Reviews

Tony (A.R.J.) Kushner, The Persistence of Prejudice: Antisemitism in British Society During the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester’ University Press, 1989), Pp.ix + 257. £29.95.

Calvin W. Ruck, The Black Battalion, 1916–1920: Canada's Best Kept Military Secret. (Halifax NS: Nimbus Publishing, 1987). Pp.124. £6.95 pb.

Valerie Marett, Immigrants Settling in the City (London: Leicester University Press, 1989). Pp.vii + 207. £35 hb.

Keith Thompson, Under Siege: Racial Violence in Britain Today, (London: Penguin Books, 1988). Pp.xx + 204. £3.99p/b.

W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity (London: Routledge, 1988). Pp.ii + 158. £25.00.     

Defining,Excusing, and Justifying Deviance: Teen Mothers' Accounts for Statutory Rape

This article examines the excuses and justifications used by teenage mothers to account for their involvement with older boyfriends. Data were gathered during a three-year participant-observation study of mothers enrolled in a high school program for adolescent parents. The teens who used justifications argued that their consent made their relationships non-deviant, and felt that they should not be construed as statutory rape offenses. The teens who used excuses perceived themselves as victims of their older boyfriends, and believed that statutory rape laws should be enforced with more regularity. As their relationships ended, the women who initially used justifications often shifted to excuses, directing the blame away from themselves and toward their boyfriends.     

Fishing in Urban New Jersey: Ethnicity Affects Information Sources,Perception, and Compliance

Recreational and subsistence angling are important aspects of urban culture for much of North America where people are concentrated near the coasts or major rivers. Yet there are fish and shellfish advisories for many estuaries, rivers, and lakes, and these are not always heeded. This paper examines fishing behavior, sources of information, perceptions, and compliance with fishing advisories as a function of ethnicity for people fishing in the Newark Bay Complex of the New York–New Jersey Harbor. We test the null hypothesis that there were no ethnic differences in sources of information, perceptions of the safety of fish consumption, and compliance with advisories. There were ethnic differences in consumption rates, sources of information about fishing, knowledge about the safety of the fish, awareness of fishing advisories or of the correct advisories, and knowledge about risks for increased cancer and to unborn and young children. In general, the knowledge base was much lower for Hispanics, was intermediate for blacks, and was greatest for whites. When presented with a statement about the potential risks from eating fish, there were no differences in their willingness to stop eating fish or to encourage pregnant women to stop. These results indicate a willingness to comply with advisories regardless of ethnicity, but a vast difference in the base knowledge necessary to make informed risk decisions about the safety of fish and shellfish. Although the overall median income level of the population was in the $25,000–34,999 income category, for Hispanics it was on the border between $15,000–24,999 and $25,000–34,999.     

The Technologisation of Childhood? Young Children and Technology in the Home

We describe an 18-month empirical investigation of three- and four-year-old children's uses of technology at home, based on a survey of 346 families and 24 case studies. The findings are reported in the context of social commentators' anxieties about the ways in which childhood is being transformed by technology. Although we report evidence of some parental disquiet about the role of technology in children's lives, we illustrate some of the complexities in families' attitudes to, and uses of, technology and conclude that it is not perceived by parents to be the threat to modern childhood that is claimed.     

Risk Perception, Federal Spending, and the Savannah River Site: Attitudes of Hunters and Fishermen

This paper examines the attitudes of 285 hunters and fishermen from South Carolina about hunting and fishing, risk, environmental issues, and future land use of the Savannah River Site. We test the null hypothesis that there is no difference in hunting and fishing rates, attitudes toward the safety of fish and deer obtained from SRS, attitudes toward future land use at SRS, and perceptions of the severity of environmental problems as a function of how far respondents lived from the site. Respondents hunted or fished an average of over 40 days a year, and only half felt that the fish and deer from SRS were safe to eat. Willingness to expend federal funds was correlated with perceptions of the severity of the problem. Preferences for future land use at SRS fell into three categories: high (environmental research park, hunting, fishing, camping), medium (nuclear production, factories, preserve only), and low (nuclear waste storage, residential). There were no differences in hunting and fishing rates, ranking of the severity of environmental problems, and willingness to expend federal funds as a function of distance of residence from SRS, but attitudes toward future land use differed significantly as a function of location of residence. Those living close to SRS were more willing to have the site used for factories, residential, nuclear material production and to store nuclear wastes than those living farther from the site. Our data on recreational rates, attitudes toward future land use, and willingness to expend federal funds to solve environmental problems reiterate the importance of assessing stakeholder attitudes toward decisions regarding future land use at DOE sites     

Children and Power in Mexican Transnational Families

Today, many families find that they are unable to fulfill the goal of maintaining a household by living together under the same roof. Some members migrate internationally. This article addresses the consequences of a transnational lifestyle for children who are left behind by migrant parents. Using ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with a total of 141 members of Mexican transnational families, I explore how children who are left behind react to parents’ migrations. I focus on how Mexican children manifest the competing pressures they feel surrounding parents’ migrations and consequently shape family migration patterns. The article shows that children may experience power, albeit in different ways at different ages, while simultaneously being disadvantaged as dependents and in terms of their families’ socioeconomic status.