The effect of school resources on pupil attainment: a multilevel simultaneous equation modelling approach

Summary.  Improving educational achievement in UK schools is a priority, and of particular concern is the low achievement of specific groups, such as those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. An obvious question is whether we should be improving the outcomes of these pupils by spending more on their education. The literature on the effect of educational spending on the achievement of pupils has some methodological difficulties, in particular the endogeneity of school resource levels, and the intraschool correlations in pupils' responses. We adopt a multi-level simultaneous equation modelling approach to assess the effect of school resources on pupil attainment at age 14 years. The paper is the first to apply a simultaneous equation model to estimate the effect of school resources on pupils' achievement, using the newly available national pupil database and pupil level annual school census.     

Marital Status,Gender, and Parents’ Psychological Well‐Being*

This study analyzes the associations between marital status, gender, and depressive symptoms among parents. The regression results indicate that married parents report fewer traditional depressive symptoms and lower rates of alcohol abuse than do single parents. Mothers and fathers also appear to be more likely to exhibit different depressive symptoms: Mothers are more likely than fathers to report traditional depressive symptoms and fathers are more likely to report the abuse of alcohol. Finally, we find evidence that indicators of parenting burdens such as economic strain, household labor, childcare, social support, and religious involvement mediate and moderate these relationships.     

试论我省民办教育发展的问题与对策

民办教育是公办教育的重要补充。我省民办教育这些年来有了很大的发展，但仍然存在诸多问题，主要是：政府职能部门引导不到位，影响了质量和速度的提高；部分学校违规操作，形成了无序竞争；师资结构不合理，队伍不稳定。因此，应加强引导、严格管理、狠抓师资队伍建设，以促进我省民办教育的健康发展。     

A Web-based review of sexual and reproductive health services available at colleges and universities in Georgia

Objective: Although two-thirds of graduating high school seniors attend college or university in the U.S., there is a paucity of national or state specific research regarding SRH services available on or near college and university campuses.

Methods: A review of websites for all colleges and universities in Georgia was conducted to evaluate sexual health services available on campuses and evidence of referral to community providers.

Results: Of 96 colleges in Georgia, 44 had campus-located health centers, with only 3 at two-year colleges. Overall SRH service provision was low, with great variation between colleges. Distances between colleges and Title X clinics ranged from 0.33 to 35.45 miles.

Conclusions: Many students lack access to campus health centers, and information on college websites regarding SRH service availability and referrals differs dramatically between campuses. In the absence of robust campus-located services, schools should highlight where students can obtain comprehensive SRH care in the community.     

Life after work: older Australians' experiences of early exit from the workforce

Little is known about the experience of those in the baby boom cohort who are outside the labour market. Understanding their experience has the potential to inform policy strategies to support older people to remain longer in the workforce. Using in‐depth interview data from 26 participants, this paper examines the reasons people aged between 50 and 64 years give for being not‐employed, how they perceive it affects their health, how socioeconomic characteristics shape their experience and what would entice them back into paid work. Participants' main reasons for being not‐employed included: feeling financially able and ready to exit, feeling unhappy about workplace reorganisations, disability, or their partner's retirement or ill‐health. The reasons given and the degree to which they had planned to exit the workforce affected their willingness and capacity to consider returning. Key determinants of participants' health and wellbeing after stopping paid work were the extent to which they had planned their exit and the status of their health and wealth at the time of their exit. The paper concludes there is some scope for increasing the number of employed older people if policy makers attend to workforce health and wellbeing as crucial to workforce retention policy development.     

They Should Say “I Don't”: Norms About Midpregnancy Marriage and Job Loss

This study examined effects of local economic conditions on individuals' attitudes toward midpregnancy marriages using an experimental vignette method. Adults (N = 460) were each shown two vignettes about a hypothetical couple expecting a baby; within each vignette pair, vignettes randomly varied as to whether the couple lived in a community that had recently experienced job losses or had stable employment. Respondents indicated if the couple should and will get married before the baby's birth. Results showed that worse local economic conditions led people to believe that marriage would be less common. Among more socioeconomically disadvantaged respondents, if the hypothetical couple lived in a community with job loss, fewer respondents also thought that the couple should marry. In contrast, among more socioeconomically advantaged respondents, slightly more respondents thought that the couple should marry. When economic conditions worsen, low‐socioeconomic‐status individuals may believe that financial prerequisites for marriage become harder to meet.     

Interval estimation of parameters in an unbalanced mixed two-fold nested classification-the last-stage uniformity case

A procedure for the construction of exact simultaneous confidence intervals on functions of the fixed-effects parameters and on functions of variance components in an unbalanced, mixed, two-fold nested classification is introduced. The type of model considered in this paper enables the construction of such intervals to be based on the corresponding ANOVA table using its mean square ratios.     

I am Just Doing my Bit to Promote Modesty: Niqabis' self-portraits on photo-sharing websites

In this article, I discuss the main arguments that deal with mainstream media representations of niqabis in the West. In distinguishing between such representations of niqabis and their self-representations distributed online on photo-sharing sites, it is my purpose to highlight the entirely different visual rhetoric that emerges from the latter by pointing to various aspects of the self-portraits. After giving an overview of the literature that discusses the niqab, and indicating that niqabis' voices have been entirely neglected, I analyze several self-portraits of two niqabis located online in reference to a theoretical framework offered by Kati Caetano who has traced established ways of representing Muslim women in journalistic photography. Finally, I argue that niqabis disrupt the normalized associations of the niqab with passivity, otherness, and violence by establishing intimacy with the audience.     

Roundtable `Cognition,Rationality and Governance' Dedicated to the Memory of Herbert A. Simon – Introduction

Journal of Management and Governance -     

A ‘No Blame’ Approach to Organizational Learning

In high‐reliability organizations (HROs) even minor errors can seriously hinder the very existence of the firm and the safety of employees and customers. Field studies have shown that HROs encourage the reporting of errors and near misses, exploiting these incidents to improve their operative processes. In this paper, we describe this practice as a ‘no blame’ approach to error management, and link it to learning theory, showing how no blame practices can enhance organizational learning. By taking a cognitive perspective of organizations, we draw on existing contributions and on a set of empirical case studies to discuss the characteristics of no blame practices, and their applicability in traditional, non‐HROs. Our findings show that, in exploiting information from error‐reporting, no blame practices are beneficial in environments where learning and reliability issues are particularly relevant. Empirical evidence suggests that a no blame approach can be extremely constructive for organizations that want to enhance their learning processes. We conclude that a no blame approach is a valuable way to achieve an organization that has flexibility and variability. However, no blame practices imply a set of organizational issues and costs that pose significant challenges to firms operating in non‐high‐reliability settings. The findings from our study contribute to the literature on HROs and organizational learning.