Gender diversity in aircraft maintenance: a cross-sectional triangulation of male perspectives

Certified aircraft mechanics represent the largest gender-based demographic disparity in aviation with a 49-to-1 male-to-female ratio. Recent research into women’s perspective on the aircraft mechanic career field revealed that a large majority of women felt unsure or negatively about their potential promotion opportunities and social acceptance. The purpose of this follow-on mixed-methods concurrent triangulation study was to explore the perspectives of men regarding the aforementioned topics to see if they differ from previously published research on women perceptions. A total of 587 men and 431 women completed an eight-question survey containing 5-point Likert-type and open-ended questions. The quantitative comparison consisted of the total 1018 responses, while only the survey responses from the 587 men were analysed for correlations and qualitative codes. Results indicated that there was a significant difference between the perceptions of men from those of the women regarding work environment safety and social acceptance. Additional correlation analysis revealed social acceptance to be a key variable when predicting career appropriateness, advancement opportunity and work environment safety. The 587 qualitative responses yielded results that differed from those of women, citing an assumption that women have the same advancement opportunities or be as socially accepted as men entering the field.     

A New Measure of Policy Spending Priorities in the American States

In this paper, we develop and test a general measure of policyexpenditures in the American states. Our approach is to constructa spatial proximity model of yearly state program spending.The empirical analysis reveals that state spending patternsvary along a clear and readily-interpretable unidimensionalcontinuum which differentiates policies that provide particularizedbenefits to needy constituencies from policies that providebroader collective goods. Based upon standard evaluative criteria,the variable created from our model possesses some highly desirablecharacteristics. And, it compares favorably to other measuresof state policy activity. The net result is a yearly score foreach state which summarizes that state's spending across allmajor program areas. More generally, we believe that our variablecan be interpreted as valid and reliable representational measurementof state policy priorities. In this capacity, it could occupyan important position within models of state politics. Author's note: Many colleagues provided useful feedback on earlierversions of this paper. We particularly appreciate the excellentcomments and suggestions from Robert Erikson, Richard Fording,Kim Hill, David Lowery, Andrea McAtee, and George Rabinowitz.We would also like to thank Daniel Lewis and William Myers fortheir assistance with the data collection. The yearly statepolicy priority scores obtained from the unfolding analysis,along with the data used to create the scores, the SAS macroto carry out the unfolding procedure, and all other supplemental materialsare available on the authors’ web sites: http://polisci.msu.edu/jacobyand http://polisci.msu.edu/schneider. All these materials arealso available on the Political Analysis Web site.     

Big School,Small School: (Re)Testing Assumptions about High School Size,School Engagement and Mathematics Achievement

In an effort to increase both adolescents’ engagement with school and academic achievement, school districts across the United States have created small high schools. However, despite the widespread adoption of size reduction reforms, relatively little is known about the relationship between size, engagement and outcomes in high school. In response, this article employs a composite measure of engagement that combines organizational, sociological, and psychological theories. We use this composite measure with the most recent nationally-representative dataset of tenth graders, Educational Longitudinal Study: 2002, (N = 10,946, 46% female) to better assess a generalizable relationship among school engagement, mathematics achievement and school size with specific focus on cohort size. Findings confirm these measures to be highly related to student engagement. Furthermore, results derived from multilevel regression analysis indicate that, as with school size, moderately sized cohorts or grade-level groups provide the greatest engagement advantage for all students and that there are potentially harmful changes when cohorts grow beyond 400 students. However, it is important to note that each group size affects different students differently, eliminating the ability to prescribe an ideal cohort or school size.     

The Five Cs Model of Positive Youth Development: A Longitudinal Analysis of Confirmatory Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance

The understanding of positive development across adolescence rests on having a valid and equivalent measure of this construct across the breadth of this period of life. Does the Positive Youth Development (PYD) construct based on the Five Cs model have satisfactory psychometric properties for such longitudinal measurement invariance? Using longitudinal data derived from the 4-H Study of PYD, we assessed 920 youth (61.6% female) from a racially and ethically diverse sample (67.3% European American) who participated in three waves (Grades 8–10) of data collection. Building on prior findings that the Five Cs (i.e., Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character, and Caring) model of PYD was a robust measure that could be assessed comparably during early adolescence, we tested a hierarchy of second-order confirmatory factor analysis models to assess the extent to which PYD can be measured equivalently across middle adolescence. Evidence was found for strict measurement invariance across three measurement occasions, including equivalence of first-order and second-order factor loadings, equality of intercepts of observed variables, and equality of item uniqueness and disturbances of the first-order factors. These results suggest that PYD can be measured in the same way across measurement occasions, a prerequisite for the study of development. Implications for research and application of being able to measure PYD equivalently across adolescence are discussed.     

Interparental Conflict,Parenting, and Childhood Depression in a Diverse Urban Population: The Role of General Cognitive Style

Research on the mechanisms by which interparental conflict (IPC) affects child depression suggests that both parenting and children’s conflict appraisals play important roles, but few studies have explored the role of general cognitive style or included both parenting and cognitions in the same design. Moreover, the effects of IPC on minority children are not well understood. In this longitudinal study, parenting was examined as a mediator of the relation between increasing IPC and change in depression. General cognitive style was included as a moderator. The combined influence of parenting and cognitions was also explored. A racially and ethnically diverse sample of 88 fifth and sixth graders from two urban schools reported their cognitive style, depressive symptoms, and perceptions of conflict and parenting at two time points separated by one year. Parental warmth/rejection mediated the relation between IPC and depression, and general cognitive style acted as a moderator. Parenting, cognitive style, and IPC did not significantly interact to predict change in depression over time. Findings indicate that both parenting and children’s general cognitive style play a role in understanding the impact of increasing IPC on children’s well-being.     

Does E-Government Measure Up to E-Business? Comparing End User Perceptions of U.S. Federal Government and E-Business Web Sites

This paper examines the federal government's success in implementing and providing high-quality service through e-government, something that has received very little attention. We define quality from the perspective of the end users of federal agency Web sites, as measured through customer survey data. Using data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, we compare the performance of federal agency Web sites across a range of relevant variables with a private sector equivalent, e-business Web sites. Our findings suggest that federal e-government Web sites are not yet, in the aggregate, providing the same level of quality as their e-business counterparts. We also find significant variability among federal agencies. We discuss the implications of these findings for e-government performance measurement, performance benchmarking, and the market-centered theories of administrative reform that are driving e-government and similar transformations of government practice.     

Developing the meat grab

‘Meat grabbing’ describes actually existing land deals undertaken for industrial meat production, either directly in the form of animal housing and stocking (confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs), or indirectly in the form of monocrop grain and oilseed production for livestock feed. Meat grabbing is also a concept for analyzing the relationships between industrial meat regimes, food security politics and the global land rush, relationships which have not yet been sufficiently considered in research or in policy. Using China's reform-era meat revolution as an analytical case, this paper proposes meat grabbing as a concept with three broad goals: (1) to show how industrial meat complicates notions of food security and of food security land grabs, (2) to incorporate social inequalities and environmental injustices into the conceptualization and measurement of land deals and (3) to expand dispossession's domain to include relationships between people and agroecosystems. This is an initial exploration of the content and framing of meat grabs, intended to synthesize its core features and raise questions for further study.     

The Longitudinal Role of Self-Concept Clarity and Best Friend Delinquency in Adolescent Delinquent Behavior

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Adolescence tends to be characterized by a temporary peak in delinquent behavior, and friends in particular play a key role in the initiation and the development...