Time Of Social Change Research Articles

The Measurement and Evaluation of Social Attitudes in Two British Cohort Studies

This paper presents an empirical evaluation of the internal consistency and validity of six attitudes scales assessing left–right beliefs, political cynicism, antiracism, libertarian-authoritarian views, and gender equality (two versions) in two large nationally representative samples of the British population born in 1958 and 1970. In the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) 10,827 participants completed a series of social attitudes items in 1991 at age 33 and again in 2000 at age 42. In 2000 at age 30, 11,114 participants of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) completed a broadly similar set of items of which 8,906 participants had also completed a shorter version of the same social attitudes questionnaires 4 years earlier in 1996, at age 26. Based on the data from the two cohorts we conducted confirmatory analyses to evaluate the factor structure of the six social attitudes scales using Structural Equation Modelling. In addition we tested the predictive as well as concurrent validity of the scales by establishing associations within the scales across time and their associations with indicators of voting behaviour and political interest. All six attitudes scales have good internal reliability and factorial stability, and external validity, they are robust and consistent over time. The measures also have wide applicability for researchers interested in social attitudes and behaviour in times of social change.

On Dreams, Innovation and the Emerging Genre of the Individual Artist

Amongst Bardi of north-west Western Australia, ilma is a genre of dreamt material that has three interrelated components: song, dance and ‘totem’ (a string and plywood object carried during the dance). These constituent parts, along with the whole, are referred to as ilma. This article considers the social tensions surrounding the commodification of one of these elements, the ‘totem’, as art. The production of ilma for the art market largely precludes the development of associated songs and dances, and their integration into group repertoire, giving rise to tensions between social expectations about such dreamt material and those of the person who dreams them. These tensions reflect Bardi understandings of the provenance of this dreamt material, as ancestrally revealed: hence dreamt songs, dances and objects belonging to this ritual genre are not considered as creative works produced by a person or persons. Contestations over ‘tradition’ and ‘culture’ in this context highlight the tensions between the forces of convention and those of innovation in times of social change, in which the emergence of persons as creative individuals may be understood as signalling broader societal transformation.

Vocational behavior and development in times of social change: new perspectives for theory and practice

A review of new and emerging conceptions of work and career is complemented by a description of a comprehensive systems framework that avoids many of the dichotomies found in current accounts of career development and intervention. This is followed by a description of Ford and Smith’s (Educational Psychologist 42(3):153–171, 2007) “thriving with social purpose” framework, which is offered as a potentially more inclusive approach to intervention than that based on the meta-theoretical framework of social constructivism.

Childhood cognitive ability and adult academic attainment: evidence from three British cohort studies

This paper examines the association between general cognitive ability directly measured in mid childhood and adult academic attainment in three British birth cohorts born in 1946, 1958, and 1970, controlling for family socio-economic background and gender. The study uses structural equation modeling to link latent variables indicating family socio-economic background, childhood general cognitive ability, and academic attainment assessed through school leaving age and highest qualifications achieved by age 26. In addition logistic regression modeling is used to establish the odds of obtaining degree level qualifications in times of social change. The results show that the association between family social background and academic attainment has remained more or less the same over time, gender inequalities have reduced, while the association between general cognitive ability and academic attainment has decreased for the 1970 cohort. Although more young people achieve degree level qualifications in the later born cohort, the findings suggest persisting social inequality in the realisation of cognitive potential and educational opportunities. The findings are discussed in terms of their policy implications.

Beyond apathetic or activist youth

This article addresses the changing nature of participation for young people. Our analysis is framed by the fragmentation of traditional institutions and the increasingly unpredictable nature of life trajectories. As a result, the identification of a crisis in young people’s engagement has become a recurrent theme in the literature, alongside a burgeoning interest in new forms of (sub)cultural participatory practices. We argue that there is further complexity in the reshaping of participation in times of social change, especially for a broad ‘mainstream’ of young people who are neither deeply apathetic about politics nor unconventionally engaged. Drawing on a research project with 970 young Australians, the article suggests that many young people are disenchanted with political structures that are unresponsive to their needs and interests, but that they remain interested in social and political issues and continue to seek recognition from the political system. At the same time, their participatory practices are not oriented towards spectacular antistate activism or cultural politics but take the form of informal, individualized and everyday activities.

Leaving School Early – and Making It!

