Evaluation of independent-living programs

The program report that states must submit to the federal government under the federal Title IV-E Independent-Living Initiative is, in essence, a program evaluation report and will require comprehensive program and evaluation data to complete. Because the program report will be a key factor in determining the future of this federal initiative, it is important that states improve their information system capability to generate the range of necessary data. This article offers detailed suggestions for ways in which states could establish their independent-living program information systems to produce program and evaluation data; and presented two examples of approaches to evaluating the Title IV-E independent-living program, one in Pennsylvania and another in Texas. These states were selected for the purpose of illustrating two different approaches and not necessarily for the presentation of exemplary evaluation practices.     

Degrees of (Self-)Exploitation: Learning to Labour in the Neoliberal University

Much has been written on the neoliberalization of the academy on the one hand and precarious creative labour/work in the culture industries on the other, but there has been comparatively little writing which makes explicit the intimate links between these two sociological phenomena and how they have come to complement and reinforce one another. Taking as a case study a new postgraduate MA course in Self-Publishing, this article aims to fill this gap, arguing that fundamental to learning to labour in the neoliberal university is both ready acquiescence to exploitation and further willingness to self-exploit on the part of both staff and students. Furthermore, incumbents of a profoundly unequal and managerial knowledge hierarchy benefit from the introduction of programmes which neither train students vocationally nor educate them liberally. This, in turn, threatens the autonomy within institutions of higher education while simultaneously undermining future artistic and intellectual flourishing.     

Deceit,diversity, or mobilization?: Intra-ethnic diversity and changing patterns in Florida's Hispanic Vote

What explains President Bush's increased vote in the State of Florida in the 2004 election? A common perception is that implementation of electronic voting machines and a surge in GOP registration increased Bush's vote margins relative to the 2000 election. In this paper we offer an alternative explanation: massive Puerto Rican immigration combined with successful Republican mobilization of this group explains about 14% of the increase in Bush's margin of victory—approximately 50,000 votes. Scholars’ failure to account for intra-ethnic diversity, by employing a “panethnic” approach that treats Latinos as having identical political preferences, leads scholars to overlook the important role of Hispanic subconstituencies in the 2004 election.     

Relational Sacrifices about Intimate Behavior and Relationship Quality for Expectant Cohabitors

ABSTRACT

Using interdependence theory, we examined how relational sacrifices specific to intimacy were associated with positive (commitment, satisfaction, love, and maintenance) and negative (ambivalence and conflict) relationship quality among expectant, unmarried cohabitors (n = 69 individuals), because this group may struggle relationally. We examined how often individuals made sacrifices for their partners and their partners’ perceived awareness of their sacrifices (i.e., individuals’ perceptions that their partners are aware that intimate sacrifices had been made for them) for both members of the couple using Actor Partner Independence Models. We controlled for children from previous relationships, unplanned pregnancy, gender, education, and race/ethnicity. Results showed that frequency of intimate sacrifices was not associated with any aspects of relationship quality. Instead, as expected, perceived partner awareness of intimate sacrifice was associated with greater commitment, satisfaction, love, and maintenance for individuals; lower ambivalence for individuals; and lower conflict for both individuals and their partners. These results suggest that for expectant cohabitors, perceived partner awareness of intimate sacrifices is central to achieving more positive, and less negative, relationship quality.     

Religion,Age, and Crime: Do Religious Traditions Differentially Impact Juvenile Versus Adult Violence?

A growing body of empirical research demonstrates that the relative presence of religious adherents at the community-level has important relationships with rates of crime and violence. Less understood is how adherence to specific religious traditions (e.g., evangelical Protestant, Catholic, mainline Protestant) is associated with rates of crime, especially across particular age groups toward which religious traditions devote varying degrees of structural and cultural resources. Using data from the Religious Congregations and Membership Survey and age-specific arrest data from the Uniform Crime Reporting program in 2010, the current study finds that the impact of religious adherence on crime varies by religious tradition and across juvenile versus adult crime. Specifically, evangelical Protestant adherence is negatively associated with juvenile but not adult violence, while Catholic adherence is associated with reduced adult but not juvenile violence, net of controls. Implications for research on religious contexts and crime, as well as policy, are discussed.     

A Shot of Morality? Hispanic Immigration,Religious Contextual Characteristics,and Violence

Extant research often finds that the relative size of the Hispanic immigrant population is inversely associated with rates of crime at the macro level. Yet, few studies have empirically examined the indirect pathways through which Hispanic immigration might impact crime, especially sociocultural characteristics such as religious context. Utilizing data on known violent crimes from over 600 U.S. counties in 2010 paired with religious contextual data from the Religious Congregation and Membership Survey (RCMS), we observe that the presence of Hispanic immigrants is positively associated with community-level Catholic adherence, civically engaged religious adherence, and religious homogeneity that, in turn, are negatively associated with violent crime. Overall, religious contextual characteristics appear to significantly mediate the link between Hispanic immigration and violence at the macro level. Implications for the immigration-crime literature and broader macro-structural research are discussed.     

Families Created by Donor Insemination: Father–Child Relationships at Age 7

This study examined the psychological well‐being of fathers and father–child relationships in families with a 7‐year‐old child conceived by donor insemination. Twenty‐four donor insemination families and comparison groups of 25 egg donation and 32 unassisted‐conception families were assessed using a standardized interview and questionnaires administered to the father, and father–child dyads participated in an observational assessment of father–child interaction. On the basis of perspectives from Parental Investment Theory and stress‐related models, it was expected that donor insemination fathers would show raised levels of psychological problems and a poorer quality of parenting and have more conflictual relationships with their children than genetically related fathers in egg donation and unassisted‐conception families. These hypotheses were not supported by the findings. Instead, it seems that commitment to parenthood may be more important than genetic relatedness for positive father–child relationships.     

The Role of Experience in Prioritizing Adherence to SOPs in Police Agencies

Research has perennially substantiated the belief that experience is a crucial determinant of an officer’s ability to effectively use discretion in making decisions. Officers cite experience as “the best teacher”, and police managers are likely to agree, usually with an anecdote or two about their personal maturation experiences. This study is an attempt to investigate this question with a bit more subtlety. In the following sections, we will: (1) explain the theory behind the discretion-experience relationship we propose, as well as theoretical opposition to this notion, (2) hone in on the perceived importance of agency standard operating procedures as an influence on discretion, (3) demonstrate that the relationship between officer experience and the priority attributed to SOPs is parabolic, and (4) discuss our findings in the context of structural functional organizational theory.