Interactional Associations of Gender on Savings Behavior: Showing Gender’s Continued Influence on Economic Action

This study looks at how gender relates to a critical economic behavior—savings activity. We start with the proposition that gender is not merely an additional variable to explain savings choices. Gender is the primary type of social categorization in the U.S. today. Therefore, other variables will be differently relevant to savings depending on gender. We use a national survey, the 2006 Economic Decision Making Survey conducted by Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, to examine the proposition. Basic frequencies reveal nonsignificant differences in savings participation across gender, but regression analysis including interactions of gender with other key variables reveals that multiple aspects of individuals’ lives are influenced by gender to predict savings plan participation.     

Branded: The Economic Geographies of Streets Named in Honor of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr.*

Objectives. We investigate the economic geographies of streets named for Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK Streets), which are an increasingly common means by which various community members across the United States are attempting to commemorate the slain civil rights leader. It is our intent to characterize these negatively “branded” spaces in order to challenge some of the common perceptions about them and inform current and future MLK Street naming debates. Methods. We statistically analyze nonresidential establishments located on streets named for King in terms of scale (as measured by annual sales and employment) and industrial classification. To our knowledge, this is the first such analysis conducted at the national level. Results. Establishments located on MLK Streets do not systematically exhibit economic marginality. Establishments located on these streets do systematically exhibit unique local functions and industrial composition. Conclusion. In the absence of empirically‐driven research, the negative stereotypes that surround MLK Streets have gone unchallenged and are proliferating. The research reported here calls into question a number of these stereotypes and should inform the public, city councils, and other local policymakers, who are increasingly being faced with contentious MLK Street naming debates.     

A stepwise discrete variable selection procedure

A stepwise variable selection procedure for multinomial discrimination is presented and discussed. Based upon the work of Kullback and Hills, stopping rules are proposed and illustrated for a set of data on communication buyer behavior.     

The Interpretation of Line of Regard by Prelingually Deaf Children

The ability of 5- to 12-year-old deaf children to utilise and interpret another person's visual line of regard (where the eyes are looking) was studied in four experiments using cartoon faces. The children had little difficulty in determining whether or not a face was looking directly at them. They had more difficulty, however, with more complex tasks requiring them to infer mental states of desire and intention from line of regard and to ignore line of regard when it was inappropriate to attend to this cue. Deaf children raised in a hearing environment appear to have more difficulty with these more complex tasks than hearing children. The results are discussed in terms of the special difficulties facing some deaf children in the development of skills involving utilisation of line of regard and the implications for the development of joint attentional behaviour, theory of mind and dyadic social interaction in deaf and hearing children.     

Mental Rotation of Dynamic,Three‐Dimensional Stimuli by 3‐Month‐Old Infants

Mental rotation involves transforming a mental image of an object so as to accurately predict how the object would look if it were rotated in space. This study examined mental rotation in male and female 3‐month‐olds, using the stimuli and paradigm developed by Moore and Johnson (2008) . Infants were habituated to a video of a three‐dimensional object rotating back and forth through a 240° angle around the vertical axis. After habituation, infants were tested both with videos of the same object rotating through the previously unseen 120° angle, and with the mirror image of that display. Unlike females, who fixated the test displays for approximately equal durations, males spent significantly more time fixating the familiar object than the mirror‐image object. Because familiarity preferences like this emerge when infants are relatively slow to process a habituation stimulus, the data support the interpretation that mental rotation of dynamic three‐dimensional stimuli is relatively difficult—but possible—for 3‐month‐old males. Interpretation of the sex differences observed in 3‐ and 5‐month‐olds’ performances is discussed.     

WOMEN AND THE INTERNET The natural history of a research project

This article represents a narrative, 'women and the internet', as a women and technology origin story with a fixed beginning, a contested centre, and an open ending. This article analyses our engagement with this narrative as a pilot study was conducted to look at women's perceptions of, and relationships to, the internet. Although this story felt like a coherent and persuasive narrative, this was questioned as the outcomes of the pilot study were reflected upon. Women coming to the 'net' led to a reconstruction of the questions that need to be addressed in researching gender and information technology. This article begins by describing and deconstructing the motivating story which was brought to this research project. Three genres are introduced-'the webbed utopia', 'flamed out' and 'locked into locality'-which are seen as forming the contested centre of this narrative. While each genre has its own narrative logic, all of them draw on a common tale of historical origins. From each of these perspectives 'Women and the internet' has an ending which is still open, but is rapidly closing. Three questions are then identified which have been raised by analysis: what do we mean by 'access'?; what do we mean by 'the internet'? and 'which women'? The seeming simplicity of these questions disguises serious difficulties which research in this area must address.     

Quantitative Methods for Environmental Justice Assessment of Transportation

Application of Executive Order 12898 to risk assessment of highway or rail transport of hazardous materials has proven difficult; in general, the location and conditions affecting the propagation of a plume of hazardous material released in a potential accident are unknown. Therefore, analyses have only been possible in a geographically broad or approximate manner. The advent of geographic information systems and development of software enhancements at Sandia National Laboratories have made kilometer-by-kilometer analysis of populations tallied by U.S. Census blocks along entire routes practicable. Tabulations of total or racially/ethnically distinct populations close to a route, its alternatives, or the broader surrounding area, can then be compared and differences evaluated statistically. This article presents methods of comparing populations and their racial/ethnic compositions using simple tabulations, histograms, and chi-square tests for statistical significance of differences found. Two examples of these methods are presented: comparison of two routes and comparison of a route with its surroundings.