High school students’ academic causal attributions in the cultural-political context of the Arab school system in Israel

While motivation is commonly interpreted as an individual student’s characteristic, motivational perceptions and beliefs, such as causal attributions of success and failure, are embedded in cultural meanings and contextual practices. The current study aimed to investigate causal attributions among Arab high school students in Israel and to interpret them in the light of their cultural-political context. Two hundred and five 11th-grade Arab students from three different geographic regions in Israel responded to open-ended and closed survey questions about events of success and failure in school. The analysis indicated that students overwhelmingly considered exams when thinking about events of success and failure, reflecting the normative teacher-centred pedagogical practices in schools. The analysis also manifested patterns of a self-serving bias. These findings are interpreted in the light of the cultural-political characteristics of the Arab school system in Israel.     

Family Relationships,Social Connections,and Depressive Symptoms Among Chinese Older Adults in International Migrant Families

This study explored whether and how family relationships and social connections influence depressive symptoms of older migrants and older adults in transnational families using the data gathered from a cross-sectional survey in Los Angeles, California, United States, and Beijing, China. Regression results showed that the older migrants reported significantly higher levels of depression than the elders in transnational families. The findings highlight the importance of maintaining close family relations and having large friendship networks for older adults in international migrant families.     

Disaster response on September 11, 2001 through the lens of statistical network analysis

The rescue and relief operations triggered by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City demanded collaboration among hundreds of organisations. To shed light on the response to the September 11, 2001 attacks and help to plan and prepare the response to future disasters, we study the inter-organisational network that emerged in response to the attacks. Studying the inter-organisational network can help to shed light on (1) whether some organisations dominated the inter-organisational network and facilitated communication and coordination of the disaster response; (2) whether the dominating organisations were supposed to coordinate disaster response or emerged as coordinators in the wake of the disaster; and (3) the degree of network redundancy and sensitivity of the inter-organisational network to disturbances following the initial disaster. We introduce a Bayesian framework which can answer the substantive questions of interest while being as simple and parsimonious as possible. The framework allows organisations to have varying propensities to collaborate, while taking covariates into account, and allows to assess whether the inter-organisational network had network redundancy—in the form of transitivity—by using a test which may be regarded as a Bayesian score test. We discuss implications in terms of disaster management.     

Too sick to move: distant ‘crisis’ care in transnational families

This paper examines the crisis of acute and chronic illness, death, and dying in transnational families. These are the stages in the family life-course when physical co-presence is required to deliver hands-on care and intimate emotional support for the sick family member. It is a time when distant kin feel they need ‘to be there’, including for their own sense of well-being. This period of ‘crisis’ (in the anthropological sense) makes visible all of the impediments to transnational family caregiving that often remain hidden during those periods when ‘routine’ forms of distant care are adequate. Of particular relevance are the macro-level factors generated by national borders and the policies that define them, including those that govern employment, travel, visa, health, and aged care provisions. It is in these family life phases of crisis that nation-state structures can work to constrain individual agency and rights, making compellingly evident the growing need for transnational structures and policy. At issue are the largely invisible (in a policy sense) but increasingly common micro-level responses of family and individuals that characterize ‘crisis distant care’, which are characterized by the urgent need to visit and to intensify use of ICTs. The paper examines the experiences of migrants living in Australia who are trying to care for acutely unwell family members abroad.     

制约农村养老社会化发展的因素分析

我国农村养老社会化既是养老制度发展的客观规律,也是我国农村经济和社会发展的客观要求。但是,事实上,我国农村养老社会化程度偏低,其原因在于我国农村存在着种种制约养老社会化发展的因素。加快农村养老社会化发展的措施主要是转变传统的家庭养老观念,健全社会养老法律制度,社会养老与农业政策紧密结合,加大国家经济支持力度,理顺社会养老管理体制,分层次、循序渐进地完善农村社会养老制度。     

Examining cross-state variation in the increase in father-only families

Each state has the power to establish its own policy and laws relating to child custody determination. The number of single-parent families with children that are headed by fathers has been growing in the United States. This paper explores the extent of cross-state variation in the prevalence in father-only families in 1990, and the extent to which there was cross-state variation in the increase in father-only families in the 1980s. The 1980 and 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) drawn from the US decennial censuses are used. Decomposition analyses of growth indicate that increases in the number of father-only families occurred across all states during this period, but at varying rates. The primary reason for the increase in most states is an increase in the proportion of ever-married single-parent families that are headed by a father. It is for these families that are headed by divorced or separated parents that state policy relating to child custody determination is most relevant.     

Low‐Income Mothers’ Private Safety Nets and Children’s Socioemotional Well‐Being

Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Well‐being Study (N = 1,162) and the National Evaluation of Welfare‐to‐Work Strategies (N = 1,308), we estimate associations between material and instrumental support available to low‐income mothers and young children’s socioemotional well‐being. In multivariate OLS models, we find mothers’ available support is negatively associated with children’s behavior problems and positively associated with prosocial behavior in both data sets; associations between available support and children’s internalizing and prosocial behaviors attenuate but remain robust in residualized change models. Overall, results support the hypothesis that the availability of a private safety net is positively associated with children’s socioemotional adjustment.     

Competition for Resources: A Reexamination of Sibship Composition Models of Parental Investment

The predictions of resource dilution and sibship gender composition models of educational investment are tested using the Japanese Nationwide Survey on Families (N = 6,985). Japan is an important case because of its postindustrial economy, coupled with high levels of dependence on parental investment to attend a university and persisting gender inequality in educational attainment. In previous between‐family analyses of educational attainment in Japan, boys were found to drain resources from their sisters. The within‐family, multilevel models of parental educational investments in this analysis show that girls with college‐educated brothers fare better than their peers without brothers. An alternative model incorporating the educational investments received by brothers in the same family is proposed.     

城乡困难家庭的求助网络及其政策启示

文章使用“城乡困难家庭调查”2014年跟踪数据,对我国城乡困难家庭的求助网络结构和家庭因素进行分析,发现：血缘和亲缘关系仍是我国城乡困难家庭最天然的帮扶网络,但官方社会救助系统的作用已超过民间系统,邻里朋友仅在血亲和官方系统失灵时起补充作用;基层治理结构对求助网络的城乡差异产生影响,流动人口家庭求助网络呈现多元均衡的特征,但面临官方救助系统的制度性缺失;人口规模、低保资格两个家庭因素对城乡困难家庭求助网络有显著影响。文章认为,应进一步发挥社会力量的作用,针对我国城乡困难家庭建立官民并举、多元协作的社会救助政策体系。