Safe Spaces: Gay‐Straight Alliances in High Schools

In activists’ circles as in sociology, the concept “safe space” has been applied to all sorts of programs, organizations, and practices. Few studies have specified clearly what safe spaces are and how they support the people who occupy them. We examine one social location typically understood to be a safe space: gay‐straight alliance groups in high schools. Using qualitative interviews with young adults in the United States and Canada who have participated in gay‐straight alliances, we unpack this complex concept to consider some of the dimensions along which safe spaces might vary. Based on interviews with participants, we derive three interrelated dimensions of safe space: social context, membership, and activity.     

Intervening in youth problem behavior in Sweden: a pragmatic cost analysis of MST from a randomized trial with conduct disordered youth

Olsson TM. Intervening in youth problem behavior in Sweden: a pragmatic cost analysis of MST from a randomized trial with conduct disordered youth Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 194–205 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. Within the context of a randomized trial, this study assessed the costs of treating conduct disorder with multisystemic therapy (MST) or treatment as usual (TAU) for 156 youth in Sweden. From the perspective of the municipal Social Welfare Administration, all intervention costs were collected for the 6‐month period starting at randomization. MST was found to cost, on average, US$8,847 per youth. A course of intervention including MST was found to cost significantly more (US$5,038 per youth) than TAU. Although MST was found to reduce the use of and costs associated with non‐placement interventions, MST was not found to reduce the use of or costs associated with placement interventions. This is contrary to findings reported from studies undertaken in the USA. Intent‐to‐treat (ITT) and treatment‐of‐treated (TOT) analyses are presented.     

Whose Wishes and Feelings? Children's Autonomy and Parental Influence in Family Court Enquiries

The importance of the child’s right to be heard and fortheir wishes and feelings to be taken notice of is now acceptedacross a broad professional and research terrain. Increasingly,children are being treated as active participants in the processesand decisions that affect them. In cases of divorce and separation,especially where parental relationships are conflicted, theaccepted wisdom in the UK for many years has been for childrento be protected rather than empowered. More recently, practitioners,policy makers and researchers have looked for ways to involvechildren, although the ‘welfare’ of the child hasremained paramount. In this context, the question of how toensure that wishes and feelings expressed are those that authenticallybelong to the child, rather than to their parent, sibling orother, has achieved a new significance. This article presentsfindings from recent research to illustrate how the tensionbetween protection and empowerment is being played out in thisaspect of welfare report enquiries carried out by CAFCASS (Childrenand Family Court Advisory and Support Service) private law practitioners.     

Compliance and ethics programs: competitive advantage through the law

This paper aims to address whether deploying compliance and ethics programs will assist US organizations in implementing the internal mechanisms necessary to achieve a competitive advantage from the law. My focus will be on the US legal system, as the corporate compliance and ethics programs examined are based on mitigation provisions contained in the US Federal Sentencing Guidelines. In particular, I propose that organizations can attain a sustainable competitive advantage from the law by considering the following questions: Do compliance and ethics programs assist organizations in achieving a better understanding of the law? Are compliance and ethics programs a cost-effective approach for coping with an organization’s legal issues? Can compliance and ethics programs aid organizations by preventing these legal issues from occurring in the future? Will compliance and ethics programs support organizations in reframing legal issues as business opportunities?     

Predictors and outcomes of social network compositions: A compositional structural equation modeling approach

Proportions of a total, including social network compositions (proportions of partner, family, friends, etc.) lie in a restricted space, which challenges statistical analysis. Network compositions can be both dependent and explanatory variables and are usually measured with error by survey instruments. Structural equation models make it possible to correct measurement error bias. Coenders et al. (2011) fitted a factor analysis model to transformed network compositions. In this article, we use another transformation called an isometric log-ratio and we extend the model to include predictors and outcomes. The findings and hypotheses in the literature can be reformulated with isometric log-ratios in a more interpretable manner. For instance, we find relationships of gender with partner support, of education and extraversion with friend support, and of family support with tie multiplexity and closeness.     

Romantic relationships and their social context among gay/bisexual male youth in the Castro District of San Francisco

This article examines the culture of romantic relationships among gay/bisexual male youth in the Castro District of San Francisco. The article seeks to specify the cultural ideology that informs these relationships, drawing upon ethnographic observation, autobiographical accounts, and informant cultural exegesis. The article also seeks to link thinking and experience inside romantic relationships (e.g., bonding, jealousy) to patterns of social behavior associated with romantic relationships (e.g., relationship sequestering, cheating), showing how both are informed by shared assumptions which make these emotions and gestures intelligible to the group. Beliefs about love, compatibility, and monogamy are explored. Reciprocity, including its degradation into negative forms, is examined with focus on the units of value that are exchanged in romantic relationships, in particular sentimental gifts. Gestures of commitment that mark commencement of a romantic relationship as well as extension of the dynamics of a relationship after "breakup" (as in "revenge sex" and "rebound relationships") are examined. Cultural systems that challenge adherence to a romantic ideology, such as a prestige economy associated with sex linked to an ethos of sexual exploration/recreation, are weighed against the pull of romance. "Drama," a hallmark of gay youth, is viewed in the context of romantic culture.     

The Contribution of Assisted Reproduction to Completed Fertility: An Analysis of Danish Data

Assisted reproduction has a minor but increasing influence on childbearing trends in advanced societies. In Denmark, the use of assisted reproduction technology (ART) has become particularly widespread. At the same time, Danish women born in the late 1950s and the 1960s experienced stabilization or even a slight increase in their mean number of children. Broad availability and widespread use of assisted reproduction may become important factors contributing to maintaining relatively high completed fertility among the younger cohorts of Danish women. To explore this idea, we analyze and project cohort trends in fertility rates among native Danish women born in 1960‐78 and examine the likely contribution of assisted reproduction to these trends. The projected proportion of children born after ART treatment shows a substantial increase from 2.1 percent among women born in 1965 to 4‐5 percent among women born in 1978, with an estimated net impact of ART (as compared with the hypothetical situation where no ART treatment was available) on the order of 3‐4 percent. When intrauterine inseminations are included, this implies that up to 7 percent of children of those native Danish women born in 1975 and later will likely be conceived by infertility treatment.     

Local symbols and place identity: Tucson and Albuquerque

Urban landscapes abound with symbols of place identity. The names, signs, and logos of commercial and noncommercial establishments provide a lode for systematic analysis. Analysis of Tucson, Arizona, gives ten categories reflecting key physiographic, socioeconomic, historic, and cultural place attributes such as Spanish-Mexican, desert, mountain, sun, and cowboy-western. Having examined names in the present, the study next looks at names for the past century using old telephone and commercial directories. Finally it examines Albuquerque, New Mexico, using the same method.