How should sociologists treat Becker'sTreatise on the Family?

Sociological Forum -     

Book review

Journal of Labor Research -     

Agricultural policies and development: A socioeconomic investigation applied to Sri Lanka

This paper explores the interrelationship between agricultural policies and development by means of a dynamically recursive, computable general equilibrium model applied to Sri Lanka. The agricultural policies investigated include elimination of the food subsidy, land reform, and technical change in agriculture. The goals considered are the levels and growth rates of GNP and employment, the distribution of income, and the real income level of the lowest income group. The study provides a quantitative assessment of the association between policies and goals and identifies the key economic mechanisms in this association.     

Understanding communities of neglectful parents: child caregiving networks and child neglect

This article focuses on family social networks and the community of caregivers of neglected children. If neglect is part of family functioning, who watches over the children? Using a case study approach, this study researched 12 children and their parents. Several concepts, such as multiple caregiving and kin keepers, revealed that study children were cared for by many people. Social network mapping used in this study indicated that families were not isolated from the larger community, had various forms of negative and positive social support, were low income, and were involved in substance abuse and domestic violence. Understanding the patterns that emerge from the complex web of family, friends, social service agencies, and the larger social community in which neglected children live can result in better community building.     

Eliciting survey cooperation: incentives, self-interest, and norms of cooperation

Given the weaker ties to community as noted by scholars such as Robert Putnam, survey researchers should not be surprised by a decline in survey participation over the past 10 years. This research analyzes the use of incentives coupled with introductory themes emphasizing cooperation and helpfulness--cooperative norms in American society--to understand their effects on survey response. This article analyzes two separate experiments (one phone and one mail) that provide evidence that norms of cooperation matter in the decision to participate in a survey, suggesting that this is particularly true at the refusal conversion stage. These results indicate that survey researchers may use such themes to their advantage, especially when conducting a nonresponse follow-up in a mail survey.     

Sonet-1: Social network analysis and modeling system

SONET-I is a preliminary but completely operational version of a package of computer programs for the analysis of social structure. The programs were written to implement a strategy for the analysis of social networks which the authors have developed over the past several years. The conceptual basis for the research method has its origins in graph theory on the one hand and in anthropological studies of social organization — especially kinship studies — on the other. The method can, in fact, be seen as a graph theoretic formalization and generalization of kinship-based methods of social analysis often associated with British social anthropology.     

Clinical social work education in palliative and end-of-life care: relational approaches for advanced practitioners

This paper describes the first post-Master's program in the US in end-of-life care for social workers. Developed at the Smith College School for Social Work, this program used innovative relational methods in student recruitment, curricular design, supervision, and leadership development, based upon input from the faculty, students, and field supervisors. Collaborations emerged with funders, agencies, and programs nationally. The program was based on a pedagogical stance that clinical work with dying people requires the capacity to be fully present- in individual, group, and family work; in interdisciplinary meetings; and in advocating for quality and equity of care-while attending to diverse and at-risk populations. Students deepened their clinical skills and took leadership in the field of end-of-life care.     

Dynamic Savings Decisions in Agricultural Environments With Incomplete Markets

We develop a methodology for examining savings behavior in rural areas of developing countries that explicitly incorporates the sequential decision process in agriculture. The approach is used to examine the relative importance of alternative forms of savings in the presence and absence of formal financial intermediaries. Our results, based on stage-specific panel data from Pakistan, provide evidence that the presence of financial intermediaries importantly influences the use of formal savings and transfers for income smoothing. We also find that there are significant biases in evaluations of the savings-income relationship that are inattentive to the within-year dynamics of agricultural production.