bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Responses in the Subpolar North Atlantic in Two Climate Model Sensitivity Experiments with Increased Stratospheric Aerosols
Authors: Li Hui , Richter Jadwiga H. , Hu Aixue , Meehl Gerald A. , MacMartin Douglas
Published: August 2023

The subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) shows contrasting responses in two sensitivity experiments with increased stratospheric aerosols, offering insight into the physical processes that may impact the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) in a warmer climate. In one, the upper ocean becomes warm and salty, but in the other it becomes cold and fresh. The changes are accompanied by diverging AMOC responses. The first experiment strengthens the AMOC, opposing the weakening trend in the reference simulation. The second experiment shows a much smaller impact. Both simulations use the Community Earth System Model with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model component (CESM-WACCM) but differ in model versions and stratospheric aerosol specifications. Despite both experiments using similar approaches to increase stratospheric aerosols to counteract the rising global temperature, the contrasting SPNA and AMOC responses indicate a considerable dependency on model physics, climate states, and model responses to forcings. This study focuses on examining the physical processes involved with the impact of stratospheric aerosols on the SPNA salinity changes and their potential connections with the AMOC and the Arctic. We find that in both cases, increased stratospheric aerosols act to enhance the SPNA upper-ocean salinity by reducing freshwater export from the Arctic, which is closely tied to the Arctic sea ice changes. The impact on AMOC is primarily through the thermal component of the surface buoyancy fluxes, with negligible contributions from the freshwater component. These experiments shed light on the physical processes that dictate the important connections between the SPNA, the Arctic, the AMOC, and their subsequent feedbacks on the climate system.
Objectively Assessing Characteristics of Mesoscale Convective Organization in an Operational Convection-Permitting Model
Authors: Short Ewan , Lane Todd P.
Published: August 2023

The realism of convective organization in operational convection-permitting model simulations is objectively assessed, with a particular focus on the mesoscale aspects, such as convective mode. A tracking and classification algorithm is applied to observed radar reflectivity and simulated radar reflectivity from the operational ACCESS-C convection-permitting forecast domain over northern Australia between October 2020 and May 2022, and the characteristics of real and simulated convective organization are compared. Mesoscale convective systems from the operational forecast model are approximately twice as likely to be oriented parallel to the ambient wind and ambient wind shear than those observed by radar, indicating a bias toward the “training line” systems typically associated with more extreme rainfall. During highly humid active monsoon conditions, simulated convective systems have larger ground-relative speeds than systems observed in radar. Although there is less than 5% difference between the ratios of simulated and observed trailing, leading and parallel stratiform system observations, significant differences exist in other wind shear–based classifications. For instance, in absolute terms, simulated systems are 10%–35% less likely to be upshear tilted, and 15%–30% less likely to be downshear propagating than observed systems, suggesting errors in simulated cold pool characteristics.

Significance Statement

Remarkable progress has been made simulating thunderstorms in operational weather forecasting computer models. While some details of individual storm clouds may be unrealistic, how these storm clouds self-organize, i.e., cluster and regenerate, can be explicitly simulated, with this organization often appearing realistic. However, assessing the realism of this organization in an objective, systematic way has proven challenging. Here we assess organized convection in Australia’s current high-resolution weather prediction model. In some respects, simulated storm clouds organize realistically. High-altitude icy cloud mostly trails behind groups of storm clouds in both simulations and reality. In other respects, organization is unrealistic. Simulated storm clouds are twice as likely to orient along the mean wind direction than in reality, likely contributing to extreme rainfall biases.
The Nation-State and the Natural Environment over the Twentieth Century
Authors: Frank David John , Hironaka Ann , Schoter Evan
Published: August 2023

National activities to protect the natural environment are on the rise. Conventional explanations of the phenomenon emphasize domestic processes, set in motion by environmental degradation and economic affluence. We propose instead a top-down causal imagery that hinges on a global redefinition of the “nation-state” to include environmental protection as a basic state responsibility. We test our view using event-history analyses of five indicators of environmentalization: the proliferation of(1) national parks, (2) chapters of international environmental associations, (3) memberships in intergovernmental environmental organizations, (4) environmental impact assessment laws, and (5) environmental ministries in countries around the world over the twentieth century. For all five measures, the top-down global explanation proves stronger than the bottom-up domestic alternative: The global institutionalization of the principle that nation-states bear responsibility for environmental protection drives national activities to protect the environment. This is especially true in countries with dense ties to world society and prolific “receptor sites,” even when controlling for domestic degradation and affluence. It appears that blueprints of nation-state environmentalization, which themselves become more universalistic over time, are drawn in world society before being diffused to and enacted by individual countries.
Gender and the New Inequality: Explaining the College/Non-College Wage Gap
Authors: McCall Leslie
Published: August 2023

