Estimating the prevalence of adolescent gambling disorders: A quantitative synthesis and guide toward standard gambling nomenclature

This article reviews the extant published and unpublished studies that estimate the prevalence of adolescent gambling problems in North America. The nine nonduplicative studies identified by our literature search included data collected from more than 7700 adolescents from five different regions of the United States and Canada. In addition to comparing the conceptual and methodological differences that exist among these studies, this article employed a meta-analytic strategy to synthesize prevalence estimates from the existing studies. This analysis revealed that within a 95 percent confidence interval, between 9.9% and 14.2% of adolescents are at risk of developing or returning to serious gambling problems. Similarly, between 4.4% and 7.4% of adolescents exhibit seriously adverse compulsive or pathological patterns of gambling activity. Finally, the discussion proposes a generic multi-level classification scheme to reconcile the divergent classification methods and data reporting strategies. This new multi-level approach to reporting gambling prevalence will facilitate interstudy comparisons among existing estimates of gambling prevalence and help to provide a general data reporting system for future research.     

The Multi-method Comprehensive Review: Synthesis and Analysis when Scholarship is International,Interdisciplinary, and Immense

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This article presents a new strategy for reviewing large, multidisciplinary academic literatures: a multi-method...     

Social workers' perceptions of their power and service outcomes

While social workers are becoming increasingly interested in methods of client empowerment, little attention has yet focused on the links between workers' own power and the services they provide to clients. The authors examine the link between workers' perceptions of their power on the job and perceived service outcomes. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted on survey responses from 591 direct practice social workers in Israel. Results indicate that power perceptions are significantly associated with an array of perceived service outcomes. These findings highlight the relevance of self-efficacy and control theory in understanding social workers' efforts toward effective service delivery. Further, they underscore a need to consider more carefully direct practitioners' own power concerns as they increasingly consider empowerment of their clients.     

Collaboration: a study of a children's initiative

In times of shrinking resources within the social services, collaboration is being promoted as a more efficient way of meeting the needs of children and families. A study of a children's initiative collaborative developed to address the problems of children is reported. The authors present and use an evaluation framework which incorporated the dimensions of context, process, and outcomes of collaboration. The findings, based on the initial two years of collaborative effort, suggested the membership of the group and the process and structure governing the group's operations impacted the process and outcomes of the collaboration.     

Intervention with high-risk infants and toddlers

This early intervention program serves children and parents. It includes a therapeutic infant day care center and a mother-child interaction group. Counseling is also provided for families with children in the center and for families with children under three years of age in the community.     

冷战后国际关系与美国外交政策

冷战结束以后国际政治发生的巨大变化是由苏联解体和国际权力结构的失衡所造成的。在失去了苏联的制衡之后,美国的行为越来越表现出肆意妄为和粗暴蛮横的特征。美国用先发制人战略取代威慑和遏制战略是错误的,布什政府的单边主义政策只能使美国在世界上越来越孤立。国际均势的恢复是一个漫长的过程,但是,国际体系的均势最终将会实现。     

Public Perceptions About Sex Offenders and Community Protection Policies

Sex offenders and sex crimes provoke a great deal of anxiety in our society, and over the past decade, lawmakers have passed a variety of social policies designed to protect the public from sexual victimization. The purpose of this study was to examine public perceptions about sex offenders and community protection policies. Data were obtained from a sample of 193 residents in Melbourne, Florida. It was hypothesized that the public holds some inaccurate beliefs about sex offenders, and that there is strong public support for community protection policies. It was found that community members believe that sex offenders have very high recidivism rates, view sex offenders as a homogeneous group with regard to risk, and are skeptical about the benefits of sex offender treatment. The hypothesis that public perceptions contradict empirical research was supported. Community members were overwhelmingly in favor of public disclosure of information about registered sex offenders, although they did not express as much support for residence restrictions. Implications for public policy, and for the media's role in shaping public perceptions, are discussed.     

Information-seeking during acquaintanceship: Effects of level of social understanding and personal relevance

Two studies examined how individual differences in social understanding influence children's information-seeking orientations during an initial meeting with a peer, in which they do or do not anticipate future interaction. Study 1 involved a relatively controlled, laboratory setting in which 7-9 year old children were presented a list of questions from which to choose what to ask the peer. The findings indicate that children who view a person's behavior in terms of stable dispositional characteristics (high SDC), express greater interest in gathering trait-related information about an unfamiliar peer than children who do not perceive people in terms of stable traits (low SDC), but only when they expect to play games with that peer in a future interaction. Study 2 involved a more naturalistic observation of the actual questions 7-9 year old children ask during an initial meeting with an unfamiliar peer. The findings showed that high SDC children asked more questions of the peer when they expected interaction than when they did not, whereas low SDC children did not differ significantly across conditions. Taken together, the two studies indicate that the future, predictability orientation of high SDC children leads to a more extensive information search about a peer when they expect interaction with that peer involving instrumental choices.