Racializing white drag

While drag is primarily understood as a performance of gender, other performative categories such as race, class, and sexuality create drag meaning as well. Though other categories of identification are increasingly understood as essential elements of drag by performers of color, whiteness remains an unmarked category in the scholarship on drag performances by white queens. In this paper, I argue that drag by white queens must be understood as a performance of race as well as gender and that codes of gender excess are specifically constructed through the framework of these other axes of identity. This essay asks whether white performance by white queens necessarily reinscribes white supremacy through the performance of an unmarked white femininity, or might drag performance complicate (though not necessarily subvert) categories of race as well as gender? In this essay, I will suggest that camp drag performances, through the deployment of class as a crucial category of performative femininity, might indeed be a key site through which whiteness is denaturalized and its power challenged. Specifically, I will read on camp as a politicized mode of race, class and gender performance, focusing on the intersections of these categories of identity in the drag performance of Divine.     

Have unions impeded growing wage dispersion among young workers?

Wage inequality is examined for young males over the period 1980–1993. While wage inequality increased substantially for nonunion workers over this period, wage inequality increased only modestly for union workers. In part, this difference results from divergent trends in skill prices—returns to skill rose in the nonunion sector but contracted slightly in the union sector. In particular, returns to education increased sharply in the nonunion sector while remaining stagnant in the union sector. At least for young workers, these findings suggest that unions have been largely successful in resisting market pressures for greater wage inequality. We also uncover evidence suggesting that, as relative returns to education decline in the union sector, highly educated young workers become less likely to choose union employment. We acknowledge the helpful comments of Dek Terrell, Steve Trejo, and Carol Horton Tremblay.     

Gay grows up:an interpretive study on aging metaphors and queer identity

This study is based upon qualitative research conducted with the Phoenix chapter of the Prime Timers, a social organization that offers older men in the gay community a space to communicate their general needs and desires. Using data collected through participant observation and informant interviews, the research demonstrates the ways in which the group's affiliates respond to queer sensibilities. The analysis argues that intergenerational communication is fettered by age stereotypes that generate communicative boundaries between young and old members of the gay community. The report then suggests that age-based breakdowns in communication prevalent in the gay community are further advanced by a difference in intergenerational approaches to survival.     

Effects of a summer emergent literacy intervention for rising kindergarteners

This study examined the effectiveness of a nine-week summer emergent literacy program implemented in a Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) summer program that serves families from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Participants were four- and five-year-old children attending a YMCA summer camp. After being placed in appropriate respective skill-level groups, children received one-hour, daily emergent literacy instruction from their camp counselors, who were trained as novice reading teachers. The teachers used emergent literacy activities to support letter-naming fluency and growth in letter-sound correspondence recognition in addition to mastery of read-aloud texts. The 28 participants experienced positive growth on both dependent measures (letter-naming fluency and letter-sound fluency), indicating the efficiency of the intervention as a tool for improving school readiness for children from low-income families. Additionally, the results suggest that beginning reading teachers may be able to conduct effective emergent literacy instruction, making the intervention replicable. Limitations and associated future research directions are discussed.     

The Experience of Learning EFT in Spanish-speaking Countries: A Multi-National Replication Study

This study is a multi-national follow-up to the original (Sandberg and Knestel (2011) Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 37, 393–410) article on the process of learning Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT). A total of 102 clinicians from nine Spanish-speaking countries (Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and El Salvador) participated in the study. A comparison of results across the two studies revealed more similarities than differences. However, a few notable differences emerged from responses to qualitative questions, namely a heightened sense of appreciation for and resonance with the focus on core emotion in EFT and less frequent reports of difficulty learning and adapting to the model among Spanish-speaking therapists. These differences were consistent with common cultural values and forms of expression in Latin America and Spain. Results are discussed in terms of training, supervision, and future research as well.     

Arab immigrants in the United States: how and why do returns to education vary by country of origin?

Using U.S. census data, the authors analyze the earnings of Arab males who completed their schooling before migrating to the United States. There is little return to precollege education, but education beyond 12 years is rewarded highly. Although Arabs share a common ethnicity, they are not a homogeneous group. Returns to education vary significantly by source-country, e.g., high for immigrants from Kuwait, low for Yemeni immigrants. Returns are related to economic development in the source-country and to pupil/teacher ratios. These findings have implications for immigration policy and point to the hazards of generalizing on the basis of ethnicity.     

Sleepiness,choice consistency,and risk preferences

We investigate the consistency and stability of individual risk preferences by manipulating cognitive resources. Participants are randomly assigned to an experiment session at a preferred time of day relative to their diurnal preference (circadian matched) or at a non-preferred time (circadian mismatched) and choose allocations between two risky assets [using the Choi et al. (Am Econ Rev 27(5):1921–1938, 2007), design]. We find that choices of circadian matched and mismatched subject are statistically similar in terms of satisfying basic requirements for preference consistency. However, mismatched subjects tend to choose riskier asset bundles.     

Learning from mistakes: What do inconsistent choices over risk tell us?

We implement a risk experiment that allows for judgment errors to investigate who makes mistakes and whether it matters. The experiments are conducted with a random sample of the adult population in Rwanda, and data on financial decisions are collected. We find a high proportion of inconsistent choices, with over 50% of the participants making at least one mistake. Importantly, errors are informative. While risk aversion alone does not explain financial decisions, risk aversion and inconsistent choices interact in significant and sensible ways. As we would expect, risk-averse individuals are more likely to belong to a savings group and less likely to take out an informal loan. For those more likely to make mistakes, however, as they become more risk averse, they are less likely to belong to a savings group and more likely to take up informal credit, suggesting that mistakes correlate with less than optimal behavior.

SYMMETRIC SCORING RULES AND A NEW CHARACTERIZATION OF THE BORDA COUNT

Young developed a classic axiomatization of the Borda rule almost 50 years ago. He proved it is the only voting rule satisfying the normative properties of decisiveness, neutrality, reinforcement, faithfulness and cancellation. Often overlooked is that the uniqueness of Borda applies only to variable populations. We present a different set of properties which only Borda satisfies when both the set of voters and the set of alternatives can vary. It is also shown Borda is the only scoring rule which will satisfy all of the new properties when the number of voters stays fixed. (JEL D71, D02, H00)     

Parents' Marital Status, Conflict, and Role Modeling: Links With Adult Romantic Relationship Quality

This study investigated three parental marital statuses and relationship quality among unmarried, but dating adults ages 18 to 35 (N = 1153). Those whose parents never married one another tended to report the lowest relationship quality (in terms of relationship adjustment, negative communication, commitment, and physical aggression) compared to those with divorced or married biological parents. In addition, those with divorced parents reported lower relationship adjustment and more negative communication than those with married parents. Parental conflict and the degree to which participants rated their parents' relationship as a healthy model for their own relationships partially explained the associations between parental marital status and relationship outcomes. We suggest that this particular family type (i.e., having parents who never marry one another) needs greater attention in this field in terms of research and intervention.