When Knowing is Caring: Examining the Relationship Between Diversity Exposure and PSM

2020 ◽  
pp. 0734371X2096665
Author(s):  
Stephen Holt ◽  
Heasun Choi

While public service motivation (PSM) provides an important theory for understanding the motivations that underpin public sector worker behavior, theoretical connections to the institutional forces that produce and shape PSM remains underexamined. Given other-orientated motives that define part of PSM, exposure to peers from a variety of social backgrounds presents an input that may shape PSM earlier in life. Drawing on insights from intergroup contact theory, we use a nationally representative dataset of high school sophomores to examine the effect of school-level diversity along demographic and socioeconomic dimensions on students’ PSM-related values. Specifically, we use a fixed-effects approach to isolate the contribution of 10th grade exposure to students of a different race or socioeconomic background on 12th grade measures of PSM-related values. We find attending schools with a balanced mix of different-race students has a large and statistically significant impact on students’ PSM-related values by the end of secondary school.

Author(s):  
Beint Magnus Aamodt Bentsen

AbstractNegative attitudes towards out-groups have been of academic interest for many years — and even more so with the increased levels of migration to European countries in recent years. Building on insights from intergroup contact theory, this paper seeks to extend our knowledge of the association between contact and negative attitudes toward immigrants among youth in Sweden. Multiple regression analysis and fixed effects models are used to analyze a large, high-quality dataset on Swedish adolescents based on representative survey information, complemented with extensive registry data and official statistics. Our objective is to measure contact on different levels in order to better understand the importance of these different contact variables’ associations with negative attitudes. The results of the analysis indicate that high-quality contact in the form of friendship is associated with a reduction in negative attitudes among Swedish adolescents, even after controlling for background variables. Superficial forms of contact — measured on the school level — are, on the other hand, associated with an increase in negative attitudes.


Author(s):  
Yulia I. Raynik ◽  
Hans-Helmut König ◽  
André Hajek

Background: The question of whether employees’ sickness absence from the workplace depends on personality has been researched. Existing evidence mostly stems from cross-sectional studies, mainly showing that personality factors were not associated with the number of sick leave days, except for neuroticism, which was positively associated with sick leave days. Based on the above, it remains an under researched question whether intraindividual changes in personality factors are associated with changes in sick leave days. Thus, based on a nationally representative sample, the current study aimed to investigate the relationship between personality factors and sick leave days longitudinally based on a nationally representative sample of individuals in Germany. Methods: The present study used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), a longitudinal survey of private households in Germany. Information from the years 2005, 2009, 2013 were used. The Big Five Inventory-GSOEP (BFI-S) was used to measure personality. Sick leave days in the preceding year were recorded. Poisson fixed effects regressions were used. Results: Adjusting for potential confounders, regressions showed that increases in neuroticism were associated with increased sick leave days. The longitudinal association between extraversion and sick leave days was marginally significant (p < 0.10). Other personality factors were not significantly associated with sick leave days. In addition, sick leave days increased with worsening self-rated health, presence of severe disability and increasing age. Conclusions: The findings of the current study highlight the association between neuroticism and sick leave days longitudinally. Further research is required to elucidate the underlying mechanisms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Hellen Joseph Njura ◽  
Kaberia Isaac Kubai ◽  
Simon Thuranira Taaliu ◽  
Kakai Shem Khakame

The continued food insecurity, despite the teaching of agriculture amidst the novel coronavirus (Covid-19), is a major global concern especially in Africa. There is food shortage in Africa and Kenya in particular despite the teaching of agriculture as a major subject in secondary schools. Many youth who have graduated from Kenyan secondary schools cannot adequately employ the agricultural skills developed during and after school for food security. The teaching approaches employed in secondary school agriculture should be able to develop skills of students on the aspects of food production, its accessibility, food safety, and nutrition as well as production economics. Towards this direction, this paper investigates the relationship between the agricultural teaching approaches employed in secondary schools and food security in Kenya. The study adopted descriptive survey design where data were collected using an Agriculture Teachers’ Interview Schedule, a Students’ Focus Group Discussion Guide, and a Parent’s Questionnaire and were then analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The research findings established that the lecture method, class discussions, class projects, problem solving, and tours and field trips were the common methods in agriculture classes. Though recommended in the literature review section, digital learning was hardly mentioned as a teaching approach for this study. A major conclusion for this study is that there is statistically insignificant relationship between the teaching approaches and food security. There are other factors not in the scope of this study that could be affecting food security and can be tackled at secondary school level. This paper makes a contribution to the growing body of knowledge by highlighting research gaps worth investigation on the relationship between the agricultural teaching approaches and food security that were beyond the scope of the study.


