Frank M. Howell

Do high school sports build character? A quasi-experiment on a national sample

Abstract Popular sport culture, conventional social wisdom and promotional ideology by athletic associations suggest that participation in high school varsity sports programs has positive effects on prosocial personality traits (i.e., sport “builds character”). While it is an open ended process to specify which facets of personality are affected during the high school years by playing sports, we use a broad array of personality measures in a secondary analysis of a five-wave panel of U.S. males. Drawing from the nationally representative Youth in Transition panel (n = 1,628), we employ a quasi-experimental design incorporating pre- and post-sports participation measures of personality to evaluate the “sport builds character” argument. Few statistically significant effects of varsity sports participation on social character are observed in these data on males during the late-60s and early-70s. Since little positive evidence was found, we challenge the “sports builds character” myth of conventional high school sport programs.

A measurement model for subjective marital solidarity: Invariance across time, gender, and life cycle stage

We use LISREL to assess the measurement properties of a unidimensional indicator of subjective marital solidarity based on four questionnaire items. A rigorously assessed measure containing more than one, yet relatively few items, is solely needed for research on marriage; such a measure can combine high reliability with low cost. Using 1971 and 1978 waves of the Quality of American Life data, we evaluate a measure based on four items: how well the respondent thinks his or her spouse understands him or her, how well the respondent understands his or her spouse, the amount of time spouses spend together in companionate activities, and reported marital satisfaction. With one correlated error term, these items are found to be a unidimensional indicator and to show substantial invariance across gender, survey year, and life cycle stage. We rejected inclusion of an item on how much the couple agrees on finances because this item created invariance by gender and survey year. This item apparently changed its meaning during the 1970s when many women became wage earners.

Implementing research in the social sciences with spatial data and ‘Not-So-New’ issues to watch out for

If one listens to thought leaders in the computing industry, we are being deluged with a tsunami of spatial data arising from one form of telecommunications technology after another. If one listens to the business community, ‘Big Data’ is the current buzzword, supplanting the entré of business schools into the training of ‘Business Intelligence’ (BI) stewards. In remote sensing, the concept of ‘Data Fusion’ has been active and well. Openshaw (1997), writing 15 years ago as part of a US National Academy of Sciences workshop on massive data sets, cautioned advocates of what then was described as Big Data about some of the problems facing analysts: legacy GIS software, computationally intense method requirements, and other foibles in what he called the ‘global data swamp’. Today, we have segments of the thought-space on spatial data vying for their view to be the focus; we see them emanating from different organizational spheres. One is the computing industry whose members largely focus on software models of how to harness some of these data into ‘business model’ versions of software tools. Examples of this are libraries, toolkits, and languages for others to invoke in building more something complete (read: useful to the non-programming community). Another is the business management sphere, catalyzed by start-up companies, academic researchers, and large-scale software vendors. The motivation here is the ‘new magic’ of analyzing corporate data in order to enhance profits. As Davenport and Harris (2007) advocate, many businesses cannot make their products cheaper than their competitors but, if they reach their product market in a less costly fashion, they succeed on the basis of corporate profit. A third is the traditional view of data analysis and visualization linked to John Tukey, a prominent statistician who pioneered ‘looking’ at data prior to applying complex analytical techniques to them. The organizational sphere for this lineage lies in academia, corporate R&D, and government agencies whose mission is based upon collected data. In the short run, there is little chance for these spheres to integrate in terms of their perspectives. Nor should they! The churning of ideas will undoubtedly produce a richer mix of approaches than a top-down Blue Ribbon Panel wrestling with which approach is best. That does not mean that there are not alligators in this global data swamp. As Openshaw surmised over a decade ago:

Turning to family, friends, or others: A model of social network usage during stressful events

In this study, we describe and partially explain patterns of network participation among family, friends, and others by focusing on social network usage during periods of stress. Using a national sample of adults (the National Opinion Research Centers General Social Surveys), we describe patterns of whom individuals would turn to for assistance during a range of hypothetical events, using first and second mentions of responses to six hypothetical stressful events. A simple recursive structural equations model of social network usage during times of need is specified, linking social background, network propinquity, and contact with network members to these three endogenous network bond strength indexes. The results show that neither propinquity nor contact with friends or family shape the (latent) use of family or family networks as much as does a single demographic characteristic, current marital status. Thus, although propinquity does largely shape contact frequency, the bonds of a current marital arran...

