The Quest for Invisibility: Female Entrepreneurs and the Masculine Norm of Entrepreneurship

The emphasis in research on female entrepreneurship remains focused on the impact of gender on women’s experience of business ownership, often demonstrated through comparisons of male and female entrepreneurs. By contrast, this article explores the differences and divisions between women business owners who are silent about gender issues and those who are not. The main data drawn on in the article are e‐mails conducted through a web‐based entrepreneurial network set up to promote and support women in business, supplemented with interview material derived from an interview study of 19 women business owners. By considering the way in which some women business owners not only treat entrepreneurship as gender‐neutral, but also seek to conceal its gendered nature, we can see how some female entrepreneurs are trying to avoid being identified as different from the masculine norm of entrepreneurship.     

Report on the Workshop on Practical Protection in Humanitarian Crises

With a global crisis of approximately 15 million refugees and an estimated 20 to 25 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in need of protection, the current protection regime is under increased scrutiny. "Practical Protection" is a fairly new concept. Those pursuing it aim to expand understanding and responsibilities for protection beyond those institutions with a specific protection mandate. "The Workshop on Practical Protection in Humanitarian Crises" was organized to bring the practical protection concept to representatives from a wide range of international agencies, governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), who discussed its implications for their work in humanitarian crises.
Organizations with specific protection mandates, primarily the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), work to protect uprooted groups through legal tools and recognized principles, often in the context of assistance programmes that provide shelter, food, water, medical care, education and other forms of humanitarian assistance. They work in collaboration with NGOs and other international organizations that focus primarily on assisting forced migrants. These latter agencies have traditionally avoided overt involvement in protection activities. When UNHCR and ICRC are not present or are over-extended, gaps in the protection regime emerge. The gap is particularly evident with regard to internally displaced and other war-affected populations, but it is present in most refugee situations as well.     

Assimilation or exclusion? Japanese and Mexican Americans in California

This paper argues that the current socioeconomic positions of ethnic groups reflect in part the historical processes that differentially allocated labor market opportunities by ethnicity. With historical and current data, we illustrate the usefulness of this approach by investigating two ethnic groups at opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum—native-born Japanese and Mexican American men and women in California. We first document the structural context facing these two immigrant groups when they entered the U.S., describing how early experiences shaped their occupational concentrations. Using 1980 Census data we then show how the current occupational distributions of these ethnic groups resemble those of their immigrant ancestors, and how this occupational concentration now affects earnings attainment, relative to whites. The evidence on gender differences suggests caution in generalizing from the experiences of male ethnics—the occupational and earnings attainments of female ethnics differ notably from those of their male counterparts.     

Predicting Individual Differences in Recall by Infants Born Preterm and Full Term

A heterogeneous sample of infants with preterm histories and infants born full term participated in a study of declarative memory and rate of encoding, as measured in an imitation task and an examining task, respectively. Here we report the comparisons of the performances of infants born very preterm (27–34 weeks gestation) and moderately preterm (35–37 weeks gestation) to infants born full term (38–41 weeks gestation) and tested at 12 months corrected age (from due date). Lower levels of recall were seen among the infants born very preterm. Rate of encoding, weeks gestation, and score on the Mental Development Index (MDI) of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development were tested as possible sources of individual differences in recall. Rate of encoding and MDI predicted delayed ordered recall. Implications for early detection of cognitive difficulties in children with preterm histories are discussed.     

Assessment and management of hospitalized suicidal patients

Suicide in inpatient psychiatric settings is a critical problem. A comprehensive literature review was performed to determine risk factors for inpatient suicide, instruments for assessing suicide, and treatment of hospitalized suicidal patients. Findings suggested that root causes of inpatient suicide were factors related to the treatment environment, failure to assess patient behavioral characteristics, and staff reliance on no-suicide contracts. Recommendations include assessing suicide risk regularly throughout hospitalization, including on admission, during changes in a patient's mental or physical status, after a change in observation level, and before discharge. Orientation and inservice education for all staff and additional research on the psychometric properties of available suicide assessment instruments are also essential.     

Methodological Comparisons Between CATI Event History Calendar and Standardized Conventional Questionnaire Instruments

Six hundred and twenty-six participants from the Panel Studyof Income Dynamics (PSID) were interviewed via telephone retrospectivelyabout life course events by either computer-assisted (CATI)event history calendar (EHC) or standardized CATI conventionalquestionnaire (CQ) methods, randomly assigned. Experimentalretrospective reports, for a reference period up to 30 years,were validated against reports provided annually from the PSIDcore interviews. Data quality outcome measures included variablesassociated with marriage, cohabitation, employment, unemployment,residential changes, and cigarette smoking. The EHC providedhigher quality retrospective reports for cohabitation, employment,unemployment, and smoking histories; the CQ provided betterdata quality for marriage history, although what variable wasbeing measured, instead of which method was being used, hadthe biggest impact on differences in data quality. Both EHCand CQ interviews lasted on average around one hour, with theEHC interviews being on average 10 percent longer. Interviewerspreferred the EHC interviews. In both EHC and CQ conditions,respondents generally enjoyed the interviews, and did not findquestions difficult. The costs and benefits of both EHC andCQ methods in the collection of life course retrospective reportsare discussed. Received for publication December 19, 2005. Revision received September 25, 2007. Accepted for publication September 25, 2007.     

Validating the Portuguese Version of the Satisfaction With Life Scale in an Elderly Sample

Life satisfaction is referred to a cognitive, judgmental process (Diener et al. in J Pers Assess 49:71–75, 1985), in which person’s quality of life is globally assessed according to his/her chosen criteria (Shin and Johnson in Soc Indic res 5:475–492, 1978). Thus, life satisfaction is a conscious cognitive judgment, based on the comparison of one’s life with a self-imposed standard or set of standards, which lead to a global assessment of life (Pavot and Diener in Psychol Assess 5:164–172, 1993). Among the many scales developed to measure life satisfaction, the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS, Diener et al. in J Pers Assess 49:71–75, 1985) is one of the global life satisfaction scales more often used in the research arena. It is composed of five items assessing global life satisfaction, using a Likert type response format. The aim of this paper is to validate the Portuguese version of the SWLS via confirmatory factor analysis, with a sample of 1,003 elderly from Angola. Reliability, factorial and criterial validity estimates are presented. Overall, the results shown that the scale had an adequate one-factor confirmatory solution, satisfying reliability indices, and adequate criterion-related validity when assessed in a sample of Angolan elderly. The discussion relates the results with existing literature and posits the contributions of the paper: firstly, it offers the researchers on life satisfaction in Portuguese-speaking contexts a brief, self-rated measure of satisfaction with life that has sound psychometric properties, validity, and reliability; secondly, it is the first confirmatory validation of the scale in Portuguese.