Leaving school early is generally associated with relative poor adult outcomes, as indicated by relative low social status, reduced earnings, and poor mental health. Yet, not all young people leaving school early are failing to make it. Some are able to find continuous employment and achieve financial independence. Comparing the experiences of two British Birth cohorts born in 1958 and 1970, respectively, this study examines the trajectories of young people leaving school early, and identifies factors associated with a successful transition, that is achieving financial independence. The study comprises 11,219 individuals born in 1958 and 9,541 born in 1970 following their lives from childhood into adulthood. While the majority of young people born in 1958 left school at age 16 to enter the labor market, increasing numbers of young people born in 1970 are participating in further and higher education. In both cohorts those young people who left school early and who succeeded in reaching financial independence by age 34 showed higher school motivation than those who failed to make it. The findings highlight the importance of building up positive attitudes for learning among children and their parents, as these factors have long-term beneficial effects, even for those who are leaving school early. Moreover, the role of macro-economic circumstances has to be acknowledged for a better understanding of variation in transition experiences in times of social change.

Perspectives on ancient Maya bone crafting from a Classic period bone-artifact manufacturing assemblage

This paper explores the nature of utilitarian bone-artifact crafting from the perspective of an unusual assemblage of manufacturing debitage dated to the Terminal Classic. This large assemblage contains unprecedented quantities of debris from the production of utilitarian artifacts, primarily bone perforators (needles, pins, awls). The collection was recovered from Group L4-3, a small, non-elite, Late and Terminal Classic residential complex located adjacent to the central palaces and residences of the ruling nobility of the ancient Maya site of Dos Pilas, Petexbatún, Guatemala. This study evaluates the standardization of raw materials, methods, and finished artifacts of the assemblage based on criteria used in discussions of scale of production and craft specialization. These evaluations are used to explore whether the L4-3 bone crafters were part- or full-time specialists, whether they produced their products on a large or a small scale and for domestic or external consumption, and for whom they crafted these products. The continuous occupation of the L4-3 complex through the transition from Late to Terminal Classic, a time of social change, offers a rich background for this evaluation of Maya utilitarian bone-artifact crafting.

Family and Nonfamily Role Configurations in Two British Cohorts

The aim of this paper is to examine variations in the combination of social roles during times of social change. We specify a latent class approach to examine role configurations for individuals in their early 30s, establishing a typology of how work‐ and family‐related roles combine within individuals born 12 years apart and examine their antecedents. Drawing on data collected for two British Birth Cohorts born in 1958 (N = 10,706) and 1970 (N = 11,005), we provide empirical evidence of both consistency and change in life course patterns. Findings are discussed in terms of destandardization, differentiation, and individualization of the life course in times of social change and their implications for family research within a life course perspective.

Children’s Rights International Study Project (CRISP)—A Shift from the Focus on Children’s Rights to a Quality of Life Assessment Instrument

Originally designed in the nineties to gather subjective perspective of the importance and existence of certain children’s rights at home and at the school, by students and significant adults, using cross-culturally comparable methodology, the study evolved to gather a number of subjective quality of life assessment indicators. Survey study with different types of closed questions. Three measurements in Slovenia in the last decade, 2,000–3,000 students each sweep, and smaller samples in three other countries. Data base has been built on the importance and existence of key quality of life variables and assessments of the proper age to assume certain adult-like rights that enables comparisons of values cross-culturally and between age groups, and national trends that suggest slight degradation of the quality of life of children in last 15 years. The data gathered using this methodology proved to be culture sensitive (reflecting value hierarchies of rights in different countries), age sensitive (reflecting the evolving capacities of the child to grasp more sophisticated levels of rights and the quality of life assessments), useful tool for monitoring changes in the attitudes of (different groups of) adults towards children in the times of social change and transition, and other measures. The elements of the methodology could be used in future efforts to provide such subjective indicators on a broader international scale, as well as for national monitoring of the quality of life of children.

