Interviewing Herbert Blumer

In March of 1982, I interviewed Blumer about doing field research with Symbolic Interactionist ideas. I was teaching a course on that topic at UC Santa Cruz. After Herb discussed the field work issues, he turned to his biography and early life.     

Sticks,stones and broken bones: Military law’s criteria for aggravated assault

In light of recent military court decisions, this article asks whether the Uniform Code of Military Justice should be revised to encompass batteries which do not satisfy the present nineteenth century definition of grievous bodily harm. In answering this question, the article first traces the evolution of the military law of battery. Current medical views on the consequences of a criminal attack, particularly the psychic effects of violence, are then explored, concluded with a discussion of the competing considerations which should affect any decision to change the law. He has also been a visiting Distinguished Professor of Law at the U.S. Military Academy and has written numerous articles on civil-military relations.     

The use of resighting data to estimate the rate of population growth of the snail kite in Florida

The rate of population growth ( u ) is an important demographic parameter used to assess the viability of a population and to develop management and conservation agendas. We examined the use of resighting data to estimate u for the snail kite population in Florida from 1997-2000. The analyses consisted of (1) a robust design approach that derives an estimate of u from estimates of population size and (2) the Pradel (1996) temporal symmetry (TSM) approach that directly estimates u using an open-population capture-recapture model. Besides resighting data, both approaches required information on the number of unmarked individuals that were sighted during the sampling periods. The point estimates of u differed between the robust design and TSM approaches, but the 95% confidence intervals overlapped substantially. We believe the differences may be the result of sparse data and do not indicate the inappropriateness of either modelling technique. We focused on the results of the robust design because this approach provided estimates for all study years. Variation among these estimates was smaller than levels of variation among ad hoc estimates based on previously reported index statistics. We recommend that u of snail kites be estimated using capture-resighting methods rather than ad hoc counts.     

PARENTS,PEERS, PERCEIVED PRESSURE,AND ADOLESCENT SELF-CONCEPT: IS A DAUGHTER A DAUGHTER ALL OF HER LIFE?

Data collected in 1981 from 316 high-SES junior and senior high students suggest support for traditional perspectives regarding sex-differentiated self-esteem. While a significant proportion of the variance in self-esteem level is predicted by perceived approval and support from family for both girls and boys in junior high school, high school females and males drawn from the same community differ substantially. Cues of family approval continue to predict a large proportion of the variance in high school girls' self-concept, but are no longer significant for high school boys. Acceptance by friends is an important element for males at all school levels, and accounts for a small but significant proportion of the variance in high school but not junior high school girls' self-esteem scores. Daughters may not "be daughters' all of their lives, but our data suggest that young females still going to school and living at home are much more dependent on family approval and support than are young males in the same situation.     

THE USE OF CHILD-CENTERED PLAY THERAPY AND FILIAL THERAPY WITH HEAD START FAMILIES: A BRIEF REPORT

Play therapy and filial therapy show promise as effective ways to provide direct services to Head Start, addressing the needs of the children, the families, and the Head Start teachers and staff. This paper examines the utility of play and filial therapies for the Head Start population, presents a systemic explanation for the benefit of filial therapy, and provides a case example for illustration.     

Becoming an Academic: Early vs. Later Professional Experiences

Abstract

This paper investigates the relevance of both formal training and current career conditions for the professional activity of an academic. We focus on the socialization of a sample of Ph.D. sociologists submitting papers for publication. Using regression procedures, we relate productivity of the training faculty, current publication pressures, sex, and year of degree to publication-related activity. We find that current publication pressures is a better predictor of professional activity than is productivity of the training faculty. In addition, sex appears to mediate professional socialization experiences.     

More Than Help? Volunteerism in US Latino Culture

Volunteerism makes critical contributions to individual lives and society as a whole. However, to date, few studies have investigated volunteerism within Latino communities, a large and growing US population. The aim of this study was to understand how non-metropolitan US Latinos perceive volunteerism, as well as to determine what motivates and what deters their participation in volunteer programs. Our research team conducted six focus groups with 36 Latina women living in the State of Illinois. The focus groups covered topics such as the definition of volunteerism, participation motives and barriers, personal volunteer experience, and Latino culture, community, and organizations. We also assessed demographic information. Results from this study indicate that Latinas have a unique understanding of the concept of volunteerism. Participants associated everyday “helping” with volunteerism, establishing commonplace forms of aid as perhaps a “Latino way of volunteering.” We found time-consuming activities such as family responsibilities and work to be deterrents to Latinas participating in more formal volunteer activities.     

The Effect of Different Cultural Lenses on Reliability and Validity in Observational Data: The Example of Chinese Immigrant Parent–Toddler Dinner Interactions

This study used a mixed methodology to investigate reliability, validity, and analysis level with Chinese immigrant observational data. European‐American and Chinese coders quantitatively rated 755 minutes of Chinese immigrant parent–toddler dinner interactions on parental sensitivity, intrusiveness, detachment, negative affect, positive affect, and parents' confidence. They also gave qualitative coding rationales for their quantitative ratings. Analysis of quantitative ratings indicated systematic differences associated with coder ethnicity. Such differences could threaten the reliability between coders with different ethnicities. Analysis of qualitative rationales revealed different cultural links between concepts and behavior cues, which could challenge the cross‐cultural validity of a macro‐level coding system. When a coding system is incongruous with coders' cultural schemata, even after intensive training, the effect of culture cannot be eliminated. Implications of these findings for observational cultural research are discussed.