2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara R. Jaffee ◽  
Caitlin McPherran Lombardi ◽  
Rebekah Levine Coley

AbstractMarried men engage in significantly less antisocial behavior than unmarried men, but it is not clear whether this reflects a causal relationship. Instead, the relationship could reflect selection into marriage whereby the men who are most likely to marry (men in steady employment with high levels of education) are the least likely to engage in antisocial behavior. The relationship could also be the result of reverse causation, whereby high levels of antisocial behavior are a deterrent to marriage rather than the reverse. Both of these alternative processes are consistent with the possibility that some men have a genetically based proclivity to become married, known as an active genotype–environment correlation. Using four complementary methods, we tested the hypothesis that marriage limits men's antisocial behavior. These approaches have different strengths and weaknesses and collectively help to rule out alternative explanations, including active genotype–environment correlations, for a causal association between marriage and men's antisocial behavior. Data were drawn from the in-home interview sample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a large, longitudinal survey study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in the United States. Lagged negative binomial and logistic regression and propensity score matching models (n = 2,250), fixed-effects models of within-individual change (n = 3,061), and random-effects models of sibling differences (n = 618) all showed that married men engaged in significantly less antisocial behavior than unmarried men. Our findings replicate results from other quasiexperimental studies of marriage and men's antisocial behavior and extend the results to a nationally representative sample of young adults in the United States.


2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 706-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Jeynes

This meta-analysis of 51 studies examines the relationship between various kinds of parental involvement programs and the academic achievement of pre-kindergarten-12th-grade school children. Analyses determined the effect sizes for various parental involvement programs overall and subcategories of involvement. Results indicate a significant relationship between parental involvement programs overall and academic achievement, both for younger (preelementary and elementary school) and older (secondary school) students as well as for four types of parental involvement programs. Parental involvement programs, as a whole, were associated with higher academic achievement by .3 of a standard deviation unit. The significance of these results is discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (7) ◽  
pp. 882-899
Author(s):  
Kathleen Fraysier ◽  
Amy Reschly ◽  
James Appleton

As the economic landscape changes, a college degree has become increasingly necessary for securing employment in an information-based society. Student engagement is an important factor in predicting and preventing high school dropout, and improving student outcomes. Although the relationship between secondary school engagement and high school completion is well supported in existing research, the relationship between secondary school engagement and postsecondary enrollment and persistence is unclear. In this study, we examined whether students’ engagement in high school predicts postsecondary matriculation and persistence in the first year after accounting for demographic and school-level variables. Results indicated secondary student engagement does predict postsecondary enrollment and persistence beyond academic and behavioral variables. Consistent with research among secondary students, the Future Goals and Aspirations Scale of the Student Engagement Instrument was the strongest engagement predictor. Results have implications for early warning systems and college retention efforts.


2012 ◽  
Vol 232 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mir M. Ali

SummaryIn this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of cigarette taxes as a mechanism to reduce smoking rates among adolescents. In our model, we categorize individuals by their smoking frequencies and intensities instead of relying on the widely used dichotomous measure of smoking. Using data of a nationally representative sample of adolescents, we use an endogenity corrected model with school-level fixed effects to obtain our estimates. Moving beyond the conventional definition of smoking to a definition that recognizes the complex nature of addiction by categorizing smoking into various stages and also by controlling for peer and family effects together, we learn that adolescents are not necessarily the most responsive to taxes. Influence from peers and family plays a more significant role in influencing adolescent smoking.


2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthijs Kalmijn

Using nationally representative data on secondary school children in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, this study describes the relationships that children have with their fathers after divorce. Differences in the post-divorce relationship are explained in terms of demographic factors, socioeconomic factors, and contextual differences (between countries and between immigrants and natives). The focus is on living arrangements after divorce, the amount of contact with the father, and the perceived quality of the relationship. Many children have at least weekly contact with their father but one in six children never see their father at all. Fathers in high-status families are more highly involved in the child’s life after divorce than fathers in low-status families. A mother’s employment also has a positive effect on the post-divorce relationship with the father. Co-parenting is most common in Sweden. Post-divorce relationships are also strongest in Sweden and relatively weak in Germany. Immigrant children see their fathers less often after divorce than native children. In the second generation, children of mixed marriages in particular tend to have little contact with the father.


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