Expedited permanency planning: evaluation of the Kentucky Adoptions Opportunities Project

This article presents the evaluation findings of a Kentucky Adoptions Opportunities Project (KAOP), a three-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau. The primary goal of the KAOP was implementation of three permanency planning activities: (1) risk assessment/concurrent planning, (2) one child/one legal voice, and (3) early placement in kinship or foster/adoptive homes. These activities were designed to expedite a permanency placement decision within 12 months for high-risk children. The evaluation of 124 high-risk children in the KAOP revealed that the majority of children had one or both parents coping with multiple risk factors, including mental illness, substance abuse, mental retardation, or family violence. The major barriers to permanency are discussed, as well as the policy and practice implications in the context of Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.     

Generational Differences in Orientations to Coresidence in Chongju,South Korea

This study examines generational differences by assessing the advantages and disadvantages of intergenerational coresidence in Chongju, South Korea. In the past, it was traditional for the elderly to live with the eldest son. Rapid industrialization and urbanization have contributed to changing gender roles and living arrangements, and new values promote daughters sharing filial responsibilities with their brothers. To explore the perceived benefits and costs of coresidence, 50 intergenerational households were studied. Interviews about attitudes toward living in an extended family arrangement were conducted among the mothers and daughters-in-law in the 50 intergenerational households. Two separate regressions, one analyzing mothers and one analyzing daughters-in-law, were performed. The older generation reported more benefits and fewer costs than the younger generation, although the regression analyses for mothers' satisfaction was not statistically significant. The results are interested in the context of exchange theory. The results have implication for social welfare and housing policy in South Korea.     

When people become patients: fluctuations in trust from the cancer patient’s perspective

This study explores the trust relationships between cancer patients and their physicians by discussing the concept of trust and the collection of patients’ medical experiences before and after being diagnosed with cancer. The purpose of the study is to determine changes in patients’ trust during this process. This ethnographic study was conducted from 2009 to 2014 on doctor–patient relationships under the coverage of the National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan. Under the NHI, patients may access physicians and acquire treatment at low cost. In this study, the sample comprised 12 female cancer patients. Data were collected in in-depth interviews with six patients. With the bloggers’ consent, data were collected from six blogs. These data were analyzed to determine how these cancer patients constructed and altered their opinions during their diagnosis and treatment. The results are discussed according to the calculative trust that was constructed based on information collected and/or impressions developed during their initial visits. The findings showed that relational trust was developed and (dis)evolved through interactions and experiences with medical staff. In addition, calculative trust was generated based on the following: eliminating institutions or physicians with which the patients had negative experiences; feeling and perceiving caring and professional competence; yielding to cancer and respecting professional reputations. Relational trust was derived from the following: the doctors’ ability to sooth patients’ anxieties and explain uncertainties; the compatibility of expectations in information sharing between physicians and patients. The results showed that in the early stage of developing a doctor–patient relationship, calculative and relational trusts were intertwined. As the doctor–patient relationship developed, the patients’ relational trust increased. The findings of this study contribute to the knowledge concerning the co-construction of patients’ trust in physicians in medical systems through communication between patients and medical staff.     

Alleviating poverty or reinforcing inequality? Interpreting micro‐finance in practice,with illustrations from rural China

Academic and political discussions about micro‐finance have been found lacking in predictive power, because they are based on orthodox economic theory, which does not properly comprehend the social components of credit. I take a better approach, utilizing credit theory – specifically, Ingham's explication of how the nature of money as credit leads to social inequality. I also expound the perspective that morality is not separate from considerations borrowers make in micro‐finance programmes on the micro level. I draw upon illustrations from my fieldwork in rural China, where a group‐lending micro‐finance programme was administered as part of a larger government‐initiated effort across the country.     

Employment gains and wage declines: The erosion of black women’s relative wages since 1980

Public policy initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s, including Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity law, helped mitigate explicit discrimination in pay, and the expansion of higher education and training programs have advanced the employment fortunes of many American women. By the early 1980s, some scholars proclaimed near equity in pay between black and white women, particularly among young and highly skilled workers. More recent policy initiatives and labor market conditions have been arguably less progressive for black women’s employment and earnings: through the 1980s, 1990s, and the first half of the 2000s, the wage gap between black and white women widened considerably. Using data from the Current Population Survey Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (CPS-MORG), this article documents the racial wage gap among women in the United States from 1979 to 2005. We investigate how demographic and labor market conditions influence employment and wage inequality among black and white women over the period. Although shifts in labor supply influence the magnitude of the black-white wage gap among women, structural disadvantages faced by black women help explain the growth in the racial wage gap.     

Code–convergent borrowing in Louisiana French

The nature of lexical and structural borrowing has been at the forefront of sociolinguistic debates for many years. This study analyzes bilingual lexemes and morphemes of English–origin loanwords from a Louisiana corpus of twenty–two French/English speakers. French Louisiana, however, has been undergoing language shift from French to English for three generations and, as a consequence, language dominance is in a parallel state of shift. This competing dominance produces borrowings characterized by a range of phonological integration coupled with bound morphemes from both languages. These data suggest that examining borrowing beyond the word level reveals a highly complex interplay of often competing and overlapping grammars.