Higher education outcomes, graduate employment and university performance indicators

Summary.  Official employment-related performance indicators in UK higher education are based on the population of students responding to the 'First destination supplement' (FDS). This generates potentially biased performance indicators as this population of students is not necessarily representative of the full population of leavers from each institution. University leavers who do not obtain qualifications and those who do not respond to the FDS are not included within the official analysis. We compare an employment-related performance indicator based on those students who responded to the FDS with alternative approaches which address the potential non-random nature of this subgroup of university leavers.     

Psychological Control and Autonomy Granting: Opposite Ends of a Continuum or Distinct Constructs?

This article explores the relationship between parental psychological control and parental autonomy granting, and the relations between these constructs and indicators of adolescent psychosocial functioning, in a sample of 9,564 adolescents from grades 9 to 12. Participants completed a comprehensive parenting questionnaire as well as several measures of psychosocial adjustment. Confirmatory factor analyses of the parenting items revealed discrete factors for psychological control and autonomy granting, suggesting that these are distinct parenting constructs rather than opposite ends of a parental control continuum. Moreover, structural equation modeling showed that these factors were weakly correlated and differentially related to adolescent internalizing symptoms. Findings have implications for future conceptualization and measurement of psychological control and autonomy granting, and for research examining their effects on adolescent development.     

Pathways between education and health: a causal modelling approach

Summary.  The association of poor education and poor health has been consistently observed in many studies and in various countries. Thus far, studies examining the mechanisms underlying this association have looked at only a limited set of potential pathways. This study simultaneously examines six distinctive pathways, which have been hypothesized to link education and health and found support from previous studies. A causal analysis of education and health was performed using structural equation models. Data were used from six phases of the National Child Development Study, which is based on following up an initial sample of 17416 children who were born in 1958. The association between education and health appears to be explained by a combination of mechanisms: adolescent health and adult health behaviours for men and women, adult social class among men and parental social class among women. We conclude that improvements in population educational attainment may not automatically lead to improvements in population health, and that health policies for improving health and reducing health inequalities need to target specific causal pathways.     

The influence of religiosity on charitable behavior: A COPPS investigation

We examine the role of religion in charitable giving and find that the religious preference of both the donor and the recipient organization influence giving behavior. By exploiting a panel survey of charitable giving, we demonstrate that traditional empirical analysis on charitable giving masks important differences among donor groups. Religious giving by religious individuals is least responsive to changes in price and income, while secular giving by secular individuals has the greatest sensitivity.     

Ecosystem services provided by urban spontaneous vegetation

Spontaneous vegetation colonizes large areas in and around cities. These unmanaged areas are considered to have low economic value or indicate dereliction, but recent research suggests that these can contribute valuable ecosystem services. This study evaluates indicators of ecosystem services in three habitats: urban spontaneous vegetation (USV), managed lawns, and semi-natural urban forest, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. USV had higher indicator values for habitat provisioning (plant species diversity, invertebrate abundance and taxonomic diversity) than the other habitats. Indicators of climatic regulatory services (albedo and leaf area index) in USV were similar to those in lawn habitats. Organic carbon content of the soils, an indicator of carbon storage, was lowest in USV but only marginally lower than in lawns. Standing biomass, an indicator of production services, was lowest in USV but lawn production may have been overestimated. While USV sites are usually transitory components of the urban landscape, they deserve further consideration due to their provision of ecosystem services, in some cases to a greater extent than conventionally valued urban habitats.     

Gay guys using gay language: friendship,shared values and the intent‐context‐effect matrix

This article draws on in‐depth interviews with 35 openly gay male undergraduates from four universities in England to develop an understanding of the changing nature of language related to homosexuality. In addition to finding a diminution in the prevalence of homophobic language, we demonstrate that participants maintain complex and nuanced understandings of phrases that do not use homophobic pejoratives, such as ‘that's so gay’. The majority of participants rejected the notion that these phrases are inherently homophobic, instead arguing that the intent with which they are said and the context in which they are used are vital in understanding their meaning and effect. We conceptualize an intent‐context‐effect matrix to understand the interdependency of these variables. Highlighting the situated nature of this matrix, we also demonstrate the importance of the existence of shared norms between those saying and hearing the phrase when interpreting such language.