The implications of irreversibility in emergency response decisions

The irreversibility effect implies that a decision maker who neglects the prospect of receiving more complete information at later stages of a sequential decision problem will in certain cases too easily take an irreversible decision, as he ignores the existence of a positive option value in favour of reversible decisions. This option value represents the decision maker's flexibility to adapt subsequent decisions to the obtained information. In this paper we show that the economic models dealing with irreversibility as used in environmental and capital investment decision making can be extended to emergency response decisions that produce important irreversible effects. In particular, we concentrate on the decision whether or not to evacuate an industrial area threatened by a possible nuclear accident. We show in a simple two-period evacuation decision model that non-optimal conclusions may be drawn when evacuation is regarded as a `now or never decision'. The robustness of these results is verified by means of a sensitivity analysis of the various model parameters. The importance of `options thinking' in this decision context is illustrated in an example.     

The Domain and Interpretation of Utility Functions: An Exploration

This paper proposes an exploration of the methodology of utility functions that distinguishes interpretation from representation. While representation univocally assigns numbers to the entities of the domain of utility functions, interpretation relates these entities with empirically observable objects of choice. This allows us to make explicit the standard interpretation of utility functions which assumes that two objects have the same utility if and only if the individual is indifferent among them. We explore the underlying assumptions of such an hypothesis and propose a non-standard interpretation according to which objects of choice have a well-defined utility although individuals may vary in the way they treat these objects in a specific context. We provide examples of such a methodological approach that may explain some reversal of preferences and suggest possible mathematical formulations for further research. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Social–ethnic school composition and disengagement: An inquiry into the perceived control explanation

In many Western countries, increasing levels of immigration have raised concerns over the outcomes of social–ethnic segregation in schools. This study relates social–ethnic school composition to students’ behavioral, emotional, and cognitive disengagement. While previous research mostly remains atheoretical, this current study investigates the applicability of the perceived control explanation, with the expectation that attending low socioeconomic status (SES) schools and schools with a higher proportion of ethnic minority pupils lowers students’ perceived control and hence produces disengagement. Multilevel analyses on data from the Flemish Educational Assessment, consisting of 11,759 students in 83 Flemish secondary schools, show that students in lower SES schools are more likely to disengage behaviorally and emotionally from school. This association is, as expected, mediated by feelings of perceived control. Higher ethnic minority concentration, however, yields lower disengagement, especially for ethnic minority students. The implications are discussed.     

Non‐take up of the supplemental child benefit for children with a disability in Belgium: A mixed‐method approach

Families with disabled children run a great risk of being poor. Although policies providing poor families with financial benefits should be effective in reducing poverty, the actual effectiveness is often jeopardized by the issue of non‐take up (NTU). Yet, NTU of benefits aimed at disabled children is for the most part uncharted territory. In this article, we fill this gap using a mixed‐methods approach to (a) estimate the magnitude and characteristics of NTU in the Belgian “supplemental child benefit” by drawing on a large‐scale administrative dataset on childhood disabilities and (b) explore the determinants of NTU by means of semistructured interviews with experts and parents. We estimate an NTU rate of at least 10%, a substantial figure given that the benefit is not income tested. This mainly concerns children with “less visible disabilities” (autism spectrum disorder and other intellectual and psychological disorders) and results from insufficient information provision about the benefit's existence and eligibility criteria; process costs, for instance, the complexity of the procedure; and the way the scale to assess a child's disability is constructed.     

Toward Understanding the Child's Experience in the Process of Parentification: Young Adults' Reflections on Growing up With a Depressed Parent

This article reports on a qualitative study with 21 young adults who grew up with a depressed parent. We examined how young adults make sense of their childhood experiences of parental depression and how their retrospective reflections help us to understand the experiences of children and the processes of parentification. Participants recounted that their childhood consisted mainly of actions in the service of family well‐being. At that time, they reflected on their own experiences only rarely. In adolescence, there was an evolution toward a greater consideration for oneself and a repositioning within the family. In the discussion, we explore the therapeutic implications of this study—and in particular—the meaningfulness of silence in the family process of parentification.     

Can We Measure Immigrants' Legal Status? Lessons from Two U.S. Surveys

This research note examines response and allocation rates for legal status questions asked in publicly available U.S. surveys to address worries that the legal status of immigrants cannot be reliably measured. Contrary to such notions, we find that immigrants' non‐response rates to questions about legal status are typically not higher than non‐response rates to other immigration‐related questions, such as country of birth and year of immigration. Further exploration of two particular surveys – the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (LAFANS) and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) – reveals that these data sources produce profiles of the unauthorized immigrant population that compare favorably to independently estimated profiles. We also find in the case of the SIPP that the introduction of legal status questions does not appear to have an appreciable “chilling effect” on the subsequent survey participation of unauthorized immigrant respondents. Based on the results, we conclude that future data collection efforts should include questions about legal status to (1) improve models of immigrant incorporation; and (2) better position assimilation research to inform policy discussions.     

Outreach social work: from managing access to practices of accessibility

A recurring feature of outreach work is that outreach tries to reach people who are left without care and not effectively reached by existing services. In this article, we discuss the importance of outreach practices in the context of changes in society. We suggest that the pressure on the managing of access to social services is increasing along with the demand to avoid an unnecessary inflow, and make a distinction between a residual and structural approach to social work and social service delivery. In a residual approach, outreach social work can be seen as a strategy to manage access or as a strategy to link clients with appropriate services. In this sense, they ensure that people meet predefined criteria of social services. From a structural approach, however, the focus lies on how practices possibly contribute to the realization of human dignity in social interactions and might lead to a socio-political analysis of those situations in which social work intervenes. On a conceptual level, outreach practices thus appear as practices of accessibility. From this perspective, existing problem constructions and dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in social services but also more broadly in society might be questioned and ultimately changed.