How Do We Know What Works? A Review and Critique of Current Practices in Ethics Training Evaluation

Training is a costly investment. As such, it is of great interest to know the extent to which that investment is yielding a positive return. Recent meta-analytic efforts have observed that ethics training programs are, indeed, having a positive effect, leading to the conclusion that the programs are working. However, they have also uncovered considerable variability in the effectiveness of ethics training programs, which leads to the purpose of the present study—to review current practices in ethics training evaluation. Through this review of 243 studies, consisting of 380 ethics trainings, we identified major themes in evaluation practices and training design. The tradeoffs associated with these evaluation procedures and designs are discussed, along with directions for future research.     

What Do We Know about the Family?

Over the years we have spoken and written a great deal about universal pedagogical education, about the search for new forms and methods for educators to work with families, and we have been drawing inferences from a variety of sometimes brilliant and interesting experience. But can we claim today that the school has accomplished much in the way of pedagogical enlightenment of parents, or exerting influence on the family? It would take a great deal of boldness to do so. What is wrong here? Isn't it a fact that, while attempting to influence the family, we fundamentally know nothing about it—except, perhaps, whether it is a "drinking" family or a sober one? Yet statistics make very clear that more and more offenses are being committed by adolescents who come from families that are considered well off. Hence, this well-being must be illusory, and it is essential that we study the family more comprehensively and in depth, that we figure out what is important to teach parents. Considerable help in this regard can be provided by special studies that are being carried out at the Institute of Sociological Research, USSR Academy of Sciences. In this article we acquaint readers with this research.     

Relative Risk Aversion: What Do We Know?

The relative risk aversion measure that represents the risk preferences of a decision maker depends on the outcome variable that is used as the argument of the utility function, and on the way that outcome variable is defined or measured. In addition, the relationship between any two such relative risk aversion measures is determined by the relationship between the corresponding outcome variables. These well-known facts are used to adjust several reported estimates of relative risk aversion so that those estimates can be directly compared with one another. After adjustment, the significant variation in the reported relative risk aversion measures for representative decision makers is substantially reduced. JEL Classification: D81     

Poverty and Pediatric Palliative Care: What Can We Do?

It has been recognized that families of children with life-limiting health conditions struggle with significant financial demands, yet may not have awareness of resources available to them. Additionally, health care providers may not be aware of the socioeconomic needs of families they care for. This article describes a mixed-methods study examining the content validity and utility for health care providers of a poverty screening tool and companion resource guide for the pediatric palliative care population. The study found high relevance and validity of the tool. Significant barriers to implementing the screening tool in clinical practice were described by participants, including: concerns regarding time required, roles and responsibilities, and discomfort in asking about income. Implications for practice and suggestions for improving the tool are discussed. Screening and attention to the social determinants of health lie within the scope of practice of all health care providers. Social workers can play a leadership role in this work.     

Gender and Health Inequalities: What Are They and What Can We Do About Them?

The subject of gender and health inequalities is contested territory in health policy, research and practice. Yet there is a dominant approach which I describe as a form of technocratic rationality. Its application imposes significant limitations because it represents the problem of gender and health in terms of measurable sex differences in relation to health service access and health outcomes. In doing so, it fails to address and explain the social dynamics that generate the problem. I propose an alternative approach that originates in Australian women's health policies of the 1980s. These emphasised the inequalities between men's and women's participation in mainstream health policy, planning, management and delivery of services, and women's concomitant marginalisation. Recent sociological study offers support for this perspective suggesting that the endogenous organisational dynamics (or logics) within public health institutions provide a better way of understanding what the problem of gender inequalities in health is, and how we might fix it.     

A Clash in Perspective? A Study of Worker and Client Perceptions of Social Work

Summary This study explores in a small sample of a worker's own clientswhether clashes in perspective occur between clients and socialworker, and how this is linked with satisfaction and dissatisfaction.Dissatisfied clients did not share a framework with the worker,but felt blamed and criticized by her, and the worker's ownbehaviour at the contract setting stage contributed to this.In contrast, satisfied clients and the worker appeared to havea positive shared perspective of the treatment process.     

What Should the Government Do in Face of Stowaways through Un-derground Channels?

In present day China, if the income gapis greater than 1:1.5, there will be cross-en-terprise labor flows; if greater than 1:2, therewill be cross-regional movements; and ifgreater than 1:10, then cross-national migra-tion will be inevitable. It can be said withcertainty that the Chinese labor exports arenot too great but too little. The reason forthis is insufficient experience and effort onthe part of the Chinese society in opening upthe labor market abroad rather than the qual-ity of the C…     

Identity Conflicts and Value Pluralism—What Can We Learn from Religious Psychoanalytic Therapists?

Does the way we think about our personal self‐complexity affect how we accept others? Researchers have offered various conceptualizations of how individuals manage their complex identities, while others have identified links between cognitive complexity and acceptance of outgroups. This paper integrates the two bodies of work by positing a route by which personal identity conflicts may lead to cognitive and cultural pluralism. For individuals committed to multiple identities perceived as conflicting, the intra‐psychic experience of value conflicts may lead to a recognition of self‐complexity, which is then transposed from the personal domain to the social one and expressed as a pluralistic attitude towards others. This argument find support in a study of Israeli Jewish Orthodox psychoanalytic therapists who belong to what they perceive as non‐pluralistic religious groups, yet express value pluralism, which they attribute to their complex identities. One of the educational implications of this study is that facilitating engagement with internal complexity, multiple identities and personal value conflicts may promote pluralistic thinking for individuals in religious societies.     

