Changing Frameworks in Attitudes Toward Abortion

For more than two decades, legal abortion has been the subject of heated political debate and adversarial social movement activity; however, national polls have shown little change in aggregate levels of support for abortion. This analysis examines how the determinants of abortion attitudes have changed between 1977 and 1996, using data from the General Social Surveys. While in early time periods, whites were more approving of abortion than blacks, that pattern had reversed by the late 1980s. After controlling for other factors, older people are more accepting of abortion throughout the two decades, while gender is generally unrelated to abortion views. Catholic religion weakens slightly as a predictor of abortion attitudes, while religious fundamentalism and political liberalism increase in explanatory power. The associations between attitudinal correlates and abortion approval also change over this time period. Religiosity becomes a less powerful predictor of abortion attitudes, while respondents' attitude toward sexual freedom and belief in the sanctity of human life increase in their predictive power. Support for gender inequality remains a weak but stable predictor of abortion attitudes. This pattern of results suggests that the public is influenced more by the pro-life framework of viewing abortion than by the pro-choice perspective.     

Hidden Resources and Barriers in Career Learning Assessment With Adolescents Vulnerable to Discrimination

The authors maintain that the social learning theory of career development and counseling has not been applied to diverse populations. To address this gap in the literature, the authors conducted a qualitative analysis of interviews with 21 middle school students in a low‐income, culturally diverse, inner‐city public school. Four themes emerged, reflecting the influence of discrimination on participants' career learning: contextual barriers and resources for learning, and psychological barriers and resources for learning. The authors provide a conceptual framework for assessing resources and barriers and a rationale for why these aspects often remain hidden or unexamined in career assessment with clients who are vulnerable to discrimination.     

Book Review: The Other Feminists: Activists in the Liberal Establishment,by Susan M. Hartmann. Yale University Press,New Haven,CT, 1998

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

The residual effect of a growth-decay mechanism and the distributions of covariance structures

The product of two independent or dependent scalar normal variables, sums of products, sample covariances, and general bilinear forms are considered. Their distributions are shown to belong to a class called generalized Laplacian. A growth-decay mechanism is also shown to produce such a generalized Laplacian. Sets of necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for bilinear forms to belong to this class. As a generalization, the distributions of rectangular matrices associated with multivariate normal random vectors are also discussed.     

Relations Between Measures of Irritability and Contingency Detection at 6 Months

The hypothesis that irritability and contingency detection are negatively correlated was examined in thirty‐one 6‐month‐old infants. Observation and maternal report‐based assessments of irritability were correlated with both a criterion score and a continuous score of contingency detection. Results indicated that greater irritability in infants was associated with lower contingency detection scores. Discussion focuses on identifying processes by which the 2 constructs may be associated.     

Editor's Introduction: Conflict

Sociological Practice -     

Behavior, Belonging, and Belief: A Theory of Ritual Practice

A new model of ritual based on Durkheim's ([1912] 1995) theory is developed. It is argued that ritual practices generate belief and belonging in participants by activating multiple social–psychological mechanisms that interactively create the characteristic outcomes of ritual. Specifically, the distinctive elements of ritual practice are shown to induce altered subjective states and effortful and/or anomalous behaviors, which are subsequently misattributed in such a way that belief and belonging are created or maintained around the focus of ritual attention. These processes are traced in detail, and the resulting model is shown to be empirically credible, comprehensive, and theoretically fertile.     

Media Publicity and the Voluntary Sector: The Case of Nonprofit Organizations in New York City

Media publicity is an important resource for contemporary voluntary associations, but very little is actually known about the resources and organizational characteristics that are most important for getting media attention. To address this question, we collected and analyzed data on the organizational attributes and news publicity of 739 nonprofit organizations in New York City. We find that an organization's income, paid staff, membership size, and library resources are significantly related to getting media publicity, whereas the number of chapter affiliations is inversely related to publicity. Association type is also a significant factor that influences an organization's ability to get publicity. We discuss the implications that these findings have for current debates about advocacy and civic engagement in the nonprofit sector.     