Modeling delinquent behavior: Social disorganization, perceived blocked opportunity, and social control

The linkages among several popular theories in the delinquency literature—social disorganization, strain, and social control theory—as well as their effects on delinquent behavior are investigated in this study. Social disorganization has been primarily studied with aggregate‐level data in prior work, and we note certain theoretical and empirical issues associated with this approach. In this study of public high school students in Mississippi (n = 8,338), social disorganization is measured by observed indicators of juveniles’ perceptions of neighborhood deterioration. Social strain is operationalized through perceptions of blocked opportunity, whereas social control is measured through the respondents’ reported level of attachment, commitment, and involvement in school. Structural equation models with latent variables are estimated separately by race and residence in order to more fully compare the linkages among these constructs. This study is the first to extend the analysis of those theoretical linkage...

Existing Biomass Infrastructure and Theoretical Potential Biomass Production in the U.S.

Abstract Please click here to download the map associated with this article. The recent and projected status of energy production and consumption in the U.S., resulting in substantial dependencies upon foreign oil, has continued to provide pressure on domestic energy security. All told, bio-energy systems, and biomass crop production in particular, will be important elements of national security, economic vitality, and public policy. Using biomass crop estimates based upon models developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we identify potential biomass crop production zones within the contiguous 48 states of the United States using spatially centered analytic methods. The Midwest and the South regions of the United States are, by far, the largest regions of potential production. However, the Midwest region holds a number of advantageous positions over the South in relation to social and economic competition, which is likely to hinder the development of a bio-economy in the region. Furthermore, we include here the physical location of existing biofuel refinement plants as a measure of the currently available infrastructure. The implications of these spatially advantageous zones for energy policy for alternative biomass crop production are discussed.

Promoting civic culture : The transmission of civic involvement from parent to child

Abstract For the past decade, the study of social capital and civic involvement has been of primary importance to sociologists and other social scientists. Concern over perceived declines in civic participation has troubled many, since such participation has been linked to a variety of positive outcomes both for the individual and the broader social groups in which the person takes part. To date, most research on the factors influencing participation has focused on structural or community-level measures, such as state structure, increased suburbanization and changes in community institutional structures. We contribute to this literature by highlighting the important role of the family as a context for the transmission of civic skills, involvement, and knowledge between parent and child. This study draws upon theoretical and conceptual insights from the literature on social capital and civic involvement, as well as from earlier work on inter-generational status attainment and political socialization. We build an explanatory framework that traces the inter-generational transmission of civic involvement, skills, and action. We test this framework using data from the 1996 National Household Education Survey. Results indicate that both adult political and school involvement have a positive impact upon the level of child political interest, and that adult community and school involvement have a positive impact upon the level of child civic activities.

Physically disabled students and achievement orientation: Self-concept, curriculum track, and career aspirations☆

Abstract Little research has been done on the vocational mobility of physically disabled students (Overs, R. In J. S. Picou and R. E. Campbell (Eds.), Career behavior of special groups. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, pp. 177–198). A subset of data from a larger investigation on the achievement processes of youth was analyzed in two phases to describe disabled and nondisabled tenth-grade students on certain sociodemographic variables, high school curriculum track assignment, self-concept dimensions, and educational and occupational aspirations. Additionally, a process model specifying the presence or absence of physical handicaps as an ascribed status was analyzed using path analysis. Results suggest that students who report themselves as being physically disabled are not from specific social origins or differentially allocated to curriculum tracks; more importantly, they do not hold different physical or social self-conceptions or career aspirations. The multivariate analysis shows that disabled status is a significant antecedent only to academic self-concept, having a moderate, positive effect. This finding was interpreted as being a possible “overcompensation” in one particular field when there is a weakness in another. The lack of expected differences in other variables is also discussed.

Residential Preferences and Life Plans

graphic mobility is also related to relatively superior achievement in that the capacity to move, regardless of residential origins, frees one to take advantage of socioeconomic opportunities not restricted to the local labor market (Blau and Duncan, 1967; Yang and Sewell, 1976). While the study of migration behavior is an area of interest in its own right, status attainment research has viewed residential behaviors, as well as other social demographic phenomena such as marital timing and fertility, as &dquo;career contingency&dquo; factors in

Concluding Remarks: Developing Spatial Demography

The goal of this book is to advance thinking in the specialty of spatial demography through enhancing middle range theory. This concluding chapter revisits each of the preceding chapters with a focus on their contribution to our overall goal of drawing attention to the application of middle range theory in the area of spatial demography. Following that review, we attempt to focus our attention of where we go as a disciplinary field moving forward by asking questions related to what we currently know about spatial context, what we need to know about spatial context, and why is spatial context even important beyond our ability to empirically link relationships to “closeness”. Finally, we end the chapter with a discussion of the need to develop central concepts in the field of spatial demography that move beyond a single disciplines contribution. To that point, the future of spatial demography should be one that draws heavily on the disciplines that have contributed to this volume (and others), including sociology, economics, political science, geography, and public health.