The life history calendar: a technique for collecting retrospective data.

"This paper details the authors' selection, design, and use of a life history calendar (LHC) to collect retrospective life course data. A sample of nine hundred [U.S.] 23-year-olds, originally interviewed in 1980, were asked about the incidence and timing of various life events in the nine years since their 15th birthday.... The following aspects of the LHC are described: (a) the concept, uses, and advantages of the LHC, (b) the time units and domains used, (c) the mode of recording the responses and the decisions and problems involved, (d) interviewer training, and (e) coding. The following results attest to the accuracy of the LHC retrospective data: (a) only four of the calendars had missing data in any month; (b) the data obtained in 1980 about current work, school attendance, marriage, and children showed a remarkable correspondence to the retrospective 1985 LHC reports of these events; (c) the interviewers were positive about the LHC's ability to increase respondent recall."

The influence of the family on premarital sexual attitudes and behavior.

This research has expanded our understanding of the determinants of adolescent sexuality in several directions. We have used a study of mothers and children to construct and estimate a model of the intergenerational transmission of sexual attitudes and behavior. With data collected from both mothers and children, we were able to proceed further than most past research and to consider both the attitudes and behaviors of mothers as reported by the mothers themselves. These data permitted an investigation of the determinants of maternal attitudes concerning adolescent sexuality as well as an examination of the influences of the attitudes and experiences of mothers on the attitudes, perceptions, and behavior of children. Obviously, limiting the study to white families prevents generalization of our findings to other subgroups of the population. The findings demonstrate the importance and relevance of parental and adolescent attitudes in understanding adolescent sexuality. Premarital sexuality is a salient issue to both young people and their parents. There are, however, very important and substantial differences in the attitudes of parents and children. On average, the attitudes of young people today are much less restrictive than those of their parents, reflecting either life cycle differences or the impact of social change. The intergenerational difference is recognized by young people themselves and probably affects the ability of parents to assist their maturing children in adjusting to and dealing with their sexuality--a difficulty likely to be reflected in the relative lack of success sexually active young people have in preventing pregnancy. Our findings also add to the research literature in demonstrating that although children, on average, have more permissive attitudes than their parents, the attitudes of individual parents tend to be reflected in the attitudes of individual children. Children whose mothers have less restrictive attitudes have, on average, less restrictive attitudes themselves. Further, the attitudes of mothers are also reflected in the behavior of their children, so on average, mothers with more permissive attitudes have children who are more sexually active. The influence of maternal attitudes, however, is stronger for children's attitudes than for their behavior. Of course, variability in children's attitudes and behavior--and even their perceptions of maternal attitudes--can only be partially explained by the attitudes of their mothers; but presumably, if the attitudes of other important family members, including fathers and siblings, were known, the prediction of adolescent attitudes would improve.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Fertility, sex role attitudes, and labor force participation.

PIP: Data from the 1979 U. S. National Fertility Study were used to examine the relationship between fertility, sex role attitudes, and labor force participation. Respondents were assigned 4 sex role index scores on the basis of their responses to 18 questions. The indexes measured the degree to which the women 1) were oriented to the home; 2) believed males should be given preference in the job area; 3) opposed special privileges for working women; and 4) attributed passive roles to women. High scores indicated acceptance of traditional sex roles. Data on 3 labor force participation variables and on 3 fertility variables were also collected. The impact of sex role attitudes on fertility was examined 1st and then the impact of sex roles on fertility as mediated through work force participation was examined. Multivariate analysis was used. Analysis revealed that when other relevant factors were controlled, high scores on the home oriented and passivity indexes were significantly and positively related to fertility and home oriented index scores were negatively and significantly related to labor force participation. Women who were oriented to the home were less likely to be currently employed or to have plans to work in the future. Women with high passivity scores had higher parity than women with low passivity scores; however, high passivity scores were not significantly related to the number of additional children. This finding probably indicated that women with low passivity scores felt a lack of control over their child bearing in the past and expected to have little control over their child bearing in the future.^ieng

An experiment in social engineering in serving the families of predelinquents.

One hundred and two predelinquent adolescents were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: an experimental condition in which behavioral contracting services were offered both at home and in school or a control condition in which clients were told that they could not be accomodated by project therapists and were informed about the possibility of their receiving treatment in other programs in the community. Most of those who were assigned to the control condition did not avail themselves of services in these other programs. Results indicate that, relative to the controls, the behaviorally treated youth scored small but statistically significant improvement relative to the controls on five measures: ratings of school behavior by the person who originally referred them for service, by their teachers, by their mothers, and by their fathers, and ratings of their parent-child interactions as measured by their mothers. Gains were also reported in mother's ratings of their children's behavior at home. The failure of significant gains to be made in two measures of school performance--grades and attendance--is explained by the failure of the treatment techniques to over-come an age-related deterioration in these areas found among most children in the participating schools. The failure of fathers to find significant improvement in their relationships with the referred adolescents is viewed as a consequence of unanticipated changes in the intrafamilial balance of power resulting from contracting services. Finally, a subsidiary analysis showed that the contracting service appeared to offer the greatest gain to the demographically defined sub-groups of youths who are among the population-at-risk in many juvenile courts.