Caring for Citizenship

Correspondence to Dr John Harris, School of Health and Social Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK. E-mail: j.harris{at}warwick.ac.uk Summary Official articulations of caring are socially constructed bytheir emergence from particular contexts. As a consequence,the political positioning of caring has the potential to varyin accordance with changes in welfare regimes. In Britain, aparadigm shift has occurred. In the social democratic welfarestate, caring was a taken-for-granted resource to which socialservices were added. Following the community care reforms ofthe early 1990s, caring is the core resource and is seen asrequiring management by social workers. Caring arrangementsin households are actively identified, publicly negotiated,carefully organized and subject to formal agreements about thescope and nature of the care provided, often with the goal ofaverting service provision. This paradigm shift was an integralcomponent in the formulation of the community care reforms bythe New Right. It emerged from a concept of citizenship in whichdependency was to be avoided and support by informal carerscame to the fore. New Labour has consolidated the shift andrefined its ideological basis. Caring is an expression of citizenshipobligation.     

Inside the Black Box: what constitutes a day in a residential treatment centre?

Residential Treatment Centres (RTCs) provide 24-hour care and mental health services to young people, many of whom are referred from county departments that oversee services to young people involved with child welfare services, mental health services and corrections. While RTCs are required to provide mental health services to young people, the regulations governing these programmes have few specific requirements about the process, content or duration of treatment. Therefore, many questions have arisen about what a typical RTC day looks like and whether it differs among providers or differs based on the severity or type of the young person's mental-health related behaviours and symptoms. This study conducted interviews with RTC providers in the State of Colorado on this topic. Most RTC services were relatively uniform across case types within each RTC. It appears that with a few exceptions, a similar set of services is provided to all young people, regardless of their problems.     

Voluntary Leaders in Voluntary Welfare Agencies

The voluntary sector is an increasingly important component of our system of welfare provision. This paper focuses on voluntary leaders of welfare agencies in the voluntary sector; the chairpersons of governing bodies. It draws on a study carried out in an outer metropolitan borough with a socially mixed population. The characteristics of chairpersons and the background to their involvement are described. It appears that most are drawn in to their agencies and in to the role of chairperson more by chance than through positive commitment to a cause, but that, once in post, they rise rapidly to the challenge. Leadership of the local voluntary sector is found to be part of a wider commitment to community benefit and to collective provision of welfare. Some implications of the findings for the development of voluntary sector welfare agencies and for social policy are discussed.     

Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence at the Macro‐Level: Examining the Conditioning Effect of Victim Race/Ethnicity

Much attention has been devoted to the relationship between Hispanic immigration and violent offending at the macro‐level, including how it varies across racial and ethnic groups. Unfortunately, little attention has been paid to the conditioning effect of the race/ethnicity of the victim, or how Hispanic immigration is associated with crime by one racial/ethnic group against members of the same or different groups. Using National Incident‐Based Reporting System offending estimates and American Community Survey data, we examine the association between Hispanic immigration and black intra‐ and intergroup (black‐on‐white and black‐on‐Hispanic) homicide, robbery, and serious index violence in over 350 U.S. communities. We employ advanced imputation methods to address missing data that have constrained much prior research, as well as utilize crime measures adjusted for the likelihood of random contact between groups. Findings suggest that (1) Hispanic immigration has a positive association with black violence on the whole, but that (2) this association is conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim. Our results reinforce the importance of distinguishing across offender–victim dyads in research on the immigration–crime nexus, particularly in light of competing theoretical expectations. Directions for future research and policy are discussed.     

Education for Democratic Citizenship through A Literacy‐based Approach: A Case of South African Township Children

The study contextualises the position of child citizens in the South African democracy and highlights how education for democratic citizenship is employed through a literacy‐based approach. The qualitative study was exploratory and based on a lesson presented to nine‐year‐old township children by giving them language‐related tasks. Through the children's voices we present the life experiences that expressed their need for basic services, education, extra facilities and security. We argue that children need to experience the benefits of democracy and education for democratic citizenship to build and sustain a resilient democratic society.     

A study on the chain ratio-ratio-type exponential estimator for finite population variance

This paper considers the problem of estimating the population variance S²_y of the study variable y using the auxiliary information in sample surveys. We have suggested the (i) chain ratio-type estimator (on the lines of Kadilar and Cingi (2003)), (ii) chain ratio-ratio-type exponential estimator and their generalized version [on the lines of Singh and Pal (2015)] and studied their properties under large sample approximation. Conditions are obtained under which the proposed estimators are more efficient than usual unbiased estimator s²_y and Isaki (1893) ratio estimator. Improved version of the suggested class of estimators is also given along with its properties. An empirical study is carried out in support of the present study.     

A TEACHING NOTE ON THE USE OF ASSUMPTIONS IN CASE STUDY

This note describes a modification in the conventional case method of instruction. The modification, which deals with the problem caused by each student making a different set of assumptions for a given case, has successfully met the test of classroom use.