“Nothing goes as planned”: Practitioners reflect on matching children and foster families

Matching children with foster carers is an important step in every nonkinship family foster care placement. Although guidelines for matching are provided in several studies, the case‐specific context of the decision can influence the practitioners' ability to adhere to these guidelines. Therefore, this study answers the following question: “How does the case‐specific context influence the practitioners' decision‐making process regarding matching in family foster care?” Using a qualitative design, 20 semistructured interviews were conducted with practitioners matching children with foster families. Three themes emerged representing different layers of practitioners' everyday decision‐making: matching as planned, matching being tailored, and matching being compromised. The results show that exceptions are part of practitioners' daily work, either due to the belief that it might benefit those involved or because of obstacles presented during the decision‐making process. When the decision is compromised, matching practitioners lower their standards, while at the same time safeguarding the quality of the match. This proves that matching in practice is more than choosing a family, and guidelines are needed to determine what “good‐enough” matching should entail.     

Corporate and managerial characteristics as drivers of social responsibility disclosure by state-owned enterprises

The public administration sector, including state owned enterprises (SOEs), has developed various types of information disclosure practice, in response to stakeholders’ demands, in parallel with developments in the private sector. This paper analyses the corporate social responsibility (CSR) information disclosed by SOEs and the influence exerted by the characteristics of the SOEs themselves (size, industry sector, degree of government ownership and number of years in operation) and by those of their managers (age, gender, CSR education profile and CSR responsibilities in the workplace). To do so, an index of CSR information disclosure was created, based on the responses made to a questionnaire in this respect. An empirical regression model was then applied to test and categorise the factors analysed. According to the results obtained, the size and sector of the SOE, together with the manager’s CSR responsibilities, are the factors that most significantly affect the online disclosure of CSR information.     

A spatial randomness test based on the box-counting dimension

AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis - Statistical modelling of a spatial point pattern often begins by testing the hypothesis of spatial randomness. Classical tests are based on quadrat counts...     

Language in the process of labour market rationalisation: A sociohistorical approach across twentieth-century Spain

This article analyses the role of linguistic skills in the process of defining professional classifications in Spain during 1919–1980. The aim is to determine the social evaluation of the skills involved. To retrace the classifications, a total of 114 official documents were examined, establishing a chronological division into three major stages: 1920–1940, 1940–1960 and 1960–1980. The first period (1920–1940) shows efforts toward the initial objectification of working conditions and salary scales, revealing social prejudices and tacit conventions shaping the employment hierarchy, while the second one (1940–1960) indicates the extent to which office work stood out over manual work. Finally, the third stage (1960–1980) shows processes of language rationalisation, which entailed attempts to standardise positions based on required skill sets.     

Improving the protection of migrant workers with work histories in the European Union and Ibero-America: Enhancing the coordination of international social security instruments

Migration affects almost every nation, emphasizing the need to guarantee social security rights for all migrants and their families. This article focuses on the rights of workers who migrate between the countries of the European Union (EU) and the Ibero-American community. In the EU, social security systems are increasingly coordinated through Regulation No. 883/2004 and its Implementing Regulation No. 987/2009. In the Ibero-American community, coordination is sought through the Ibero-American Social Security Convention. Despite convergence between these two international instruments, coordination is still lacking between them. This article presents a comparative analysis to articulate the necessary mechanisms to guarantee coordination, to respect the social security rights of migrant workers. We focus on the cooperation and coordination between regional as well as national systems, specifically looking at the need for and aims of a rapprochement between these two major international coordination instruments to provide greater EU-Ibero-American cooperation. Finally, the importance of promoting greater international cooperation in social security policy and administration is highlighted, to engender the adequate protection of the rights as well as the free movement of migrant workers.     

