Do Donors Care? Some Australian Evidence

It is commonly believed that individuals would donate more to charity if they were assured that the funds would not be wasted. This is a common answer to survey type investigations into charitable giving. In this paper we adopt a law and finance approach to investigate the validity of this contention in the Australian context. We develop an Accountability Rights variable and relate that variable to charitable donations. The relationship between the two is statistically weak and not robust.     

EXTENDED REVIEW

Deviance, Reality and Society by Steven Box Deviance and Society by Laurie Taylor. Deviance, Crime and Socio-Legal Control by Roland Robertson and Laurie Tayor. The New Criminology: For a Social Theory of Deviance by Paul Walton and Jock Young.     

Reminiscing Style During Conversations About Emotion‐laden Events and Effects of Attachment Security Among Italian Mother–Child Dyads

Previous research has established that mothers' and children's elaborative/evaluative styles during conversations about emotion‐laden events are associated with a range of social‐cognitive accomplishments, and this has prompted researchers to identify factors that predict stylistic differences in conversation styles. The study explored whether patterns and variations in reminiscing styles reported in other cultures would be observed in an Italian sample (N = 40 dyads). Attachment security, assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview for mothers and the Q‐Sort for children, were tested as possible sources of variation in conversation style. The two reminiscing styles identified through a clustering procedure were consistent with those displayed by dyads from other cultural groups; moreover, these were significantly related to both mothers' and children's attachment security. These results extend knowledge on reminiscing conversations during early childhood to a different cultural context and contribute to an understanding of how individual differences in attachment affect partners' participation in such conversations.     

A qualitative analysis of suicide risk factors,preferred means,and means restriction feasibility within a homeless shelter environment

Suicide completion rates among homeless individuals are approximately nine times higher than the general population. The purpose of this study was to capture the state of social support among homeless individuals, understand how homeless community members support peers in crisis, examine the awareness of suicidal ideation, identify common methods for suicide, and generate strategies for means restriction within a shelter. Twenty individuals residing at an emergency shelter were interviewed. Participants were of diverse cultural identities overrepresented in the sample relative to the general population. Interviews revealed that 40% of participants lacked social support. However, the majority indicated that if they encountered someone at risk for suicide, they would provide support and encouragement to the at-risk individual. Almost half of participants reported knowing of an individual in the shelter who had previously attempted suicide and/or was currently or previously feeling suicidal. Overdose was identified as a primary method for suicide; however, the majority of participants were unable to generate strategies for means restriction. The present study offers a glimpse into the experience of homeless individuals and provides valuable information regarding risk factors for suicide within this highly marginalized and underserved population.     

Assessing Multidimensional Approaches to Measure Program Outcomes in Human Service Organizations

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This study explores scholars’ approaches to measure performance in nonprofit human service organizations. While...     

Toddler Emotion Regulation With Mothers and Fathers: Temporal Associations Between Negative Affect and Behavioral Strategies

The present study investigated temporal associations between putative emotion regulation strategies and negative affect in 20‐month‐old toddlers. Toddlers’ parent‐focused, self‐distraction, and toy‐focused strategies, as well as negative affect, were rated on a second‐by‐second basis during laboratory parent–toddler interactions. Longitudinal mixed‐effects models were conducted to determine the degree to which behavioral strategy use predicts subsequent negative affect and negative affect predicts subsequent strategy use. Results with mother–toddler and father–toddler dyads indicated that parent‐focused strategies with an unresponsive parent were followed by increases in negative affect, whereas toy‐focused strategies were followed by decreases in negative affect. Results also indicated that toddler negative affect serves to regulate behavioral strategy use within both parent contexts.     

Women and the elite

Cette étude examine les changements dans le choix professionnel des femmes dans deux écoles canadiennes privées qui ont fortement représenté l'élite traditionnelle au Canada, afin d'évaluer le degré de changement qui s'est produit entre les années 60 et les années 70. Les données indiquent que les aspirations à la réalisation sont à la hausse. La connexité des femmes et de l'élite n'a jamais été adéquatement conceptualiséd et cette étude explore ce probléme. On se sert de données au-delà du choix professionnel pour analyser quelques explorations conceptuelles de la nature du rapport des femmes et de l'élite, ainsi que les répercussions du Mouvement féministe et d'autres changements socio-économiques au cours de la decennie.
Changes in the occupational choice of females at two of Canada's private schools which have figured strongly in Canada's traditional elite are examined in order to assess the degree of change from the decade of the 1960s to the 1970s. Data indicate a rise in achievement aspirations. The relationship of women to the elite has never been adequately conceptualized and this problem is explored. Data beyond that of occupational choice is utilized to test certain conceptual explorations of the nature of women's relationship to the elite and to analyze the impact of the Women's Movement and other socio-economic changes over the decade.     

Gambling: The shaping of an opinion

Examining historical and contemporary writings, the authors show that many of the negative arguments about gambling spring from selfish interests in the business and political sectors. The stigma associated with gambling turns out to be a method of preventing competition from gambling, and leads to misguided social policies.The authors are, respectively, associate professor of economics at the Business School of the University of Montreal (HEC), and professor of economics in the department of economics of the University of Montreal. The paper draws on our recently published bookGambling and Speculation (Cambridge University Press, 1990), as well as on events that took place since we finished writing it. We thank Loto-Québec for its financial support.     

Social work education in the West Indies

Social Work Education has been offered in the West Indies at a professional certificate level since 1961. Programmes exist within multi-disciplinary Departments of academic institutions in six countries. Given limited staff resources, they benefit from the availability of instruction in related subject areas but lack the autonomy to create fully integrated social work curricula. Graduates are prepared to function in a post-colonial (post slavery) West Indian society characterized by increasingly democratized patterns of social organization and indicators of modernization but with a serious catalogue of contextual, structural and human behavioural problems which impact the economic social and cultural lifestyles of the people. While there have been some positive developments, the major constraining factors for regional social work education are: limited resources which deny programme autonomy, limit staffing and subject offerings; an unsatisfactory dependence on metropolitan social work education models; and an insufficient sensitivity to the challenge to produce indigenous theory and culturally appropriate practice models. Challenges to be addressed are the need for authentic West Indian (Caribbean) social work models, the strengthening of field practice experience for students, more preparation for advocacy and policy development roles and the extension of professional education at the undergraduate level through the distance education mode, and at the post graduate level.     

Big Business in a Thin Market: Understanding the Privatization of Residential Care for Children and Youth in Sweden

This article analyzes the transformation of Swedish residential care for children from a regionally coordinated, public social service system into a thin, but highly profitable, national spot market in which large corporations have a growing presence. Marketization and privatization are theorized as complex processes, through which the institutional structure and logics of this small, but significant, social policy field changed profoundly. Using official documents, register data, media reports and existing research, three consecutive phases in the development of the children's home market are identified since the early 1980s. Change was driven on one hand by policies inspired by New Public Management, which shifted public authority horizontally to the private sector, and vertically to local authorities (funding) and to the state (regulation). On the other hand were the responses of local authorities and private actors to the changing incentives that policy shifts entailed. During the first two phases, both the proportion and size of for‐profit providers increased, and the model of family‐like care was replaced by a professional model. Cutting across the trend of privatization in the third phase was establishment of a parallel system of homes for unaccompanied refugee children – mostly in public ownership. Similarities with privatization in the English system of children's care homes are noted. By showing how the Swedish market for residential care has been created by policy and by actors’ responses to those reforms, the article provides a foundation for thinking through how the predictable, significant and well‐documented problems of such care markets might be addressed.