Gender, home and family in cultural capital theory

The paper argues that Bourdieu's stress on early familiarization for the highest value of cultural capital is closely linked to his idea, strongly emphasized in Distinction, about the role of family and domestic life for individual development and social positions. The role of women, as mothers and homemakers, is crucial in this process. Yet, Bourdieu defines social origin as deriving from the father. The centrality to Bourdieu's thinking of a resilient traditional pattern of masculine domination and feminine submission constitutive of the Western gender habitus explains both his stress on ‘normalcy’ for the production of legitimate dispositions, and his resistance to incorporating into his thinking the implications of recent transformations in home family living, which have destabilized the gender order. It is thus important to consider contemporary feminist analyses of the family and home life and their significance for a renewed theory of cultural capital. The paper considers two sets of literature. Firstly, it addresses the manners in which home and family are conceptualized in Bourdieu's key texts where these issues were prominent in the development of his thinking on cultural capital. The second set of literature includes texts by feminist academics in the fields of family, gender and the body, which analyse the destabilizing of the gender order and everyday family living in contemporary society. Two questions are addressed on the basis of these reflections: (1) Is cultural capital an individual or a household resource? (2) How does cultural capital relate to personal interdependencies at the level of family and households?     

Curtain rising, baton falling: The politics of musical conducting in contemporary Argentina

This article gives an ethnographic account of the several processes under which a charismatic conductor is de-legitimized, exploring the relationship between institutions and charisma in an art world where the authority of the cultural producer is diminished by the management of everyday interaction. The article shows how, in Argentina, the politics of musical conducting are shaped by four institutional worlds. They range from the macro economic cultural policies of the diverse state agencies to the everyday interaction world of orchestra musicians, and include meso-processes and mechanisms like the field of musical conducting. This article explores the structure and ideologies of the four institutional worlds, their interplay, the concrete practices that shaped them, their struggles, and how they overlap in causing the diminishing power of charisma. In undertaking this endeavor, the article systematizes the existing sociological corpus on the orchestral world in order to sketch a more complex and complete picture of hierarchies and interactions.

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Social-cognitive determinants of physical activity attendance in older adults

The present study evaluated whether, and to what extent, the constructs implicated in the theory of planned behavior could predict behavioral intention to exercise and exercise-class attendance of older adults (age 65-90 years) already enrolled in a physical activity program. The study also evaluated whether including self-efficacy judgments might improve the predictive capacity of the model. Participants (N = 1,095) were randomly sampled Italian volunteers from exercise classes for older adults. First, they completed questionnaires assessing the above-mentioned constructs. Then, class attendance was recorded during the following 3 months. Results indicated a substantial correspondence between the model and the data. Perceived behavioral control and self-efficacy were the strongest predictors of behavioral intention, whereas attitudes and subjective norms only partially contributed to its prediction. The inclusion of self-efficacy improved the predictive capacity of the overall model. Finally, results showed a weak relation between behavioral intention and attendance rate in physical activity sessions.     

Large Deviations for Empirical Estimators of the Stationary Distribution of a Semi-Markov Process with Finite State Space

We prove the large deviation principle for empirical estimators of stationary distributions of semi-Markov processes with finite state space, irreducible embedded Markov chain, and finite mean sojourn time in each state. We consider on/off Gamma sojourn processes as an illustrative example, and, in particular, continuous time Markov chains with two states. In the second case, we compare the rate function in this article with the known rate function concerning another family of empirical estimators of the stationary distribution.     

A Note on Influence Assessment in Score Tests

Recently, [1] Ebrahimi, N. 1996. How to measure uncertainty about residual life time. Sankhya Ser. A, 58: 48–57.  [Google Scholar] proposed a dynamic measure based on differential entropy applied to the residual lifetime. This measure has been used for the classification and ordering of survival functions. More recently, [2] Ebrahimi, N. 1997. Testing whether lifetime distribution is decreasing uncertainty. Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, 64: 9–19. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] has considered the problem of testing the monotonicity of this measure. We propose and study several kernel type estimators of the entropy of residual life through the estimation of f(x) log f(x). These estimators can be applied to the classification and comparison of lifetime distribution.     