The Migration–Development Nexus Evidence and Policy Options State–of–the–Art Overview

In September 2001, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned a study of the present and potential links between migration and development. In January 2002, the new Danish Government announced a decision to enhance the links between its aid and refugee policies as part of the overall focus on poverty reduction. The present paper provides a state–of–the–art overview of current thinking and available evidence on the migration–development nexus, including the role of aid in migrant–producing areas. It offers evidence and conclusions around the following four critical issues: Poverty and migration People in developing countries require resources and connections to engage in international migration. There is no direct link between poverty, economic development, population growth, and social and political change on the one hand, and international migration on the other. Poverty reduction is not in itself a migration–reducing strategy. Conflicts, refugees, and migration Violent conflicts produce displaced persons, migrants, and refugees. People on the move may contribute both to conflict prevention and reconciliation, and to sustained conflicts. Most refugees do not have the resources to move beyond neighbouring areas, that is, they remain internally displaced or move across borders to first countries of asylum within their region. Aid to developing countries receiving large inflows of refugees is poverty–oriented to the extent that these are poor countries, but it is uncertain what effect such aid has in terms of reducing the number of people seeking asylum in developed countries. Furthermore, such aid may attract refugees from adjacent countries experiencing war or political turmoil. Migrants as a development resource International liberalization has gone far with respect to capital, goods and services, but not to labour. International political–economic regimes provide neither space nor initiatives for negotiations on labour mobility and the flow of remittances. There is a pressing need to reinforce the image of migrants as a development resource. Remittances are double the size of aid and target the poor at least as well; migrant diasporas are engaged in transnational practices with direct effects on aid and development; developed countries recognize their dependence on immigrant labour; and policies on development aid, humanitarian relief, migration, and refugee protection are internally inconsistent and occasionally contradictory. Aid and migration Aid policies face a critical challenge to balance a focus on poverty reduction with mitigating the conditions that produce refugees, while also interacting constructively with migrant diasporas and their transnational practices. The current emphasis on aid selectivity tends to allocate development aid to the well performing countries, and humanitarian assistance to the crisis countries and trouble spots. However, development aid is more effective than humanitarian assistance in preventing violent conflicts, promoting reconciliation and democratization, and encouraging poverty–reducing development investments by migrant diasporas. The paper is a synthesis of current knowledge of migration–development dynamics, including an assessment of the intended and unintended consequences of development and humanitarian policy interventions. We examine whether recent developments in the sphere of international migration provide evidence of a “crisis”, as well as the connections between migration, globalization, and the changing nature of conflicts. We summarize current thinking on the main issues at stake and examine available evidence on the relations between migration and development. Then the consequent challenges to the aid community, including the current debates about coherence and selectivity in aid and relief are discussed and, finally, we elaborate on the four conclusions of the overview.     

Fire and restoration of the largest urban forest of the world in Rio de Janeiro City,Brazil

National Park of Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) is about 3,300 ha and considered the largest urban forest in the world. Its floristic composition is typical of Atlantic Rain Forest. The reserve is being altered because of fire occurrences and urban expansion. This study identified locations and causes of forest fires, and makes management recommendations to restore damaged areas. From 1991 to 2000, forest firefighters recorded an average of 75-fire occurrences/year. Identified causes included hot air balloons (24%), intentional (24%), rubbish burning (21%) and religious practices (17%). Primary fuels included invasive grasses and ferns. Although hot air balloons destroyed larger areas of forest in each occurrence, a greater number of fires started in the invasive vegetation along roads that bisect the forest. In response to recurrent forests, invasive vegetation has spread gradually into the forest increasing forest degradation. To decrease fire damage, sites with high fire frequencies and density of invasive vegetation were planted with less flammable species. Results indicate that fire frequency decreased and density of invasive vegetation declined. This approach appears to prevent fire incidence, reduce the need for fire fighting, and preserve existing biodiversity.