Quantitative Storytelling in the Making of a Composite Indicator

The reasons for and against composite indicators are briefly reviewed, as well as the available theories for their construction. After noting the strong normative dimension of these measures—which ultimately aim to ‘tell a story’, e.g. to promote the social discovery of a particular phenomenon, we inquire whether a less partisan use of a composite indicator can be proposed by allowing more latitude in the framing of its construction. We thus explore whether a composite indicator can be built to tell ‘more than one story’ and test this in practical contexts. These include measures used in convergence analysis in the field of cohesion policies and a recent case involving the World Bank’s Doing Business Index. Our experiments are built to imagine different constituencies and stakeholders who agree on the use of evidence and of statistical information while differing on the interpretation of what is relevant and vital.

     

Time and Postmodernism

In this essay we discuss changes in the cultural meaning and significance of time in postmodernism. We begin by examining the experience of time and space in the Middle Ages and its radical alteration following the Renaissance. After a relatively brief period of optimism during the Enlightenment regarding the scientific control over time and space, a new crisis beginning in the mid‐nineteenth century emphasized the increasing disjuncture between external, objective notions of time and the way time was experienced subjectively. We argue that the current literature on time and post‐modernity is best understood in this context, where earlier disequilibriating effects brought about by modern technologies are exacerbated by new developments in transportation and communications technology. Here we discuss the particular effects on topics of interest to social scientists such as changes in notions of personal identity and the effacement of historical time. We conclude with a call for more empirically grounded work on questions concerning time in postmodernism. We lament the paucity of concrete data as well as the excess of useless polemics and recommend several researchers already conducting work in this field.     

WOMEN'S WORK:

We use in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document analysis to examine women's involvement in the Gulf War Illness movement. We find that women's cumulative grievances of health concerns, financial hardships, and emotional problems opened them to movement recruitment as they surfed the Internet for information and support. The movement's division of labor was influenced not by gender but by health status. Women used the Internet to provide medical information and emotional support to geographically dispersed veterans. Activism transformed women activists by endowing them with a sense of empowerment and a somewhat broadened concern for social justice. Although their transformations disposed the women to become active on related issues, it did not extend to concerns about gender discrimination. We suggest that the next research step is to investigate gender differences in movement processes by surveying activists across a variety of movements to test propositions and to identify the characteristics of other social contexts that structurally instigate a departure from traditional gender roles.     

Multiple Commitments: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Investigation in a Community Health Service Trust

This study examines different work–related foci of commitment, such as the work group and the employing organization as well as the current occupation. It assesses how these foci of commitment are influenced by, and influence, attitudes and emotions at work. Data from employees and managers in the British health–service sector shed light on the associations. Regression analysis reveals a strong association between positive work–related emotions and commitment levels, leading to a higher intention to stay with the organization. Implications for management and how the study fits into the existing body of commitment literature are discussed     

The Effects of ROTC Program Participation on Socioeconomic Status and Life Satisfaction*

Using mail survey data based on a stratified systematic sample [N = 686] of 1983–1988 graduates of a medium-sized state university, this research evaluates whether ROTC program participation constitutes an independent source of human capital in civilian labor markets by comparing postgraduate earnings (annual income), prestige and authority, and life satisfaction of ROTC program participants with those of nonparticipants. The results revealed no statistically significant ROTC program participation effects, independent of subsequent military status. ROTC program participation paid off in terms of occupational prestige and authority for those on active duty, but not for those in national guard or reserve units. Neither ROTC participation nor current military status affected income or life satisfaction levels.     

Racial differences in urban neighboring

Despite mixed expectations generated by existing theories and evidence, this analysis documents clear racial differences in urban neighboring behavior. Using data from a survey of Nashville, Tennessee, residents, we show that blacks interact with their neighbors more often than whites do, and in a greater variety of ways. The only noteworthy similarity between the two groups is the positive impact of neighboring on feelings of community affect. Overall, our results support the view that neighbor relations — like other kinds of informal participation — have helped blacks cope with constrained social opportunities and provided them with access to resources unavailable through formal institutional channels.Revised version of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, August 1989.     

What Do Grandmothers Think about Self‐esteem? American and Taiwanese Folk Theories Revisited

The study investigates European American and Taiwanese grandmothers’ folk theories of childrearing and self‐esteem, building on an earlier comparison of mothers from the same families. Adopting methods that privilege local meanings, we bring grandmothers’ voices into the conversation about childrearing, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of intergenerational nuances in folk theories. In each cultural case, 16 grandmothers of 3‐year‐olds participated in in‐depth interviews that were customized according to local communicative norms. Although self‐esteem emerged as a central organizing concept in the folk theories of European American mothers, grandmothers spoke in two voices, either echoing their daughters or invoking a counter‐discourse of wariness towards self‐esteem. By contrast, Taiwanese mothers and grandmothers resembled one another—but differed from their American counterparts—in treating self‐esteem as peripheral in childrearing. Results contribute to the growing consensus that self‐esteem is a culture‐specific childrearing goal and suggest that the European American tendency to valorize self‐esteem varies by generation.     

Membranes, mitochondria and amoebae: shape models

Most real-world shapes and images are characterized by high variability- they are not rigid, like crystals, for example—but they are strongly structured. Therefore, a fundamental task in the understanding and analysis of such image ensembles is the construction of models that incorporate both variability and structure in a mathematically precise way. The global shape models introduced in Grenander's general pattern theory are intended to do this. In this paper, we describe the representation of two-dimensional mitochondria and membranes in electron microscope photographs, and three-dimensional amoebae in optical sectioning microscopy. There are three kinds of variability to all of these patterns, which these representations accommodate. The first is the variability in shape and viewing orientation. For this, the typical structure is represented via linear, circular and spherical templates, with the variability accomodated via the application of transformations applied to the templates. The transformations form groups: scale, rotation and translation. They are locally applied throughout the continuum and of high dimension. The second is the textural variability; the inside and outside of these basic shapes are subject to random variation, as well as sensor noise. For this, statistical sensor models and Markov random field texture models are used to connect the constituent structures of the shapes to the measured data. The third variability type is associated with the fact that each scene is made up of a variable number of shapes; this number is not assumed to be known a priori. Each scene has a variable number of parameters encoding the transformations of the templates appropriate for that scene. For this, a single posterior distribution is defined over the countable union of spaces representing models of varying numbers of shapes. Bayesian inference is performed via computation of the conditional expectation of the parametrically defined shapes under the posterior. These conditional mean estimates are generated using jump-diffusion processes. Results for membranes, mitochondria and amoebae are shown.     

INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Does Gender Make a Difference?

This article compares in regression models the effects of occupational status of both fathers and mothers simultaneously upon the attainment of men and women in the Irish Republic. The sample matches male respondents from the 1973/1974 Irish Mobility Study with the labour active female sibling next closest in age. Since the analysis compares working siblings and each 'matched pair' shares the same family origin characteristics, the problems attendant upon using a sample originally of men only are partially avoided. The results advance beyond previous research since, rather than separate models by gender, models include parents and children of both genders, allowing direct rather than indirect evaluation of gender-based determinants of occupational attainment. Both fathers and mothers significantly affect children's attainment, in ways that vary by the child's gender. The results highlight the salience of mothers' attainment for their children and question the 'mainstream' model of equivalent mechanisms of occupational attainment for both genders. Models of social mobility that consider men and women as special instances of a general perspective provide the most fruitful approach for further development.