Hurricane driven changes in vegetation structure and ecosystem services in tropical urban yards: a study case in San Juan,Puerto Rico

Urban forests are valuable spaces for species conservation, protection of local biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services. However, they are also vulnerable to the impact of extreme climate events like hurricanes. Understanding how urban forests are responding to hurricane disturbances is crucial to improve their design, management, and resilience. Here we analyzed pre-and post-hurricane vegetation surveys in 52 residential yards in San Juan to assess urban forest responses after Hurricanes Irma and María impacted Puerto Rico in 2017. We used these surveys to compare vegetation structure and composition (including species-specific mortality and damage rates) and to quantify changes in the ecosystem services provided by these yards. We found that hurricane disturbances significantly altered the structure but not the composition of yard vegetation. We detected a 27% reduction and 31% mortality of standing stems, and a significant reduction in plants health. Yard species composition was dominated by non-native species and this trend did not change with hurricane disturbance. Changes in vegetation structure translated into substantial reductions in ecosystem services. Food provision, an important service provided by a large proportion of yards before the hurricane, reported the highest reduction (41.9%) while carbon storage was the service that changed the least (9%). Our combined results emphasize the key role played by residential yards providing ecosystem services in tropical cities and call for further efforts to manage private and public urban forests in ways that may ensure their resilience to mitigate extreme climate events, provide multiple ecosystem services, and promote long-term urban sustainability.

     

Urban growth and heat islands: A case study in micro-territories for urban sustainability

Urban Ecosystems - Rapid urbanization contributes to the development of phenomena such as climate variability, especially in tropical countries, which negatively impact ecosystems and humans,...     

The new grounds for deportation of European Union citizens in the United Kingdom

Politicians often mention immigration enforcement, and deportation in particular, as a means to assert state sovereignty. This article looks at deportation through exiting the European Union, an event that was interpreted as regaining sovereignty from the supra-national organisation. New immigration regulations in the United Kingdom were meant to end the EU Freedom of Movement and equalise the statuses of EU- and non-EU migrants in the United Kingdom. The research question this article addresses is the following: how do the new immigration regulations and policies affect the possibility of deportations of EU citizens in the United Kingdom? With the lens of Interpretive Policy Analysis, the article analyses primary sources and expert interviews. It concludes that the deportability of EU citizens has increased post-Brexit. It also anticipates that the deportability of EU citizens will be differentiated, as rough sleepers, former convicts and irregular migrants may be first to be targeted with deportation.     

Influence of habitat type and distance from source area on bird taxonomic and functional diversity in a Neotropical megacity

The Neotropical region has been subjected to massive urbanization, which poses high risks for some global biodiversity hotspots and losses of ecosystem functions and services. In this study, we investigate how distance from large patches of native forests (source areas) and vegetation (green)/and infrastructure (gray) characteristics affect bird species richness and functional diversity in São Paulo megacity, southeastern Brazil. We analyzed the effects of source areas and green/gray characteristics on species richness and functional diversity (richness, evenness, and divergence) indices. We detected 231 bird species, and our data confirmed our predictions: (1) bird species richness in urbanized habitats was found to be (~?50–85%) lower than in source habitats; (2) species richness and trait composition significantly decreased as the distance from the source area increased, while functional richness was not affected by this metric; and (3) shrub and herbaceous covers and maximum height of trees were positively correlated with species richness and unique functional traits regarding habitat, diet, foraging and nesting strata and dispersal ability of birds in the forest-urban matrix. The number of buildings was negatively correlated with bird species richness and functional richness. Maximum height of buildings caused dramatic declines in functional evenness. Functional divergence was notably lower in sites with high shrub cover. Our study stresses the complexity of vegetation embedded in large Neotropical urban settlements and the need to maintain large protected areas surrounding megacities to mitigate the impacts of urbanization on birds.

     

Classification Algorithm for Skin Color (CASCo): A new tool to measure skin color in social science research

Objective

A growing body of literature reveals that skin color has significant effects on people's income, health, education, and employment. However, the ways in which skin color has been measured in empirical research have been criticized for being inaccurate, if not subjective and biased.

Objective

Introduce an objective, automatic, accessible and customizable Classification Algorithm for Skin Color (CASCo).

Methods

We review the methods traditionally used to measure skin color (verbal scales, visual aids or color palettes, photo elicitation, spectrometers and image-based algorithms), noting their shortcomings. We highlight the need for a different tool to measure skin color

Results

We present CASCo, a (social researcher-friendly) Python library that uses face detection, skin segmentation and k-means clustering algorithms to determine the skin tone category of portraits.

Conclusion

After assessing the merits and shortcomings of all the methods available, we argue CASCo is well equipped to overcome most challenges and objections posed against its alternatives. While acknowledging its limitations, we contend that CASCo should complement researchers. toolkit in this area.