Nenparametric Two-Group Classification: Concepts and a SAS-Based Software Package

This article introduces BestClass, a set of SAS macros, available in the mainframe and workstation environment, designed for solving two-group classification problems using a class of recently developed nonparametric classification methods. The criteria used to estimate the classification function are based on either minimizing a function of the absolute deviations from the surface which separates the groups, or directly minimizing a function of the number of misclassified entities in the training sample. The solution techniques used by BestClass to estimate the classification rule use the mathematical programming routines of the SAS/OR software. Recently, a number of research studies have reported that under certain data conditions this class of classification methods can provide more accurate classification results than existing methods, such as Fisher's linear discriminant function and logistic regression. However, these robust classification methods have not yet been implemented in the major statistical packages, and hence are beyond the reach of those statistical analysts who are unfamiliar with mathematical programming techniques. We use a limited simulation experiment and an example to compare and contrast properties of the methods included in Best-Class with existing parametric and nonparametric methods. We believe that BestClass contributes significantly to the field of nonparametric classification analysis, in that it provides the statistical community with convenient access to this recently developed class of methods. BestClass is available from the authors.     

On sufficient conditions for the strong consistency of least-squares estimates

The strong consistency of the least-squares estimates in regression models is obtained when the errors are i.i.d. with absolute moment of order r, 0<r? 2. The assumptions presented for the random error sequence will permit us to obtain improvements of the conditions on the regressors in order to obtain the strong consistency of the least-squares estimates in linear and nonlinear regression models.     

Strong consistency of least squares estimates with i.i.d. errors with mean values not necessarily defined

We establish strong consistency of the least squares estimates in multiple regression models discarding the usual assumption of the errors having null mean value. Thus, we required them to be i.i.d. with absolute moment of order r, 0<r<2, and null mean value when r>1. Only moderately restrictive conditions are imposed on the model matrix. In our treatment, we use an extension of the Marcinkiewicz–Zygmund strong law to overcome the errors mean value not being defined. In this way, we get a unified treatment for the case of i.i.d. errors extending the results of some previous papers.     

New two-stage sampling designs based on neoteric ranked set sampling

Neoteric ranked set sampling (NRSS) is a recently developed sampling plan, derived from the well-known ranked set sampling (RSS) scheme. It has already been proved that NRSS provides more efficient estimators for population mean and variance compared to RSS and other sampling designs based on ranked sets. In this work, we propose and evaluate the performance of some two-stage sampling designs based on NRSS. Five different sampling schemes are proposed. Through an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study, we verified that all proposed sampling designs outperform RSS, NRSS, and the original double RSS design, producing estimators for the population mean with a lower mean square error. Furthermore, as with NRSS, two-stage NRSS estimators present some bias for asymmetric distributions. We complement the study with a discussion on the relative performance of the proposed estimators. Moreover, an additional simulation based on data of the diameter and height of pine trees is presented.     

Using the Therapist's Inner Conversation in Teamwork with Novice Therapists

Peter Rober's work (2005a) on the therapist’s inner conversation (TIC) has been a significant contribution to understanding the therapist's 'here and now' experience that focuses on the emergence of different voices responding to what is said in the therapy session. Frediani and Rober (2016) conducted an investigation into the experience and TIC of novice therapists concerning emotions aroused and how they deal with them during family therapy. Their research prompted us to ask how this methodology could work with recent graduates and those in the last year of their undergraduate training. This was addressed in the adolescent psychotherapy team that is part of the Equipo de Trabajo y Asesoría Sistémica (Systemic Counselling and Teamwork) (eQtasis) of the Psychology Department of the University of Chile. An important characteristic has been developing an ethics for clinical practice and generating a collaborative reflexive approach as a central aspect of the clinical training. The paper aims to promote the legitimacy of the experience of novice therapists who despite limited professional experience have many stories that connect with what is said in therapy.