Adults who grew up in care: constructing the self and accessing care files

Past research on care leavers has, understandably, tended to focus on those who are in their mid‐ to late‐teens or early 20s. This reflects the profound impact of central and local government policy on those young people. It also reflects their prominence in contemporary analyses of most of the indicators of social exclusion among young people in the UK – unemployment, homelessness and lack of educational qualifications among them. However, some issues affecting adults who grew up in care apply across the life course. One such issue is the access that former care adults have to their child care files. Indeed, as we shall see, this issue has particular importance for many older adults (in their 30s and upwards). Policy and practice in this field has changed significantly during the past 20 years and there is a growing awareness of the needs of former care adults in this area. Access to such files can be a significant element in the process of seeking to address identity concerns centring around family and childhood experiences. This paper explores some of these identity concerns and analyses how access to care files both reflects such concerns and attempts to address them.     

Nonprofit management—soup to nuts

The Jossey‐Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management—Second Edition. Robert D. Herman and Associates (eds.). San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 2005. 816 pp., $75.00 cloth.     

From Organizational Sexuality to Queer Organizations: Research on Homosexuality and the Workplace

Organization scholars historically ignored the crucial importance of sexuality in the workplace. But in the last 20 years, scholars influenced by the ‘sexuality in organizations’ perspective have documented the ways that the management and deployment of workers’ sexuality are key elements in organizational life. While most of these studies have documented persistent privileging of heterosexuality in work organizations, a recent trend is to investigate a new organizational form: the gay‐friendly workplace. We review legal and policy changes in US workplaces that have made them more accepting of gay and lesbian employees. Then we examine ethnographic studies of gay‐friendly organizations. Although they are certainly an advance over previous homophobic workplaces, the literature suggests that they may reproduce inequalities of race, class, and gender. Few studies have investigated ‘queer organizations’, which we identify as a rich area for future scholarship.     

Transitions related to infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

Discovery of one's human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, or receiving a diagnosis of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), sets in motion a variety of transitions for individuals. Transitions may be characterized by changes in identity or role, changes in physical capacity and functioning, changes in outlook, changes in relationships, changes in routine, etc. Workplaces also face transitions to deal with increasing numbers of workers who are infected with HIV. A model for vocational rehabilitation counselors to assist individuals living with HIV infection in adjusting to their transitions is presented, and resources for providing informational support of individuals and organizations are described.     

Patterns of human disturbance and response by small mammals and birds in chaparral near urban development

We report on the extent of disturbance (including habitat alteration and road and trail proliferation) in chaparral near urban development and analyze the effects of disturbance on small mammal and resident bird species. Disturbance patterns were evaluated in a 6700 ha study area in southern California: effects on mammals and birds were investigated by analyzing relationships between vegetation structure and animal species richness and abundance. Disturbance was prevalent throughout the study area and included extensive human-altered habitat (from past human activities such as vegetation clearing, human-caused fires, refuse dumping, and vegetation trampling) and 157 km of roads and trails. A nonsignificant trend was found between human-altered habitat and proximity to development, but human-altered habitat was significantly associated with roadway proximity. Trails were also more frequent near urban development and roads. Small mammals responded strongly to disturbance-related vegetation changes, while birds showed little or no response. Mammals endemic to chaparral vegetation were less diverse and abundant in disturbed sites, whereas disturbance-associated species increased in abundance. Close proximity of urban development to natural areas resulted in alteration of natural habitat and proliferation of roads and trails. Variation in life history traits between birds and mammals may affect response to disturbance and influence persistence if disturbance continues. Conservation efforts must recognize the potential for habitat damage and associated declines in native animal species caused by disturbance near urbanization and implement strategies to reduce these threats.     

Intervening with At-risk Mothers: Supporting Infant Language Development

At-risk young mothers and their infants (4–7 months of age) participated in an evaluation of a parenting intervention that focused largely on language stimulation. Participants assigned to the intervention group were matched with a volunteer mentor and were encouraged to attend eleven parenting sessions (five to seven participants per group) across approximately 8 months. Participants in the control group received referrals as needed and were followed across time. Results indicated that babies of the participants in the intervention group experienced more improvement in expressive language from pretest to posttest than did babies of the mothers in the control group.     

