The Equality Deficit: Protection against Discrimination on the Grounds of Sexual Orientation in Employment

The provisions of UK law offer no specific protection to gay men and lesbians suffering discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of sexual orientation. Such discrimination may take many forms and can result in ‘fair’ dismissal in certain circumstances. This article considers the degree of legal protection available under current provisions and investigates possible sources for the development of specific anti‐discrimination legislation. It is concluded that, despite the application of certain aspects of employment law, the level of protection afforded to this group of workers amounts to an equality deficit in comparison to the legal redress available to those discriminated against on other grounds. Although the development of human rights legislation may have some application in this context, the combination of institutionalized discrimination and wider public policy concerns suggest that the introduction of specific legislation aimed at eliminating such discrimination in the United Kingdom is still some way off.     

Heterogeneity in Family Life Course Patterns and Intra-Cohort Wealth Disparities in Late Working Age

European Journal of Population - Considering soaring wealth inequalities in older age, this research addresses the relationship between family life courses and widening wealth differences between...     

Racial bias in baseball card collecting revisited

Although research examining the role of racial bias in the secondary sports card market has been an emerging area of inquiry, empirical knowledge on the question: “Does the race of the player on a sports card affect the value of the card?” remains inconclusive. This paper revisits one of the first studies on this topic. Data were derived for 66 Black, White, and Latino members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame who were elected by a vote of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Data for each player's race, career performance statistics, rookie card price, and card availability were obtained from secondary sources. Findings indicate that card availability and, to a lesser extent, player performance is the most important factor affecting the value of a player's card, while importantly, a player's race is not a significant contributor to card value. Suggestions for future research are outlined.     

Controlling children's lives: covert messages in child protection service reports

This article presents central findings from a detailed examination of written documents in 50 child protection cases from the Norwegian welfare state. In so doing, it explores issues related to the social consequences of document writing in welfare state services. Using a frame drawn from Foucault's theory of discursive rites, it looks at the writing of certain documents as ritual performances involving on the one hand, various chains of power and on the other, processes reinforcing ruling definitions of normality. The examination shows that documents do more than satisfy bureaucratic demands for record keeping about the delivery of child protection services. These records also serve as distributors of social identities and social positions for children and their families. Moreover, the examination also reveals the contours of a paradox whereby, activities intended to help and to protect some children often involve using these youngsters to reaffirm normality in society and to confirm the existing social order. These findings indicate that there is a need for greater sensibility to ethical issues involved in documents writing.     

Mothers' Cognitions about Relational Aggression: Associations with Discipline Responses, Children's Normative Beliefs, and Peer Competence

Prior research has shown that parental social cognitions are associated with child outcomes such as aggression. The goal of this study was to examine mothers' cognitions about relational aggression, and to explore linkages between mothers' attributions and normative beliefs about aggression and children's competence with peers. Participants included 103 mothers and children in grades 3 through 6. Results showed that mothers viewed relational aggression as more acceptable and normative than physical aggression, and they attributed less responsibility to children for using relational aggression. Maternal cognitions also predicted levels of sternness and disapproval in response to child relational aggression, and children's beliefs about the acceptability of relational aggression, which were associated with children's teacher-rated peer competence. Sex differences in the patterns of associations between maternal cognitions, discipline responses, child norms and peer competence were found. Applications of these results to parent education programs that are focused on relational aggression are discussed.     

Inconsistencies in reporting the occurence and timing of first intercourse among adolescents

Two types of reporting inconsistency for sexual initiation were analyzed--event occurrence and its timing--using data from two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Overall, 11.1% of those who reported they were sexually active at the time of first interview denied this at the subsequent one. Males of each race/ethnic group had higher percentages of inconsistency than their female counterparts. Being older, not living with parents, or having a highly educated mother was negatively associated with rescinding. Among those reporting sexual experience at both interviews, only 22.2% reported the same date of first sex. On average, teens revised their age at first sex to older ages, and boys, especially African American boys, had large variability in reporting dates, as did teens with lower verbal ability. Seven strategies for resolving inconsistent reports are presented and implications for substantive findings are discussed.     

Social determinants of facial displays

A primary function of facial displays is to communicate messages to others. Bavelas and Chovil (1990) proposed an Integrated Message Model of language in which nonverbal acts such as facial displays and gestures that occur in communicative (particularly face-to-face) interactions are viewed as symbolic messages that are used to convey meaning to others. One proposition of this model is that these nonverbal messages will be shaped by the social components of the situation. The present study attempted to delineate more precisely the components of sociality that explicitly affect the use of facial displays in social situations. Frequency of motor mimicry displays in response to hearing about a close-call experience was examined in four communicative situations. In one condition, participants listened to a tape-recording of an individual telling about a close-call event. In two interactive but nonvisual conditions, participants listened to another person over the telephone or in the same room but separated by a partition. In the fourth condition, participants listened to another person in a face-to-face interaction. The frequency of listeners' motor mimicry displays was found to vary monotonically with the sociality of the four conditions. Actual presence and visual availability of the story-teller potentiated listener displays. The results support the proposition that facial displays are mediated by the extent to which individuals can fully interact in communicative situations.This study was conducted at the University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada, as part of the author's doctoral dissertation and was partly supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada doctoral fellowship. I thank Janet Bavelas for her assistance in the development of the study and her valuable comments on earlier drafts. Alan Fridlund helped in the analysis of the data and provided comments on earlier drafts. Linda Coates, Jennifer Halliday, Laura Lane, and Doug Laurie assisted in the collection of data. Laura Lane also helped in the scoring of facial displays.