Preparing Parents for Adoption: An Agency Experience

To prepare for the complexities of family formation, 78 prospective adoptive parents participated in Pre-Adopt, a psychosocial educational orientation program offered by one private nonprofit agency. The five-session curriculum included an overview of adoption policies and procedures, discussion of the child placement process, exploration of couples' adoption concerns and expectations about child characteristics, information about adoption laws and birth-parent/child searches, and examination of anticipatory fantasies about birth parents. Program evaluation yielded statistically significant and clinically meaningful findings about changes in emotional readiness to adopt, parenting knowledge, and satisfaction with group participation, adoption policies and agency practices. Practice implications are considered.     

Measuring Substance Abuse Treatment Need Among Adults in Florida: A Social Indicators Approach

Determining the size and demographiccharacteristics of substance abuse populationsis extremely important for implementing publicpolicies aimed at the control of substanceabuse. Such information not only assists in theallocation of limited treatment resources bythe state, but also in the monitoring ofsubstance abuse trends over time and in theevaluation of innovative policy initiatives. Inthis study, we develop three composite measuresof treatment need. We then use these measuresto estimate treatment need for alcohol abuseand for controlled substance abuse within eachof Florida's 67 counties. This study providesan important empirical component of communityplanning, quantifying and, to a limited degree,specifying the level of need for the substanceabuse treatment of community residents. Anadditional benefit is the development of a costeffective and unobtrusive methodology fordetermining empirically when levels of need arechanging so that treatment levels can beadjusted accordingly. With proper use,policymakers can readily employ the methodologydeveloped in this study in Florida andelsewhere to make better-informed decisions inthe allocation of finite substance abusetreatment resources.     

Knowledge,power, and ethics in qualitative social research

Philadelphia, then and still one of the worst governed of America’s badly governed cities, was having one of its periodic spasms of reform. A thorough study of causes was called for. Not but what the underlining cause was evident to most white Philadelphians: the corrupt semi-criminal vote of the Negro Seventh Ward…. Would it not be well, to elucidate the known causes by a scientific investigation?… With my bride of three months, I settled in one room over a cafeteria run by a College Settlement, in the worst part of the Seventh Ward. We lived there a year, in the midst of an atmosphere of dirt, drunkenness, poverty and crime. Murder sat on our doorstep, police were our government, and philanthropy dropped in with periodic advice. (DuBois, 1968/1975: 194–5 also in Logan, ed. 1944: 42) What had been borne into me during my book studies was my utter ignorance of the manual-working class, that is, of four-fifths of my countrymen…. How was I to get an opportunity of watching, day by day, in their homes and in their workshops, a sufficient number of normal manual-working families to enable me to visualize the class as a whole; to understand what was meant by chronic poverty and insecurity of livelihood. (Webb, 1926: 146–7)     

Male Adolescents: Sexual Victimization and Subsequent Sexual Abuse

Veneziano, Veneziano and LeGrand (2000) found support for the victim to victimizer hypothesis of sexual aggression with 74 sexually abusive youth. This project, a further step in examining this theory (Burton, 2000, Burton, Miller, & Shill, 2002) builds on their ideas with data from 179 adolescent sexual abusers, and supports their findings. In an examination of relationships, gender, modus operandi, and acts, the sexually abused youth were likely to repeat what was done to them. This project also offers a further analysis of how victimization accounts for a significant portion of the variance in perpetration by these youth. Implications for research and practice are offered.     

What Do Grandmothers Think about Self‐esteem? American and Taiwanese Folk Theories Revisited

The study investigates European American and Taiwanese grandmothers’ folk theories of childrearing and self‐esteem, building on an earlier comparison of mothers from the same families. Adopting methods that privilege local meanings, we bring grandmothers’ voices into the conversation about childrearing, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of intergenerational nuances in folk theories. In each cultural case, 16 grandmothers of 3‐year‐olds participated in in‐depth interviews that were customized according to local communicative norms. Although self‐esteem emerged as a central organizing concept in the folk theories of European American mothers, grandmothers spoke in two voices, either echoing their daughters or invoking a counter‐discourse of wariness towards self‐esteem. By contrast, Taiwanese mothers and grandmothers resembled one another—but differed from their American counterparts—in treating self‐esteem as peripheral in childrearing. Results contribute to the growing consensus that self‐esteem is a culture‐specific childrearing goal and suggest that the European American tendency to valorize self‐esteem varies by generation.     

绿党对宪法基本原则的挑战

绿党是西方兴起的一种新的政治力量,其哲学观是把生态环境利益上升为人类最高利益,并以自然生态环境为国家社会中心的生态中心主义,它的出现带来的是对传统价值观念、经济发展模式的变革性的挑战,对宪法基本原则的挑战也不容忽视。其生态权利之上的价值观对宪法基本原则的挑战表现为人民主权原则的动摇、基本人权原则的错位、权力制约原则的变异和法治原则的化。     

Uncertainty Analysis for Computer Model Projections of Hurricane Losses

Projecting losses associated with hurricanes is a complex and difficult undertaking that is wrought with uncertainties. Hurricane Charley, which struck southwest Florida on August 13, 2004, illustrates the uncertainty of forecasting damages from these storms. Due to shifts in the track and the rapid intensification of the storm, real-time estimates grew from 2 to 3 billion dollars in losses late on August 12 to a peak of 50 billion dollars for a brief time as the storm appeared to be headed for the Tampa Bay area. The storm hit the resort areas of Charlotte Harbor near Punta Gorda and then went on to Orlando in the central part of the state, with early poststorm estimates converging on a damage estimate in the 28 to 31 billion dollars range. Comparable damage to central Florida had not been seen since Hurricane Donna in 1960. The Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology (FCHLPM) has recognized the role of computer models in projecting losses from hurricanes. The FCHLPM established a professional team to perform onsite (confidential) audits of computer models developed by several different companies in the United States that seek to have their models approved for use in insurance rate filings in Florida. The team's members represent the fields of actuarial science, computer science, meteorology, statistics, and wind and structural engineering. An important part of the auditing process requires uncertainty and sensitivity analyses to be performed with the applicant's proprietary model. To influence future such analyses, an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis has been completed for loss projections arising from use of a Holland B parameter hurricane wind field model. Uncertainty analysis quantifies the expected percentage reduction in the uncertainty of wind speed and loss that is attributable to each of the input variables.