The new inequality is often characterized by the increasing wage gap between workers with a college education and those without. Yet, although the gap in hourly wages between college-educated and non-college-educated women is high and rising, the topic has been overshadowed by research on gender inequality and wage inequality among men. Using the 1990 5–percent Public Use Microdata Samples, independent sources of macro data, and controls for individual human capital characteristics, I examine the association between the college/non-college wage gap and key aspects of local economic conditions for women and men. While the college/non-college wage gap among women is comparable in size to the gap among men, significant gender differences emerge in the underlying sources of high wage gaps in over 500 labor markets across the United States. Compared with men, flexible and insecure employment conditions (e.g., joblessness, casualization, and immigration) are more important in fostering high wage gaps among women than are technology, trade, and industrial composition, the prevailing explanations of rising wage inequality over time. Based on these gender differences, I reconsider the debate on labor-market restructuring and inequality and discuss a new analytical focus on differences in within-gender inequality.
Core Networks and Tie Activation: What Kinds of Routine Networks Allocate Resources in Nonroutine Situations?
Authors: Hurlbert Jeanne S. , Haines Valerie a. , Beggs John J.
Published: August 2023

Social resources research has linked activated ties to outcomes—but not to the core networks from which the ties came. This study shifts the focus to the question of how networks allocate resources. The activation of core network ties is analyzed in a nonroutine situation—a hurricane—to determine how core network structure affects the degree to which individuals activate core network ties to gain one type of social resource—informal support. Results show that the structures of individuals’ core networks affect the degree to which individuals activate ties from those networks to gain informal support. Individuals embedded in higher-density core networks (i.e., alters are connected to one another), core networks with more gender diversity (i.e., a mix of men and women), and networks that contain higher proportions of men, kin, and younger individuals, activated core network ties for informal support to a greater degree than did individuals embedded in core networks lacking these characteristics. The conclusions consider the study's implications for understanding resource activation in the contexts of social support and job searches.
Events, Instruments, and Reporting Errors
Authors: Dykema Jennifer , Schaeffer Nora Cate
Published: August 2023

Social scientists frequently lack methods for assessing the accuracy of survey responses about events and behaviors. And often they do not have a general framework for understanding or systematically analyzing the characteristics of experience, if any, that influence errors in reports about those events. In this validation study, structural features or characteristics of exchanging child support payments are examined to predict errors in reports about those events. The analysis compares court records about child support payments with answers from two telephone surveys that use parallel samples of divorced parents. Results show that indicators for the complexity, clarity, and affective intensity of the events predict reporting errors.
History Repeats Itself, but How? City Character, Urban Tradition, and the Accomplishment of Place
Authors: Molotch Harvey , Freudenburg William , Paulsen Krista E.
Published: August 2023

This study shows how places, and by implication other societal units as well, achieve and reproduce distinctiveness. It does this by specifying how actors in two California urban areas, over approximately 100 years, responded differently to the same exogenous forces. Each place is examined to determine how unlike elements conjoin to produce a particular “character” at any given moment and how this character travels through time to constitute a local “tradition.” Borrowing from advances in analyses of structure and agency, this study displays character and tradition as accomplished interaction and helps make an elusive process empirically evident and accessible for study.
The Two Faces of Capital: Corporations and Individual Capitalists as Political Actors
Authors: burris Val
Published: August 2023

Widespread access to public records of campaign contributions by corporate political action committees (PACs) have made these the preferred data for analyzing political partisanship within the capitalist class. By comparison, data on political contributions by individual capitalists were, until recently, difficult to obtain and rarely subjected to systematic study. Important differences are demonstrated between these two forms of capitalist political action by directly comparing the campaign contributions of 592 individual capitalists with the contributions of the 394 major corporations with which those capitalists were associated. Campaign contributions by individual capitalists follow a logic different from that of corporate PACs. Corporations are generally more interested in buying influence with incumbents, while individual capitalists are more concerned with bolstering the election prospects of favored candidates. By providing a more direct measure of capitalists’ political preferences, the analysis of campaign contributions by individual capitalists clarifies theoretical questions that remain unresolved in the research based on corporate PACs. Variables that elude measurement when corporations are the units of analysis (e.g., ethnicity) are shown to have important consequences for capitalist political partisanship.
Intellectualization and Art World Development: Film in the United States
Authors: Baumann Shyon
Published: August 2023

