Repairing the safety net: Is the EITC the right patch?

Using data from the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this article estimates the impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on economic risk. Risk is measured through the variance of full income (income holding labor supply constant). The results show that the EITC significantly reduces economic risk, but its effects are weaker dollar for dollar than traditional means-tested programs like Food Stamps. The difference is not statistically significant, however. Moreover, for many middle-class people, the risk-reduction benefits of the EITC exceed the tax burden it imposes. This is less true of means-tested transfers. These results are significant for the politics of antipoverty policy. They show that a real-world antipoverty program can generate enough middle-class economic security to build for itself a solid base of political support.     

Claiming Kapwa: Filipino Immigrants,Community-Based Organizations,and Community Citizenship in San Francisco

Filipino immigrants and Filipino-serving community-based organizations (CBOs) in San Francisco work to meet community members’ immediate needs. At the same time, it activates political participation for Filipinos to make claims on traditional citizenship from the city agencies under an albeit xenophobic climate. Although city-level legislation marks San Francisco as politically progressive, Filipino community members experience the national anti-immigrant climate in the United States through a lack of services for integration. We argue that immigrants and CBOs develop “community citizenship” that link Filipino immigrants to local state services while engaging in community building activities that affirm the transnational identities of Filipinos as part of their (in)ability to participate politically in San Francisco. Through qualitative interviews from Filipino organizers and CBO staff, we argue that CBOs use Filipino core cultural values to facilitate collective responsibility for community members’ needs that is not only local but also always transnational under contradicting currents of liberal progressivism and neoliberal conservatism in the city and nationally.     

Childhood Adversity and Early Initiation of Alcohol Use in Two Representative Samples of Puerto Rican Youth

Early alcohol use is associated with multiple negative outcomes later in life, including substance use disorders. Identification of factors related to this very early risk indicator can help inform early prevention efforts. This study prospectively examined the relationship between childhood adversities and early initiation of alcohol use (by age 14) among Puerto Rican youth, the Latino subgroup at highest risk for alcohol use disorders in adulthood. The data come from the Boricua Youth Study, a longitudinal study of Puerto Rican youth in two sites (South Bronx, New York, and the standard metropolitan area of San Juan, Puerto Rico). We focus on youth who were ages 10 and older at Wave 1 [M _{age at Wave 1} (SE)?=?11.64(0.05), N?=?1259, 48.85?% females]. Twelve childhood adversities were measured at Wave 1 and include 10 adverse childhood experiences commonly studied and two additional ones (exposure to violence and discrimination) that were deemed relevant for this study’s population. Early initiation of alcohol use was determined based on youth report at Waves 1 through 3 (each wave 1 year apart). Cox proportional hazards models showed that, when considered individually, adversities reflecting child maltreatment, parental maladjustment, and sociocultural stressors were related to early initiation of alcohol use. Significant gender interactions were identified for parental emotional problems and exposure to violence, with associations found among girls only. Adversities often co-occurred, and when they were considered jointly, physical and emotional abuse, parental antisocial personality, and exposure to violence had independent associations with early alcohol use, with a stronger influence of exposure to violence in girls compared to boys. The accumulation of adversities, regardless of the specific type of exposure, increased the risk for starting to drink at a young age in a linear way. The associations between childhood adversities and early alcohol use were generally consistent across sociocultural contexts, in spite of differences in the prevalence of exposure to adversity. Our findings highlight the importance of targeting multiple adversities and expanding the notion of adversity to capture the experiences of specific groups more adequately.     

Recent Publications

An Independent Woman: The Life of Lou Henry Hoover, by Anne Besier Allen. Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 2000.

Recovering the Black Female Body: Self‐Representations by African American Women, edited by Michael Bennett and Vanessa D. Dickerson. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2001.

Feminisms and Women's Movements in Contemporary Europe, edited by Anna Bull, Hanna Diamond, and Rosalind March. New York: St. Martin's P, 2000.

Female Communities, 1600–1800: Literary Visions and Cultural Realities, edited by Rebecca D'Monte and Nicole Pohl. New York: St. Martin's P, 2000.

Gender and Material Culture in Historical Perspective, edited by Moira Donald and Linda Hurcombe. London: Macmillan, and New York: St. Martin's P, 2000.

Asian American Studies: Identity, Images, Issues Past and Present, edited by Esther Mikyung Ghymn. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2000.

Out of the Past: Adventures in Film Noir, by Barry Gifford. Jackson, MI: UP of Mississippi, 2001.

My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home, by Amber L. Hollibaugh. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2000.

Body Matters: Feminism, Textuality, Corporeality, edited by Avril Horner and Angela Keane. Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 2000.

The Recess, by Sophia Lee. Lexington, Kentucky: The UP of Kentucky, 2000.

Women Performing Music: The Emergence of American Women as Instrumentalists and Conductors, by Beth Abelson Macleod. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &; Company, 2000.

Unveiling Traditions: Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World, by Anouar Majid. Durham: Duke UP, 2000.

The Loony‐Bin Trip, by Kate Millett. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 2000.

Thousand of Roads: A Memoir of a Young Woman's Life in the Ukranian Undergroud During and After World War II, by Maria Savchyn Pyskir, translated by Ania Savage. Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland &; Company, 2001.

