer pedagogy.     

A comparison of values and attitudes toward risk of Greek and American Entrepreneurs

This study looks at similarities and differences between entrepreneurs in two different cultures, the United States and Greece. Values and risk assessment are key ingredients in the planning process. If they differ across countries, American research on decision making will have little applicability. Entrepreneurs in Greece and the United States were compared using the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values and the Choice Dilemmas Questionnaire. Our findings indicate strong similarities between the Greek and American Entrepreneurs.     

The Emergence of a Social Problem: Single‐Parent Families in U.S. Popular Magazines and Social Science Journals, 1900–1998*

Abundant research investigates the content of public discourse about social problems. Far less is known about the quantity of social problems discourse. This article employs original data to address this gap by examining the emergence of single‐parent families as a social problem within U.S. popular magazines and social science journals. I trace the growth of discourse about single‐parent families in magazines indexed by the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (N= 3050) and social science journals indexed by JSTOR (N= 1376) between 1900 and 1998 and explore factors associated with this growth. The results indicate that contemporary issues functioned as rival social problems and depressed single‐parent family discourse within magazines but not within journals. Increases in the prevalence of single‐parent families were associated with increases in related discourse in both arenas, but discourse increased earlier in journals. Growing popular concern about single‐parent family formation in the 1960s was associated with a reduction in the quantity of single‐parent family discourse within journals but not within magazines.     

Education for isolated children: Challenging gendered and structural assumptions

This paper examines the provision of distance education to young people studying from their isolated properties in remote areas of Australia. While Australia's innovative approach to remote education is well established, this paper challenges the gender and structural assumptions underpinning this approach. A sustained period of rural restructuring and a long period of drought have changed the social relations of agriculture in a number of significant ways that ultimately undermine distance education as it is currently constructed. The assumption that mothers are available to provide home tutoring is no longer valid given the pressures on them to work on properties due to staff cutbacks and off properties to earn additional income. Further, the trend for farm family properties to be amalgamated into larger holdings and for these holdings to be run by farm workers also undermines the assumption that parents are willing, able and resourced to home tutor their children for long periods. This paper raises significant questions about the adequacy of current distance education provisions in remote areas.     

Gifts and Gifting

The terms gift and gifting are rarely formally defined, but are associated with something given without receiving payment, often in the expectation of reciprocation and of changing the relationship with the recipient. Extensive prior work across a number of disciplines tends to focus on gifting as a process and shows a broad conceptualization of the gift construct to include actions as diverse as charitable giving, tipping, self‐gifting and volunteering, where relationship development and reciprocation are largely irrelevant. As a way to develop the area, two proposals are made: first, that gifting research should recognize two different types of gift, transactional and relational; and second, that the exchange paradigm and its underpinning social exchange theory should become central in developing understanding of relational gifting. The authors argue that empirical researchers may usefully revisit the relational paradigm, but by adopting a more quantitative, modelling approach, and the paper illustrates how this might be achieved.     

Aging and identity politics

In this essay, I reflect on multiple identities—woman, lesbian, old—as they interconnect at different life stages. I raise an issue of identity politics (Is “old” as fundamental an identity as “woman”?) and suggest that critical gerontology offers a lens through which to interpret my personal journey from a core feminist identity to a questioning and ambivalent identity as an old woman.