The social history of film in the United States is examined to illuminate the ideological and organizational foundations of the valuation of art. Attempts to valorize film as art began in film's first decades. Thereafter, a series of key events and actions in the late 1950s and 1960s, both inside and outside the film world, resulted in a shift in audiences’ perception of film—from a form of entertainment to a cultural genre that could properly be appreciated as art. This shift in perception was made possible by the opening of an artistic niche brought about by changes outside the film world, by the institutionalization of resources and practices within the film world, and by the employment of an intellectualizing discourse by film critics.
Does Race Matter in Residential Segregation? Exploring the Preferences of White Americans
Authors: Emerson Michael O. , Yancey George , Chai Karen J.
Published: August 2023

Employing an alternative methodology and new data, the authors address the debate concerning the underlying causes of racial residential segregation. Are white Americans avoiding racially mixed neighborhoods because they do not want to live with nonwhites? And if so, is this the case independent of factors with which race is associated, such as crime levels or housing values? An over-the-telephone factorial experiment addresses these issues, measuring variables that shape white Americans’ choice of purchasing a home. Based on a national, random-digit-dial survey of 1,663 white Americans, the effects of African American, Asian, and Hispanic neighborhood composition on whites’ likelihood of buying a house are explored, as well as the other variables for which race may serve as a proxy. Results indicate that Asian and Hispanic neighborhood composition do not matter to whites. Black neighborhood composition, however, does matter, and matters even more for white Americans with children under age 18. The effect of black composition is net of the variables that whites offer as the primary reasons they do not want to live with blacks. The implications of these findings for segregation trends and for future research are considered.
Race of the Interviewer and Perception of Skin Color: Evidence from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality
Authors: Hill Mark E.
Published: August 2023

The influence of interviewers’ race on skin color classification for white and African American survey respondents is explored using data from the Multi-City Study of Urban inequality (conducted 1992 to 1994). As hypothesized, bivariate and multivariate results reveal a compelling race-of-the-interviewer effect for both black and white respondents: White interviewers reported the skin tones of black respondents as substantially darker than did black interviewers. In turn, black interviewers categorized the skin tones of white respondents as much lighter than did white interviewers. Results also indicate that interviewers perceived greater variation in the skin tones of same-race respondents than among other-race respondents, suggesting that both black and white Americans exhibit relatively limited ability to carefully distinguish the physical characteristics of other-race persons. Finally, results show that unsuccessful attempts to match interviewers and respondents by race may have the unintended consequence of introducing important attenuating biases into analyses involving skin color. Implications for future research are discussed.
The Political Sociology of the Death Penalty: A Pooled Time-Series Analysis
Authors: Jacobs David , Carmichael Jason T.
Published: August 2023

Despite the interest in the death penalty, no statistical studies have isolated the social and political forces that account for the legality of this punishment. Racial or ethnic threat theories suggest that the death penalty will more likely be legal in jurisdictions with relatively large black or Hispanic populations. Economic threat explanations suggest that this punishment will be present in unequal areas. Jurisdictions with a more conservative public or a stronger law-and-order Republican party should be more likely to legalize the death penalty as well. After controlling for social disorganization, region, period, and violent crime, panel analyses suggest that minority presence and economic inequality enhance the likelihood of a legal death penalty. Conservative values and Republican strength in the legislature have equivalent effects. A supplemental time-to-event analysis supports these conclusions. The results suggest that a political approach has explanatory power because threat effects expressed through politics and effects that are directly political invariably account for decisions about the legality of capital punishment.
Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage
Authors: Sweeney Megan M.
Published: August 2023

Has the relationship between economic prospects and marriage formation in the United States changed in recent decades? To answer this question, a discrete-time event-history analysis was conducted using data from multiple cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. Among women, results indicate growth in the importance of earnings for marriage formation between the early baby-boom cohort (born between 1950 and 1954) and late baby-boom cohort (born between 1961 and 1965). Evidence of cohort change in the relationship between men's economic prospects and marriage, however, is limited. Despite important racial differences in the economic and attitudinal context of marriage, key results are generally similar for whites and for African Americans. Taken together, these findings imply that men and women are growing to resemble one another with respect to the relationship between economic prospects and marriage, although this convergence is driven primarily by changing patterns of marriage among women. These results are largely supportive of Oppenheimer's career-entry theory of marriage and suggest that Becker's specialization and trading model of marriage may be outdated.
Social Capital and Democracy: An Interdependent Relationship
Authors: Paxton Pamela
Published: August 2023

