The validity of survey responses on abortion: Evidence from Estonia

This paper presents results of a validation survey of abortion conducted in Tallinn, Estonia in April and May 1992. The sample was drawn from patient records in a maternity hospital. Women who had an abortion in that hospital in 1991 were asked about recent abortions as part of a survey about women’s health. More than 80% of the respondents reported having a recent abortion. Some respondents misreported their abortion as a miscarriage. Moreover, some variation in reporting was associated with respondents’ characteristics. Ethnic Estonians were less likely to report their abortion than were Russians, women over age 40 were less likely to report the abortion than younger women, and women who had the abortion late in the first trimester were less likely to report that abortion. There was some evidence that unmarried women were less likely than married women to report their abortion, and that women who had borne three or more children were less likely to report their abortion than women who had borne fewer children. These differences probably stem from the extent to which pregnancy or abortion is considered stigmatizing for women in different situations.     

Conceptualizing reflection in experience-based workplace learning

This paper seeks to understand key dimensions of reflection in experience-based workplace learning for research being collaboratively undertaken by scholars in Dutch and US research institutions. We systematically explore and compare Tara Fenwick’s analysis of five perspectives on cognition to distinguish among constructivist, psychoanalytic, situative, critical-cultural, and enactivist perspectives on reflection. Our aim is to examine how to conceptualize reflection so that one or more perspectives can complement our understanding of learning through experience at work. We position reflection not only from a practical but also from a theoretical perspective that moves beyond the individual focus of the constructivist perspective. Fenwick’s five perspectives are described in terms of whether and how reflection is utilized, key activities in the process of reflection, relative focus on the individual and/or the context, triggers for reflection, role of power and positionality, role of emotions, and reflection outcomes. We conclude that adding other lenses to the dominant constructivist perspective helps expand our understanding of reflection as well as identify and attend to other tools, people, and factors in the work situation that influence reflection processes and learning outcomes. The paper closes with a discussion of promising new approaches that have emerged since Fenwick’s analysis.     

Virgins,Terrorists, and Ten Children: Immigrants' Humorous Play with Ethnic Stereotypes in Bonding with Danes in the Workplace

Drawing on fieldwork in a multi‐ethnic workplace (an industrial kitchen in Denmark), this article explores immigrants' self‐directed ethnic humor in collegial relationships with Danes as it spontaneously develops and plays out in everyday work settings. Approaching ethnic humor from a symbolic interactionist perspective rather than adopting the dominant conflict approach, this article emphasizes the bonding functions of ethnic humor. The article argues that immigrants' engagement in playful behavior with ethnic stereotypes in interactions with Danes is a form of “impression management” in which they defuse ethnic stereotypes and dissociate themselves from them by building joking relationships in the workplace with Danes. A video abstract is available at https://tinyurl.com/esholdt .     

Sarah was a butch: sexual identity, gender practices, and Sarah's place as mother in the Jewish National Pantheon

Three fields of discourse regarding a masculine-like woman connect at a point that the queer field calls intersex, medical practice calls a sexual disorder, and rabbinic literature terms aylonit. The queer discursive field focuses on the freedom to choose an identity, but not the freedom from choosing one. The medical field focuses on sexual practice as the source of determining "normal" sexuality. In the discursive field of Jewish law there are no demands, because the Halakhic authority determines gender identity on behalf of the individual, maintaining ambiguity.     

Electricity Cost as a Driver of Competitiveness in Northern Europe: The Case of Estonia

The Estonian electricity market will be fully opened in 2013. Given ever-stricter environmental standards limiting the use of domestically available oil shale as main fuel for electricity generation and expansion of regional power pools, it is widely believed that Estonia’s currently low electricity prices are set to increase. Authors argue that cost differentiation and regional competition will be based on transmission charges and add-on fees. Measuring exporting industry’s total electricity costs as a share of total production costs shows that for the majority of Estonian producers electricity costs make up only around 1–2 % of production costs, but noteworthy exceptions exist.     

‘I myself had a sweetie …’: re‐thinking female same‐sex intimacy beyond the institution of marriage and identity politics

This article is understood as an intervention into current debates around the question of rights in relation to sexuality and in particular to issues of same‐sex marriages and alternative family structures. As the interpretation of rights in relation to sexuality generally focuses on gay identities, this article reflects on the effects of these discourses on non‐normative modes of sexuality and intimacy. More specifically the article focuses on interviews conducted in Johannesburg on ‘mummy–baby’ relationships. By contextualising these relationships in the historical and cultural framework of sexual cultures and cultures of intimacy, this article argues that the South African history and cultures provided and provide a space which accommodates forms of female same‐sex intimacy that are not necessarily linked to metropolitan sexual cultures. The article discusses the tensions between non‐lesbian same‐sex intimacy and metropolitan lesbianism by focusing on homosociality as a gender theory. The article questions the regulatory functions of identity and problematises the practice of ‘coming out’ as always being a liberating moment.     

Do Cross-National Differences in the Costs of Children Generate Cross-National Differences in Fertility Rates?

Parity-specific probabilities of having a next birth are estimated from national fertility data and are compared with nation-specific costs of having children as measured by time-budget data, by attitude data from the International Social Survey Program, and by panel data on labor earnings and standard of living changes following a birth. We focus on five countries (the United States, the former West Germany, Denmark, Italy, and the United Kingdom), whose fertility rates span the observed fertility range in the contemporary industrialized world and whose social welfare and family policies span the conceptual space of standard welfare-state typologies. Definitive conclusions are difficult because of the multiple dimensions on which child costs can be measured, the possibility that child costs affect both the quantum and the tempo of fertility, the relatively small fertility differences across industrialized nations, and the inherent small-N problem resulting from nation-level comparisons. Empirical analysis, however, supports the assertion that institutionally driven child costs affect the fertility patterns of industrialized nations.     

A self-normalizing approach to the specification test of mixed-frequency models

In econometrics and finance, variables are collected at different frequencies. One straightforward regression model is to aggregate the higher frequency variable to match the lower frequency with a fixed weight function. However, aggregation with fixed weight functions may overlook useful information in the higher frequency variable. On the other hand, keeping all higher frequencies may result in overly complicated models. In literature, mixed data sampling (MIDAS) regression models have been proposed to balance between the two. In this article, a new model specification test is proposed that can help decide between the simple aggregation and the MIDAS model.     

Strategy,local sociology,political philosophy: Analysis of strategy of Non‐Governmental Organizations under radical intellectual leadership

The study discusses the relationship between NGO strategy (both toward government and community), contextual conditions, and the sociological and political‐philosophic background of the leaders of the organization. The empirical section focuses on a specific Israeli NGO (Bimkom) led by a radical‐intellectual leadership whose aim is to promote the interests of poor communities. The organization under research activated a dual complex strategy, one that both criticizes and negotiates with the government, at the same time advocating for and empowering communities. The study points to a clear linkage between that strategy and leaders' own background. In fact, the latter served as a source from which the leaders carved out guidelines, perceptions, policy tools, and abstract resources (which in turn also affected outcomes). On a basis of these findings, the study suggests a model designed to improve the analysis of strategic management.