Repartnering Following Divorce: Implications for Older Fathers' Relations With Their Adult Children

This study examined the implications of postdivorce fathers' new unions and additional (step)children for two aspects of older fathers' relations with adult children born from a prior relationship: frequency of social contact and fathers' financial transfers. Data from multiple waves of the Health and Retirement Study (N = 13,017 observations on 4,997 adult children belonging to 1,917 ever‐divorced fathers) were used to estimate multilevel models. The results indicated that divorced fathers who go on to form a new union have weaker relations with adult children from a prior union than their postdivorce counterparts who remain single. This finding partly reflects the detrimental effects of repartnered older fathers' new biological children and stepchildren. There is no difference between older remarried and cohabiting fathers' intergenerational ties. Moreover, fathers' additional biological children and stepchildren have similarly negative effects on fathers' relations with adult children from a previous union.     

Policy Research and Politics: Some Inferences from the “Coleman Report” for the Policy Role of the Social Scientist

Abstract

The major objectives in this paper are to examine (1) the distribution of socioeconomic characteristics for Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, and (2) the processes of educational, occupational, and income attainment for each religious group. The analysis shows that Catholic and Protestant employed males are not appreciably different in their educational characteristics; however, occupational and income differences are more substantial. The Protestant-Catholic income differences, for example, represent about one-fifth of the mean Catholic income. The analysis also shows that the process of status attainment differs for Protestants and Catholics. The income returns to each additional year of schooling, for example, are higher for Protestants than for Catholics.     

Unravelling Cultural Constructions in Social Work Education: Journeying Toward Cultural Competence

Cultural understanding is often so deeply internalised it is difficult to know when and how values, beliefs and traditions were learned and even whether the ingrained messages carried from the past remain relevant in the present. Finding creative and culturally inclusive ways for students to unravel the origins of their own cultural constructions evolved into an assignment for a family course in social work education at the University of Otago, New Zealand. The student group were distance taught, mature students, most of whom were working in social service settings. Students self‐selected into groups and were asked to research, analyse and present their understanding of the influence of a culturally specific and influential myth, legend or fairytale. A key requirement was that this occurred within the context of working with families. Students were required to examine how the messages from well known ‘stories’ are perpetuated and how these then influence social work practice. This method of assessment was monitored and evaluated in terms of the students' experiences along with the learning outcomes for the course. It is the rationale, the process, and evaluation of this assignment that will be discussed in this paper.     

Deterring domestic violence: Do criminal sanctions reduce repeat offenses?

This study presents an empirical analysis of domestic violence case resolution in North Carolina for the years 2004 to 2010. The key hypothesis is that penalties at the level set for domestic violence crimes reduce recidivism (re-arrest on domestic violence charges or conviction in 2 years following an index arrest). We use state court data for all domestic violence-related arrests. Decisions to commit an act of domestic violence are based on a Bayesian process of updating subjective beliefs. Individuals have prior beliefs about penalties for domestic violence based on actual practice in their areas. An individual’s experience with an index arrest leads to belief updating. To address endogeneity of case outcomes, we use an instrumental variables strategy based on decisions of prosecutors and judges assigned to each index arrest in our sample. Contrary to our hypothesis, we find that penalities, at least as set at the current levels, do not deter future arrests and convictions.     

Contribution of forest provisioning ecosystem services to rural livelihoods in the Miombo woodlands of Zambia

This paper examines the contribution of forest provisioning ecosystem services (FPES) to rural households and assesses the contributions of forests to the annual incomes of households in Africa’s Miombo woodlands. The study employed focus group meetings, in-depth interviews, and interviews of households, as stratified by wealth class and head of household gender in Copperbelt, Zambia. The results show that FPES are vitally important in providing food, medicine, fodder, and construction materials to rural livelihoods. FPES provided 43.9 % of the average household’s income and contributed a 10 % income equalisation effect among households, as revealed by the Gini-coefficient analysis. Poorer households received a lower mean annual income from forests than did their intermediate and wealthy counterparts, but in relative terms, forest income made the greatest contribution to the total household incomes of poor households. When stratified by gender, forests contributed 44.4 and 41.8 % of the income of male- and female-headed households, respectively. The study indicates that wealth, rather than gender, was the key determinant of a household’s engagement in the sale of FPES. The inter- and intra-community differentiation in the use and sale of FPES, as revealed in this study, enables more effective targeting of forest management interventions and informs efforts to reconcile the goals of poverty reduction and forest conservation.     

Notes on Metalib® Implementation at Texas A&M University

Between late 2004 and January 2006, Texas A&M University Libraries implemented Metalib®, Ex Libris'â?¢ federated search software. This article outlines the implementation process, including selection criteria, implementation decisions, and staff and faculty training techniques. Special attention is paid to describing search configuration changes and user interface modifications. The implementers made many of their implementation choices based on usability training, which is briefly described. The article ends with a set of conclusions as to successes and failures in the project and a list of recommended features to look for in selecting a federated search system.     

Law,love and being in relation

ABSTRACT

This article takes up Agozino's call for love. Yet this call is not a straightforward one. In response, I press for an appreciation of love which avoids collapsing love into 'protection', engaging instead with the Aboriginal World View described by Kombumerri and Wakka Wakka woman and scholar, Mary Graham, as a form of conduct, reflection and a practice in listening. Through two quite distinct stories offered by young people in their encounters with Australia's criminal justice system, I explore the ethics of listening and respectful relations in social and institutional settings. While the first story reveals the denial of colonial violence accompanying protectionist policies for the ‘care' of Indigenous communities, the second story shows how such patterns of denial underpin western ‘justice' systems, including for settler peoples. Responding to Agozino’s call requires that we examine the ethical act of listening and reflect on the repercussions of the failure to listen.     

Advocacy for parents and carers involved with children's services: making a difference to working in partnership?

This paper explores findings from the evaluation of a scheme providing direct advocacy to parents where there were concerns about their ability to provide safe care for their children. The evaluation explored the views of service users, social workers and conference chairpersons and found general agreement that the advocacy scheme contributed positively to the process of working in partnership. This is of interest given research findings which suggest that working in partnership is particularly difficult in cases involving child protection issues. However, it is noted that there appears to be little political will to develop advocacy schemes for parents in the UK, and this is of concern given the lack of supports available to them to navigate a complex and often intimidating system.     

‘You Feel Sad?’ Emotion Understanding Mediates Effects of Verbal Ability and Mother–Child Mutuality on Prosocial Behaviors: Findings from 2 Years to 4 Years

Early individual differences in prosocial behaviors are pivotal for children's peer relationships. To investigate the interplay among verbal ability, emotion understanding, and mother–child mutuality as predictors of prosocial behaviors, we observed 102 children at the ages of two, three, and four. All time points included verbal ability and emotion understanding tests and both video‐based and maternal ratings of prosocial behavior. The first two time points also included video‐based ratings of mother–child mutuality. The third time point included teacher ratings of prosocial behavior and an experimental task. Regression analysis demonstrated robust associations between emotion understanding at the age of three and prosocial behavior at the age of four. Path analysis showed that emotion understanding at the age of three mediated associations between verbal ability/mother–child mutuality at the age of two and prosocial behavior at the age of four.