Self‐Help Groups in the Welfare State: Treatment Program or Voluntary Action?

This article identifies two different perspectives used when studying self‐help groups: the professional treatment perspective and the voluntary action perspective. An outline of the perspectives leads to a discussion of their consequences for self‐help group research. The authors categorize about five hundred scientific publications from all over the world on the basis of the perspectives they present on self‐help groups; the results indicate that different perspectives seem to be preferred in different countries and when discussing different subjects. Finally, the authors suggest questions and concepts that the perspectives generate, and they emphasize the importance of being aware of which perspective is used in the study of self‐help groups.     

Adaptation of a community-based participatory research model to gain community input on identifying indicators of successful parenting

Parenting models are generally based on families in stable homes, rather than in transitional situations such as in foster care, homeless shelters, and other temporary, at-risk residences. Consequently, these models do not recognize the unique challenges of families in transition. This study explored the domains of the Circumplex Model and examined its fit for transitional families using tenets from community-based participatory research. Findings suggest that in addition to the Circumplex Model's components, caregivers with children living in transition believe that managing the scrutiny of external authority systems and countering the negative influences of poverty and racism are two indicators that contribute to parenting success. Obtaining consumer-informed views of parenting not only is an important contributor to standards of practice, but also a promising avenue for future research.     

Single Custodial Fathers' Involvement and Parenting: Implications for Outcomes in Emerging Adulthood

Using a sample of 3,977 youths from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97), this study examines the unique characteristics of single‐custodial‐father families with adolescents and the effects of single fathers' involvement and parenting on outcomes in emerging adulthood. Findings suggest that single‐custodial‐father families are distinct from single‐mother and 2‐biological‐parent families in terms of sociodemographic characteristics, parenting styles, and involvement. Parenting styles and involvement mediate the differences between single‐father families and 2‐parent families in terms of high school completion and disconnectedness and partially mediate differences for single‐custodial‐father families with a partner. Family and sociodemographic characteristics are also associated with being disconnected for adolescents residing with a cohabiting custodial father.     

Labor‐Environmental Coalition Formation: Framing and the Right to Know1

This article examines the formation of a cross‐movement coalition between elements of the labor and environmental movements in New Jersey. We explain the successful formation and initial political campaign of the New Jersey Work Environment Council with an expansion of the theoretical perspective of frame analysis. We propose a model of a coalition collective action frame that offers several important insights into the active role coalition actors play in the construction of a common frame uniting union and environmental activists. Using qualitative data gathered from interviews, observations, and document analyses of two major campaigns, we argue that the coalition frame allowed new political opportunities to be created, leading to the establishment of the most sweeping right‐to‐know laws in the United States. We conclude the discussion of coalition framing by examining political constraints on the framing possibilities of coalitions, specifically by exploring how the discursive shift from the right to know to the right to act failed to expand the influence of the cross‐movement coalition as originally expected by its members.     

Eighth‐Grade School Form and Resilience in the Transition to High School: A Comparison of Middle Schools and K‐8 Schools

We examine a set of academic and social outcomes in 9th grade, comparing middle school attendees with those who attended K‐8 schools. Previous research with these data has shown that there are few differences in 8th‐grade outcomes by school type. Here we extend these findings to determine whether school form influences student outcomes in the first year of high school. The results reveal several domains in which attendance at a middle school results in worse outcomes (e.g., greater rates of course failure); however, we find that a large portion of the difference by type of a student's 8th‐grade school is accounted for by differential rates of attendance at the district's magnet schools. That is, our results indicate that type of school attended during the middle grades is significantly and positively related to magnet school attendance and thereby on the academic outcomes in the 9th‐grade year.     

Statistical Inference for Stochastic Dominance and for the Measurement of Poverty and Inequality

We derive the asymptotic sampling distribution of various estimators frequently used to order distributions in terms of poverty, welfare, and inequality. This includes estimators of most of the poverty indices currently in use, as well as estimators of the curves used to infer stochastic dominance of any order. These curves can be used to determine whether poverty, inequality, or social welfare is greater in one distribution than in another for general classes of indices and for ranges of possible poverty lines. We also derive the sampling distribution of the maximal poverty lines up to which we may confidently assert that poverty is greater in one distribution than in another. The sampling distribution of convenient dual estimators for the measurement of poverty is also established. The statistical results are established for deterministic or stochastic poverty lines as well as for paired or independent samples of incomes. Our results are briefly illustrated using data for four countries drawn from the Luxembourg Income Study data bases.     

Work Attitudes,Work Conditions and Hours Constraints: An Explorative,Cross‐national Analysis

In this paper, individuals’ desire to work more or less than they actually do (hours constraints) is analysed in nine OECD countries using data from the 1989 International Social Survey Program (ISSP). Our results show that hours constraints deviate substantially from country to country. However, in all countries, the proportion of individuals wanting to work more (and earn more) than they actually do is larger than the fraction of workers wanting to work less (and earn less). Socio‐economic and demographic characteristics, work attitudes, and work conditions have a significant effect on hours constraints.