bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
When Do National Movements Adopt or Reject International Agendas? A Comparative Analysis of the Chinese and Indian Women's Movements
Authors: Liu Dongxiao
Published: January 2010

When do national movements adopt or reject international agendas? This question regarding the relationship between global and local thinking goes to the heart of the current globalization debates. This study examines the contrasting responses from the Chinese and Indian women's movements to the agenda adopted by the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. The contrast challenges the dominant assumption that global thinking can substitute for local thinking. The article shows how national movements decided for or against international agendas through context-dependent meaning-making processes. The Chinese and Indian movements drew on the international agenda to pursue similar national policy goals. Each reached its decision on the international agenda through a similar sequence of interactions with the government. However, due to mediation by nationally unique combinations of political rules and policy-related timing, the two movements attached opposite meanings to the international agenda. The Chinese movement embraced the international agenda and reinterpreted it by emphasizing its difference from the government position; the Indian movement used the international agenda as a surrogate target and rejected it by emphasizing its similarities to the government position. The article also proposes an alternative conceptualization of authoritarianism and democracy that understands better international influences on social movement dynamics.
European Integration and Income Inequality
Authors: Beckfield Jason
Published: January 2010

Globalization has attained a prominent place on the sociological agenda, and stratification scholars have implicated globalization in the increased income inequality observed in many advanced capitalist countries. But sociologists have given much less attention to a different yet increasingly prevalent form of internationalization: regional integration. Regional integration, or the construction of international economy and polity within negotiated regions, should matter for income inequality. Regional economic integration should raise income inequality, as workers are exposed to international competition and labor unions are weakened. Regional political integration should also raise income inequality, but through a different mechanism: political integration should drive welfare state retrenchment in market-oriented regional polities as states adopt liberal policies in a context of fiscal austerity. Evidence from random-effects and fixedeffects models of income inequality in Western Europe supports these arguments. The results show that regional integration explains nearly half of the increase in income inequality in the Western European countries analyzed in this article. The effects of regional integration on income inequality are net of several controls, including two established measures of globalization, suggesting that a sociological approach to regional integration adds to our understanding of rising income inequality in Western Europe.
Scar Effects of Unemployment: An Assessment of Institutional Complementarities
Authors: Gangl Markus
Published: January 2010

This article uses panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) for a comparative analysis of workers' post-unemployment earnings trajectories in the United States and 12 Western European countries. Across the study sample of industrialized countries, results of difference-in-difference propensity score matching show post-unemployment earnings losses to be largely permanent and particularly significant for high-wage and older workers as well as for women. The analyses also show that negative effects of unemployment on workers' subsequent earnings are mitigated through either generous unemployment benefit systems or strict labor market regulation. These effects stem partly from favorable behavioral responses that prevent downward occupational and industrial mobility and partly from changes in the overall structure of labor markets favoring the transferability of worker skills between jobs. These positive effects materialize despite the fact that labor market policies tend to successfully protect the core work force from experiencing a job loss in the first place.
Social Boundaries and Marital Assimilation: Interpreting Trends in Racial and Ethnic Intermarriage
Authors: Qian Zhenchao , Lichter Daniel T.
Published: January 2010

Interracial/interethnic marriage in America is a barometer of racial/ethnic relations and intergroup social distance. Using data from the 5-percent Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1990 and 2000 censuses, we interpret trends in intermarriage in light of new assimilation theory, recent changes in racial classification, and rapid demographic changes in American society. Our results indicate that changes in marital assimilation have taken on momentum of their own; that is, America's growing biracial population has fueled the growth of interracial marriages with whites. Analyses also shed new light on the effects of rapid immigration, rising cohabitation, and educational upgrading on intermarriage patterns, and yield both continuities and departures from the past. Historic patterns of racial/ethnic differences in intermarriage persist—Hispanics and American Indians are most likely to marry whites, followed closely by Asian Americans. African Americans are least likely to marry whites. Yet, the 1990s brought significant increases in intermarriage between blacks and whites; large increases in cohabitation did not offset the growth of racially-mixed marriages. The past decade also ushered in unprecedented declines in intermarriage with whites and large increases in marriage between native- and foreign-born co-ethnics among Hispanics and Asian Americans. The role of educational attainment in the out-marriage patterns of Hispanics and Asian Americans was also reinforced. Any evidence of differential growth in African American-white marriages among the highly educated African American population was weak. If intermarriage is our guide, any shifting, blurring, or crossing of racial/ethnic boundaries represent uncommonly weak mechanisms for breaking down existing racial barriers to black-white union formation.
Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap
Authors: Alexander Karl L. , Entwisle Doris R. , Olson Linda Steffel
Published: January 2010

