The Development of Math–Race Stereotypes: “They Say Chinese People Are the Best at Math”

Sixty elementary‐school children (9–10 years old) and 82 adolescents (12–13 years old) completed explicit and implicit measures of racial stereotypes about math. 60 Asian, 42 Latino, 21 White, 15 Black, and four multiracial students participated (42% boys). On the explicit measure, children as early as fifth grade reported being aware of the stereotype that Asians = math, but only adolescents personally endorsed this stereotype. On the implicit measure, there was significant evidence for racial stereotypes about math among adolescents. Across both ages, individual students’ explicit awareness of the stereotype was significantly correlated with their implicit stereotypes. Early adolescence is a key developmental window for discussing stereotypes before they become endorsed as personal beliefs.     

The Persistence of Wives’ Income Advantage

Recent reports using cross‐sectional data indicate an increase in the percentage of wives who outearn their husbands, yet we know little about the persistence of wives’ income advantage. The present analyses utilize the 1990 – 1994 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N= 3,481) to examine wives’ long‐term earnings advantage. Although a significant minority of women outearn their husbands in 1 year, considerably fewer do so for 5 consecutive years. The presence and persistence of wives’ income advantage vary by demographic characteristics, economic and human capital measures, and over the individual and marital life course. The findings suggest caution in interpreting women’s relative economic gains as signaling absolute progress toward eliminating gender inequality within marriages.     

Parenting and Children's Distress Reactivity during Toddlerhood: An Examination of Direction of Effects

During early childhood, harsh and emotionally negative parent–child exchanges are expected to increase children's risk for developing later conduct problems. The present study examined longitudinal associations between the quality of parenting responses and children's distress reactivity during children's second year of life. Forty-seven mother–child dyads completed observational assessments of children's distress reactivity and mothers' harsh and supportive parenting when children were 12 and 24 months of age. Results indicated that mothers' contingent harsh parenting responses to children's non-compliance when children were 12 months of age predicted increases in children's observed distress from 12 to 24 months, but children's level of distress at 12 months did not predict change in harsh parenting responses over the same time period. In contrast, supportive parenting contingent responses did not predict declines in children's distress reactivity, although children's distress reactivity predicted declines in mothers' supportive parenting responses from 12 to 24 months. Results are discussed in terms of the implications of the quality of parent–child interactions as a point of entry onto developmental pathways of risk.     

Understanding gender differences in older people's attitudes towards life-prolonging medical technologies

The power of medical technologies to extend the final stages of life has heightened the need to understand what factors influence older people's wish to use such medical technologies. We analyse gender differences in such views, based on audio-recorded interviews with 33 men and 36 women (aged 65–93) in south-east England. Older women were twice as likely as men to oppose using medical technologies to extend life. More older women voiced ‘other-oriented’ reasons for their opposition, particularly not wanting to be a burden on others. Older men's attitudes were primarily ‘self-oriented’, reflecting a concern to stay alive for as long as possible, with fewer expressing concern about consequences for others. Women's greater life course involvement in caring and empathising with the wishes and concerns of others underlay these gender differences. Thus, women were ‘performing gender’ by putting others before themselves, even at this critical juncture in their lives.     

A Window on the 'New' Sociology of Childhood

This article is intended as a window on the body of research that has come to be known as the 'new sociology of childhood'. To elucidate its underlying tenets I identify three major weaknesses that scholars in the 'new' sociology find in the 'old' conceptualization – socialization – and discuss implications for doing research on children and childhood. I suggest that scholars in the United States are on a somewhat different path than their colleagues in other Western countries. Finally, I argue that the view that children are not yet members of their societies is one that is difficult to undermine.     

Heterogeneity in Two‐Parent Families and Adolescent Well‐Being

This study highlights the heterogeneity in two‐parent families and examines how adolescents fare when they reside in simple two‐parent, blended, and stepfamilies. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N= 1,769), we find that shared biological children in blended families have worse outcomes than children in simple two‐parent families, even though they reside with both of their biological parents. These differences occur for academic performance, delinquency, school detachment, and depression. Current explanations in the family literature do not account for the poorer outcomes of shared children in blended families. We suggest that the presence of half‐siblings creates a unique family situation that is not accurately represented in the current family literature.