Fathers' encounters with the Child Welfare Service

In this article, we examined fathers who were or had been in contact with the Child Welfare Services in Norway. All of the fathers included in this study had children with women who were unable to take care of them, either because of substance abuse or mental health problems. Hence, the fathers had the primary responsibility for the children. We looked at how these fathers experienced being met and assessed as caregivers by the Child Welfare Service, as well as how they experienced their own competency as caregivers. To explore these themes, seven fathers who were in contact with or had recently been in contact with the Child Welfare Service were interviewed. The discourses on fatherhood, inspired by Scourfield (2003), were used as a framework for the analysis, and interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used to analyse the interviews. We found the fathers' experiences to be considered within the discourses on “fathers as a threat”, “fathers as irrelevant” and “fathers as better than mothers”. In addition, we shed light on topics such as the cultural lag, being single-handedly responsible for the children, and the fathers' views on what is important in their contact with the children.Our goal was to increase awareness about fathers who are in contact with the Child Welfare Service so that they are met in a way that helps to support them in their role as fathers for the benefit of their children.     

Fear management: How child protection workers engage with non-citizen immigrant families

Drawing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a sample of 24 child protection workers in the northeastern United States, we analyze how workers engage with non-citizen immigrant families. Confirming findings from previous scholarship on immigrants' fears when interacting with Child Protection Services (CPS), workers reported encountering different fear factors—the organizations, events, or people that instill fear in immigrant families. These included fear of deportation, fear of CPS workers as the people who remove children, and fear of CPS as a potentially repressive government agency. We also found that workers seek to minimize or leverage these fears in the engagement process—we refer to this process as fear management. Most of the workers interviewed seek to minimize immigrant families' fears, and we show that they employ four strategies to do so: providing knowledge, brokering services, doing dignity and status work, and learning culture.     

Closed doors everywhere? A meta-analysis of field experiments on ethnic discrimination in rental housing markets

Discrimination is long seen as a meaningful factor for ethnic inequalities on rental housing markets. Yet empirically, the extent of discrimination is still debatable. For the first time, this article provides a quantitative meta-analysis of field experiments (in person audits and correspondence tests) that were run over the last four decades in the United States, Canada and Europe (N?=?71). Special focus is given to a possible inflation of effect sizes by publication bias; to time trends; and to evidence for statistical discrimination. Taken together, nearly all experiments document the occurrence of ethnic discrimination. Effect sizes are inflated by publication bias, but there is still substantial evidence left once the bias is removed. The analysis reveals a consistent decline in the extent of discrimination over time, from moderate levels of discrimination in the 1970s and 1980s, up to only small but still statistically significant levels in the 1990s and 2000s. A significant part of the discriminatory behaviour can be attributed to missing information about the social status of applicants, which supports theories on statistical discrimination. It is discussed how future research could move our knowledge on the underlying mechanisms forward.     

Intercultural training requirements for virtual assignments: results of an explorative empirical study

Virtual assignments are characterized by the spatial separation of private and business life. The virtual delegate lives and interacts in one culture, yet he or she works together mainly with people from another culture. Since face-to-face contacts with colleagues, customers or suppliers are reduced to a minimum, firsthand experience of foreign cultures does not take place. As a result, intercultural training becomes essential. The study suggests that virtual delegates are faced with several intercultural management problems such as different time zones and communication styles as well as language barriers. These problems are increased by the lack of face-to-face communication and common trust-building mechanisms. Intercultural training may be an instrument for overcoming these challenges. However, they have to be adapted to the specific requirements of virtual expatriates. Moreover, intercultural training should not only be offered to the virtual delegates themselves, but also to the individuals with whom they interact in the host country.     

Inquiry

The following interview with Dr. William Aldis, Regional Advisor for Africa for Emergency and Humanitarian Action at the World Health Organization (WHO), was conducted in August 2001. Dr. Aldis is head of the WHO unit for crisis situations in sub-Saharan Africa where he works on several public health programs related to children. He returned to his station in Zimbabwe in September. Previously, Dr. Aldis held the position of WHO Country Representative in Sierra Leone where he worked on developing programs to help child soldiers and to advance immunization programs.     

Anatomy of A Crisis: Relations Between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Federal Republic of Germany from the 1970s to the 1980s

This analysis takes for its starting point an internal UnitedNations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) memorandum, whichcriticized West German asylum practices in rather strong terms,leaked, and generated considerable controversy in the FederalRepublic of Germany (FRG), internationally and within UNHCR.The article inscribes these events within the broader evolutionof the relationship between UNHCR and the FRG to present themas one of several initiatives envisaged within the refugee agencyin order to bend West Germany's increasingly restrictive stanceon asylum issues. In this sense, UNHCR's attempts to use confrontationas a diplomatic tool shed light on an international organization'savenues for influence and their limits. Tracing the emergenceof the UNHCR's chosen course of action and attempting to assessits repercussions, the study emphasizes the interaction betweenvarious members of UNHCR staff in the organization's branchoffice in Bonn and its headquarters in Geneva, as well as betweenpolitical factions within the FRG. Calling to mind that neitherUNHCR nor the FRG are unitary actors, this opens the way foran analysis of the role individual agency may play within largercollective actors.     

Choice-Experimente und die Messung von Handlungsentscheidungen in der Soziologie

In survey-based choice experiments respondents choose from various alternative options (for actions) the most preferable one. By systematically varying attributes of the options it is possible to determine their influence on the stated choices. This enables a more direct testing of causal relations than it is possible with ??usual?? survey data. In contrast to the similar design of factorial surveys the method corresponds better with action and decision theories and a high external validity is already shown. In the paper on hand, choice experiments are introduced in their main features (theoretical foundation, design, data collection and analysis) and discussed in comparison to factorial surveys. The aim is to deliver practical tips and thereby motivate increased applications in sociology.     

Of those who plan: A meta-analysis of the relationship between human capital and business planning

Business planning is a popular managerial practice, especially in the SME context. Yet, literature presents diverging perspectives regarding business planning and the role it fulfills for the individuals leading these organizations. To advance research, we focus on evidence regarding factors that determine whether and how individuals engage in business planning. Drawing on human capital concepts and the theory of planned behavior, we scrutinize how education and different prominent work experience types influence business planning behaviors. We use meta-analysis to aggregate data on 8095 observations leading SMEs from 31 independent data sets. We find critical differences in planning behaviors relating to human capital types, as well as to whether individuals engage in substantive planning processes or the specific preparation of a formal business plan. Implications of our findings for research on business planning are discussed.