Return Migrations of African‐Americans to the South: Reclaiming a Land of Promise,Going Home,or Both?*

Abstract Using samples of census data from the University of Minnesota Population Center's “Integrated Public Use Microdata Series” (IPUMS), we describe trends in African‐American migration to the South across recent decades, and explore the applicability of the concept of “return migration” to various demographic patterns. Our findings suggest that the return movement contains multiple migration streams involving African‐Americans of higher socio‐economic status (compared with both origin and destination populations) moving to both urban and rural destinations. These patterns represent clear differences from the earlier 20^th century's “Great Migration” of African‐Americans from South to North. The recent return migration streams suggest that the South may be replacing the North as a “land of promise” for some upwardly mobile African‐Americans, and may also reflect what Carol Stack (1996) has termed a “call to home” as a motivating factor shaping recent African‐American migration to the rural South.     

Elder Abuse and Neglect in African American Families: Informing Practice Based on Ecological and Cultural Frameworks

Despite the rapid growth of the elderly African American population in the U.S., elder abuse and neglect in African American families continue to be underdeveloped areas of study. This article presents an ecological and culturally informed framework for the study of elder abuse in African American populations. The model was developed based on Bronfenbrenner's Human Ecological Theory. The model identifies risk factors associated with different systems that have an influence on the lives of African American families. Cultural protective factors also are identified in the model. The model is intended to provide an understanding of elder abuse and neglect in African American families by considering the influence of contextual factors such as the legacy of slavery, social exclusion, and structural segregation and racism. Specific suggestions for practice are proposed according to cultural strengths of African American communities as well as the ecological premises of the model.     

Bureaucratization and Goal Succession in Alternative Organizations

Abstract

A review of the literature of counterculture-inspired efforts at organizing alternatives to commercialism and technocracy reveals that the duration of many of these organizations was quite short. However, in spite of a general fading away of the larger counterculture, some of these efforts did indeed survive. Among the survivors are the crisis centers, organizations originally seeking to provide nondirective, empathetic, problem-solving help to individuals undergoing a personal crisis. An analysis of a sample of crisis centers based in midwestern states reveals that the internal structure of most of them has, with the passage of time, become increasingly formalized. Furthermore, many of these alternative organizations now serve persons who are less socially marginal and more socially acceptable than were the centers' original clients. Our results seem to suggest that, for both internal organizational reasons and external societal reasons, such groups may provide feelings of worth for their members but often change their initial goals somewhat. Also, despite their initial commitment to a less bureaucratic structure alternative organizations in fact become more bureaucratic.     

Understanding public support for punitive criminal sanctions: Psychological and sociological views of the “outlier” phenomenon

The present study compares the ability of selected psychological and sociological factors to predict the level of punitive criminal sanction supported by a community's residents. Personality characteristics, particularly those developed in the pioneering work of Adorno on authoritarianism, represented psychological influences; sociological views on punitive sanctions were drawn from the Durkheimian tradition of social condemnation, in which group norms are established by the general level of consensus about the perceived threat of a particular criminal act, or crime seriousness. Little support was found for the link between authoritarianism and specific sanctioning endorsements. The sociological concept of normative outliers, on the other hand, proved to be the much more useful construct.     

A Comparison of Address-Based Sampling (ABS) Versus Random-Digit Dialing (RDD) for General Population Surveys

Valid and reliable public health data are becoming more difficultto obtain through random-digit dial (RDD) telephone surveys.As a result, researchers are evaluating different survey designs(i.e., sampling frame and survey mode combinations) as complementsor alternatives to RDD. Traditionally, mail surveys of the generalpublic have been limited due to a lack of a complete samplingframe of households. Recent advances in electronic record keeping,however, have allowed researchers to develop a sample from aframe of addresses (e.g., the U.S. Postal Service Delivery SequenceFile, which appears to provide coverage which rivals or possiblyexceeds that obtained through RDD sampling methods). To testthe use of this frame for surveying adults aged 18 years andolder across a wide geographic area, a pilot study was conductedas part of the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System(BRFSS). The pilot compared use of a traditional, RDD telephonesurvey methodology to an approach using a mail version of thequestionnaire completed by a random sample of households drawnfrom an address-based frame. The findings indicate that themail survey approach can achieve higher response rates in low-response-ratestates (<40%) than RDD (particularly when two mailings aresent). Additionally, the address frame with mail survey designprovides access to cell phone only households and offers costsavings over the telephone approach. The resulting sample, however,significantly overrepresents non-Hispanic whites and peoplewith higher levels of education.     

Preliminary Evaluation of the Validity and Reliability of the Spanish Version of the Therapeutic Alliance with Clinician (TAC) Questionnaire

As part of a broader study aimed at evaluating perceived alliance with service providers and level of satisfaction with services received, 103 monolingual Spanish speaking Hispanic women were interviewed. Participants were receiving ongoing behavioral health treatment at three different community service provider sites located in the greater New Haven area in Connecticut. These sites included a community health center (n = 40), a community behavioral health center (n = 40), and a faith-based agency (n = 23). As part of this study, the English version of the Therapeutic Alliance with Clinician (TAC) questionnaire was translated into Spanish and administered to our sample of Hispanic women. Results on the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the TAC are presented in this article.     

Changes in the age dependence of mortality and disability: Cohort and other determinants

Though the general trend in the United States has been toward increasing life expectancy both at birth and at age 65, the temporal rate of change in life expectancy since 1900 has been variable and often restricted to specific population groups. There have been periods during which the age- and gender-specific risks of particular causes of death have either increased or decreased. These periods partly reflect the persistent effects of population health factors on specific birth cohorts. It is important to understand the ebbs and flows of cause-specific mortality rates because general life expectancy trends are the product of interactions of multiple dynamic period and cohort factors. Consequently, we first review factors potentially affecting cohort health back to 1880 and explore how that history might affect the current and future cohort mortality risks of major chronic diseases. We then examine how those factors affect the age-specific linkage of disability and mortality in three sets of birth cohorts assessed using the 1982, 1984, and 1989 National Long Term Care Surveys and Medicare mortality data collected from 1982 to 1991. We find large changes in both mortality and disability in those cohorts. providing insights into what changes might have occurred and into what future changes might be expected.     

Migration distances: An international comparison

Comparing the level or amount of migration within different countries has been a longstanding problem because the local administrative areas commonly used as the basis for measuring migration vary greatly in size and significance within and between countries. Distance moved is a critical aspect of most concepts of migration, and measuring it would facilitate cross-national comparisons. Apparently only the United States, Great Britain, and Sweden have measured migration distances for the country as a whole, and this information is used as the basis for comparative analysis of spatial mobility.