Suicide and mental health problems among Swedish youth in the wake of the 1990s recession

The purpose of this explorative study is to bring together a variety of Swedish data sources with indicators of youth mental health and living conditions in order to illuminate trends during the last decades, elucidate possible determinants of mental ill health and develop hypotheses to explain the observed trend patterns. The analyses in the study reveal some surprising inconsistencies with respect to the mental health trends among young people during the 1990s. Most striking is the pattern of increasing youth unemployment coinciding with almost inverse trends in the rates of suicide. The secular trends in fatal suicides during this period do not show any increase but some actual decrease in sub‐populations despite high sustained levels of unemployment. In contrast, survey data indicate that the general mental health of youth during this period appears to have deteriorated.     

The Quality of Urban Environments in the Brazilian Amazon

In the Brazilian Amazon during the 1980s,urban population growth outstripped rural growth, andby 1991, most of the region's population resided inurban areas. Much of this urban growth involvedestablishment of unplanned housing with inadequateinfrastructure, which resulted in rising pollution. This paper compares indicators of environmentalquality in urban populations of the Amazon in 1980 and1991, and among different kinds of urban populationsin 1991. The results show that environmental qualityin the region deteriorated during the 1980s as theproduction of and exposure to environmental hazardsrose while resources to ward off hazards eroded. Thefindings also show that environmental quality wasparticularly poor in more rapidly growing urbancenters. The urban Amazon may not afford an adequatestandard of living and this may generate out-migrationfrom the region.     

Social Sources of Failure in Education: The Case in East and Southeast Turkey

The efficiency of education in East and Southeast Turkey (E&SE) has long been a subject of debate. Both regions are similar to each other and different from the other regions in terms of economy, culture, ethnic origin, and languages spoken. Sahin (1997) studied the efficiency of education in the E&SE and proposed that illiteracy is significantly the highest in both regions, the female student population is significantly lower, and students are significantly less successful in nationwide general proficiency examinations (OSS and OYS) compared to all the other regions. Social sources of failure were studied in terms of the distinguishing characteristics of both regions, from both practical and theoretical standpoints. The findings indicated inequality of educational opportunity rooted in geographical, economical, social (cultural, linguistic), and political factors.     

Technocratic Social Work at Home and Abroad: Australia and Iran

Technocratic social work conceived as the neutral application of professional skills has an inbuilt capacity for failing to recognize its social and political effects. Two recent books on social work exemplify this in countries as apparently diverse as Australia and Iran.     

Birth outcome, not pregnancy process: Reply to van der Veen

In a recent article (Frisbie. Forbes. and Pullum 1996) we documented racial/ethnic differences in birth outcomes according to a more fine-grained classification than has typically been employed in the demographic literature. In his commentary, van der Veen focuses on the measurement of one of the dimensions of that classification, maturity of the infant. as proxied by the fetal growth ratio. The crux of the critique is easily seen in van der Veen's statement that “all of my disagreements with Frisbie et al. 's method arise from their particular use of a postnatal standard for the assessment of intrauterine growth.” Our critic misunderstands our objective: He fails to realize our interest in birth outcome, not pregnancy process, and does not perceive that our intent was to extend the research extant in both the demographic and public-health literatures in which patently postnatal (i.e., ex utero) measures are taken as outcomes interesting in their own right and/or as risk factors for infant mortality and infant and childhood morbidity. Specifically, he does recognize that we purposefully expanded our focus to include moderately compromised births to determine if they were at higher risk than the normal births with whom they are conventionally categorized. Our discussion draws on research cited in the original article, on studies cited by our critic, and on a few more recent investigations. Although we have never argued that ours is the only, or even the best, approach in all cases, we try to clarify the rationale for, and adduce additional empirical evidence of, the utility of the method we used.     

An Investigation of Measures of Modern and Old-Fashioned Sexism

Working from the Principle of Beneficence we make the case that there is a need for adequate measures of sexism in men and women. Swim, Aikin, Hall and Hunter (1995) suggest that modern sexism represents a constellation of beliefs in which individuals: (a) disavow women's present-day discrimination; (b) reject women's demands for political and economic power; and (c) disapprove of policies designed to promote gender equality. To assess this construct, Swim et al. (1995) developed the Modern Sexism Scale (MSS), and to date, few studies have assessed its reliability and factor structure. Using data from 187 Canadian participants, confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the unidimensionality of the MSS and Swim and associates' (1995) Old-Fashioned Sexism Scale (OFSS). Results do not support Swim et al.'s conceptualization of modern sexism as a unidimensional construct; however, the OFSS fit a unidimensional model. The implications of these findings are discussed.