Critiques recent research on the effects of birth order on intelligence and personality, which found that the between-family design revealed that birth order negatively related to intelligence, while the within-family design revealed that birth order was unrelated to intelligence. Suggests that it may not be intelligence that co-varies with birth…

Critiques Rodgers et al.'s June 2000 research on the relation between birth order and intelligence, which suggests that it is a methodological illusion. Explains how the intellectual environment and the teaching function (whereby older children tutor younger ones) contribute to the growth of intellectual maturity, the first negatively and the…

Discusses how in the literature of critical pedagogy, resistance theory analyzes, ranks, and judges the emancipatory value of writing behaviors, privileging nonreproductive and transformative consciousness over cultural reproduction. Notes that the ranking of consciousness and the central metaphor of "reproduction" too often are naively…

Study evaluated referrals of students (N=1,222) for special education from grades K-5 to determine if youngest children were experiencing a higher rate of referral. Data confirmed the hypothesis that children referred for evaluations within the 5- to 7-year-old-group had summer birthdates. Article discusses ways of providing educational services…

Examines the relation of scientific research on intelligence to issues of public policy by reviewing a critical analysis of the Infant Health and Development Program, an early intervention program for low birth weight infants. Early intervention research can play an important role in shaping public policy. (SLD)

Investigates the potential impact of statutory rape laws on teen fertility and initiation of sexual activity. Shows that misleading conclusions about the extent to which teen girls engage in sexual activities with older men may be drawn if these conclusions are based simply on data on births. States that successful enforcement of statutory rape…

At a southwestern public university, 242 students responded to a questionnaire about their credit-card use and attitudes. The results revealed that about 70 percent of the students held one or more credit cards, and about 10 percent had five or more credit cards. Twenty-two percent never kept copies of their charge slips, and only 49 percent paid…

Community attitudes toward birth fathers were examined using 82 exploratory qualitative interviews and 706 survey respondents in Canada. Community attitudes were more positive toward birth fathers raising their children over adoption, when birth mothers were unable or unwilling to parent the child. Overall, respondents considered birth fathers…

Life history theory provided a framework for examining the relations among child sexual abuse (CSA), childhood adversity, and patterns of reproductive development and behavior. A community survey that assessed CSA, life history variables (e.g., age of menarche), and social and family background was administered to 623 women (mean age=26.9 years).…

This paper proposes a blended experimental and quasi-experimental research strategy which we believe will help improve the external validity of evaluations of welfare reform and other social policies. We draw upon data from New Jersey's imposition of a family cap, where welfare benefits instead of increasing remained the same for women who…

We update and extend prior research on residential differences in women's family formation experiences using data from the 1995 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth. Residential differences in the timing of family formation behaviors are examined, including first birth, first cohabitation, and first marriage. Our study emphasizes the…

Using evidence from demographic and survey data, this research examines how one decade of post-socialism has changed the life planning of young East German women. Aggregate data reflect marriage and fertility postponement and increased nonmarital birth rates and cohabitation. The analysis shows East German women's stubbornness (Dolling, 2003) in…

Although female employment is associated with lower levels of completed fertility in the civilian world, we find family formation rates among U.S. military women to be comparatively high. We compare enlisted women with civilian women using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,547), the only data set to measure simultaneously the…

A growing literature examines the empirical relationship between the joint reproductive preferences of marital partners and reproductive outcomes in Africa. Less explored is how spousal power in decision making may be influenced by lineage type. Using pooled data from Ghana, we investigate how lineage affects gendered reproductive decision…

Approximately half of non-marital births are to mothers in cohabiting relationships, and an additional 30% are to mothers in visiting relationships. I use data (N= 1,945) from the Fragile Families Study to investigate whether the determinants of marriage in the year following a child's birth are similar for cohabiting and visiting parents. The…