Sectoral Ethos: An Investigation of the Personal Values Systems of Female and Male Managers in the Public and Private Sectors

The personal values systems of 884 public- and private-sectormanagers are compared. From that comparison inferences are drawnregarding the ethos of each sector, and potential implicationsfor managers are discussed. Although the personal-values systemsin the two sectors are quite similar, results reflect a public-sectorethos that is significantly higher in Delayed Gratificationand Self-Expansion and a private-sector ethos that is significantlyhigher in Competence, Personal Orientation, and Family Security.In addition, this study furthers the view that the personal-valuessystems of male and female managers within a given employmentsector are not significantly different.     

Soziale ungleichheit von lesekompetenzen

Zusammenfassung In Anlehnung an das strukturell-individualistische Handlungsmodell von Boudon werden für Deutschland kausale Effekte von individuellen Lernvoraussetzungen, Ressourcen des Elternhauses, sozial selektiven Bildungsüberg?ngen sowie Lehr-und Lernbedingungen in Schulen auf die Entwicklung von Lesekompetenzen und ihre Streuung zwischen Sozialschichten untersucht. Hierbei wird zum einen der Frage nachgegangen, ob neben den Herkunftseffekten die Selektion von Grundschulkindern in die weiterführenden Schulen in der Sekundarstufe I zur allgemeinen Verschlechterung der mittleren Lesekompetenzen beitragen. Zum anderen wird gefragt, ob der sozial selektive Bildungsübergang von der Primar-in die Sekundarstufe eine bedeutsame Ursache für einen Anstieg in der ungleichen Verteilung von Leseleistungen zwischen den Sozialschichten ist. Weil es nicht m?glich ist, solche Ursache-Wirkungszusammenh?nge mit komparativ-statischen Querschnittsdaten wie PIRLS oder PISA empirisch zu isolieren, konstruieren wir anhand von Daten der beiden Studien PISA-E 2000 und PIRLS 2001 über das Verfahren des „pairwise matching” Quasi-L?ngsschnittdaten mit drei Beobachtungszeitpunkten (Leseleistung bei Einschulung, Leseleistung im Alter von 9 bis 10 Jahren und Leseleistung im Alter von 15 Jahren). Die empirischen Befunde belegen zus?tzlich zu den Herkunftseinflüssen die Rolle sozial selektiver Bildungsüberg?nge und damit die Sortier-und Selektionsleistungen des deutschen Bildungssystems. Es wird gezeigt, dass, neben individuellen Lernvoraussetzungen und Ressourcen des Elternhauses, die soziale Selektivit?t der Bildungsüberg?nge und damit auch sozial differentielle Lernbedingungen signifikant zur Erkl?rung der Entwicklung individueller Leseleistung und sozialen Disparit?t von Lesekompetenzen beitragen. Für wertvolle Hinweise danken wir den Herausgebern und besonders den anonymen Gutachtern.     

Unkonventionelle Politische Partizipation Im Zeitverlauf

A turning away from politics is bemoaned from different sides in democracies. Did the educational reforms in the 1960s, which included the aim of promoting political engagement and educating people to politically mature citizens, failed in this attempt? The paper deals with the question, if educational expansion actually led to a political mobilisation that is characterized by a rising importance of unconventional political participation. By use of cumulated ALLBUS data-sets (1988–2000), at first background mechanisms that are behind the link between education and political participation will be explored to analyze unconventional political participation in temporal perspective. Longitudinal analyses will be carried out including a simultaneous estimation of age, period and cohort effect. Results show constant effects of the educational level. There is evidence indicating a political mobilisation. The more-highly educated people turn out to be the main supporter of this process, whereas the less educated people kept their distinction regarding a low participation level over time.     

Punishing Children for Caring: The Hidden Cost of Young Carers

SUMMARY. This paper examines the lives, experiences and needs of children who care - those children under the age of 18 who provide primary care for a sick, disabled or elderly adult in the home. It presents data from a recent study into the lives of these children, their responsibilities, their commitments, their pain and their fears. It paints a picture of neglect both by professionals paid to care as well as by other family members. It suggests that child carers are effectively punished for caring. The paper goes on to examine the implications for child carers of the Community Care Act, finally implemented on 1 April 1993, to raise a number of critical questions about the rights of children who care, and to suggest a number of innovative ways forward, based upon the expressed needs of young carers.     

Methods of Engagement in Family-Based Preventive Intervention

Family-based prevention programs have shown promise in preventing drug use and antisocial behavior in high-risk youth. Multidimensional family prevention (MDFP) is an intensive, family-based counseling program in which a family-specific prevention agenda is crafted with each family. This collaborative, individualized approach to intervention requires a high degree of engagement on the part of families. The main challenges of engagement are discussed, and the main features of an engagement strategy are described: capturing the interest of the family and assessing risk and protective factors within the specific ecological context of the family in order to create a working agenda for preventive intervention.     

Cognitive and language skills of Turkish children in Germany: a comparison of the second and third generation and mixed generational groups

The paper compares several generational groups of Turkish children in Germany with respect to cognitive skills and German language skills at an early age. Empirically, children of inter-marriages outperform the other groups of Turkish children in both tests while children with a first generation mother and a second generation father score worse than all others. All group differences regarding children’s cognitive skills can be explained by the families’ socio-economic status and educational resources. In contrast, with respect to children’s language skills also parents’ endowment with receiving country specific resources (e.g., parental German language proficiency) needs to be taken into account.     

Reactions to social security retirement reform proposals in the United States

For some time the actuarial imbalance between revenues and benefit payments in the Social Security retirement programme in the United States has been a concern for decision makers, professional analysts, and the public. In response to this actuarial imbalance, President George W. Bush proposed in 2004 that changes be made in the method whereby Social Security benefits are determined and that individual investment accounts be established under the rubric of Social Security. The debate over the issue was intense, but it was effectively stilled by the middle of 2005. The probable legacy of the 2004‐05 debate is that limits have been placed upon future options to deal with the Social Security programme's financial difficulties. This article identifies those constraints which, together, constitute the new public policy “template” for future debates relating to the Social Security retirement programme in the United States.     

Decision analysis using lottery-dependent utility

In this article we show how the lottery-dependent expected utility (LDEU) model can be used in decision analysis. The LDEU model is an extension of the classical expected utility (EU) model and yet permits preference patterns that are infeasible in the EU model. We propose a framework for constructing decision trees in a particular way that permits us to use the principle of optimality and thus the divide and conquer strategy for analyzing complex problems using the LDEU model. Our approach may be applicable to some other nonlinear utility models as well. The result is that, if desired, decision analysis can be conducted without assuming the restrictive substitution principle/independence axiom.