Inter-industry strike frequencies: Some pooled cross-sectional evidence from canadian secondary manufacturing

This note reports the results of a pooled cross-sectional time series regression of strike frequencies in Canadian secondary manufacturing for the years 1969, 1971, and 1974. The basic conclusion is that a bargaining model approach performs well for interpreting work stoppages associated with contract negotiations, but provides a less than satisfactory explanation of mid-term and unorganized strikes. The research reported in this paper was supported by a grant from Labour Canada. We wish to thank Harry Grosskleg of Labour Canada who provided the strike data; Ingrid Strauss, Kathy Meredith, and Mark Muth for research assistance; and Leonard Laudadio and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. The paper is an abbreviated version of Jones and Walsh (1983).     

Proxemic and haptic behavior in three European countries

The influence of culture, gender, and age on proxemic and haptic behavior was investigated in this observational field study. Video recordings of 253 naturally-occurring dyadic interactions in the Netherlands, France, and England were analyzed by trained coders. Contrary to expectations, Hall's hypothesis regarding the proxemic and haptic norms of contact and noncontact cultures was not well supported. Among seated interactants, Dutch dyads maintained greater distances than French and English dyads, but French dyads were less proximate than were English dyads. The body orientation of French dyads was more direct than it was for Dutch or English dyads. In addition, with the exception of limited data on touch, neither the gender-composition of the dyad nor the gender of the individual affected the distances or body orientations of the interactants as would be expected according to traditional sex-role socialization processes. Age, as well, did not influence proxemic or haptic behavior. Results are discussed, primarily with respect to the research methods used in this and in previous investigations.     

Data sources and estimates of charitable giving in Britain

This paper describes how estimates of individual charitable giving are derived from two major continuous surveys: the Family Expenditure Survey and the Individual Giving Survey. It explores the reasons for and the significance of the differences between the two estimates. Conclusions are drawn on the relative merits and demerits of the two survey datasets, and the circumstances in which it might be appropriate to use each of them.     

Teaching Quality Audit

This paper comments briefly on the experience of the Teaching Quality Audit (social policy) organized by the Higher Educational Funding Council (UK), from the point of view of those who were audited. It is an impressionistic account rather than a survey report. It concludes with recommendations as to hew the operation of Teaching Quality Audit might be rendered more efficient, effective, equitable and credible.     

ARE THE HOMELESS TO BLAME?

Dominant ideology and public arenas theories yield different hypotheses concerning the incidence and antecedents of public beliefs about the causes of homelessness. The analysis reported here, which tests these hypotheses with data from a 1988 national telephone survey, shows that (1) more Americans believe structural rather than individualistic factors cause homelessness, (2) personal statuses like gender, political orientation, and party affiliation significantly influence such causal beliefs, but (3) the single strongest determinant is the perceived presence of—and by implication, exposure to—homeless people in one's own community. Causal beliefs in turn affect policy attitudes: respondents who consider homelessness a structural problem are more likely to favor government action than those believing in individualistic causes. While mixed, the results as a whole provide somewhat greater support for the public arenas perspective.     

Newcomers' Biographical Explanations: The Self As An Adjustment Process*

The newcomers' situation necessarily involves change and a variety of adjustment processes. In this situation the self may come into question and become an object of conscious reflection and definition. This paper focuses on the processes of change and continuity in the newcomer's self-concept during the first year after moving to a new locale. Data are drawn from a broader longitudinal study of 30 newcomer families in an Australian city and are interpreted from a symbolic interactionist perspective.     

EXPRESSIONS FOR INVERSE MOMENTS OF POSITIVE QUADRATIC FORMS IN NORMAL VARIABLES

A unified approach to the provision of exact expressions for inverse moments of positive quadratic forms in normal variables is described, using the method of (essentially) integrating the moment-generating-function (Cressie, Davis, Folks & Policello (1981). A number of special cases, many familiar from the literature, are reviewed; some allow closed form representations, others are expressed in terms of well-known mathematical functions. In the general case, our approach affords representations suitable for numerical computations.