State Building as a Source of Islamic Political Organization1

Previous research on political Islam in the Middle East and North Africa has been limited in providing a generalizable theory of its origins and systematically account for the cross‐national variation in the prevalence of Islamic movements. Following a state‐centered approach, this study argues that state‐building activities are a primary origin of Islamic movements. Regimes adopt religious symbolism and functions that legitimate the role of Islam in the public sphere. State incorporation of religion thus creates Islam as a frame for political action, with increased access to mobilizing resources and better able to withstand repression and political exclusion. To provide an explicit and systematic test of cross‐national variation, data on 170 political and militant organizations across the region are analyzed. Results indicate that state incorporation of religion is a crucial factor in the religiosity of movement organizations. Mixed effects of political exclusion and repression are found. No support is found for theories of economic grievances or foreign influence as causes of Islamic mobilization. In sum, analysis suggests that a state‐centered perspective is the most fitting account of political Islam.     

Building on the original strengths of direct payments to create a better future for social care

Confidence in the prevailing In Control model of personal budgets in the United Kingdom is beginning to waver. This raises the question of ‘where to next?’ for social care. Will we be returning to the monolithic system that typified services at the turn of the millennium – a system that is deeply oppressive for the great majority who lack the support and confidence to escape it by accessing a direct payment to manage their own support system? The Care Act has made no change to the basic process whereby it is councils that will decide what a person’s needs are, which will be met and with what resource. However, we argue here that the situation is far from hopeless. In Control’s analysis, while attractive to a neo-liberal political ideology, was based on a serious failure to understand the reasons for the success of direct payments. Whilst policy-makers saw it as a triumph for consumerist notions of choice, it is better understood as a triumph for needs-based planning, but carried out in a person-centred way. Learning the right lessons offers a new way forward to deliver a respectful and flexible service within the context of the Care Act.     

High School Dropouts After They Exit School: Challenges and Directions for Sociological Research

Sociological research on high school dropouts is largely concerned with who drops out of school and why. Research on the consequences of dropping out is less common. There are clear theoretical reasons to expect dropping out to have a direct and negative effect on life outcomes; however, empirically evaluating these theories is difficult because students who drop out are different from high school graduates in meaningful and complex ways. In this article, I first provide a brief review of sociological research on high school dropouts, emphasizing the demographics of dropouts and reasons for dropping out. I then discuss the possible role of human capital differences, signaling theory, and social closure in creating worse outcomes for high school dropouts and outline the empirical challenges to researching the effects of dropping out. I conclude by discussing avenues for future research and important unanswered questions about the consequences of dropping out.     

Re‐thinking Disability,Work and Welfare

There is a wealth of evidence that disabled people experience far higher levels of unemployment and underemployment than non‐disabled peers. Yet hitherto sociologists have paid scant attention to the structural causes of this issue. Drawing on a socio/political or social model of disability perspective this paper argues for a reconfiguration of the meaning of disability and work in order to address this problem. It is also suggested that such a strategy will make a significant contribution to the struggle for a fairer and equitable global society.     

Using recurrent time-to-event models with multinomial outcomes to generate toxicity profiles

Most clinical studies, which investigate the impact of therapy simultaneously, record the frequency of adverse events in order to monitor safety of the intervention. Study reports typically summarise adverse event data by tabulating the frequencies of the worst grade experienced but provide no details of the temporal profiles of specific types of adverse events. Such 'toxicity profiles' are potentially important tools in disease management and in the assessment of newer therapies including targeted treatments and immunotherapy where different types of toxicity may be more common at various times during long-term drug exposure. Toxicity profiles of commonly experienced adverse events occurring due to exposure to long-term treatment could assist in evaluating the costs of the health care benefits of therapy. We show how to generate toxicity profiles using an adaptation of the ordinal time-to-event model comprising of a two-step process, involving estimation of the multinomial response probabilities using multinomial logistic regression and combining these with recurrent time to event hazard estimates to produce cumulative event probabilities for each of the multinomial adverse event response categories. Such a model permits the simultaneous assessment of the risk of events over time and provides cumulative risk probabilities for each type of adverse event response. The method can be applied more generally by using different models to estimate outcome/response probabilities. The method is illustrated by developing toxicity profiles for three distinct types of adverse events associated with two treatment regimens for patients with advanced breast cancer.     

Child involvement in treatment planning and assessment in Israel

What can facilitate at‐risk children's involvement in treatment planning and assessment? We examine this question by investigating the perceptions, attitudes, and characteristics of Israeli social workers. We examine whether their seniority, views on the importance of children's participation, and their attitudes toward parents are related to their report of at‐risk children's involvement in treatment planning and placement decisions. At‐risk children's involvement includes preparing them to appear before the committees that handle placement decisions for youth and the social workers' willingness to consider children's opinions. Eighty coordinators of these committees in social services departments in Israel participated. Our findings indicate that, based on the coordinators' answers, at‐risk children are more likely to be involved in treatment planning and assessment committees when the child protection officers prepare parents prior to participating in the committee meetings, and when the coordinators assigned the case are more senior. The influence of children's opinions on the decisions of the committees was predicted by the weight their parents' opinions carried and whether their parents received any relevant materials prior to the committee meetings. Our findings highlight the importance of involving parents in treatment planning and assessment committees' decision making.