Child,Parent, and Situational Correlates of Familial Ethnic/Race Socialization

This study examines child, parent, and situational correlates of familial ethnic/race socialization using nationally representative data gathered as part of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998 – 1999 (ECLS‐K). The ECLS‐K sample (N = 18,950) includes White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, American Indian, and multiracial kindergarteners, with survey data available at the child, parent/guardian, teacher, and school level. We find that child correlates such as race and gender, parent correlates such as education and warmth of parent‐child relationship, and situational correlates such as percent of minorities at the child’s school and cultural event participation influence how often family members discuss children’s ethnic/racial heritage with them. We advocate for continued research of contextualized family dynamics.     

Mexican Immigrants,Labour Market Assimilation and the Current Population: The Sensitivity of Results Across Seemingly Equivalent Surveys

In this paper we compare estimates of immigrants’ labour supply assimilation profiles using the Current Population Survey Annual Demographic Files (March ADS) and the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups (ORGs). We use a measure that is seemingly consistent across both surveys: usual weekly hours of work in the main job. This measure is not only important as it measures the intensive margin of labour supply, but it is also used to estimate hourly earnings in both surveys. Our results indicate that the two surveys produce dramatically different estimates of the change in average hours of work as immigrants’ years in the United States increase: estimates from the March ADS predict much steeper hour's assimilation profiles than do estimates obtained from the ORGs. These differences persist if we include controls for demographic characteristics, and only disappear once we control for occupation heterogeneity. We argue that these differences stem from two separate factors that differentiate the data. First, the ADS and ORG frame the usual “hours worked” question differently. Also, differences in the timing of the surveys may produce seasonality effects that differentially affect the composition of recent and earlier migrants, thereby changing assimilation profiles.     

Newcomb's problem: Recalculations for the one-boxer

Theory and Decision -     

THE PROFESSIONAL FARMER

The Australian farmer faces important and interconnected management challenges on both the economic and ecological fronts. To confront these challenges effectively, farmers would be well advised to constitute themselves as a professional body along the lines of the Bar Association. Making farming a professional activity in this sense would provide a number of important benefits and advantages. It would facilitate the provision and delivery of the needed educational resources for economic and ecological land management, and help farmers avoid the pressures of heavy‐handed government centralism. At the same time, such professionalism would encourage more efficient use of sector resources by minimising the need for direct political lobbying and intra‐farm group competition for membership. As a professional body, farmers could hope for increased public standing and the economic clout that would come from having control over the supply of skilled land managers.     

The mourning after Hillsborough

There are continuing claims that in our society death is a taboo subject, and that bereaved people have lost touch with mourning rituals. This view seems to be challenged by the extensive mourning rituals on Merseyside in the fortnight in April 1989 following the Hillsborough tragedy, and by the simultaneous media debates about what would constitute appropriate mourning. The article analyses both the media debates and the rituals in order to ascertain whether these contradict the ‘taboo’ thesis, or whether they were unique to Merseyside and/or to a particular disaster.     

The theoretical underpinnings of Chicago sociology in the 1920s and 30s

This paper looks at the work of the Chicago School in the 1920s and 1930s from the standpoint of the debate between positivism and its critics within the discipline of sociology. It is argued that, despite appearances to the contrary, Chicago sociology at this time is based on a rejection of the principles of positivism. It is an attempt to apply the principles of interpretative understanding to the practical problems of empirical research.