State-Society-Culture Dynamics

Instead of a conversation, I am using the opportunity in the form of a comment on my previous post on ` College Education: US Racial Groups and Sex in the United States, 2000-2010’ to post another blog entry.  To address the comments adequately, I decided against a rapid two statements reply. First, here is the comment: “Did you test for the significance of your statistics? I am Hispanic, a woman, and an American. I have a PhD, two Master's degree (sic), and speak 6 foreign languages. I also know other Hispanics like me. I demand to know to what extent your findings are likely to be artifacts of biased sampling Latina2012” Dr. Latina2012, your second sentence suggests you doubt the statistical report and summary because you yourself, as a Hispanic, are highly educated (congratulations on your multiple advanced degrees; you did not however, state in what subject/areas. And I wonder from which institutions?) I too have a PhD (University of Southern California, Department...

The US Census reports the percent of US population, aged 25 and above, with college education (successfully attained) throughout the years [in this post, from 2000 to 2010]. To make comparisons across racial groups easier I averaged the levels through these years.  The results are interesting. First the Asians, as a broad racial group have the highest rate of college education compared to the rest of the US population. This has always been true throughout the entire period.  At least half of the Asian population of ages 25 and above have college degrees, compared with barely a third of Whites, which is the racial group ranking next, followed by Blacks, and lastly, the Hispanics. When broken down into the sexes, several interesting patterns can be seen.  Both Asian and White men have more college degrees than women; this pattern is reversed for Blacks and Hispanics whose women have more college degrees than men. I note also striking gender differences among t...

In the survey year 2002, when asked as to the orientation of sexual attraction, females of ages 18 to 44 said that 85 percent of them were attracted only to the opposite sex, so that we may infer that the remainder, 15 percent, were either bisexually or homosexually attracted.  The comparative figures for men were 92 percent heterosexually attracted, so that 8 percent were either bisexually or homosexually attracted.  In the survey year 2006-2008, only 83 percent of American young females were exclusively attracted to the opposite sex, thereby increasing the percent attracted to the same sex.  American men displayed an opposite trend, because in the later survey period (2006-2008), 93 percent were attracted to the opposite sex, decreasing the percent bisexually or homosexually attracted to 7 percent.  In both sexes, there were less than 1 percent who were “not sure”. However, when directly asked to identify the gender category to which they belonged, the percen...

The US Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports comprehensive and nationally representative survey data on sexual predispositions and behavior among Americans aged 15 to 44 in two time periods: in the year 2002 and the years 2006-2008 (National survey of Family Growth). Here, I comment (only) on the divergences (and seeming contradictions) between the prevalence of homosexual acts, homosexual attraction and sexual identity among young Americans. I would be gratified if anyone says that a critique like this can contribute to the dialogue on gender and sexuality, or less ambitiously, to aid policy analysis and implementation of health measures and improve practices. But to be honest, I do it to practice my research analytical skills. As an instructor on research design and statistics, I might also put this up as an example of logical deconstruction and argumentation. I am particularly interested in validity and reliability of resp...