School Socioeconomic Segregation and Educational Expectations of Students in China’s Junior High Schools

China’s educational enterprise has achieved great successes since reform and opening up in 1978, but the constraints imposed by a number of factors mean that the problem of unequal distribution of high quality educational resources among groups from different strata is becoming increasingly noticeable at the basic education stage, leading to socioeconomic segregation in schools. We utilize baseline data from the China Education Panel Survey for 2013-2014 to investigate this phenomenon in junior high schools and its influence upon students’ educational expectations. Our findings show that marked segregation currently exists at the junior high school level. The extent of the segregation varies from region to region and place to place (urban or rural), and school socioeconomic composition (SEC) exerts a significant influence upon students’ educational expectations. The higher the school’s average SEC or the greater its heterogeneity, the higher the educational expectations of its students. The effect of school SEC upon the educational expectations of students varies depending on the characteristics of different student groups; students who have lower cognitive abilities and fall behind at school are more likely to benefit from an increase in school socioeconomic status (SES) and heterogeneity. Because educational expectations are a decisive factor in academic achievement and educational attainment, the influence of school socioeconomic segregation upon educational equity should not be overlooked. Lessening the degree of school socioeconomic segregation and encouraging integrated schools would be an effective measure for ensuring educational equity in China.     

A Study of Poverty Lines in Rural Areas

Whilesomepeoplewillbeallowedtogetrichfirst,attentionmustalsobepaidtopoorareasandpoorhouseholdswhicharemainlyfoundinruralareas.Inordertoassistthepoor,povertymustfirstofallbedefined.I.TheConceptofPovertyandItsDefinitionPovertyreferstoeconomic,socialandculturaldisadvantages,i.e.,alackofthebasicnecessitiesoflifeandessentialservices,andnoopportunitiesormeansfordevelopment,asaresultofalowincome.Povertymaybedividedintoabsolutepovertyandrelativepoverty,theformerreferringtolivingconditionsinwhichther…     

Unexpected Pathways Through Education: Why Do Some Students Not Succeed in School and What Helps Others Beat the Odds?

In this overview of Volume 64, Issue 1, of the Journal of Social Issues , we describe why it is important to consider the diversity of student pathways through time and in context and why it is important to focus particularly on youth who defy predictions. We describe the ways in which expectations are formed in statistical analysis and also in real-world education systems and how the structural rigidity inherent in such systems can lead to poor person–environment fit for young people in education or training and to misleading statistical analysis. Our intention is to move beyond analytic approaches that assume "one size fits all" while recognizing both that policy cannot provide fully individualized environments for everyone and that research cannot focus only on the unique characteristics of each individual. By focusing on individuals for whom our models typically do not apply, we highlight the value of research on complex but meaningful patterns of commonality among people, not in terms of the average person or effects, but in terms of coherent, distinct, and relatively homogenous subgroups of people experiencing systematic and consequential differences in their lives and lifepaths .     

What Makes for Successful Groupwork? A Survey of Agencies in the UK

Summary This paper reports the findings of a survey of Social ServicesDepartments, Probation Services and the major voluntary agenciesin the UK. The survey aimed to shed light on the factors whichpromote successful groups in social work and probation agencies.The survey did not attempt to map the extent of current groupwork.A questionnaire was piloted in a Social Services Departmentin northern England with social work and social care practitionersparticipating in ‘The Groupwork Project’, a trainingand development programme which continues to have as its aimthe establishment of a groupwork service in a mainstream socialservices agency. The survey was designed to be illuminativeand exploratory rather than conclusive. In this paper, the authorsreflect on the research process and on the findings of the survey.These findings point to the complexity of factors consideredsignificant to the success of a group, and to the importanceof contextual factors in establishing and sustaining a groupworkservice.     

A Study of the "Purge" of the Guomindang in Nanjing in 1927

In order to resist the measures taken by the Wuhan government to weaken their power, the Nationalists in Nanjing represented by Jiang Jieshi began in the spring of 1927 to use underworld forces to indirectly seize party and administrative power in the areas under their control. After repeated consultations with some of the founding members of the Guomindang, Jiang Jieshi, motivated by the desire to establish a separate central organ and to legitimize his own position, launched the so-called "purge" marked by the April Twelfth Massacre. After realizing     

A Study of the Pre-Qin Patriarchal System in Shandong Province

Inpre-QinChina,theestablishmentofapatriarchalsystemwascloselyrelatedtothesystematicdistributionoffiefs.Inthisdistribution,whenevertherulerestablishedanewextendedfamily(zong),theheadofthefamilywouldbegivenland,people,afamilyname,andrank.Thisguaranteedeachfamilypoliticalpower,landedproperty,andastatusbefittingitspositioninthepatriarchalhierarchy.Beginningwiththeparamountruler,asthisdistributionoffiefsramifiedandreachedacertainpoint,thefamilyandpoliticalorganization,kinshiprelationshipsandgeogra…