An Understanding of Abuse in the Hispanic Older Person: Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention

This article offers a discussion of abuse in the Hispanic older person population, conceptualized from within a cultural framework including assessment and treatment. Basic cultural values such as familism, marianismo, machismo, and respeto are considered essential elements to the understanding of this framework. Acculturation, migration, and socioeconomic factors are also presented as important factors in the understanding of this problem. This article emphasizes how expectations based on cultural aspects and values can unintentionally increase the risk of neglect and/or abuse. The concepts of caregiver stress and dependency widely discussed in the older person abuse literature are integrated in the discussion of older person abuse in the Hispanic.     

Racial and ethnic diversity in senior centers: comparing participant characteristics in more and less multicultural settings

The 2008 Health Indicators Project surveyed a probability sample (N = 1,870) of New York City senior center participants. Attendees of racially and ethnically diverse and nondiverse senior centers were compared across 5 domains: demographics; health and quality of life; social support networks; neighborhood perceptions and engagement; health service access/utilization. Although homogeneous and diverse center participants demonstrate similar health and quality-of-life outcomes, those from diverse centers demonstrate greater risk of social isolation, receive less family support, and more likely seek medical care from hospitals or community clinics. Implications and future directions for research, practice and policy are discussed.     

Expanding Bowen's legacy to family therapy: a response to Horne and Hicks

In response to Horne and Hicks's critique of my 1994 revision of Bowen Theory, I present an updated rationale for my work. I argue that the primary difference in my construction of emotional differentiation rests in the way "self" is constructed. I suggest that many women, persons from less individualistic cultures, and very spiritual persons develop a "connected self" that is significantly different than Bowen's image of separate selves engaged with each other. I hold that Bowen Theory privileges individuality and ignores many of the positive aspects of togetherness. I put forth an inclusive model for differentiation that equally prioritizes each.     

The Fertility Transition and Family Urban Income Distribution in Colombia*

This paper examines the effect of social and demographic changes on family income distribution in the largest Colombian cities between 1967 and 1968 and 1984 and 1985, two periods representing the conditions before and after Colombia's sharp fertility decline. The results indicate that urban family income distribution worsened between the two periods, when income shares from the middle-income groups declined while those received by the richest 10 percent increased and the shares received by the poorest 50 percent were unchanged. A decomposition of the Theil index revealed that the deterioration in urban family income inequality could be traced to groups whose representation in the population increased, namely: households with more educated heads, with working wives, with smaller families, and with fewer children.     

Recent trends in faculty employment in sociology

Using 1996-2000 data from the American Sociological Association Employment Bulletin, we examined trends in the availability of full-time, tenure-track faculty positions in sociology. In doing so, we found evidence that

Integrating language‐and‐culture teaching: an investigation of Spanish teachers' perceptions of the objectives of foreign language education

A recent shift has been noticeable in foreign language education theory. Previously, foreign languages were taught as a linguistic code. This then shifted to teaching that code against the sociocultural background of, primarily, one country in which the foreign language is spoken as a national language. More recently, teaching has reflected on language and culture in an integrated way with a view to preparing learners to use the foreign language in intercultural contact situations. Though in many countries national curricula for the teaching of foreign languages have been slow in the uptake of this shift in thinking, recent curricular guidelines tend to focus more explicitly on the sociocultural dimension of foreign language education, distinguishing between cognitive, attitudinal and behavioural objectives to be attained in the area of language‐and‐culture teaching. This change in focus in curricular guidelines entails a change in the expectations voiced towards foreign language teachers. Research on innovation in education has shown that teachers' perceptions of the innovation to a large extent determine the success of that innovation. This paper reports on an investigation among Spanish secondary school EFL teachers, focusing on the extent to which teachers support the new culture‐and‐language teaching objectives. Our findings suggest that teachers are willing to support the new objectives, but that they experience conflicts when having to prioritize language teaching and culture teaching objectives.     

The gender wage gap and wage arrears in Russia: Evidence from the RLMS

This paper re-examines the gender wage gap in Russia between 1994 and 1998 taking into account the pervasiveness of Russias non-payment institutions. Using censored regression techniques we investigate wage discrimination at different sections of the income distribution and for various important sub-groups. We find that the wage gap is distributed unevenly. Most notably, women at the lower end of the income distribution suffer the highest degree of discrimination. However, we find that wage arrears and payment in-kind attenuated wage discrimination, particularly amongst the lowest paid workers, suggesting that Russian enterprise managers assigned importance to equity considerations when allocating these forms of non-payment.All correspondence to Carmen A Li. We are grateful for the helpful comments and suggestions of Vanessa Fry, Amanda Gosling, Tim Hatton, Alastair McAuley and two anonymous referees. The usual disclaimer applies. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Internal and External Social Capital for Radical Product Innovation: Do They Always Work Well Together?

We examine the role of internal and external relational social capital (SC) as determinants of radical product innovation (RPI). By analysing both sides of SC, we provide interesting insights on their relative influence and their interaction effect on this type of innovation. Besides, traditional assumptions on SC and innovation are questioned. In our empirical study using a sample of 142 manufacturing and service companies we found that, of the two types of SC analysed, internal SC is the most relevant predictor of RPI in relation to either technological or market dimensions. The influence of external SC is not as strong as the internal one. Regarding their interaction effect, external SC reduces the positive effect of internal SC on the market dimension of RPI. Interesting implications arise for practitioners, who should pay special attention to the higher impact of internal SC on RPI and the need to carefully manage the difficulties that emerge when it is combined with external SC.