The burdens of social capital: How socially-involved people dealt with stress after Hurricane Katrina

Research shows that those with greater social capital enjoy better physical and mental health. The current study illuminates a paradox of social capital which may afflict those involved in traumatic events. Several years of survey data reveal a dynamic picture of the link between social capital and stress following Hurricane Katrina. Results reveal that initially after Katrina, those who were more socially embedded carried the greatest load with respect to helping the displaced population, thus experiencing more stress. But over time, the most socially-involved then snapped back from their stressful experiences more rapidly than isolates. This confirms that over the course of stressful events, social involvement first exposes people to more stress, but as time passes, provides them a significant buffer against negative psychosocial experiences.     

关系网络:少数民族迁移者城市就职中的社会资本

作者回顾了学界对社会关系的研究,通过对在北京市和深圳市200多位少数民族迁移就业者的问卷和访谈调查,指出了人们的迁移就业过程分3个阶段并在其中运用了不同的关系网络组合。     

关于我国人力资本投资与经济增长问题的研究

人力资本投资和物质资本投资 ,都是经济增长的重要推动力。二者在质上的关联方式和量的比例关系相对最优时 ,对经济增长产生巨大的促进作用 ,否则会出现制约经济增长的现象。人力资本投资在经济增长的起点上优先。目前我国人力资本投资存在的问题及对策。     

经济增长中人力资本与制度的关系评析与启示

在促进经济增长的要素中 ,是人力资本最终起作用 ,还是制度变迁最终起作用 ,是两种对立的观点 ,这涉及到人力资本与制度的相互关系。制度和人力资本共同决定一国的经济增长 ,人力资本是制度促进经济增长的主体和基本立足点 ,制度通过对人力资本的作用而影响经济增长。     

论中国公民社会的成长与社会资本的培育

公民社会与社会资本是20世纪90年代以来中国学者关注的热点问题。公民社会所倡导的文化价值理念——合作、信任、互惠等无不与社会资本理论相契合,公民社会是社会资本得到滋养和发展的温床。我国公民社会发育的不完善严重制约了社会资本的形成。因此需要大力培育我国的公民社会,形成政府与公民合作治理的局面,从而提升我国社会资本的存量。     

社会资本理论视阈下的我国农村治安问题分析

近年来,我国农村治安形势不容乐观,主要表现在农民上访事件和群体性事件呈上升趋势,偷盗抢劫等刑事案件发案率居高不下,非法宗教活动屡禁不止等。从根源上说,这是社会转型期难以避免的,传统的农村熟人社会下所形成的人们之间的普遍信任、村规民约及相互交往和组织参与在市场经济大潮的冲击下已经淡化,而这些恰恰是作为社会稳定基础的农村社会资本的重要部分。因此,改善农村治安状况关键在于重构传统农村社会资本并积极培育和发展符合社会主义市场经济的新型农村社会资本。     

Explaining relationships between ethnic diversity and informal social capital across European countries and regions: Tests of constrict, conflict and contact theory

In this study we focus on the relationship between ethnic diversity and informal social capital. As this refers to rather strong social ties in the intimate domain, it is a strict test of Putnam’s claim that ethnic diversity would decrease social capital. In order to explain these relationships, we derived mediating mechanisms from conflict and contact theory. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002/2003), we applied multilevel analyses considering three levels: individuals, regions and countries. Our results revealed a direct positive effect of ethnic diversity at the country level on informal helping, yet no indirect effect via the mediating variables. At the regional level, we only found an indirect effect of ethnic diversity. Here, ethnic diversity increases the likelihood of intergroup contact that in turn is positively related to both informal social meeting and helping. Perceived ethnic threat turned out to have a negative effect on informal social meeting.     

School choice & social stratification: How intra-district transfers shift the racial/ethnic and economic composition of schools

The liberation model hypothesizes that school choice liberates students from underperforming schools by giving them the opportunity to seek academically superior schooling options outside of their neighborhoods. Subsequently, school choice is hypothesized to diminish stratification in schools. Data from one urban school district is analyzed to test these hypotheses. We specifically examine which factors influence the propensity for parents to participate in choice, and how school choice changes the racial/ethnic and economic composition of schools. We further examine how school choice influences similar changes within distinct sociogeographic areas within the district. We find that families who are zoned to more racially/ethnically and economically diverse schools in sociogeographically diverse areas are more likely to participate in school choice. We also find that intra-district choice is associated with a slight increase in social stratification throughout the district, with more substantial stratification occurring in the most demographically diverse areas and schools.     

