What are the likely interactions among innovation,government debt,and employment?

The study here analyzes the interactions among labor, R&D intensity, and public expenditure on education (indicators of innovation), considering public debt of countries. The study is based on 27 European countries over the 1995–2009 and applies multiple regression analysis. Main findings seem to be: a significant interaction of public expenditure on education and R&D intensity with employment rate, whereas an increase of general government consolidated gross debt has a negative interaction for employment rate as well as for technology indicators. The theoretical framework and empirical evidence suggest vital political economy implications to support employment rate during contractions of the business cycle. In particular, considering the specificity of the economic structure of countries, a fruitful lung-run political economy of growth should slowly dry out public debt by supporting GDP growth, rather than reducing government debt with high taxation and balanced-budget rules, in order to decrease frictional effects for patterns of economic, technological, and employment growth.     

Gambling Behavior of Student-Athletes and a Student Cohort: What are the Odds?

This study investigated the prevalence of gambling, gambling related NCAA violations, and disordered gambling in student-athletes (n = 736) with a comparison cohort of students (n = 1,071) at four universities. Student-athletes reported similar rates of gambling frequency, use of a bookmaker, and disordered gambling as students. After accounting for demographic differences, student-athletes were less likely to engage in sports wagering than students. Several risk factors for disordered gambling were identified, including being male and reporting at least one parent with a history of gambling problems. These findings suggest that problems associated with gambling are a university-wide issue with student-athletes meriting additional attention because of implications for the integrity of intercollegiate sports. Improved prevention and intervention efforts for collegiate gambling are recommended.     

What are the characteristics of the champion that influence the implementation of quality improvement programs?

BackgroundQuality improvement in Healthcare is the new fashion actually. Rich countries and developing countries alike are trying to implement quality improvement initiatives to improve their performance and the quality of care. There is evidence in the scientific literature that the existence of a “champion” can play an important role in the successful implementation of quality improvement strategies. Most of the time, people get stuck at the implementation level: they know what to do but they fail to execute it in the organizational setting. That’s where a champion can be useful to facilitate the success of the change. There is a paucity of research on the link between the champion and the implementation of quality improvement programs. The aim of the study was to investigate the perceptions of stakeholders about the characteristics and qualities of the champion that could facilitate the successful implementation of quality improvement programs in health care settings in Haiti.MethodsTwenty semi-structured individual interviews and one small group discussion (n = 4) with providers, administrators, directors, and NGO representatives were conducted during a six months period. The total sample size was twenty-four (n = 24). The methods were informed by grounded theory and the data were analyzed using the constant comparative method and thematic content analysis approach.ResultsThe analysis resulted in eleven themes describing the characteristics and qualities of a successful champion: Communication and persuasion, proactivity, humility, horizontal and collective leadership style, sense of responsibility and accountability, go-ahead type, empathy, dedication and motivation, ability to inspire and motivate people, have a vision, and encourage learning.ConclusionsIt is important to support and encourage champions in the health care systems in developing countries to master and exhibit those qualities and characteristics in order to lead a team for the successful implementation of quality improvement initiatives in the health facilities. More research is needed to understand how to better articulate those qualities in the context of the Haitian health care system.     

The Self-Employment of Men and Women: What are their Motivations?

Do men and women carry different motivations for entering self-employment? Earlier researchers have suggested that, as primary care givers for children and families, women face a more stringent time constraint relative to men. Thus, where men see self-employment as a chance for greater financial opportunity, women see a chance to take work that allows more time at home. This paper investigates this hypothesis using unique data that allow analysis of individual self-employment as a function of traditional economic and demographic variables as well as variables that partially capture individuals’ opinions and perceptions of pecuniary and nonpecuniary aspects of entrepreneurism. Results suggest that men who choose self-employment are influenced principally by pecuniary concerns, while women are influenced principally by family concerns and by the opinions of their family, friends, and peers.     

What are Social Work Students’ Perceptions of the Community Practice Method?

Summary. A unique aspect of the social work profession is the combination of intervention on the personal, community, and societal levels and their interaction. The purpose of this research is to determine students’ perceptions of community practice. Qualitative research was conducted among Israeli social work students before gaining any practical experience in community practice. Findings. The results demonstrated a change in students’ perceptions of the importance of community practice to the profession, and the factors that contributed to this change. Applications. Recommendations that may contribute to changing students’ perceptions of community practice are offered to educators.     

Refocusing on the Parent: What are the social issues of concern for parents of disabled children?

A questionnaire was constructed to analyse the efficacy of service provision for disabled children from the parents' perspective, as well as the needs and issues pertinent to parents (Middleton, 1998, 1992). The familial and personal data identified deep parental concerns and fears regarding professional attitudes and dominance, neglect of parental knowledge, lack of counselling and therapy, coping in the future, support, and the child's aesthetics and body (Brown, 1998). Results indicate that professionals continue to control the parent-professional relationship, assuming the role of 'expert', rather than integrating and consulting parents in a negotiate decision-making process. Parental needs and issues are prescribed by professionals (Oliver & Barnes, 1998), thus marginalising and disempowering the parent (Appleton & Minchom 1991), and reducing opportunity for parental involvement and participation in an equitable 'partnership' relationship with professionals (Dale, 1996).     