Current democratic theory and recent international policy initiatives reveal an intense interest in the relationship between social capital and democracy. This interest is the most recent variant of a long theoretical tradition positing that a vigorous associational life is beneficial for the creation and maintenance of democracy. Despite the popularity of this view, little quantitative empirical evidence exists to support the relationship. Here, the relationship between social capital and democracy is tested using data from a large, quantitative, cross-national study. Two additional tests are introduced. First, the plausible reciprocal effect—from democracy to social capital—is included in models. Second, the potentially negative impact of some associations on democracy is considered. Using data from the World Values Survey and the Union of International Associations in a cross-lagged panel design, results show that social capital affects democracy and that democracy affects social capital. Additional tests demonstrate that associations that are connected to the larger community have a positive effect on democracy, while isolated associations have a negative effect. Theory relating social capital to democracy is drawn from the literature on civil society, political culture, and social movements.
Corporatism and Unemployment in the 1980s and 1990s
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: August 2023

A number of studies have found an association between corporatist institutions and low unemployment in the 1970s and/or 1980s. Three gaps in our understanding of corporatism's labor market effects are addressed here: (1) Which of the two principal forms of corporatism—corporatist wage-setting or union participation in economic policymaking, or both—generates these effects? (2) What are the causal mechanisms? (3) Did these effects continue in the 1990s in the face of globalization, restrictive monetary policy, growing dissension within labor movements, and related developments? The impact of corporatism across 16 affluent OECD countries in the 1980s and 1990s is assessed using pooled time-series cross-section analysis. The results suggest that wage coordination was conducive to low unemployment in the 1980s because it fostered moderation in labor costs, spurred faster economic growth, and encouraged governments to more aggressively pursue policies to reduce unemployment. In the 1990s, this effect disappeared, largely because unemployment outcomes in low wage-coordination countries improved rather than because unemployment outcomes in high wage-coordination countries deteriorated. Union participation in economic policymaking was associated with low unemployment throughout the two decades, conditional on the presence of leftist government. Union participation appears to have had this effect mainly via government policy.
Resource Distributions and Market Partitioning: Dutch Daily Newspapers, 1968 TO 1994
Authors: Boone Christophe , Carroll Glenn R. , van Witteloostuijn Arjen
Published: August 2023

Resource-partitioning theory explains how, in heavily concentrated populations, specialist organizations arise and proliferate. The theory also addresses the process of market concentration itself, although far less attention has been devoted to the theoretical claims in this area. In this analysis, the theory is used to explain generalist concentration through the distribution of environmental (market) resources. It is argued that the higher the homogeneity and concentration of relevant environmental resources, the higher the concentration of large generalist organizations competing on the basis of scale. Using data on the Dutch daily newspaper industry from 1968 to 1994, statistical analyses show that concentration among generalist (national) newspapers occurs more fully in province-level markets where the readership base consists of relatively homogeneous sets of individuals in terms of age, religion, politics, and education. At the same time, these concentrated markets prove to be fertile areas for the operation of specialist papers, at least when resources are not fully homogenized. The analysis thus provides a more complete model of the resource-partitioning process among organizations in a population.
Occupational Stratification across the Life Course: Evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study
Authors: Warren John Robert , Hauser Robert M. , Sheridan Jennifer T.
Published: August 2023

Sociologists frequently study changes across cohorts in the consequences of family background, gender, education, and cognitive ability for occupational outcomes. This study focuses, however, on how the consequences of these variables change within the course of individuals’ lives. To appropriately estimate changes across the life course in the determinants of occupational standing, corrections are made for measurement errors in variables, and data on siblings are used to account for all aspects (measured and unmeasured) of family background. The analyses use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which provides multiple measures of siblings’ occupational standing at four points in their lives. Models of sibling resemblance show that the effects of family background on occupational standing operate entirely through their effects on education and cognitive ability. The effects of education decline across the life course, while the effects of ability remain small but persistent. In comparing men and women, substantial differences are found in career trajectories and in life course changes in occupational returns to schooling.
Forging Social Order and Its Breakdown: Riot and Reform in U.S. Prisons
Authors: Useem Bert , Goldstone Jack a.
Published: August 2023

