Pay and productivity in “corporatist” Germany

Conventional theory predicts that productivity gains lead to pay hikes. Pay increases, however, can influence labor productivity. But what about the case of a corporatist economy, in which wage setting is highly coordinated? With cor-poratist cooperation between unions and management, is pay de-coupled from productivity? Using an innovative technique, this study disentangles the rela-tionship between pay and productivity in Germany. Citing high unemployment and increasingly global competition, critics have argued that Germany's brand of corporatist labor relations cannot survive. Our findings show that links between productivity and pay were different in the 1990s than in earlier years, suggesting that the collective bargaining process now works differently.     

Cyber child sexual exploitation

A 2-year review of 285 child cyber crime cases reported in the newspaper revealed how the Internet offenders were apprehended, the content of child pornography, and crime classification. A subsample of 100 cases with data on offender occupation revealed 73% of cases involved people in positions of authority. The dynamics of child cyber crime cases direct the implications for nursing practice in terms of evidence-based suspicion for reporting, categorizing the content of Internet images, referral of children for counseling, and treatment of offenders.     

Quantentative and Squalortative

The following article is actually a five piece work built around an essay submitted to the Internet the week prior to the tenth anniversary of the Challenger disaster. The article discusses the juxtaposition of schooling and the Challenger disaster, and incorporates a collective response of Internet scholars to the basic theme. In a brief conclusion, the article is held up as a model for future sorts of collective Internet and print scholarly joint ventures.     

U.S. Latinas' Knowledge and Attitudes toward Mammography: Meta-synthesis

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among Latinas in the United States. The primary purpose of this meta-synthesis was to integrate findings on qualitative studies related to Latinas' knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions regarding breast cancer and its prevention through mammography. After applying inclusion criteria, eleven studies were located. Results were organized around four areas of inquiry that cross-cut primary studies: 1) Latina participants' knowledge of breast cancer and its prevention; 2) barriers for regular mammography; 3) facilitators that encouraged such screening; and 4) recommendations on how to provide screening for Latina women.     

The “male” privilege of White women,the “White” privilege of Black women,and vulnerability to violence: an intersectional analysis of Peace Corps workers in host countries

This article is an intersectional analysis of race, gender, and nationality in development work. Using interview, document, and observational data, I situate this inquiry in the context of US women’s work in the Peace Corps, an organization within a field marked by colonialism. I find that White women and women of color have similar and yet instructively different experiences of their gendered identities in field sites, because race and gender differently affect their identities and relative privilege abroad. Specifically, White women volunteers are often afforded some degree of “male” privilege because of their race (though their race may render them vulnerable to sexual violence), while some volunteers of color are afforded a degree of “White” privilege because of their nationality (although their race may also render them vulnerable to violence). However, because the Peace Corps does not challenge conventional race and gender privileges, it lacks the organizational orientation and capacity to effectively address safety and assault among its women volunteers.     

Closing the Wealth Gap: A Review of Racial and Ethnic Inequalities in Homeownership

Homeownership plays an important role in the socioeconomic well‐being of Americans. Despite recent major losses in wealth due to the subprime market crash, home equity remains the largest source of wealth for the average American family. A marker of class status, owning one's home provides access to neighborhoods with the best schools, quality public services, and lowest crime. This article demonstrates that minorities have not had the same access to homeownership that Whites have, and this contributes to continuing socioeconomic disparities between Whites and minorities. This article explores the homeownership experience of Blacks – including African‐Americans, Caribbeans, and Africans – Hispanics, and Asians in the United States relative to non‐Hispanic Whites. Minorities rely heavily on homeownership and home equity as the key component of their wealth and remain less likely than Whites to hold alternative forms of investment such as stocks. The role that homeownership plays in perpetuating intergenerational wealth disparities between Whites and minorities is discussed as are challenges to minority homeownership such as the pervasiveness of risky mortgage products. Exploring the racial gap in homeownership is fundamental to understanding racial inequalities and formulating strategies and policies to help close such disparities. This article concludes with suggestions for future research.     

