Suchergebnisse

Given the range of possibilities open to women today, what futures do adolescent women dream of and pursue? And how do social class and race play into their trajectories? In asking young women about their aspirations in three areas-school, work, and family-Best Laid Plans demonstrates how future plans are framed by notions of gendered responsibilities and abilities. Through her examination of the lives of poor, working-class, and middle-class Black and White young women as they navigate the transition to adulthood, sociologist Jessica Halliday Hardie defines anew what it means for girls to come of age. In particular, Hardie shows how social capital, either possessed or lacked, is not simply a resource for planning for the future but a structure whose form and function varies by race and social class. As these inequalities persist into adulthood, high aspirations, social capital, and careful planning bolster some young women while hindering others. Drawing on qualitative data from a five-year period, Best Laid Plans makes the case for why we need to move beyond the individual appeal to "dream bigger" and "plan better" into systematic changes that will put young people's aspirations within reach

This article uses data drawn from nine months of fieldwork and student, teacher, and administrator interviews at a southern high school to analyze school racial conflict and the construction of racism. We find that institutional inequalities that stratify students by race and class are routinely ignored by school actors who, we argue, use the presence of so-called redneck students to plausibly deny racism while furthering the standard definition of racism as blatant prejudice and an individual trait. The historical prominence of rednecks as a southern cultural identity augments these claims, leading to an implicit division of school actors into friendly/nonracist and unfriendly/racist and allowing school actors to set boundaries on the meaning of racism. Yet these rhetorical practices and the institutional structures they mask contributed to racial tensions, culminating in a race riot during our time at the school.

Child health is fundamental to well‐being and achievement throughout the life course. Prior research has demonstrated strong associations between familial socioeconomic resources and children's health outcomes, with especially poor health outcomes among disadvantaged youth who experience a concentration of risks, yet little is known about the influence of maternal health as a dimension of risk for children. This research used nationally representative U.S. data from the National Health Interview Surveys in 2007 and 2008 (N = 7,361) to evaluate the joint implications of maternal health and socioeconomic disadvantage for youth. Analyses revealed that maternal health problems were present in a substantial minority of families, clustered meaningfully with other risk factors, and had serious implications for children's health. These findings support the development of health policies and interventions aimed at families.

Existing research linking socioeconomic status with work focuses primarily on the precursors (educational attainment) and outcomes (income) of work, rather than asking how diverse facets of work influence health. Using four waves of data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, the authors evaluate whether multiple measures of respondent job characteristics, respondent preferences for those characteristics, and their interaction substantially improve the fit of sociological models of men's and women's physical and mental health at midlife and old age compared with traditional models using educational attainment, parental socioeconomic status, and income. The authors find that nonwage job characteristics predict men's and women's physical and mental health over the life course, although there is little evidence that the degree to which one's job accords with one's job preferences matters for health. These findings expand what is known about how work matters for health, demonstrating how the manner and condition under which one works has lasting impacts on well-being.

This study examines changes in religious service attendance over time for a contemporary cohort of adolescents moving from middle to late adolescence. We use two waves of a nationally representative panel survey of youth from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) to examine the dynamics of religious involvement during adolescence. We then follow with an analysis of how demographic characteristics, family background, and life course transitions relate to changes in religious service attendance during adolescence. Our findings suggest that, on average, adolescent religious service attendance declines over time, related to major life course transitions such as becoming employed, leaving home, and initiating sexual activity. Parents' affiliation and attendance, on the other hand, are protective factors against decreasing attendance.

We describe the DNA collection processes of an initial pilot and full study, which is designed to investigate joint peer and genetic effects on health behaviors and attitudes in a college campus setting. In the main study, 2664 (79.5%) students completed a Web survey and 2080 (78.7% of the survey completers after adjusting for the ineligible) provided a saliva DNA sample. The response rate for completing both the survey and the DNA portion of the study is 62.5%. Our DNA yields are of high quality. Overall, our experiences and results demonstrate that genetic data can be successfully collected as a part of traditional social science survey research projects. To aid others in doing so, we provide extensive details of our data collection experiences and offer recommendations to future researchers seeking to do or evaluate similar work.