Prior research has demonstrated that summer learning rooted in family and community influences widens the achievement gap across social lines, while schooling offsets those family and community influences. In this article, we examine the long-term educational consequences of summer learning differences by family socioeconomic level. Using data from the Baltimore Beginning School Study youth panel, we decompose achievement scores at the start of high school into their developmental precursors, back to the time of school entry in 1st grade. We find that cumulative achievement gains over the first nine years of children's schooling mainly reflect school-year learning, whereas the high SES-low SES achievement gap at 9th grade mainly traces to differential summer learning over the elementary years. These early out-of-school summer learning differences, in turn, substantially account for achievement-related differences by family SES in high school track placements (college preparatory or not), high school noncompletion, and four-year college attendance. We discuss implications for understanding the bases of educational stratification, as well as educational policy and practice.
Working More and Feeling Better: Women's Health, Employment, and Family Life, 1974-2004
Authors: Schnittker Jason
Published: January 2010

Women have long reported worse self-rated health than men. This difference, however, may be changing. Rising educational attainment and labor force participation over the last two decades may have improved women's health, yet some have speculated that such benefits are increasingly threatened by a variety of other important changes, including growing difficulty balancing work and family. This article explores trends in women's health, employment, and family life between 1974 and 2004, using the cumulative General Social Survey and recent waves of the National Health Interview Survey, focusing specifically on the relationship between work hours, family responsibilities, and self-rated health. On the one hand, the results are consistent with research and speculation regarding health and women's changing roles. More women are employed and working longer hours, often combining work with parenting. Furthermore, the health benefits of employment decline somewhat when employment is combined with the care of a young child. Nevertheless, women reported much better health in the 1990s than they did in earlier periods and the gender gap has narrowed. The upward trend in women's absolute health reflects a progressive increase in women's education, while the closing of the gender gap reflects women's growing rates of labor force participation. These positive health trends will likely continue in the future. Indeed, judging from evidence among some select groups-including the college educated and those working fulltime- the well-known gender gap in self-rated health might soon reverse, mitigating patterns once thought rooted in more innate sex differences.
Careers in Foreign-Owned Firms in Japan
Authors: Ono Hiroshi
Published: January 2010

This article examines how organizational environments affect labor market processes in Japan. I hypothesize that labor market inequality is generated through workers being “positioned” in either domestic or in foreign firms. I apply the concept of social versus economic exchange to distinguish the nature of transactions between domestic and foreign firms. I argue that foreign firms operate under an institutional context that is conducive to the economic mode of exchange, which has enormous consequences for their personnel practices and reward systems. Using a dataset of Japanese workers collected in 2000, I examine the extent to which employment practices in foreign firms deviate from the benchmark features observed in the Japanese labor market. My results confirm that employment in foreign firms significantly affects career outcomes. The highcommitment culture commonly associated with the Japanese workforce is an outcome of the organizational environment. I find little evidence of Japanese employment practices (e.g., seniority and lifetime employment) operating within foreign firms. I also find that workers in foreign firms trust their employers less and have a higher propensity to quit their jobs. My findings suggest that workers in domestic and foreign firms are subject to vastly different sets of institutional constraints.
Workers of the Less Developed World Unite? A Multilevel Analysis of Unionization in Less Developed Countries
Authors: Martin Nathan D. , Brady David
Published: January 2010

Past scholars of unionization have offered exemplary cross-national studies of affluent democracies and case studies of less developed countries (LDCs). What has been lacking is cross-national research on unionization across LDCs. We conduct a multilevel analysis of the likelihood that a worker is unionized with the late-1990s World Values surveys of 39 LDCs. We propose that unionization in LDCs can be explained by the individual characteristics of workers as well as the country-level factors of institutions, industrialization, and globalization. Our analyses yield several conclusions. First, owing to the legacy of state socialism, ex-communist countries have much higher unionization. Second, our analyses show that class very effectively explains union membership across LDCs. Although skilled manual workers are more unionized than most, educated professionals stand out for their distinctively high unionization. Third, the debt crisis significantly undermined unionization through the institutional influence of International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreements and the globalization pressure of debt service. Despite being the focus of much research, industrialization, democratization, the size of the state, International Labour Organization conventions, and international trade and investment are surprisingly insignificant. Decomposing the sample by communist legacy, signing an IMF agreement is significant in ex-communist countries, and debt service is significant in countries without a communist legacy. Overall, we conclude that the debt crisis has undermined unionization and class remains a powerful basis of mobilization across LDCs.
Animal Practices, Ethnicity, and Community: The Turkish Pigeon Handlers of Berlin
Authors: Jerolmack Colin
Published: January 2010

