Developing a Common Language in Children's Services through Research‐based Inter‐disciplinary Training

Two sources of inertia to improving services for children in need are the difficulties of getting evidence into practice and the complications of inter‐agency working. Current training arrangements in social work and disparities between children's services professions as regards training requirements are contributory factors. The Common Language project is a work in progress, adopting a research‐based, inter‐disciplinary approach to working with social workers and other children's services professionals. It comprises core ideas and methods to complement the more specialist knowledge and skills required in each profession. Underpinned by a child development perspective and a scientific development cycle, it rests on a conceptual framework including need, threshold, service and outcome. The approach has three components (each of which includes training): (1) the implementation of practice tools; (2) the planning and development of integrated services; and (3) supporting materials, including practitioner‐orientated modules and a curriculum for PhD students. Distinguishing features include research utilisation, notably a focus on inculcating research‐mindedness as opposed to imparting findings, and also collaborative professional working, in particular via practical connections between different agencies, stakeholders and countries. The project is being evaluated in terms of uptake, change in professional thinking and practice and effects on child well‐being. Next steps for the project relate to broader lessons for social work training emerging from research and development elsewhere.     

Entangling the social: Comments on Alexander Wendt,Quantum Mind and Social Science

Alexander Wendt suggests that an emerging field of research on quantum consciousness may have important implications for our understanding of the social world as well. He wants us to consider that the operations of the brain are not “classical” but rather quantum‐mechanical, and that this sheds light on the social worker as well. This article casts doubt on these claims. First, the idea of panpsychism (all physical things possess features of consciousness) is implausible on its face. Second, the findings of “quantum decision theory” are much more limited than Wendt recognizes. Third, the biological quantum effects currently subject to investigation are limited in their application to brains and persons by unavoidable limits of time and space scale on quantum effects. The “brain as quantum computer” or “brain as wave function” theory is very implausible given current knowledge.     

Technical-Professional Unemployment: Middle-class Adaptability to Personal Crisis*

Previous research generally indicates that unemployment is damaging to self-esteem and morale with attendant economic deprivations. Research among the middleclass unemployed is quite rare and is inconclusive as to the specific impact of unemployment on members of this stratum. In this study, interviews with one hundred unemployed male technical-professionals during the aerospace-defense-electronics recession of early 1972 revealed that for many, unemployment was less stressful than expected. The expression of a positive attitude toward job loss by 48 percent of the sample became a subject of special interest. The reason most frequently given for having a positive attitude toward job loss was that it represented an opportunity to escape from an undesirable job. Being laid off apparently made a decision that many unemployed men had considered but had not brought themselves to make prior to the layoff. Additional variables which might help to explain the high percentage of men expressing a positive attitude toward job loss are discussed. Especially important are factors which taken together enhance the adaptability of these middle-class professionals to their unemployment by softening its financial impact.     

For those left behind. An educational inpatient rehabilitation program

1. An interdisciplinary program model was developed for the treatment of mentally ill individuals remaining in long-term state mental institutions that focused on self-maintenance, social functioning, and community living skills. 2. Patients were categorized according to their levels of functioning and diagnoses, and were assigned to programs that were developed to meet the needs of a specific group of patients. 3. The goals of the program were to enhance the quality of life for the patients; promote self-direction and capacity for self-care by increasing the patient's opportunities to make life decisions; and prepare the patients to live in a less restrictive environment.     

A review of inflation accounting and its economic implications

The purposes of this paper are firstly to identify the problems which inflation creates in the context of conventional accounting methods, secondly to consider the alternative forms of inflation accounting which have been proposed, thirdly to look in more detail at the particular method which is to be adopted in the UK, and finally to consider the effects which that method will have on company results and on broader economic issues.     

Some statistical analysis issues at the World Fertility Survey

"The World Fertility Survey carried out cross-sectional probability surveys of fertility in more than 40 developing countries between 1972 and 1984. Statistical issues in regression analysis of the data are reviewed, including treatment of interactions, the selection of regressor variables, and appropriate linear models for rate variables. Similar issues arise in many other applications of regression to observational data."     

Forms and Functions of Aggression in Adolescent Friendship Selection and Influence: A Longitudinal Social Network Analysis

Aggressive children are known to have friends. However, less is known about the impact of aggression on friendship development and how this can differ for overt and relational (i.e., the forms) and instrumental and reactive (i.e., the functions) aggression. This longitudinal study utilized the forms and functions perspective on aggression to assess social selection and influence in adolescents' (N = 337, 12–14 years) friendship networks. Instrumentally and relationally aggressive peers became mutual friends with similar peers. Influence effects were observed in all types of aggression except overt aggression, suggesting that instrumental, reactive, and relational aggression may be the most susceptible to social influence. The findings are discussed in terms of theoretical and methodological implications for the study of aggression and adolescent friendships.     

The Use of Sample Weights in Hot Deck Imputation

A common strategy for handling item nonresponse in survey sampling is hot deck imputation, where each missing value is replaced with an observed response from a "similar" unit. We discuss here the use of sampling weights in the hot deck. The naive approach is to ignore sample weights in creation of adjustment cells, which effectively imputes the unweighted sample distribution of respondents in an adjustment cell, potentially causing bias. Alternative approaches have been proposed that use weights in the imputation by incorporating them into the probabilities of selection for each donor. We show by simulation that these weighted hot decks do not correct for bias when the outcome is related to the sampling weight and the response propensity. The correct approach is to use the sampling weight as a stratifying variable alongside additional adjustment variables when forming adjustment cells.     

A hierarchical theory of occupational segregation and wage discrimination

Becker's model of discrimination is extended to the case where men exhibit distastes for working under female managers. The distribution of women in the resulting occupational hierarchy depends on the number of women in lower occupations, the wages of male workers in lower occupations, and male distastes for female management. Thus, there exists an occupational sorting function, related to wages, that determines the occupational distribution of women. We integrate this sorting function into a standard wage equation to derive a new decomposition of male-female wage differentials and apply it to a sample of insurance industry workers from the 1988 CPS.