What is society? Social thought and the arts of government

Following conservative politicians, neoliberal philosophers and radical critics, different strands of social science, including those using Foucault's governmentality approach, joined the questioning of the salience of 'society' and ideas of 'the social' over the last decades. When the social reappeared, it was often in the moral domains of community and civil society. This argument re-evaluates the contribution of Foucauldian histories, or 'genealogies', of the social to these fundamental questions. Drawing upon them, it attends to their arguments concerning the place of social thought on the modern episteme in relation to economics, the emergence of the idea of 'society' with the modern arts of government of the state, and the formation of the 'social question'. The argument here allows that preconditions of formation of 'society' lie in the legal and political techniques of the territorial sovereign state. However, the literature under investigation indicates the implicit normativity of an idea of 'society' as a 'problematic unity' and the enduring necessity of a social domain in a law-governed state with a relatively independent economic sphere. This discussion thus seeks to contribute to the wider revaluation and redeployment of these terms in today's context.     

What do stress tests test? Experimentation,demonstration, and the sociotechnical performance of regulatory science

After their successful introduction during the 2007–2009 financial crisis, central bank stress tests were adopted as a fixture of international banking supervision. However, in recent years a new normal has emerged where banks are expected to pass the tests, raising questions about the tests’ usefulness and legitimacy. Combining a dramaturgical interpretation of regulatory science with the idea of performativity in the sociology of finance, this article understands stress tests as a sociotechnical Goffmanian performance. With a focus on the Bank of England’s program, the paper argues that the Bank’s decision to make their tests “predictable” is an attempt to shore up central bank legitimacy by constraining regulatory discretion. This is accomplished through the use of calculative and procedural stage management techniques which allow the Bank to control the contingency of the testing process while demonstrating its objectivity. Nevertheless, the conclusion suggests that in the context of low levels of trust in central banks, routine declarations of “all clear” may undermine public confidence in the tests’ credibility and necessity. The study draws on 20 interviews with high-level regulators, financial practitioners and other stakeholders in the Bank of England’s stress tests.     

What is educational entrepreneurship? Strategic action,temporality, and the expansion of US higher education

Theory and Society - The massive expansion of US higher education after World War II is a sociological puzzle: a spectacular feat of state capacity-building in a highly federated polity. Prior...     

What are opportunities and why should they be equal?

In order to clarify the concept of equal opportunities we need an accurate definition of opportunity. Opportunities can be defined in terms of qualifying actions through which an agent can achieve an advantageous position. It is concluded that equal opportunities is often used as a catchword in cases when opportunities are not really equal, and no one tries seriously to make them so. In many of these cases it would have been more accurate to speak of open opportunities and procedural justice. These are important enough aspects of social justice, that should be appreciated for what they are, rather than being falsely represented as equal opportunities.Received: 13 April 2001     

Policy Space: What,for What,and Where?

This article examines how developing countries can use, and enlarge, existing policy space, without opting out of international commitments. It argues that: (i) a meaningful context for policy space must extend beyond trade policy and include macroeconomic and exchange‐rate policies that will achieve developmental goals more effectively; (ii) policy space depends not only on international rules but also on the impact of international market conditions and policy decisions taken in other countries on the effectiveness of national policy instruments; and (iii) international integration affects policy space through several factors that pull in opposite directions; whether it increases or reduces policy space differs by country and type of integration.     

Infidelity, initiation, and the emotional climate of divorce: are there implications for mental health?

A large literature has examined the role of "secondary" stressors, such as problems with finances, social support, residential mobility, and children, in producing the well-documented association between divorce and a variety of psychopathological conditions. Much less attention, however, has been paid to variation in the "primary" disruption experience. We address this omission using data from the National Survey of Families and Households to investigate the interrelationships among depression, initiator status, and spousal infidelity. While we find little evidence of direct effects of initiator status or spousal infidelity on post-divorce depression, the importance of these characteristics emerges when they are considered in an interactive context. Specifically, while divorce initiation is associated with reduced depression among individuals with unfaithful spouses, initiation is associated with increased depression in the absence of spousal infidelity. Taken together, our findings suggest that characteristics of the divorce experience may interact in complex ways to produce variation in mental health outcomes.     

What Works in Group Care? - A Structured Review of Treatment Models for Group Homes and Residential Care

This paper presents findings from a structured review of treatment models that are relevant to group care and residential treatment settings for children involved with the child welfare system. Initiated and guided by The California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare, five treatment models — Positive Peer Culture, Teaching Family Model, Sanctuary Model, Stop-Gap Model, and Re-ED — were reviewed for effectiveness. In this paper, each model's treatment features are described and relevant outcome studies reviewed in terms of their effectiveness as well as relevance for child welfare practice. Findings indicate that four of the models are either supported or promising in terms of evidence for effectiveness. Implications for group care practice and research are discussed.     

What are friends for? Elective communities of single people

The paper presents the results of a qualitative research on friendship networks of single people. The research has been undertaken using social network analysis tools (egonetworks) and qualitative interviews, on a non-representative sample of 23 heterosexual singles of Milan, aged between 25 and 35 years, 12 male and 11 female.     

What Drives Advocacy? An Exploration of Value,Mission, and Relationships

How advocacy is interpreted and how it fits into an organization’s strategy are areas in need of additional study. Moreover, because nonprofit organizations are believed to have advocacy-based missions that drive their activities and services, the connection between an organization’s mission and its advocacy activities also needs further study. In an effort to address these issues, the purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how advocacy is interpreted in the context of an organization’s mission and how advocacy activities are viewed within human service NPOs. Five themes were identified, all providing support for findings in previous advocacy research.     

What,to the law,is the former slave?

This essay examines a subset of Reconstruction-era cases decided in Southern appellate courts that dealt with the legacies of slavery. Drawing on suits that either described emancipation as legal death or considered black civil rights, it argues that judges placed freedpeople into a distinct legal category – the former slave – in order to preserve the antebellum legal status quo. Opinions differentiated free-born citizens from those who acquired rights after emancipation, and marked freedpeople with stains of their previous servitude, which limited their potential for the equal enjoyment of newly acquired civil rights.