Marital Status and Problem Gambling Among Australian Older Adults: The Mediating Role of Loneliness

Problem gambling rates in older adults have risen dramatically in recent years and require further investigation. Limited available research has suggested that social needs may motivate gambling and hence problem gambling in older adults. Un-partnered older adults may be at greater risk of problem gambling than those with a partner. The current study explored whether loneliness mediated the marital status–problem gambling relationship, and whether gender moderated the mediation model. It was hypothesised that the relationship between being un-partnered and higher levels of loneliness would be stronger for older men than older women. A community sample of Australian men (n = 92) and women (n = 91) gamblers aged from 60 to 90 years (M = 69.75, SD = 7.28) completed the UCLA Loneliness Scale and the Problem Gambling Severity Index. The results supported the moderated mediation model, with loneliness mediating the relationship between marital status and problem gambling for older men but not for older women. It appears that felt loneliness is an important predictor of problem gambling in older adults, and that meeting the social and emotional needs of un-partnered men is important.     

The Effects of Importance of Religion and Church Attendance on Adolescents' Moral Beliefs

Drawing on the work of Emile Durkheim ([1912] 1995) and Rodney Stark (2001 Stark, Rodney. 2001. Gods, Rituals, and the Moral Order. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 40(4): 619–636. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) as well as research on the anti-ascetic thesis and reference group theory, we formulate a series of hypotheses regarding the effects of church attendance and importance of religion on adolescents' moral beliefs about marijuana use, getting drunk, hitting, and property offenses. The results of our study suggest that moral beliefs are more consistently and strongly related to importance of religion than to church attendance. Furthermore, much of the effect of church attendance on moral beliefs is mediated by importance of religion. Finally, we find evidence that importance of religion moderates (interaction) the effect of church attendance on moral beliefs. When adolescents believe religion is important, frequent church attendance further strengthens their moral beliefs. On the other hand, when adolescents believe religion is not important, frequent church attendance may actually reduce moral beliefs.     

Disparities in socio-economic outcomes: some positive propositions and their normative implications

Demographic disparities between the rates of occurrence of an adverse economic outcome can be observed to be increasing even as general social improvements supposedly lead towards the elimination of the adverse outcome in question. Scanlan (Chance 19(2):47–51, 2006) noticed this tendency and developed a ‘heuristic rule’ to explain it. In this paper, we explore the issue analytically, providing a criterion from stochastic ordering theory under which one of two demographic groups can be considered disadvantaged and the other advantaged, and showing that Scanlan’s heuristic obtains as a rigorous finding in such cases. Normative implications and appropriate social policy are discussed.     

The Development of a Reliable Change Index and Cutoff for the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale

The Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (RDAS; Busby, Crane, Larson, & Christensen, 1995) is a measure of couple relationship adjustment that is often used to differentiate between distressed and non‐distressed couples. While the measure currently allows for a determination of whether group mean scores change significantly across administrations, it lacks the ability to determine whether an individual's change in dyadic adjustment is clinically significant. This study addresses this limitation by establishing a cutoff of 47.31 and reliable change index of 11.58 for the RDAS by pooling data across multiple community and clinical samples. An individual whose score on the RDAS moves across the cutoff changes by 12 or more points can be classified as experiencing clinically significant change.     

Cracking the Code—An Approach to Developing Professional Writing Skills

The development of writing skills sufficient to meet the complexities of contemporary social work practice is a growing demand from employers and practice educators. The paper explores current pedagogical debate relating to student support and the development of writing skills and relates this debate to meeting the needs of social work students engaged in practice learning and professional practice. A number of questions are raised about current social work education in England and the needs of students entering from non-traditional academic backgrounds facing the increasingly rigorous demands of professional report writing. The discussion is then grounded in a practice example of staff from a university social work course and education guidance service working together to meet student need in respect of developing writing skills. The development, implementation and evaluation of a university writing skills programme for social work students are explored. The paper concludes by setting out a range of challenges arising from experience of the programme and a consideration of theory, and points to potential ways forward based on a social practice approach to teaching writing skills.     

