Child and Youth Well-Being in the United States, 1975–1998: Some Findings from a New Index

Social Indicators Research - This paper addresses the following questions: Overall, on average, how did child and youthwell-being in the United States of Americachange in the last quarter of the...     

Seeing beyond the datasets: the unexploited structure of electoral and institutional data

We propose relational data modeling as a tool for replacing the ad hoc and uncoordinated approaches commonly used throughout the social sciences to gather, store, and disseminate data. We demonstrate relational data modeling using global electoral and political institutional data. We define a relational data model as a map of concepts, their attributes, and the relationships between concepts developed using a formal language and according to a set of rules. To demonstrate the methodology, we design a simple relational data model of six concepts: countries, parties, elections, districts, institutions, and election results. Furthermore, we introduce a data model to solve the particularly vexing issue of party discontinuity (party splits, mergers, and alliances). We show how the solution facilitates computational tasks, such as the calculation of core measures of political phenomena (ex: electoral volatility). Ultimately, a relational data approach will play a central role in collective investments to develop advanced data capabilities, and thereby advance the accuracy, pace, and transparency of scholarship in the social sciences.     

Parental Depression and Child Outcomes: The Mediating Effects of Abuse and Neglect

Using longitudinal data on 1,813 children and parents from a nationally representative child‐welfare sample, National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well‐Being (NSCAW), this study investigated physically abusive and neglectful parenting as mediating the effects of parent depression on child mental health by developmental stage. Findings from latent growth models indicated that parental depression had a significant impact on child outcomes for all youths, but of the 2 types of parenting behaviors, only neglectful parenting mediated the relationship for preschool and school‐aged children. Neither parenting behavior mediated the effects of parental depression for adolescents.     

Legacy Volunteering: A Test of Two Theories of Intergenerational Transmission

Sociological theory suggests two reasons that volunteering runs in families. The first is that parents act as role models. The second is that parents who volunteer pass on the socioeconomic resources needed to do volunteer work. Panel data from two generations of women (N = 1,848) are analyzed to see how much influence family socioeconomic status and mother's volunteering have on daughter's volunteer careers. More highly educated women and women whose mothers volunteered donate more hours initially, but only family socioeconomic status increases volunteering over the life course.     

What’s the Relationship Got to do with It? Understanding the Therapeutic Relationship in Therapeutic Foster Care

The therapeutic relationship is increasingly recognized as important to understanding how process variables contribute to treatment outcomes. In this paper, we examine the therapeutic relationship between children with serious emotional and behavioral disorders and their treatment providers in the context of an observational study of Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC). Our findings suggest that the quality of the relationship between the treatment parent and youth in a TFC setting is significantly associated with better emotional and behavioral functioning for the youth. It appears from these findings that the quality of the relationship between the youth and treatment parent in a TFC setting is at least one of the mechanism or process factors that contribute to improved functioning for the youth.     

Market Transition,Social Stratification,and Health Disparities in China: Longitudinal Analysis 1991 to 2006

Although a large body of literature has documented that China’s market transition from state socialism led to substantial changes in the social stratification order, little is known about the transition’s implications for health disparities. Integrating the fundamental cause perspective with market transition theory, this article examines the changing association of education and cadre status with self-rated health during the market transition, 1991 through 2006. Analyzing multiple waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey data (N = 28,227), ordinal logistic mixed effects regression reveals the emerging and increasing role of education in shaping health disparities, while the role of cadre status stayed constant over time. Bringing a health outcome into market transition theory and institutional contexts to fundamental cause theory expands both theories and provides insights into the implication of market transition for health disparities.     

Trajectories of body mass and self-concept in black and white girls: the lingering effects of stigma

As a stigmatizing condition, obesity may lead to the internalization of devalued labels and threats to self-concept. Modified labeling theory suggests that the effects of stigma may outlive direct manifestations of the discredited characteristic itself. This article considers whether obesity's effects on self-concept linger when obese youth enter the normal body mass range. Using longitudinal data from the National Growth and Health Study on 2,206 black and white girls, we estimated a parallel-process growth mixture model of body mass linked to growth models of body image discrepancy and self-esteem. We found that discrepancy was higher and self-esteem lower in formerly obese girls compared to girls always in the normal range and comparable to chronically obese girls. Neither body image discrepancy nor self-esteem rebounded in white girls despite reduction in body mass, suggesting that the effects of stigma linger. Self-esteem, but not discrepancy, did rebound in black girls.     

Children of misfortune: early adversity and cumulative inequality in perceived life trajectories

Adversity early in life may alter pathways of aging, but what interpretive processes can soften the blow of early insults? Drawing from cumulative inequality theory, the authors analyze trajectories of life evaluations and then consider whether early adversity offsets favorable expectations for the future. Results reveal that early adversity contributes to more negative views of the past but rising expectations for the future. Early adversity also has enduring effects on life evaluations, offsetting the influence of buoyant expectations. The findings draw attention to the limits of human agency under the constraints of early adversity-a process described as biographical structuration.