Opinions toward suicide: Cross-national evaluation of cultural and religious effects on individuals

This study evaluates the role that religious and cultural values have on individual opinions toward suicide worldwide. Using multilevel modeling with data from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey (42,299 individuals in 43 countries), the current study is designed to analyze the effect of individual (i.e., micro-level), and country (i.e., macro-level) characteristics on opinions toward suicide. Specifically, cultural values, religious affiliation, religious importance, and church attendance are analyzed at both the individual and country levels to evaluate the impact of individual and country level effects on opinions toward suicide. The results show that individual opinions toward suicide are influenced by individual belief as well as by the cultural and religious characteristics of their country. The results suggest that evaluation of individual opinions toward controversial behavior should account for the unique and cross-interaction effects of micro- and macro-level effects.     

公共危机管理中的公民参与:价值、困境与路径选择——基于社会资本范式的研究

公民参与是公共危机管理的一个重要问题。社会资本理论是分析社会发展的一种重要理论,对公民参与具有较强的解释力。本文梳理了公民参与、公共危机管理和社会资本的相关概念和内涵,以社会资本为中介和基础分析了公共危机管理中公民参与的价值;在社会资本缺失和负外部性下讨论了公民参与公共危机管理的困境;并通过社会资本的投资和自我完善分析了公民参与公共危机管理的路径选择。     

Immigration and violence: The offsetting effects of immigrant concentration on Latino violence

Despite longstanding interest in the effects of immigration on American society, there are few studies that examine the relationship between immigration and crime. Drawing from social disorganization theory and community resource/social capital perspectives, this study examines the effects of Latino immigration on Latino violence. Data on violence (i.e., homicide, robbery, and Violent Index) and the structural conditions of Latino populations are drawn from the California Arrest Data (CAL), New York State Arrest Data (NYSAD), and U.S. Census data for approximately 400 census places during the 1999–2001 period. Findings suggest that immigrant concentration has no direct effect on Latino homicide or Violent Index rates but may reduce Latino robbery. Immigration also appears to have multiple, offsetting indirect effects on Latino violence that work through social disorganization and community resource measures. These results suggest that (1) immigrant concentration does not contribute to Latino violence and may even reduce some forms of violence, (2) immigration simultaneously stabilizes and destabilizes structural conditions in Latino populations, and (3) it is useful to examine both the direct and indirect effects of immigration on crime.     

利用外资是一项大政策--引进和利用外资:邓小平的光辉思想和我国的伟大实践

本文认为,邓小平同志准确把握世界经济发展规律,从加快我国经济发展的客观现实出发,提出利用外资是一个很大的政策,并对这项大政策进行了全面的阐释,包括加快经济发展必须利用外资,引进国外先进技术作为我们发展的起点,引进外资必须促进我国产业结构的调整,注意引进外资的规模和投资方向,坚持自力更生原则、掌握利用外资的主动权,外资企业是社会主义经济的有益补充等.邓小平同志关于引进和利用外资的思想相当系统全面,从而形成了邓小平经济金融思想的一座高峰,也对丰富毛泽东思想理论宝库做出了贡献,具有极其重大的理论意义和实践意义.     

Re-thinking the decline in trust: A comparison of black and white Americans

Generalized trust in other Americans has never been so low. Explanations of this decline draw attention to the role of generational replacement and to period effects stemming from macro-level economic and political changes. In this paper, I consider generational and period trends in trust for black and for white Americans. Although race is considered one of the most important predictors of levels of trust, few studies have analyzed how race relates to larger generational and period trends of decline. General Social Survey data is used to test whether the decline thesis applies equally to black and to white Americans’ trust levels. I consider both the widely used index of generalized trust and the individual items comprising this index. The results show that although the war baby generation (1935-1944) of white Americans was more trusting than other generations, there has been no corresponding variability across generations for black Americans. At the period level, while there has been a decline in generalized trust and each of its sub-components for white Americans, the period-based trends for black Americans are more variable across measures. The use of a general index to study trends for black Americans masks important period-based trends. The decline in trust is related to race and what is missing from most accounts of the race gap in trust is a discussion of structural forces that advantage white Americans and hence inflate their trust levels.     

Improving inference for social research and social policy: The Bayesian paradigm

This paper reviews briefly some data interpretation difficulties associated with many social research projects, difficulties which damage efforts to synthesize the results from different studies or to use such results in the formulation of social policy. It is argued that these difficulties are traceable in large part to three causes: (1) the circuitous and nonintuitive logic of inference used customarily in social statistical analysis; (2) the lack of agreement (usually latent and implicit) about the substantive and technical premises adopted in the research argument; and (3) the frequent weakness (low diagnosticity) of social research data for distinguishing among alternative models of a phenomenon. The Bayesian paradigm of statistical inference, especially a broadly conceived version of that paradigm, offers a number of advantages for overcoming these difficulties. A principal advantage is that the Bayesian inference approach lends itself especially well to the systematic cumulation of evidence from a series of related studies. Another advantage of the Bayesian perspective is that it deals well with contingency and with uncertain knowledge. In view of these and other advantages, the Bayesian inference paradigm is proposed as a highly promising vehicle through which social researchers and policy makers may work and communicate more effectively, not only with each other, but also among themselves.     

