Environmental affects: NASCAR,place and white American cultural citizenship

Attempts to grapple with the complicated tangle of race and memory are more prominent than ever in the public discourse of the United States. In 2006, public intellectual Henry Louis Gates sought to popularize the search for roots and meaning with his project African American Lives, and in 2007 the black and white descendants of the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson case met in New Orleans to discuss the past and present significance of their ancestors’ lives. As the crafting of identities around increasingly fluid notions of ‘race’ proceeds apace, the activities of family historians provide a useful entrée into struggles over race, identity, and collective memory in the United States. The research reported here illustrates how the shared history of the multi-racial descendants of eighteenth and nineteenth century St Domingue/Haiti in Louisiana is encountered in racially distinct ways. Participant observation is used to examine how race is dealt with in the activities of two groups: 1) a mainly European American genealogical society, called the St Domingue Special Interest Group; and 2) the LA Creole cultural and genealogy group, made up primarily of Louisiana creoles of color. Preliminary findings indicate that while the process of engaging in family history research provides an opening for some participants to better understand others across racial and ethnic divides, this kind of cross-racial dialogue was limited by the organization of family history activities into racially distinct social networks. As the popularity of genealogy increases, the findings here point to the need to recognize the public significance of these private histories.     

Measuring Family Caregiver Perceptions of Support in Caring for Children and Youth With Mental Health Concerns

ABSTRACT

This correlational study assessed how families of children with mental illness perceived the levels of support they received from informal and formal resource providers and the associations between perceived support and child outcomes. Adult caregivers (N = 904) of youth receiving public mental health care services were administered the Family Caregiver Perceptions of Support Scale developed by the authors to assess family caregiver perceptions of support prior to and at termination of services. Factor analysis identified three types of caregiver anticipated supports: informal support resources, support for treatment plan influence, and health care resources. The domains were significantly and positively associated with one another but did not uniformly correlate with youth mental health outcomes. The study provides preliminary evidence that treatment gains in youth mental health outcomes are observed when caregivers perceive support in treatment processes. Suggestions for future research are made, stressing the importance of caregivers and providers working together and describing needs related to future scale improvements.     

The Meaning of Gender While Aging With Paralytic Polio

The purpose of this article is to report the influence of gender on aging with childhood onset paralytic polio. The hermeneutic phenomenological exploration of gender was done using multiple qualitative interviews with 25 women, age 55 to 75 years of age, who had polio since before 14 years of age. We noted three themes: (a) the movement of her body, (b) integrating body and gender, and (c) gender discrepancies. Findings are discussed in the context of gendered expectations and the women's bodies.     

Patient-Centered Approach to Building Problem Solving Skills Among Older Primary Care Patients: Problems Identified and Resolved

This article describes problems identified by older primary care patients enrolled in Problem Solving Therapy (PST), and explores factors associated with successful problem resolution. PST patients received 1 to 8, 45-min sessions with a social worker. Patients identified problems in their lives and directed the focus of subsequent sessions as consistent with the steps of PST. The 107 patients identified 568 problems, 59% of which were resolved. Most commonly identified problems included health related issues such as need for exercise or weight loss activities, medical care and medical equipment needs, home and garden maintenance, and gathering information on their medical condition. Problems identified by patients were 2.2 times more likely to be solved than those identified by a health care professional. Using PST in primary care may facilitate patients in addressing key health and wellness issues.     

On intra-annual consumption-poverty in the U.S: Response to SNAP and the importance of within-year variation

We use U.S. quarterly consumption data and decomposable poverty indexes to study consumption-based intra-annual poverty and its relationship to participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Intra-annual spells of consumption-poverty account for half of the incidence and one-third of the severity of all consumption-poverty among U.S. households. Households experiencing consumption-poverty for at least one quarter, but not for the whole year, are more likely to self-select into SNAP than the general population but less likely to do so than those who are poor for the year. SNAP participation, in turn, reduces annual and intra-annual poverty.     

Place,race and differential occupational opportunities

A large body of literature investigating the link between black percentage in the community and occupational differentiation, has found disparities to be greater in places where blacks are in a higher proportion. The present paper discusses first, theoretical perspectives and methodological techniques employed in past research; second, examines the issue in terms of the relative odds of the races for incumbency in a series of occupational groupings; and third, analyzes the effect of percentage black on race-linked occupational differentiation across 124 major American cities. Using log-linear procedures, blacks, relative to whites, are much more likely to be in unskilled and semiskilled manual occupations, while whites, relative to blacks, are far more likely to be in white-collar and upper-status positions. Moreover, blacks' denial of access to higher-status positions, their channeling to lower-status work, and their ability to overflow into specific intermediate-status occupations are found to be greatly influenced both by percentage black as well as other community characteristics. The findings are discussed in light of sociological theories suggesting that the issue cannot be understood solely by the competition hypothesis. One must also consider the overflow and queuing explanations.     

The place of odds ratios in the study of place,race and differential occupational opportunities

Demography - During the last few decades the study of racial differences in occupational and economic attainment has progressed rapidly, both in terms of theory and research. The ecological study...     

Industrial shifts,female employment,and occupational differentiation: a dynamic model for American cities, 1960–1970

Sex-linked occupational differentiation has been seen as influenced by both the industrial structure of the economy and the sex composition of the labor force. Here, with a sample of 70 SMSAs, it was found (a) that the odds of men relative to women of joining professional and managerial occupations increased between 1960 and 1970, and (b) that this increase was dependent on the growth of tertiary industries and the greater number of women joining the cash economy. The observed effect of industrial shifts on sex-occupational differentiation, however, is argued to be a spurious consequence of the gender-composition of the work force. Specifically, the development of tertiary industries generates greater demand for female labor. Intensive recruitment of women to the labor force in turn increases occupational differentiation because females, in sex-typed labor markets, are likely to be channeled in disproportionate numbers away from upper-status occupations. The findings demonstrate that traditional modernization theory is unable to account for this. However, the results lend support to expectations derived from a labor market sex-segmentation approach.