Family migration and the economic status of women in Malaysia

"The impact of family migration on women's economic position in a developing country setting is an area that has received relatively little research attention. Incorporating a lifetime perspective, this study makes use of the retrospective migration histories of husbands and wives from the second round of the Malaysian Family Life Survey to estimate how joint migration with the husband affects women's socioeconomic achievement. The findings show that family migration depresses the chances of working, but it does not significantly reduce socioeconomic attainment of those who do work. However, when a woman migrates with her husband she does forgo the substantial advantage she could have derived had she moved alone."     

Unjust Freedom: The Ethics of Client Self-Determination in Runaway Youth Shelters

Client self-determination has been called the most confounding and professionally debilitating concept of all the intellectual principles under-girding social work (Rothman, 1989). Identifying the appropriate parameters of client self-determination is a particularly acute problem for social workers employed by runaway and homeless youth shelters where minors are making adult decisions free from parental guidance. We examine the ethical dimensions of practice with minor clients in runaway shelters by arguing that a conflict exists between the liberty-based principle of self-determination and the justice-based notion of client competency. We analyze the conflict by using minimal distributive justice as the organizing principle of social work practice. We conclude that client self-determination in runaway shelters should be restricted and that presuming client competence violates the basic value tenets of the profession.     

Evaluation design for a community prevention trial. An environmental approach to reduce alcohol-involved trauma

The Community Prevention Trial was 5-year effort to reduce alcohol-involved injuries and death through a comprehensive program of community awareness and policy activities. The three experimental communities were of approximately 100,000 population each (one in Northern California, one in Southern California, and one in South Carolina). Matched comparison communities were used for each experimental community. This article describes the evaluation approach used in a program that sought to change environmental factors not a specific population or target group. This approach demanded unique evaluation approaches for determining overall community aggregate effects, that is, distal outcomes, as well as changes in key mediating variables, that is, process effects. The problem of trending and lagged effects of community prevention programs are discussed.     

Summing up. Recommendations and experiences for evaluation of community-level prevention programs

This article provides recommendations and observations about evaluation of a locally based prevention project to reduce problems at a total community or aggregate level. The shift from targeting specific individuals or subpopulations to the overall structure and environment of a community is most demanding. Evaluation tools and analysis techniques have lagged behind program development because community-level interventions are not linked to a specific target group who can be separately studied. Thus assumptions about using random assignment and/or comparison communities as means to control for confounding variables are weakened when the unit of analysis is the community itself and dependent measures are subject to trending and the effects of history.     

Long-term impact of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.). Results of a 6-year follow-up

The long-term effectiveness of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) was assessed by contrasting drug use and other D.A.R.E.-related attitudinal latent variables among 356 twelfth-grade students who had received the program in the 6th grade with 264 others who did not receive it. A prior study of these subjects when they were in 9th grade had shown no significant differences. A follow-up survey in 12th grade assessed central D.A.R.E. concepts such as self-esteem, police bonds, delay of experimentation with drugs, and various forms of drug use. Although the authors found no relationship between prior D.A.R.E. participation and later alcohol use, cigarette smoking, or marijuana use in 12th grade, there was a significant relationship between earlier D.A.R.E. participation and less use of illegal, more deviant drugs (e.g., inhalants, cocaine, LSD) in a development sample but not in a validation sample. Findings from the two studies suggest a possible sleeper effect for D.A.R.E. in reference to the use of harder drugs, especially among teenage males.     

Implementation and process evaluation of a student "school-as-community" group. A component of a school-based drug abuse prevention program

Little documentation exists regarding the functioning of formalized adolescent groups as drug abuse prevention agents. Two studies are described that were conducted at high schools whose students are at high risk for drug abuse. Twenty-one schools were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) standard care, (b) classroom drug abuse education only, or (c) classroom plus school-as-community. Results of the first study indicated that the school-as-community component--which involved weekly meetings and periodic events at seven schools--was implemented as planned, drug abused focused, and perceived as productive in discouraging drug abuse. In the second study, staff in the classroom plus school-as-community condition self-reported involvement in the greatest number of community activities across the school year, compared with staff from the other two conditions. These two studies support the feasibility of formalized groups of high-risk youth to promote drug-free events.     

Job displacement effects of Canadian immigrants by country of origin and occupation

"Some previous Canadian studies have shown that considering the labor market as a whole and also pooling all immigrants as a group, immigrants do not have any job displacement effects on the Canadian born. This study presents some new evidence. It disaggregates immigrants by country of origin and by occupation groups and provides an analysis of job displacement effects of immigrants on the native-born Canadians by these dimensions. The study finds that (1) U.S. immigrants and the Canadians are substitutes [for] competing groups in the labor market and the effect is quite significant; (2) Canadians and Europeans are competing groups in certain occupations, while they have complementary skills in others; and (3) immigrants from the Third World and the Canadians are slightly competing groups in certain occupations."     

"How much do you spend gambling?" ambiguities in survey questionnaire items

The validity of a survey's findings is dependent upon the clarity and lack of ambiguity contained in each individual item yet minimal attention has been directed to this issue in most prevalence studies. Researchers have shown a tendency to accept the uncritical assumption that respondents interpret seemingly simple and straightforward items such as 'how much do you spend gambling?' in a consistent manner. No attempt is made to confirm the uniformity of responses by clarifying the mathematical formulae used by respondents to derive their answers. The purpose of this paper was to examine the consistency shown by a sample of 181 medical undergraduate subjects in estimating the level of gambling expenditure in a series of five case vignettes describing various scenarios of wins and losses during a session of gambling. Results revealed a wide variation in calculated figures depending upon whether or not subjects interpreted the item to mean net expenditure or turnover. Only two thirds or less of subjects calculated the figure to be the difference between the initial amount risked and the residual at the conclusion of the session. It is suggested that more attention be paid in prevalence and clinical studies to providing subjects with clear instructions on how to calculate expenditure estimates.     

Implementing a gender policy in ACORD: strategies,constraints, and challenges

ACORD, a consortium of 11 nongovernmental organizations from Europe, Asia, and North America devoted to poverty alleviation in Africa, formally adopted a gender policy in 1990 aimed at reducing gender-based inequities in communities where ACORD works. A 1994-96 survey of field programs indicated that the greatest gains for women had been recorded in the areas of welfare, access to resources, conscientization (awareness of and will to alter gender inequalities), and, to a lesser extent, participation; minimal progress was noted in shifting the prevailing gender-based imbalance of power and control in public or private spheres. The research identified several programming and organizational strategies that have promoted positive outcomes for women: gender-awareness training for staff and community members, working with mixed groups, working with women-only groups, promotion of female leadership, gender-aware participatory planning and evaluation, spreading responsibility throughout the organization for implementing the gender policy, recruitment and promotion of women staff, networks for women staff, and direct field involvement in research. Also identified were internal and external factors that weakened policy implementation: a lack of clarity as to its aims, culture-based resistance, confusion regarding responsibilities and procedures, weak accountability mechanisms, lack of gender impact indicators, training inadequacies, underrepresentation of women staff, and inadequate resources. As a result of the review process, ACORD has given gender issues centrality in its current 5-year strategic plan.