Children's Attention to Others' Beliefs during Persuasion: Improvised and Selected Arguments to Puppets and People

Until now children's attention to the beliefs of people they wish to persuade has been examined experimentally via tasks that were artificial in important respects. To determine whether such research has underestimated children's psychological perspective taking, two studies that manipulated task elements pertinent to ecological validity were conducted. Children in three age groups (3, 4/5, and 6/7 years) were asked (forced‐choice and open‐ended formats) how best to persuade puppets and people, with differing beliefs, to pet and play with various toy animals. Children offered as many or more belief‐relevant arguments in response to forced‐choice as to open‐ended questions. Only the oldest group attended to beliefs more when persuading a person compared with a puppet. Even on more realistic tasks, significant improvement with age across task formats confirmed a developmental trajectory in line with extant reports of children's belief reasoning. The findings support the idea that enhanced social competence corresponds specifically to children's increasing attention to beliefs in social interactions such as persuasion.     

ADOLESCENTS' INCONSISTENCY IN SELF-REPORTED SMOKING: A COMPARISON OF REPORTS IN SCHOOL AND IN HOUSEHOLD SETTINGS

Extent and sources of inconsistency in self-reported cigarette smoking between self-administered school surveys and household interviews was examined in two longitudinal multiethnic adolescent samples, the urban Transition to Nicotine Dependence in Adolescence (TND) (N = 832) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) (N = 4,414). Inconsistency was defined as a positive report of smoking in school followed by a negative report in the household. Smoking questions were ascertained with paper-and-pencil instruments (PAPI-SAQ) in school in both studies, and computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) in TND but audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI) in Add Health in the household. In TND, 23.5 percent of youths who reported smoking lifetime and 20.4 percent of those who reported smoking the last 12 months in the school survey reported in the household never having smoked; in Add Health, the latter was 8.6 percent. Logistic regressions identified five common correlates of inconsistency across the two studies: younger age, ethnic minority status, lesser involvement in deviant activities, having nonsmoking parents and friends. In TND, interviewing of youth and parent by the same interviewer increased inconsistent reporting. Matching the definition of inconsistent reporting and the age, gender and race/ethnic distributions of TND on an urban Add Health subsample reduced the predicted rate of inconsistency in TND. The estimated bias attributable to CAPI compared with ACASI methodology did not reach significance in the aggregated matched samples suggesting that irrespective of administration mode, household interviews decrease reporting of smoking, especially among younger, minority and more conventional youths embedded in a social network of nonsmokers.     

Retrospective Temporal and Spatial Mobility of Adult Iowa Women

Human exposure assessments require a linkage between toxicant concentrations in occupied spaces and the receptor's mobility pattern. Databases reporting distinct populations' mobility in various parts of the home, time outside the home, and time in another building are scarce. Temporal longitudinal trends in these mobility patterns for specific age and gender groups are nonexistent. This paper describes subgroup trends in the spatial and temporal mobility patterns within the home, outside the home, and in another building for 619 Iowa females that occupied the same home for at least 20 years. The study found that the mean time spent at home for the participants ranged from a low of 69.4% for the 50-59 year age group to a high of 81.6% for the over 80-year-old age group. Participants who lived in either one- or two- story homes with basements spent the majority of their residential occupancy on the first story. Trends across age varied for other subgroups by number of children, education, and urbadrural status. Since all of these trends were nonlinear, they indicate that error exists when assuming a constant, such as a 75% home occupancy factor, which has been advocated by some researchers and agencies. In addition, while aggregate data, such as presented in this report, are more helpll in deriving risk estimates for population subgroups, they cannot supplant good individual-level data for determining risks.     

RECONSTITUTING COMMUNITY: SOCIAL JUSTICE,SOCIAL ORDER AND THE POLITICS OF COMMUNITY

Social policy debates are informed today by a rhetoric of the ‘politics of community’ which focuses on problems of social fragmentation and exclusion in the new era of globalisation. While this rhetoric was earlier associated primarily with debate on social justice, it now more frequently relies on notions of social order, notably in the Federal Government's welfare reform agenda. ‘Community ‘ is thus a central and dynamic focus of debate, especially in relation to the arguments over ‘social capital’. The most important question in this project of ‘reconstituting community’ is the kind of community likely to emerge under globalisation: which question cannot be raised without shifting the current focus on social order back to one on social justice.