Effects Of Social Background Research Articles

Social and family factors in childhood hospital admission.

The relation between social, economic, and family life event measures and rates of hospital admission during the period from birth to 5 years was studied in a birth cohort of New Zealand children. Both family social background and family life events made a significant contribution to the variability in the risk of hospital admission. However, economic factors made no significant contribution to rates of admission when the correlated effects of family social background and life events were taken into account. In addition, the effects of family life events on risks of admission appeared to be far more marked than the effects of family social background. Possible explanations of the consistent association between life events and rates of morbidity during early childhood are discussed.

Resolving the effects of phenotype and social background on mate selection.

Traditional studies of mate selection have not addressed the question of how a marital correlation arises. The common assumption that assortative mating is based on phenotype has not been properly tested. Social background may be a major determinant of choice of spouse. We show how the collection of data on monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs and their spouses, and estimation of all possible correlations between the twin pairs and their spouses, will allow these alternative hypotheses to be tested. Power simulations show that it will be feasible to resolve the contributions of phenotype and social background to mate selection for variables such as IQ, education, and attitudes for which the marital correlation is moderately high.

Early hospital admissions and subsequent behaviour problems in 6 year olds.

The relation between admission to hospital during the preschool years and teacher and maternal ratings of child behaviour problems at age 6 years was studied in a birth cohort of New Zealand children. There was a slight but consistent trend for reported behaviour problems to increase with increasing length of hospital stay, however, control for family and social factors suggested that this correlation was spurious. Children admitted to hospital tended to come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and from families reporting large numbers of life events, and independently of this social background and life events were related to childhood behaviour problems. When the effects of family social background and life events were controlled for, there was no significant association between duration of hospital stay and reports of child behaviour problems. It is concluded that there is little evidence to suggest that in a modern paediatric setting, admission to hospital has any significant effect on the child's subsequent behavioural pattern.

A national survey of young people's perceptions of mental handicap.

Over 1300, 15 and 16-year-old students throughout Ireland, completed a range of questionnaires which covered their past contact with mentally handicapped adults, their perceptions of them, their views on integration within society and their knowledge about the causes of this disability. It was found that only one quarter of the students had ever interacted with a mentally handicapped adult and nearly half of them had never been in their company. There were marked differences between these subgroups in their perceptions of, and attitudes to, mentally handicapped people. Equally striking were the differences between male and female students, although the effects of social background, city versus country and socio-economic status, were less pronounced. The implications for school-based, educational programmes on disability are discussed and areas for further research are highlighted.

Structural Equations and Path Analysis for Discrete Data

This article proposes a solution to the long-standing methodological problem of incorporating discrete variables inoto causal models of social phenomena. Only a subset of the variety of ways in which discrete data arise in empirical social research can be satisfactorily modeled by conventional log-linear or logit approaches. Drawing on the insights of several literatures, this article exposits a general approach to causal models in which some or all variables are discretely measured and shows that path analytic methods are available which permit quantification of causal relationships among variables with the same flexibility and power of interpretation as is feasible in models that include only continous variables. It presents methods of identifying and estimating these models and shows how the direct and indirect effects of independent varibles can be calculated by extensions of usual path analysis methods for continuos variables An important distincion developed here is that discrete variables can play two roles: (1) as measures of inherently discrete phenomena and (2) as indicators of underlying continous variables. The value of this distinction is shown in two empirical examples examined previously by other authors. In examining the effects of social background and parental enouragement on college plans of high school seniors, the article shows that modeling a discrete measure of encouragement as an indicator of a latent continous variable rather than as an inherently discrete variable (as has been done in previous analyses) provides a clearer interpretation and a superior fit to the data. In examining the effects of state Fair-Employment-Practices Legislation on black-white wage differentials, this study shows that two distinct effects on the relative wage can be detected: the direct ameliorative effect of the law itself and the effects of the popular progressive sentiment for racial equality of which the law is an indicator. The methods and models presented here are not only natural generalizations of structural equation and path analysis methods for continuous varibles to include discrete variables but also provide a means of investigating a richer variety of substantive hypotheses than is feasible with methods for discrete data commonly used in the sociological literature to date.

Investigating the Causes and Consequences of Marital Rape

Marital rape is a concept that many find difficult to comprehend. Until the Oregon trial of John Rideout, who was accused of rape by his wife Greta, there was little discussion of marital rape by the general public or by researchers and counselors skilled in dealing with other types of rape cases. However, the extensive media coverage given the Rideout case has raised a number of questions about this subject. For example, what actions should be defined as rape when the acts involve husband and wife? When women are forced to have sexual relations with their husbands, do they accept this as part of their marital duties or does the use of force have long-term negative consequences for the marriage? And finally, in what types of marriages does forced sex or marital rape occur? This paper attempts to answer some of these questions based upon interview data gathered from nearly 300 women.

