Are Father’s or Mother’s Socioeconomic Characteristics More Important Influences on Student Performance? Recent International Evidence

Since the early 1970s the importance of mothers’ socioeconomic characteristics on their children’s educational and occupational attainment has been acknowledged. However, it is not clear if fathers’ characteristics have a stronger influence because men usually have stronger attachments to the labour market, or alternatively mothers’ characteristics are more important because of their greater role in children’s socialization. This study addresses this question by comparing the influence of father’s and mother’s education and occupation on student performance in literacy and numeracy using data from 30 countries. The impact of mother’s education is usually greater or comparable to that of father’s education. In contrast, substantially stronger effects for mother’s occupational status compared to father’s were rare. In most countries the impact of mother’s socioeconomic characteristics (education plus occupation) on student performance is comparable to that for father’s. Of the four indicators of socioeconomic background, father’s occupational status and mother’s educational attainment tend to have stronger effects, although many countries do not conform to this pattern. There are indications that the relative importance of mother’s characteristics have increased over time.

以现代教学论指导普通物理教学

本文针对师范院校非物理专业的“普通物理”教与学的矛盾,以现代教学理论为指导,近年来探索新的教学策略,并致力实施,调动了学习积极性和改进评价,取得了较好效果。     

边疆民族地区法律援助——以云南省为例

云南省依法出台了一系列规定,加大了法律援助的宣传力度,构筑起以乡镇、社区法律援助工作站为基础的四级法律援助网络。在残疾人法律援助、农民工法律援助、老年人法律援助和为毒品死刑犯提供法律援助等方面均表现出其特征。但云南省法律援助工作也存在着诸多问题。只有保证政府经费的投入,重新定位法律援助机构的性质,扩充法律服务资源,完善经费管理机制,加强对有关人员的培训,建立起对援助案件的检查、投诉和监督制度和完善其他有关制度,才能进一步做好云南省的法律援助工作。     

Declining inter-industry wage dispersion in the US

Industrial effects have long been significant factors in wage inequality. Previous research indicates that wage differentials across industries were increasing through the mid 1980s. Using more recent data, however, we find that the level of inter-industry wage dispersion declined by 36% from 1986 to 2002 despite the continued trend towards increasing inequality in the labor force. This decline in inter-industry wage dispersion is evident across gender and educational groups. Using multilevel growth curve models, our multivariate results indicate that the decline is only weakly related to industrial changes in education, occupation or even productivity despite the fact that the latter variable had been a critical factor in the prior period. Indicators of globalization and downsizing also do not appear to explain this decline. For the more recent period, the most important factors associated with the narrowing of inter-industry wage dispersion are reduced unionization rates and the higher proportion of casual workers. We interpret these results as suggesting that firms may now be less economically obliged to pass on a portion of their rents to broad groups of workers and may instead be engaged in more idiosyncratic processes of negotiation with individual workers based on micro-level sources of bargaining power.     

Organizational ecology of immigrant employment and organizational buffer zones: Who leaves first when the organization gets into trouble?

Using data from the German social insurance system immigrant employment in organizational buffer zones will be investigated from an organizational ecology perspective. Theories in organization and labor market research predict higher exit rates of employees holding jobs in buffer zones. These buffer zones protect organizations from unfavorable environmental turbulences. Consequently, analyzing the impact of buffer zone employment on job stability of immigrants requires a fully dynamic approach, which goes beyond a mere identification of generally increased turnover rates of immigrants.In the first step, determinants of organizational dissolution rates will be estimated. In order to obtain a dynamic measurement of unfavorable environmental conditions, the model includes both organizational and time-varying environmental characteristics of organizational populations. This will be done by using a three-level mixed-effects hazard model controlling for observed and unobserved environmental characteristics. In the second step, dissolution rates predicted in the first step will be used as an explanatory variable. These rates indicate the degree of enactment of the flexible buffer zone. It will be shown that immigrants have indeed higher turnover rates, but they tend to remain longer in their organizations when environmental conditions deteriorate—and they are not those who leave first when the organization gets into trouble.     

AFFECTIVE RESPONSES WITHIN A COMPLEX DECISION-MAKING TASK: THE INFLUENCE OF “PERCEPTUALLY” ILL-STRUCTURED PROBLEMS

The perceptual effects of varying levels of expert advice for potentially improving on strategic decisions were examined in conjunction with goals. The amounts of advice about decision alternatives, as well as assigned goals ranging from “nearly impossible” to “easy,” were manipulated. The task used was complex and functioned perceptually as an “ill-structured” problem. Mixed results indicated that more advice significantly affected satisfaction but advice in general had little influence on effort. On the other hand, as goal difficulty decreased, satisfaction and effort significantly increased. Easy goals were superior to more difficult ones within this perceptually ill-structured decision-making situation.     

农村合作经济组织的组织形式、问题及对策

中国农村合作经济组织良好的发展势头,已经开始把农业产业中的一部分弱势群体带动起来,使长期困扰中国农业和农村经济发展中的一些困难和问题有了新的解决思路。文章在大量的调查研究和项目实践的基础上,对我国当前农村合作经济的组织形式以及各类组织建设中存在的共性问题和个性问题进行分析,以探讨解决这些问题的对策。     

我国农业科技成果转化现状分析

通过研究我国农业科技成果转化的现状,分析了我国农业科技成果转化过程中成果转化机制、成果转化基金和成果本身存在的机制不健全、资金投入不稳定、市场需求脱节等问题,探讨并提出了加速我国农业科技成果转化的对策,如改革农业科研管理体制、优化农业科技投入结构、提高农业科技成果本身的质量与市场需求相适应等。旨在为我国推进农业科技成果转化进程提供建议。     

歧义容忍度对外语语言水平和外语阅读成绩的影响

为探讨歧义容忍度对外语语言水平和外语阅读成绩的影响,对高、低歧义容忍度组在外语语言水平和外语阅读成绩上的差异进行了比较。结果表明：歧义容忍度直接影响外语语言水平和外语阅读成绩,还通过外语语言水平间接影响外语阅读成绩;高、低歧义容忍度纽的学生在外语语言水平和外语阅读成绩上均有显著性差异。     

The Impact of Parental Remarriage on Children

Abstract

A meta-analysis of 61 studies was undertaken to determine the impact of parental remarriage on the academic achievement and psychological well-being of children, of which the vast majority were adolescents. Separate analyses were done on studies that did and did not use sophisticated controls in their analyses. Comparisons were made between children from remarried versus intact families as well as children from remarried and divorced or widowed single-parent families. Children from remarried family structures achieved academic levels that were generally more than two-tenths of a standard deviation lower than children from intact families. Children from remarried families also achieved somewhat lower levels than children from corresponding single-parent family structures. The difference between children from remarried families and children from intact families was nearly two- tenths of a standard deviation for measures of psychological well-being, for studies that did not use sophisticated controls and was somewhat less for studies that did use sophisticated controls. The significance of these results is discussed, doi: 10.1300/J002v40n04_05