Reflections on the Work of Professor Selma Fraiberg

This paper reviews the work of Professor Selma Fraiberg who became a leading figure in the field of infant mental health. Born in 1918 she first received an MSW in Social Work and then undertook her Analytic Training in Detroit Michigan. While she maintained her identity as a social worker throughout her life, she integrated insights from the fields of social work, psychoanalysis and developmental and ego psychology in her research and practice. This paper traces her development as a clinician, researcher, and educator. Three cases describe her ability to integrate social work methodologies with analytic insights. The cases describe the treatment of a latency age child at a time of social change, a clinical research study of the developmental risk of children blind from birth, and a groundbreaking study in the field of infant mental health. Her study of infants at developmental risk focused on the parent /infant relationship and parents were included in the treatment process so that they could become more attuned to their young child. Her work highlighted the intergenerational issues that shaped the parental capacity for empathic nurturance between parent and child. The article Ghosts in the Nursery incorporated the major theoretical concepts of the new theoretical approach to treatment and is still much read in graduate programs today. Although extensive new research has added to the field of infant mental health, her contributions are still relevant to research and practice today.

Editorial: Agency and human development in times of social change

This selection of papers deals, broadly speaking, with the role of social change in human development. Put in other words, these papers investigate the impact of contextual dynamics on human adaptation, a prime topic of all life-span psychology. They were written by two psychologists and two sociologists—by training, we should add, as readers will easily find out that the approaches and methods taken are interdisciplinary in nature. The papers are special in many regards. The foremost speciality probably pertains to the outcome variables studied—occupational, and sometimes more specifically economic, attainment and mobility. This is obviously a rather circumscribed domain of behaviour, but one of utmost importance in two respects. First, occupational attainment and mobility represent pivots of adult socialization that branch out to virtually all aspects of psychosocial development and are influenced by the contextual constraints people live with, such as the prosperity of the economic situation. The latter leads us directly to the second aspect: The phenomena of social change addressed in the papers are alike in that they have a profound

Adaptations to changing times: Agency in context

British society has changed greatly over the past half century. Increasing uncertainty about economic and social developments is becoming a distinctive feature of modern industrialized countries, affecting the life chances and opportunities of young people making the transition from dependent childhood into independent adulthood. Summarizing recent findings from data collected from about 30,000 individuals born 12 years apart, in 1958 and 1970 respectively, this paper examines the role of individual agency in shaping educational and occupational transitions as well as the assumption of family‐related roles in times of social change. The data suggest that societal change and the associated increasing uncertainty does not impact on all individuals in the same way, and that there has been an increasing polarization between those who are able to benefit from the economic and social transformations and the ones who are excluded, largely because of their relatively disadvantaged socioeconomic circumstances and lack of access to opportunities in education and employment. It is concluded that human agency processes cannot be studied in isolation from the sociohistorical context in which they are embedded.

Expectations Defied: Church in a Time of Social Change

Had ex-FEMA director, Michael Brown been aware of the results of Mark Chaves's Na tional Congregations Study (NCS), he might have been less inclined to bypass his superi ors for assistance in anticipating the response to Hurricane Katrina. A few days after Katri na struck, Brown intimated that it was the re sponsibility of churches and not the govern ment to look after hurricane victims. But as Chaves emphasizes, congregation-based ser vice projects are the exception rather than the rule: congregations engage only minimally in social (p. 57) and, more importantly, such activity is mainly done in collaboration with, and dependent on the financial and other resources of, oth er religious and secular organizations (pp. 68, 78). Brown was right to anticipate some con gregational help; as Chaves notes, congrega tional social services are typically character ized by attention to short-term emergency needs, especially for food, clothing, and shel ter (p. 65). Clearly, however, the long-term social service demands unmasked by Katrina reach well beyond the resources of even the most committed groups of local church vol unteers. The NCS data come from Chaves's innov ative study of a nationally representative sample of congregations, providing unprece dented information about congregations' structures and activities. Based on their nu merical presence alone, with more than 300,000 in the U. S. (p. 3), congregations are a significant and varied feature of American life, providing an amazing array of social, re ligious, educational, cultural/artistic, political, and community activities. It is an ironic com mentary on the multifaceted place of religion in contemporary America that a key point Chaves is compelled to underscore is that congregations' central purpose is worship and the creation of religious meaning (p. 127). The backdrop to emphasizing worship, of course, is that like Brown, many people have become accustomed to thinking of church as something other than a place of worship, displaced instead by the prevailing Congregations in America, by Mark Chaves. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. 291 pp. $29.95 cloth. ISBN: 0674012844.

