Educational trajectory and “action orientation”: Grade and track differences

A life-span developmental perspective suggests that variations in social context will lead to differences among individuals in their action orientations. An action orientation is defined by an individual's values, control beliefs, goal orientation, and decision-making perspective. To investigate differences in the action orientations of adolescents embedded in different contexts, 83 sophomore and senior high school students on either a vocational training or college-preparatory trajectory participated in the study. A discriminant function analysis of action orientations showed that the action orientations of vocational training and college-preparatory students differed: College-preparatory students had a career preparation action orientation and vocational students had an adult preparation action orientation; also, sophomores may have had a socializing orientation. The findings are discussed in terms of the developmental tasks facing students in different grades and on different life-course trajectories. Received Ph.D. from West Virginia University. Research interests are cognitive and social cognitive development in cultural and institutional contexts.Received Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. Research interests include adult developmental and problem solving.     

Reviews

Stephen White, Alex Pravda & Zvi Gitelman, eds, Developments in Soviet Politics. London: Macmillan, 1990, xvii+310 pp., £35.00 h/b, £9.99, p/b.

Jiri Valenta & Frank Cibulka, eds, Gorbachev's New Thinking and Third World Conflicts. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990, xxxiii+352 pp., $34.95, £25.95.

John Bushnell, Moscow Graffiti: Language and Subculture. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1990, xii+263 pp., £28.00 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

Susanne Oxenstierna, From Labour Shortage to Unemployment? The Soviet Labour Market in the 1980s. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1990, 311 pp., SEK 206.00.

E. Biberaj, Albania, A Socialist Maverick. Boulder, San Francisco, and Oxford: Westview Press, 1990, viii+157 pp., £22.95.

Christopher Cerf & Marina Albee, eds, Small Fires: Letters from the Soviet People to Ogonyok Magazine 1987–1990, with an introduction by Vitaly Korotich, editor‐in‐chief of Ogonyok, and an afterword by Andrei Sakharov. New York: Summit Books, 1990, 303 pp., $22.95.     

Reviews

Terry L. Thompson & Richard Sheldon, eds, Soviet Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Vera S. Dunham. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988, xiii+290 pp., £21.00.

Michael Rywkin, Soviet Society Today. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1989, xii+243 pp., $35.00 h/b, $12.50 p/b.

David Lane, Soviet Society Under Perestroika, London: Unwin Hyman, 1990, xv+401 pp., £40.00 h/b, £12.95 p/b.

Catherine Merridale, Moscow Politics and the Rise of Stalin: The Communist Party in the Capital, 1925–32. London: Macmillan, 1990, xv+328 pp., £47.50.

Roger Pethybridge, One Step Backwards, Two Steps Forward: Soviet Society and Politics under the New Economic Policy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990, xi+453 pp., £48.00.

Francois Heisbourg, ed., The Strategic Implications of Change in the Soviet Union. London: Macmillan, 1990, vi+227pp., £40.00.

Neil Fodor, The Warsaw Treaty Organisation: a Political and Organizational Analysis. London: Macmillan, 1990, 235 pp., £40.00.

Gerald Segal, The Soviet Union and the Pacific. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1990, xiii+236 pp., £30.00 h/b, £10.95 p/b.

Philip S. Gillette & Willard C. Frank, Jr, eds, The Sources of Soviet Naval Conduct. Lexington, IN: Lexington Books, 1990, xvii+297 pp., $39.95.

Sylvia Woodby & Alfred B. Evans, Jr, eds, Restructuring Soviet Ideology: Gorbachev's New Thinking. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990, 226 pp., £22.50.

Nikolai N. Petro, ed., Christianity and Russian Culture in Soviet Society. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990, xi+244pp., £17.95 p/b.

David A. Dyker, Yugoslavia: Socialism, Development and Debt. London: Routledge, 1990, xi+201 pp., £30.00.

