Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Mississippi’S Social Transformation In Public Memories Of The Trial Against Byron De La Beckwith For The Murder Of Medgar Evers, Kristen Hoerl

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

In 1994, Byron de la Beckwith was convicted for the 1963 murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Journalism coverage of the trial and the 1996 docudrama Ghosts of Mississippi crafted a social values transformation myth that depicted Beckwith as the primary villain of civil rights past and cast his conviction as a sign that racism had been cleansed from Mississippi. Popular media naturalized this myth intertextually though narrative repetition and through symbolic cues that established the film as a source of historic understanding. These cues deflected critical attention from contemporary social conditions that have maintained racial inequity and continue …

Sixteen Candles, Allison Harthcock

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Encyclopedic entry concerning the movie Sixteen Candles.

The International Child Poverty Gap: Does Demography Matter?, Patrick Heuveline, Matthew Weinshenker

Sociology Faculty Publications

According to the Luxembourg Income Study data, the United States child poverty rate is the second highest among 15 high-income nations. The present work reveals that 55% of all American children living in a household headed by a single female with no other adult live in poverty —the highest rate for any of the five living arrangements in the 15 countries examined by this Study. While previous analyses have focused on market forces and governmental redistribution across households, we question the contribution of demographic factors that place children in family structures with different poverty risks relative to other factors such …

Brian C. Anderson: Democratic Capitalism And Its Discontents: Study Guide, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Bilateralism, Jeffrey W. Legro

Political Science Faculty Publications

Bilateralism concerns relations or policies of joint action between two parties. It can be contrasted with unilateralism (where one party acts on its own) and multilateralism (where three or more parties are involved). Typically, the term has applications concerning political, economic, and security matters between two states. Bilateralism has both costs and benefits, and there is a debate on its merits relative to unilateral or multilateral approaches.

International Elections Experts, Monitors, And Representations In The Arab World, Sheila Carapico

Political Science Faculty Publications

Elections are sites of festivity, celebrity, and sometimes dramatic suspense, unique occasions for the simultaneous nationwide engagement of candidates, campaign volunteers, poll-workers, voters, and even abstainers and school-children in the quintessential patriotic experience. Yet in an era of globalization, national elections are not necessarily purely domestic affairs; a large cadre of expatriate consultants, trainer-trainers, and monitors often participate directly. This paper considers two alternative understandings of the role of North American, European, and international democracy brokers in Arab elections since the early nineteen nineties. The usual story is that Western democracies set aside democratic altruism to protect vital interests, allies, …

Medicating Children: The Enduring Controversy Over Adhd And Pediatric Stimulant Pharmacotherapy, Rick Mayes, Jennifer L. Erkulwater, Catherine Bagwell

Political Science Faculty Publications

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) holds the distinction of being both the most extensively studied pediatric mental disorder and one of the most controversial. This is partly due to the fact that it is also the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder among minors. On average, one in every ten to 15 children in the U.S. has been diagnosed with the disorder and one in every 20 to 25 uses a stimulant medication—often Ritalin, Adderall, or Concerta—as treatment. The biggest increase in youth diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed a stimulant drug occurred during the 1990s, when the prevalence of physician visits …

Empirical Research For Public Policy: With Examples From Family Law, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

Perhaps more than in any other field, legal scholarship has aimed directly at influencing public policy. Hence, it is not surprising that empirical scholarship on law related issues often seems to have an agenda that extends beyond the common social science goals of adding to our knowledge base and understanding of human behavior to suggesting to policy makers and practitioners legal and administrative changes that will ameliorate problems they confront and, by the researcher’s lights, make this a better world in which to live.

The Mystery Of Capital Formation In Sub-Saharan Africa: Women, Property Rights And Customary Law, Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

Economists such as Hernando De Soto have argued that clearly defined property rights are essential to capital formation and ultimately to economic growth and poverty alleviation. This article traces two impediments to the clear definition of property rights in the African context: customary law and the status of women. Both of these issues interfere with the attempt of African countries to rearticulate property law with the goal of capital formation. Constructive attempts to define property rights must address the problem of enforcement in under-resourced environments where changes may not be welcomed.