身体与性:西南边疆少数民族妇女的商品化问题

改革开放以来的经济转型造成了少数民族妇女的贫困化趋势。在西南少数民族地区,市场化导致了妇女身体的商品化倾向并以多种形式表现出来。一些进入城市的少数民族妇女为了生存被迫从事卖淫,从而助长了地下性产业的繁荣。性的商品化发展也致使拐卖妇女越境卖淫的犯罪活动在西南边疆少数民族地区泛滥开来,并随之带来了一系列的社会问题。     

Education and religion: Individual, congregational, and cross-level interaction effects on biblical literalism

Using ideas from cultural and organizational theory, I examine the interplay of individual and congregation-level educational attainment on biblical literalism. Data on 387 congregations and 100,009 worshippers (US Congregational Life Survey, 2001) are used to test hypotheses. Results indicate that the effects of congregational education and individual educational attainment are among the largest effects in models. This study is the first to show that regardless of an individual’s own education, affirmations of biblical literalism are less likely when persons with higher education dominate a congregation. This finding brings into relief the important role of social context in persons’ belief in biblical literalism. Additionally, congregational education amplifies the influence of individual education on biblical literalism such that the gap in belief between college/non-college education individuals widens in high education congregations. This finding suggests that high education persons more deeply absorb the influence of a more educated congregational context.     

Parental investment in childhood and educational qualifications: Can greater parental involvement mediate the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage?

Parental involvement is important for later well-being since it conveys to children that parents are interested in their development. In socioeconomically disadvantaged homes this involvement becomes even more important. This paper asks: Can the social capital produced by greater parental involvement mediate some of the harmful effects of less financial capital? Data are from the National Child Development Study; a longitudinal study of children born in Britain in 1958. Results suggest that parental involvement does matter, but it depends on when involvement and economic hardship are measured, as well as type of involvement and parent gender. Father interest in education reduces the impact of economic hardship on education the most, especially at age 11. Both father and mother interest in school at age 16 have the largest direct impact on education. The frequency of outings with mother at age 11 also has a larger direct impact on education than outings with father, however, neither compare with the reduction in the effect of economic hardship as a result of father interest in school.     

Unemployment and crime: A neighborhood level panel data approach

Twenty-five years ago, David Cantor and Kenneth Land presented a model of the relationship between unemployment and crime. This model showed the complexity of this seemingly simple relationship. Namely, there are two independent and counteracting effects from unemployment that affect crime: motivation and guardianship. In their analysis, Cantor and Land found that the guardianship effect dominates the motivation effect, but subsequent research has questioned this result. In this paper, the unemployment and crime relationship is tested using a neighborhood level hybrid modeling approach. Such a method allows for the nuances of Cantor and Land’s model to be tested at a fine ecological resolution for the first time. It is found that both motivation and guardianship matter for crime, but at different time frames: motivation matters in the long-run whereas guardianship matters in the short-run, similar to what Cantor and Land hypothesized.     

Getting support in polarized societies: Income,social networks,and socioeconomic context

This paper explores how unequal resources and social and economic polarization affects the size of social networks and their use to access resources. We argue that individual resource position generates divergent expectations with regard to the impact of polarization on the size of networks on one hand, and their usefulness for accessing resources on the other. Social and economic polarization encourages reliance on informal networks, but those at the bottom of the social structure are forced to rely on more extensive networks than the wealthy to compensate for their isolated and underprivileged position. At the same time, social and economic polarization limits the resources the poor can access through their networks. We provide evidence consistent with these propositions, based on data derived from the International Social Survey Programme 2001 “Social Networks” dataset combined with contextual information on the levels of economic inequality in particular countries along with whether they experienced postcommunism.     

Social mobility in 20 modern societies: The role of economic and political context

It is commonly argued that social mobility rates are influenced by economic and political conditions. Nevertheless, research on this issue has tended to be hindered by two limitations that make it difficult to draw strong conclusions about contextual effects: (1) seldom have country-level and individual-level influences been tested simultaneously, and (2) only rarely have data more recent than the 1970s been employed. We improve on previous research by employing multilevel models fitted to relatively recent survey data collected from 20 modern societies by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) and national-level characteristics derived from various official sources. Our findings demonstrate systematic cross-national variation in the association between the occupational status of respondents and their fathers. Consistent with the industrialization thesis, this variation is positively associated with per-capita GDP, suggesting that more affluent nations are characterized by more open and fluid stratification structures. Our results also suggest the importance of political regimes and migration for social mobility. In contrast, economic inequality appears to explain very little of the cross-national variation in mobility rates.