To be or not to be: Control and balancing of type I and type II errors

The various costs of Type I and Type II errors of inference from data are discussed. Unfortunately, other things equal, Types I and II errors are inversely related. Six methods of minimizing Type I error in studies are presented, each of which may be employed even after data are collected. Type II errors may also be minimized by a combination of study design and analytic means. Although some of these techniques must be built into the study others can be undertaken when beginning work on a data set. Only one of these techniques will increase Type I error, and those involving data reduction may decrease both types of error.     

Sex stratification in the workplace: Male-female differences in economic returns to occupation

Employing data from the 1974–1977 NORC General Social Surveys, I investigate differences in the earnings attainment of currently employed white men and women age 25 to 64. I focus special attention on the explanatory effects of job characteristics other than those traditionally employed in prestige and status-defined earnings models. The results, based on a multivariate regression analysis and a regression standardization procedure, suggest that a nontrivial portion of the earnings gap between men and women is due to women's concentration in jobs which are low-paying and heavily female and because women are less likely than men to exercise authority in their jobs or to control the means of production. Including these factors in an earnings model statistically increases women's earnings as a percentage of men's by over 7%, accounting for approximately 13% of the earnings gap. Net of these job characteristics, gender differences in industry distribution are not substantively important in explaining why women earn less than men, accounting for only 0.4% of the earnings gap. When single women's earnings are adjusted to take account of their occupational concentration, 10% of the male-single female earnings gap is explained, providing preliminary evidence that the job characteristics I specify are not mere proxies for work experience. Including job characteristics as measures of the context of employment thus usefully extends the human capital and prestige or statusdefined models traditionally employed in explanations of the male-female earnings differential.     

Queering the Word: Patricia Nell Warren's Adaptation of Christian Sacraments in The Fancy Dancer

The essay explores the ways in which Patricia Nell Warren's The Fancy Dancer (1976) employs Roman Catholic sacraments to depict the developing sexuality of a young gay priest. The essay explores the parallels between sacramental spiritual development and the individual and communal markers of a burgeoning gay or lesbian identity. Additionally, the novel's connections between conversion narratives and coming-out narratives are examined. The essay argues that Warren, in using the rhetoric, symbols, and models of the Church differently, disrupts the narrow epistemology underlying Christianity. Finally, novels such as Warren's suggest that gay and lesbian authors can adapt elements of Christianity while undermining its oppressive presumptions, and establishing a liberatory rhetoric that maintains the intelligibility and recognizability of familiar Christian models.     

Equality of endogamy: Statistical approaches

In research on assimilation through marriage or defining racial groups as castes or classes, it is important to be able to test the equality of endogamy of groups of differing sizes and sex ratios. A variety of proposed solutions all have major difficulties. Log-linear models constitute an improvement but still retain some undesirable properties, including an inability to deal with both the linear and quadratic dimensions of the relationship between group size and endogamy levels by focusing on one to the exclusion of the other. Moreover, in the context of studies of comparative analysis of racial groups it is handicapped by providing inconsistent results for uncollapsed categories when other groups are combined.We recommend instead the weighted least-squares methodology both to test for statistical significance of differences in endogamy and to rank racial or ethnic groups according to their degree of endogamy. This method incorporates both the linear and quadratic components influencing the diagonal frequencies in marriage studies. Linear effects (see Table 2) are stronger when endogamy is high, and quadratic effects (see Table 3) are stronger when endogamy is low, although in general both are present together. Furthermore, this approach permits separate calculation of endogamy levels by sex and provides a test to ascertain when separate statistics should be computed. It is relatively free from biases in terms of the amount of “extra credit” given smaller groups, and is invariant when categories are combined. Conditional kappa values can be utilized to judge whether a racial group was relatively closed or open (compared to other groups) and to analyze the impact of the structural characteristics of group size and sex ratio on endogamy.In one area log-linear models retain an advantage over GSK-based analyses. The former have been employed to examine patterns of intermarriage via the quasi-symmetry, quasi-independence, and other tests based on off-diagonal elements. So far no comparable method has appeared for analyzing the intermarriage or exogamy behavior using GSK. Applications of log-linear models have been less successful in dealing with endogamy or inmarriage patterns.The comparison of degrees of endogamy by the GSK approach is based on direct measurement of endogamy by racial groups, allowing for calculation of standard error figures for each group's endogamy value. The ability of the GSK method to accomplish the above—as well as provide kappas which are invariant under group collapsing, tests of equal endogamy (by sex if necessary), and a test of marginal homogeneity—may be unique.Our recommendation is that in future discussions, involving comparisons of endogamy among several populations, conditional kappas and their standard errors at the very least should be presented. The distinction between male-oriented, female-oriented, and balanced conditional kappas, as well as the use of formal tests of endogamy, homogeneity, and marginal homogeneity permits examination of important population issues. The broad applicability of these techniques derives from their provision of a basis for comparing endogamy levels, since they produce consistent results for unaggregated data regardless of how minor or intermediate groups are combined. Such analyses are fundamental for gaining a more basic insight as to whether social and cultural factors, legal discrimination, or the basic structural elements of group size and sex ratio have greater influence on assimilation or the degree of closure in racial groups in the Americas.     

小词语,大文章——帕特里夏·斯帕克斯思想述评

帕特里夏·斯帕克斯是美国杰出的女性文学评论家,对文学评论的贡献主要有两点。一是指出社会主流文化推崇的女性形象与真实女性不符,剖析女性人生面临的种种问题,为女性的自由发展拓宽空间;二是对"漫谈"、"无聊"、"独处"等社会文化中充满贬抑色彩的高频词语进行历史性研究,正本清源,批驳词语误读催生出的消极文化,劝谏人们树立正确积极的人生观。斯帕克斯从小词语入手做出大文章的研究方法,值得学者借鉴。