Helping Youth Prevent Hiv: An Evaluation Of The Straight Talk Program In Uganda, Susan E. Adamchak, Karusa Kiragu, Cathy Watson, Medard Muhwezi, Tobey Nelson Sapiano, Ann Akia-Fiedler, Richard Kibombo, Milka Juma

HIV and AIDS

Mass media initiatives are being implemented globally to provide information and foster HIV preventive behavior, however there has been limited evaluation of these efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. The Straight Talk (ST) program in Uganda has targeted youth with HIV and reproductive health (RH) information for over a decade. Evaluation results show positive associations between exposure to ST media and a number of key outcomes among youth, including sexual behavior, knowledge, and attitudes. In 2005–06, the Horizons Program conducted the first impact evaluation of the ST program in Uganda to document its effects on young people. This brief focuses on the …

Patterns And Implications Of Male Migration For Hiv Prevention Strategies In Karnataka, India, Niranjan Saggurti, Ravi K. Verma, Pranita Achyut, Saumya Ramarao, Anrudh K. Jain

HIV and AIDS

Karnataka is one of the high HIV prevalence states in India. Results from the National Family Health Survey indicate that 0.69 percent of adults aged 15–49 were infected with HIV in 2005–06. According to sentinel surveillance system data, HIV prevalence among pregnant women receiving antenatal care (ANC) in Karnataka was 1.3 percent. Further, 18 of the state's 27 districts have recorded HIV prevalence of more than 1 percent among pregnant women receiving ANC in sentinel sites. Strong male migration patterns are evident in some of the state’s high HIV prevalence districts. According to the 2001 census, Karnataka ranks fourth in …

School As A Workplace In Kenya: Evaluation Of The Teachers Matter Hiv/Aids Project, Karusa Kiragu, Caroline Mackenzie, Jennifer Weiss, Murungaru Kimani, Debbie Gachuhi

HIV and AIDS

The Horizons program of the Population Council embarked on an operations research initiative in Kenya to test the feasibility of implementing a teacher-centered workplace program based in schools. The study was conducted in partnership with the Ministry of Education, the Kenya Institute of Education, the Teachers Service Commission, and UNICEF. Called Teachers Matter, the project’s main audience was primary and secondary school teachers. The purpose of the research was to assess whether such a program would improve teachers’ HIV-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors; increase the proportion of teachers seeking voluntary testing and counseling; and enhance their ability to cope with …

Migration/Mobility And Vulnerability To Hiv Among Male Migrant Workers: Tamil Nadu 2007-08, Anjaneyalu Subbiah, S. Ramachandran, A.K. Ravi Shankar, Niranjan Saggurti, Ravi K. Verma, Anrudh K. Jain, Saumya Ramarao, Suvakanta N. Swain, Ajay Kumar Singh

HIV and AIDS

The present study was undertaken by the Population Council in partnership with Annamali University, Tamil Nadu, India to study the broad patterns and motivating forces driving migrant men’s mobility and the contexts that determine and influence their engaging in high-risk activities that increase their vulnerability to HIV. The results indicate large interdistrict movements of working men in Tamil Nadu with a little variation across districts and greater mobility among younger men. Research results suggest that further examination of the contract system under which many of the migratory laborers work is a potential focus for program intervention. Places of origin offer …

Winter 2008, School Of Information Studies

iSchool Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Financial Development And Openness: Evidence From Panel Data, Badi H. Baltagi, Panicos O. Demetriades, Siong Hook Law

Center for Policy Research

This paper addresses the empirical question of whether trade and financial openness can help explain the recent pace in financial development, as well as its variation across countries in recent years. Utilizing annual data from developing and industrialized countries and dynamic panel estimation techniques, we provide evidence which suggests that both types of openness are statistically significant determinants of banking sector development. Our findings reveal that the marginal effects of trade (financial) openness are negatively related to the degree of financial (trade) openness, indicating that relatively closed economies stand to benefit most from opening up their trade and/or capital accounts. …