Though largely overlooked by scholars of ethnicity and culture, animal practices can structure and reflect identity and social relations. Based on individual and group interviews and observations in Berlin, Germany, this study examines how a group of Turkish men experience and assign significance to the activity of caring for domestic pigeons. Building on approaches to ethnicity that follow the “cognitive turn,” as well as recent studies of human-animal interaction and cultural examinations of nature and the environment, this article demonstrates how: (1) these men frame their animal practices within their understandings of ethnicity, culture, and territory; and (2) communal relationships formed through pigeon caretaking reinforce definitions of Turkish ethnicity and culture for participants. Beyond offering in situ data on the link between animal practices and ethnicity, the analyses and case suggest how and why sociologists should consider animals and nature as potential constitutive objects of ethnic identity and culture.
Can Power from Below Change the World?
Authors: Piven Frances Fox
Published: January 2010

Prevailing perspectives on power cannot explain why political protests from the bottom of societies sometimes result in reforms that reflect the grievances of the protestors. I propose a new theory of “interdependent power” that provides such an explanation. I argue that, contrary to common views, globalization actually increases the potential for this kind of popular power.
Job Mobility and Wage Trajectories for Men and Women in the United States
Authors: Fuller Sylvia
Published: January 2010

Young American workers typically change employers many times in the course of establishing their careers. This article examines the consequences of this mobility for wage inequalities between and among men and women. Using multilevel modeling and data from the 1979 to 2002 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), I disentangle the various ways in which mobility shapes the trajectories of wage growth. Findings caution against accepting the adequacy of prevalent economic models of mobility—models that tend to isolate individual workers'moves from broader patterns of work history and that treat mobility as a decontextualized individual choice. Although workers who frequently switch employers generally end up earning less than their more-stable counterparts, the type, timing, and relative level of changes strongly affect the ultimate wage differential. Differences in the degree of men's and women's labor-force attachment and family circumstances are also influential. Workers who are less attached to the labor force benefit less from changing employers, and women who are married or have children also tend to experience less-favorable mobility-wage outcomes.
Ownership, Organization, and Income Inequality: Market Transition in Rural Vietnam
Authors: Walder Andrew G. , Nguyen Giang Hoang
Published: January 2010

In transitional economies, the scale of economic enterprise and the allocation of property rights shape social structures and influence income distribution. In agrarian economies, where labor-intensive family enterprises dominate, political officials' income advantages decline rapidly relative to those of private entrepreneurs. Larger enterprises, however, provide greater income opportunities for officials, especially when a government retains an ownership stake in the initial phases of reform. This article replicates the findings from an earlier study of rural China using comparable survey data from Vietnam. We find that during the first two decades of rural market reform in Vietnam and China, the scale and ownership of firms differed radically. Small family enterprises dominated rural development in Vietnam, whereas China's development was dominated by larger firms, initially established by rural governments. Consequently, while cadre income advantages have kept pace with those of private entrepreneurs in China, they have declined rapidly in Vietnam.
Getting Counted: Markets, Media, and Reality
Authors: Kennedy Mark Thomas
Published: January 2010

Firms that do not fit into established business categories tend to be overlooked, but new markets often form around these “misfits.” Because being seen as part of a growing population makes new populations seem real, counting them is important to mainstreaming new markets. Yet, if firms outside the mainstream are overlooked, how can they be counted? Extending the embeddedness perspective to social cognition about markets, this research exposes the media's central role in market formation. Using a new method for extracting data about market networks from media coverage, this study demonstrates that early entrants benefit from inviting coverage that makes a few-but not too many-links to other entrants, thus helping audiences perceive an emerging category. As the market matures, however, references to rivals become unhelpful. These findings illustrate the value of a linguistic turn to empirical studies of meaning construction and the reification of social structure.
Stability and Change in Family Structure and Maternal Health Trajectories
Authors: Meadows Sarah O. , McLanahan Sara S. , Brooks-Gunn Jeanne
Published: January 2010