A Woman's Way: The Forgotten History of Women Spiritual Directors, by Patricia Ranft. New York: Palgrave, 2000.

Records of Girlhood: An Anthology of Nineteenth‐Century Women's Childhoods, edited by Valerie Sanders. England and United States: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2000.

Battered Women and Feminist Lawmaking, by Elizabeth Schneider. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000.

Food, Consumption, and the Body in Contemporary Women's Fiction, by Sarah Sceats. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.

Chaucer's Pardoner and Gender Theory: Bodies of Discourse, by Robert S. Sturges. New York: St. Martin's P, 2000.

Consuming Anxieties: Consumer Protest, Gender, and British Slavery, 1713–1833, by Charlotte Sussman. Stanford, California: Stanford UP, 2000.     

Involved-Vigilant Parenting and Socio-Emotional Well-being Among Black Youth: The Moderating Influence of Natural Mentoring Relationships

Positive relationships with parents and nonparental adults have the potential to bolster Black adolescents’ socio-emotional well-being. Though each type of intergenerational relationship has been linked to more positive youth outcomes, few studies have examined the interactive influences of parenting and natural mentoring relationships on the socio-emotional development of Black youth. In the current study, we examined associations between involved-vigilant parenting and the psychological well-being and social skills of Black early adolescents (n = 259; 58 % female; mean age = 13.56, SD = .96) across types of natural mentoring relationships. Using K-means cluster analysis, we identified two types of mentoring relationships (less connected and more connected) based on relationship length, involvement, closeness, and frequency of contact. Youth with more connected mentoring relationships (n = 123) had higher psychological well-being and social skills than youth with no mentor (n = 64) or less connected mentors (n = 72). Youth without a natural mentor and youth with less connected mentors did not differ in their levels of social skills or psychological well-being. Structural equation modeling was conducted to determine if associations between involved-vigilant parenting and youths’ psychological well-being and social skills varied among youth with a more connected mentoring relationship in comparison to youth without a mentor or with a less connected mentor, controlling for participants’ gender, age, school, and parental education. The positive associations between involved-vigilant parenting and adolescents’ psychological well-being and social skills were weaker among adolescents with a more connected mentoring relationship in comparison to their peers without or with a less connected mentoring relationship. These results suggest that youth may be more strongly influenced by involved-vigilant parenting in the absence of a strongly connected natural mentoring relationship.     

A Census of Medicolegal Death Investigation in the United States: A Need to Determine the State of our Nation’s Toxicology Laboratories and Their Preparedness for the Current Drug Overdose Epidemic

In 2007, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported on 2004 data collected from the Census of Medical Examiner and Coroner Offices (CMEC). The CMEC was one of the first comprehensive reports on the state of the medicolegal death investigation system in the United States and included information on administration, expenditure, workload, specialized death investigations, records and evidence retention, and resources. However, the report did not include responses on questions that were related to toxicology such as specimen retention and type of testing. The purpose of this publication is to provide the community with toxicology laboratory-specific responses from nearly 2000 medical examiner and coroner (MEC) offices. Data obtained from a BJS CMEC public use dataset for any remaining information that was not reported in the 2007 BJS report were evaluated specific to the operation of toxicology laboratories within a MEC office or specific to toxicology testing. The CMEC includes information on average operating budget for MEC offices with internal or external toxicology services, budget for toxicology/microbiology services, respondents’ routine uses of toxicology analysis, toxicology specimen retention time, average turnaround times, use of computerized information management systems, and participation in federal data collections. These historical data begin to address the present state of our nation’s toxicology laboratories within the medicolegal death investigation system and their preparedness for the current drug overdose epidemic.     

Attachment to Parents,Social Anxiety,and Close Relationships of Female Students over the Transition to College

The current study examined the process by which attachment to parents influences satisfaction with and ease in forming friendships at college. One hundred seventy-two female college freshmen completed a measure of parental attachment security the summer before their first semester of college (July 2006) and measures to assess satisfaction with and ease in forming close relationships at the end of their first semester (December 2006). Students ranged in age from 18 to 20 years (M = 18.09, SD = 0.33) and were diverse in their racial makeup (30% racial minority). Consistent with predictions derived from attachment theory, secure attachment to parents was positively associated with ease in forming friendships among racial minority and white participants and satisfaction with friendships among minority participants. Moreover, indirect effects of parental attachment security on relationship outcomes through social anxiety were significant for minority participants but not for white participants. Findings may be useful in the development of retention programs targeted at incoming university freshmen, particularly minority students.     

Putting Together the Publicness Puzzle: A Framework for Realized Publicness

In light of the blurring between sectors, it is critical not only to understand public organizations, but also to identify factors that contribute to the achievement of public outcomes across sectors. To what extent does organizational “publicness” lend insight to understanding and managing for public outcomes? By integrating the theory of dimensional publicness with recent work on public values, this analysis presents a framework that defines realized publicness as public outcomes predicted in part by institutions embodying public values. Based on insights from neo‐institutional theory, managing for public outcomes, or managing publicness, requires attention to the combined effects of regulative, associative, and cultural‐cognitive public value institutions. This analysis concludes with a timely application of the realized publicness framework to mortgage lending, demonstrating the importance of conceptualizing influences from diverse types of public value institutions when evaluating a particular initiative, such as the Community Reinvestment Act, and mortgage outcomes.