Testing For Random Effects And Spatial Lag Dependence In Panel Data Models, Badi H. Baltagi, Long Liu

Center for Policy Research

This paper derives a joint Lagrande Multiplier (LM) test which simultaneously tests for the absence of spatial lag dependence and random individual effects in a panel data regression model. It turns out that this LM statistic is the sum of two standard LM statistics. The first one tests for the absence of spatial lag dependence ignoring the random individual effects, and the second one tests for the absence of random individual effects ignoring the spatial lag dependence. This paper also derives two conditional LM tests. The first one tests for the absence of random individual effects without ignoring the possible …

Public School Choice And Integration: Evidence From Durham, North Carolina, Robert Bifulco, Helen F. Ladd, Stephen Ross

Center for Policy Research

Using evidence from Durham, North Carolina, we examine the impact of school choice programs on racial and class-based segregation across schools. Theoretical considerations suggest that how choice programs affect segregation will depend not only on the family preferences emphasized in the sociology literature but also on the linkages between student composition, school quality and student achievement emphasized in the economics literature. Reasonable assumptions about the distribution of preferences over race, class, and school characteristics suggest that the segregating choices of students from advantaged backgrounds are likely to outweigh any integrating choices by disadvantaged students. The results of our empirical analysis …

New Evidence On The Dynamic Wage Curve For Western Germany: 1980-2004, Badi H. Baltagi, Uwe Blien, Katja Wolf

Center for Policy Research

Blanchflower and Oswald (1994) reported that they have found an 'empirical law of economics'--the Wage Curve. Our paper reconsiders the western German Wage Curve using disaggregated regional data and is based on almost one million employees drawn from the Federal Employment Services of Germany over the period 1980-2004. We find that the wage equation is highly autoregressive but far from unit root. The unemployment elasticity is significant but relatively small: only between -0.02 and -0.04. We also check the sensitivity of this elasticity for different population groups (young versus old, men versus women, less educated versus highly educated, German native …

Our Troubled Health Care System: Why Is It So Hard To Fix?, Judy Feder

Center for Policy Research

This brief draws heavily on Judith Feder, 2004, "Crowd-Out and the Politics of Health Reform," The Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics 32(3): 461-464. We all know that affordable health care is now back on the political agenda, and it's about time! Because all of us--families, businesses, and governments--are struggling with the ever-increasing costs of care. Every year about a million people are added to the rolls of the uninsured. In 2006, it was even more, over 2 million. The number of people without health insurance coverage has reached more than 47 million. People *with* insurance are seeing their benefits …

¿Los Medios De Comunicación Pueden Controlar Tanto Como Dicen? Comunicación, Educación, Autonomía Y Espíritu Crítico, Juan Carlos Rivera Venegas

Revista de la Universidad de La Salle

No abstract provided.

Journal Package Plans: An Update On Complex Considerations, David Stern

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

We are still in the early and dynamic stages of applying new price models to both paper and online journals, and the package plan approach offers new conditions for which we need to develop better understandings, appropriate review and decision trees, and adequate support models. This article will attempt to highlight a few of the recent modifications and situations science libraries are experiencing when considering and maintaining journal package plans.

Hong Kong Happiness Index 2008 香港快樂指數 2008, Lok Sang Ho

Hong Kong Happiness Index 香港快樂指數調查

Surprisingly Hong Kong people in 2008 apparently are happier compared with the previous year, despite the Financial Market Tsunami. The overall happiness index, according to a survey conducted by the Lingnan University's Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) over 20-24 October 2008 via randomized phone calls, rose to 69.3 in 2008. This is as compared to 67.2 in 2007.

The research team successfully interviewed 823 Hong Kong residents aged 21 or above. On a scale of 0 to 100, an index above 50 suggests that people are happy. An index below 50 suggests unhappiness.