Recent increases in births to unmarried parents, and the instability surrounding these relationships, have raised concerns about the possible health effects associated with changes in family structure. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (N = 2,448), this article examines trajectories of maternal mental and physical health. We specifically focus on mothers' transitions into and out of residential relationships with a child's biological father during the first five years after birth. We find that continuously married mothers are in better mental and physical health than unmarried mothers one year after birth, but the disparity does not increase over time. This finding provides little support for the resource model. Consistent with the crisis model, exiting a marital or cohabiting union increases mental health problems and decreases self-rated health. These effects appear to be relatively short-lived, though, and they are stronger for mental health than for self-rated health. The results also suggest that union dissolution may be selective of less healthy mothers, whereas union formation does not appear to be selective of healthier mothers.
Opting Out? Cohort Differences in Professional Women's Employment Rates from 1960 to 2005
Authors: Percheski Christine
Published: January 2010

Over the past 50 years, women's roles have changed dramatically—a reality captured by substantial increases in employment and reductions in fertility. Yet, the social organization of work and family life has not changed much, leading to pervasive work-family conflict. Observing these strains, some scholars wonder whether U.S. women's high employment levels are sustainable. Women's employment in professional and managerial occupations—the core of the analyses offered in this article—merits particular interest because of the material and symbolic implications for gender equality. In a cohort analysis of working-age women born between 1906 and 1975, I show that employment levels among college-educated women in professional and managerial occupations have increased across cohorts. Full-time, year-round employment rates continue to rise across cohorts, even among women in historically male professions and mothers of young children. Although labor force participation rates have stopped rising, they have stalled at a very high rate, with less than 8 percent of professional women born since 1956 out of the labor force for a year or more during their prime childbearing years. Moreover, the difference in employment rates between mothers and childless women—the “child penalty”—is shrinking across cohorts.
Social Exchange and Micro Social Order
Authors: Lawler Edward J. , Thye Shane R. , Yoon Jeongkoo
Published: January 2010

This study uses an affect theory of social exchange (Lawler 2001) to investigate how and when network structures generate “micro social orders.” Micro social order entails recurrent interactions, emotional reactions, perceptions of a group, and affective sentiments. The core theoretical argument is that micro orders, involving behavioral, cognitive, and affective dimensions, develop and are stronger to the degree that (1) actors engage in highly joint tasks or activities and (2) these tasks generate a sense of shared responsibility for the interaction outcomes. A laboratory experiment varies different forms of social exchange—negotiated, reciprocal, generalized, and productive—within a network structure, and offers strong support for the core expectation that productive forms of exchange generate the strongest micro order. Conversely, generalized exchange generates the weakest order, with negotiated and reciprocal forms in between. In general, productive exchange bolsters more exchange behavior, more positive feelings, perceptions of cohesion at the network level, and affective attachments to the network as a social unit. This research has broad implications for the conditions under which task activity promotes micro social orders that involve strong person-to-group ties (as opposed to person-to-person ties) and affective sentiments regarding the social unit.
Ties to the Dead: Connections to Iraq War and 9/11 Casualties and Disapproval of the President
Authors: Gartner Scott Sigmund
Published: January 2010

Although played out on a global stage, 9/11 and the Iraq War represent highly personal events for those connected to the victims. A social tie to a conflict's casualty transforms abstract costs into a vivid personal experience that increases the likelihood an individual disapproves of the president. Despite variation between civilian and military losses and historically high and low levels of presidential support, those who know 9/11 or Iraq War casualties are consistently more likely to disapprove of President Bush, suggesting that social structure, and not just personal characteristics, influence wartime opinion.
Spatial Dynamics of White Flight: The Effects of Local and Extralocal Racial Conditions on Neighborhood Out-Migration
Authors: Crowder Kyle , South Scott J.
Published: January 2010

Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and three U.S. censuses, we examine how the composition of extralocal areas—areas surrounding a householder's neighborhood of residence—shapes the likelihood that Whites will move out of their neighborhoods. Net of local neighborhood conditions and other predictors of residential mobility, high concentrations of minorities in surrounding neighborhoods reduce the likelihood that Whites will move, presumably by reducing the attractiveness of nearby residential alternatives. Notably, this effect also suppresses the influence of the racial composition of the immediate neighborhood on White out-migration. Recent growth in the size of an extralocal minority population increases the likelihood of White outmigration and accounts for much of the influence previously attributed to racial changes in the local neighborhood. High levels of minority concentration in surrounding neighborhoods also exacerbate the positive effect of local minority concentration on White out-migration. These results highlight the importance of looking beyond reactions to local racial conditions to understand mobility decisions and resulting patterns of segregation.
Immigrant Children's Educational Achievement in Western Countries: Origin, Destination, and Community Effects on Mathematical Performance
Authors: Levels Mark , Dronkers Jaap , Kraaykamp Gerbert
Published: January 2010