Two cases of prison reform in the 1990s had widely divergent results. New Mexico privatized several prisons and these prisons were quickly beset by multiple riots. New York's publicly run Rikers Island prison, by contrast, adopted reforms that ended many years of riots and violence. Prevailing theories of prison riots cannot account for these divergent outcomes. A state-centered theory of social order explains both cases, showing how prison administrators and state and national governments can create the conditions under which social order breaks down or is restored. This analysis has implications for forging social order in other hierarchical institutions, such as schools, that are responsible for the welfare of their dependent clients.
Footprints on the Earth: The Environmental Consequences of Modernity
Authors: York Richard , Rosa Eugene A. , Dietz Thomas
Published: August 2023

Growing evidence demonstrating clear threats to the sustainability of the ecosystems supporting human societies has given rise to a variety of sociological theories of human-environment interactions. These environmental impact theories fall into three general perspectives: human ecology, modernization, and political economy. These theories, however, have not been empirically tested in a common analytic framework. Here, a framework that relies on ecological principles is adopted and modified. Using a revised stochastic formulation of that framework and the most comprehensive measure of environmental impact to date—the ecological footprint—the factors driving the environmental impacts of societies are assessed. The overall findings support the claims of human ecologists, partially support the claims of political economists, and contradict the claims of modernization theorists. Basic material conditions, such as population, economic production, urbanization, and geographical factors all affect the environment and explain the vast majority of cross-national variation in environmental impact. Factors derived from neo-liberal modernization theory, such as political freedom, civil liberties, and state environmentalism have no effect on impacts. Taken together, these findings suggest societies cannot be sanguine about achieving sustainability via a continuation of current trends in economic growth and institutional change.
Foreign Capital Dependence and Development: A New Direction
Authors: Kentor Jeffrey , Boswell Terry
Published: August 2023

Scholars have long debated the impact of foreign investment on the economies of less developed countries. Many argue that foreign investment is beneficial for the host economy; others argue, just as forcefully, that dependence on foreign capital is detrimental. This study offers a new conceptualization of foreign capital dependence that may resolve this debate: foreign investment concentration, which is the proportion of a host country's foreign direct investment stocks owned by the single largest investing country. The theory is that high investment concentration limits the autonomy of state and business elites to act in the long-term interests of domestic growth. In a series of cross-national panel regression models of 39 less developed countries estimated at five-year intervals from 1970 to 1995, the often cited negative effects of foreign capital penetration on growth in GNP per capita are dramatically reduced or entirely replaced when investment concentration, and the related concepts of export commodity and trade partner concentrations, are included in the analyses. Foreign investment concentration has a significant, long-term negative effect on growth that is strongest over the initial five-year period and decreases over the next 15 years. A similar effect is also found for the 1990–1997 period. This structural aspect of capital dependence has a greater impact on development than does the overall level of foreign capital penetration.
Elite Self-Interest and Economic Decline in Early Modern Europe
Authors: Lachmann Richard
Published: August 2023

Why does the leading economic power of its time lose its dominance? Competing theories are tested through a comparison of four historical cases—the Florentine city-state, the Spanish empire, and the Dutch and British nation-states. Institutional context determined social actors’ capacities to apply their polities’ human and material resources to foreign economic competition. Specifically, the dominant elites in each polity established the social relations and institutions that protected them from domestic challenges from rival elites and classes. But these relations and institutions had the effect of limiting elites’ capacities to adapt to foreign economic rivals: Elites acting locally determined their capacities to act globally.
The Great Chain of Orientalism: Jewish Identity, Stigma Management, and Ethnic Exclusion in Israel
Authors: Khazzoom Aziza
Published: August 2023

This paper explores the role that orientalism has played in shaping ethnic inequality among Jews in Israel. Earlier works usually explain ethnic exclusion as a function of Jewish life on Israeli territory. Here, however, exclusion is located within an earlier history of a Jewish encounter with orientalism and Western European colonialism. It is argued that prior to their immigration to Israel, Jews the world-over had been stigmatized as Oriental. Through a complex process, they accepted this stigma, and they arrived in Israel deeply invested in developing the new country as “western “ and uncomfortable with anything identified as “eastern.” It is the imperatives of this westernization “identity project” that account for the initial impetus to exclude Middle Eastern Jews, as well as non-Jewish Arabs, from emerging Israeli society. Viewing history from this perspective, ethnic cleavages in the Jewish world appear to have a historical stability and consistency that is at odds with the current focus on contingency and historical indeterminacy.
Beyond Black and White: The Present and Future of Multiracial Friendship Segregation
Authors: Quillian Lincoln , Campbell Mary E.
Published: August 2023

