Father–Daughter Incest: Data from an Anonymous Computerized Survey

Retrospective data were entered anonymously by 1,521 adult women using computer-assisted self-interview. Nineteen were classified as victims of father–daughter incest, and 241 were classified as victims of sexual abuse by an adult other than their father before reaching 18 years of age. The remaining 1,261 served as controls. Incest victims were more likely than controls to endorse feeling damaged, psychologically injured, estranged from one or both parents, and shamed by others when they tried to open up about their experience. They had been eroticized early on by the incest experience, and it interfered with their adult sexuality. Incest victims experienced coitus earlier than controls and after reaching age 18 had more sex partners and were more likely to have casual sex outside their primary relationship and engage in sex for money than controls. They also had worse scores on scales measuring depression, sexual satisfaction, and communication about sex than controls.     

Building the Unsettling Force: Social Workers and the Struggle for Human Rights

Community organizing for human rights provides a platform for social workers to be actively engaged in dismantling systems of oppression. Using a case study of Women In Transition, this article emphasizes strategies for organizing for economic human rights, including opportunities and challenges in using the human rights framework. Recommendations and implications for the social work profession are discussed.     

Book reviews

Review Symposium: Cross‐Cultural Roots of Minority Child Development. P.M. Greenfield & R. R. Cocking (Eds.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994. 431 pp. $89.95, $39.95 (paper).

Understanding Practice. S. Chaiklin and J. Lave (Eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 414 pp. $59.95.     

The use of population‐level data to advance interdisciplinary methodology: a cell‐through‐society sampling framework for child development research

The authors argue that population‐level data should be used to advance interdisciplinary research about community effects on early development. These data permit the identification of neighborhoods in which development patterns deviate from predictions based on local socioeconomic status (SES). So‐called ‘off‐diagonal’ places signal where researchers are likely to discover processes that either deflect the risks of low SES or dampen the salutary impact of favorable SES. Since such neighborhoods will be best understood relative to nearby ‘on‐diagonal’ neighborhoods where macro‐economic and/or public policy factors are constant, the authors present a methodology for illuminating these regional clusters. The method is deployed in British Columbia, Canada, where a team has collected developmental observations from two censuses of kindergarten children (n = 82,632). The article discusses how these clusters can be used to coordinate sampling decisions among academics representing the range of disciplines needed to study child development from cell‐through‐society, as is recommended in the literature.     

Sex Matters

Feminists increasingly recognize that “sex,” as a reference to embodied male–female difference, is no less socially constructed than “gender.” Like all signifiers, the meaning of these terms is produced through contingent and particular historical processes; yet histories of “how sex was made” are rare. This essay draws on extensive, multidisciplinary research – focused through a lens of early (archaic) state making – to render a partial and provisional genealogy of sex. The schematic history begins with early human social formations and the “agricultural revolution” that marked a shift from food gathering to food producing. It then reviews the defining characteristics – in particular, the invention of writing – and attendant inequalities of early/archaic state-formation (urbanization; the “rise of civilization”). The centralization of Greek city-states has particular, indeed profound, relevance for what is conventionally called the “western tradition.” The essay then directs attention to the Athenian polis, not only because it exemplifies features of early states, but because modern interpretations of classical texts and Athenian practices uniquely shaped European political theory/practice; in particular, by naturalizing hierarchies of gender, sexuality, ethnicity/race, class and national “difference.”     

Automated patient linking for electronic health record and child welfare databases

Abstract

There are 427,000 children in protective custody in the United States. A lack of integration between the child welfare data system and electronic health record systems complicates the communication of critical health history details to caregivers. We created and evaluated automated 10 custom algorithms linking these data. Deterministic matching was performed using combinations of first and last name, date of birth, and gender. If unmatched, a nondeterministic algorithm allowed for punctuation differences and letter transpositions. Of the children linked deterministically, 91.3% were linked. Of the ones undergoing nondeterministic matching, 71.3% were linked. Sharing integrated data is the first step in systematically improving health outcomes for children in protective custody. This approach represents an automatable and scalable solution that could help merge data from two disparate sources.     

Turning Sexual Science Into News: Sex Research and the Media

In this article we report on the findings of a two-part project investigating contemporary issues in sexuality researchers' interaction with journalists. The goal of the project was to explore best practices and suggest curricular and training initiatives for sexuality researchers and journalists that would enhance the accurate dissemination of sexuality research results in the media. We present the results of a survey of a convenience sample of 94 sexuality researchers about their experiences and concerns regarding media coverage and a summary of the main themes that emerged from an invitational conference of sexuality researchers and journalists. In addition, we present some preliminary recommendations for training and best practices. Topics assessed include reporting accuracy; sex researchers' comfort with various topics, media, and journalists; researchers' perceptions of the purpose and content of articles; concern about the impact of media coverage; and training for sexuality researchers.     

Beauty in the Community

Metacom's War, also known as King Phillip's War, sets a pattern of national expansion through displacement of native people that echoes throughout American history. Helping students further understand this war through the examination of Mary Rowlandson's primary document provides educators and students with an opportunity to delve deeper into the complexities surrounding the convergence of cultures in colonial America. In this article, I provide an overview of the context that led to the conflict between the native populations and the European settlers. Additionally, I highlight passages from Rowlandson's narrative that are relevant to upper-elementary students. The passages are accompanied by questions to assist students as they examine the primary source for a deeper understanding of the people who strove to survive in seventeenth-century Massachusetts. Examining primary sources is one piece of the multifaceted process of historical understanding. In this article, educators learn the historical content of the period and a structured process for their students to examine the primary source.     

The Road to the Top: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Mobility in the Elite Labor Market of College Basketball Coaching

We examine how career paths, job performance, affiliation ties, and race combine to affect who secures top jobs in an elite labor market. Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis, we show that examining these traits in conjunction, rather than in isolation, reveals novel insights into how one reaches the top of an occupation. Specifically, we document how factors coalesce in various ways to propel a coach to or from the top of NCAA Division I basketball. Results are particularly informative regarding race and social ties, as the importance of these conditions depend on signs of success. These findings illustrate the importance of context and perception in occupational advancement and suggest the analytic benefit of viewing job applicants as attribute clusters when examining advancement at the highest levels of an occupation.