On the phenomenon of “return to Marx” in China

From the point of view of the development of Chinese Marxist philosophy, this paper comprehensively analyzes the current phenomenon of “Return to Marx” by pointing out: (1) the phenomenon of “Return to Marx” meets the need to reconstruct ideology during the time of social change in China and it is a theoretical manifestation of the shift from planned economy to market economy in China; (2) the phenomenon of “Return to Marx” embodies the academic path of the past ten years of Chinese Marxist philosophy; (3) the phenomenon of “Return to Marx” places too much emphasis on logic while too little emphasis on history. This understanding, the epistemological root of “Return to Marx”, has caused the negative effect and is also worth our attention and further study.

Career transitions in times of social change. His and her story

Drawing on data collected from two longitudinal Cohort Studies following the lives of over 20,000 individuals born in the United Kingdom 12 years apart in 1958 and 1970, respectively, this paper examines antecedents and outcomes of educational and occupational aspirations of young men and women, covering the transition from dependent childhood into independent adulthood. Two analytical models, a Social Reproduction Model and a Developmental-Contextual Model are tested to assess the processes by which family background and the wider socio-historical context influence work and family related careers. The findings demonstrate the persistent role of gender, social origin and individual agency processes as well as the influence of a changing socio-historical context on career development. Results are interpreted with regard to biographical agency processes linking individual lives with social contexts across the life course.

Understanding Social Change in Conducting Research on Adolescence

In the present essay, we focus on G. Stanley Hall's contributions to the study of the role of social change for adolescent development. After introducing Hall's main ideas, we discuss recent demands adolescents face because of social change and how Hall's work could inform research on adolescent development in times of social change.

Factors Influencing Value of Children and Intergenerational Relations in Times of Social Change: Analyses From Psychological and Socio‐Cultural Perspectives: Introduction to the Special Issue

Research on the reasons for and the implications of the recent dramatic sociodemographic changes in most parts of the world has increased in several disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, and demographics. In psychology, however, this topic has only recently been rediscovered and is presently gaining increasing importance in the area of applied psychology. Recently a special section on this topic was published by the American Psychological Association

Ethnic intermarriage in times of social change: The case of latvia

We gain insight into the dynamics of ethnic intermarriage in times of social change by studying marriages between Latvians and Russians (including Belarussians and Ukrainians) that occurred in Latvia before and after independence from the Soviet Union. Before independence, ethnic intermarriage was already rather common, involving about 17% of the marriages annually. Since independence, intermarriage between Russians and Latvians has increased substantially. Part of this increase can be explained by selective emigration, but at least half of it may be due to integrative processes. Although there were more marriages between Russian men and Latvian women before independence, the gender pattern reversed after independence. Intermarriage levels were the highest among the less educated, children of mixed couples, partners with similar educational levels, and people in the countryside.

Using Evaluation to Create ‘Provisional Stabilities’

This article reports the evaluation experience in two SOCRATES (European Union funding mechanism designed to support innovation in teaching and learning) projects focused on change in higher education. The projects were international in scope involving six countries and ten institutions within the last four years. The article reflects on change in institutions specifically, especially those introduced by the use of information and communication technologies, and it suggests the hypothesis that in such a phase of transition, new rules are not yet established and a state of anomie can occur at the level of courses, departments and institutions. The article details what happens in educational institutions in which rules and practices are well established and validated and a new event radically changes or challenges the traditional practices. Instead of the psycho-social notion of ‘resistance to change’, the theory of Durkheim and followers that analyses human responses in times of social change may be of use to interpret situations in which change or the will to change creates conflicting systems of rules and practices. The article will argue for a crucial role for evaluation in negotiating such periods of change.

The Role of Self-Efficacy, Academic Abilities, and Parental Education in the Change in Career Decisions of Adolescents Facing German Unification

In times of dramatic social change, new career options emerge and old options may become obsolete. We investigated predictors of change in general career aspirations and of plans to attend a university of East German adolescents from 1989 (before German unification) to 1991 and 1995, respectively, after German unification. Higher pre-unification self-efficacy beliefs were associated with an increase in general career aspirations and a higher probability of switching from non-college-bound vocational training to attending a university. In addition, better pre-unification school grades and having parents who graduated from a university increased adolescents' probability to switch to a university. Furthermore, interaction effects of self-efficacy with grades and cognitive abilities appeared, indicating that for individuals with high self-efficacy, cognitive abilities became more important and grades less important in predicting the wish to pursue university studies. We concluded that beliefs in one's capabilities, and high academic abilities are important resources in vocational reorientation in times of social change.