The Changing Face of Houston: Tracking the Economic and Demographic Transformations Through 27 Years of Houston Surveys

The Houston region recovered from the collapse of the oil-boom in the 1980s to find itself in the midst of a restructured economy and a demographic revolution. We review the findings from 27 years of the Houston Area Survey (1982-2008) to measure these remarkable transformations and to consider their implications for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead

Cities in Transition: The Case of Houston

The end of the 20th century finds major U.S. cities in the midst of significant change, precipitated by important economic and demographic trends. first, the foundations of the U.S. economy have definitively shifted away from the blue collar “resource economy” of the Industrial Age into the more problematic “knowledge economy” of the Information Age. Second, a fundamental change has occurred in the ethnic composition of the U.S. population, from a European amalgam into a “universal nation.” This article explores the way the citizens of Houston are experiencing and responding to these remarkable changes.IC2 Institut

Ethnic Differences in Predictors of Support for Municipal Affirmative Action Contracting

This study explores attitudes toward municipal affirmative action contracting among Anglos, African Americans, and Hispanics, testing predictors of support separately for each group and measuring changes over time. Copyright (c) 2003 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.

Shaping the Design of Smartphone-Based Interventions for Self-Harm

Self-harm is a prevalent issue amongst young people, yet it is thought around 40% will never seek professional help due to stigma surrounding it. It is generally a way of coping with emotional distress and can have a range of triggers which are highly heterogeneous to the individual. In a move towards enhancing the accessibility of personalized interventions for self-harm, we undertook a three-stage study. We first conducted interviews with 4 counsellors in self-harm to understand how they clinically respond to self-harm triggers. We then ran a survey with 37 young people, to explore perceptions of mobile sensing, and current and future uses for smartphone-based interventions. Finally, we ran a workshop with 11 young people to further explore how a context-aware self-management application might be used to support them. We contribute an in-depth understanding of how triggers for self-harm might be identified and subsequently predicted and prevented using mobile-sensing technology