Adoptive parents' hostility toward their adopted children

This paper focuses on the latent, underlying hostility that we feel exists between adoptive parents and their adopted children. The focus of this study is on the adolescent adoptee who is struggling with a “double” identity-crisis. Also addressed are countertransference feelings between the adoptive parent and the adolescent adoptee.     

Experiments in Producing Nonresponse Bias

While nonresponse rates in household surveys are increasingin most industrialized nations, the increasing rates do notalways produce nonresponse bias in survey estimates. The linkagebetween nonresponse rates and nonresponse bias arises from thepresence of a covariance between response propensity and thesurvey variables of interest. To understand the covariance term,researchers must think about the common influences on responsepropensity and the survey variable. Three variables appear tobe especially relevant in this regard: interest in the surveytopic, reactions to the survey sponsor, and the use of incentives.A set of randomized experiments tests whether those likely tobe interested in the stated survey topic participate at higherrates and whether nonresponse bias on estimates involving variablescentral to the survey topic is affected by this. The experimentsalso test whether incentives disproportionately increase theparticipation of those less interested in the topic. The experimentsshow mixed results in support of these key hypotheses.     

Respondent characteristics in citizen evaluation of municipal services

Research on citizen surveys tend to focus on how to conduct a survey and how to best utilize the survey data. How respondent characteristics affect responses to a survey has received only cursory treatment in the literature. The present study investigated the role of demographics and generalized attitude, two types of respondent characteristics, in citizen evaluations of municipal services. Of particular interest was the pattern of respondent-responses interaction across time. The Automatic Interaction Detector (AID) was used to analyze survey data collected annually from 1974 through 1979 by a University-affiliated Urban Studies Center in a mid-size metropolitan area. Results indicated that these respondent characteristics could account for a substantial portion of the variance associated with service evaluation. However, the relationship between respondent characteristics and service evaluations is nonlinear, interactively complex and lacking in consistency across time. This widely varying pattern of respondent-responses interactions across time was explained in terms of the effect of a third exposure-experiential factor. Implications for future research and for using citizen survey data in public policy analysis and program development were discussed.     

The use of unique statistical weights for estimating variances with the balanced half-sample technique

The balanced half-sample technique has been used for estimating variances in large scale sample surveys. This paper considers the bias and variability of two balanced half-sample variance estimators when unique statistical weights are assigned to the sample individuals. Two weighting schemes are considered. In the first, the statistical weights based on the entire sample are used for each of the individual half-samples while in the second, the weights are adjusted for each individual half-sample.Sampling experiments using computer generated data from populations with specified values for the strata parameters were performed. Their results indicate that the variance estimators based on the second method are subject to much less bias and variability than those based on the first.     

Inner Wellbeing: Concept and Validation of a New Approach to Subjective Perceptions of Wellbeing—India

This paper describes the conceptual development of a multi-domain, psychosocial model of ‘Inner Wellbeing’ (IWB) and assesses the construct validity of the scale designed to measure it. IWB expresses what people think and feel they are able to be and do. Drawing together scholarship in wellbeing and international development it is grounded in field research in marginalised, rural communities in the global South. Results from research in India at two points in time (2011 and 2013) are reported. At Time 1 (n = 287), we were unable to confirm an eight-factor, correlated model as distinct yet interrelated domains. However, at Time 2 (n = 335), we were able to confirm a revised, seven-factor correlated model with economic confidence, agency and participation, social connections, close relationships, physical and mental health, competence and self-worth, and values and meaning (five items per domain) as distinct yet interrelated domains. In particular, at Time 2, a seven-factor, correlated model provided a significantly better fit to the data than did a one-factor model.     

Color-Line as Fault-Line: Teaching Interethnic Relations in California in the 21st Century

In this article, I describe an undergraduate course on interethnic relations that I taught at a small, predominantly White, liberal arts college during the 1990s. First, I present the intellectual heart of the course (similarities and differences between Allport's [1954/1979] mainstream perspective and Du Bois' [1903/1969] oft-neglected, alternative perspective on race relations). Subsequently, I discuss the course background and a precipitating incident (verbal conflict between a White male student and a Black female student) that transformed the class. Finally, I reflect on my experiences, as well as individual and institutional factors (gender, institutional racism) that probably affected students' and faculty members' responses. Policy implications for courses on prejudice (and for teachers of such courses) are discussed .