How will racial divisions in student friendship networks change as U.S. schools incorporate a growing Asian and Hispanic population? Drawing on theories of race in assimilation processes and the effects of relative group size on intergroup relations, several hypotheses are developed to address this question. These hypotheses are tested using data on friendships among students in grades 7 to 12 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Key findings are that (1) cross-race friendships including Asian and Hispanic students are more common than those between white and black students, but race and Hispanic background have significant influences on student friendships that persist over immigrant generations; (2) black or white racial identifications are strongly associated with the friendship choices of Hispanic students; (3) cross-race friendships increase with school racial diversity; and (4) own-group friend selection intensifies for students in small racial minorities in a school. The results support theories of racially segmented patterns of assimilation in primary group relations and suggest that students in small racial minorities seek to maintain a friendship network including several own-race friends. Implications are discussed.
Revisits: An Outline of a Theory of reflexive ethnography
Authors: Burawoy Michael
Published: August 2023

This paper explores the ethnographic technique of the focused revisit—rare in sociology but common in anthropology—when an ethnographer returns to the site of a previous study. Discrepancies between earlier and later accounts can be attributed to differences in: (1) the relation of observer to participant, (2) theory brought to the field by the ethnographer, (3) internal processes within the field site itself, or (4) forces external to the field site. Focused revisits tend to settle on one or another of these four explanations, giving rise to four types of focused revisits. Using examples, the limits of each type of focused revisit are explored with a view to developing a reflexive ethnography that combines all four approaches. The principles of the focused revisit are then extended to rolling, punctuated, heuristic, archeological, and valedictory revisits. In centering attention on ethnography-as-revisit sociologists directly confront the dilemmas of participating in the world they study—a world that undergoes (real) historical change that can only be grasped using a (constructed) theoretical lens.
Religion and Economic Growth across Countries
Authors: Barro Robert J. , McCleary Rachel M.
Published: August 2023

Empirical research on the determinants of economic growth typically neglects the influence of religion. To fill this gap, this study uses international survey data on religiosity for a broad panel of countries to investigate the effects of church attendance and religious beliefs on economic growth. To isolate the direction of causation from religiosity to economic performance, the estimation relies on instrumental variables suggested by an analysis in which church attendance and religious beliefs are the dependent variables. The instruments are variables for the presence of state religion and for regulation of the religion market, the composition of religious adherence, and an indicator of religious pluralism. Results show that economic growth responds positively to religious beliefs, notably beliefs in hell and heaven, but negatively to church attendance. That is, growth depends on the extent of believing relative to belonging. These results accord with a model in which religious beliefs influence individual traits that enhance economic performance. The beliefs are an output of the religion sector, and church attendance is an input to this sector. Hence, for given beliefs, higher church attendance signifies more resources used up by the religion sector.
Social Capital and Finding a Job: Do Contacts Matter?
Authors: Mouw Ted
Published: August 2023

Does social capital affect labor market outcomes? The prevalent use of job contacts to find work suggests that “who you know” is an important means of getting a good job. Network theories of social capital argue that well-connected workers benefit because of the job information and influence they receive through their social ties. Although a number of studies have found a positive relationship between measures of social capital and wages and/or occupational prestige, little is known about the causal effect of social networks on labor market outcomes. Four data sets are used to reassess findings on the role of social capital in the labor market. A test of causality is proposed based on the argument that if social capital variables do have a causal effect on job outcomes, then workers with high levels of social capital should be more likely to use contacts to find work, all else being equal. Results suggest that much of the effect of social capital in the existing literature reflects the tendency for similar people to become friends rather than a causal effect of friends’ characteristics on labor market outcomes.
Bilingualism and the Academic Achievement of First- and Second-Generation Asian Americans: Accommodation with Or without Assimilation?
Authors: Mouw Ted , Xie Yu
Published: August 2023

