Racial segregation and the limits of international undergraduate student diversity

This study challenges the assertion that the influx of Asian international undergraduate students in universities across the United States creates richer educational and social environments. Drawing on qualitative research at a public university with a large number of Asian international students, this article examines how Asian American student leaders and their organization took on the difficult institutional task of actualizing the diversity of these new students in a racially segregated campus. We found that instead of viewing racial segregation practices as possibly tied to racial discrimination and privileges of normative whiteness, students expressed both support and resistance to Asian international students in race-neutral language of comfort and organizational differences that reflects the dominant ideology of colorblindness. We argue that any claims to the benefits of international student diversity must take serious account of colorblind racism and the experiences of racial marginalization and racial segregation among domestic minority and international students.     

Experimentation order in factorial designs with 8 or 16 runs

Randomizing the order of experimentation in a factorial design does not always achieve the desired effect of neutralizing the influence of unknown factors. In fact, with some very reasonable assumptions, an important proportion of random orders afford the same degree of protection as that obtained by experimenting in the design matrix standard order. In addition, randomization can induce a big number of changes in factor levels and thus make experimentation expensive and difficult. This paper discusses this subject and suggests experimentation orders for designs with 8 or 16 runs that combine an excellent level of protection against the influence of unknown factors, with the minimum number of changes in factor levels.     

Gender Differences in Time Availability: Evidence from France

The aim of the article is to examine differences in work time from a gender perspective. To this end, a concept broader than mere duration of work time is constructed. This concept, which we call time availability, encompasses not only the volume of hours worked but also the scheduling and predictability of those hours. It is measured by a synthetic indicator showing the extent to which a given group of workers exceeds the societal time norm. After a presentation of the French context, we show that women seem to have less time availability, particularly at the ages that are most decisive in career terms. But these differences do not concern the same aspects of time availability. Thus the time constraints experienced mainly by women are less socially visible and hence undervalued by employers. This lower visibility comes, for a large part, from the social perception of women professionals.     

Reliability,Validity and Classification Accuracy of the South Oaks Gambling Screen in a Brazilian Sample

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability, validity and classification accuracy of the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) in a sample of the Brazilian population. Participants in this study were drawn from three sources: 71 men and women from the general population interviewed at a metropolitan train station; 116 men and women encountered at a bingo venue; and 54 men and women undergoing treatment for gambling. The SOGS and a DSM-IV-based instrument were applied by trained researchers. The internal consistency of the SOGS was 0.75 according to the Cronbach’s alpha model, and construct validity was good. A significant difference among groups was demonstrated by ANOVA (F _(2.238) = 221.3, P < 0.001). The SOGS items and DSM-IV symptoms were highly correlated (r = 0.854, P < 0.01). The SOGS also presented satisfactory psychometric properties: sensitivity (100), specificity (74.7), positive predictive rate (60.7), negative predictive rate (100) and misclassification rate (0.18). However, a cut-off score of eight improved classification accuracy and reduced the rate of false positives: sensitivity (95.4), specificity (89.8), positive predictive rate (78.5), negative predictive rate (98) and misclassification rate (0.09). Thus, the SOGS was found to be reliable and valid in the Brazilian population.     

Paths to citizenship? Public views on the extension of rights to legal and second‐generation immigrants in Europe

This study uses variations in the legal-institutional frameworks of citizenship to explore cross-nationally public views about granting equal rights to legal immigrants and citizenship status to second-generation immigrants in 20 European countries. We link the literatures on citizenship regimes and attitudes toward immigrants to construct a conceptual model that is tested using ISSP data from 2003 and a set of matching contextual measures. Results from hierarchical linear regression analyses indicate that (1) opposition to the extension of rights to legal immigrants is augmented by shorter periods of required residency for naturalization and (2) granting citizenship status to second-generation immigrants is not sensitive to whether a regime consents or not to citizenship by birth. Net of individual and contextual controls, the findings also show that resistance to the expansion of rights to legal immigrants is higher in countries consenting to dual citizenship. Furthermore, our analyses reveal that Eastern European respondents do not differ significantly from their Western counterparts with respect to extending rights to either category of immigrants. These results are discussed in reference to the diversity of citizenship regimes in Europe and in light of the existing debates on harmonizing immigration policies.     

Using WhatsApp for a homeless count

The study analyses how the use of instant messaging (WhatsApp) alongside other ICT tools is adequate to complement the count of homeless people in an area. In particular, it describes the methodology used in order to organize the first official count of homeless people in Girona (Catalonia, Spain). Given that this is the first count of individuals experiencing homelessness in the city, it is difficult to say that it is an improvement, but it could be suggested that the app might make the future counts more efficient. Both professional and volunteers and homeless people used WhatsApp to send information. A total of 283 homeless people were detected. Results show that the usage of this application optimized the results of the count. 36.1% of the data were obtained online. Homeless people, who were reluctant to contact directly with the professional team, used WhatsApp to communicate with them, adding up to 19.4% of the data obtained. Results show how communication between homeless people and health and mental health services can be potentially improved with this type of application.     

Should the US have locked heaven��s door?

This paper examines the economic impact of the second great immigration wave (1945–2000) on the US economy. Our analysis relies on a computable general equilibrium model combining the major interactions between immigrants and natives (labor market impact, fiscal impact, capital deepening, endogenous education, endogenous inequality). Contrary to recent studies, we show that immigration induced important net gains and small redistributive effects among natives. According to our simulations, the postwar US immigration is beneficial for all natives cohorts and all skill groups. Nevertheless, the gains would have been larger if the US had conducted a more selective immigration policy.     

Impaired Metacognitive Capacities in Individuals with Problem Gambling

Impaired insight into behavior may be one of the clinical characteristics of pathological gambling. In the present study, we tested whether the capacity to evaluate accurately the quality of one’s own decisions during a non-gambling task was impaired in problem gamblers. Twenty-five problem gamblers and 25 matched healthy participants performed an artificial grammar-learning paradigm, in which the quality of choice remains uncertain throughout the task. After each trial of this task, participants had to indicate how confident they were in the grammaticality judgements using a scale ranging from 1 (low confidence) to 7 (high confidence). Results showed that (i), problem gamblers’ performance on the grammaticality test was lower than controls’; (ii) there was a significant correlation between grammaticality judgments and confidence for control participants, which indicates metacognitive insight and the presence of conscious knowledge; (iii) this correlation was not significant in problem gamblers, which suggests a disconnection between performance and confidence in this group. These findings suggest that problem gamblers are impaired in their metacognitive abilities on a non-gambling task, which suggests that compulsive gambling is associated with poor insight as a general factor. Clinical interventions tailored to improve metacognition in gambling could be a fruitful avenue of research in order to prevent pathological gambling.