Women in prison: A comparative assessment

This article examines women prisoners as a percent of the prison populations of twentysix countries. In this study, we hypothesize that in countries where women have greater social, educational, and economic advancements, women will also comprise the larger percentages of the total prison population. Findings from this study indicate that the countries where women constitute the highest percentages of the prison population are also those where women have high literacy rates. The percent of certain crimes committed by women correlates significantly and positively with educational and economic indicators, as well as measures of women's advancements in the workforce. Negative and significant correlations are seen between fertility rates and the number of women as a percent of the prison population, as well as educational variables. Ultimately, the findings indicate that in countries where women have advanced the greatest with regards to education, labor, and social status, the percent of women in the prison population and of all offenders for certain crime categories is also higher.     

Adoption and the Race Factor: How Important is It?

As of 1997 federal law prohibits a state from delaying or denying adoption on the basis of race, color, or national origin. This article reports the major research findings, going back over 25 years, pertaining to transracial adoptions. The findings show that transracial adoptions serve the children's best interest and are consistent with the recently enacted federal law.     

Swedish and Lithuanian employed women's subjective well-being

National differences in subjective well-being (SWB) and relationships between SWB and socio-demographic factors were investigated in samples of middle-aged employed Swedish (N = 316) and Lithuanian (N = 308) women. The results showed that the Swedish women scored significantly higher on each SWB component than their counterparts in Lithuania, except in extrinsic job satisfaction. For the Swedish sample, the largest mean differences between different socio-demographic groups were found for global life satisfaction between married/co-habiting and single women and between women who had at least one child and those without children. For the Lithuanian sample, the largest differences in all SWB components were found between women characterised by high or low education/income.     

Women’s roles and statuses the world over

This article analyzes the roles and statuses of women from a comparative perspective. The subject countries cover a broad cross-section of ethnic, economic, and political differences. The authors report data and discuss such issues as the demographic characteristics of women (i. e., age distribution, marital status, and fertility rates), level of education, work force participation, political activity, military service, and access to health care. Social class and ethnic and racial differences among the women in each of the societies are also considered. They offer a short historical review of the major legislative and social changes that have occurred in the status of women in many of the subject societies during the past 50 years. The authors describe the degree of relative social freedom that women enjoy in the different societies and how their statuses differ from those of men. She is a recipient of an Equal Justice America fellowship and the winner of two Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) Gold Circle, Awards. She is the author and editor of numerous books, including Global Perspectives on Social Issues: Juvenile Justice Systems (with Paola Zalkind, lexington Books, 2004), and Adoption Across Borders (with Howard Altstein, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).     

Letters to the Editor

Sociological Forum -     

How first-generation students learn to navigate education systems: a case study of First Graduate

Students from underrepresented groups who seek to become the first in their family to attend college confront economically and racially stratified education systems. This article reports findings from an evaluation of First Graduate, an organization that offers college advising, mentoring, tutoring, and case management to first-generation students starting in seventh grade. We highlight three systems that youth say they encountered on their pathway to college: open enrollment, course taking, and college admissions. We describe how youth navigated these systems and the roles that adults played in support. Our conclusion discusses implications for how after-school programs can support first-generation students.     

Social Workers' Understanding of Autistic Spectrum Disorders: An Exploratory Investigation

How social workers perceive autistic spectrum disorders (ASD)will inevitably impact upon how they assess the needs of childrenwith ASD and their families, and upon the types of service orinterventions they seek to provide to meet those needs. However,little is known of social workers’ understanding of thecondition. Using a research instrument devised by Mavropoulou and Padeliadu (2000),a study was carried out of all social workers working with disabledchildren in an English local authority. The results showed thatthough many workers had a good understanding of some aspectsof the condition, there was also confusion about some key factsconcerning ASD, the characteristics of ASD and scientific terminology,an inaccurate understanding of intervention approaches, anda more positive attitude towards the ability of generic servicesto meet need than was supported by the literature. Implicationsare discussed in terms of the provision of services to familiesof children with ASD in the UK, and the limitations of thisstudy are recognized.     

Avoiding the curves: Direct elicitation of time preferences

We propose and test a new method for eliciting curvature-controlled discount rates that are invariant to the form of the utility function. Our method uses a single elicitation task and obtains individual discount rates without knowledge of risk attitude or parametric assumptions about the form of the utility function. We compare our method to a double elicitation technique in which the utility function and discount rate are jointly estimated. Our experiment shows that these methods yield consistent estimates of the discount rate, which is reassuring given the wide range of estimates in the literature. We find little evidence of probability weighting, but in a second experiment, we observe that discount rates are sensitive to the length of the front-end delay, suggesting present bias. When the front-end delay is at least two weeks, we estimate average discount rates to be 11.3 and 12.2% in the two experiments.