Cohort Changes in the Socio-demographic Determinants of Gender Egalitarianism

Arguments about the spread of gender egalitarian values through the population highlight several sources of change. First, structural arguments point to increases in the proportion of women with high education, jobs with good pay, commitment to careers outside the family, and direct interests in gender equality. Second, value shift arguments contend that gender norms change with social and economic development among women and men in diverse positions - traditional and non-traditional alike. Third, diffusion arguments suggest that structural change leads to adoption of new ideas and values supportive of gender equality by non-traditional and innovative groups in society, but that the new ideas later diffuse to other groups through cultural processes. Using the General Social Survey from 1977 to 2006 and comparing the determinants of gender egalitarianism across 86 cohorts born from roughly 1900 through 1985, multilevel models support the diffusion arguments.     

民间组织走出去

美国环保协会的故事开始于50多年前一场关于保护鸬鹚,一种可爱的鸟类的运动。上世纪60年代,美国长岛的科学家惊讶地发现当地鸬鹚幼鸟的数量由于不知名的原因,急剧下滑至正常数量的七分之一。与此同时,秃头鹰、游隼等其他猛禽的数量也出现了同样惊人的跌幅。其中一些科学家通过科学研究追踪问题的根源,发现喷洒杀虫剂DDT（又称“滴滴涕”）是造成这一现象的罪魁祸首。在通过科学的指证赢得了在美国全面禁止DDT使用的官司之后,为了进一步保护人类赖以生存的自然环境,这些科学家成立了美国环保协会。     

The Viability of Career Maturity Theory: A Developmental—Contextual Perspective

The critical role of the timing of person—context interactions is important in the conceptualization of the school-to-work transition. It is argued that career maturity, with its focus on the individual and its ties to stage models and notions of age-appropriateness, gives insufficient attention to the particular contexts of time and culture within which it may be observed. The use of recent advances in developmental theory is suggested as a viable alternative for understanding developmental transitions. Findings from the research literature and from a recent study of young adults from former East Germany and former West Germany are cited in support of this proposal. These findings highlight limitations of the construct of career maturity in showing how individual differences and contextual factors contribute to the school-to-work transition in contrasting environments of former East and West Germany.     

Poverty,social disadvantage,and the black/white placement gap

In this paper, we examine whether county-level measures of poverty and social disadvantage are correlated with county-level variation in the black/white foster care placement gap. The black/white placement gap refers to the fact that when the rate of placement into foster care for black children is compared to the rate for white children living in the same area, the black placement rate is almost always higher than the rate for whites. Although differential exposure to poverty is often used to explain why the placement gap is so large, the problem has rarely been studied. Using Poisson event count models, we find that poverty, measured at the county ecological level, is associated with a narrower gap rather than a wider gap. The counterintuitive finding is due to the fact that the relationship between poverty and placement rates depends on race.     

Think tanks, free market academics, and the triumph of the right

These two books address different dimensions of the triumphal rise of free market ideas. Thomas Medvetz analyzes the emergence of think tanks as a new organizational form in the United States and explains why they have effectively reduced the influence of most academic intellectuals on policy making. Angus Burgin analyzes the emergence and history of the Mont Pèlerin Society—the free market group that was founded by Friedrich Hayek—which had a decisive influence on conservative thought.