This article explores the extent to which macro-level characteristics of destination countries, origin countries, and immigrant communities help explain differences in immigrant children's educational achievement. Using data from the 2003 PISA survey, we analyze the mathematical performance of 7,403 pupils from 35 different origin countries in 13 Western countries of destination. While compositional differences offer some explanatory power, they cannot fully explain cross-national and cross-group variance. Contextual attributes of host countries, origin countries, and communities are also meaningful. In this regard, strict immigration laws explain immigrant children's better educational performance in traditional immigrant-receiving countries. Results further suggest that origin countries' level of economic development can negatively affect immigrant children's educational performance, and that immigrant children from more politically stable countries perform better at school. Finally, socioeconomic differences between immigrant communities and a native population, and relative community size, both shape immigrant children's scholastic achievement.
Social Control and Youth Suicidality: Situating Durkheim's Ideas in a Multilevel Framework
Authors: Maimon David , Kuhl Danielle C.
Published: January 2010

Although the suicide rate among U.S. youth between the ages of 10 to 24 dramatically increased during the past 50 years, little research has examined this outcome within larger social contexts of the adolescent environment. Relying on Durkheim's theory of social integration, we examine the effect of individual- and structural-level social integration on adolescents' suicidality. Using a sample of 6,369 respondents within 314 neighborhoods, we examine the assumptions that high levels of religious, familial, neighborhood, and school integration are associated with fewer suicide attempts among youths. We find support for the traditional Durkheimian assumptions; specifically, the proportion of religiously conservative residents in a neighborhood reduces youths' risk of attempting suicide, as do individual-level controls of school and parental attachment. Moreover, we find evidence for a cross-level interaction between depression and neighborhood level of religiosity. Depression increases youths' risk of attempting suicide, but in places where religion is very important, this positive effect of depression is diminished.
Love, Sex, and Crime: Adolescent Romantic Relationships and Offending
Authors: McCarthy Bill , Casey Teresa
Published: January 2010

Scholars are often pessimistic about adolescent dating, linking it to increases in depression, interpersonal violence, conflict with parents, school failure, associations with delinquents, substance use, and offending. Yet, the various dimensions of dating may have opposing consequences. The closeness offered by adolescent romantic love may fill an important void found between the weakening of bonds with parents and the onset of adult attachments, and it may discourage an array of negative outcomes, including involvement in crime. Adolescent sexual activity, in contrast, may increase offending, in part by augmenting the strain created by relationships. When coupled with a romantic relationship, however, sex is likely less stressful and consequential for crime. In this article, we analyze patterns of romance, sexual behavior, and adolescent crime with panel data from the nationally representative Adolescent Health Survey. Findings support our expectations regarding differential effects of romance and sex. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for understanding adolescent delinquency, social attachments, and development.
Groups Reward Individual Sacrifice: The Status Solution to the Collective Action Problem
Authors: Willer Robb
Published: January 2010

One of sociology's classic puzzles is how groups motivate their members to set aside self-interest and contribute to collective action. This article presents a solution to the problem based on status as a selective incentive motivating contribution. Contributors to collective action signal their motivation to help the group and consequently earn diverse benefits from group members–in particular, higher status–and these rewards encourage greater giving to the group in the future. In Study 1, high contributors to collective action earned higher status, exercised more interpersonal influence, were cooperated with more, and received gifts of greater value. Studies 2 and 3 replicated these findings while discounting alternative explanations. All three studies show that giving to the group mattered because it signaled an individual's motivation to help the group. Study 4 finds that participants who received status for their contributions subsequently contributed more and viewed the group more positively. These results demonstrate how the allocation of respect to contributors shapes group productivity and solidarity, offering a solution to the collective action problem.
The Discipline of Rankings: Tight Coupling and Organizational Change
Authors: Sauder Michael , Espeland Wendy Nelson
Published: January 2010