Using Conditioned Reinforcers to Improve Behavior-Change Skills: Clicker Training for Practitioners

We evaluated the use of a clicker sound as a conditioned reinforcer to teach behavior interventionists appropriate clinical skills during in-situ training. A multiple-baseline-across-behaviors design indicated that the intervention was effective in increasing all target behaviors for all participants. For two of the participants, we conducted maintenance probes one to five weeks after the final training session and performance continued to occur at a high level. Although the participants ranked the contingent clicker presentation as less disruptive and more fair than typical feedback methods, they ranked it as slightly less helpful, less worthwhile, and less pleasant than typical feedback methods. These findings suggest that clicker training can play a valuable role in training mental health professionals.     

Predicting tree species richness in urban forests

There has been an increasing interest in urban forests and the levels of biodiversity they contain. Currently there are no spatially explicit maps of tree species richness in urban areas. This research tests and identifies GIS and remote sensing metrics (climate, area, productivity, three-dimensional structure) hypothesized to be associated with species richness in native forests and identifies methods that can be applied to predict and map tree species richness in cities. We quantified tree species richness, floristic composition, and structure in 28 1-ha plots in the city of Los Angeles. Climate and remote sensing metrics from high-resolution aerial imagery (10 cm), QuickBird (60 cm), Landsat (30 m), MODIS (250 m), and airborne lidar (2 m) were collected for each plot. There were 1208 individual stems and 108 trees identified to species. Species richness ranged from 2 to 31 species per ha and averaged 17 species per ha. Tree canopy cover from QuickBird explained the highest portion of variance (54%) in tree species richness followed by NDVI from Landsat (42%). Tree species richness can be higher in residential urban forests than native forests in the United States. Spatially explicit species richness maps at 1 ha can be created and tested for cities in order to identify both hotspots and coldspots of tree species richness and changes in species richness over time.     

Religiosity,sexual behaviors,and sexual attitudes during emerging adulthood

The current study examined associations between religiosity and sexual behaviors and attitudes during emerging adulthood. Two hundred and five emerging adults completed surveys about five aspects of their religiosity (group affiliation, attendance at religious services, attitudes, perceptions of negative sanctions, and adherence to sanctions) and their sexual behaviors (abstinence, age of onset, lifetime partners, condom use) and attitudes (conservative attitudes, perceived vulnerability to HIV, and condom‐related beliefs). Associations were found between the measures of religiosity and sexuality, although the patterns differed by measures used. Religious behavior was the strongest predictor of sexual behavior. Many aspects of religiosity were associated with general sexual attitudes, which was not the case for perceived vulnerability to HIV and condom‐related beliefs. The findings support reference group theory and highlight the importance of considering the specific constructs of religiosity and sexuality assessed in studies of these topics.     

Parents' roles and question‐asking during pretend and real activities

All activities—real and pretend—provide children opportunities to learn new facts and skills, and parents are often facilitators. Yet little is known about whether and how parents' roles and interactions differ during pretend versus real activities. Here, we examine whether parents self‐report adopting different roles during pretend and real activities and whether we observe changes in their behavior, in particular in their question‐asking; either could impact the potential learning opportunities available to children. Thirty‐two parents engaged their 4‐year ‐olds in one pretend and one real activity (cleaning and snacking, counterbalanced). They self‐reported their roles, and speech was transcribed and coded. Parents regarded their role as a partner in fun during pretend and as a teacher or monitor during real activities. Across pretend and real contexts, they mostly asked information‐seeking questions, followed by rhetorical and pedagogical questions. They asked significantly more questions during pretend than real activities, particularly rhetorical questions. During real activities, parents' roles were not related to the number or types of questions they asked. However, during pretend, their roles were related to the number of rhetorical questions they asked: Monitors asked significantly fewer than teachers. Possible complementary benefits of each activity based on patterns of roles and questions are discussed.