Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The link between drug abuse and criminality is well established. Yet drug-involved offenders, who commonly are poor, often do not receive adequate substance abuse treatment. This study uses national treatment admissions data from 1992 through 2005 to examine state variations in the effect of presence or absence of health insurance and type of health insurance coverage on the type of substance abuse treatment program to which criminal justice system-referred individuals are admitted. Given that Medicaid is a common source of payment for treatment, this research accounts for state-level variations in substance abuse treatment coverage allowed by Medicaid. Multivariate analyses reveal that the type of health care coverage an individual has (e.g., Medicaid, private health insurance) is a salient predictor of the type of treatment program to which one is admitted (e.g., inpatient versus outpatient), after controlling for factors such as substance type, employment status and demographic characteristics (including whether one is a veteran). The implications of these findings for both criminal justice and public health policy are considered.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Caregiving and citizenship have a long history of mutual exclusivity and estrangement. Critiquing the current organization of care practices and the lack of public support for caregiving, care theorists and others have argued for rethinking our collective responsibilities toward caregivers. Care, noted for its relational and cooperative dimensions, has long thought to be at odds with liberal conceptions of rights, noted for its atomistic and competitive view of the individual. Nevertheless, several theorists advocate a right to care. Building on a critical assessment of their work, this paper develops an argument for the right to give care based on the significance of caregiving for the development and exercise of the capacity for affiliation. In this context, the paper begins to flesh out the complicated role of choice in care relationships.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Responding to a referral from a fellow applied sociologist, J. Barry Gurdin, Ph.D., signed a contract with a group of primarily Russian-speaking Kabbalists in the Bay Area of California as a grant and course writer. To clarify the content of his work, the sociologist began to participate and observe regularly groups of Kabbalists, the largest number of whom are Russian-speaking immigrants to the USA from the Commonwealth of Independent States; their separate English-speaking groups, composed of people interested in the Kabbalah who are representative of many different ethnic, racial, religious, and linguistic groups; and their internet broadcasts to many countries. The sociologist compares and contrasts the published books and public lectures of Rabbi Michael Laitman—student and personal assistant of the late Rabbi Baruch Ashlag, son of Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag, the author of the Sulam, the commentaries on The Zohar with those of Daniel C. Matt, who served as Professor of Jewish Spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, author of six books, most recently The Zohar: Pritzker Edition (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004). J. Barry Gurdin also makes less extensive comparisons and contrasts with other Kabbalah groups, such as Chochmat HaLev, and others with internet sites. While working on his writing contract, Gurdin realized that he had been doing informal participant observations and upon this realization, inquired if his clients would agree to his formalizing them by requesting permission for the people he had observed and participated with to report on his findings at a sociological conference and in newspaper articles. When his clients agreed to his request, he began to conduct formal interviews and write field notes on the different groups. In this presentation, J. Barry Gurdin will play and comment on videotapes and DVDs of Bay Area Kabbalists done in 2003 and 2004, and will compare and contrast the differing traditions of this great work of developing spirituality.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The movement of people across national borders, whether as labor migrants, refugees, or tourists, is one of the most remarkable and visible features of globalization. In this paper I use Philadelphia (US) and Manchester (UK) as examples of what I propose to be a distinctive type of migrant-receiving city: the second city. I explore the distinctive migration patterns that distinguish second from global cities. First, sources for international migration concentrate in just a few countries. Second, internal migration is relatively more important for second cities; the proportions of internal to international migration are higher than in global cities. Furthermore, this internal migration is often rural-to-urban migration by people from an ethnically distinct background subject to substantial discrimination.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study was an effort to examine the impact of receivers-involvement with the topic on the effects of health risk messages. It employed a 2 (low vs. high level of involvement with the topic) X 2 (physical vs. social threat) X 2 (within-subject pretest vs. posttest) X 4 (four countries) mixed repeated-measures design. Participants in the experiment were first pre-screened for their age and nationality. Pretest questionnaires were distributed to the participants recruited for the study. To qualify for the experiment, the participants had to be between the ages of 18 and 25, and they had to be citizens of Malaysia, Singapore, England, and the U.S., respectively. Of the 911 college students who participated in the pretest, a total of 700 students completed the experiment and posttest. Regardless of message condition, country, and time, participants with high level of involvement with the topic all reported greater perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived response efficacy, intention to use condoms, condom interpersonal impact, knowledge about gonorrhea scores, fear arousal, and perceived content learning, but lower scores for message reactance and defensive avoidance than participants with low level of involvement. Participants with high level of involvement with the topic also had greater increase in posttest scores for perceived susceptibility, perceived response efficacy, perceived self-efficacy, intention to use condoms, and condom self-control than participants with low level of involvement.