This article demonstrates the value of Foucault's conception of discipline for understanding organizational responses to rankings. Using a case study of law schools, we explain why rankings have permeated law schools so extensively and why these organizations have been unable to buffer these institutional pressures. Foucault's depiction of two important processes, surveillance and normalization, show how rankings change perceptions of legal education through both coercive and seductive means. This approach advances organizational theory by highlighting conditions that affect the prevalence and effectiveness of buffering. Decoupling is not determined solely by the external enforcement of institutional pressures or the capacity of organizational actors to buffer or hide some activities. Members' tendency to internalize these pressures, to become self-disciplining, is also salient. Internalization is fostered by the anxiety that rankings produce, by their allure for the administrators who try to manipulate them, and by the resistance they provoke. Rankings are just one example of the public measures of performance that are becoming increasingly influential in many institutional environments, and understanding how organizations respond to these measures is a crucial task for scholars.
Multiple Category Memberships in Markets: An Integrative Theory and Two Empirical Tests
Authors: Hsu Greta , Hannan Michael T. , Koçak Özgecan
Published: January 2010

This article examines the effects of market specialization on economic and social outcomes. Integrating two perspectives, we explore why products that span multiple categories suffer social and economic disadvantages. According to the audience-side perspective, audience members refer to established categories to make sense of products. Products that incorporate features from multiple categories are perceived to be poor fits with category expectations and less appealing than category specialists. The producerside view holds that spanning categories reduces one's ability to effectively target each category's audience, which decreases appeal to audience members. Rather than treating these as rival explanations, we propose that both processes matter and offer a systematic, integrated account of how penalties arise as a consequence of audience-side and producer-side processes. We analyze data from two dissimilar contexts, eBay auctions and U.S. feature-film projects, to test the central implications of our theory. Together, these tests provide support for our integrated approach and suggest that both processes contribute to the penalties associated with category spanning.
Condom Semiotics: Meaning and Condom Use in Rural Malawi
Authors: Tavory Iddo , Swidler Ann
Published: January 2010

This article examines the widespread resistance to condom use in sub-Saharan Africa by describing the major semiotic axes that organize how people talk about condoms and condom use. These axes include the “sweetness” of sex, trust and love between sexual partners, and assessments of risk and danger. Using data from rural Malawi, we show that framing the meaning of condoms as a simple choice between risky behavior and rational attempts to protect one's health ignores the complex semiotic space that Malawians navigate. Based on data from more than 600 diaries that record rural Malawians' everyday conversations, our analysis charts the semiotic axes related to condom use. Semiotic constraints operate most powerfully at the level of relationships. Condom use signifies a risky, less serious, and less intimate partner. Even when people believe that condom use is appropriate, wise, or even a matter of life and death, the statement that condom use makes about a relationship usually trumps all other meanings. We call for a more nuanced analysis of culture, one that is attentive to the ways agents navigate multiple, contested meanings, and that demonstrates how specific semiotic axes are brought to bear in particular interactional contexts.
Ethnic Politics and Armed Conflict: A Configurational Analysis of a New Global Data Set
Authors: Wimmer Andreas , Cederman Lars-Erik , Min Brian
Published: January 2010

Quantitative scholarship on civil wars has long debated whether ethnic diversity breeds armed conflict. We go beyond this debate and show that highly diverse societies are not more conflict prone. Rather, states characterized by certain ethnopolitical configurations of power are more likely to experience violent conflict. First, armed rebellions are more likely to challenge states that exclude large portions of the population on the basis of ethnic background. Second, when a large number of competing elites share power in a segmented state, the risk of violent infighting increases. Third, incohesive states with a short history of direct rule are more likely to experience secessionist conflicts. We test these hypotheses for all independent states since 1945 using the new Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) data set. Cross-national analysis demonstrates that ethnic politics is as powerful and robust in predicting civil wars as is a country's level of economic development. Using multinomial logit regression, we show that rebellion, infighting, and secession result from high degrees of exclusion, segmentation, and incohesion, respectively. More diverse states, on the other hand, are not more likely to suffer from violent conflict.
On the Run: Wanted Men in a Philadelphia Ghetto
Authors: Goffman Alice
Published: January 2010

Although recent increases in imprisonment are concentrated in poor Black communities, we know little about how daily life within these neighborhoods is affected. Almost all ethnographic work in poor minority neighborhoods was written before the expansion of the criminal justice system, and the bulk of research on “mass imprisonment” relies on survey data, field experiments, or interviews, conceptualizing its impact in terms of current or former felons and their families. Drawing on six years of fieldwork in Philadelphia, this article shifts the focus from imprisonment and criminal records to the increase in policing and supervision in poor Black neighborhoods, and what this has meant for a growing status group of wanted people. For many young men, avoiding jail has become a daily preoccupation: they have warrants out for minor infractions, like failing to pay court fees or breaking curfew, and will be detained if they are identified. Such threat of imprisonment transforms social relations by undermining already tenuous attachments to family, work, and community. But young men also rely on their precarious legal standing to explain failures that would have occurred anyway, while girlfriends and neighbors exploit their wanted status as an instrument of social control. I discuss the implications of my ethnographic observations relative to prior treatments of the poor and policing, and with regard to broader sociological questions about punishment and surveillance in the modern era.
Explaining Mexican-Immigrant Welfare Behaviors: The Importance of Employment-Related Cultural Repertoires
Authors: Van Hook Jennifer , Bean Frank D.
Published: January 2010

