Jessica Donnelly
Word Count: 552
The first article, Race and Gender Differences in Self-Efficacy: Assessing the Role of Gender Role Attitudes and Family Background, by Tom Buchanan and Nikesha Selmon, conducted research using data gathered from a convenience sample of approximately 486 students, in general education classes at a university in the Mid-South. Participants were asked questions regarding self-efficacy, race, and gender. These questions were given with provided answer choices, typically being a scale from 1 to 5, (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree), or a series of yes or no responses, (e.g. African-American: yes or no). These questions tested eight hypotheses which aimed to find correlation between gender role liberalism and race and their effects on self-efficacy.
The results of this survey are best interpreted through their level of support of each hypotheses being tested. There was no significant difference in self-efficacy levels between African-Americans and whites, which supports Hypothesis 1. Race is a contributing factor when testing for a correlation between gender and self-efficacy. This supports Hypothesis 2, which suggests differences in self-efficacy levels between male and female African-Americans and male and female whites. The results support both Hypotheses 3 and 4. It is found that liberal gender role attitudes are more common among females, and further they are more common among African-Americans than whites. The results show a positive association between sex role liberalism and self-efficacy for African-Americans and whites. This supports Hypothesis 5. The survey found African-Americans to have a similar relationship between sex role liberalism and self-efficacy, regardless of gender. Findings also showed inconsistency between white males and white females regarding sex role liberalism and self-efficacy. These findings support Hypothesis 6. Hypothesis 7 looks into the mother's employment status, which potentially influences self-efficacy. However, the findings of the survey did not support a positive relationship between mother's full time employment status and level of self-efficacy. Hypothesis 8 suggests households with a single mother family will produce lower self-efficacy among men. The findings of this survey did not offer significant support of this hypothesis. The findings of this survey offer insight into sex role attitudes, race, and their effects on self-efficacy.
The second article, Re-thinking the decline in trust: A comparison of black and white Americans, by Rima Wilke, discusses the methods and findings of a survey in the General Social Survey. This survey sought to find an explanation for the decrease in trust, focused on the differences in responses between black and white respondents. The data in focus came from data in the 1972-2008 General Social Survey. This data was used to find support for the two suggested reasons for the decrease in trust. The first reason would be the different trust levels across different generations. The second reason looks at period effects, including outside experiences and population changes as a whole. The data used to support these suggested reasons is looked at through various models, including cross-classified random effects models, and mixed models. The models considered age (classified by separate cohorts), levels of trust, period effects, and demographics.
The findings of the first two models show a decline in trust that can be attributed to period effects. Respondents born in later cohorts tend to be less trusting. Model 3 shows a significant impact of education and race on trust. Model 4 reveals a pattern in which a decline in trust for whites is apparent, where no apparent decline is recognized for blacks. Overall the findings of these models showed variability in the responses of white Americans and little to no variability in black Americans for all variables tested.
No comments:
Post a Comment