The Chinese Cashmere Industry: A Global Value Chain Analysis

Growth and internationalisation of the Chinese economy have reconfigured the global value chains of many commodities with important implications for industry and rural and regional development both in and outside China. This article analyses the chain for cashmere, all stages of which have gravitated to China, and the impacts on rural development, especially for herders in remote pastoral regions. Traditionally a high‐value product, cashmere has become increasingly generic and adulterated over the past decade. More formal and closer integration of Chinese actors into the global industry and re‐orienting policy from supply‐side intervention to the enforcement of standards would enhance the competitiveness of Chinese cashmere in international fibre markets.     

Government guidance for the Care Act: undermining ambitions for change?

The UK Government claims to be creating a historic change to social care in England through the Care Act by putting people in control of their support. However, this is fundamentally contradicted by the draft guidance published to support the Act. This amounts to a formula for maintaining the prevailing resource-limited approach to assessing and meeting needs. This reality is obscured by a welter of choice and person-centred rhetoric. However, it need not be like this. Councils with a genuine commitment to being person-centred could refer directly to the Care Act to create an alternative future, while service users and their allies could bring about systemic changes if they use the Act to establish new rights.     

Mate Availability and Women's Sexual Experiences in China

Data from the 1999-2000 Chinese Health and Family Life Survey were merged with community-level data from the 1982, 1990, and 2000 Chinese censuses to examine the relationship between the local sex ratio (number of men per 100 women) and sexual outcomes among women (N = 1,369). Consistent with hypotheses derived from demographic-opportunity theory, multilevel logistic regression analyses showed that women are more likely to be sexually active, to have had premarital sexual intercourse, to have been forced to have sex, and to test positive for a sexually transmitted infection when there is a relative abundance of age-matched men in their local community. Education, birth cohort, and geographic location also emerged as significant predictors of women's sexual experiences.     

Metropolitan Heterogeneity and Minority Neighborhood Attainment: Spatial Assimilation or Place Stratification?

Using geo-referenced data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, in conjunction with decennial census data, this research examines metropolitan-area variation in the ability of residentially mobile blacks, Hispanics, and whites to convert their income into two types of neighborhood outcomes-neighborhood racial composition and neighborhood socioeconomic status. For destination tract racial composition, we find strong and near-universal support for the "weak version" of place stratification theory; relative to whites, the effect of individual income on the percent of the destination tract population that is non-Hispanic white is stronger for blacks and Hispanics, but even the highest earning minority group members move to tracts that are "less white" than the tracts that the highest-earning whites move to. In contrast, for moves into neighborhoods characterized by higher levels of average family income, we find substantial heterogeneity across metropolitan areas in minorities' capacity to convert income into neighborhood quality. A slight majority of metropolitan areas evince support for the "strong version" of place stratification theory, in which blacks and Hispanics are less able than whites to convert income into neighborhood socioeconomic status. However, a nontrivial number of metropolitan areas also evince support for spatial assimilation theory, where the highest-earning minorities achieve neighborhood parity with the highest-earning whites. Several metropolitan-area characteristics, including residential segregation, racial and ethnic composition, immigrant population size, poverty rates, and municipal fragmentation, emerge as significant predictors of minority-white differences in neighborhood attainment.     

Conducting Large‐Scale Surveys in Secondary Schools: The Case of the Youth On Religion (YOR) Project

There are few published articles on conducting large‐scale surveys in secondary schools, and this paper seeks to fill this gap. Drawing on the experiences of the Youth On Religion project, it discusses the politics of gaining access to these schools and the considerations leading to the adoption and administration of an online survey. It is concluded that successful research in schools has to be planned carefully in collaboration with key members of staff, and justified as an educational activity. Providing speedy feedback was helpful to ensure schools benefited from the research and to keep them engaged with the project. © 2011 The Author(s). Children & Society © 2011 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited