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.     

Assessing Causality in the Relationship Between Adolescents’ Risky Sexual Online Behavior and Their Perceptions of this Behavior

The main aim of this study was to investigate the causal nature of the relationship between adolescents’ risky sexual behavior on the internet and their perceptions of this behavior. Engagement in the following online behaviors was assessed: searching online for someone to talk about sex, searching online for someone to have sex, sending intimate photos or videos to someone online, and sending one’s telephone number and address to someone exclusively known online. The relationship between these behaviors and adolescents’ perceptions of peer involvement, personal invulnerability, and risks and benefits was investigated. A two-wave longitudinal study among a representative sample of 1,445 Dutch adolescents aged 12–17 was conducted (49% females). Autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation models revealed that perceived peer involvement, perceived vulnerability, and perceived risks were all significant predictors of risky sexual online behavior 6 months later. No reverse causal paths were found. When the relationships between perceptions and risky sexual online behavior were modeled simultaneously, only perceived peer involvement was a determinant of risky sexual online behavior. Findings highlight the importance of addressing peer involvement in future interventions to reduce adolescents’ risky sexual online behavior.     

Pathways for Preparation: Locating Suicide Education in Preparing Professionals for Encounters with Suicidal Adolescents

Current suicide prevention strategies often include suicide education based on the premise that education can lead to recognition of those at risk of suicide and others who are prepared can respond and potentially save lives. As suicide is a leading cause of death for young people, it is relevant to explore how suicide education is made available to those who serve this population. In a comprehensive review of the existing literature, the presence of suicide content along the path through pre-service programs is examined. While education may be a central part of youth suicide prevention efforts, this review of the literature suggests the following needs: (a) a need for more overt inclusion of suicide content, (b) future examination of suicide content within pre-service programs not yet considered, and (c) appraisal and innovation in suicide pedagogical approaches to determine how preparedness may be enhanced and linked to subsequent practical action.     

Media Priming in a Multi-Party Context: A Controlled Naturalistic Study in Political Communication

This study investigates media priming effects in the context of a Summit meeting of European Union (EU) leaders. It differs in four ways from most previous non-experimental priming studies: (1) it provides survey data accompanied by a content analysis of the news, (2) it compares priming effects on evaluations of a number of political leaders, who differed in their visibility in the news, (3) it involves an issue with low salience, and (4) it studies priming effects in the context of a European Parliamentary democracy. The study involves a two-wave panel study (before and after the Summit) on a representative sample of 817 Dutch adults, and a content analysis of the newspaper and television news in the 8 weeks leading up to the Summit meeting. The study shows that media priming effects occur only for the politicians who appeared visible in the news in connection with the issue. The media priming effects were not significantly moderated by political attentiveness or by political knowledge. We also explore the aggregate level consequences of priming for the popularity of leaders, and demonstrate that, as a result of media priming, two politicians became more popular, despite having received a bad press.

Trust Your Compatriots, but Count Your Change: The Roles of Trust, Mistrust and Distrust in Democracy

Although trust is clearly central to human relations of all kinds, it is less clear whether there is a role for trust in democratic politics. In this article, I argue that trust is central to democratic institutions as well as to democratic political participation, and that arguments which make distrust the central element of democracy fail. First, I argue for the centrality of trust to the democratic process. The voluntary compliance that is central to democracies relies on trust, along two dimensions: citizens must trust their legislators to have the national interest in mind and citizens must trust each other to abide by democratically established laws. Second, I refute arguments that place distrust at the centre of democratic institutions. I argue, instead, that citizens must be vigilant with respect to their legislators and fellow citizens; that is, they must be willing to ensure that the institutions are working fairly and that people continue to abide by shared regulations. This vigilance – which is reflected both in a set of institutions as well as an active citizenry – is motivated by an attitude termed 'mistrust'. Mistrust is a cautious attitude that propels citizens to maintain a watchful eye on the political and social happenings within their communities. Moreover, mistrust depends on trust: we trust fellow citizens to monitor for abuses of our own rights and privileges just as we monitor for abuses of their rights and privileges. Finally, I argue that distrust is inimical to democracy. We are, consequently, right to worry about widespread reports of trust's decline. Just as distrust is harmful to human relations of all kinds, and just as trust is central to positive human relations of all kinds, so is distrust inimical to democracy and trust central to its flourishing.     

Public views of illegal migration policy and control strategies: A test of the core hypotheses

Illegal migration into the United States continues to be an important and contentious issue in the early stages of the twenty-first century. An important aspect of the contemporary migration debate is public opinion toward the various policy and control initiatives that have recently been discussed. This study used public opinion data from a 2006 study conducted by the Pew Research Center to test seven core hypotheses generated by prior academic research to explain variation in public support for cracking down on illegal migration into the United States (economic threat, culture threat, ethnic affect, core values, cultural affinity, contact, and group threat). The analysis found support for the economic threat, cultural threat, ethnic affect, core values, and cultural affinity hypotheses. The study found limited support for the contact hypothesis and no support for the group threat hypothesis. Semi-standardized coefficients were generated and suggested that the strongest predictors of support for enhanced controls on illegal migration were the cultural threat and cultural affinity measures. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Racial Differences in Public Support for the Death Penalty: Can Racist sentiment and Core Values Explain the Racial Divide?

Prior research has established a strong and enduring “racial divide” in support for capital punishment, but little research has explored the processes that explain the racial divide. Following the lead of Unnever and Cullen (Social Forces 85:1281–1301, 2007a), this research explores whether racist sentiment and core values (individualism, egalitarianism, symbolic patriotism, and authoritarianism) can partially explain the racial divide in public support for capital punishment. The findings suggest that racist sentiment by Whites and belief in core values by Whites partially explains the racial divide in support for capital punishment.     

Feminist perspectives on empowering research methodologies

This paper focuses on what feminist thought and practice add to the emergence of a postpositivist era in the human sciences. After delineating key assumptions regarding postpositivism, three questions are addressed: What does it mean to do feminist research? What can be learned about research as praxis and practices of self-reflexivity from looking at feminist efforts to create empowering research designs? And, finally, what are the implications of poststructuralist thought and practice for feminist empirical work?