Servant,sailor, soldier,tailor, beggarman: Black survival in white society 1780–1830

Black history has witnessed an upsurge in historical interest from the 1970s onwards. However, significant developments have been impaired by the lack of direct black testimony and the paucity of information in general. Thus, scholarship has concentrated on a triumvirate of black literary figures and on the abolition of slavery. New dimensions and departures have been achieved by the work of Duffield, Lorimer and Braidwood; nevertheless, there remain identifiable areas in which our knowledge is deficient. One of the most important is that of black economic survival in white society, which has received only cursory attention. The aim of this study is to reconstruct black occupational structures and examine strategies of survival during the period 1780 to 1830.

This reconstruction of black socio‐economic groupings and employment patterns identifies complexities that were previously obscured. Important distinctions between the free and enslaved are discernible, especially in the occupations of servant and sailor. To support these conclusions evidence has been quarried from newspapers, parish registers and criminal records and comparisons made with the white population. Occupational structures of black men and women have been analysed and the material has enabled black people in the metropolis to be geographically located. Furthermore, the results reinforce the young male dominance of the black population as gender ratios and ages are distinguished.

By adopting a ‘history from below’ approach, attention has finally been diverted away from an elitist group of articulate black men and the issues of abolition towards an analysis of ‘rank and file’ black men and women, and will assist those in search of black roots.     

Commercial speech,protected speech,and political public relations

Political public relations play an unique role in American democracy because it occupies a dual role of providing both political and commercial speech. However, using analysis of the First amendment, public relations have increasingly been identified as commercial speech which receives limited protection under the U.S. Constitution. This study traces the evolution of the legal framework in which political PR has become associated with commercial speech, and how this association has made Constitutional analysis of political PR more complex. Implications for public relations practitioners and PR's role in democracy are discussed.     

Sex researchers and sex myths: A challenge to activism

THE SEX PROFESSION: WHAT SEX THERAPY CAN DO. Patricia Schiller. Washington, D.C.: Chilmark House, 1981; 233 pages; $11.00.

SEX‐RELATED ISSUES IN CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES: A CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY. David A. Shore (Ed.). Chicago: The Playboy Foundation, 1981; 39 pages; $5.00.

THE HITE REPORT ON MALE SEXUALITY. Shere Hite. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1981; 1162 pages; $19.95.

FREUD, BIOLOGIST OF THE MIND: BEYOND THE PSYCHOANALYTIC LEGEND. Frank J. Sulloway. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1979; 612 pages; $20.00.

THERAPIE SEXUELLER STÖRUNGEN. (2nd ed.). Volkmar Sigusch (Ed.). Stuttgart/New York: Georg Thieme Verlag, 1980; 420 pages; DM 28.80.     

The Implementation and Maintenance of a Behavioral Safety Process in a Petroleum Refinery

A values-centered and team-based behavioral safety process was implemented in a petroleum oil refinery. Employee teams defined the refinery's safety values and related practices, which were used to guide the process design and implementation. The process included (a) a safety assessment; (b) the clarification of safety-related values and related practices; (c) process design and executive overview; (d) safety-observation training; (e) feedback, recognition, and celebration; and (f) process maintenance. Data that span 20 years are presented to show the long-term impact on recordable incidents, lost-time cases, and direct costs of injuries. The implementation was associated with an 81% decrease in recordable incidents, a 79% decrease in lost-time cases, and a 97% savings in annual workers' compensation costs over an eight-year period. An interview with the vice president of the refinery is presented to highlight the process's influence on the refinery's safety culture.     

‘Where are you from?’: Identifying place1

Many social research projects, such as interviews, focus groups, and surveys, take local place as a given: they choose participants from a particular place, take this place as background for what the participants say, ask them about place‐related issues, and correlate responses with different places. But people can identify places in different ways, in geographical or relational terms, and in different levels of scale. This study analyses passages in focus groups in which participants say where they are from, shows that participants generally take the question and answer as routine, and then shows the ways the interaction develops when this routineness is broken, amended, or called into question. When a participant revises their statement of where they are from, they adapt to what they see as the knowledge and stance of their interlocutor, they re‐present themselves, and they create possibilities for further talk, defending, telling stories, or showing entitlement to an opinion. I argue that the ways people answer this question, interactively, can tell us about them, and us, as well as about their map of the world.     

An Empirical Comparison of Probabilistic Coalition Structure Theories in 3-Person Sidepayment Games

This article reports a comparative test of the central-union theory vis-à-vis several other game-theoretic solution concepts in 3-person sidepayment games. Based on a laboratory experiment, this comparison utilizes nine games in characteristic function form. The solution concepts under test include the equal excess model, the Myerson–Shapley solution, the kernel, and two variants of the central-union theory (CU-1 and CU-2). With regard to the player's payoffs, results show that the CU-1, CU-2, kernel, and equal excess theories have essentially equal predictive accuracy and that all of these are more accurate than Myerson–Shapley. When the solution concepts are extended and coalition structure probability predictions are incorporated in the test, one version of the central-union theory (CU-2) is overall more accurate than the other solutions.     

WHERE ARE ALL THE FAMILY THERAPISTS? ABUSE AND VIOLENCE WITHIN FAMILIES AND FAMILY THERAPY'S RESPONSE

This paper draws on a wide range of research from different fields to document the epidemic proportions of physical violence and sexual abuse in North American families. It delineates the gender dimensions of this problem, with men being the predominant perpetrators of sexual abuse of both boys and girls, and the major physical abusers in couple relationships. Family therapy's lack of response to the problem, and its conceptual inadequacies in doing so, are challenged. A feminist perspective for thinking about abuse is presented and guidelines for working with it are suggested. A course on treating violence and abuse in families is recommended as a required part of family therapy training.