Exploring the Relationship between Demographic Isolation and Professional Experiences of Black and Latinx Teachers

Educational leaders throughout the United States have repeatedly emphasized the importance of increasing the number of Black and Latinx teachers in American schools. Prior qualitative work suggests that Black and Latinx teachers who are demographically isolated in their schools often report negative experiences. Drawing on theories of proportional representation in organizations, we use Tennessee statewide survey and administrative data to examine whether self-reported professional experiences of Black and Latinx teachers are different when they are demographically isolated. We estimate models using two measures of demographic isolation: a continuous measure and a theoretically generated ordinal measure. We find that, for Black teachers, the percentage of Black teachers in the school is positively associated with teachers’ perceived satisfaction and support and with the frequency of collaboration. There is also some evidence of threshold effects of demographic isolation for Black teachers, as Black teachers in schools in which at least 60% of fellow teachers are Black report significantly higher satisfaction and support than other Black teachers. Our models do not find any associations between isolation and professional experience for Latinx teachers, but a small sample size and lack of variation in demographic isolation among Latinx teachers makes it difficult to estimate these associations. Our findings suggest that both ordinal and continuous measures of demographic isolation may be useful when examining relationships between demographic isolation and workplace experiences. Because we study factors linked to turnover in prior research, these analyses can contribute to the broader discussion about the retention of Black and Latinx teachers.

Effects of March of Dimes Supportive Pregnancy Care on Social Support and Postpartum Depression

Purpose Group prenatal care, which integrates medical care with patient education and empowerment in a group setting, has the potential to build social support among pregnant women and reduce the risk of postpartum depression (PPD). Past research on group care’s effects on social support or PPD has produced inconsistent findings. Studies have tended to (1) examine direct effects on social support or PPD and (2) treat group care participation as a dichotomous variable. This study tests the hypothesis that group care has an indirect effect on PPD through its effect on social support. It uses both a dichotomous measure of group care participation and an ordinal measure of social contact with group members. Method This study used survey data from 199 women at two Tennessee health care sites who participated in traditional care (TC) or Supportive Pregnancy Care (SPC), a new group program developed by March of Dimes. Path analysis was employed, estimating standardized path coefficients with propensity score weighted multilevel modeling. Results The study found no evidence of an indirect relationship between SPC and PPD symptoms when modeling the dichotomous measure. Modeling the ordinal measure revealed more favorable PPD outcomes among women reporting high group member contact (compared with TC) and adverse outcomes among women reporting low group member contact. Conclusion SPC may be useful for preventing PPD symptoms among women socially engaged with other group care patients. Given the adverse effect among women who do not engage with other group members, group facilitators should encourage women to interact outside of scheduled sessions.

Binary and Nonbinary Measures of Successful Aging: Do They Yield Comparable Conclusions?

Recently, some researchers have employed nonbinary measures of successful aging. Little has been done to determine whether these newer measures yield similar findings compared to traditional binary measures. To test for differences, three measures of successful aging were constructed within five waves of the Americans’ Changing Lives data set. A number of demographic, behavioral, and psychosocial predictors were used to predict each outcome, examining whether estimates of effect sizes and statistical significance were similar across measures. Although many effect sizes were similar, conclusions regarding statistical significance were inconsistent. For instance, the binary measure downplayed income gradients, the ordinal measure found more racial disparities, and the continuous measure was most likely to detect effects for stressful life events. These differences may be due to the statistical techniques used to handle each outcome. Results imply that uneven application of operationalization approaches may complicate replication efforts, suggesting a need for consistent measurement standards.

Consistency Test of Revealed Comparative Advantage Index: Evidence from India’s Agricultural Export

This article analyses the competitiveness of India’s agricultural products in world markets. Four indices of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) were used at the four-digit level of harmonized system (HS) of classification for the period of 1996–2015. Under live animal products, 7 out of 26 products showed RCA. For vegetable products, 21 out of 58 showed strong RCA. For products like animal or vegetable fat and prepared foodstuff, 2 out of 16 and 9 out of 49 showed RCA, respectively. Further, the consistency tests reveal that the indices are less satisfactory as the cardinal and dichotomous measures but relatively satisfactory as ordinal measure. Hence, study would propose an ordinal interpretation of RCAs indices for better policy formulation. The study has also found the pattern of RCA indices to be fairly stable over the years. JEL Codes: F1, Q1

Disclosure of pension asset allocation and expected rate of return management

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the expected rate of return (ERR) management is related to disclosure of pension asset allocation. FAS 132R(1), which requires firms to disaggregate the detailed categories of pension asset allocation, provides a natural experiment setting for investigating the effect of enhanced transparency on firm behavior. Design/methodology/approach The authors focus on the variation of voluntary disclosure and its effect on ERR management under the two different reporting regimes. The authors measure the variation of voluntary disclosure of the pension asset allocations in the pre-period of FAS 132R(1), by using the self-constructed disclosure score. Findings First, firms create flexibility in their choice of ERR through opaque disclosure of pension asset allocation. Next, firms with poor disclosures are more likely to adjust ERR downward when accounting standards require greater transparency, implying that, for firms with poor disclosures, mandated transparency in pension asset allocation plays a vital role in reducing the ERR management. Research limitations/implications The authors directly illustrate the impact of FAS 132R(1) on ERR management. The authors find that the impact of mandated transparency is not uniform across firms. Next, this study highlights the importance of disclosure in restricting managers’ earnings management motivation. Originality/value The authors hand collect the asset allocations under pre-FAS 132R(1) period from the 10-K pension footnotes for all S&P 500 firms, which allows the authors to identify the disclosure variation amongst the firms. Based on the variation of disclosure, the authors construct the ordinal measure of disclosure scores on which the testing indicator variables are built.

Foundations of Rivalry Research

Rivalry is pervasive in many areas of life. Though rivalry is not isolated to international politics, interstate rivalries are particularly important given their conflict propensities and destructiveness. Tremendous progress has been made in determining the causes of rivalry initiation, maintenance, escalation, and termination. What we know empirically about rivalry, however, hinges on how the concept of rivalry is defined and which dyads are identified as rivals for which periods of time. Though the what, who, and when questions of rivalry may seem straightforward and the answers to such questions in some cases obvious, defining and identifying rivals has not been without scholarly controversy. There are several approaches to conceptualizing and operationalizing rivalry. Each approach has strengths and weaknesses. Dispute density approaches, for example, which identify rivals as states that engage in repeated instances of militarized conflict over time, have higher levels of measurement reliability than validity. The strategic rivalry approach, on the other hand, which identifies rivals as states that view one another as threatening competitors and enemies, has a higher level of measurement validity than reliability. Rather than advocating one approach over another, the intent of this article is to lay bare the strengths and weaknesses of different ways of identifying cases of rivalry. Existing rivalry research provides a foundation from which to further develop rivalry approaches. Given that the concept of rivalry has only recently been applied outside of the dyadic interstate context, additive research is still needed on rivalry in intrastate, triadic and multistate, and other settings. Due to the existence of several mature dyadic interstate rivalry approaches, on the other hand, developing additional distinct approaches for the dyadic interstate context is less imperative than integrating existing approaches. There are several ways this can potentially be done, such as by combining elements of multiple perspectives in ways that minimize weaknesses, through conceptual mapping, or by developing an ordinal measure of rivalry.