Pragmatic decisions in the evaluation of consumer satisfaction with mental health treatment

This article examines pragmatic choices which must be made in conducting consumer satisfaction assessment of mental health treatment. It is argued that choices involving sample, format, and procedure for examining satisfaction may influence the results of such research, and must be considered when creating or evaluating these efforts. These choices are examined in detail.     

On the limiting properties of social indicators

Characteristics of the population and economic measures that constitute traditional social indicators are compared with more recent “quality of life” measures to demonstrate that social indicators are always value statements at the policy level. The possibility of alternative perspectives is illustrated. It is suggested that an awareness of the assumptions implicit in any given indicator is as important as the data they provide.     

费孝通制度思想的价值来源及其嬗变

费孝通在多次学术总结和回顾中给予“制度”足够重视,文章基于费孝通学术研究的核心是制度这一假设,从四个方面阐述费孝通制度思想的价值来源及其嬗变：将传统文化作为研究对象到吸收传统文化精神;从马凌诺斯基功能论“有用性”到布朗功能主义结构性的兼顾;美国实用主义实用价值的吸收到对社会学芝加哥学派方法的运用;当时的社会实际需要社会学“实践性”应用。     

传播学科的兴起:一段重新阐释的历史

传播学学科建立之初,选择了以哥伦比亚学派为代表的结构功能主义而不是芝加哥学派的传播研究范式.尽管哥伦比亚学派无论在理论与方法上都不能说更有优势,但其理论成果更容易被意识形态所用,其定量方法更容易为当局的决策提供证据,其研究范式更容易划定传播学科的边界并为该学科带来更多的资源,因此,急于为传播学奠定专业主义边界的施拉姆不假思索地选择了哥伦比亚学派.然而这一选择导致了传播学不但受到意识形态的高度控制,而且也有一套极其保守和封闭的学科规训,这一切使传播学科在20世纪70年代以后就不断受到合法性的质疑.     

Urban forest cover of the Chicago region and its relation to household density and income

Urban forests and herbaceous open space play a vital role in the environmental and aesthetic health of cities, yet they are rarely identified in land-use inventories of urban areas. To provide information on urban forests and other vegetative land cover in Illinois cities, Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data from June 27, 1988, were classified for the Chicago metropolitan region (9,717 km²). Ten land-cover classes were identified, including two types of forestland (occupying 5.8% of the total area), residential land with trees (14.6%) or without trees (7.8%), cropland (37.5%), two types of grassland (7.7%), urban with impervious surfaces (23.1%), water (1.6%), and miscellaneous vegetation (2.1%). Correlation analyses indicated that household income and household density are strongly related to land covers in the region, particularly those with tree cover and urbanized land. Population changes for 1980–1985 and 1985–2010 (projected) show a pattern of increasing density in the urbanized zone concurrent with continued urban sprawl, primarily into current cropland.     

The Chicago School,So-Called

Many sociologists believe in the myth of a Chicago School, a unified and coherent body of thought and research practice carried on at the University of Chicago from the 1920s through the 1960s. Chicago never constituted such a coherent system and is better understood as a school of activity, a group of people who cooperated in the day-to-day running of a major department.     

The public and private purposes of case records

Social welfare agencies have official reasons and requirements for the construction of case records. Sociologists have detected a set of unofficial reasons that shape case records in practice. This paper suggests that case records that record the lives of children in child welfare systems are written, inter alia, to deny the failure of interventions, to justify the refusal to serve “bad clients,” and to justify the decision to extend hegemony over “good” clients.     

Hands: Visible and Invisible

Theoretical work in linguistics, mathematics, and physics has created changes in academic problem formulation. This meta-analysis presents the nature of the new academic environment using precepts from New Historicism to suggest connections with the New Economy. The marketplace is often the court of last appeal in conflict resolution. This can be as basic as determining a fair price for a goose in a farmers' market to the disposition of pension funds in an international merger. Economist Lawrence Summers provides insights into theory and practice. Game theory leads from John Nash's equilibrium point to modeling in economics. A University of Chicago economist discusses the application of market reforms to Chile. He worked with Chilean economists called The Chicago Boys. A call for unification, which includes economics, follows.     

Studying categorical data over time

A review of recently developed simple techniques for analyzing data in the form of proportions from replicated, cross-sectional, sample surveys. (A) One variable over time—tests for homogeneity, pooling homogeneous proportions, tests for linear trends with as few as three time points, tests for departures from linearity; (B) Two variables with a constant percentage difference—four fold tables as rudimentary causal models, decomposing change with linear flow graphs; (C) Extension of the flow graph techniques to—three or more variables and changing coefficients; (D) Comments implying panel designs are somewhat over-rated and successive cross-sections somewhat under-rated.