Social scientists generally seek to explain welfare-related behaviors in terms of economic, social structural, or culture of poverty theories. Such explanations, however, do not account for nativity differences in public assistance receipt among immigrants of Mexican origin. This article draws on the sociology of migration and culture literatures to develop a materialist-based cultural repertoire account and attendant hypotheses to explain the welfare behaviors of Mexican immigrants. We argue that such immigrants arrive and work in the United States under circumstances that foster employment-based cultural repertoires that, compared with natives and other immigrant groups, encourage less welfare participation (in part because such repertoires lead to faster welfare exits) and more postwelfare employment. This is particularly true in states with relatively more generous welfare policies. Using individual-level data predating the Welfare Reform Act, from multiple panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) merged with state-level information on welfare benefit levels, we examine immigrant-group differences in welfare receipt, retention, and transition to employment across locales with varying levels of welfare benefits. Findings are largely consistent with our cultural repertoire account: Mexican immigrants tend to utilize welfare not primarily to avoid work, cope with disadvantage, or perpetuate a culture of dependency, but rather to minimize the effects of employment discontinuities. Such findings carry important theoretical and policy implications-implications we outline in our conclusion.
Violence, Older Peers, and the Socialization of Adolescent Boys in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods
Authors: Harding David J.
Published: January 2010

Most theoretical perspectives on neighborhood effects on youth assume that neighborhood context serves as a source of socialization. The exact sources and processes underlying adolescent socialization in disadvantaged neighborhoods, however, are largely unspecified and unelaborated. This article proposes that cross-cohort socialization by older neighborhood peers is one source of socialization for adolescent boys. Data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey suggest that adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods are more likely to spend time with older individuals. I analyze qualitative interview data from 60 adolescent boys in three neighborhoods in Boston to understand the causes and consequences of these interactions and relationships. Some of the strategies these adolescents employ to cope with violence in disadvantaged neighborhoods promote interaction with older peers, particularly those who are most disadvantaged. Furthermore, such interactions can expose adolescents to local, unconventional, or alternative cultural models.
From Credit to Collective Action: The Role of Microfinance in Promoting Women's Social Capital and Normative Influence
Authors: Sanyal Paromita
Published: January 2010

Can economic ties positively influence social relations and actions? If so, how does this influence operate? Microfinance programs, which provide credit through a group-based lending strategy, provide the ideal setting for exploring these questions. This article examines whether structuring socially isolated women into peer-groups for an explicitly economic purpose, such as access to credit, has any effect on the women's collective social behavior. Based on interviews with 400 women from 59 microfinance groups in West Bengal, India, I find that one third of these groups undertook various collective actions. Improvements in women's social capital and normative influence fostered this capacity for collective action. Several factors contributed to these transformations, including economic ties among members, the structure of the group network, and women's participation in group meetings. Based on these findings, I argue that microfinance groups have the potential to promote women's social capital and normative influence, thereby facilitating women's collective empowerment. I conclude by discussing the need for refining our understanding of social capital and social ties that promote normative influence.
The challenges of modernization of social work education in developing countries: The case of Egypt
Authors: Soliman Hussein H. , Abd Elmegied Hesham Sayed
Published: January 2010

Due to the changes that developing countries are currently facing, social work educators are forced to assess the curricula in order to help societies deal with new waves of social problems. This study explores a number of factors that contribute to the process of modernizing social work education in Egypt.
Social integration of adults with intellectual disabilities in Georgia: Lessons from Poland and the USA
Authors: Makharadze Tamar
Published: January 2010

This article discusses ways of facilitating social integration for adults with intellectual disabilities in Georgia, by considering experiences from Poland and the USA. Poland has seen recent positive changes and the USA has well-developed policies in this field. What can Georgia learn from the experiences of these countries?
Social work with victims of genocide: The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) in Rwanda
Authors: Kreitzer Linda M. , Jou Mary Kay
Published: January 2010