Childhood disadvantage and the planning of pregnancy

The relationship between the planning of pregnancy and subsequent childhood disadvantage in the areas of health, education and family conditions was studied prospectively to the age of 3 years in a birth cohort of New Zealand children. Unplanned children showed a systematic pattern of disadvantage in nearly all areas studied. However, multivariate analysis suggested that the apparent association between the planning of pregnancy and subsequent childhood disadvantage arose largely from a series of social and contextual factors associated with pregnancy planning practices. In particular, unplanned children tended to come from socially disadvantaged home backgrounds and these backgrounds were independently associated with an increased risk of childhood disadvantage. Further, a disproportionate number of unplanned children were ex-nuptial and the levels of disadvantage experienced by these children tended to reflect more their ex-nuptial status than the direct effects of failure to plan the pregnancy. It is concluded that when the effects of maternal social background and the nuptial status of the child are taken into account, the effects of planning of pregnancy on levels of childhood disadvantage for this birth cohort were almost negligible.

The Family Formation Process Among U.S. Marriage Cohorts

The family formation process is viewed as the progression of women through first marriage, first, subsequent, and last births and is examined for differential patterns of timing in 1930-1969 marriage cohorts. Based on the childbearing histories of approximately 17,000 white women once and still married, extracted from the June 1975 Current Population Survey, the study uses a dynamic model to show the varying importance across cohorts of the first birth interval as an important indicator of the total time spent in childbearing, social background effects in differentiating the timing of the first two births, and of prior birth transitions as affecting subsequent ones.

The effects of speech style and social class background on social judgements of speakers

Male speakers of either standard or Spanish‐accented English were presented to 80 undergraduates as individuals with either lower‐class or middle‐class backgrounds. The students rated each speaker on status, solidarity, stereotype, and speech characteristics and also made social distance judgements. For all measures, a significant interaction reflected the fact that lower‐class accented speakers were perceived much less favourably than the corresponding lower‐class standard speakers while the differences associated with speech styles among middle‐class speakers were smaller. The results are discussed in terms of the assumptions listeners presumably make about accented speakers’ social class and beliefs.

Separate justice: An analysis of race differences in court processes

We examine the hypothesis that the criminal justice system operates differently for blacks and whites, using a covariance model to test for the existence of differences between racial groups in the effects of social background and procedural factors on criminal court outcomes. Our study employs data from simple random samples of court case records in North Carolina. Four case outcomes at each of two court levels are investigated. Findings suggest that (1) black defendants face different processes than whites at numerous stages of the criminal justice process; (2) the nature of these differences is not uniform across various stages and at different court levels; and (3) when racial differences in processing occur, they are likely to occur at stages prior to final sentencing. Our discussion explores the implications of these findings for the validity of (1) conclusions drawn from earlier research; and (2) traditional theoretical explanations for criminal justice discrimination.

Crime and the Aged

AGED perpetrators of crime are not of major importance in the totality of criminality and constitute only a small proportion of the total aged population. However, there are many interesting and largely unexplored aspects of criminality among the aged. These include the differences in the types of crime and the nature of punishment of crime between the aged and younger individuals, the life history of the young criminal advancing into old age, the etiology of crime appearing for the first time late in life, and the effects of social class and cultural background on the nature of crime committed by the aged. <h3>Incidence</h3> Only 5% of prisoners are more than 45 years of age. This may represent the reluctance of judges and juries to send older people to jail because of health and family reasons and the fact that old people do not usually commit the more violent types of

Political Mobility Among Soviet Obkom Elites: The Effects of Regime, Social Backgrounds and Career Development

What factors explain continued political advance by initially successful political leaders in the Soviet Union? Expanding on the work of P. D. Stewart, our research examines the effects of social background and career development on political mobility among 247 politically mobile Obkom First Secretaries in the USSR during the period 1950-1968. Using factor analysis and regression techniques, we found that social background and early career development variables explained only a small amount of the variation in political mobility during the entire period. However, interesting differences did appear when the political regime in which mobility occurred was controlled. For example, men with more technically oriented career backgrounds received an increasing upward mobility advantage the more recently they left the obkom position. In general the findings suggest that further attempts to explain elite political mobility should look beyond social background and early career development and should explore the effects of linkages between career specialization and job performance.

Learning Disabilities and Remediation in Disadvantaged Children

The present review is concerned primarily with research on factors associated with learning disabilities and remediation among disadvantaged children. These factors include intelligence; school achievement; reading retardation; linguistics and language patterns; perception, conception, cognition, and vocabulary; and cumulative effects of social and cultural background. On the basis of the foregoing, suggestions are made for the development of a theoretical system within which research on remediation is examined. Research on remediation includes programs, experiments, and some consideration of the role of the teacher. Finally, the review discusses limitations of present studies and suggests directions for future research.