Gender Differences in Verbal Communication between Popular and Unpopular Children During an Interactive Task

This study investigated gender differences in communication effectiveness between popular and unpopular 5‐ to 7‐year‐old children. Because previous research suggests that there may be gender differences in how popular and unpopular children communicate with each other, 24 same‐gender pairs (each containing a popular and an unpopular child) were videotaped playing a game. Communication effectiveness was assessed by measuring the incidence of forms of speech associated with successful collaboration (questions, directives, and elaborations). Results revealed a popularity by gender interaction. Popular girls used a greater incidence of these forms of speech compared to unpopular girls. By contrast, there was no difference in the speech of popular and unpopular boys. Findings are interpreted in relation to the nature of the task and the characteristics of popular and unpopular children.     

Parsimonious Gaussian mixture models

Parsimonious Gaussian mixture models are developed using a latent Gaussian model which is closely related to the factor analysis model. These models provide a unified modeling framework which includes the mixtures of probabilistic principal component analyzers and mixtures of factor of analyzers models as special cases. In particular, a class of eight parsimonious Gaussian mixture models which are based on the mixtures of factor analyzers model are introduced and the maximum likelihood estimates for the parameters in these models are found using an AECM algorithm. The class of models includes parsimonious models that have not previously been developed. These models are applied to the analysis of chemical and physical properties of Italian wines and the chemical properties of coffee; the models are shown to give excellent clustering performance.     

Anticipatory Accounts

C. Wright Mills called for a truly sociological analysis of actors' “motive talk,” which decouples the commonsense link between the reasons actors give for their actions and their mental state prior to those actions. Subsequent theoretical and empirical work has focused almost entirely on actors' retrospective accounting for untoward conduct that has already taken place. The other aspect of Mills's program, the reasons actors give for potentially untoward future conduct and in particular the empirical investigation of the link between the availability of an acceptable vocabulary of motives for anticipated conduct and the eventual enactment of that conduct, has been largely ignored. This article seeks to rehabilitate these lost dimensions using data from a longitudinal study of mothers' infant feeding choices and practices. It examines how mothers account, in advance, for the possibility that they may eventually feed their babies in ways they consider suboptimal. Thirty of the thirty‐six women interviewed indicated that they intended to breastfeed, emphasizing the benefits of this practice to their babies. However, seventeen of these women also anticipated that they might abandon breastfeeding and presented elaborate accounts of the motives that could lead them to do so. The findings support Mills's claim that the availability of an acceptable vocabulary of motives for untoward conduct increases the probability that one will engage in such conduct. Mothers who had offered elaborate anticipatory accounts for abandoning breastfeeding were much more likely to do so than those who did not.     

Immigrant children in the age of educational reform

Abstract

Immigrant children are the fastest growing subgroup among United States schoolchildren today. This paper explores how the new testing movement affects these students, many of which are English language learners.The passage of new federal laws mandating that all students be tested within one year of entrance into a U.S. school is refuted by long standing research. Studies have demonstrated that it takes five to seven years for students to attain the academic language necessary to achieve success in educational settings.This paper explores the instructional program options for immigrant students and advocates for changes in the current testing protocol for them.     

Drifting into dealing: Becoming a cocaine seller

This paper describes a study of eight ex-cocaine sellers located via chain referral from eight different levels of sales. To be eligible for the study respondents must have sold cocaine steadily for at least a year and have stopped selling for at least six months. The authors describe modes and levels of entree into cocaine sales, and the subtle transformation of identity that occurs when a person moves from a user to a dealer. The interviews suggest that entry into social worlds of cocaine sales is a fluid process akin to Matza's notion of drift (1964). Five basic ways in which people begin to sell cocaine are identified. The first is to become a go-between, a seller who starts out buying only for friends and only later envisions the profit possibilities. The second mode is to become a stash dealer, a person who sells small amounts in order to better afford their own cocaine use. The third style, the connoisseur, is characterized by the user's desire to buy high quality drugs through wholesale purchases. The fourth mode of entree may be called apprenticeship, trainee-style relationships where the novitiate lives with an established seller, learns the ropes, shares the dope, and eventually takes over all or part of the experienced dealer's business. Finally, there is product line expansion, wherein dealers start outselling other drugs, usually marijuana, and move into cocaine sales when it becomes available.The research reported herein was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Justice (#7-0363-9-CA-IJ)), Bernard A. Gropper, Ph.D., Program Manager, Drugs, Alcohol and Crime Programs, Center for Crime Control Research. The views expressed herein are those of the authors alone. The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers ofQualitative Sociology for helpful comments.     

Dual-Career Marriages: Implications for the Clinician*

This paper discusses the unique characteristics of dual-career marriages/families. These familial units are identified as a high stress group presenting unusual challenges to the clinician. Specific implications for the clinician include (1) values of therapist and clients; (2) critical issues; and (3) assets and liabilities. It is concluded that while dual-career couples may be demanding clients, the therapist can be sure he/she will have an intriguing, eventful, and meaningful experience along the way.     

A Structured Literature Review for Risk Assessment: EMF and Human Health Risk

The volume of publications on any given topic makes it difficult to select an appropriate subset of publications for review by an expert panel. This paper proposes a method for selecting a subset using a protocol that attempts to order publications based upon good research methods. The protocol was followed by graduate students with no expert knowledge of the area they were reviewing. They reduced 11730 articles on the topic of EMF and Health risk to 68 articles that were reviewed by an expert panel. The interrater reliability was 96% and 94% of the relevant articles were captured by this process.