Human Service organizations: an Australian perspective

Theoretical models or frameworks of change in human service organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, must adapt to the changing circumstances faced by such organizations in the later 1980s and 1990s. Too often change no longer means innovation initiated from within a service organization in order to improve service to its clients, but rather change engendered or enforced from outside the organization which may have uncertain or adverse implications for clients, target groups, or staff. Major changes may have to be implemented within tight time limits and in situations of high intra- and inter-organizational conflict. In such situations, sequential models of organizational change based upon a rational problem solving process, developed during the more favourable era of the 1970s, may be of limited use. A complementary framework for analysis and action planning can be built upon four dimensions of change identified here as rational-empirical, social-systems, power-politics and values-vision. These dimensions offer a comprehensive framework for understanding and intervening in various aspects of the change process, such as assessing the forces for and against change, preparing an organization for change, building up a change system, selecting change strategies, and evaluating a change process. Such a framework can be useful to those seeking to influence change in various alternative directions.     

A New Right? Moral Issues and Partisan Change in Canada*

Objective. Beginning with the 1993 election, Canada's Progressive Conservative Party was replaced as the dominant force on the political right by the more ideological Reform Party/Canadian Alliance. This article examines what specific issues most centrally motivated this seismic shift among conservative Canadians. Method. Using data from the 1993, 1997, and 2000 Canadian Election Studies, we employ bivariate analyses and multinomial logit voting models to determine whether constitutional, economic, nativist, or moral issues most clearly differentiate PC supporters from R/A voters. Results. Regional concerns are important and other issues have sporadic impacts, but moral traditionalism is the most consistent and powerful factor distinguishing supporters of the new party from supporters of the old one. Conclusions. Although existing studies have focused primarily on other sources of R/A support, moral traditionalism is clearly a key factor in explaining the party's ascendancy. This phenomenon, we contend, is part of a larger trend toward postmaterial politics in Western democracies.     

Child Anger Regulation, Parental Responses to Children's Anger Displays, and Early Child Antisocial Behavior

The display and regulation of child anger in family interaction was coded in a sample of 240 boys and girls at child age 6, and coded using the Specific Affect Coding System. Child antisocial behavior was longitudinally assessed, beginning in kindergarten. Pooled‐ and family‐level analyses were used to assess hazard rates for child anger. Parents’ ability to modulate their own emotions and negative behavior, and children's ability to down‐regulate anger were associated with increased latency for child anger. Hazard for child anger increased as parents’ insensitive and negative responses toward the child cumulated during family interaction. Macro‐level, non‐hazard analyses indicated that chronic levels of child antisocial behavior were associated with the frequency of parental negative behavior, but not with the frequency of child anger. Micro‐level hazard analyses indicated that children's ability to regulate anger was related to chronic levels of child covert but not overt antisocial behavior.     

Population Change and Changing Educational Attainment of Ethnic Groups in the United States, 1980–2000

This study assesses the effect of population change on decade changes in the educational attainments of country of origin populations in the United States. Our data are derived from decennial censuses, NLMS, the World Bank, and INS. We find that changes in the share of country of origin populations with one or more years of post-secondary schooling are associated with selected components of population change during the 1980–1990 and 1990–2000 decades. The specific components include survivors during the decade, in-migration, and emigration of the foreign-born. Likewise, intra-generational mobility is found to be an important determinant of changes in educational attainment. The discussion addresses limitations of the data and suggests directions for future research as well as policy implications.     

How do my parents react when I feel happy? Longitudinal associations with adolescent depressive symptoms,anhedonia, and positive affect regulation

Parental emotion socialization plays a role in the development of adolescents’ emotion regulation and is associated with adolescents’ depressive symptoms. Most research has focused on parental socialization of negative affect. The scarce research on parental socialization of positive affect (PA) shows that parental downgrading responses to adolescents’ PA are associated with concurrent adolescent depression. The aims of the present study were to examine longitudinal associations of both maternal and paternal responses to adolescents’ PA with how adolescents regulate their PA (i.e., dampening and enhancing) and with adolescents’ general depressive symptoms and anhedonia. We also considered associations in the opposite direction from adolescent regulatory responses and symptoms to parental responses. In a two‐wave study (1‐year interval), 635 adolescents from Grade seven completed questionnaires. Cross‐sectionally, maternal and paternal responses to adolescents’ PA were associated with concurrent adolescents’ PA regulation as well as adolescents’ depressive and anhedonic symptoms. Longitudinally, low maternal and paternal enhancing responses to adolescents’ PA predicted relative increases in anhedonic symptoms and relative decreases in adolescent enhancing over time. Low maternal enhancing was also predictive of relative increases in depressive symptoms. The present study points to bidirectionality of relations as adolescents’ level of depressive symptoms predicted maternal and paternal responses.     

The household inventory as urban ‘theatre’ in late medieval Burgundy

In 1413 at the death of his wife Guillemot, Jean Aubert, a group of witnesses and a clerk of the local mayoralty met to value the possessions of their residence, resulting in an inventory full of notes and values on rooms and their objects. Within the existing historiography of the Burgundian Netherlands and its northern European neighbours, inventories and their objects tend to be analysed from two perspectives: the Burgundian court and the ‘consumer revolution’. Applying insights from Erving Goffman and Bruno Latour, this article suggests a third perspective should have priority: the urban ‘theatre’ within which objects were documented and placed. Therefore it sets up an alternate methodology which begins with the inventory to build a picture of the theatre (the urban context and residence), the actors (the Aubert family) and the audience (the witnesses of the inventory) to establish new insights into the operation of Burgundian power and the dynamics of the ‘consumer revolution’.