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This study assesses children’s understanding of terrorists and the role of sociopolitical context in their conceptualizations. Gender and age effects also are explored.

Children aged 5- to 12-years from the United States and Northern Ireland were interviewed using a semi-structured survey. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted.

The children conceptualized terrorists in terms of their actions, traits, motivations, and the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Most understood what “terrorist” meant by age 9. American children were more apt than Northern Irish children to emphasize that terrorists can look like anybody. Gender was not related to conceptions of terrorists.

The generalizability of the results should be made with caution as participant selection was limited. Future research on this topic should incorporate representative races, religions, and socioeconomic groups in the sample. Another limitation of the study is that the data were not collected concurrently in the two countries.

The findings have implications for human service professionals who can provide parents with empirically based information about what children understand about terrorists and give them the language to communicate with their children about acts of terrorism.

This study addresses a timely, yet understudied topic, capturing children’s understanding of terrorists in their own words. The research was conducted in two countries with different sociopolitical histories, which addresses the recent call for research on children’s conceptions of terrorists to occur from a cross-cultural perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to explore intrinsic and extrinsic factors impacting the job satisfaction of casino hotel chefs, and whether chefs' background characteristics are associated with their overall and specific facets of job satisfaction.

A total of 152 surveys were analyzed using a randomly selected sample of 25 major casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada. The sample selection represented chefs working in various types of foodservice operations within the hotel segments.

Overall, the casino hotel chefs were satisfied with their jobs (M=3.9). Among intrinsic factors, the chefs were most satisfied with the “work itself” and least satisfied with “growth and recognition” they received. Among extrinsic factors, they were most satisfied with “supervision” and least satisfied with “company policy” pertaining to sick leave and paid vacation. Highest job satisfaction levels were found among chefs who worked in the fine dining kitchens and supervised between 21 and 30 employees.

Results reinforce the value of recognition at work and creation of specialized incentive programs. In order to be most effective, these programs should be tailored to chefs working in different kitchen types and with various levels of management and supervisory responsibilities.

Job satisfaction of casino hotel chefs has been minimally studied, yet they have significant roles in successful hotel operations. This study is unique in directing attention to the “back of the house leaders” – hotel chefs, in a top tier gaming and tourism city.