Agnes Heller & Ferenc Fehér, From Yalta to Glasnost. The Dismantling of Stalin's Empire. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990, viii+288 pp., £35.00.

Elemer Hankiss, East European Alternatives. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990, xiv+319 pp., £35.00.

George Blazyca & Ryszard Rapacki, eds, Poland into the 1990s: Economy and Society in Transition. London: Pinter, 1991, x+148 pp., £27.50.

Michael D. Kennedy, Professionals, Power and Solidarity in Poland: A Critical Sociology of Soviet‐Type Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, xiv+421 pp., £45.00, $59.50.

Graham Smith, ed., The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union. London: Longman, 1990, x+389 pp., £22.50 h/b, £12.95 p/b.

James Muckle, Portrait of Soviet School under Glasnost. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1990, ix+205 pp., £35.00.

Piers Beirne, ed., Revolution in Law: Contributions to the Development of Soviet Legal Theory, 1917–1938. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1990, xiii+202 pp., $49.95.

Richard M. Connaughton, The Republic of the Ushakovka: Admiral Kolchak and the Allied Intervention in Siberia, 1918–20. London: Routledge, 1990, ix+193 pp., £30.00.

Vitaut Kipel & Zora Kipel, eds, Byelorussian Statehood—Reader and Bibliography. New York: Byelorussian Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1988, 398 pp.     

Book reviews

The Imaginary War: Understanding the East‐West Conflict By Mary Kaldor. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1990. 290 pp. £19.95.

The Nonsuperpowers and South Africa ‐ Implications for U.S. Policy. By Richard J. Payne. Indiana University Press. 336 pp. $35.00.

Elites and the Idea of Equality: A Comparison of Japan, Sweden, and the United States. By Sidney Verba, Steven Kelman, Gary R. Orten, Ichiro Miyake, Joji Watonuki, Ikuo Kabashima, G. Donald Ferreer, Jr. Harvard University Press. 276 pp. £10.25.

Controlling the Sword: The Democratic Governance of National Security By Bruce Russett. 261 pp. £17.95.

America's Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany By Thomas Alan Schwartz. Harvard University Press: 1991. 404 pp. £23.95.     

Genetic markers in human bone: I. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was isolated from a number of spongy and compact human bone tissue specimens, and the yield was estimated on a "per milligram of starting tissue" basis. DNA was, in addition, isolated from a number of corresponding blood and bone tissue specimens. Spectrophotofluorometry and ethidium bromide visualization on minigels were used to estimate the quantity and degree of degradation of DNA. The DNA from several blood-bone pairs is shown to give concordant restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing results by two different typing protocols with five different single-locus probes. DNA from several additional blood-bone pairs is shown to give concordant results for human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ alpha phenotypes following polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and hybridization to specific allele-specific oligonucleotide (ASO) probes, and for the variable numbers of tandem repeats (VNTR) length polymorphisms 3' to the human apolipoprotein B (APOB) gene following PCR amplification with specific primers and analysis of the products by electrophoresis and ethidium bromide visualization.     

Pitfalls in the diagnosis of drug smuggler's abdomen

Narcotics "body packing" can be detected in abdominal X-rays by the ring shadow caused by air trapped in the packs. In a series of 82 cases admitted for abdominal X-ray in Helsinki, Finland, in 1982 through 1988, we encountered 9 (11.0%) true positives, 3 (3.6%) false positives, and 1 (1.2%) false negative. The false positives were due to the constipation often associated with the narcotics abuse. The false negative X-ray diagnosis was attributable to an inexperienced radiologist. False negatives may also be associated with packets containing marijuana, packs with few wrappings, aluminum-foil coated packs, and machine-packed narcotics. Searching for trapped air in radiographs, repeated X-raying by an experienced radiologist, use of computed tomography, or combined urinary drug screening may be applied to diminish false findings and to avoid unnecessary arrest for the purpose of fecal screening over several days.