Multiple family groups: an engaging intervention for child welfare-involved families

Differences between child welfare- and non-child welfare-involved families regarding barriers to child mental health care, attendance, program satisfaction, and relationship with facilitators are examined for a multiple family group service delivery model aimed at reducing childhood disruptive behaviors. Although child welfare-involved caregivers reported more treatment barriers and less program satisfaction than non-child-welfare-involved families, no significant differences exist between groups on average total sessions attended and attendance rates over time.     

Management regimes affect woody plant productivity and water use efficiency in an urban desert ecosystem

Woody plant productivity and water use were evaluated under various management regimes in the Central Arizona Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research study area during 1999–2003. Management was defined as alteration of plant density, irrigation of plants, and removal of plant biomass via pruning. In a ground survey of 204 randomly chosen sites woody plant canopy area (CA) was higher in developed plots than in desert plots. Highest CA was measured in single family residential (SFR) sites but did not differ from most other developed site types. In experimental plots modeled after local SFR sites whole plot above ground biomass production (PP) and leaf area (LA) were higher and water use efficiency (WUE) was lower under high irrigation rate relative to low irrigation rate. Shrub pruning affected whole plot LA but not PP or WUE. Plant gas exchange data were used in conjunction with a trapezoidal integration model to predict maximum plant carbon uptake for plants in desert sites or under various irrigation regimes. These data might be used to facilitate long term monitoring of plant productivity and water use in the study area and to establish sound management practices in urban and suburban environments.     

From aspiring presidential candidate to accidental racist? An analysis of Senator George Allen's image repair during his 2006 reelection campaign

This study analyzes how Senator Allen responded to the negative public relations incidents that occurred during his 2006 reelection campaign. Through a content analysis of Allen's media releases and interviews with Allen's communication staffers this study identifies Allen's image repair discourse strategies and tactics. This study also evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies and tactics through a content analysis of the newspaper coverage Finally, this study identifies three new image repair tactics.     

Women's Human Rights Activists as Cross-Cultural Theorists

In addition to offering a basis for the criticism of universal human rights theorizing and practice, women's experience contributes to universal human rights theory building. Women's human rights activists' insights provide the foundation for a theory of universal human rights that is cross-cultural and critical. In sharing their work and strategies, two online working groups of women's human rights activists demonstrate that a theory of universal human rights must offer both (1) common ground on which the parallel efforts of human rights activists around the world can be acknowledged and (2) recognition that though sometimes networked and integrated with those parallel efforts, activism for social change is local, and uses locally appropriate ways to promote women's human rights. Using a theoretical method that treats non-theoretical texts as important sources for theoretical insights, the article introduces an activist-authored cross-cultural theory of human rights, its assumptions, and its theoretical framework. Finally, it draws implications from the activists' theory for human rights scholars.     

Marriage‐Related Migration to the UK

Spouses form the largest single category of migrant settlement in the UK, but research and policy making on marriage‐related migration to Britain provides incomplete coverage of the phenomenon, having been dominated by a focus on the South Asian populations that are among the largest groups of such migrants. By bringing together immigration statistics with information from academic and third‐sector sources, this article attempts to provide a more balanced and nuanced portrayal of patterns and practices of marriage‐related migration to the UK. In doing so, it reveals important nationality and gender differences in migration flows and considers how varying marriage practices, social and political contexts, and policies of both receiving and sending countries may work to influence marriage‐related migration streams. It also exposes the limitations and lacunae in existing research on this diverse form of migration, highlighting the danger that immigration policy made on the basis of partial evidence will produce unexpected consequences.     

Culture,memory, and structural change: explaining support for “socialism” in a post-socialist society

Two decades ago, East European state socialism met with a paradoxical fate. Between 1989 and 1991, communist party hegemony was abolished, leaving the very idea of socialism permanently discredited—or so it seemed. Yet in the decade that followed, “socialistic” principles and practices would retain—or perhaps acquire—a surprising degree of popular appeal. Was this a cultural legacy of systematic indoctrination? A strategic response to material insecurities? Perhaps a combination of both? In this article, it is argued that many previous efforts to unravel the paradox are inadequate because they ignore both the “strategic” dimensions of culture and the cultural dimensions of instrumental reason. Using life-history data on the former East Germany, it is shown that apparently discredited ideologies can acquire renewed salience in the wake of regime change if they (1) remain culturally available as strategies of action that (2) provided material opportunities or symbolic privileges in the past, and (3) promise to ameliorate new problems engendered by alternative strategies.