Narratives of family,community and waged work: Latvian European volunteer worker women in post-war Britain

In the mid to late 1940s displaced people in camps in Germany were recruited by the British Government to work in industries in which labour market shortages were severe. This article looks at the recruitment of women who were originally from Latvia for domestic work in hospitals, other institutions and private households and as textile workers. The author argues that as well as reconstructing a sense of belonging to Latvia through the creation of imagined communities in exile, waged work was also a significant part of these women's lives. The author explores the ways in which different types of work influenced the future lives of EVW (European Volunteer Worker) women, both as workers and as members of locally based networks, and discusses the connections between employment and home/community life in the social construction of identity among Latvian women in Britain. The article draws on recent oral testimonies of twenty-five women who came to Britain under the Balt Cygnet and Westward Ho schemes between 1946 and 1949, have lived in this country since then and are now retired.     

Intimacy development in middle adolescence: Its relationship to gender and family cohesion and adaptability

The relationships of family cohesion and adaptability to adolescent intimacy development were explored by administering the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales survey and the Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation — Behavioral Version survey to 207 middle adolescents (70 males and 137 females) from a small midwestern high school. The adolescents' perceptions of family adaptability correlated with the amount of responsibility the teens expressed in their relationships, while cohesion correlated with companionship and affection in their relationships; however, females' scores were related to cohesion, while males' scores were related to satisfaction with cohesion in their families. The study suggests that family cohesion and adaptability differentially influence intimacy development based on the adolescent's gender.Received Ph.D. in marital and family therapy from Purdue University. Research interests include family influences on adolescent development and family issues related to incarceration.Received Ed.D. in human development from Boston University. Research interests include major life transitions (e.g., adolescence, middle adulthood).     

Sex,power, and dependency: The politics of adolescent sexuality

This study examines the social psychological determinants of adolescent sexual activity. Drawing on power-dependency theory within a social exchange framework, a conceptual model of adolescent sexuality is developed and tested using survey data on 288 teenagers. It is hypothesized that attributes of power (confidence with members of the opposite sex, popularity, opposite-sex friends, and egalitarian gender role attitudes) would indirectly decrease sexual activity (participation in unwanted sex and the extent of intimate sexual behaviors) through their negative effect on dependence (discomfort with physical appearance, the need for self-disclosure and closeness, the need for physical gratification in sex and the need for emotional gratification in sex). The findings indicate that the model is a good predictor of the sexual activity of adolescent males for whom dependency is an important determinant of sexual behavior. When the model is estimated separately for the Black and white teenagers, distinct patterns are observed for the Black females. Black females' participation in unwanted sex is far below the average for the other subgroups, and the most influential factor in decreasing coercion for Black females is nontraditional gender role attitudes.This research was supported in part by awards from the Phyllis Diness Foundation and the John Fletcher Hurst Fellowship of the American University, and a Drescher research leave provided by the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.Received Ph.D. from The American University in 1989. Research and teaching interests include social psychology, gender, and culture.     

Parental schooling choice: A case study of minnesota

Public support of nonpublic elementary and secondary education has become one of the most controversial issues in American educational policy, with tuition tax credits and deductions subjects of ongoing debate at both the state and federal level. This article presents the results of one of the first empirical investigations of how a tax subsidy for tuition costs actually influences parents' school choices using data from Minnesota, the first state to have a tuition subsidy pass judicial review at all levels. It should be uyseful to policy makers, researchers, adn practitioners who are concerned with how parents make schooling decisions on behalf of their children, and how tax subsidies for educational expenses might affect those choices.     

Sex and class in John Osborne's look back in anger

The article takes to task the established critical view of Look Back in Anger as an essentially radical play about our class-ridden society. Instead, I attempt to argue and demonstrate by close reference to the text that it is not class but sex that is really the main focus of Osborne's abusive attention in the play. I show that the play is, in fact, a blatant and particularly vicious attack on women. It seems to me that Osborne uses the insubstantial class element in the play not to attack the 1950s world of privilege and snobbery but to disguise in pseudo-social terms his fear and loathing of women.