Recent scholarship claims that bilingualism has a positive effect on the academic achievement of immigrant children. According to this perspective, growing up speaking two languages is beneficial because it stimulates cognitive development and allows immigrants a means of resisting unwanted assimilation. Immigrant children who are fluent bilinguals can use their native-language ability to maintain beneficial aspects of their ethnic culture while accommodating to the linguistic demands of an English-speaking society. Using data on first- and second-generation Asian American students from the 1988 National Educational Longitudinal Study, we test for these hypothesized effects of bilingualism. We find no evidence that bilingualism per se has a positive effect on achievement. Instead, speaking a native language with parents has a temporary positive effect if the parents are not proficient in English. These results indicate that the academic importance of bilingualism is transitional: The educational benefits of delaying linguistic assimilation exist only before immigrant parents achieve a moderate level of English-language proficiency.
Collective Violence and Group Solidarity: Evidence from A Feuding Society
Authors: Gould Roger V.
Published: August 2023

Sociological explanations of group conflict usually presuppose that the various factors that breed hostility between collectivities also generate internal solidarity. Outside of the protest literature, studies of conflict therefore pay little attention to the collective-action problem facing groups in contention, and therefore overestimate the likelihood of group conflict: Intergroup struggle is implicitly regarded as a sufficient condition for group participation in violent conflict. Examination of nineteenth-century court documents from Corsica, a society known for its tradition of collectivist feuding, shows that violent incidents typically did not involve groups. The group character of violence—in the form of collaborative use of lethal force and inclusion of disputants’ kin—was conditional on collective contention having occurred before violence began. This and other empirical patterns support the view that collective violence occurs when group action fails to convince an adversary to back down. The failure to prevent escalation calls the group's solidarity into question, compelling members to demonstrate that they are able to overcome their collective-action problem.
“Property Values Drop When Blacks Move In, Because…”: Racial and Socioeconomic Determinants of Neighborhood Desirability
Authors: Harris David R.
Published: August 2023

Are housing prices lower in neighborhoods with high concentrations of black residents? If so, is this relationship evidence of pure discrimination, or can it be explained by considering nonracial neighborhood traits? These questions derive their importance from the link between mobility patterns and residential segregation, and the consequent relationship between high levels of segregation and a host of deleterious outcomes. I assess the magnitude and motivations of racial aversion by conducting a hedonic price analysis of geocoded data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I find clear evidence of lower property values in neighborhoods with relatively high proportions of black residents. However, whether it is blacks’ race or their socioeconomic status that affects property values depends on whether housing units are rented or owner-occupied.
Americans’ Increasing Belief in Life after Death: Religious Competition and Acculturation
Authors: Greeley Andrew M. , Hout Michael
Published: August 2023

A greater fraction of American adults believe in life after death in the 1990s than in the 1970s. According to data from the General Social Survey, year-to-year changes are significant, but the increase is most evident when we compare across cohorts and separate religious groups. Protestants have not changed; in every cohort 85 percent believe in life after death. It has been Catholics, Jews, and persons with no religious affiliation who have become more likely to believe in an afterlife. The percentage of Catholics believing in an afterlife rose from 67 percent to 85 percent across cohorts born from 1900 to 1970. Among Jews, this percentage increased from 17 percent (1900 cohort) to 74 percent (1970 cohort). Immigration is a key factor in this increase, as immigrants are significantly less likely to believe in an afterlife than are their grandchildren. We connect the increase among Catholics to the organizing and teaching led by Irish American priests and bishops. There is no evidence that contact with Protestants increases belief in life after death among persons who do not convert to a Protestant denomination.
Religious Congregations and Welfare Reform: Who Will Take Advantage of “Charitable Choice”?
Authors: Chaves Mark
Published: August 2023

The “Charitable Choice” provision of the 1996 welfare reform legislation requires states that contract with nonprofit organizations for delivery of social services to include religious organizations as eligible contractees. This legislation altered the conditions under which religious organizations can provide publicly funded social services. I use data from the National Congregations Study, a 1998 survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,236 religious congregations, to address two questions: To what extent will congregations seek government support for social service activity? Which subsets of congregations are most likely to take advantage of these new opportunities? Univariate statistics show that more than one-third of congregations are potentially open to pursuing government funds to support social service activities. Multivariate analyses show that liberal and moderate congregations are much more likely than conservative congregations to pursue charitable-choice opportunities, and predominantly African American congregations are particularly likely to move in this direction. These results are consistent with sociological theory and research, but they are surprising in the context of the national politics of charitable choice.
Community Health Worker Intervention for Newborns Not Passing Initial Universal Hearing Screening
Authors: Leong Stephen , Medina Kristy , Peretz Patricia J. , Olmeda-Jenkins Maria I. , Oliver Melissa A. , Kuhlmey Megan , Bernstein Stacey A. , Ferrer Fajah , Matiz Luz Adriana , Lalwani Anil K.
Published: August 2023

Background:

Universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) is effective in identifying newborns with possible hearing loss (HL). Outpatient follow-up for newborns referred after hospital-based screening remains a potential area of improvement. In this study, we evaluate the efficacy of a community health worker (CHW) intervention in promoting adherence to outpatient rescreening for newborns referred after initial UNHS.

