Does the Risk Outweigh the Benefits? Adolescent Responses to Completing Health Surveys

The aim of this study is to describe the self‐reported experiences of adolescents in population‐based samples when completing health‐related surveys on topics with varying potential for evoking distress. Survey data were collected in three school‐based studies of bullying behaviors (N = 1,771, 12–14 years), alcohol use (N = 823, 12, 15, and 17 years), and electronic image sharing (N = 274, 13 years). Between 5% and 15% of respondents reported being upset at survey completion, but at most 1.4% were entirely negative in their evaluation. Age was not associated with being upset, but younger adolescents were more likely to see benefit in participation. Although concurrent mental health symptoms increased the risk of being upset, this was mostly mitigated by perceived benefits from participation.     

Marriage, divorce, and legal change: new evidence from England and Wales

In this article, we explain the evolution of divorce rates in England and Wales over the post-war period. Following the approach of the predominantly North American literature in this area, we focus on the liberalization of divorce law and socioeconomic factors as determinants of the divorce rate. In line with the development of the literature, we find that the introduction of liberalized, no-fault divorce law had a significant effect on the divorce rate in England and Wales. The finding that the law affects the divorce rate is consistent with the view that marriage is characterized by indivisibilities that inhibit Coasian bargaining.     

A theory of quality-related differences in retail margins: why there is a 'premium' on premium gasoline

This paper develops a theory of vertical and horizontal product differentiation to explain observed price-cost margin differentials for goods that differ in quality. The difference in price-cost margins between the high- and low-quality goods is shown to depend positively on consumers' average valuation for incremental increases in quality and positively on the distance to each competitor's closest rival. These predictions are largely supported using an extensive station-level data set of premium and regular unleaded gasoline prices from the Los Angeles Basin area from 1992–1995.     

Addressing the cultural complexity of OHS in the Australian mining industry

This paper summarises the findings of the site assessments of ten pilot mine sites involved in a project entitled, Creating a world-leading OHS culture in the NSW Mining Industry which was undertaken for the New South Wales Mine Safety Advisory Council (NSW MSAC). NSW MSAC was established in 1998 in NSW Australia and aims to increase the emphasis on safety and health within the mining industry by reviewing and analyzing safety performance, setting strategic directions, providing advice and developing policy recommendations. The project itself aimed to deliver a self-sustaining method for achieving and monitoring continuous improvement in OHS culture and practice to the NSW mining industry. The pilot sites involved in the project tested a set of self-assessment tools to enable mines to assess and improve their own OHS culture and performance on key elements of an OHS management system. The tools allowed examination of the current OHS culture of the sites. Sites then used a participative planning process to develop an improvement plan. This paper provides summary data only, without identifying the individual sites that were the source of the data.     

Science and social work: a sketch

While recognizing that understanding of ‘science’ varies across time and countries, there are strands of a shared albeit diverse inheritance. Failures to see where we are located within this inheritance make the social work community vulnerable to simplistic claims regarding what, for example, ‘doing science’ is like. This in turn makes it difficult to deal adequately with questions such as in what ways can or should we distinguish social work science from other kinds of knowledge? Is science in some recognizable way a unified form of knowledge? How ought we to deal with disputes and disagreements in social work science? What kinds of consequences might we envisage from social work science? I deal in turn with each of these questions.     

Sociological social work: a cartoon

I trace an account of social work—and sociology—that I believe holds a promise for re-forming the relationship between the two. I develop the argument in two ways. First, taking 1920s Chicago as a case study, I will attempt ‘a history of the present’ to suggest how the relationship between sociology and social work came to be as it is. I will suggest that the practice of some (both familiar and forgotten) people in 1920s and 1930s sociology and social work is best explained as a form of ‘sociological social work’. Second, after tracking this genealogy, I suggest an agenda for sociological social work that consists of straining to enact certain kinds of inter-disciplinary relationships, developing methodological social work practice, hearing occasional sociological frontier conversations and shared theorising. I illustrate how these arguments challenge both sociology and social work and both theory and practice.