The rise of the 2008 happiness …

On The Foundation Of Rights To Political Self-Determination: Secession, Non-Intervention, And Democratic Governance, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

From a justificatory standpoint, perhaps the most basic question with respect to secession is what, if anything, provides the moral foundation for a group’s right to secede. My aim here is to make a start to answering this question. I do so, however, by considering a different, albeit closely related, question, namely what is the nature of the wrong done to members of a qualified group denied secession by the state that currently rules them? A compelling answer to this latter question, I suggest, will contribute significantly to a satisfactory answer of the former one.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index — January 2008, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Using Content Analysis Software To Analyze Survey Comments, Bradford W. Dennis, Tim Bower

University Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

In order to get the most from LibQUAL+™ qualitative data, libraries must organize and classify the comments of their patrons. The challenge is to do this effectively and efficiently. This article illustrates how researchers at Western Michigan University Libraries utilized ATLAS.ti 5.0 to organize, classify, and consolidate the LibQUAL+™ comments.

Strategic Regional And National Economic Development With Fiscal Equalization, Lok Sang Ho

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

This paper shows that under increasing returns, devoting resources to develop some regions strategically ahead of other regions make sense, but this does not imply that the other regions have to wait until the benefits of economic growth to trickle down. Fiscal equalization can and should be more aggressive, with the central government incurring a deficit to help the poorer regions, and the national debt thus caused to be repaid by higher taxes on the fast growing regions. Optimal fiscal equalization should also involve central government’s investment in certain kinds of public infrastructure in the local economies of the backward …

Mapping The Dispossession: Scandinavian Homesteading At Fort Totten, 1900-1930, Karen V. Hansen, Mignon Duffy

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Once Spirit Lake Dakota Reservation was opened to white homesteading in 1904, the turnover of land from Dakota to Euro-American hands was rapid. Scandinavians, the largest foreign-born group in the state, took advantage of this land-taking opportunity and moved onto the reservation in great numbers, acquiring approximately 25% of the land within six years. In effect, while the Scandinavians lived as neighbors with the Dakota, they also became the harbinger of the dispossession of Dakota land.

Using quantitative analysis oflandownership specified in plat maps of the reservation in 1910, this article analyzes the gender and ethnicity of the landowners. Oral …

Developing The Nature-Based Tourism Sector In Southwestern North Dakota, Nancy M. Hodur, F. Larry Leistritz, Kara L. Wolfe

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Rural communities increasingly are looking to the tourism sector as a source of economic growth. Southwestern North Dakota has experienced substantial out-migration and population loss, resulting in designation of the eight-county area as a Rural Economic Area Partnership (REAP) zone in 1995. The purpose of this study was to (1) identify opportunities for expanding the region's tourism sector, (2) identify challenges and obstacles facing tourism businesses, and (3) frame key issues and outline potential options for area decision makers. Information was gathered from (1) a survey of the region's tourism businesses, (2) focus-group interviews with tourism business operators, and (3) …

Testing Multigenerational Colonization Of Carrion By Blow Flies In The Great Plains, Timothy E. Huntington, David O. Carter, Leon G. Higley

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The relationship between carrion and blow flies is well understood, but in situations where fresh carrion sources are unavailable, as may occur on the Great Plains, the potential for multigenerational colonization of a single carcass exists. By testing this possibility through a replicated choice/no-choice experiment using pig carcasses, we were able to demonstrate that multigenerational colonization of carrion by blow flies does not occur. Fresh pig carcasses were exposed to blow fly infestation, then placed in insect exclusion cages. After the emergence of this first generation of blow fly adults, "choice" cages were supplied with a fresh pig cadaver. No …

Using Schools To Map The Frontier Of Settlement On The Canadian Prairies, John C. Lehr, Brian Mcgregor

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Most attempts to map the frontier of agricultural settlement in western Canada have used land alienation data or population density calculated from census returns. Both methods are fraught with difficulties. Population density data are only available at five-year intervals at the 36-square-mile township level. Land alienation does not always reflect settlement. In Manitoba, entire townships were alienated years before they were occupied. The organization and building of schools is a better indicator of actual settlement and the emergence of community-based institutions. To test this hypothesis, school formation and land alienation in 35 townships in southeastern Manitoba were plotted. This showed …