Methods:

A mixed prospective-retrospective cohort study was performed to evaluate a CHW intervention at an academic medical center. Caregivers of referred newborns were contacted by CHWs prior to discharge and educated about HL and the importance of follow-up screening. The CHW outreach intervention was performed for 297 referred newborns between May 2020 and June 2021 and compared to a cohort of 238 newborns without the CHW intervention between March 2019 and June 2021. Statistical analyses were conducted using 2 × 2 Chi-square tests, two-tailed unpaired t-tests, multinomial logistic regression, and multiple linear regression.

Results:

In the intervention group, 236 of 297 newborns (79.5%) completed their outpatient follow-up rescreening; in the comparison group, 170 of 238 newborns (71.4%) completed their follow-up rescreening ( P = .031, OR = 1.55 with regression P = .04). In the intervention group, the average time to follow-up was 13.4 days versus 12.5 days for the comparison group ( P = .449, multiple R2 = .02 with P = .78).

Conclusions:

CHW outreach intervention may increase adherence to outpatient follow-up rescreening for newborns referred after initial, hospital-based UNHS. Expansion of nursery teams to include CHWs may thus improve completion of recommended follow-up hearing screens.
State Machinery Building and Economic Transition: Lessons from the German Unification
Authors: Nakamura Yasushi
Published: August 2023

East Germany was deficient in the human resources to establish a new state machinery that was equal to that of West Germany. The solution was transferring knowledge and know-hows from West to East Germany through dispatching West German personnel, retraining and building informal personal networks. East Germany could establish the new state machinery quickly, although copying West Germany left little room to build a better state machinery, and the sudden change might undermine East German personnel’s efforts to increase their capacities. The German experience suggests that the other ex-socialist countries that could not expect a fast and extensive transfer of knowledge and know-how would need a long period measured by the unit of decade or generation to establish the new state machinery. Those countries needed a commonly understood goal of systemic transformation and public support for it over a long period.

JEL: H10, N44, O15, P20, P37
The Visible Politics of Intersubjectivity: Constructing Knowledge as Shared to Manage Resistance in News Interviews
Authors: Hepburn Alexa , Potter Jonathan , Caldwell Marissa
Published: August 2023

This paper describes one practice of “resistance” to challenging interviewees in television news interviews. Interviewers use turn medial tags when working with field reporters to display shared knowledge to an overhearing audience. In contrast, analysis focuses on examples in which tag questions are issued midturn, e.g., “You put your finger on the button didn’t you.=when you said …”. In this practice knowledge and understanding are built as shared in the face of resistance from high-status and highly experienced interviewees. The syntactic reorganization of different elements within individual turns, combined with the possibility of manipulating the sequential positioning of an utterance, allow intersubjectivity to be invasively and coercively re/built through displays of mis/alignment across turns and sequences of talk. We explore the implications of this for how resistance can be understood. Our analysis also contributes to a politics of intersubjectivity and, more specifically, interknowledgeability.
First Responders and the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Organizational Strategies Can Promote Workforce Retention
Authors: Remington Christa L. , Witkowski Kaila , Ganapati N. Emel , Headley Andrea M. , Contreras Santina L.
Published: August 2023

Workforce retention is a current challenge for public administration, and there are continued questions about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the public safety workforce and their willingness to serve. Past studies have shown there are limits to what first responders will endure during complex and uncertain emergencies, leading them to potentially leave their position. Using a nationwide survey ( n = 3,582), in-depth interviews ( n = 91), and a visual methodology called PhotoVoice, this study examines the factors impacting threats to workforce retention (i.e., role abandonment and turnover intentions) among first responders and the ways public organizations can mitigate this negative impact. The results show personal or family risk may contribute to first responders’ decisions to quit, while an understanding of public risk may promote retention. We identify several organizational strategies (e.g., emotional safety, sufficient protective equipment, standard operating procedures) that may reduce retention threats.