‘The distance between us’: a comparative examination of the technical,spatial and temporal dimensions of the transnational social relationships of highly skilled migrants

In this article, through comparing two highly skilled migrant groups in London, we explore how new types of information and communication technologies (ICTs) shape the form and content of transnational practices through time and space. In so doing, we aim to contribute to several debates in the field of migration studies. First, our findings highlight enduring practical constraints emanating from everyday routines and responsibilities, thus questioning the extent to which ICTs may be shrinking the globe and freeing people, even highly skilled ones, from spatial and temporal fixity. Second, we challenge assumptions about the ease of transnationalism by exploring the range and complexity of long‐distance interpersonal relationships and their dynamics over time. Third, by focusing on a comparison of relatively affluent, highly skilled migrants, we question the usefulness of the category of ‘middling migrants’. Our findings illustrate that, within this general and wide ranging category, there are diverse experiences, expectations and opportunities of maintaining contact with friends and family at home.     

Social Representations and Individual Actions: Misunderstandings, Omissions and Different Premises

Wolfgang Wagner (1994) has submitted a logically ordered and well phrased chain of arguments. But his paper contains, at least in concern of our research which he uses for illustration (Thommen et al , 1988, 1992), a number of misinterpretations. Furthermore, and what is more important, it ignores relevant scientific developments and tries to monopolize the field of social representations for one single, namely Wagner's own, viewpoint and level of analysis.¹ For these reasons, I can not accept some of his statements.     

Residuals in the Extended Growth Curve Model

Abstract.  The Extended Growth Curve model is considered. It turns out that the estimated mean of the model is the projection of the observations on the space generated by the design matrices which turns out to be the sum of two tensor product spaces. The orthogonal complement of this space is decomposed into four orthogonal spaces and residuals are defined by projecting the observation matrix on the resulting components. The residuals are interpreted and some remarks are given as to why we should not use ordinary residuals, what kind of information our residuals give and how this information might be used to validate model assumptions and detect outliers and influential observations. It is shown that the residuals are symmetrically distributed around zero and are uncorrelated with each other. The covariance between the residuals and the estimated model as well as the dispersion matrices for the residuals are also given.     

CONFIDENTIALITY ASSURANCES AND RESPONSE: A QUANTITATIVE REVIEW OF THE EXPERIMENTAL LITERATURE

This article tests the general hypothesis that a stronger assuranceof confidentiality improves survey response by means of a meta-analysisof the experimental literature. No support is found for thegeneral hypothesis, but the subsidiary hypothesis, that confidentialityassurances improve response when the data asked about are sensitive,is supported. Under those circumstances, the effect of confidentialityassurances is small but statistically significant and is robustin the presence of a variety of control variables.