Tribal membership requirements and the demography of ‘old’ and ‘new’ Native Americans

This paper examines the twentieth-century population recovery of Native Americans with reference to urbanization, intermarriage, and differing definitions of the Native American population from census and tribal enrollment data. The recent increase in the Native American population reflected in regular US decennial censuses since 1960 is discussed in terms of changing self-identification of individuals as Native American. Also discussed are criteria for enrollment in Native American tribes, particularly blood quantum requirements. Census enumerations are compared with tribal enrollment data, and it is illustrated that a large proportion of those identifying as Native American in the census are not enrolled in Native American tribes. Special attention is given to how Native American tribal enrollment criteria might impact future population size.     

Giving children a voice in divorce: the role of family conciliation

SUMMARY. The last ten yean have seen a rapid development of conciliation in matters relating to divorce and separation, both in the accessibility of services and in the styles of conciliation practice. Throughout this period the vexed question of the involvement of children in conciliaion has persisted. Should children be involved at all and, if so, how? This paper outlines these debates, in the light of data collected during the study of conciliation commissioned by the Lord Chancellor's department between 1985 and 1988 (Ogus et al., 1989). It is the first of two papers on this subject in this issue and a third., by Fiona Garwood, will appear in the next issue     

Attitudes of Managers Who Are More or Less Career Plateaued

This study investigated demographic and attitudinal differences across managers classified as nonplateaued, content plateaued, hierarchically plateaued, or both content and hierarchically plateaued. The results revealed significant demographic differences across the 4 groups on a variety of variables. Managers who were classified as both hierarchically and job content plateaued tended to report less favorable job attitudes than managers who were plateaued for one reason only or managers who were nonplateaued. Managers who were only job content plateaued tended to report less favorable job attitudes than managers who were only hierarchically plateaued.     

Not Thinking Ethnicity: A Critique of the Ethnicity Paradigm in an Over-Ethnicised Sociology

The many critical approaches to an 'ethnicity framework' have fallen short of a very possible conclusion—that the language of ethnicity provides, for the most part, a poor paradigm with which to work. In the present paper we seek not only to re-state some key weaknesses of this paradigm but also to suggest that these weaknesses are more general in an over-ethnicised sociology. There are numerous critiques of particular models or elements of ethnicity thinking, including critiques of primordialist approaches (Fenton 2003), of multiculturalism ( Barry 2000 ), and of the over-objectification of groups (Brubaker 2004; see also Jenkins 2008). The major critiques constitute a strong case against 'thinking with ethnicity'; the broader weaknesses are more general in contemporary 'identitarian' sociology. From this position we turn to the question of offering an alternative approach in a sociology which emphasizes agency, and is grounded in an analysis of actors in material situations. This is allied to the concept of ideational resources, social categories and identities upon which actors draw, and a middle-range view of causality and tendency in social change. Ideas of ancestral belonging are among those ideational resources, and these ideas and assumptions are played out in a context of material and political change. The subject of study is not ethnicity, but power, resources, social relations and institutions (which may and may not be) informed by cultural identities and ideas of ancestry. The strategy of the paper will be first to re-state the deficiencies of 'ethnicity thinking' and second to offer an alternative framework for thinking about social action and social structure.     

‘Does your granny eat grass?’ On mass migration,care drain and the fate of older people in rural Albania

Older people have been the main social casualties of the collapse of the Albanian communist system and the ensuing mass emigration of younger generations since 1990. Some have had to forage for survival on a near‐starvation diet, making broth from grass and weeds. For others, remittances from emigrant children ensure adequate material well‐being, but a loss of locally‐based trans‐generational care and of intimate family relations occurs. Rates of emigration have been highest in the southern uplands, where our fieldwork took place. Migration has been mainly to Greece, but also to Italy and elsewhere. Interviews with elderly ‘residual households’ ‐ single people and couples ‐ reveal stories of loneliness and abandonment; cross‐generational rupture of hitherto tight family structures is seen as emotionally painful because of the impossibility of enjoying mutual benefits of care sustained by geographical proximity. Profoundly upsetting is the denial of the practice of grand‐parenting, which the older generation see as their raison d'être. Cost of travel, visa regimes and emigrants’ irregular status conspire to prevent international visits. Finally, we examine various strategies of overcoming the ‘care drain’ produced by this situation, one of which is for older people to try to join their migrant children and grandchildren abroad.     

MONETARY EXPERIMENTS IN A NEOCLASSICAL MODEL

A Neoclassical Monetary Growth Model is formulated in which income is taken to be exogenous. A rise in the expected rate of inflation raises the price level but has an effect of indeterminate sign on the rate of interest. An increase in the quantity of money causes a more-than-proportional increase in the price level so that velocity rises. Therefore money is not neutral in the short run.     

HAS WAL‐MART BURIED MOM AND POP?: THE IMPACT OF WAL‐MART ON SELF‐EMPLOYMENT AND SMALL ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES

This paper explores the widely accepted view that Wal‐Mart causes significant harm to the traditional, small “mom and pop” business sector of the U.S. economy. We present the first rigorous econometric investigation of this issue by examining the rate of self‐employment and the number of small employer establishments using both time series and cross‐sectional data. We also examine alternative measures and empirical techniques for robustness. Contrary to popular belief, our results suggest that the process of creative destruction unleashed by Wal‐Mart has had no statistically significant long‐run impact on the overall size and profitability of the small business sector in the United States. (JEL L81, D59, C21)     

Children's rights: developments and prospects

The decade since International Year of the Child has witnessed a variety of suggestions and initiatives to promote the rights of children. Proposals for ombudswork with children, a Minister for Children, a Children's Congress, a Children's Rights Officer, a Youth Charter and Youth Councils are each critically assessed. It is argued that the forthcoming Convention on the Rights of the Child may prove less effective in winning rights for children than its advocates imagine. The author concludes that rights for children are less likely to be achieved by adopting any specific group of reforms, than by acknowledging and supporting the principle that, wherever possible, children should be encouraged to make decisions for themselves and act on their own behalf