Reconciliation is a multi-dimensional process that has increased in importance in countries dealing with post-conflict situations, and as a result social workers have the opportunity to support reconciliation. This article looks at reconciliation and the intervention of the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), giving an example from Rwanda.
Socioeconomic Status and Health: A Micro-level Analysis o Exposure and Vulnerability to Daily Stressors
Authors: Grzywacz Joseph G. , Almeida David M. , Neupert Shevaun D. , Ettner Susan L.
Published: January 2010

This study examines the interconnections among education—as a proxy for socioeconomic status—stress, and physical and mental health by specifying differential exposure and vulnerability models using data from The National Study of Daily Experiences (N = 1,031). These daily diary data allowed assessment of the social distribution of a qualitatively different type of stressor than has previously been examined in sociological stress research—daily stressors, or hassles. Moreover, these data allowed a less biased assessment of stress exposure and a more micro-level examination of the connections between stress and health by socioeconomic status. Consistent with the broad literature describing socioeconomic inequalities in physical and mental health, the results of this study indicated that, on any given day, better-educated adults reported fewer physical symptoms and less psychological distress. Although better educated individuals reported more daily stressors, stressors reported by those with less education were more severe. Finally, neither exposure nor vulnerability explained socioeconomic differentials in daily health, but the results clearly indicate that the stressor-health association cannot be considered independent of socioeconomic status.
Fear of People with Mental Illnesses: The Role of Personal and Impersonal Contact and Exposure to Threat or Harm
Authors: Phelan Jo C. , Link Bruce G.
Published: January 2010

Vignette and laboratory experiments suggest that negative reactions to people with mental illness are a direct consequence of their symptomatic behavior, but because of their poor external validity, these studies cannot tell us whether widespread negative public reactions to people with mental illness actually result from observation of symptomatic behavior. Focusing on perceived danger, we use a large national survey to test the “behavior hypothesis” in the general population. We reason that, if this hypothesis is correct, contact with people with mental illnesses should be associated with more perceived danger, and exposure to threat or harm should mediate this association. On the contrary, respondents with more personal and impersonal contact perceive people with mental illness to be less dangerous. Exposure to threat is more common among people with more contact, but this exposure explains very little of the variance in perceived danger. These findings do not support the conclusion that public fear of people with mental illness is due to the observation of violent behavior.
Linking Race and Well-being within a Biopsychosocial Framework: Variation in Subjective Sleep Quality in Two Racially Diverse Older Adult Samples
Authors: Kutner Nancy G. , Bliwise Donald L. , Zhang Rebecca
Published: January 2010

Differential life experiences associated with race may critically affect the balance between physical and psychological well-being. This study investigated an age-related and disease-related symptom, restless sleep, among older African American and white members of two sociodemographically matched cohorts, community-dwelling older adults and older adults with chronic renal failure undergoing maintenance dialysis therapy. Sleep behaviors reflect age-dependent and disease-dependent homeostatic and circadian state regulation but are also socioculturally patterned. As hypothesized, restless sleep was significantly more characteristic of the older adults in the chronic disease cohort. With non-renal health conditions, depressed mood, perceived health, medication use, and sociodemographic variables controlled, however, African Americans were significantly less likely than whites in the chronic disease cohort to report restless sleep. African American and white patients differed in their expression of public and private religiousness, which in turn were associated, respectively, with depressed mood and restless sleep complaint. In addition, we suggest that differences for African American and white patients in the environmental exposure of chronic dialysis therapy, including African Americans' greater social integration within the dialysis treatment setting, contributed to their being less at risk than their white peers for subjective perception of sleep decay, a marker of overall well-being.
Attendance at Religious Services and Mortality in a National Sample
Authors: Musick Marc A. , House James S. , Williams David R.
Published: January 2010

Research and theory increasingly suggest that attendance at religious services is protective against premature mortality. However, prior studies are limited and do not extensively explore potential explanations for the relationship, especially in terms of religious beliefs and behaviors associated with service attendance. This study estimates the impact of service attendance on mortality in a national probability sample and provides the most extensive empirical examination of potential explanations. Individuals who report attending religious services once a month or more (just over 50 percent of the population) have a 30–35 percent reduced risk of death over a 7.5 year follow-up period after adjusting for potential confounding factors. Consistent with prior research, 20–30 percent of this effect may be explained by better health behaviors (especially physical activity) among regular service attendees. Surprisingly, other religious beliefs and behaviors do not explain, and often tend to suppress, the association between service attendance and mortality.